I first met Doug and Tracy Hurst of Metropolitan Brewing last July at Chicago Alefest. The brewery was still in its infancy then; the duo served its Flywheel Bright and Dynamo Copper lagers from a Craftsman toolbox outfitted with an industrial-looking cog-shaped tap handle. A few weeks later I had the pleasure of touring their future brewery space—an empty warehouse on the Ravenswood  industrial corridor—then throwing back a few beers with them at Hopleaf a few blocks away. Tracy described the fermentation process as "yeast farting," then showed me her tattoo of hop vines twined around the Metropolitan logo: a cog whose spokes form an “M” for Metropolitan, surrounded by sheafs of grain, contrasting the organic and industrial elements that go into making beer. I love these folks.

Five months later, their warehouse is outfitted with a brewhouse, tanks, and bottling equipment. A craft distillery called Koval has set up shop next door, establishing the neighborhood as a local mecca for booze connoisseurs. Doug and Tracy had just finished preparing their first Flywheel batch using the brewery’s shiny new equipment when I stopped by on a cold December afternoon.

Tracy gave me a tour of their facilities—the brewhouse is where the malt (kiln-roasted grain) is mixed with hot water to extract the sugars, then transferred to another tank where it’s boiled with hops to balance the sweetness of the sugar with bitter, complex notes. (I tasted the unfermented beer, known as “wort”—it’s just as disgusting as it sounds.) Next, the wort is transferred to the brewing tanks where it is combined with yeast and allowed to ferment until it becomes delicious beer. Metropolitan is the only brewery in Illinois specializing in lagers, which are bottom fermented and take a full month to create (most small breweries prefer ales and their quick 2-3 week turnaround time). Right now, Doug and Tracy are brewing the refreshing Flywheel Bright, made with pale colored pilsner malt, and the rich red Dynamo Copper Lager made with toasted Vienna malt, and have a lager/ale hybrid called Krankshaft Kolsch in the works for next summer. With any luck, the finished product will be available to the public in January, with distribution initially limited to Chicago. “We want to get beer to our homies first,” Tracy says.

Beer aside, my favorite part of the brewery was the Star Trek themed bathroom, filled with signed photos of cast members in costume and a mirror painted to resemble a silver communicator. Tracy confessed that parts of the brewery are painted deep red, yellow, and blue to mimic the color of uniforms worn by characters on the show.

Want to check out the brewery for yourself? The Neo Futurists will be putting a play at Metropolitan in late January entitled “Beer,” a puppet musical in which puke is featured as a character. Get more info at the Neo Futurists site.

Metropolitan will be available at Hopleaf, Sam’s, and other Chicagoland retailers in 2009. Check out the Metropolitan site, Tracy's Blog, or follow Metropolitan on Twitter. Oh, and in case you forgot: You can follow Chicago Drinks, too!