Zombie Dust lives up to the hype for the style.
In terms of top-to-bottom lineup, my favorite breweries are Begyle, Solemn Oath, and Pipewerks probably in that order. Most of their bottles are available at Whole Foods or good liquor stores.
If you have time, you should do a post-marathon brewery crawl in Ravenswood (you will not be alone among haggard, tin foil cape-wearing folks there). Within a mile or so, you have Begyle, Dovetail (German lagers, shares an alley with Begyle), Half Acre, Empirical, Fountainhead (not a brewery but an excellent selection--same with Bad Apple across from Half Acre). They're even marketing this area as
"Malt Row" now. The legendary Hop Leaf is just the next neighborhood up, and still the best beer bar in the city IMHO after all these years.
Revolution has a good selection, and a great space on Kedzie. There is no greater heavy carb one-two punch than picking up a couple of fist-sized
wang mandu dumplings from Joong Boo market (pork, kim chi or red bean) and taking them to Revolution to chew on over a couple of Eugene porters or any of their great stouts.
Lagunitas is a amazing space but in the middle of nowhere and the times I've been the selection wasn't special (and they're corporate sell-outs)!
Piece in Wicker Park is a standby pizzeria brewpub, beers are hit and miss but the New Haven style pizza is always good. Co-owned by Rick from Cheap Trick.
There's quite a few new places that I haven't tried. There's even three or four breweries in Evanston, ancestral home of the temperance movement for cryin out loud.
