Pilot Project Brewing opening second Chicago location in Wrigleyville

Chicago Tribune

10-02-2025

The brewery company Pilot Project is opening its second Chicago location this spring in Wrigleyville, slated to fit a tap room, restaurant, rooftop and a basement cocktail lounge.
The expansion comes after a big year for Pilot Project, which employs 130 employees and has produced an estimated $12 million in revenue since 2019, while several other breweries in Chicago pulled the plug.
Pilot Project purchased Milwaukee Brewing Co.'s 70,000-square-foot production facility and restaurant in Wisconsin in 2022 and maintains an industrial-type tasting room in Logan Square.
The company's third brewery facility will sit two blocks from Wrigley Field with a large 3,500 square-foot patio facing Clark Street. The patio will have access to a rooftop deck that Pilot Project will continue to build out through the summer.
'What's going to be really fun and a little bit different for us is this basement that was kind of unrealized and a little too separated from the main area,' Pilot Project co-founder Dan Abel explained. 'So we're turning it into a cocktail lounge.'
Called the Devious Lounge, the space will be a 'proper cocktail room,' with a capacity of about 40 people, Abel said. The capacity for the entire location, lounge included, is around 300.
Abel said his team wants to broaden the breadth of each of the 20 different beverage brands Pilot Project has launched through its incubator program. The incubator supports a wide range of products, from beer and alcoholic beverages to more niche drinks such as kombucha, nonalcoholic blends and pickle beer, he explained.
One of the 20 brands launched by Pilot Project is Donna's Pickle Beer, a brew created by Josh Jancewicz, who's based in Hollywood, California.
Jancewicz told the Tribune he ventured into home brewing after feeling run down by his 9-to-5 job working for the United States Postal Service.
'I was just trying to create any idea that I could come up with for a new business and not be a mailman anymore,' Jancewicz said. 'And then one day … I was out in the desert with my friends, drinking some beers and eating pickles. I was like, 'There's something here, and I just don't know what.' And the next day, I'm driving home, and it was like 'Donna's Pickle Beer. That's it.' So I went home, I drew a can out of crayons on a piece of paper, and I sent it to my now business partner.'
But everybody 'just kept saying no, no, no' Jancewicz said. Until they found Pilot Project.
'They understood it. They saw it, and they liked the concept,' he explained. 'It took us probably nine months to find them from the (first time I thought of Donna's Pickle Beer). And a year and a couple months later, our first can was actually out.'
Pilot Project worked closely with Jancewicz to experiment with different pickle brines to develop the flavor profile and the beer itself. The first batch of 400 cases of Donna's Pickle Beer went out last April. In a year and a half, they've grown to over 5,000 cases a month, Jancewicz said.
Abel said they field dozens and dozens of applications from independent beverage brands each year through an initial quick survey online.
Abel credits much of his company's success to its concept modeled after the music industry. Pilot Project is both like a recording studio and a record label, except for beverages, he said, noting that his background in home-brewing, performing music and marketing allowed him to manifest his idea into a brewing company that has been able to sustain itself in a rocky climate.
Last May, Lagunitas Brewing moved its North Lawndale brewhouse to Petaluma, California, citing changing tides in the craft beverage industry and declining sales and production.
Revolution Brewing's Brewpub in Logan Square, where the first Anti-Hero IPA was made and served in Chicago, closed permanently in December after nearly 15 years. Revolution, hailed as the largest independent craft brewery in Illinois, still operates a production brewery and taproom in Avondale.
Lo Rez Brewing, Empirical Brewery and Metropolitan Brewing also closed up shop in recent years.
According to the Brewers Association, craft brewer volume sales in the U.S. decreased by 1% in 2023, while retail dollar sales increased by 3% to $28.9 billion, due in part to price increases. Craft brewer sales make up nearly 25% of the $117 billion U.S. beer market.
In 2024, the Brewers Association tracked 335 new brewery openings and 399 closings across the country.
Meanwhile, with Pilot Project's new location and more to come, Abel said he's trying to push the capabilities of what the restaurant and brewery can do.
'Wrigleyville, much different than Logan Square, gets to be a place where we test high volume — the game day traffic, all the fun stuff,' Abel said.
Pilot Project hopes to welcome guests into their new space at around the same time the Chicago Cubs season begins in the spring.