When I moved from New York to Chicago in 2011, I didn't realize that I was relocating to what was about to become the Silicon Valley of craft beer. As of last month, there were 172 independent breweries in Chicago and its suburbs, according to beer blog The Hop Review. And if that sounds a little insane to you, keep in mind that (a) Chicago winters are really, really long, and a hoppy IPA can really take the edge off; and more importantly (b) the craft-beer industry is arguably the biggest start-up success story of this century that doesn't involve the Internet.
