‘A welcoming environment with great beer’

DOWNERS GROVE – Tom Beckmann discovered several years ago that brewing beer was in his blood.

Now Downers Grove gets to benefit.

Beckmann, who got his start in home brewing while working as a sales manager, is carrying on a family tradition with his new business.

The Goldfinger Brewing Company, a production brewery and 2,500-square-foot taproom, opened its doors July 31 at 513 Rogers St. in Downers Grove.

The family-owned brewery is named after Beckmann's ancestors on his dad's side. They brewed beer and manufactured and sold brewing equipment in central Europe in the 19th century. Markus Goldfinger started his brewery in the 1870s in Krakow, Poland.

"It was my destiny," Beckmann said. "I decided to go with it."

Beckmann said he home brewed for several years while working as a sales manager for a tech company. He decided that brewing was his passion, quit his job and enrolled in the World Brewing Academy. He did three months of classwork in Chicago, eight hours a day, then spent three months in Munich practicing the science of becoming a certified master brewer.

He landed his first professional brewing job at Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Chicago and later took a position as a brewer at Emmett's Brewing Co. in Downers Grove.

All the while, Beckmann had the plan for Goldfinger brewing in the back of his head.

Thanks to a genealogical website, Beckmann discovered some cousins who still live in Poland where the Goldfinger family is based. Goldfinger will have artifacts from the Beckmann ancestor's brewing history, including newspaper advertisements from Prague and Krakow and a Goldfinger fermenter valve that was unearthed from far beneath the eastern mountains of Poland.

The modern beer hall style taproom, illuminated by wrought-iron chandeliers, features 10-foot high glass, giving customers a good view of the production facility. Goldfinger also has a multipurpose room with shuffleboard and darts.

"The overall vibe you get sitting there and drinking lager with friends and total strangers, we're trying to achieve that in a modern setting," Beckmann said.

For now, though, Goldfinger is only offering outdoor seating with a beer garden that seats 75 people outside the building, socially distanced.

Beckmann said Goldfinger will be a little different than traditional craft breweries in valuing simplicity and focusing only on brewing lager beers. It has three offerings to start – the Original Lager, Pils and Vienna Style Lager.

"We're never going to be the kind of brewery that has 14 beers on tap," Beckmann said. "We'll always have three offerings. Our goal is to produce them consistently batch to batch. If you come this Friday and come three months later, you can drink the same beer and have the same experience you remembered several months ago. That's something that's lacking in craft beers."

Beckmann said he'll have a rotating seasonal beer and some experimental batches.

"Our whole goal is to break the myth that lager beer is yellow, fizzy and tasteless," Beckmann said. "It's a wide-ranging, flavorful and enjoyable experience."

He also mentioned that Pilsner beer will be poured using a special slow pour technique that you can only get in the Goldfinger taproom.

"It is literally poured slowly. It takes four minutes to pour," Beckmann said. "It opens up all the flavor and softens the carbonation, leaving a nice pillowy head. It really changes the drinking experience."

Beckmann broke ground on Goldfinger in September 2019, with the initial plan to open by the end of April or May. The coronavirus delayed that start and prevented a grand opening with live bands, but the main attraction remains.

"We hope to create a nice welcoming environment," Beckmann said, "with great beer."