Metal Monkey Brewery To Host All-Weekend Fourth Anniversary Party

ROMEOVILLE, IL — Four years ago, a couple of homebrewers in the western suburbs decided they wanted to start their own craft brewery. They were brought together by geography, a love of beer and heavy metal music, and monkeys.Out of their collaboration, Metal Monkey Brewery, Romeoville's only craft brewery, was born in January of 2016. Starting this Friday evening, Jan. 24, the young, uniquely-named brewery will be celebrating its four years in the business with a three-day long party. The event will feature live music, catered food and lots of beer.

"The name came from we like heavy metal music, and when we first opened one of our original partners collected monkeys a lot, so we just kind of mashed the two up together," brewery co-owner Dan Camp said. "It kind of reflects who we are though, we like heavy music but we don't really take ourselves too seriously."

Each day of the anniversary celebration will feature something different, Camp said. Friday will feature the original metal bands 'Black Road', 'We Killed the Lion' and 'Boatman's Toll,' and catering from a pop-up kitchen called Bull & Balance.

Different canned beers will also be available to drink in or take home every day. On Friday, guests will get to try 'Dankey Kang,' a triple IPA that was one of Metal Monkey's founding beers but is now only brought out for special occasions.

Cover metal bands will be coming in for Saturday, including 'Dyers Eve,' a Metallica cover band, and 'Nola,' a cover for the band 'DOWN.' Food will be provided by Ayala's Empanadas, and the canned beers-of-the-day is a chocolate raspberry stout called 'Chocolate War Zone.'

Sunday calms things down a bit, with an acoustic group called the Powdered Toast Men playing. Millennial readers may recognize the name; it's a reference to 'Powdered Toast Man,' the toast-headed superhero that regularly appeared on the surrealist 90s cartoon Ren & Stimpy . Beers on tap will include a session IPA called 'Giraffe Tongue' brewed with mango. Food will be coming from Mario's Tacos.

Camp also said that each day of the weekend would feature different versions of the brewery's 'Asmodeus' bourbon barrel-aged Russian imperial stout. There will also be several of the brewery's newer beers on tap throughout the celebration.

"All weekend we're going to have two newer beers on," Camp said. "One is called 'Rick,' it's a German sour beer that has sea salt and coriander, and then we add a bunch of pickle juice to it... we've also got another one called 'Jorge Furioso,' which is a take on our pale ale called 'Furious George.' It's an American pale ale that we add habanero peppers to."

The party concludes Sunday evening, and is the longest anniversary event Metal Monkey has hosted. Camp said he and the other brewery co-owners wanted to try something different to reflect their business' growth.

"Last year we upgraded all of our brewing equipment to a much bigger system... last year for our anniversary we expanded our tap room area, so we now have double the space for guests to come in and have a beer," he said.

There is no cover charge or event ticket required to attend the anniversary party, Camp said. Everyone over the age of 21 is welcome to attend. Metal Monkey Brewery can be found at 515 Anderson Drive #900 in Romeoville. For more information about the event, please visit Metal Monkey's Facebook page.