Indiana is a long way to go for a beer—especially with the proliferation of craft breweries in Chicago. But sometimes, as the old saying goes, it’s about the journey rather than the destination (OK, if the destination involves beer and food, it’s about that too).
Just a mile east of the lake is Bulldog Brewery in Whiting, a picturesque town that during one of my visits last summer was playing oldies through speakers mounted to buildings along the main drag. Maybe it was the music, but the experience was oddly surreal, as if we’d time-traveled back to a small town in the 1960s. There’s nothing surreal, though, about the brewpub, a friendly, homey spot with a small beer garden and an extensive menu of sandwiches, burgers, flatbreads, and entrees like fish-and-chips. The beers are similarly classic styles like lager, IPA, and brown ale.
If you don’t want to bike all the way back to Chicago, taking the South Shore Line home is your best option from here: the East Chicago station is less than four miles away. There are a couple short stretches on fairly busy roads, which you can avoid by going to the Hammond station instead, but it’s about twice as far away. Make sure you pay close attention to the schedule, though, since the special bike cars that the railway added in 2016 are only attached to some trains (it’s always the last car on westbound trains, the first car on eastbound ones—useful information if you don’t want to end up running to the other end of the platform with your bike when the train arrives). Once you do get on the train, it’s pretty easy: the cars are equipped with racks that hold your bike in place, with seats on one side so you can keep an eye on it. If you picked up beer at Byway or anywhere else, this is a good time to crack one open—you’ll have about 45 minutes until you get to Millennium Station. v
