When our local take-and-bake pizza place folded this past summer, it left a big hole in my weekly menu plan. And it wasn’t just that. I was sentimental about it too. It was a place we’d been going to since before we had kids, and eventually, it became our go-to family spot at least once a week. Sometimes more.

The first time I tried fish and chips I had been living in London, working as a newspaper intern. I don’t remember the pub. I remember I was on Canary Wharf and it was lunchtime. The norm was to go out, usually on Fridays, and order up a plate of beer-battered cod and thick-cut chips with a side of malt vinegar and a pint. Normally, this would put me right to sleep. But as the saying goes, when in Rome…

I’ll never pretend to know much about a beer beyond its pretty label, but after a visit to this place I just might change my mind. Temperance Beer Company is a taproom and brewery housed in a former warehouse space in Evanston. Although it opened over the winter, I was thrilled to be checking it out the first couple of times during some of the nicest summer days in Chicago.