Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the first pour at Goose Island Brewing Co., and for all Chicago beer geeks that’s something to celebrate. There’s quite a buzz about it here. You can get the scoop directly from Goose’s head pub brewer, Jared Rouben, as he posted on the subject today at the Chicago Brewhouse blogsite. Wow, now I’m really itching for a pint of Honkers at the Clybourn pub tonight.

Goose’s celebration is a great lead-in to the first annual Chicago Craft Beer Week which kicks off  Monday May 17. There will be some amazing beer events all week long and you can find the details at chibeerweek.com.

A number of these will involve artisan cheese, including an opening night launch party at Marion Street Cheese Market, Oak Park, a couple events at Rock Bottom Chicago, and a Thursday night cheese and beer tasting at Limestone Brewery, one of the Chicago area’s newest brewpubs. Limestone, located in the booming far-south suburb of Plainfield, will pair some of its regular beers (and a special brew or two) with cheeses curated by a new-ishPlainfield retailer, Wine & Cheese by TCC (Two Clueless Chicks).

Sure, Chicago’s beer scene was just in the spotlight with the Craft Brewers Conference in town in April, but with so much happening here, this is a good year for the city’s beer community to jump on the city-beer-week bandwagon. The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild did much of the leg work, and numerous Chicago  beer bars are jumping in and featuring Windy City area beers, Michigan beers and more. Stay tuned.