It is a Monday night and the venue is Camden’s Daughter in London. Beers from Camden Town Brewery have taken a back seat so Goose Island numbers, many of which don’t make their way to these shores in bottle, let along in keg, are brought to the fore.

The Chicagoan brewery is in town concluding the UK leg of ‘Migration Week’, a brand-building exercise to promote staples such as its ‘IPA’, ‘Honkers Ale’ and ‘312’, while also showcasing rarer beers as ‘Lolita, ‘Gillian’ and, for those lucky enough, the venerable ‘Bourbon County Brand Stout’.

Surveying his kingdom for this particular evening is John Hall. For Hall, the founding father of Goose Island nearly 30 years ago, London continues to hold a marked influence on the brewery he started nearly 4,000 miles away.

“Travelling is the best education anybody can ever have. To travel, and see what everyone is doing, it can change your life. Let me tell you,” says Hall with an enthusiasm as if he’s giving his first ever interview on its origins. “I was working with a big company, and I was able to travel a lot and it opened my eyes to so many things, not least of all, beer.”

It showed Hall that there were a lot of different, great beers out there that he hadn’t tasted and many in America probably hadn’t tasted either.

He explains: “I was in my mid-forties and was ready to do something different. I read a little magazine article about small breweries in the US and that was the eureka moment. It changed everything for me.

“I decided to open a brewery and was fortunate to have a wife that was ready to jump into the deep end of the pool with me.”

Hall’s love of the UK, its beer, and the impact on the formation of his brewery, is well documented. But it’s a pointer in the route map of Goose Island that he is loathed to let you ignore.

“I had visited many breweries in small towns. And I’ll be honest they really didn’t make as much sense to me as what I had in mind. Look at Fuller’s. It’s a big brewery, based in London which is obviously a big city. It just resonated with me. The dream for me was to be a Fuller’s, to represent Chicago like Fuller’s does in London,” he says.

Hall explains: “I have the greatest respect for the brewery, and for John Keeling at Fuller’s. They are an inspiration for many for us.

“They make great beers, and I will always respect that. And now I can relate to the the position they are in, too. There are now around 70 breweries in Chicago, and we were one of the first. I look up to them,” he adds.

Much is made of Hall’s desire to put Chicago on the map in beer, which is true, but it wasn’t the be-all and end-all.

“I didn’t set out to do anything apart from make good beer, so really it is hard to believe how it has all panned out,” he stresses.

And Hall also speaks liberally on acquisitions, himself a key part of one in 2011 when Goose Island was sold to AB InBev for $38.8m, arguably pocket money in the current world of beer mega deals.

He explains: “You know, beer is a capital intensity business. Over 20 something years I grew Goose Island by mortgaging everything I had more than once. As you keep growing, you need more capital.

“If you are going to grow, you need more capital. With everything that is happening now, some will get bigger, some won’t. I had a choice of doing a lot of different things back then.

“You look at who matters to you. For me it was my employees, the drinkers of Goose Island beer, the city and stakeholders. These four were of paramount importance.

“And I look back at the last few years and I have to say, we had a home run with all four of those.”

According to Hall, he says he made the best deal for all involved.

“Although I could have waited four years and done better! But I am the happiest guy in the world. It worked as I hoped it would work out and thought it would work out. We are making better beer than ever, employees have more opportunities than ever.”

“Look around you,” he says pointing to a packed bar. “I could not have dreamed that. Look at what we have now. Wow.”

It’s hard to argue.

There are pitfalls and things to consider when selling though, he says.

Hall explains: “Consumers want good beer, varieties, choices, and lots of them. I was just in The Southampton Arms earlier today, drinking great beer on cask from small breweries and I couldn’t be happier.

“So it’s not a surprise that more acquisitions are happening, as big business recognises that this demand for choice is not going away.

“But I would argue that opting for investment from private equity is almost the worst choice you could make. The ones that are not a long term player in the business and they are looking for economic returns.

“I can’t think of any of us in beer that got into this industry for that reason. We got into it because we loved in, and that has been a by-product.”

And for those on their outbound journey in the world of brewing, Hall stresses the need to a have a focus, and to stick to it.

“If you are to be successful, you need to be very focused. Obviously you need to have very good beers, too. You need to be focused. You need to grow and develop all of the time. But don’t worry about everyone, either,” he concludes.