Abv Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

The imperial oatmeal stout at the heart of it all, Deth’s Tar may have seemed like a fun little pun back when it first came out of barrels in the early part of the decade, but now it’s clearly the centerpiece of the best barrel-aged series in the city. We enlist the help of Revolution’s own barrel wizard Marty Scott to join us via Zoom to talk all about this year’s lineup of Deths, as well as a wide array of reasons why Revolution is working harder than anyone to release the best barrel-aged beers in the city each year. The rest of the episode is us over-indulging in this incredible lineup while also providing OG services, creaming those beans, and testing each other on analogies.  Revolution Deep Wood Beers Reviewed Deth’s Tar (Bourbon barrel-aged imperial oatmeal stout) Cafe Deth (Bourbon barrel-aged imperial oatmeal stout w/ Dark Matter coffee) Maple Deth (Imperial oatmeal stout aged in maple syrup bourbon barrels w/ BBA maple syrup) Deth by Cherries (Bourbon barrel-aged imperial oatmeal stout w/ cherries)

Coffee was once the only adjunct a good stout needed, until recent years has brought the entire pastry case with it. So finding five barrel-aged stouts with just coffee added was a bit of a challenge - but it’s a welcome reminder that sometimes all you need is coffee. (And love? Probably love, too.) These five locally-made coffee stouts saw a small variety of different barrels, and the elevated ABV has us hacky-sacking beer cans around the room in no time. We also assemble our team of experts to compete with the Distillery Channel, survey the absolute not normal-ness of 4 Floyds, get a late start on Beanvember, and learn a lot about the man they call Ludacris.  Beers Reviewed Half Day Brewing - Barrel-Aged Warrior Paint Imperial Coffee Stout (coffee beans from Newport Coffee House) Lake Effect Brewing - Perkolator: Madeira Barrel-Aged (coffee beans from Perkolator) Transient Artisan Ales - Blanton's Barrel-Aged Neckbeard Nectar (coffee beans from Tugboat) Lil Beaver Brewery - Adventures Ahead: Coffee (coffee

Barrel-aged December is now officially underway, and we’re delighted to crack open four medal-winning Illinois beers from this year’s Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers. Appropriately enough, the barrels are the star of the show, as these four very different styles are presented without additional adjuncts - just wood-made magic. Also, we have our friend Aaron Keefner from More Brewing stop by the Zoom to talk about the beer entry fee he paid to be our first remote guest, but actually he talks mostly about what’s new with More, their barrel-aging program, and their recent move into distribution. We also share our pitches for 90s-themed jukebox musicals, have a pretty weird night in the barn, dare brewers to make a barrel-aged hefeweizen, and determine what’s a sipper and who’s a gulper. Brace yourself for six feet of tube candy. Beers Reviewed Imperial Oak Brewing - Savage Oak Gold (Belgian-style Sour Golden Ale) Silver Medal: Wild Beer Sours (Acidic) Urban Brew Labs - Abba G.O.A.T. (Apple Brandy Barrel-a

If there’s ever been a month for careless indulgence, it would be December of 2020, so we’re going full-on dessert and pastry beer for this episode. These five entries have us nostalgic for vacation ice cream shoppes, cozy breakfast diners, and gourmet popcorn stores - despite some initial fears. Also, we are stocking our rage rooms, admiring the Sacred Leavings, sniffin’ stuff at Whole Foods (again), and jiggling like a flan. Diet starts tomorrow. Beers Reviewed Old Irving Brewing - Cinnamon Prost (White stout w/ Saigon cinnamon, Tahitian vanilla bean, and milk sugar) Humble Forager Brewery - Coastal Sunrise V1 (Fruited breakfast pastry sour w/ blueberries, maple syrup, cinnamon, and vanilla bean) Hubbard’s Cave - Rocky Road (Imperial stout w/ almond, walnut, chocolate, marshmallow, vanilla, and lactose) Liquid Love Brewing - Y’all Come Back Now (Pastry golden ale w/ caramel and pecans) Lake Effect Brewing - Fannie’s Bourbon Barrel-Aged (Imperial milk stout w/ chocolate cake, aged in bourbon barrels)

Once more of a niche taproom-only style, the Triple IPA has become a more common sight on the shelves thanks to craft beer customers who never say no to more. Hazy or not, these five beers are aiming for the target between too sweet or too strong, and a few veer a bit off course. But they’re still fun to drink, and we find ourselves in mid-show form pretty early on. Also, we are looking to improve our specialized email closings, attempting to decode the Enigma, addressing the butt chugging critics, and getting absolutely riled up over potato pancakes. Stream ya later!  Beers Reviewed Hop Butcher for the World - Brain Forest Old Irving Brewing - E.Nigma Double Nickel Brewing Company - Family Style Untitled Art - Hazier TIPA Hailstorm Brewing Co. - Dominatrix

We’re on flavor sabbatical for a week, so we’re looking around for minor trends to cover that we haven’t properly explored. As a twist on the traditional German lager, Mexican-Style lagers usually use maize or corn as part of the grain bill, but we find that no two American-made takes on this style are the same. (Thankfully!) There’s also an ongoing game involving America’s most prominent mutation of Mexican culture: Taco Bell. We also try and solve a nice balloon mystery, get hoisted by our own stupid petards, develop exciting new bar games, and gush over our new obsession - The Bell Beefer.  Beers Reviewed Buckledown Brewing - Cactus Pants Cruz Blanca Brewery - Mexico Calling Crane Brewing Company - Odd Bird 21st Amendment Brewery - El Sully On Tour Brewing Company - Cities

For a few years running, Cruz Blanca’s Luchador series has been perhaps the most inspired and creative lineup of the holy trinity of Chicago barrel-aged beer special releases. We get a mouthful on this episode, as we drink through all eight of these big and burly beers aged in a seemingly endless number of different barrels. And it’s only half stouts; find out what kind of magic Cruz gets up to with Imperial Blonde Ales and Imperial Rice Ales. In addition to our complete remote tasting (with head brewer Jacob Sembrano giving us frequent text updates), we talk about the new life philosophy to help endure the rest of the year, our desire for some dry-bushed beers, and why we might be bailing on barrel-aged December prematurely. Suizo! Beers Reviewed El PopStar (Imperial rice ale aged in American whiskey finished Spanish sherry barrels) Tigre Blanco (Imperial rice ale aged in Italian muscatel barrels with white vermouth botanicals) Coco Fantasma (Imperial blonde ale aged in bourbon, rum, and rye whiskey barrels

In preparation for a Black Friday like never before, we got a chance to sample through this year’s full lineup of Goose Island’s Bourbon County to help you decide exactly how many online lotteries to enter. Though there are no headline-grabbers like Double Barrel or Rare this year, the seven beer lineup is impressively consistent, even though our individual rankings are very divergent. Get the stories behind these beers (as relayed through us from the media tasting with the Goose team), and find out which one Craig calls a “throwback to Rare” and which one Ryan believes is the best of a particular type of variant that we’ve seen in ages. Also, we try and come up with the Seven Beer Wonders of the U.S., relive some missteps of BCBS past, and rebrand as just a couple of nuts in the flavorspace.  Beers Reviewed Bourbon County Brand Stout 2020 Birthday Bourbon County Stout (Imperial stout aged in Old Forester Birthday Bourbon barrels) Anniversary Bourbon County Stout (Imperial stout aged 2 years in Weller 12 Year

As if this year hasn’t been cruel enough, we once again try and assemble a tapestry of nightmares out of old and bad beers. Each host brings the three worst beers they could find to this modified remote version of our yearly late October tradition, and the results are not at all what we would’ve expected. Also, Ryan is trying to make his kids not scared of ska, someone peed in Craig’s soda, and we almost stumble backwards into a Red Ale show. This show is also a tribute to the resilient liquor stores and bottles shops that - despite insistence otherwise - refuse to take old beer off the shelves nor mark it down in any way. This episode is like a haunted beer museum with the ever-present threat of hearing someone gag on microphone - but, like, better than that sounds. The host will let you in....SOON. Beers Reviled Urban Legend Brewing - Elizabeth (Red Ale, c. 2015?) Alpine Beer Company - Willy Vanilly (Wheat ale w/ vanilla from 2016) Stillwater Artisanal - Duck Sauce (DIPA w/ apricot, plum, pineapple, ginger,

In need of a haze hiatus but unwilling to give up our hop addiction, we are ISO IBUs as we sample through five West Coast-style IPAs to travel back to a time of malt, bitterness, and clarity. It was exactly what we needed, as this lineup becomes one of the best front-to-back that we’ve had in a while. Also, we add some utility to our quarantine wardrobes, Craig is a self-appointed dank expert who once appeared on Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Ryan is drinking a Celebration with his mind. We also discuss the world’s most perfect song and explain why it’s Vin Diesel’s “Feel Like I Do.” (Send Malort.) Beers Reviewed Solemn Oath Brewery/Pollyanna Brewing Company - Full Moon Looks (IPA) Listermann Brewing Company - Purple Parrots (IPA) Ology Brewing Co. - Resolved Enigma (IPA) Offshoot Beer Co. - Escape [it’s your everyday West Coast IPA] (IPA) Miskatonic Brewing Company/Foreign Exchange - Unified Field Theory (DIPA)

For the first time since this podcast started almost seven years ago, there’s no trip to Denver to drink beer at the Great American Beer Festival - and we’re feeling a little sad about it. So we embark on a gleefully nostalgic and self-indulgent episode, wherein we revisit some favorite memories (and interviews) from the first five years at GABF all while drinking five beers to represent years 2014-2018. You’ll hear some brief interview snippets from the past, including Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Jay Goodwin (The Rare Barrel), Jeff Stuffings (Jester King), Randy Mosher (Forbidden Root/being “The Mosh”), and Tomme Arthur (The Lost Abbey/Port Brewing/The Hop Concept). We also have a few ridiculous pizza stories, share our all-time top 20 beers from GABF, and fire up a game of Doom on a pregnancy test. It’s also a bit of a meditation on how beer has changed since 2014 through the observation of trends shifting from year to year at America’s largest beer festival. It’s a long one, but we hope you dig it. Beers

It’s as good a time as ever to take time to chill with some simple and refreshing pilsners, so we try to lower our resting heart rates through a little lager love. We drink five different pilsners that offer a surprising amount of variation for the style, and we try not to let the prospect of arbitrary rankings stress us out. Also, we workshop some tech puns for our IT friends, name all the crazy bassists (well, two of them), investigate the hot dog bun conspiracy, and reclaim our rightful title as “barely a beer show.” And there’s a game about CBD products as well because we were too blissed to say no. It’s Chill Pils. Take one with us, friend.  Beers Reviewed On Tour Brewing Company - Lightning Will Pipeworks Brewing Company - Premium Pilsner Modern Times Beer - Ice Foreign Exchange - Chicago-ish The Conrad Seipp Brewing Co. - Seipp’s Extra Pale Pilsner

Enshrouded in a dark and mysterious energy, Illuminated Brew Works has become a cult favorite in Chicago - because they are probably an actual cult. Our initial apprehension becomes open-armed acceptance as we ingest Five Sacraments of IBW, and dabble in the mystic arts. (Actually, we just use a really bad online Ouija board, but hey, we’re trying!) Additionally, we pay tribute to legendary baseball names both real and fictional, wonder what happened to mobile canning, weakly pitch the Magic 8-Ball movie, and face a few phobias. Will this podcast delight your senses? All signs point to, “maybe.” Liquids Reviewed Pleiadian Play Date (Piquette-inspired malt beverage w/ wine grapes and hibiscus) Trust (Lager) Astronaut Eye Scream (DDH DIPA w/ lactose) Watermelon Gun (Farmhouse ale w/ watermelon) Kreeper (IPA)

In a state chock full of great hazy IPA producers, More and Phase Three still stand amongst the best and most-revered. The fact that they have an intertwined history adds to the stakes of our totally arbitrary blind battle of the haze wherein one brewery will be crowned winner, and the other will be crowned, “still very excellent.” We also attempt to guess the beers based on what we know about ABV, style, and hop profiles - and the results are mind-melting. Also, Craig gets caught up on six month-old beer twitter, Ryan buys a kite at a hardware store, Gerry Rafferty is on the line, and we demand to bring bitterness back.  Beers Reviewed Blindly (in order of appearance) Phase Three Brewing - DDH Pixel Density (IPA) Phase Three Brewing - Mindspark (DIPA) More Brewing Company - DDH Double Dusty (DIPA) Phase Three Brewing - Color Scheme (DIPA) More Brewing Company - Moreover (IPA) More Brewing Company - Pillow Talkin’ (DIPA)

Soon to be celebrating their 4th year in business, Old Irving Brewing has established itself as one of the best brewpubs in the city - with the hardware to prove it. This episode features an interview with owner and head brewer Trevor Rose-Hamblin, who tells the story of OIB, his culinary background and its influence on the brewpub, that GABF medal that changed everything, the struggles of running a brewpub during a pandemic, and what surprising plans are ahead for the brewery side of the business. Additionally, we acquaint ourselves with five Old Irving beers for reviewing purposes, and the standouts here are as surprising as they are remarkable. Also, we pivot to hand sanitizer reviews, the dog digs up the old video equipment, Ryan has some embarrassing baseball fan memories, and Craig is singing about malt again. Interview with Trevor Rose-Hamblin (00:10:47 - 00:48:46) Beers Reviewed Betamax and Relax (India Pale “Lager”) Supersonic Fuzz Gun (Kettle sour w/ peaches, lemon peel, and lactose) Scentinel (IPA)

We held out so long on seltzers, until the exact moment when we saw some of our favorite breweries releasing their takes on the flavored malt beverage craze. Are they any more refined or impressive than the tacky trendsetters filling a million Yeti coolers and frat house fridges? (And we would know, because we drank five of the highest-selling big seltzers before recording this very episode, and released the unsavory results on Patreon.) We spend most of the episode trying to break seltzers, but they end up breaking us. Also, we envision a dystopian future for breweries, seek out some experienced tree climbers for a highly-specialized mission, and find comfort in sugary yum-yums. I miss beer. Seltzers Reviewed City Water - Lime Coconut Untitled Art - Florida Seltzer: Pineapple Mango Odd Side Ales - POG (Passion fruit, orange, and guava hard seltzer) 4 Hands Brewing - Contact High Hard Seltzer Transient Artisan Ales - Sparkle Water Green (Gin Fizz-inspired hard seltzer)

When a brewery releases a double dry-hopped version of one of their go-to hoppy beers, it’s often a surefire hit with consumers. Though it has somehow become synonymous with hazy beers, double dry-hopping has a longer history of adding bombastic hop aromas to beers as far back as the 1970s in the U.S. But does the added “DDH” really level up the beer? We try two local hazy standouts and one all-time hoppy classic alongside their DDH counterparts to figure out if it’s actually worth all the extra hops. Though this episode eventually turns into a half hour love letter to Pliny, we have a fantastic lineup of beers while also reimaging ice cream trucks, being reborn in every episode, making all beers little, sipping on those slippery pillows, and getting aggressively Sabro.  Beers Reviewed Phase Three Brewing - Pixel Density (NE IPA) Phase Three Brewing - DDH Double Pixel Density (NE DIPA) Alarmist Brewing - Le Jus (NE IPA) Alarmist Brewing - DDH Sabro Le Jus (NE IPA) Russian River Brewing Company - Pliny the Eld

After delousing in quarantine for 14 days, our Kansas show is ready to bring our State Show series up to #24, with the help of loyal listener Don Kasak. We traverse the state via quaffable liquid as we review five beers from five Kansas breweries - and no IPAs or stouts are in sight! Also, we come to terms with a terrible truth about our listeners; Craig is on college mascot watch; and we have a full-on SMOOTHIE EXPERIENCE. It’s good for the optics. Beers Reviewed Wichita Brewing Company (Wichita, KS) - WuShock Wheat (American pale wheat) Defiance Brewing Company (Hays, KS) - Willy Nilly (Golden ale w/ ginger and orange peel) Three Rings Brewery (McPherson, KS) - Yankee Rose (Blonde ale) Sandhills Brewing (Hutchinson, KS) - Plum Wheat (American hazy wheat w/ plums) Central Standard Brewing (Wichita, KS) - Ping Pong Banana Yard Games (Fruited gose w/ banana, passionfruit, and mango)

Quite possibly Chicago’s best brewery, Off Color still doesn’t make an IPA - nor do they have any plans to. And that’s quite alright. Seven years in, this little critter-lovin’ brewery continues to build one of the best brands around while furthering a stellar collection of esoteric small batches and inspired flavor combinations. We catch up with five recent beers that span the wide range of delectable oddities that make the Mousetrap patio “farm” one of the most interesting places to drink beer in the city. Also, Craig over-celebrates his citation, Ryan is still dealing with his caddy trauma, and we really explore the horrifying new applications of mayo. And listen to find out our picks for cutest label - probably the toughest ranking on the show.  Beers Reviewed Beer for Golf (Wit-style beer w/ lemon and black tea) Beer for Burgers (Helles bock-style beer blended w/ bourbon barrel-aged lager) Gator Time (Foedre-fermented wild ale w/ cherries) Spots (Tiki weisse w/ passion fruit and grapefruit peel) Cave Dra

Our passion for barrel-aged beers doesn’t disappear in August - it achieves a steady simmer below the surface, always ready to unleash itself when the opportunity arises. For this episode we have five barrel-aged beers - all different styles of beer and all from local breweries, four of which we interviewed when they were just starting out in the Chicago-area craft scene, so long ago. Other talking points include the further bastardization of the term “sour” in beer; an embarrassing mask faux pas committed by Ryan; how to capture Craig in full Funko form; and a controversial stance on chocolate chip pancakes that’ll have the fan forums absolutely flush with debate. Feel feel feel feel feel...feel my barrel heat. Beers Reviewed Dovetail Brewery - Quetsche 2020 (Blend of spontaneous beers fermented in oak with Italian plums) Revolution Brewing Company - Mixed Berry Ryeway (Rye whiskey barrel-aged ryewine w/ blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry, and cranberry) On Tour Brewing Company - Barton Hall (Barrel-aged Sco