What’s kicked

Josh Noel, beer writer at the Trib, broke some details about Chicago Craft Beer Week (May 17-27) today. Seems like it will be more centralized for consumers and friendlier to craft-centric bars and restaurants. All good things.

Image: newhollandbrew.com

Noel also penned a feature on chef-brewer collaborations featuring Cleetus Friedman of City Provisions. Check out his latest, Marsha Mallow’s Malted Milk Stout brewed with New Holland, on tap at the deli.

A new competitive reality TV show called “The Next Great American Brewer” will be based in Chicago and prominently feature the Goose Island brewpubs’ Jared Rouben and Haymarket’s Pete Crowley.

Greenbush Brewing keeps popping up, largely because they make beer geeks pop up. KnowwhatImean? Good Beer Hunting wrote up an epic beer run he and I made to Sawyer, Michigan, to get some bottles the hard way, you know, before they actually start selling them in Chicago not long from now. I broke the Greenbush bottles-to-Chicago news at Chicagoist last week. Just yesterday, The Bangers and Lace crew, led by cicerone Ria Neri, was at Greenbush brewing a rye porter.

Crain’s Chicago Business profiled some of the new breweries popping up around town after reading our list of Chicago breweries-in-planning. Kid Carboy, Jr. at the irreverent beer blog Aleheads gave his assessment of their prospects as well.

Speaking of upstarts, a new Bruery-esque production brewery and taproom will open in April in Naperville.  Exciting stuff coming from Solemn Oath, watch for it.  In other new brewery news, Spiteful sent off its paperwork to the federal government, Pipeworks started brewing, and New Chicago signed on with River North as their distributor.

A beer distribution expert just had a lengthy, provocative guest spot on beernews.org called “Why Craft Brewers Should Be Thanking the Three-Tier System.” Uh, really?

Good Beer Hunting leveld some much needd criticism at popular beer app Untappd. Sorry. Had to do that.

Last week, the Chicago-based Cicerone Certification Program added its 10,000th Certified Beer Server to its ranks. An otherwise very cool story in the RedEye neglected to mention the momentous milestone.

312 is coming in cans on 3/12.

Goose Island kicked off their Fulton & Wood series with Gavin and John’s Old Town Yard, a traditional Munich helles that will only be available on draft in Illinois. John Laffler, the John in the beer’s name, spends his time at Goose Island tending to the imaginative beers in the brewery’s expansive barrel-aging warehouse, so the traditional style he chose when given free reign is quite a surprise. The spot-on execution, however, is not. Great to see Goose Island’s commitment to innovation and Chicago coming through in projects like this.

Rock Bottom Chicago brought a serious ski lodge vibe to its rooftop for their Polar Beer festival this Saturday. Brewmaster Chris Rafferty was profiled at Girls Like Beer Too not long ago.

Brad and Ken of the popular Chicago-based craft beer podcast the Hop Cast were featured in an AV Club profile.

Chicago-based MillerCoors craft unit Tenth and Blake acquired Crispin Cider. Meanwhile, a student association in Edinburgh banned SAB MillerCoors products from its bars.

Today’s Chicago Woman magazine ran a story on today’s Chicago’s craft beer scene featuring Metropolitan’s Tracy Hurst.

A new Chicago-based craft beer journal will release its first issue during Chicago Craft Beer Week. The man behind The Mash Tun is Ed Marszewski of Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar and Lumpen Magazine. Beer + publishing = beer journal. Got it. Got a story idea, photo, or recipe to contribute?

On Tap

5 Rabbit and Nana chef Guy Meikle are putting on a “spirited dinner” this Thursdaywith the 5 Rabbit crew and the chef in attendance presenting their pairings.

SmallBar Fullerton is throwing a second anniversary party on Friday with a killer lineup of sours and a live blending demonstration.

Next Tuesday Fountainhead is tapping three Half Acre beers.

Find more at our always-updated craft beer calendar. Did we miss something? Send events our way to chitownontap (at) gmail.com

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