Unwritten: Meet Solemn Oath Brewery at Standard Market

Some things are best left unsaid. More things are best left unwritten. Join Good Beer Hunting and Chitown On Tap during Chicago Craft Beer Week to toast the stories we didn’t write–many because we lacked the imagination, time, or energy. Some because we were given the scoop off the record (ethics…trust…gah.) Others because we didn’t give a shit about your pathetic press release (seriously, Stella Artois? This is a compelling adventure for our readers?) Lots of times, it was because Josh Noel beat us to it (dick!) Most of the time, though, stories went unwritten because we didn’t want to display in print for the world to see, forever and ever, how big of assholes we really are. There you have it.

We are proud to present Solemn Oath Brewery, which will be on hand to tap their first four beers. We already told you why we’re excited about themStandard Market, a solid gourmet market with a kickass beer and wine program, will whip up an appetizer to pair with each beer. Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting will sling prints of his epic beer photography porn out of his trench coat. He might even have his coffee table book available, hot off the press. We hope you can join us, but let us be clear: we won’t write about it if you do.


Some People Just Don’t Hit Rock Bottom – via Chicagoist

Rock Bottom brewpubs are too often overlooked and underappreciated. We sat down with Chris Rafferty, brewmaster of the Chicago location in a good old-fashioned satirical interview to dispel the myths about Rock Bottom and poke fun at the beer snobbery underlying them. Bonus: a photo gallery from Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting, responsible for the image above. Read on at Chicagoist.

Chicagoist Beer of the Week: Goose Island Old Town Yard

Two brewers selected from Goose Island’s most daring talent were given a blank check to create any beer they could dream up. They went back to the basics and delivered one hell of a Helles. This is the first in the Fulton & Wood series, available only on draft in Chicago. Read on at Chicagoist.

Image: Michael Kiser, Good Beer Hunting

Chicago Craft Beer News Roundup 2/20/12

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

Note: Chitown On Tap is currently experiencing hosting-related technical issues, temporarily limiting the quality of content and user experience. I apologize for the problem, which means that there are no images in this post.. If you have experience administering WordPress sites and would be willing to help, please contact me at chitownontap (at) gmail.com

The Greenbush Grows – via Chicagoist

Photograph of several Greenbush beer bottlesThe killer photo you see above was shot by my comrade in beer Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting. We planned a quick beer run to Sawyer, Michigan to grab some Greenbush bottles. Planned is the key word. Some detours and working beers–lubricated meetings?–later, and bam. My first post on the Chicagoist, including more of Michael’s photos, is up. I’ll be contributing there regularly. And if Michael and I can manage to get any writing and photo editing done between all the fun we plan on having, you can expect to see more of our work together in the near future. Make sure you check out his write-up of our beer run, “The Long March.”

Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout

Photograph of Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout

If you haven’t tried Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout in bottles yet, do it. It’s a treat, and a novel one at that. This is the first craft beer to be bottled with a carbon dioxide-nitrogen blend. This kind of packaging innovation beats vortex bottles and whatever the hell they call that dark, sad hole Bud Light Platinum hides out in.

Check out the write-up over at Good Beer Hunting, then watch the pour.

Image courtesy Michael Kiser, Good Beer Hunting

2011: Chicago’s Craft Beer Year in Review

2011 was a rollercoaster year for craft beer in Chicago. Here at Chitown On Tap we put our drinking and thinking caps on (in that order) and decided the best way to wrap up the year was to give props to the amazing people in our local craft beer community who have made drinking the good suds so damn rewarding this year. This list of “bests” is by no means exhaustive, and represents our best, though inevitably incomplete, knowledge and ethanol-fueled subjective taste. The selection of one person or place doesn’t mean there aren’t other good or even great options. So let’s start with a big “You rock too!” to all the wonderful people and places we left out. And you–we would love to hear what YOU have to say about craft beer in Chicago in 2011. Like our choices? Learn something? Think we missed something big? Let us know. We love hearing from you. Thanks for reading and we hope you stick with us in 2012! For your following pleasure, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Best New Local Brewery: Haymarket Pub & Brewery

Photograph of Pete Crowley at Haymarket

Haymarket Pub & Brewery kept us warm during the blizzard in February and has wowed us with their excellent Belgian and American ales ever since. [Read more...]

Chicago Craft Beer Roundup – November 8, 2011

What’s Kicked

In an interview here at Chitown On Tap, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Co. opened up about the dirty underbelly of pay-to-play tactics in Chicago’s beer business and offered some pointed words about Goose Island. In the interview, Koch claimed that he pulled out of a reputable Chicago craft beer bar for a book-signing event after its people demanded discounts and freebies in exchange for hosting. Commenters have since alleged that the bar in question is Sheffield’s. The bar has not yet returned my request for comment.

Greg Hall, former Goose Island brewmaster, is increasingly candid about his cider venture, Virtue Cider. He gave TimeOut Chicago a sneak peak at his Roscoe Village headquarters and lab and talked openly about sourcing apples in southwest Michigan. [Read more...]

Chicago Craft Beer Roundup – July 30

What’s been kicked:

The Matilda room at Goose Island--in progress

This room under construction will house fermentors dedicated to beers brewed with Brettanomyces, such as Matilda. For those skeptical about the AB-InBev purchase, this development should allay any concerns that the new owners will neglect or abandon Goose Island's highly regarded Belgian-style ales.

The big news: Goose Island is moving half of its production of 312 to an Anheuser Busch brewery in upstate New York and Honkers Ale and India Pale Ale will now exclusively be brewed at Red Hook and Widmer facilities in New Hampshire and Washington.
I’m already sick of the “It’s not brewed in Chicago, it shouldn’t be called 312″ comments. Stop drinking it. There’s better beer out there. In fact, there’s much better Goose Island beer out there. To me, the most compelling facet of this development is that Goose Island is using its new ownership structure to externalize the production of a few standard, staple beers in order to make room in-house for brewing larger quantities of Belgian, sour, and extreme beers. This really throws a wrench into simplistic understandings of what “craft” beer really is, doesn’t it? [Read more...]