Chicago Craft Beer News Roundup 2/20/12

February 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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

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Chicago Craft Beer Roundup – November 11, 2011

November 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

What’s Kicked

Finch’s Beer Co. launched a contest with Threadless to design the can for their Threadless IPA. That’s very cool, but clearly the best part here is that they’re going to start canning Threadless. [Read more...]

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Pints and Plates: Quick Nosh

September 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Pints and Plates - Chicago's Best Beer Food

 

Pints and Plates is a regular series highlighting the best food and craft beer experiences in Chicago. This week, two chef-brewer collaborations with roots in Chicago are coming on tap.

I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. The first half of this post is a terrible, terrible tease. But stick with it, clear your calendar Tuesday night, and all will be redeemed.

Jared Rouben and Stephanie Izard at GABF

Two of Chicago’s brightest beer-food stars are teaming up for a pairing dinner and demo in conjunction with a world-class beer festival. [Read more...]

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Chitown Craft Beer Roundup – June 27

June 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

You guys kicked around our last Chitown Craft Beer Roundup enough for us to stick with it. Thanks! Glad you liked it. While you’re here, drop by our Facebook page and give us a like. No, not a lick. Well, whatever…

Here’s what’s brewing in Chitown, ya heard? [Read more...]

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Chitown Craft Beer Roundup

June 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

All of a sudden, it seems like every publication in Chicago is diving into craft beer. Cheers to that. For your reading ease and pleasure, here’s a roundup of the best craft beer coverage in Chicago this week.

Chicago Magazine went big with craft beer on the cover and 10+ pages inside. Coverage includes reviews of 36 great local brews; top five bars, gastropubs, and liquor stores; tips from the pros on tasting beer and homebrewing; a beer and food pairing guide; and a timeline of the Siebel Institute, Chicago’s world-class school for brewers. The editors partnered with Pipeworks Brewing Co. to brew a summer ale that will be released at Map  Room next week in a limited sampling. Here’s a video of the brew: [Read more...]

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Craft Beer Spilled All Over Chicago Magazine

June 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The July 2011 cover of Chicago Magazine.

The good suds grace the cover of Chicago Magazine this month.

The July issue of Chicago Magazine is covering readers with the good suds, 10+ pages of it. The centerpiece is a guide to the 36 locally produced beers that the Chicago Mag writers loved–how do I get that job? They cover a lot of ground and make it through a nearly exhaustive selection of Chicago’s breweries.

Check out the $12 digital subscription deal or find it on stands.

You’ll also find the writers’ favorite bars (Hopleaf, Map Room, Quenchers, Maria’s Packaged Goods, Sheffield’s), gastropubs (Bluebird, Fountainhead, Gilt Bar [at first I thought, "Really?" Then I looked up their beer list], Owen & Engine, Publican), and liquor stores (Armanetti, Binny’s – Lincoln Park, Lush, Vas Foremost, West Lakeview Liquors).

I have to give Chicago Mag props for knowing who to go for expert advice. They interview Ray Daniels of the Cicerone Certification Program on tasting beer and Beejay Oslon of Pipeworks Brewing on homebrewing. You’ll also find tips on beer and food pairings from The Publican (oysters), Bangers and Lace (sausage), Marion St. Cheese Market (take a guess).

It’s great to see craft beer get the front-page treatment and a nice little nod for homebrewing, too. Add this to the body of evidence that craft beer is becoming more mainstream. Hopefully the resources here will nudge more swill-sippers toward the many great local, hand-crafted brews that are readily available. And maybe some oenophiles will come to realize–gasp!–that beer is a better mate for food than wine.

To top it all off, the guys at Pipeworks Brewing have developed a special batch of summer brew for Chicago Magazine that they will be pouring at a time and place that I won’t share with you because I’m going to drink it. All of it.

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Goose Island Stout Fest 2011

March 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A few quick tasting (and talking) notes from Goose Island Stout Fest 2011:

  • Best in show (in my humble opinion): Goose Island Sgt. Peppercorn, brewed with Szechuan peppercorns, Intelligentsia coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon. This beer really brings out all the amazing potential of the style. The peppercorn isn’t what you would expect. It comes through as a faint, tingling citrus zest. The coffee brings out the roasted malt complexity, but it’s not acrid at all because of the smooth vanilla sweetness and earthy cinnamon spice. A well-balanced, one of a kind brew. I can’t wait for this to show up on tap at the brewpub. Head pub brewer Jared Rouben also tapped a ridiculously fresh keg of Night Stalker–holy Simcoe!–previewed Big John, an imperial stout brewed with Cacao Nibs that will debut in bottles next month, and funked up the day with Old Max, a sour English stout aged in bourbon barrels with brettanomyces.
  • Pipeworks Brewing has found a location and may be signing a lease this week. Cross your fingers! The dry-hopped stout they were serving makes me hope to see more of their beers on tap soon. The Pipeworks guys are super easy-going, friendly, and I wish them the best of luck as they get their brewery going.
  • Revolution Brewing is following the legislation I’m writing about as part of the Save the Craft campaign closely. They would love to self-distribute their beer in two stages: first in kegs and eventually in bottles around the city. I don’t know if this says more about their optimism or the actually likelihood of success in Springfield this month, but they’ve gone so far already as to look into bottling lines. These are all good signs, and damn would it be nice to be able to pick up a Baracus Russian Imperial Stout at Map Room or Binny’s.
  • The Lucky Monk has an awesome spring lineup planned that I unfortunately did not write down or remember. Brewmaster Anthony Carollo was there pouring a delicious milk stout that bodes well for future Lucky Monk brews. I loved the Rye Brown Ale I had last time I visited their brewpub. A warm shout-out to Tom at Lucky Monk, a great server who is also a homebrewer and assistant brewer at the brewpub.
  • Rock Bottom – Warrenville had a really interesting Belgian stout that reminded me of gourmet chocolate and warm, but not fully cooked cookie dough. Brewmaster Davin Bartosch–a very talented and friendly guy–also hyped up the monthly meetings of the Urban Knaves of Grain, a homebrew club that meets at Rock Bottom. I’m making the jump to all-grain brewing this week and have been thinking about joining a club, so this could be the one. Next meeting is Wednesday, March 30.

Of course, a huge thank you is due to the one and only Young Professional  for the last-minute invitation to Stout Fest. Welcome to Chitown, Maggie. Much love.

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Save the Craft Update: No Beerpocalypse, Bring on Beervana

March 7, 2011 By 1 Comment

Recent Updates

According to Save the Craft crusaders Guys Drinking Beer, it doesn’t look like SB88 is headed out of committee soon, reminding us that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  In the meantime, they point out that State Rep. John Bradley (R) has filed a shell bill dubbed the “Anheuser-Busch Bill,”  which has no body yet, but could be amended and rushed through the House to preempt any pro-craft legislation. Guys Drinking Beer has posted a profile of some of the major players in this bill, including A-B’s high-powered lobbyist Michael McClain, who they believe has direct influence on House Speaker Michael Madigan (D). Politics aside, the legal urgency of the matter–the deadline for legislation on the issue is March 31 (see below)–should matter to you if you love drinking craft beer in Illinois.

Windy City Distribution Not in Trouble

There is no beerpocalypse. Contrary to some previously published information, Windy City Distribution, the distributor that brings Stone, Allagash, Ska, Victory, and other excellent craft beers to Chicagoland, is not in trouble. I spoke with a representative today who told me that Two Brothers founders Jim and Jason Ebel were initially licensed by the state when they opened in 1997 to brew, distribute, and sell their beer. And they did. They drove their kegs around Chicagoland themselves until the law changed, when they tried to find a distributor to carry Two Brothers beer. The Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors-controlled distributors in the area had no interest in the nascent craft beer movement, so the Ebels opened Windy City in 1999. Because of the new law, Windy City was–and still is–an entirely separate entity from Two Brothers Brewing. The company is in no way affected by the March 31 deadline or the new legislation. So you can rest assured that the great beers brought to you by Windy City will remain on the shelves and in your fridge.

Why Save the Craft?

I love craft beer. What’s more, I love to love craft beer in Chicago. [Read more...]

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