Abv Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Looking to provide an “oasis for life and leisure,” Madison, Wisconsin’s Young Blood Beer Company had to bring the oasis to the people in their first year of operation. For this episode, Craig talks with co-founder Tom Dufek about rewriting business plans, adding a twist to every beer, and cultivating those dank and drippy vibes. We also drink through five cans of their beer while trying (and failing) to outdo their beer names with MadLibs. Plus, there’s the threat of a lactose streak, a little W.C.W. love, and the mystery of the street burper. Beers Reviewed Shower Bier (Helles Lager) She’s Fox Valley Rich (Buckwheat Saison w/ plum and cinnamon) Boone’s Farm Related Scar (Cherry Limeade Sour w/ cherry, key lime, and vanilla) Templeton Ferrari the Third (Hazy IPA) Coffee Regular Silkshake (Cream Ale w/ coffee, milk sugar, and vanilla)

Head about 45 minutes west of Chicago, and you’ll find a cluster of fresh craft beer options that are certainly destination-worthy. Ryan took a weekend to check out breweries in St. Charles and Geneva, and he brought back five different beers that’ll have you planning a day trip. The background on these breweries is as fascinating as the beers are varied, and our rankings are about as different as they can be. Also, we talk for a while about chili dog-related issues, pull a Table the Label card, admire those beefy boys in Hobbs & Shaw, try to keep the over-fruited sour temps from dropping, and smash your label beers. (This episode is not paid for by the St. Charles and Geneva Tourism Bureau...but it’d be cool if it was.) Beers Reviewed 93 Octane Brewery - Hugger Orange Whip (American Wheat Ale w/ orange, vanilla, lactose, and coriander) Riverlands Brewing Company - Spring Rejuvenation (Maibock) Penrose Brewing Company - Dryft (IPA) Art History Brewing - Fastenbier (Lenten Dark Smoked Lager) D and G Brewin

In our triumphant return to our state series, we venture into the beers from the great state of Connecticut for our 25th installment. And we do so in a big way - with six beers of (mostly) very different styles that span all corners of the state. Thanks to Spenser for the help with the show - and for the small wooden...opening. We also talk about 10,000 hours of altbiers, the new maltwave, more plans for Craig’s beer parody song career, skinfeel, ice cream challenges, and the Knight of the Mall.  Beers Reviewed Luppoleto [Windsor Locks] - Putting Down Roots (Altbier) Counter Weight Brewing Co. [Hamden] - Headway IPA Kent Falls Brewing Co. [Kent] - Ready to Drum (Barrel-aged saison w/ blueberries) New Park Brewing [West Hartford] - Blender: Raspberry (Berliner weisse w/ raspberry) Transcend Beer Crafters [Southington] - 7 Layers of Sin (Imperial milk stout w/ cocoa, graham crackers, roasted peanuts, coconut, marshmallow, vanilla, and butterscotch) Fox Farm Brewery [Salem] - Avalonia: Blueberry (American wild a

From their first batch of beer released in 2015, Around the Bend has been committed to an unconventional take on traditional styles. The brewery’s trajectory has also been anything but conventional, and we have founder Dan Schedler on to talk about the brewery’s history and future. Dan also shares what led to his midlife career change, how they pivoted from a sudden facility closure, and why their ideas need to be reigned in from time-to-time. Additionally, we review five beers of divergent styles and have an odd night of aroma descriptors. Also, we assign an animal mascot to all the beer styles, listen to some Smooth Industrial music, tell tales of chicken butts, and pitch the tagline for our imagined Outdoor FoBAB.  Beers Reviewed Rewind (Hefeweissbier) Villainous (IPA) Control for Smilers (Hazy IPA) Proximal 2020 (English-style barleywine aged in rye whiskey/red wine barrels) Eleusis (Barrel-aged imperial stout w/ vanilla, chocolate, habanero, and cinnamon)

Despite the allure of warmer temperatures, we’re not quite ready to be done with stout season. So we grab the next-closest seasonally appropriate alternative: baltic porters! In our latest episode in our Prestige Styles Series, these five beers challenge what we know about both porters and lagers, but they are no challenge to drink. We share some fractured history about the style, try to determine the best month for Baltic Porterfest, and designate the perfect animal mascot. Also, we imagine ice cream bars that match classic novels, praise the new era of home delivered beer, and play our new favorite game - 1987’s Personal Preference.  Beers Reviewed Dovetail Brewery - Baltic-Style Porter Empirical Brewery - Endothermic Haymarket Brewery & Taproom - Baltic Porter Third Space Brewing - Ice Bear Church Street Brewing Company/Illuminated Brew Works - Barrel-aged EGLé

Finally ready to recover from Barrel-Aged December™, we assembled a star-studded sequel to last year’s episode, bringing on five barrel-aged beers presented without additional adjuncts. The plethora of bourbon barrels and base beers make for some flavorful variations, and they leave us practically - and almost literally - floored. Also, we adjust to our new ISOs, discuss why Rev’s collaboration choice was genius, consider Half Acre’s barrel-aged beer plan, prepare for the inevitable stout slushie boom, and do a little fudge flirting.  Beers Reviewed Central Waters Brewing Company - XXIII (2-year Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout) Private Press Brewing - Life Is Round (Blended Bourbon Barrel-Aged Barleywine) Half Acre Beer Company - Obsidian Throne (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout) Revolution Brewing Company/Half Acre Beer Company - On & On: Part 1 (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Rye Porter) More Brewing Company - Mehndi Special Reserve 2021 (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout)

It’s always been exciting to drink Russian River - every bottle opened feels like an event, and it has felt that way for us for well over a decade. On this show we celebrate the brewery that changed the way we both drink beer. Though this episode seems to be about Pliny the Younger (and a lot of it is), the whole lineup is a marvelous progression. Also, we aim to bring back sticker books, open up the ABV Denver Fitness Club, get rolled for R.R., check the Midwestern forecast, and go on D.O.N.G. patrol. (Thanks to Mike R. for the assist!) Beers Reviewed STS Pils Happy Hops IPA Funky Foeder Cherry Intinction Pliny the Younger

Either through public demand or divine intervention, the Black IPA has made an unexpected comeback in 2021, and We. Are. Here. For. It. We snagged the first five Black IPAs we could to tap into the cultural zeitgeist, and Craig learns to stop worrying and love the style. We discuss why the style lost favor with the beer buying public, and speculate on where they may be going. Also, we consider which singers deserve their half birthdays recognized, nearly touch Dick Biondi with a roman candle, call breweries with our list of demands, seek the path to chocolate IPAs, and accidentally give someone the crinkle tingles.  Beers Reviewed Revolution Brewing - Jukebox Hero  Stone Brewing - Sublimely Self-Righteous Black IPA Bell’s Brewery - Black Hearted Ale Phase Three Brewing - Mystic Infinity Sew Hop’d Brewery - Blind Hem

Tonight, we have the story of five breweries local to Chicagoland who opened amidst a global crisis, and the five beers that lifted the spirits of two weary beer reviewers. It’s ABV Chicago with your Local News - new breweries and new beers with your old friends, Ryan and Craig. First, we open with a few surprising new buttons, then to one person’s battle cry for ska; and later, a lactose-free label? You won’t believe your ears. Then at 10, it’s the new series: Jaws of Justice. All that after your number one source for arbitrary beer reviews recorded remotely from Chicago.  Beers Reviewed   Art History Brewing - Gravitace (Czech-style Pale Lager) Goldfinger Brewing Company - Vienna-Style Lager Histrionic Brewlab - After (FX) (Pale Ale) Brothership Brewing - DDH Earth Go Hard (New England-Style DIPA) Azadi Brewing Company - Kadak (Mumbai Chai Cutting Stout)

The bitterly cold winter months call for rich and bready lagers, and the bock beer is ready to swaddle you in warming flavors. For this show, we try five very different bock beers that speak to the diversity of the style and contribute to the sudden inebriation of the hosts. We uncover the history of bocks while acknowledging the vast differences between substyles, but we can’t resist driving the bock pun thing into the ground. Listen for Craig’s surprising personality test, our two-decades late XXX movie review, the latest market advice on Beanie Babies, our VagueCast about The Crown, and the top three societal contributions of House of Pain. We also play a game of Stumptappd for bock beers. Whatever you do, please don’t look bock in anger.  Beers Reviewed Alarmist Brewing - Sebastian (Bock) Great Central Brewing Company - Weizenbock Forbidden Root Brewing Company - Beanie Weather (Bock beer w/ orange & spices) Maplewood Brewing Company - Silver Morning (Doppelbock) Pipeworks Brewing Company - Genuine Bo

We’ve long sought out the strange and elusive beers of Connecticut’s Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores - or OEC Brewing, informally - so we have a ritualistic orientation with six beers from their little secret society. There’s a lot to love from this diverse lineup - not the least of which is that one of them comes in a freaking blue bottle. Also, we explore our legal options in a trademark dispute, let the funk do the talking, and play two games about stock symbols and airport codes. For Asgard! Beers Reviewed Rosé de Pétanque (Blended sour w/ coriander, orange peel, and blueberry juice) Coolship Lager Black (Czech-style black lager)Tempus (Blend of lagered and oak-aged young saison, 1 year-old lambic style ale, and 4 year-old saison aged in red & white wine barrels) Aether (Dry-hopped sour ale) BiFrost (Nordic-inspired Cryogenic Double Pale Ale) Phantasma (Sour porter aged in cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and marsala barrels)

We send off this season’s Deep Wood series by opening up some of their finest ‘wines. Big on barrel variation, this lineup of barleywines and ryewines features a few of the best things Revolution has ever done with these styles - and our rankings diverge quite a bit. We speculate on the next Deep Wood lineup, fail at recreating Honey Nut Cheerios, zoom in on physical pictures, praise the “Rock N’ Roll Racing” soundtrack, and discuss fonts for a solid ten minutes. (This episode was maximized for CDBass® Boost Power.) Beers Reviewed Straight Jacket (Bourbon barrel-aged barleywine) Honey Jacket (Bourbon and rye barrel-aged barleywine w/ honey) Mineshaft Gap (Cognac barrel-aged barleywine) Ryeway to Heaven (Bourbon and rye barrel-aged ryewine) Apple Brandy Barrel Ryeway (Apple brandy barrel-aged ryewine)

This year is our seventh as a podcast, and because we couldn’t throw a party like we usually do, we’re bringing the drunken fun inside your head holes. It’s certainly a nostalgia fest at times here as we relive our epic anniversary parties at Beermiscuous, but we made this one more interesting by dropping off some blind local beers to our remote recording spaces. We have six entries, with each host contributing three heavily wrapped beers, and we enjoy hearing each other squirm over style and brewery guesses. We also discuss classic movies whose plots fall apart with modern technology, relive Ryan’s favorite Christopher Cross memory, and reconsider Mosaic-based torture. Thanks for your support at any point over these seven years, and we can’t wait to party with you again soon. Beers Reviewed Half-Blind (in order of appearance) BuckleDown Brewing - Hooligan Soup (English-style Mild Ale) Roaring Table Brewing - Whirlycaster (Sour IPA w/ blackberry, raspberry, Meyer lemon, milk sugar, vanilla, and rose hips) Dut

Though it may not be considered all that popular, the brown ale is resilient. Craft brewers have been making them for decades, and even now it’s more common to see a hyped-up brewery release a brown as a change-of-pace. To dig deeper into English and American Brown Ales, we drink a mix of five from near and far. Craig also turns this show into his own personal gameshow, putting Ryan to the test on five rounds of music trivia based on the history of the Billboard Hot 100. We discover that no one brown ale here tastes like the other, and that we can thank the California Raisins for N.W.A. Also, the hops get a spa day, the chocolate IPA comes closer to reality, and disaster nearly strikes when we put Mark McGrath and Mario Lopez in the same room.  Beers Reviewed Samuel Smith - Nut Brown Ale (English-style Brown Ale) AleSmith Brewing Company - Nut Brown ale (English-style Brown Ale) Bell’s Brewery - Best Brown Ale (American-style Brown Ale) Midwest Coast Brewing Co. - West Town Brown Ale (American-style Brown Ale

Starting a sour-focused brewery comes with a unique set of challenges, especially when you enter the market in the midst of a pandemic. But Odious Cellars founder and head brewer Reeve Joseph forged ahead, lucking upon the facility at Pilot Project to help accelerate his beer-school dreams of producing exquisite sour and mixed culture beers. We talk with Reeve about his circuitous journey into making beer, why he intends to “keep it niche,” and how many of his beers are just fermented on GoGurt. (It’s zero, sadly.) We also drink through five of Odious’ first offerings while escaping the fate of mundane tasks, doing it old world style, pushing for incredibly specific 90s cover bands, and circumventing the sandwich ban. And Craig is going to teach you all how to do the Odious Twist.  Beers Reviewed Symbol of Avarice (Golden sour aged on peaches) The Secret History of All Things (Brett-fermented petite saison) Cryptomnesia (Violet sour w/ Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, orange zest, cinnamon, and mulling spices) Phys

In a city called Lafayette, somewhat between Denver and Boulder, Zach Nichols runs his farmhouse-focused brewery, Cellar West Artisan Ales. In under five years, the brewery has won two GABF medals, moved to a new location, and expanded their operation, including a side-label focused on trendier styles. Zach was kind enough to send us five of his beers for review, and he joined us on the Zoom to tell the story of Cellar West. And believe us - we’re ready for more saisons in 2021. There’s also a near-impossible video game choice, font letter rankings, long boil excitement, a desired Chuck Tingle collab, and Tom Petty slam poetry. Remember: #TableTheLabel in 2021.  Beers Reviewed Grateful Sled (Christmas IPA) Nightingale (Oat saison dry-hopped w/ Nelson Sauvin & Citra) Westfield (Saison aged in oak barrels) Make Hay (Strong saison aged in oak with Brettanomyces) S’more Stout (Imperial oatmeal stout w/ cacao nibs, vanilla beans, and graham flour)

We might as well send off 2020 on an upbeat note and just get wild with the ingredients, so we let it all hang out on this mixed five pack of barrel-aged variant stouts from local breweries. Each of these releases represents a fun little twist on its barrel-aged base, and we’re going to need a new word for “adjunct.” In addition to our reviews, we attempt to tune the GAS scale, share the history of the base beers, dream up new brandy flavors, make some fresh savory pastries, and watch as the Orange Knight rises. Get! Excited! Beers Reviewed Werk Force Brewing Company - Bourbon Barrel-Aged Sleepy Beer Off Color Brewing - Double Barrel-Aged Dino S’mores Half Acre Beer Co. - Cherry Brandy Benthic Old Irving Brewing Co. - Barrel-Aged Champurrado Krampus DESTIHL Brewery - Dosvidanya Orange Chocolate Rye

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