Reflections on Dry February

I’ve long joked that I have a buying problem, not a drinking problem. (No, really! I probably did so when I was a guest on this podcast about the perils of overaging beer not too long ago.) And by that I simply mean that I buy more beer than I can drink due to factors like FOMO and wanting to support breweries and even simply because some places still only sell beer by the multipack.

But for a long time I pretty much had at least one beer just about every night. Because I love trying new beers. And getting ticks on untappd. And sharing with friends. And enjoying a few cold ones while grilling, or just sitting in front of the TV. And out of habit. 

And, well, I'm not sure doing so has always been beneficial. I know it certainly hasn't been great for my weight. In fact, back in 2016 I pretty much gave up drinking entirely for three months following a really bad car accident (not my fault, and I have the police reports to prove it!) that left me confined to a wheel chair and away from home for a long time while my ankle, elbow and thumb all healed. I lost a lot of weight between the crappy/"healthy" food I had over that time and, well, having maybe six beers over that time. But in four and a half years I managed to gain it all back, and probably even a bit more.

And my health in general. I'm turning 51 this summer. And would like to make it, I dunno, at least 25 more years. Which can be difficult with hypertension and the heavies.

Plus, now and then, I may've said or texted or posted something that slipped past my filter while drinking, which is never cool.

Beyond that, at a certain point I feel like there should be more to my personality than craft beer. And maybe even to my new friendships, which mostly involve people I've met through this hobby. 

I've tamped down my drinking, ideally down to no more than four nights a week, with a goal of no more than six beers per week unless I attend a bottle share. But still, the weight was creeping up.

So in late January I just sort of said "what the fuck?" and decided that since February was shaping up to be quite cold I wouldn't be socializing much anyway (I'm pretty strict on the covid thing) and it's the shortest month of the year I'd just see about doing without alcohol for the whole month. (Lest ye think I went totally puritan, I was as always armed with plenty of cannabis.)

And...it wasn't that bad! In fact, my beer fridge was kept shut for almost the entire month. I didn't get the DTs, I didn't have any really strong cravings despite spending most evenings in my basement, which includes a whiskey bar and all manner of beer paraphernalia. I went to a few beer releases to buy bottles and cans and didn't feel horribly about not being able to imbibe. (And, in one funny incident, I received two free cans of beer from one of my favorite breweries after spotting their delivery van out in the wild, letting the driver cut in ahead of me and shouting my love for their product while waving my hat from said brewery at the driver. We ended up next to each other at a red light and he jumped out and gifted me the two cans.)

The only awkwardness was when friends decided to hold a share on a lovely, sunny 50-degree day. I was committed to seeing this thing through, and knew from experience that being around drinkers at a drinking-centric event when you're sober really isn't a very enjoyable time once they catch their buzz. So I skipped it. 

Happily, I found that there were several flash releases that I missed and...didn't really care! Even after some recent selloffs and some wholesale dumping of old beers down the laundry sink, my cellar and beer fridge combined contain at least 400 bottles and cans. There are certain breweries (ahem, Side Project!) that run their online releases such that I'm pretty sure I'll never win the rights to buy (seriously guys, that B:B:T may still be in my online cart!), and a lot of other places have gone to random draws that I'm pretty sure I have below-average luck on (I don't have the data to actually know for sure). 

So, where does this all leave me? In the unlikely event that I'm not in bed at midnight tonight, I may crack a beer then. More realistically, tomorrow evening will be fine. Doubt I'll go too crazy with the RAR factor; in fact, an IPA -- perhaps one of the free ones I got on Friday -- sounds pretty lovely. 

Longer term? I'm probably out of the "whale" game. As with every luxury good, the correlation between price and quality increases for beers isn't justifiable to me if I can't get it at retail cost. I've got a pair of good trading relationships going, and will continue to score out-of-market product through them for that bit of "wow" factor. I'll probably still do the occasional four-hour trips for allocated releases to places like St. Louis and bumblefuck, er, Amherst, Wisconsin, though. 

So, yeah. I like beer. But it doesn't like me as much as I like it, so things will be different moving forward.

PS -- My March 1 weigh-in came in eight pounds lower than the one I did on February 1!

Sunday Funday, South Side Style

If you know me IRL, you know I'm a White Sox fan. My fandom goes back to 1985, though I've attended their games since 1977 or so. As a child of frugal parents I didn't have access to many White Sox broadcasts, as they were mostly only available via pay TV that we didn't have. 

So those Cubs games on WGN Channel 9 were my jam. But the way that seemingly mighty 1984 Cubs team crapped the bed turned me off even more than the post-season failures of the '83 Sox. 

And that '85 Sox squad was hella fun, so I never looked back after falling for the team that featured Rookie of the Year Ozzie Guillen. (By then I also had a bit of social consciousness and bought into the notion that I should root for Chicago's blue collar team, what with my blue collar blood and all.)

So blah blah blah TL;DR -- Suds is a Sox fan.

And so a few weeks back I began to look into tickets for White Sox opening weekend. The idea of sitting in the new Goose Island section in right field was appealing, so I grabbed four for the Sunday game (the section was close to sold out for the first two games). And so despite some foreboding forecasts full of thunderstorms, three buds (including a Cubs fan) and I headed off to the city a bit before 11am to do some tailgating before the game. 

For some, tailgating is all about grilling. For others, it's about playing bags. For us, it was all about the beer. I'd packed a cooler full of Chicago brews to share, so we opened the fun up in Lot E with the unofficial beer of the White Sox, a rye Cascadian IPA from Hype, er, Hop Butcher.

From there we worked our way through a half dozen or so other brews, including a barrel-aged coconut-vanilla stout from Werk Force Brewing of Plainfield, IL; a pair of 2014 Bourbon County Stouts (the regular and the coffee version); Cryo-Hero, a ridiculously fresh (4 days old!) new IPA from Revolution; and a few other random brews. All too soon we heard "The Star-Spangled Banner" being sung so we packed our gear away and headed into the park.

Our Gate was right next to the Goose Island Craft Kave, so we headed there so a few of the fellas could snag beers. (I'm not a very good day drinker so I held off.) Unsurprisingly, the ballpark mirrored society and the Hop Butcher beers were sold out. From there we were able to head directly to our seats, though we had to roam as a herd since Ticketmaster and the Sox have a stupid new policy whereby you can't print your tickets out at home -- "your phone is your ticket," which doesn't work so well for groups.

I knew that The Goose Island section featured wait service; I didn't realize it also featured counters and movable chairs, which was a nice perk.

It also featured a lot of confused employees. In fact, considering it was the third home game of the year the staff seemed disappointingly clueless. A few people in our section had been given wristbands so they could get back in; we asked multiple employees for these bands but were told they didn't have or use them. The guys down in the Craft Kave had no idea if we'd be able to access our seats from the Cave (happily, we could -- much better than having to take a couple minutes to walk up four ramps to get to the concourse level). The wait staff had no idea what beers were actually available and for some reason put my buds' orders on my card, which was a PitA to rectify. I had to present my phone each time I returned to my seat while my buds just gave the security staff a "my ticket is on my buddy's phone." Dumb annoyances abounded. 

But when the Sox are good again The Goose Island is going to be a pretty hot ticket. And not just because it's right next to Section 108, where the world's funniest collection of Sox fans hangs. (I may've creeped on them via Twitter.)

The game itself was decidedly meh; the Sox got their asses kicked by a surprisingly good Mariners team. It took two hours to get through the first four innings. And there were several brief rains but it was never hard enough to stop play. 

So after a lap around the 100-level concourse, which just seems to be nicer and nicer each time I attend a game, and a trip to the huge gift shop up the third-base line, where I bought a pretty sweet two-sided navy blue Sox tee, we decided to head over to Marz Community Brewing a couple miles west of the ballpark. 

Why Marz? Well, their haze and sours are both super solid (stouts are hit or miss) and they currently feature the Marzcade, a room with about two dozen free video game consoles and pinball machines. 

The non-hazy IPA I tried was just okay but my buds, none of whom had been there before, all enjoyed their beers quite a bit. I got to say hi to Ed, which is always nice. And some very cool and generous guy recognized me from Facebook and gave us several very nice pours from a little bottle share he was engaged in. (This beer and this beer, stuff I probably wouldn't ever have otherwise encountered.) 

I played a few games of Star Wars pinball, a bit of Burger Time and some Ms. Pac-Man. (Among the many thoughtful touches in the Marzcade are the cup holders affixed to the pinball machines.) All told we spent about an hour and a half at Marz before heading home.

So spring is just beginning to spring but I was super happy to get my first Sunday Funday of the year on. Here's to many more between now and Halloween!

Thanks, Trump, for Shutting Down the Flow of New Brews

Here's a decidedly surface, low-information look at how Trump's government shutdown affects craft beer.

But hey, there's Mike!

Prop '15: A Christmas Miracle!

What started out as one of the most exciting Bourbon County Brand Stout variants, the annual Proprietor's Chicago-only adjuncted release (which featured coconut in 2013 and coconut water plus cassia bark [cinnamon] in 2014) went a bit awry in 2015 when the winning combo featured maple, toasted pecans and Guajillo peppers. ( (When I say "winning" combo I'm referring to the competition among Goose Island employees that is done each year to determine what adjuncts to use. Also, the 2015 release was the first not to be aged in rye whiskey barrels. I miss rye barreled Prop! Also, I miss coconut in Prop. 'cuz I'm a coconut slut!)

From the get-go Prop '15 was a disappointment to me. I was fortunate enough to try it at Rare Day, a 2015 Goose Island event, and again at the Black Friday 2015 Clybourn brewpub tasting of the full lineup. On both occasions I found it to be entirely too sweet for my liking, though each of the adjuncts popped on my palate.

Goose Island brewers attend the Clybourn event and take questions from attendees, and that year I asked whether they meant for Prop to be so over the top with the sweetness. I was told yes, but that they expected it to mellow with time. (Your mileage may vary when it comes to aging adjuncted stouts. I try not to do so for more than a year or so but make an exception with Bourbon County, as they generally develop nicely for several years.)

My pour of Prop '15 at the 2015 Black Friday Clybourn tasting

Things began to get a bit wobbly for the 2015 Bourbon County lineup scarcely a month after its Black Friday release (though bottling typically begins in late summer). Shortly after Christmas people began to claim that bottles of both Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout and Bourbon County Barleywine tasted sour. As a huge fan of the coffee version I had hustled to acquire nine bottles of it. I refrigerated all of them and began to play "coffee roulette" on 07 January 2016. And...blam! Right off the bat I got a bad one. Like, really bad. Super sour. Down the drain with it! I then opened a second one that was a bit off but drinkable.

The very next day, Goose Island announced a recall/refund for these two variants. Over the next several weeks I discovered that four of my nine Coffee bottles had gone bad; after that I called in for my refund. (All told, refund checks were cut for some 40,000 bottles of Coffee and Barleywine.)

By early April it was happening again. Rumors ran rampant in the craft beer community that Prop was also showing off flavors. Some friends and I tested two bottles on 30 April. Both were problematic. This...was not good. In mid-July, all Prop '15 and select dates of regular Bourbon County Stout were recalled. A lactic acid, lactobacillus acetotolerans, was found to be the culprit.

How would Goose Island avoid this in the future? Flash pasteurization! And so, starting with the 2016 lineup, all Bourbon County beers are briefly heated to a crazy high temp to prevent microbial spoilage.

And that was that.

Until last night, when my beer bestie jokingly pulled out a Prop '15 at a party where we had already drank through the entire 2018 Bourbon County lineup. We popped it after drinking all of the new bottles.

I smelled the bottle before any was poured. Nothing offputting like I expected.

We poured a few ounces each. Sniffed again. Our nose hairs did not burst into flames.

We worked up the courage to drink it. And...Miracle Prop!

December 15, 2018 -- the miracle bottle of Prop '15!

I won't claim it was super-delicious. It was still on the sweet side, but not horribly so. There was no trace of the pecans. A bit of pepper heat presented itself.

I'm not a microbiologist. I have no idea how this bottle emerged unscathed. It was refrigerated for most but not all of its lifespan, which may have helped. Maybe we got lucky. Maybe all it takes is a single teensy bit of lactobacillus acetotolerans to propagate and kill a bottle of beer and somehow this bottle had zero bits.

Or maybe...just maybe...it was a Christmas Miracle!

In any case, it was a happy happening for us all, an amusing capper to a very enjoyable night.

NYE Beer-Centric Options in Chicagoland

Our old city friends host a New Year's Eve party every year so I never even really consider all of the outstanding craft beer events that are held that night. But if you're looking for something, the always-reliable Mark McDermott has a nice roundup of NYE events for your consideration....

Deth!

I'm very excited to attend this can release tomorrow!

And this evening I'll be trying at least one of them at a Revolution event at a bar.

Revolution Brewing's barrel-aged beers really are stealing some of Goose Island's thunder, at least here in Chicagoland.

Suds Goes Downstate: Dosvidanya Day and 'lil Beaver

Bloomington, Illinois's Destihl Brewing Company is probably a little bit under the radar. AFAIK they started as a sours-focused brewery before diversifying the portfolio to appeal to the masses that flock to IPAs and stouts. (Though they still can a lot of sours.)

Like a lot of breweries, as the calendar turns toward winters Destihl releases its barrel-aged stout, the award-winning Dosvidanya. As smart marketers do, the brewery has created an event around this annual release, Dosvidanya Day. Attendees receive an allocation of various iterations of the beer (four bottles total, at least for the past two years), a few complimentary draft pours of exclusive beers, a cash bar that includes pours of the bottled beers and the opportunity to buy extra bottles. Plus live music, food from the kitchen, exclusive merch and some random surprises.

Bloomington is fairly accessible via I-55, and for folk in Chicago's western suburbs like me it's an easy two-hour drive. (And the brewery itself is just off of the expressway, at the beginning of the burgeoning Bloomington-Normal commercial strip. Seriously, this place-- home of Illinois State University -- has come a long way since I started college at a different Illinois land-grant institution 30 years ago.) It rained for the first hour, then lightened up. The day was grey but the temperatures were unseasonably warm, peaking in the mid-50s that afternoon.

I arrived about a half-hour before opening and joined the shortish line. The couple behind me were sporting caps from Elgin, Illinois's, Plank Road Tap Room, a place I've heard good things about but haven't yet been to. So I chatted them up and naturally we had a beer bud in common. Easily half the crowd was from the Chicago area, at least in part because attending Dosvidanya Day means you get access to some bottles that won't be distributed.

Doors opened promptly at 11 and we milled inside. To minimize any worry I got my bottles almost immediately and ran them out to my car. The standard allotment was one bourbon barrel aged bottle, one rye barrel aged and two bourbon barrel aged with coconut. They also had some vintage bottles for sale, so I picked up a few of last year's vanilla variant and some extra coconut bottles. (Both of my regular readers will recall that I kind of love coconut stouts.) Like Bottle Logic and Goose Island, among others, Destihl packages its BA stouts in 500ml/16.9-ounce bottles -- which some say is a bit much for solo drinking and too little for sharing with more than one other person. I personally kind of like the size myself.

Bottles secured, it was time to enjoy the day a bit. The festival is held in the brewery itself, among the brewhouse, fermenters, bottling line, etc. Attendees get a few free pours of a few beers exclusive to the event (I used all of mine on the BA tiramisu stout because #PastryIsLife) along with several cash bars offering multiple versions of the Dosvidanya that gets bottled.

Free packages of Beer Nuts were plentiful, as were sample pours of cold press coffee made from barrel-aged beans. (You bet I bought a 12-ounce bag; BA coffee beans make the kitchen smell like a rickhouse, which is a jolly good thing.) The brewery tap house and kitchen were also available.

Coffee! Giver of life, killer of sleeps, producer of poops....

Something else cool? All tips received during the event were donated to Home Sweet Home Ministries. Employees stepping up!

I hung with a few friends who had traveled separately and chatted away while sipping my pours for an hour or so, whiling away the time before Lil Beaver Brewing opened. We bailed on the event a few hours in to see if the local liquor stores had anything cool on shelves (sadly no, though the big Chicago chain had a nice coupon that I used to buy a bottle of blended whiskey) and grab some lunch.

Lil Beaver was indeed a small space, tucked away like many startup breweries in a small industrial strip about five miles from Destihl. A bud and I each ordered a flight of four beers, with a bit of overlap between them. My favorite was the pastry stout, Cheat Day, an imperial stout with brownie batter(!) and coffee. They also had what can only be described as a pastry cream ale called Now I Know My Peach Crumble, which literally tasted like its namesake. Everything I tried there was a cut above and I grabbed a few packaged beers to go that I have yet to try. (In theory, I take a few days off from beer each week.)

On a decidedly exciting note, the brewery had dozens of barrels aging beer. My first exposure to Lil Beaver was at a beer fest where I tried Rye Whole Lot of Wonderful, a rye-barrel-aged stout with chocolate and coconut. (Have you ever had a coconut stout? They're delicious!)

Following my hour or so at Lil Beaver I headed on home, happy to have spent some time among fellow beer geeks drinking good brews and having a good time.

A Stone-Cold Smart Hire

I missed it at the time but was very happy to learn a few days ago that my one-time colleague Sean Monahan has joined Stone Brewing as COO. (Full disclosure: I was a marketing flunky who supported Sean and the other supply chain and procurement partners for a few years in my former corporate life.)

Belated congratulations, Sean! I know you'll keep the "Enjoy By" series and other fresh brews flowing swiftly from the canning line to our hands. 

Black Friday!

Man oh man I got up at 245 am on Black Friday, lined up and scored a sweet new 87" LED smart TV! Sure three people ended up in the ER due to the trampling but 'murica, amirite!?!?

Oh I keed. Mostly.

I did get up at that crazy hour after hitting the sack at an early hour under the influence of multiple sleep aids. And I did line up outside of a store. In this case, it was at a Chicago chain grocery store that would be selling all eight 2018 versions of Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout at 7am. Plus, the first 48 people in line were also promised a piece of branded glassware and a very handome hard cover book entitled Grit & Grain about said beer.

I rolled up at the store at 3am, plunked my camp chair down near a buddy's propane heater and began to while the hours away. I was tenth in line so I felt confident that I'd get a bottle of each. (There are a dozen bottles to a case, though stores have been known to sell less than a full case to the general public by putting aside bottles for employees and/or top customers who have good relationships with the beer department [which often means spending a ridiculous amount of money each month on booze].)

The time passed surprisingly quickly. Lotsa jokes cracked along with the occasional rumination about just what we've become thanks to beer. We ditched our chairs when we were allowed entrance into the store when it opened at 6 but reminded that sales would begin at 7 so we huddled up in the frozen food aisle, appropriately enough. We received our free glass and book while waiting. It turned out that among the handful of people ahead of my group in line were someone I'd been in line near at Half Acre and Revolution the previous Friday (those five-and-a-half hours in line were like dress rehearsal for Black Friday) and the brother of another beer bud. (Said bud struck gold at the store he went to, which literally had dozens of cases of most of the Bourbon County variants and ultimately sold them by the case just to get them out of there.)

Anyway, the buys were made and off we went to a liquor store that was opening at 9am. I laughed as we each got into our own car, like the way the boys went out on the town in the film Swingers.

As an example of how word gets out about places, in 2017 I arrived at this particular liquor store after going to a 7am grocery store and ended up being among the top 10 in line. (Amusing moment from last year: when I arrived at this store someone ahead of me told me he was holding spots for two guys who had gone out for food. I was cool about that; beer line etiquette permits the occasional biological break. However, when these two guys arrived and handed the guy ahead of me a bottle of Bourbon County Stout I decreed that you don't get to have a spot held in a beer line so you can go buy beer elsewhere and the crowd concurred with me.) This year, though, we were around 40th. We knew we'd miss out on Prop (the store had mentioned on social media that only 19 bottles would be available) and the "vintage" bottles but felt good about our chance of getting everything else. Things went smoothly enough and my crew was done there around 930, though my right leg felt dead by the time I limped back to my car to head out for breakfast.

Am I in this line? I AM IN THIS LINE!

And so we went from buyers to drinkers with our arrival at an area Tex-Mex/BBQ place that had several Bourbon County variants on draft. I enjoyed an 11-ounce pour of both the Vanilla and Midnight Orange versions, cuveeing the final few ounces of each to make a creamsicle. (Between these two versions of the beer and the super-chocolate-heavy Prop variant people have been mixing these brews in all sorts of ways.) I also bought a pour of the regular and drank about half of it in order to get a "free" Bourbon County glass that was different from the one the grocery store gave out and had a sip of a bud's Coffee Barleywine. All of this went well with the breakfast grilled cheese, which featured a fried egg and bacon.

And on that note I headed home around 11am and took a nap with a belly full of booze and a pair of dogs. I needed the rest, as I was due in the city by 5pm at the Goose Island Clybourn Brewhouse for a tasting of all eight 2018 Bourbon County brews. My beer bestie and I made it there by 4, when they were tapping Prop so we had to have a pour each of that and split a pour of Reserve with some cheese curds.

The scheduled tasting was decidedly enjoyable. I'd done it once before, in 2015 (the year most of the beer was recalled due to an infection issue), and this was theoretically a better value as we received 8 pours in addition to four small accompanying food items (two savory, two sweet). Tasting them all at the same time and at close to room temperature let the flavors in each of the beers pop. Goose Island brewers talked us through each beer, which was nice, and took questions from we attendees.

As a bonus, someone who was supposed to be seated two chairs from me didn't make it so we bogarted those pours. The sole negative was that even though the sessions were spaced two hours apart we only got one hour in the room, making for a somewhat rushed experience. And a nice bonus was that all attendees received a Speilgau branded BCBS 2018 glass and a bottle of Prop, accounting for nearly half of the ticket price. (People like to complain about the price of this event. I appreciate the opportunity to sample them all in a chill atmosphere.)

FWIW, my personal rankings of the 2018 BCBS offerings is as follows:

1. Vanilla
2. Proprietor's Reserve
3. Knob Creek Reserve
4. Midnight Orange
5. Regular
6. Coffee Barleywine
7. Wheatwine
8. Bramble Rye

This is my "Yuck, Bramble!" face.

And finally, I have very few "ins" at any bottle shops despite spending a silly amount of money each month on beer, in part because I frequent more than half a dozen different stores. But I was very happy that my humble reachout for bottles to a store I'd go to a lot more often if only it were closer yielded me a few variant bottles. Add in a few trades I made over the weekend, and I ended the holiday weekend with the goodies pictured below....

My 2018 Bourbon County "kill shot," pending additional trades for Prop and Vanilla

If you, too, were in on the hunt I hope it was all that you hoped for. Prost!

The week or so in review: November 10-16

I can haz beer!

So. Much. Beer.

It's stout season. I live in Chicago. There will be some great, great beer drank. And over the past week, there was.

A delight
The week began with a November 10 tapping of Mornin' Delight over at Bavarian Lodge (one of Chicagoland's finest beer destinations, with some fairly good German food to boot). As you likely know, Mornin' Delight is a highly sought after imperial stout with maple and coffee from Toppling Goliath Brewing. It's decidedly delicious. And scarce -- the annual release sees people from all over the Midwest (and beyond) descend upon tiny Decorah, Iowa, to get the bottles they "won" in a frenzied online sale that sells out in seconds. Now that Chicago gets full distribution of TG brews we also get the occasional sixtel of their rare beers as well.

My #SomewhatProperGlassware

Anyway, after an hour in line waiting for the Lodge to open my bestest beer friend and I each snagged two pours of this elixir. Being a complete dork, I brought my own fairly proper glassware as well. It was as good as we remembered from our two previous times enjoying the beer. No complaints. (Except that the pours kicked after 20 minutes, but that was hardly surprising. And we each got 14 ounces of the beer so again...no complaints.)

As for tasting notes, I'll go with...YUM.

And to then hit another local place to enjoy pours of Bourbon County Prop '16 and Reserve '17? It almost turned Saturday into Shatterday!

A BA blowout
Onward to Monday, November 12 and the annual BA Blowout at Binny's flagship store in Lincoln Park. More than 50 beers were offered along with pizza for a $40 ticket that got you some 'za and "10" beers. (Snicker snicker. Pretty much no one asks for tickets.)

Among other things, the event served as a coming-out party for Casey Brewing & Blending in the Chicago market. I don't know how much of their fruited sour deliciousness we will get in this market, but something is better than nothing, dig?

As always it was a great event, and I caught up with a dozen or so fellow scenesters during it. Top pours for me included Cognac Jones Dog from Pipeworks, Firestone-Walker's Coconut Rye Parabola (I'm a coconut slut TBH), Toppling Goliath's Term-Oil 18-A, Quadruple Barrel Big Bad Baptist from Epic Brewing (did I mention that I like coconut stouts?), and a pair of Bourbon County Brand Stouts, Rare 2015 and Proprietor's Reserve 2017 (I like me some cinnamon, too!). I also got vaguely creative at one point, mixing the Parabola and the Prop in an attempt to capture the delicious coconut-cinnamon combo that made Prop '14 so amazing. The bananas introduced a bit of a curveball, but as cuvees go it was decidedly worthy.



It being a Monday and all I tapped out a bit early while my designated drinker (you read that right; I drove) continued to enjoy the brews and the company of our fellow beer nerdz. All in all it was a great value and a very enjoyable three-hour event.

MikerFoBAB
I continued the weeklong assault on my liver November 14 with a trip to Elk Grove Village, Illinois's, Mikerphone Brewing for Session 1 of its first-ever MikerFoBAB, a "warmup" event for the legendary Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer that takes place in Chicago each November.



Prior to the event there was some disappointment when the brewery released a super-baller tap list but said not all beers would be served at all sessions. (There were four separate two-hour sessions throughout the day; mine began at noon.) There was even more disappointment when only 10 beers were being offered upon arrival, and the people pouring beers seemed to think that only those 10 would be served. Fortunately, Mike and Company switched things up a bit and we all got to sample more of the hypey stuff that brought us there.

Those who know me may be shocked to learn that my favorite new (to me) beer at the fest was Sheck from Horus Aged Ales. I have no idea what Chokeberries are but they made for a delicious tart beer. Other faves included Karma Rainbow from More, which saw the brewery's Karma stout get the neapolitan treatment to delicious effect; Cigar City's Xquic (basically Huna aged with maple) and Bottle Logic's delicious Fundamental Observation barrel-aged vanilla stout, which went on to be named "best in show" at FoBAB a few days later.

Nice job by the Mikerphone team and I hope to win the lottery for their second annual event next year.

Oh, and I'm also excited to try the collaborations Mikerphone brewed while these out of towners were here this week.

And the snack and pour I had afterwards at More Brewing Company were great.



Five-and-a-half hours in line for the love of beer
Friday, November 16 gave me some good practice for Black Friday as I hit not one but two releases at a pair of Chicago's best breweries. Around 930am I got in line at Half Acre for their third release of Benthic, a barrel-aged stout with coconut (you may not know this, but I like coconut) and coffee that has been a favorite of mine the past two winters. New this year were a pair of variant versions, Double Dose (with twice the adjuncts) and Double Barrel (aged in bourbon and apple brandy barrels, then hit with coconut and cinnamon).

On the way over I'd called my friend who was already in line and he'd told me that someone was writing numbers on people's hands in order to prevent cutting. When I got to the line this guy had just done his final number (276), which theoretically meant everyone up to #276 would receive the full allotment of 3 regular Benthics, 2 Double Doses and 1 Double Barrel.

Of course, because it's beer and people are jerks the Double Doses were gone quite a way ahead of me when I got into the bottle shop at 1pm. (Sale started at 11. Half Acre is known more for its great beer and food than its ability to move lines along, in part because they only do two major releases annually for which people line up.) Imagine; people cut the line! (More gallingly, I later heard some people made their buys and then cut the line. Who lets people get away with cutting? Cowards and assholes, that's who!)

So I had to "settle" for 3 regular bottles and 1 Double Barrel. #FWP

My legs were weak after all of that time in line (I broke an ankle a few years ago and that leg doesn't enjoy standing for hours on end) but I was happy enough, since I'd also lucked into a prebuy allotment courtesy of my bestest friend that required me to drive to the other Half Acre facility. I may have even gone back to the Lincoln brewery to snag three more regular bottles after the lineup portion of the sale had ended; people do all kinds of crazy things.

I then made my way a few miles southwest of Half Acre to Revolution Brewing for the release of Deth's Tar (barrel-aged stout), Cafe Deth (BA stout with Dark Matter coffee added) and Deth by Currants. (The latter is a BA stout with currants, which was surprisingly tasty -- I'm picky about what fruits go in my stouts. You may not know this, but coconut is a delicious fruit that goes well in stouts.)

The line was crazy long when I arrived at Rev one hour before the sale began; I estimated at least 300 people were ahead of me. But Rev really knows how to move a line; with six POS terminals going and someone picking orders at each terminal they literally average around six sales per minute. So two pleasant hours in line spent chatting with my bud Jeb (second time in a row I've arrived at a Rev release just as a bud has, which makes the time in line go a lot faster) and other folk and I was out of there with 20 cans of barrel-aged amazingness.

Speaking of two hours, that's how long it took me to drive 20 miles or so in rush hour traffic to my next destination....

Fuck FoBAB bottle share
I attended FoBAB each year from 2012-2015. Each year it grew more crowded, and in 2014 it moved to the UIC Forum which, in theory, would be a more pleasant experience because it was so much bigger than the previous venue and more accessible via mass transit. But 2015 was a sloppy shit show of barrel-aged farts and a fair bit of assholish behavior by attendees. (And by me; it was the drunkest I've ever gotten in public since college.)

Anyway, last year the event organizers effectively doubled the admission price for the event, which led one of my best beer buds to host a really nice barrel-aged bottle share on the same weekend. And so we did it again this year. A dozen chill folk and a lot of great beers.

The Fuck FoBAB kill shot

Just about everything we drank was great. Two-ounce pours are a really nice way to sample a wide range of beers without getting sloppy drunk. We mostly had stouts, with a few sours and one really gross barleywine that I brought. (Full disclosure: I had no idea that it would suck.)

We didn't have any megawhalez, but just about everything was pretty damned good. My favorites included all three Revolution cans that I'd just picked up at the brewery, Double Barrel Vanilla Imperial Milk Porter by Cigar City, Cycle's Rare DOS Blended, BA Cherry Truffle Abduction from Pipeworks (cherries, while not as delicious as coconut, are also my jam) and a sour, Pulling Nails (Blend 7) from Side Project Brewing.

While the beers were great, the company was even better. It's hard to get a bunch of middle-aged folk together on the reg, so I was glad so many of the invitees were able to make it.

The madness continues
While this was truly a fun week of beer, there's plenty more fun to come. Black Friday will see me camping out for Bourbon County Stout, then drinking some of it, then heading into the city for a sweet event at which I'll drink some more of it and then hopefully making it to a bud's for still more sipping. We'll probably do similar things the rest of the weekend. It's stout season, and it's a hell of a fun time!