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!

Suds on the South Side

As a Chicago White Sox fan, I dig this development.

I'm kind of meh about this news, though.

"Bland American beer" may be "here to stay," but not just because of American flavor preferences

On the positive side, this isn't another article complaining that craft beers are getting "too hoppy" or "too pastry." And it gives a nice overview of America's brewing history, albeit giving short shrift to the fact that we do now have our own styles and burgeoning tradition around beers like those darned hoppy IPAs and heavily adjuncted stouts.

And yet, craft is growing. And while some of this craft may be "bland," most of it isn't. Craft is unlikely to ever dominate the beer market for simple economic reasons -- a 30 pack of Busch will always be cheaper than a 12 pack of a good IPA. As wealth disparity continues to grow, it's simply priced too high for a lot of beer drinkers to purchase on the reg. And that's okay.

What's interesting to me is that as an economic historian, Ranjit Dighe completely ignores pricing as an obstacle to continued craft growth and instead claims it's simply a matter of (people not wanting much) taste. I reject this reality and substitute my own.

Floyds gets the go-ahead

While there was some speculation that this was just some pie-in-the-sky nonsense and that they might actually do something not normal like move into the 606, Three Floyds has received approval for its planned expansion. Congrats, big strokers!

Beer snobbery

Ha! This is great!

Suds's beer week in review: February 4-February 10

This week of potential beer fun was ruined by snow! (Missed a Super Bowl party due to snow [though 30 ounces of BA stouts over lunch may've contributed to our no-go decision], cut short Thursday night due to more snow and stayed in Friday night due to still more snow)

Total beers tasted: 20 (shared a few with a bud on Thursday night) 

• Best beer: Prop '17. I'm a superfan! Just agreed to trade a bunch of bottles for another bottle, in fact. The banana finish is losing some of its banana flavor and just presenting as a nice sweetness to close out the upfront burst of cinnamon.
• Second-best beer: Pliney the Elder. I was bummed not to make it to Russian River for the Pliney the Younger release last weekend (couldn't justify dropping a grand to chase a tick), but was happy that a bud brought me some PtE back. It's still a beautifully balanced beer, though I think all the NEIPAs I drink these days made it seem like it should be named Piney the Elder. (See what I did there?)
• Third-best beer: Trademark Dispute Orange Label Coconut. The beer that was once Nooner 10 and is now Greatest Hits Coconut has held up well more than a year after release. Cycle BA stouts are totally in my wheelhouse and I can't wait to drink all five of the Greatest Hits together this weekend! 
• Fourth-best beer: Double Barrel VSOD. BA Rev is good Rev. This is among the best of the Winter 2017-2018 cans. Still partial to Cafe Deth, I suspect.
• Fifth-best beer: Cryo Citra. Citra Ninja helped put Pipeworks on the map, and this brand-new remix of it takes me back to those Halycon days of exciting new beer discoveries in my own backyard.

Beer bummers

• Madagascar '18, I am not really feeling you. Have you changed or is it me? Were you always so thin, was your finish always so milky? Did a bud really favorably compare you to Vanilla Rye just three years ago? SMGDH
• King Sue. Way too much cat pee in the December batch!
• Fresh IIPA V10 (Fresh by 02.27.18). I've had a dozen or so of the beers in Hubbard's Cave's "Fresh by" series, and this is the second time I've opened an oxidized bottle that looks like a coma patient's urine and tastes almost as bad. Up your game, Hubbard's Cave!

Breweries visited: None. (I know, right? Was supposed to hit a pair on Friday.)

Beer read of the week: This. Though the final three rounds were sort of silly, the first four are something I want to do with my beer buds some time soon-ish.

Other beer read of the week: This here. Dammit people, grow up!

Tastiest thing tasted: Totally drawing a blank. Nothing all that inspiring. Maybe the Pad Thai from Sushi House? It was a different, "wet" take on the classic dish, and I swear they threw like three eggs in there on top of a crazy amount of tofu. But they didn't give us any chili paste to go with it, dammit!

Best stroke of luck: Winning the "lottery" that was the Henna batch 3 presale. Tix sold out in less than a second. For a non-BA stout. Can't wait to try it on draft and then share a bottle that night next Saturday!

That's all for now. 

Suds's beer week in review: January 28-February 3

Total beers tasted: 22 (shared a number of bottles with some buds on Wednesday night) (also got silly Friday night with five different 12-ounce cans of Marz NEIPAs I had in the fridge that needed to be drank sooner or later)

• Best beer: Central Waters XX. Great creamy mouthfeel, fantastically fudgy chocolate and barrel notes. IMO it may well be the best anniversary stout they've done since 16.
• Second-best beer: Smooth Whopperator from Mikerphone. Ridiculously thick malted chocolate milk stout. Loved my little pour; hated not being able to stay for more but I do not enjoy traffic and I would've been in the thick of it if I had.
• Third-best beer: Mango Smoothie Resist from The Brewing Projekt. This may have been the best milkshake-style IPA I've ever had. Not that I've had many, since I don't trade for East Coast stuff and the local ones I've had have been rather meh.

Breweries visited: Half Acre, Mikerphone and Energy City

• Notes on Half Acre: I was there Tuesday, when they were rolling out the new food menu. I'd somehow never eaten at the OG Lincoln Avenue spot (true fact: if HA had been around ca. 2000-2002, it would've been barely a block from my apartment). I opted for the brisket burrito, which came with chimichurri  potatoes. Both the main dish and the side were delicious; likely the second best thing I ate all week.
• Notes on Mikerphone: It's always great to hit Mikerphone and tick their latest brews. I was there the week before but just to grab bottles because the tap room line was really long for the Vanillanoize release. The bar on this Thursday was full up so I was forced to sit with strangers and interact with them and stuff.  ;)   Also had an employee tease about something cool that is coming up but I can't for the life of me guess what it is but I already plan to be there on the day he mentioned. 
• Notes on Energy City: I've heard good things about Energy City's beers. They release once a month AFAIK, and it looks like they do bombers of NEIPAs, stouts, porters, etc. Today was a release day so I headed over there after we got out early from some volunteer work we try to do one Saturday morning a month over at the Northern Illinois Food Bank. After about 10 minutes of waiting I was barely inside the door, but the vibe seemed pretty cool. Basically on their release days the brewer talks about the beers and hands out samples to people who are waiting to buy bottles. Once I found out that the NEIPA had kicked I decided not to leave my wife waiting in the car any longer and we had to meet friends for lunch, so I bailed. But I hope to actually buy from them some time in the future and chat with the brewer!

Tastiest thing tasted: Chicken and Waffles at NWB 

Best stroke of luck: Winning the TG Assassin lottery. It's literally the first beer event lottery I've won since an Upland Sour release lottery like four years ago. The release is also going to be a fascinating experience, I think.

Other future-forward beer stuff: I bought two tickets for KBS Week, so I'll be getting a double allocation during a single-day up-and-back in early March. I have already pledged a number of bottles to friends and will likely trade a bunch of it if it's as meh as last year's batch was. I failed to get a ticket for Spiteful's upcoming event (they sold out in a minute and I literally forgot about it until five minutes into the sale), so let's not even talk about that right now.

Central Waters Brewing Company turns 20!

For a middle-of-nowhere place, Central Waters Brewing Company in Amherst, Wisconsin, is pretty fantastic. As with a lot of Wisconsin breweries most of their offerings are pretty standard -- "Nothing too extreme; we emulate the Minnesotans that way yah" -- but solid. Their space itself is really nice, with a decent-sized tap room that draws a very loyal local crowd as well as a fair share of travelers. They also draw some of their heating and electrical power from their solar array, which is a big plus by me.

In 2014 I attended their sixteenth anniversary party, and have attempted to do so every year since. It's a ticketed event, and in just the past five years tickets have gone from lasting online for hours to literally seconds -- in fact, I missed last year's party because my phone was too slow over a restaurant's wifi for me to score. The party sees the release of their annual beer, a thick, viscous imperial stout that sees plenty of time in bourbon barrels. (Oftentimes they're actually a blend of BA stouts, but we won't go down that rabbit hole. For an overview of these and their other rare beers, click here.)

They also tap a bunch of CW beers rare and familiar, allow bottle shares, offer food vendors and CW merch (except for tacker signs, due to their sharp edges -- someday I'll get up there to buy one!), and generally make with the merry. The party wraps in the early evening, and at that point all of the pleasures of the greater Stevens Point area are available to you. (The first time I attended with my wife we had some awesome tapas. She kind of hates beer events so now I typically try to find a bottle share after, typically at whatever cut-rate hotel I'm staying at.)

This year's party took place on January 27. A trio of my best drinking buds were attending but I drove solo in order to undertake some side quests (a bud's butcher shop in East Troy, a few stops at different bottle shops, food of my choice) and enjoy some time on the open road with my podcasts (Norm MacDonald and Marc Maron, mainly) and music. I took a leisurely pace that got me into the Amherst area about five and a half hours after leaving the house and opted to check in at my hotel and hit a few bottle shops first in hopes that the line would dissipate before I arrived at Central Waters.

The party began at 3, and I was parked and in line around 4. As you can see below, my "no line" strategy worked brilliantly!

Hot damn, a line! As a Chicagoan I fucking love lines!

The line actually moved really well, and 15 minutes later I was inside and ready to enter another line. Except when the bar is something like 60 feet wide (obstensibly divided into three different types of pours), the "line" is more of a filthy scrum of people forming a quarter-circle slowly pushing forward for service from perhaps 20 harried volunteers. My buds were near the back of this scrum and some kind souls were all "go ahead, we're never going to get beers anyway so go be with your friends," and sure as shootin' we were in a line. Twenty minutes of that and we'd moved maybe five feet forward, but got word that the part of the serving area that was marked "boring AF year-round pours" was actually serving everything, so off we went and maybe five minutes and three clumsy drunk spills (this would become a theme; glad I wore a polyester coat) later I had a pour of the rum barrel aged coconut porter and the bourbon barrel aged vanilla stout. (The former is scheduled for bottling this year; the latter was a one-off treat.)

Unfortunately, the two beers I finally had 45 minutes into my time at the fest were decidedly "meh." Hopefully there's time to improve the coconut porter before it's bottled, because the consensus in-person and on Untappd is that it's fakey, tasting of white rum (you know, the stuff that isn't actually barrel aged) and artificial coconut. The vanilla stout was better but not great; I'm pretty sure the base for this beer is the basic Brewer's Reserve BA Stout that CW makes, and while that was a personal favorite around 2010 when I started getting heavily into beer I have since come to prefer stouts with more body than this offers. The flavor was pretty good, though.

I ran into several groups of buds on my way over to the separate area where the anniversary stout, CW XX, was being poured so I got to try a few random pours from their bottle shares. I also got spilled on a few more times; a densely packed warehouse full of drunken people leads to that kind of thing. Also, every bottle sharer ended up taking the space of two people, as there were many circles of folks surrounding their bags full of bottles. So yeah...crowded with clumsy drunks, CW was.

A CW XX crowd shot I stole from Facebook

As always, the anniversary stout did not disappoint. I don't have extensive tasting notes, as it was served pretty cold and I didn't nurse it for the half hour it would've taken to bring it to a nice 50 degrees or so to really open it up. (I'm planning to crack a bottle tonight with a few folk, and may post more about it after.)

So after maybe an hour and a half, my small crew opted to buy our bottles and head over to nearby O'so, which has the distinction of being one of the few breweries that scaled up and entered the Chicago market only to pull out a few years later. (Maybe they'll be back? It looks like they have a big expansion planned as part of a move from Plover to Stevens Point.)

The bottle line moved quickly (they've improved this tremendously since the fiasco that was CW16), and off I went to my car. Unfortunately, my assumption that the sunny mid-40s daytime temps meant it would be an easy walk through the dark fields to my car proved unfounded, as I took a big-time spill flat on my back on some unexpected ice. My night ended with a trip to a drive-through, mass quantities of ibuprofen and fitful, pained sleep (at one point it took me five tries to lie down in bed due to severe pain in the back of my left ribcage, but fortunately nothing is broken) rather than O'so, pizza and a hotel bottle share. And none of my bottles broke, so I have that going for me.

Social media was full of all manner of opinions as to the success of the party, with 60 percent of the commentariat saying too many people were overserved (there were reports of copious amounts of vomit and someone pulling a line out of a brewing vessel, among other travesties) and 40 percent being all "eh, it's beer, what do you expect?" One exec from CW posted that bottle sharing probably won't be allowed next year, which makes some sense -- it's CW's party, so shouldn't their beer be the focus?

In any case, I had fun at CW XX despite the sloppy folk and my own clumsiness. The scuttlebutt says that they really want to make a big deal out of next year's 21st anniversary party, as people born the year Central Waters was opened will finally be of age and able to attend. Hopefully, I'll be there!

Ha ha gross sexist shit in 2018 (Cosmic Brewery sucks)

Bit of a hot take as I was pressed for time this morning....

Hey Cosmic Brewery, I hope to visit California in the next few years and visit a bunch of breweries. But yours won't be one of them, you juvenile twits! (If the reviews of your beers are accurate you'll be out of the brewing game by then anyway. Maybe you can survive as a strip club?)

Care to guess how Cosmic is responding to those who criticized this Facebook post? That's right, by blocking them! Because lessons are hard. Because if boys can't be boys then they won't remain sexist classless assholes for life.

Sexism in the craft beer industry is a bigly tremendous huge deal and something I'll undoubtedly be posting about here in the future. Because it's not just about photos like this. It's about the pack mentality that sets in against women when a crowd is strongly majority male; a very good friend had her rear end grabbed repeatedly in the stinky sweaty crowd at FoBAB in 2015.

Play it cool, boys. This ain't cool.

ETA: Annnnnnnndddddddd the post is gone from Facebook and Twitter. And it looks like they lost a sponsor, Celestron Telescopes. No sort of apology put forth as of yet. When they do get around to one, it'll probably be something like this:

Wow!

This is one beautiful space at which to quaff a cider and do some grubbin'.

Vanilla doesn't have to be so vanilla

Vanilla needn't be, you know, "vanilla." (As in "plain." Though Urban Dictionary may have a more elaborate definition. It's on you if you choose to look it up.)

Neither of these two limited-run barrel-aged stouts were vanilla in any way, shape or form.

The one on the left, the 2017 Dosvidanya Vanilla Rye released at Destihl's Dosvidanya Day in Normal, Illinois, a few months ago delivered almost everything you'd hope for when you hear "Vanilla Rye." (Let's not get out over our skis; there is only one Vanilla Rye king, and Goose Island hasn't released it since 2014. It's still flippin' delicious assuming it was properly cellared and not shipped coast to coast four times last summer.) The vanilla is plentiful without verging into Mallo Cup territory and the rye gives it a touch of spiciness.

The one on the right...AWAGOO! I've only had a few BA beers from Bottle Logic, and I've had the good fortune to enjoy the 2016 release of Fundamental Observation BA Vanilla Stout twice. It's truly world class, the oak complementing the vanilla beans and a nice, thick body that gives a tremendous mouthfeel. (God I hate that term. But sometimes it's the best word available, so I use it.)

I was very happy to share these with a really good friend recently and while I'm happy to have two more bottles of the Dosvidanyas to enjoy in coming months, I'm stuck on trying to figure out what I can trade for more of that 2016 Fundamental Observation. I love the memories, but I'm always open to re-experiencing a rare and wonderful thing.

Hmmmmm

This is interesting-ish.

Chicago should be more highly rated, of course. ;)

Easy button!

When news broke that Mikerphone and More Brewing were collaborating on an imperial rye stout with vanilla and lactose, there was much excitement in the Chicago beer community. But when the January 21 cash-only $25 per bottle limit two release of Vanillanoize at Mikerphone was announced two days ahead of time, the response was more mixed. Complaints centered on the price per bottle, the short notice, the prohibition against bottle sharing in line and the fact that the release was being held on TEH LORDS DAY!

I'm not a big fan of lines, in part because I recently arrived five hours early for a release and was still 300th in line. On that particular day I was able to "double dip" by lining up again, which meant that had I been willing to settle for a single bottle I literally could've gotten there 20 minutes after the sale began and gotten a bottle while saving almost five and a half hours of my time. But I digress, sort of.

On the day of the Mikerphone-More release I was up early and monitored the situation on Facebook and Beer Advocate. (Chicago beer peeps love to talk about line length. It's just a thing 'round here. Also, every hour spent in line for a limited release entitles you to ask for more $$$ in secondary trade or cash value.) I'd decided the night before that based on the experience at the release described above I was going to spend as little time in line as possible. I opted to have my wife drive me there and drop me off, and I'd go through the line while she was off at a Starbuck's enjoying a coffee inside (the way winter was meant to be lived).

So we drove off in time for me to get into line at 10:58am, and moments later I was given ticket number 270, guaranteeing me one of the 500-something allotments. I chatted with a familiar and a few new buds during the grueling 22 minutes it took to get to the point of sale, and all was well. The Mikerphone taproom line was very long and food was needed so by 11:45 we were at More Brewing enjoying one of Shaun's stellar NEIPAs and a nice lunch. By 1 or so I was home and giggling at the many silly trade offers and sale attempts online, because god forbid one drink a beer, right?

Anyway, this was one man's experience on one day. But it's also how I plan to attend the majority of limited brewery-only releases moving forward. Cheers!

Beer: A love story in brief

A decade ago, the thought of consuming a beer all by my lonesome made me sad.

Today, it's something I do more nights than not.

Though my dogs are usually with me, and my wife is usually home. So I'm not truly alone.

And so long as I have a beer, I don't feel so lonesome.

In fact, beer is super social. And in an age when our social lives no longer necessarily involve the physical presence of other people, it's uncool but social to crack a brew or two all by myself down in my dank, dirty basement! (Actually, my basement isn't all that dank or dirty. The carpeting is ruined from the occasional sump pump issue and beer or whiskey spill, however. Someday I'll rip it up and do tile.)

Beer is much more social than bourbon, which was my first alcohol love/fascination. Around 2009 I became very intrigued by bourbon following a visit to Kentucky. I also found that the bourbon community mostly consisted of other middle-aged white dudes, which is a bit meh to me. I was, however, happy to find Pappy on the shelf at cost at a local store. (I sorta miss those days!) Also, bourbon straight is delicious but not all that refreshing, and as a new transplant to the suburbs I needed something to cool me down after mowing the lawn.

So, beer. Here she came, into me like a train, around 2010-2011. An endlessly fascinating variety was out there just as the craft beer boom began to burgeon. And in just over five years I've tried more than 4,000 different beers, ranging from single two-ounce pours at beer fests to 220 bottles and draft pours of Zombie Dust.

Between the crazy number of breweries we have and the incredible distribution to our market, Chicago is a great place to beer. And in the coming days, weeks, months and years I plan to bore the intertubes half to death with tales of beer consumed and then some. So join me in my beerventures right here on this new beer blog!