ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 95 - The Other Illinois Nov 18, 2015

Show notes

On Craig’s day off, he went due south to central and southern Illinois to check out their burgeoning beer scene. He brought back five beers for us to review, and we’re all over them like Abe Lincoln on a steamin’ stack of corn cakes. Amidst the beer talk, we touch on such provincial topics as adhesive, hand growlering, the Kennedys, spray shields, penguin movies, Charleston Chews, service ducks, and Paul Walker. And stay tuned to the end when we pay tribute to the late Jonathan Taylor Thomas. We’re never getting out of this one-stoplight town.

Ryan

Brickstone Brewery APA
Rolling Meadows Brewery Lincoln Lager
JT Walker’s Barrel Series #2
Triptych Brewing You Don’t Win Friends with Sours #004
Big Muddy Brewing Vanilla Stout

Craig

JT Walker’s Barrel Series #2
Brickstone Brewery APA
Triptych Brewing You Don’t Win Friends with Sours #004
Rolling Meadows Brewery Lincoln Lager
Big Muddy Brewing Vanilla Stout

Episode 94 - West Coast Shelf Takeover Nov 11, 2015

Show notes

Man, it’s a hot one. We try five West Coast beers that have started popping up on Chicagoland shelves to determine if they’re worth your all-important dollar with our arbitrary reviews. Learn about these new entries to the Chicago market while we pay tribute to a song that defined a generation. Plus, we rant about beer pricing, brewery buyouts, the Better Business Bureau, the Rule 34 of beer, doing the Haka, and using “Mambo #5” for terrorism. We’ll be your Drunken Holiday Uncle. Or else forget about it.

Craig

Cascade Kriek (2013)
Logsdon Seizoen Bretta
Almanac Wakatu Sour
AleSmith Anvil ESB
Alpine Hoppy Birthday Session IPA

Ryan

Logsdon Seizoen Bretta
Cascade Kriek (2013)
Almanac Wakatu Sour
AleSmith Anvil ESB
Alpine Hoppy Birthday Session IPA

Episode 93 - Wicked Weed Nov 04, 2015

Show notes

Listener Keef Debonzo sent us a box of treats from Wicked Weed Brewing, and we sat down on Halloween night to taste ‘em. We’re downright giddy to find out that this Asheville brewery is doing just about everything right. To add to the wickedness of this show, we play our favorite game, Beers Against Humanity, and it elicits talk about Cialis, Nickelback, orgies, Def Leppard, and more. We also talk craft beer Halloween costumes, shelf life on hoppy beers, herbaciousness, and naming your brewery. Check out Keef’s band The Debonzo Brothers on their website and iTunes!

Ryan

Black Angel Cherry Sour
Freak of Nature Double IPA
Pernicious IPA
Oblivion Sour Red (w/blackberries and dates)
Silencio Dark Sour (w/coffee and vanilla bean)

Craig

Black Angel Cherry Sour
Pernicious IPA
Oblivion Sour Red (w/blackberries and dates)
Silencio Dark Sour (w/coffee and vanilla bean)
Freak of Nature Double IPA

Episode 92 - Gueuze Crueuze Oct 28, 2015

Show notes

For this episode, we blend with the Johnsens - MC and Matt - for this special trip on the Gueuze Crueuze™. We taste-tour five Belgian gueuzes and attempt to rank them, which is mixed in with some lambic education, brewery history, Belgium travel stories, and more diversions than usual. Here’s a small sampling of non-beer topics: Nazi ghosts, Eddie Bauer, peanut butter tapeworms, wine bongs, home coolshipping, DMX, pipe-aging, Magic Eye puzzles, Belgian motorcycle gangs, and dangerous roadside Limburger. We also add a few to the Great Band Names List, and Craig continues to smell weird. Check out MC’s excellent visual beer blog Worth A Thousand Beers and buy her kickass art!

Matt & Ryan

Cantillon Gueuze
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze
Oude Gueuze Tilquin à l'Ancienne
Girardin Gueuze 1882 (Black Label)
Boon Oude Geuze

3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze
Cantillon Gueuze
Oude Gueuze Tilquin à l'Ancienne
Girardin Gueuze 1882 (Black Label)
Boon Oude Geuze

Craig

3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze
Oude Gueuze Tilquin à l'Ancienne
Cantillon Gueuze
Girardin Gueuze 1882 (Black Label)
Boon Oude Geuze

Episode 91 - Night of the Hunter Oct 21, 2015

Show notes

18th Street Brewery from Gary, Indiana is just over halfway through their Hunter variant series, and we round up five beers to review for this one. Colin Joliat from Boozist joins us to knock back this vertical of Hunter beers and to help us not end up horizontal. Craig is the game master on this episode with several “hunter”-themed trivia segments. We also discuss the Neo and Ne-Yo conundrum, Rare Day, sun tan lotion, blue licorice, and androgynous vampires. This episode is brought to you by Lions Gate Entertainment's “The Last Witch Hunter” starring Vin Diesel, opening October 23rd.* Hunt forever. Live forever.

Ryan

Hunter Cherry
Hunter Coffee
Hunter Vanilla
Hunter Double Milk Stout
Hunter Coconut

Colin

Hunter Cherry
Hunter Vanilla
Hunter Double Milk Stout
Hunter Coffee
Hunter Coconut

Craig

Hunter Coffee
Hunter Cherry
Hunter Coconut
Hunter Double Milk Stout
Hunter Vanilla

*We’re really not sponsored by this. Please don’t sue us, fine people at Lions Gate Entertainment. Without you, we’d have no Madea.

Episode 90 - Door County Brewing Co. Oct 14, 2015

Show notes

Before the weather all goes to shit, we look to the north for a flavor vacation with beers from Door County Brewing Co. We try almost everything they make while helping you plan your next vay-cay on Wisconsin’s Prehensile TailⓇ (Segway Tours are highly recommended.) We talk about beers with an eco-conscience, the Doors, fish boils, bottle dating, Shebobs N’ Such, and, of course, Kevin Bacon. Thanks to Sarah Rehmer and Danny McMahon for the beers for this episode!

Craig

L’Automne Farmhouse
Silurian Stout w/Vanilla
Pastoral Saison
Biere De Seigle Rye Farmhouse
Little Sister Witbier
Polka King Porter
Big Sister Hibiscus Witbier

Ryan

Biere De Seigle Rye Farmhouse
Silurian Stout w/Vanilla
L’Automne Farmhouse
Pastoral Saison
Polka King Porter
Big Sister Hibiscus Witbier
Little Sister Witbier

Episode 89 - Saisons Across America Oct 07, 2015

Show notes

We load up the wagon for a cross-country tour of saisons, and we go all ‘Murica on you anyways despite drinking delicate Belgian-style beers. On this episode, we review five saisons from five different states all over this great land. You’ll hear some talk of serving temperatures, food pairings, and off flavors as we lazily audition for a freebie Cicerone certification. There’s also some creepy man-crush talk about Cory King and Troy Casey, a digression about the hyper-religious 90’s, some dangerous note-taking, and a few gushing saison problems. We also try hard not to turn it into one giant lemon party. God Bless America.

Craig

Hill Farmstead Anna
Side Project Saison du Blé
Casey Brewing and Blending Saison (Batch 3)
Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Saison Bernice
Jester King/Crooked Stave/Trois Dames Sin Frontera

Ryan

Side Project Saison du Blé
Hill Farmstead Anna
Sante Adairius Rustic Ales Saison Bernice
Casey Brewing and Blending Saison (Batch 3)
Jester King/Crooked Stave/Trois Dames Sin Frontera

Episode 88 - GABF 2015 Sep 30, 2015

Show notes

Once again, we concluded our extended weekend of drinking and chafing in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival by recording an episode chock full of interviews and arbitrary beer reviews. You’ll hear interviews with Jonathan Wakefield (J. Wakefield Brewing, Miami, FL); Sean Lawson (Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Warren, VT); James Howat (Black Project Spontaneous and Wild Ales, Denver, CO); Paul Kreiner (Noon Whistle Brewing, Lombard, IL); Craig Mycoskie (Rahr & Sons Brewing, Fort Worth, TX); Jason zumBrunnen (Ratio Beerworks, Denver, CO); Jay Goodwin (The Rare Barrel, Berkley, CA); and the lunatics from Melvin Brewing (Jackson, WY). We cover many highlights and aspects of the fest, while still allowing time for our usual random digressions. Craig discusses his weekend spent stalking Troy Casey, and Ryan shares his numerical observations about babies, dreadlocks, and sandals. When you get this high, coming down is the hardest part.

Beers Reviewed/Mutual Rankings

Casey Brewing and Blending Cherry Fruit Stand
Crooked Stave Flor D’Lees
AC Golden Hidden Barrel Kriek (Batch #3)

Episode 87 - Oktoberfest Sep 23, 2015

Show notes

Prost! This week, we put nine Oktoberfest/Märzen-style beers into an ultraviolent cage match of arbitrary opinions. Beers from Germany, the U.S., and Chicago all enter, and a lot of them are kind of the same, but it’s the small differences that are amplified. We give a real informal history of the style, ponder what Germany smells like, and talk about the common problem with reviewing beers from Europe. But also, we smell creamy, maintain the cage, talk about goalie fights, and discover why we don’t let Craig do the walk-up. How high have we raised the discourse with this episode? So high.

Rankings

Ryan

New Glarus Staghorn
Metropolitan Afterburner
Surly SurlyFest
Revolution Oktoberfest
Two Brothers Atom Smasher
Great Lakes Oktoberfest
Spaten Oktoberfest ur-Märzen
Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen
Hofbräru Oktoberfestbier

Craig

Metropolitan Afterburner
New Glarus Staghorn
Revolution Oktoberfest
Two Brothers Atom Smasher
Spaten Oktoberfest ur-Märzen
Surly SurlyFest
Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen
Hofbräru Oktoberfestbier
Great Lakes Oktoberfest

Episode 86 - de Garde Brewing Sep 16, 2015

Show notes

The brewers from Oregon’s de Garde Brewing use a coolship to ferment their beers year-round before aging them in oak, and we taste five of the resulting beers. Despite moments of oppressive heartburn, we find that the Oregonian Coast is blowing some sweet pixie farts into these wonderful beers. We try not to be too self-gratifying, but clutch tightly as this episode includes a touch of French speak, a rub of new band names, and a gentle caress of sensual GoGurt. Craig also loses control of his spittle. And Ryan pleases himself with a very satisfying musical theme. Bu.

Ryan

1. Imperial Cherry Marion Bu Berliner Weisse

2. Amarillo Hose Gose

3. Special Rouge American Wild Ale

4. Oude Rruin Flanders Oud Bruin

5. Peach Bu Berlinner Weisse

Craig

1. Imperial Cherry Marion Bu Berliner Weisse

2. Special Rouge American Wild Ale

3. Amarillo Hose Gose

4. Oude Rruin Flanders Oud Bruin

5. Peach Bu Berlinner Weisse