What We’re Drinking | November 15, 2019

Most of us were hit with an Arctic blast this week, dropping temperatures in Texas by 30 degrees within an hour. Although a welcome change from the oppressive heat, things turned wintery quick! Here are a few ideas to keep you warm this week from your PorchDrinking staffers. Read More

Event Recap | Stone DRK Beer Fest

The Stone DRK Beer Fest was set to kick off right at 6 p.m. The grounds of the Stone gardens is beautiful, tranquil and primal. Rocks and boulders are everywhere with the natural landscape coming through between the ponds and small brooks. On the site there are multiple tasting booths, some serving straight from bottles, other serving from keezers and kegerators, and of course one of the bars.

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Chicago’s Luna Bay Booch Co. Looks to Make its Mark in Busy Craft Beer Market

Drink good, feed good? That’s the vision behind Chicago’s first local hard kombucha maker, Luna Bay Booch Co. While Chicago is home to the nation’s most craft breweries per capita, the city’s appetite for lighter alternatives like White Claw and Truly Spiked Seltzer is also clear. So, why not hard kombucha as well? Kombucha continues to increase its popularity in the health and wellness market, especially among younger drinkers, creating a myriad of adjacent business opportunities for courageous thinkers like Luna Bay Booch Co. founders Bridget Connelly and Claire Ridge. The two saw the opportunity to bring hard kombucha, a popular product on the West Coast, to the Midwest by creating a local, Chicago-based brand that targets Chicago drinkers looking for a break from a beer along with those wellness-focused folks looking for a fun, spiked alternative to their favorite antioxidant-laden kombucha beverage. To find out more about the upstart hard kombucha business and what Chicagoans can expect from Luna Bay Booch, PorchDrinking spoke with Bridget. 

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Proper Brewing Co. | Monolith Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout

With Monolith, Salt Lake City’s Proper Brewing Co. begins its much-anticipated barrel program.

Monolith is a barrel-aged version of Proper Brewing’s Grand Sláinte Imperial Stout. It’s a limited-edition brew you’ll want to get your hands on.
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Preview of GABF Gold Begyle BBA Imperial Pajamas | Nov 15 Release

The GABF Gold Medal awarded to Begyle Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Pajamas validated what many already knew: in a town abound in exceptional bourbon-barrel-aged beer, Begyle’s has risen to become one of the best. The 2019 release on Friday, November 15, will be the first for the Community Supported Brewery (CSB) since winning the medal. They graciously hosted PorchDrinking a couple of days early, offering to provide us with a few tastes and plenty of discussion about its barreling program.

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5 Questions with Legacy Breweries on Aspen Brewing & Laurelwood Acquisition

Last month, Legacy Breweries, one of craft beer’s newest upstart brewing conglomerates, followed up their first major acquisition last year, of Eugene-based Ninkasi Brewery, by adding Aspen Brewing and Portland’s Laurelwood Brewing to the fold. The two acquisitions also follow … Read More

Staff Picks | The Festival of Barrel-Aged Beer’s (FoBAB) Best of the Best

Once again the UIC Forum was packed with breweries from all over the country pouring some of their best barrel-aged beers at this weekend’s Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers. In 17th annual showcase of country’s elite barrel-aged beers, Bottle Logic repeated in taking home Best-in-Show honors for Arcane Ritual.

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BareBottle Brewing | Secret City IPA

BareBottle Brewing Company has quickly risen to one of the trendiest breweries in Northern California. Opened by three friends that started as homebrewers, BareBottle pushes the limit with super popular hop combos and beer styles. One very unique aspect of BareBottle is that they give a nod to their homebrew experience by providing a 5-gallon recipe for all of their packaged beers directly on the bottle or can. That way you can take a shot at brewing any of the beers that you enjoy from them. Truly an ingenious idea!

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PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | November 13, 2019

The Denver Beer Beat is a weekly roundup of brewery openings, special tappings, firkins and one-off batches, bottle releases, dinners, pairings, and more happening in the Front Range and beyond. Be sure to check in each Wednesday to discover anything and everything happening around Colorado’s beer scene. Now let’s get to this week’s can’t miss beer events. Read More

Ultimate 6er | Six Beers to Pair with Taco Bell

It started with a question: “Would anyone be interested in finding six beers to pair with Taco Bell favorites?”

My answer: Live Mas!

Now, normally my T-Bell eating is done after a night of beers, not as part of the very professional and high-class pairing you will see below. But, who am I kidding? I’d eat Taco Bell any day, any time.

So we bring you the best six beers to pair with six delicious Taco Bell treats.

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FoBAB Judges Avoiding Heavily Adjuncted Pastry Stouts

While those big pastry stouts that go heavy on the adjuncts might command the hype, long lines, big prices, and high trade value, they’re lacking one thing – FoBAB medals.

A message was sent from the  FoBAB judges once again in 2019: medal-winning beers need to show balance in the ingredients used and they need to feature the barrel. This isn’t a new message though. Looking back at the history of FoBAB medal winners (thank you to the guys at ABV Chicago for compiling the data) pastry stouts have not had a lot of success at FoBAB.

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Revolution’s Gold Medal Beer FoBAB Winner V.S.O.R. Releases Friday

Before Revolution Brewing releases the next two entries in their highly vaunted Deep Wood series, they’ll already be able to boast a FoBAB gold medal for one of those two. Very Special Old Ryeway (V.S.O.R.) and Straight Jacket will be released at the brewery after V.S.O.R. earned top marks in the Other Strong Dark Beer Category at this weekends Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers.

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Firestone Walker Brewing | Coconut Merlin and Molé Merkin Milk Stout

The seasonal transition from summer to fall not only means a shift to shorter days and cooler weather but can also be seen by many of our beloved milk stouts hitting the shelves. This fall, Firestone Walker released two milk stouts created from the base of their seasonal Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout that yielded two very different and phenomenal beers.

Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout was originally created in 2004 under the name Velvet Merkin. The name was rebranded as Velvet Merlin years later when the beer was packaged for distribution. Velvet Merkin resurfaced in 2013 as the barrel-aged version of Velvet Merlin. In 2015, Velvet Merkin was tweaked again with the incorporation of milk stout.

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Forager Brewing Company Launches Humble Forager

Last month, Forager Brewing Company‘s head brewer, Austin Jevne, took to social media to announce the brewery’s latest adventure: a new brand and distribution brewery, Humble Forager Brewery.

Contract brewing out of Octopi Brewing in Waunakee, WI, Humble Forager will use some of FBC’s favorite recipes to create a series of rotating pastry stouts, hazy DIPAs and fruited sour ales. The beers will be distributed to bars and liquor stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and select locations in the Southeast in early 2020.

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Yakima Chief Hops Announces the 2020 Pink Boots Blend

Starting in 2017, Yakima Chief Hops (YCH) and members of the Pink Boots Society (PBS) meet up at the Great American Beer Festival for a unique event, aptly named the Annual Hop Rub. YCH brings the best of their hop harvest, carefully laid out on tables for attendees to smell, touch and taste, with the goal of selecting the annual Pink Boots Society hop blend. Read More

Jester King + Other Half | Urban Mutation

Collaboration beer often presents a mixed bag: Excitement races through your beard when you hear that two of your favorite breweries have Voltron-ed, but then the results follow a predictable pattern. Either you get a middling compromise between the two parties, resulting in a solid and forgettable “eh,” or one brewery’s profile dominates the other and the beer is like a Paul Simon album after Garfunkel left town in which the expected quality makes you forget that there’s supposed another element in this equation.

A friend recently Santa Claused me a suitcase full of Jester King and I’ve been doing my best to explore these recent offerings at a responsible pace. Jester King beers always have that incredible lightness and drinkability. A 750ml is never quite enough and a 375ml is just plain disrespectful. Moderne Dansk, included in this bounty, was one of the best beers I’ve had in quite some time. Schopenhauer himself would have impressed at the dour mood that enveloped me, realizing life would be a long struggle with little possibility of another drop. But one that caught my eye in this 20 bottle porch bomb was the collaboration beer with Other Half: Urban Mutation.

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