Why Patio Season in the Midwest Means More

Oh, summer. As a native Minnesotan and current Chicagoan, I have a mixed relationship with the best season of the year. I’m used to rationalizing the cold, the rain, the snow, more cold…and even hail, endured during roughly nine months of the year, knowing that the sweet embrace of 70 degrees and sunny skies is right around the corner. Unfortunately, summer in the Midwest can be as fleeting as the last drip of Lager in your glass, which is why Midwesterners go so crazy for the nice days:  because there are so few of them. One of my favorite summer activities is patio drinking. It’s a staple pastime that tans the skin and bloats the belly as you sit outside sopping up suds and some much-needed Vitamin D. Much like its inhabitants, the breweries of the Midwest also rejoice when the first summer forecast comes into the picture. Patio season can even start before Memorial Day – I’ve seen Chicago breweries unveil their patio chairs on an unseasonably sunny day in March. And guess what? That patio was filled. We asked several Midwestern brewers why patio season is so special for their brewery and for their patrons.

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Fast Facts on Revolution Brewing’s First Ever Sour: Freedom of Speach

Chances are, the last Revolution Brewing beer you had was probably from their Hero IPA line – or even a Rosa or Pils knowing both are a staple of summer. That might not be the case for much longer. Revolution is diving head first into the sour beer trend with the release of their first-ever sour, Freedom of Speach. The session peach sour gets its tartness via kettle souring and comes in at a sessionable 4.5% ABV, meaning that it will add some variety to any cooler you’re packing this season.

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Hopewell Brewing and Metric Coffee Release Cold Brew Session Coffee Ale

The collaboration beer, Hopewell Brewing x Metric Coffee Cold Brew Session Coffee Ale, marry two increasingly popular American brewing trends — craft beer and independent roasters (coffee).

Most of the PorchDrinking.com audience is well aware of craft beer’s growth in recent years. However, one may not be aware that 59% of coffee consumed daily is classified as “gourmet,” according to the 2017 NCA report on National Coffee Drinking Trends. That was the first time in the report’s 67-year history that the number exceeded 50%.

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Deep Ellum Brewing Sold to Oskar Blues’ Canarchy Collective

DALLAS, TX – Deep Ellum Brewing Company has confirmed that the brewery is joining Oskar Blues Brewing Company under the Fireman Capital-backed Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective.

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Lakewood’s Caution Brewing Announces Closure at the End of June

While we’re only six months into the year, 2018 has been a rough one for Colorado’s craft beer landscape. According to research from Stephen Adams, Colorado Beer Geek, this year, the state of Colorado has seen nine closures including Crazy Mountain Brewing’s Edwards location, Powder Keg Brewing, Dodgeton Creek Brewing (temporary), Vindication Brewing, Beryl’s Beer Co., Great Storm Brewing, Revolution Brewing (which plans to re-open under a new owner and name), FanDraught Sports Brewery and Nighthawk Brewery, and sadly we’re now hearing of a 10th.

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Eurotrip | DC Brau Goes to Sweden

DC Brau is the latest stateside brewery to capitalize on the exploding Swedish beer market. The Washington D.C.-based beloved brewery announced it will be distributing in Systembolaget stores throughout Sweden this fall.
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Westbound & Down Brewing Plans Growth Around Experimental Program

Like many Coloradans who have traversed the winding I70 highway toward Summit County, you’ve probably at some point noticed the word BREWERY painted in big bold letters along the side of a building in the thoroughfare town of Idaho Springs. For those who keep up with the ever-evolving Colorado craft beer landscape, this mountain town spot has become a familiar requisite stop for those who appreciate well-crafted traditional styles paired with great eats. But what most don’t realize is that Westbound & Down Brewing has been quietly preparing to join Colorado’s storied lineup of esteemed sour producers.
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First Look: Odell Brewing Opens Small Batch Brewery & Taproom in Denver RiNo

Denver’s River North Art District is beginning to look completely different than it did even six months ago. Just along the once rough and tumble, sleepy main drag of Larimer Street alone, the transformation is none more apparent than the recent additions of American Bonded, the next chapter in Sean Kenyon’s (founder of Williams and Graham) burgeoning cocktail bar catalog, and Call, a trendy coffee shop, sandwich concept, along with it’s upcoming neighboring sister bar Beckon. The landscape has also been forever changed by the recent influx of satellite locations from several already well-established national brands. This recent flood of familiar faces includes one of the country’s hottest bar concepts in Death and Co, inside of The Ramble Hotel, the fast food behemoth that is Shake Shack, and chain wine bar concept Barcelona. And beginning Monday, Odell Brewing will extend their reach outside of their Fort Collins roots to Denver’s hottest neighborhood, when they open their second outpost in the heart of Denver’s River North Art District.

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Assessing the Comic Book Success of Revolution Brewing’s League of Heroes Variety Pack

Revolution Brewing knows how to make damn good beer, and they know how to market it. With an overwhelming amount of quality craft options in the Chicago market, Revolution has been able to defend their sales turf by standing out through their unique marketing efforts – look no further than their League of Heroes variety pack.

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Lagunitas is Making Moves Both in Azusa and Abroad

In most areas of business, expansion is almost always a good thing. But that notion has not always been the case in the craft beer industry. Look no further than … Read More

Forbidden Root’s ‘Assembly Required’ Line Brings Sour Haze to the Midwest

Scroll through your Instagram these days and you’re sure to find a wide selection of hazy beers in tulip glasses, strategically positioned to capture the faintest glimmer of sunlight on the glass. For many, the fanfare around the NE-style IPA is as much about the visuals as it is about the beer’s inherently juicy sweetness. Humans are visual eaters after all, so creating a beer that delights both your eyeballs and tastebuds makes sense. When I scrolled through my feed a few months back, my finger stopped on a post from Chicago-based Forbidden Root. The West-side brewery has made a name for itself with their botanical brews and hazy concoctions, but this newest endeavor, dubbed Assembly Required, was daring even for them. It was a sour NE-style IPA, more opaque than hazy, with a bright rosy red hue that departed from the typical orange juice color of a traditional haze bomb. Their new Assembly Required line is a bold evolution to the must-make trend of the present. After tasting the next batch, I’m confident in saying that the sour haze trend is alive and well in Chicago Read More

Ballast Point Set to Open New Chicago Brewery

The West Coast meets the Midwest on Tuesday when Ballast Point Brewing Company opens its Chicago brewery in the West Loop neighborhood. The long-awaited opening adds another well-known beer name to the city’s beer scene.

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La Folie Returns to Cork & Cage for 20th Anniversary of New Belgium’s Wood-Aged Sour Program

How does one properly pay homage to the predecessor that launched an entire movement? By returning to the basics. La Folie, New Belgium Brewing’s Sour Brown blend, was the country’s first commercially produced sour developed by Peter Bouckaert in 1999, and still features the oldest continuous souring culture in America. It has since gone on to earn multiple awards at the Great American Beer Festival and more importantly, inspired thousands of American brewers and beer drinkers to embrace barrel-aged mixed culture sour beers.

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Event Preview | 2018 Illinois Craft Beer Week

While it seems that Illinois is celebrating craft beer every week of the year, there’s one week in May that is set aside to specifically recognize the role that the Prairie State is playing in the greater world of craft brewing.

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New Belgium’s Most Widely Distributed Beer Ever is Their New Bicycle Kick Kölsch

New Belgium Brewing has had success in a bunch of different beer styles, most notably with their popular Voodoo Ranger IPA line and the fan favorite Fat Tire. But they’ve never distributed either of those beers as widely as their newest offering. Enter Bicycle Kick Kölsch, their new, refreshing brew primed to be the premiere beer of this June’s World Cup. To give it added appeal for “The World’s Game,” New Belgium decided to partner with five breweries on five different continents, creating a truly unique collaborative beer that boasts the finishing touches from five distinct breweries. The kicker, pun intended, is that each brewery that brews Bicycle Kick will also distribute the limited time beer across their distribution footprint. That’s five continents, making it New Belgium’s most widely distributed beer ever. We asked New Belgium spokesperson Jesse Claeys about how the Fort Collins brewery brewed a beer with worldwide appeal.

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Biggest Takeaways at the 2018 Craft Brewers Conference

Every seat was full on Friday morning’s Denver-bound Frontier flight out of Nashville—most passengers consisting of glassy-eyed or dozing beer industry professionals (likely on the 3rd or 4th day of wearing their embroidered brewery work shirts). This year’s Craft Brewers Conference, spanned the better part of last week from Monday through Thursday evening’s World Beer Cup awards ceremony. For many, this meant five full nights of beer-soaked, deep fried, Nashville-themed debauchery reuniting industry friends from all over the world.

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What to Expect from Surly Brewing’s New Small Batch Series

Surly Brewing started in a small retail park in Brooklyn Center, MN. After experiencing sustained growth in sales, the brewery expanded to its massive Prospect Park location that now houses a beer hall and shoulders the brunt of its growing, multi-state distribution responsibilities. And while they do offer some unique one-off beers served exclusively at the beer hall, the older Brooklyn Center location gives them even more space to experiment. The culmination of this brewing flexibility is its new BC Small Batch series.

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Chicago’s West Side Has a New Brewing District

With more than 200 breweries within its city limits, Chicago’s brewery scene can be a bit overwhelming for newcomers or tourists visiting the city for a weekend. Thankfully, many breweries have started to take the guess work out of where to visit by joining together to create uniquely branded brewing “neighborhoods” that offer beer drinkers a structured map of several breweries in close proximity to each other. It’s more a branding play than anything, but it does help each brewery in the allotted “district” brand themselves as being part of the collective – adding extra appeal to those who want to make a day out of walking to several spots in one day. The breweries in the Ravenswood neighborhood were the first to pioneer the idea in Chicago, as the adeptly branded “Malt Row” offers drinkers a robust list of unique breweries and beer styles from the likes Dovetail, Begyle and Band of Bohemia, all located within a near mile radius. Now, Chicago’s quickly growing West Side is getting into the picture with the newly created “Chicago Brewing District,” which includes beer giant Goose Island, GABF-winner On Tour Brewing, large contact brewer Great Central Brewing Company, All Rise Brewing and Finch Beer.

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After 25 Years, Avery Brewing Makes Major Changes to Brand Artwork

At the dawn of Avery Brewing Company’s 25th anniversary, the Boulder-based old guard brewery, which last year sold a minority stake to family-owned Mahou San Miguel, is ready to introduce another major shift. After maintaining a fairly consistent brand identity for the duration of the company’s existence, Avery has decided it was time to refresh the brand’s artwork and design across its packaged lineup.

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Flix Brewhouse | America’s Cinema Brewery is Expanding

Flix Brewhouse opened in Round Rock, Texas in 2011 with the unique concept of combining a state-of-the-art movie theater with a microbrewery. Today they operate four locations around the country with plans to more than double that over the next year. I caught up with Greg Johnson, Director of Sales and Marketing for Flix, to learn more about this ambitious expansion. Read More