Midwest
Rhinegeist Brewery | Calfé
January 16, 2020 | Brian Haitz
This Calfé Milk Stout will lift your spirits and warm your bones. Brought to you by Rhinegeist Brewery, this brew is everything a milk stout should be: dark, roasty and creamy.
Great Lakes Brewing Company Announces 2020 Release Lineup
January 9, 2020 | Karen Mills
Great Lakes Brewing Company (GLBC) recently announced their lineup for 2020. Some of the highlights from their announcement includes canning Dortmunder Gold Lager, Great Lakes IPA, and Mexican Lager with Lime, as well as two new Legendary Series offerings and a Limited Release bottle series.
HOMES | Raspberry & Lime Sherbet
January 9, 2020 | Jack Raymond
From what I can gather, HOMES doesn’t give a rat’s ass about pleasing the masses. Visit their ultra-mod taproom in Ann Arbor—golden-age hip-hop bumping, precious little bao for the eating—and you’ll notice a distinct lack of styles to try. No ambers, no browns, no stouts, no wheats. Their draft list features almost exclusively fruited sours, such as their Sherbet Series, hazy IPAs and maybe a stray sour IPA for good measure.
Grand Armory Brewing | Wheezin’ The Juice IPA
January 8, 2020 | Aimee Jackson
In the midst of the busyness and stress that comes with being an adult, the moments when you can let loose and feel like a kid again are truly precious. I enjoyed one of those experiences with my husband a few years ago when we made the spontaneous decision to participate in the “Sleepwalker Run” in Grand Haven, MI at the end of January. The Sleepwalker Run, which takes place this year on Friday, January 24, consists of either a .62 mile sprint or a 2.62 mile run in your pajamas through downtown Grand Haven. It’s a part of the town’s annual Winterfest, which occurs Jan. 23-26, 2020.
A few years ago, my husband and I decided to check out the Winterfest events on a whim. We felt like little kids as we ran through downtown in our long john underwear and roasted s’mores on a giant parking lot bonfire. Afterward, we went to Grand Armory Brewing Company to indulge in some of our favorite food and beer.
Revolution Celebrates Legalized Marijuana in Illinois with Legal Hero
January 7, 2020 | Mike Zoller
Recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2020 and it was a big deal. People lined up early in the morning, waiting for hours in order to be one of the first to legally purchase weed in the state, not unlike a beer release. Several breweries were preparing to release a special beer to mark the landmark occasion; the first one released was Revolution’s Legal Hero.
Lil Beaver Brewery | Citraic
December 30, 2019 | Dave Drury
Lil Beaver Brewery comes from Bloomington, Illinois—a town nearly smack dab in the middle of the state—and has been brewing up tasty treats since 2017.
They are fresh off their great performance at FoBAB, when we listed them as one of the best newcomers, and are finally starting to expand more and more throughout Illinois. The vast majority of their brews are Stouts but they have also made a name for themselves producing some tasty hazy Pale Ales and IPAs. Read More
The 2019 Best of Chicago Craft Brewing
December 27, 2019 | Mathew Powers
As the Chicago-area craft scene inches its way towards 200 breweries, the annual task of summarizing the year’s best beer stories has grown ever so daunting — and exhilarating. To peer through one’s pictures of the beers, events, and interviews and re-discover the year in beer offers a reminder of how enriching the job of a beer writer can be. Indeed, the pick the minds of brewers and industry folks, and drink the fruits of their labor, is satisfying to no end. Mike Zoller, Chicago and Midwest Editor and I, Chicago writer and National Content Editor, decided to provide some of our highlights this year. Without further ado, enjoy our 2019 Best of Chicago Craft Brewing
Fair State Brewing Cooperative & 3 Floyds Brewing | Partying Past Burning Bridges
December 27, 2019 | Max Sundermeyer
Christmas came early for Midwest craft beer enthusiasts this year as Minneapolis’ Fair State Brewing Cooperative and Munster, Indiana’s 3 Floyds Brewing gave us Partying Past Burning Bridges, a collaborative dip-hopped IPA.
David Nilsen’s Best Beer of 2019: Ohio & Midwest
December 23, 2019 | David Nilsen
2019 was a fun year for me in the beer world. I attended the Great American Beer Festival for the first time, published a lot of articles and drank a lot of great beer.
Here are my thoughts on the best beer of 2019, and the many happenings that occurred this past year in the world of craft beer.
Christmas Classics | Triptych Brewing O Christmas Meme
December 23, 2019 | Dan and Lizzie
It’s a well regarded fact that the best beer to make you recall fond memories of Christmases of yore is a terrifically dark, malty ale. Perhaps it’s spiced, like Great Lake Christmas Ale. Maybe it’s minty with deep chocolate notes. Or it could be barrel-aged, resulting in a boozy, syrupy confection that’s meant to inoculate you from the inevitable holiday hangover. But what if, just this one time, you wanted to enjoy a Christmas beer that embodies the current haze craze? Well, we’ve found the beer for you.
Our Favorite Chicago and Midwestern Beers from 2019
December 20, 2019 | Mike Zoller
As another year comes to a close, we’d like to look back at the past 12 months on some of our favorite beers we had that came out of Midwest breweries.
With the number of breweries increasing, it becomes harder and harder to narrow down a list, but we have a handful of Midwest writers who contributed their favorite beers of 2019.
A New Business in Bubbles | Schlafly Beer Unveils New Mead Spritzer
December 12, 2019 | Taylor Laabs
Craft beer’s shift into alternative beverages has been one of the biggest trends of 2019. The most notable addition to many brewing portfolios has been spiked seltzer, which appeals to a new subset of drinkers, expanding the brewery’s revenue stream in the process. Craft breweries rolling out new spiked seltzer lines doesn’t generate the same type of headlines it did earlier this year, but mead spritzer? That’s a different story entirely. With many brewers zigging into seltzer, St. Louis-based Schlafly Beer has decided to zag, unveiling Boomerang Mead Spritzer, a new-age beverage that amplifies Schafly’s desire to differentiate themselves from the brewing competition. To learn more about what inspired Schlafly to delve into mead spritzer, we asked Schlafly Lead Brewer Jared Williamson.
Beer Buyer Profile | Sara Stathes of The Barrel House
December 12, 2019 | David Nilsen
Sara Stathes co-owns The Barrel House in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband, Gus. The Barrel House is a beer bar and bottle shop with 17 beer taps and shelves stocked with amazing bottles and cans, and it’s become something of a second living room for Dayton beer lovers. Sara is the beer buyer for The Barrel House, and folks like Sara who are in charge of buying packaged and draft beer have a unique perspective on what’s popular in the beer world at any given moment. I sat down with her recently to get her insight about craft beer in 2019.
Revolution’s Boss Jacket Stars in the Third Deep Wood Release
December 10, 2019 | Mike Zoller
While the barrel-aged releases are dying down as we get closer to the end of the year, Chicago’s Revolution Brewing still has two more for their Deep Wood series and the third release (of four) happens this Friday at the taproom on Kedzie.
Little Fish Brewing Talks About Consent
December 9, 2019 | David Nilsen 1
Ohio’s Little Fish Brewing has partnered with a non-profit group supporting survivors of sexual assault to promote the importance of consent.
For the last two years, this brewery from the small college town of Athens has worked with Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program (SAOP) to release Consent, a barrel-aged sour ale brewed with tea. The beer was released on draft during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) in April, and was released in bottles for the first time during the last week of November.
Christmas Classics | Great Lakes Christmas Ale
December 9, 2019 | David Nilsen
The annual release of Great Lakes Brewing Co.‘s Christmas Ale is a big deal in Ohio, and that excitement extends all the way up to the man responsible for its creation.
“When I take a sip, it’s like I’m wearing a sweater,” says Pat Conway, co-founder of Great Lakes in Cleveland, Ohio.
His brewery first brewed Christmas Ale in 1992, but Conway is still like a kid on Christmas when asked about this celebrated holiday seasonal. The beer helped define the Christmas beer style for the early craft beer movement.
Hammerheart | Herbstklagen Smoked Märzen
December 4, 2019 | Jereme Zimmerman
Minnesota’s Hammerheart Brewing Company is devoted in every facet of their existence to the holy trinity of Vikings, heavy metal and beer. These are all passions I share, so when I first caught a glimpse of a row of their … Read More
BREAKING | Small Chicago Brewery Acquires Ballast Point Brewing
December 3, 2019 | Tristan Chan 1
Well it seems the billion-dollar Ballast Point experiment with Constellation Brands is over. The maker of Corona and Modelo which first purchased the California-based brewery in November 2015, announced today, that it has sold Ballast Point Brewing, along with several … Read More
Santa’s Cookies Milk & Cookies Stout helps Chicago-area families in need
November 28, 2019 | Mathew Powers
The fourth annual release of Santa’s Cookies Imperial Milk (and Cookie) Stout, a collaborative effort by Hailstorm Brewing and The Open Bottle in Tinley Park (Chicago), arrives November 30. Since its first release in 2016, Santa’s Cookies popularity has grown and expanded to include variants, which is good news because part of the proceeds of the beer goes towards the Tinley Wish Foundation, who help local, needy families.
Chicagoland Best Stout Alternatives to BCBS This Black Friday
November 27, 2019 | Mike Zoller
For years, Black Friday has been a day for craft beer fans to hunt down Goose Island Bourbon County and its variants.
But as more and more breweries pop-up, the options for prolific barrel-aged beers are becoming greater and greater. If you don’t want to stand in line or feed big beer’s coffers by purchasing BCBS in Chicago, you have plenty of other options. Here’s our roundup of barrel-aged beers available in the Chicagoland area that you don’t have to wait in line for.
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