ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Head about 45 minutes west of Chicago, and you'll find a cluster of fresh craft beer options that are certainly destination-worthy. Ryan took a weekend to check out breweries in St. Charles and Geneva, and he brought back five different beers that'll have you planning a day trip. The background on these breweries is as fascinating as the beers are varied, and our rankings are about as different as...

In our triumphant return to our state series, we venture into the beers from the great state of Connecticut for our 25th installment. And we do so in a big way - with six beers of (mostly) very different styles that span all corners of the state. Thanks to Spenser for the help with the show - and for the small wooden...opening. We also talk about 10,000 hours of altbiers, the new maltwave, more pl...

From their first batch of beer released in 2015, Around the Bend has been committed to an unconventional take on traditional styles. The brewery's trajectory has also been anything but conventional, and we have founder Dan Schedler on to talk about the brewery's history and future. Dan also shares what led to his midlife career change, how they pivoted from a sudden facility closure, and why their...

Despite the allure of warmer temperatures, we're not quite ready to be done with stout season. So we grab the next-closest seasonally appropriate alternative: baltic porters! In our latest episode in our Prestige Styles Series, these five beers challenge what we know about both porters and lagers, but they are no challenge to drink. We share some fractured history about the style, try to determine...

Finally ready to recover from Barrel-Aged December™, we assembled a star-studded sequel to last year's episode, bringing on five barrel-aged beers presented without additional adjuncts. The plethora of bourbon barrels and base beers make for some flavorful variations, and they leave us practically - and almost literally - floored. Also, we adjust to our new ISOs, discuss why Rev's collaboration ch...

It's always been exciting to drink Russian River - every bottle opened feels like an event, and it has felt that way for us for well over a decade. On this show we celebrate the brewery that changed the way we both drink beer. Though this episode seems to be about Pliny the Younger (and a lot of it is), the whole lineup is a marvelous progression. Also, we aim to bring back sticker books, open up...

Either through public demand or divine intervention, the Black IPA has made an unexpected comeback in 2021, and We. Are. Here. For. It. We snagged the first five Black IPAs we could to tap into the cultural zeitgeist, and Craig learns to stop worrying and love the style. We discuss why the style lost favor with the beer buying public, and speculate on where they may be going. Also, we consider whi...

Tonight, we have the story of five breweries local to Chicagoland who opened amidst a global crisis, and the five beers that lifted the spirits of two weary beer reviewers. It's ABV Chicago with your Local News - new breweries and new beers with your old friends, Ryan and Craig. First, we open with a few surprising new buttons, then to one person's battle cry for ska; and later, a lactose-free lab...

The bitterly cold winter months call for rich and bready lagers, and the bock beer is ready to swaddle you in warming flavors. For this show, we try five very different bock beers that speak to the diversity of the style and contribute to the sudden inebriation of the hosts. We uncover the history of bocks while acknowledging the vast differences between substyles, but we can't resist driving the...

We've long sought out the strange and elusive beers of Connecticut's Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores - or OEC Brewing, informally - so we have a ritualistic orientation with six beers from their little secret society. There's a lot to love from this diverse lineup - not the least of which is that one of them comes in a freaking blue bottle. Also, we explore our legal options in a trademark dispute, let...

We send off this season's Deep Wood series by opening up some of their finest 'wines. Big on barrel variation, this lineup of barleywines and ryewines features a few of the best things Revolution has ever done with these styles - and our rankings diverge quite a bit. We speculate on the next Deep Wood lineup, fail at recreating Honey Nut Cheerios, zoom in on physical pictures, praise the "Rock N'...

This year is our seventh as a podcast, and because we couldn't throw a party like we usually do, we're bringing the drunken fun inside your head holes. It's certainly a nostalgia fest at times here as we relive our epic anniversary parties at Beermiscuous, but we made this one more interesting by dropping off some blind local beers to our remote recording spaces. We have six entries, with each hos...

Though it may not be considered all that popular, the brown ale is resilient. Craft brewers have been making them for decades, and even now it's more common to see a hyped-up brewery release a brown as a change-of-pace. To dig deeper into English and American Brown Ales, we drink a mix of five from near and far. Craig also turns this show into his own personal gameshow, putting Ryan to the test on...

Starting a sour-focused brewery comes with a unique set of challenges, especially when you enter the market in the midst of a pandemic. But Odious Cellars founder and head brewer Reeve Joseph forged ahead, lucking upon the facility at Pilot Project to help accelerate his beer-school dreams of producing exquisite sour and mixed culture beers. We talk with Reeve about his circuitous journey into mak...

In a city called Lafayette, somewhat between Denver and Boulder, Zach Nichols runs his farmhouse-focused brewery, Cellar West Artisan Ales. In under five years, the brewery has won two GABF medals, moved to a new location, and expanded their operation, including a side-label focused on trendier styles. Zach was kind enough to send us five of his beers for review, and he joined us on the Zoom to te...

We might as well send off 2020 on an upbeat note and just get wild with the ingredients, so we let it all hang out on this mixed five pack of barrel-aged variant stouts from local breweries. Each of these releases represents a fun little twist on its barrel-aged base, and we're going to need a new word for "adjunct." In addition to our reviews, we attempt to tune the GAS scale, share the history o...

The imperial oatmeal stout at the heart of it all, Deth's Tar may have seemed like a fun little pun back when it first came out of barrels in the early part of the decade, but now it's clearly the centerpiece of the best barrel-aged series in the city. We enlist the help of Revolution's own barrel wizard Marty Scott to join us via Zoom to talk all about this year's lineup of Deths, as well as a wi...

Coffee was once the only adjunct a good stout needed, until recent years has brought the entire pastry case with it. So finding five barrel-aged stouts with just coffee added was a bit of a challenge - but it's a welcome reminder that sometimes all you need is coffee. (And love? Probably love, too.) These five locally-made coffee stouts saw a small variety of different barrels, and the elevated AB...

Barrel-aged December is now officially underway, and we're delighted to crack open four medal-winning Illinois beers from this year's Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers. Appropriately enough, the barrels are the star of the show, as these four very different styles are presented without additional adjuncts - just wood-made magic. Also, we have our friend Aaron Keefner from More Brewing stop by...

If there's ever been a month for careless indulgence, it would be December of 2020, so we're going full-on dessert and pastry beer for this episode. These five entries have us nostalgic for vacation ice cream shoppes, cozy breakfast diners, and gourmet popcorn stores - despite some initial fears. Also, we are stocking our rage rooms, admiring the Sacred Leavings, sniffin' stuff at Whole Foods (aga...

Once more of a niche taproom-only style, the Triple IPA has become a more common sight on the shelves thanks to craft beer customers who never say no to more. Hazy or not, these five beers are aiming for the target between too sweet or too strong, and a few veer a bit off course. But they're still fun to drink, and we find ourselves in mid-show form pretty early on. Also, we are looking to improve...

We're on flavor sabbatical for a week, so we're looking around for minor trends to cover that we haven't properly explored. As a twist on the traditional German lager, Mexican-Style lagers usually use maize or corn as part of the grain bill, but we find that no two American-made takes on this style are the same. (Thankfully!) There's also an ongoing game involving America's most prominent mutation...

For a few years running, Cruz Blanca's Luchador series has been perhaps the most inspired and creative lineup of the holy trinity of Chicago barrel-aged beer special releases. We get a mouthful on this episode, as we drink through all eight of these big and burly beers aged in a seemingly endless number of different barrels. And it's only half stouts; find out what kind of magic Cruz gets up to wi...

In preparation for a Black Friday like never before, we got a chance to sample through this year's full lineup of Goose Island's Bourbon County to help you decide exactly how many online lotteries to enter. Though there are no headline-grabbers like Double Barrel or Rare this year, the seven beer lineup is impressively consistent, even though our individual rankings are very divergent. Get the sto...

As if this year hasn't been cruel enough, we once again try and assemble a tapestry of nightmares out of old and bad beers. Each host brings the three worst beers they could find to this modified remote version of our yearly late October tradition, and the results are not at all what we would've expected. Also, Ryan is trying to make his kids not scared of ska, someone peed in Craig's soda, and we...