ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

The folks from Angry Chair are not shy to admit that non-locals are likely most familiar with their heavily-hyped stouts. We try and do right by this Tampa brewery by sampling a few other styles from Craig's recent visit - but of course we didn't forget about the stouts. We propose a more weather-appropriate spinoff brewery, Craig recaps meeting a famous dog at the taproom, and we are a little awe...

When Craig vacations, we all win. This show is the result of Craig's recent trip to Florida for a week of Harry Pottering and beer hopping on the Bay as we drink five different beers from five breweries local to the Tampa & St. Petersburg areas. There are many questions addressed on this show: Why do Floridians love such big, boozy beers? Can you use a coolship in Florida? Which taproom is a front...

For more than three years, we've been releasing weekly one-shot episodes - Low ABVs - exclusively for our Patreon Patrons. In addition to interesting beers reviewed, these short shows are home to some of our goofiest asides, weirdest games, and hysterical disasters. This week we've compiled four of our very favorites from the last year with beers that span the country while representing the divers...

It's that magical time of year again where the warm weather and budding flowers necessitate the enjoyment of saisons - and it's also when we have our annual Saisonathon event during Illinois Craft Beer Week on Tuesday, May 14th at Forbidden Root! Outside of a few other shameless plugs for the event, this show is one we've always wanted to do. We take seven saisons, mostly representing more "classi...

Mike Pallen and his crew at Mikerphone are some of the most prolific collaborators in the business, and each year they expand their Cool Beer Friends Club by throwing an invitational they call Smells Like A Beer Fest. So to ready ourselves for this year's shindig on April 27th, we drink five collaboration beers between Mikerphone and five other excellent breweries. Craig also gives us his White So...

It's a high concept week in the bunker as we gamify our cellars by letting a roll of the dice determine the show's lineup. Both Craig and Ryan dug deep into their closets to offer up a range of twelve interesting offerings that go from forgotten oddity to valuable rarity. Each host rolls a six-sided die three times to determine the six beers for the show, and the tension is more than could've ever...

Though the name suggests a more rustic approach, Forager Brewery out of Rochester, Minnesota is finding an audience with their adjunct-laden stouts and mixed-culture sours. We get our hands on four dark beers and one barrel-aged sour to learn more about this brewery that wowed us at GABF in 2017. Succumbing to the fudge giggles, we also find ourselves considering cereal smells, questioning our bro...

A sequel almost five years in the making, this episode reunites us with the beers of Sante Adairius Rustic Ales thanks to listener Mike Rousseau. Recognized by RateBeer as the 10th best brewery in the world, SARA may have built its legacy on oak-aged saisons, but here we get to sample some of their recent forays into IPA. Craig seeks out some dog walking advice, Ryan shares the smartest snack, we...

An ancient prophecy foretold of a legacy brewery that would make a baffling number of IPAs to be available all at the same time, and that those IPAs would remind two lowly podcasters about why they fell in love with beer in the first place. Yeah, the Sierra Nevada love is strong on this one, especially from Ryan, whose CostCo shopping made this show possible. But we do find a lot of interesting va...

To help push us through the last bits of this awful Chicago winter, we drink beers from paradise to tackle our 19th state show. This episode features five beers from five Hawaiian breweries, and they taste pretty great even without the tropical background. We also introduce our extremely on-brand Sweet 16 bracket challenge, give you Something Else to Complain About Ⓡ, and explain how Craig's mom i...

Like a lucky slot machine pull, we have a winning lineup of cherries on this show as we try five different styles of beer from five breweries, all featuring cherry. We learn quite a bit about these versatile drupes while we rank this group that has a few transcendent flavor experiences. This one is also ripe with diversions that include Zen gardens, Dairy Queen flagships, screaming lemons, the wor...

With a secondary price tag higher than our mortgage payments, this show is an embarrassment of riches in flavor and in rarity. But will we be embarrassed by our blind rankings of eight barrel-aged vanilla stouts released in 2018? You bet your sweet tooth we will. We are joined by Ryan Tracy at his Park Ridge establishment, Beer on the Wall, as we fumble through our guesses and evaluate these high...

Whether you see it as beer's #version of Record Store Day or as a viral marketing ploy to drive sales for struggling brands, we here at ABV Chicago embrace these classics with open arms. And our arms are very open on this episode as we sample 12 of the most important beers in American craft beer, all of which either launched or propelled legacy brands. No one in the world really needs our take on...

Deep in the heart of Wisconsin, there exists a not-so-secret society of like-minded artisans - specializing in beer, liquor, and wine - that have formed a collective to bring more tourists to the area. And for some reason, they thought that giving us a bunch of booze would be a good idea to promote their brand. Well luckily the liquids are all tasty-to-impressive, and we have a hell of a time lini...

Since our first encounter with James and Sarah Howat's Black Project back at GABF in 2015, we've wanted to dedicate a show to their spontaneously-fermented wild ales. So we're understandably jazzed about this whole deal, and the lineup of five beers on this show go beyond our expectations. In addition, Craig does the following things: quizzes Ryan on government conspiracies; solves the mysteries o...

Now that bottles of Afterthought beers are starting to leave Lombard to reach more drinkers in the Chicagoland area, we celebrate by popping five elegant saisons from Mike Thorpe's small-yet-acclaimed brewery. Using mostly Midwestern ingredients, Afterthought's saisons are about as diverse as they come, while being mistakable for some of the bigger-name farmhouse-made beers from around the country...

After the first five Deep Wood releases, Revolution Brewing could've taken the rest of the season off and enjoyed a victory lap. Instead, they drop five more barrel-aged beers that might be collectively better than the first half. We taste through this colorful - and strong - array of styles with an early appearance from joyful inebriation. We work through the tingles by proving our age through te...

In almost three years, Cruz Blanca has quietly become one of the city's best breweries, churning out everything from lagers that pair perfectly with a smokey tlayuda to wild ales that will captivate even the nerdiest bottle share. Now with 6-pack cans of three crowd-pleasing beers out in the market, Cruz is poised to build a bigger fanbase than ever. We sat down with brewers Jacob Sembrano and Tod...

Opinion on Brut IPAs seems to be passionately divided between love and hate. But many brewers are banking on it gaining traction with the hopes that their version of this wildly inconsistent style will come to define the Brut as we know it. On this episode, we attempt to find out exactly what makes a Brut IPA and carve out our own subjective idea of what makes the good ones stand out. Through a bl...

We're truly in Beer Country now as our States Series takes us to the home of the most breweries in the nation: California! We have six beers on from six breweries, split evenly between the halves of the state, and we are shook by the unfaltering quality. Craig makes an impossible sacrifice for 2019, Ryan educates you on the brewing facts you won't find in textbooks, and we both enter rankings less...

When you are gifted a mix of beers from Hill Farmstead and The Alchemist, you stop everything and drink them. Thanks to listener/Patreon supporter/forever friend Josh Sissman we have five canned beers from both nü-classic Vermont breweries, and we review them with a tactical precision unseen for nigh on 50 episodes. But we still find time to announce our most exciting brush with fame, the last pla...

When Neil Fisher crushes your porch with a big box of WeldWerks beer for sampling, you don't hesitate to revel in the flavorful delights contained within. Recorded in October, this 2nd edition (in ten episodes) of us marvelling at the expertly-crafted hype-machine beers from the Colorado brewery includes likely the best beer either of us have had all year. But there's also some important contribut...

Adults have proven time and again that all childhood nostalgia is better with booze, so beer advent calendars became a thing. Bitter Pops makes one of the best surprise 24-packs of beers, and they've outdone themselves this year. So we're outdoing ourselves by reviewing and ranking the first 12 beers of the calendar. Yes, there is some light caroling (Craiging?) and some overall Xmas music appreci...

Have a fellow beer lover in your life that you want to spoil during the holidays? Or are you heading to some ugly sweater, ornament-decorating, cookie-binging holiday party and need a beer to bring that'll help you make it through? We enlist the help of Ryan Tracy from Beer on the Wall to suggest some beers that make good gifts for all different types of drinkers. In addition, because we're on sit...

Revolution has taken some serious steps towards becoming THE barrel-aged beer producer in the city of Chicago by churning out varied, high-quality product in an accessible format over a fairly casual release schedule. Simply put, they are killing it. So we couldn't be more eager to line up the first five releases of 2018's Deep Wood series to review and rank, giddy with knowing that there will sti...