ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Recorded after our return from this year's GABF in October, we add to our State Show Series by sampling five beers from five Denver-area breweries, completely neglecting the rest of this beer-rich state. We recap our visits to four of the breweries and take our riffing to new above sea-level heights by talking about cask ales, dubstep pedicabs, a bathroom clown, terrible houseguests, Weird Sal, an...

Did you strike out on BCBS this year? Is your Black Friday haul picture too pitiful to boastpost to that one Facebook group? Be not dismayed weary barrel-aged beer seekers - we have a whole show of beers that required waiting in no lines to obtain! We found five barrel-aged beers that were both more affordable and available than any Bourbon County variant - and guess what - some of them might be b...

To commemorate our big 200, we ditched all of our high concept ideas to bring it back to the podcast's origins by having a bottle share of random beers that interested us. But we couldn't stop there, as this star-studded episode also features a ridiculous number of brewers and industry folks as we shout trivia questions at them during FoBAB. Some of the beers we drink are stellar, one is downright...

As Metal Monkey Brewing in Romeoville gears up for the largest release in their almost two-year history, they decided that we should spread the word on the four barrel-aged versions of their huge Asmodeus stout. Was it a wise idea? For us, it certainly was as the beers are damn enjoyable and lead us to the worst game we've ever played on this show. There's also a 15-minute chat with brewers Dan Ca...

Each fall, Chicago holds one of the best beer fests in the country, so don't blame us for getting all giddy about it. We talk a lot about what we're excited for at the 15th Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers and review beers from some of the better breweries set to pour. Yes, a lot of the FoBAB talk has a bit of a relevancy expiration date, but there's a lot more general beer and festival disc...

Be cautious beer audio traveler, there's a dense fog advisory covering this episode as we blindly taste through six New England-style hoppy beers. We pit murky IPAs and DIPAs from Illinois against the opaque juice bombs from other states in a blind faceoff-matchup-tasting thing, because we've run out of original ideas. Despite our presumptuous hazy expertise, we are still shocked by a few of the r...

In what will surely become a Hellish yearly tradition, we get gruesome on this show by trying to break each other by pouring the worst beers we could find. It's a contest of depravity as we each selected three beers for the other to experience blind, and the results are horrifying. There's a game aspect to the whole show, wherein punishment points are gathered for a final rankings drinking of The...

For many years now, vanilla has been the adjunct that takes a beer's status from gold to platinum, instantly raising its secondary value to ridiculous levels. Not wanting to waste a drop, we invited a bunch of our friends - who brought a whole lot more beer - to taste 15 (!!) vanilla adjunct beers that are mostly stouts. We are joined by MC Johnsen ( Worth a Thousand Beers ), Matt Johnsen ( Horse...

Our Fourth Annual GABF Recap Spectacular is bursting with content, as we gathered more interviews and drank more beer than ever before! Recorded from our Denver hotel room, this show - featuring MC Johnsen - serves as our recap of the 36th Great American Beer Festival, as we share our overall highlights, favorite beers, and many interviews from the floor. We also drink two area beers - one from Ce...

We broke our self-imposed hop hiatus in spectacular fashion, thanks to listener Mike Rousseau. Five super sexy hoppy cans from the Golden State don't even stand a chance here, as no drop is left undrank. Thus begins a journey of pure inebriation, as we explore Craig's doppelgangers, draw up some sick face tattoos, get largely aromatic, and perseverate on label fonts and kerning. There's a game cal...

There is a ridiculous amount of options for the Chicagoland beer buyer, but that won't stop five more established breweries from carving out some shelf space! We try five beers from these new arrivals to try and determine how they will play to the Chicagoland consumer - and some are going to be hard to overlook. We also try to be a beaming light of beer positivity despite our cynical proclivities,...

The third show in our own Jersey Trilogy (thanks to listener Mike Bobal), we finally get to try more from a brewery that's blown us away at festivals in the past - Kane Brewing. We have three hoppy cans, two potent bottles, and two irreverent trivia games on this episode as we spiral towards a drunken blackout. Craig extols the majesty of bunting, Ryan works on his interview technique, and we both...

We've been smitten with The Mitten for as long as we've loved beer, because Michigan just might be the best beer state in the Midwest. We stick to the western coast of MI as Craig gathered four interviews and five beers for this 11th stop in our ongoing State Show series. You'll hear from John Lustina from Beer Church about how sometimes a good concept needs to be rushed; David Coyle from Arclight...

This episode will, once and for all, determine which state is the greatest on Earth: Wisconsin or Illinois? We find sort-of equivalent beers in pretty specific styles from each state to vie for our arbitrary love. This episode is soft dystopia for soft adults, with mentions of FroBAB, the ReinheitsgeBot, and drunken Cinnabon. One beer leaves us almost completely speechless, and another blurs style...

Taking a much-needed vacation from hops, we let our taste buds travel to five different continents to sample beers from around the world. In addition to an interview with Pete from Garage Project, this episode contains a valuable lesson about getting out of America every once in awhile. How long can we keep up a shaky plane metaphor? What do we have to say about esophageal displeasure, hotshipping...

While many of their friends were starting breweries and gaining notoriety, Brent Banks and Ryan Jacobs were honing their craft as home brewers while juggling jobs in finance and the medical field. At the urging of their comrades, the pair finally decided to go pro and start Saint Errant Brewing. Currently, they contract brew out of the Mikerphone space in Elk Grove Village, and as of mid-August, t...

From the tip of New Jersey's elbow, Carton Brewing makes beers sometimes born of unusual inspiration that combine culinary artistry with just the right amount of whimsy. Listener Mike Bobal sent us six Carton beers for this one, and the flavors are as big as the alcohol content. We talk about Carton's namesake leader Augie and his prolific internet presence while tasting through beers that steeply...

Ignoring the fact that there are plenty of beers out there that relegate hops to a simple supporting ingredient, we again indulge our insatiable appetites for chronic hop-led tonics by tasting out five super fresh local IPAs and DIPAs. Are we getting too old for this sh*t? Not likely! We do have a hell of a time trying to find critical points that separate these all-hazy all-juicy hop cocktails be...

We love hops - and more importantly, our listening audience loves hops too. So to keep pushing those download numbers higher, we take our palates to the limit with six random hoppy beers. We talk about the wacky world of beer pricing, the shelf life of hazy beers, and the best brewery that Chicagoans aren't talking about. If those hot takes aren't enough to get your download fingers twitching with...

It's been a year and some months since Chris Betts made Transient Artisan Ales not-so transient by opening up a brewery and taproom in Bridgman, Michigan. We take the short jaunt around the tip of Lake Michigan to catch up with Chris over some of his world-class beers and talk about some of the big things coming for the brewery. We learn about the brewery's expansion plans, the truth about the she...

Two Illinois brewing traditionalists inspired us to dig deeper into lagers and hefeweizens, so we pitted a bunch against each other in a goofy Crossfire showdown. Riggs Beer Co. out of Urbana and Dovetail Brewery out of Chicago know the German way and have expertly paid homage to tradition at their year-old breweries. But that wasn't enough as we brought in other examples of each style, either Ame...

From the basement of an Italian restaurant just outside of St. Louis, Narrow Gauge has started to gain a name in the Midwest and beyond as purveyors of great hazy IPAs - and other outstanding beers, as we find on this episode. We review four crowlers of beer that Craig schlepped back from a recent trip to Missouri, and the mix of quantity and quality has us hurtling towards shambling inebriation....

Mike Pallen opened the doors on the tasting room for his new Elk Grove Village brewery back in March, and the rarest thing - besides some of his beers - is finding an open seat at the bar. We sat down with Mike at the new location to dive deep into what makes Mikerphone Brewing something like a phenomenon. And you'll find out why opening a tasting room was the best thing Mikerphone has ever done....

Whether it's for a barbecue or a beach, choosing the right refreshing beer for your summer outing is more daunting than ever with so many choices. So, for your benefit, we drink eight Chicago-area beers that are built to pulled from ice and crushed. (For safety purposes, we must advise against you literally crushing beers, unless you own a CraigBot.) We also spend a lot of time with Summer Craig,...

Thanks to listener Mike Bobal, we are able to drop another pin in our map as we tackle the Garden State. We review five beers from five different New Jersey breweries while trying not to offend every single person in that state. Also on the agenda, we try to refresh our tired review language, experience extreme visibility, meet Professor Nosebody, and talk about cat food with cheese in it. There's...