ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

We settle for no less than the best when it comes to choosing beers for our semi-regular hop roundups, and these five locals more than rise to the occasion. With our white gloves on, we're sampling some of the finest hops known to man, and sometimes we're surprised where we find the bitterness (or don't). Also, Craig needs grocery store advice, we touch on a brewery location rumor, Ryan's got some...

Aging beer or spirits in the wood from the Amburana cearensis tree native to South America can add noticeable cinnamon spice and vanilla - and brewers have been more than happy to experiment when they can find (and afford) a barrel. But FDA regulations keep Amburana-aged beers in some sort of weird limbo for competitions, so we tap our good friend and guest expert Neil Fisher from Colorado's WeldW...

For the first time in Barrel-Aged December history, we have a whole show of gin barrel-aged beers - and we'll tell you why that's something of a rarity. With an all-star lineup of breweries, nothing here is a letdown - but there are still plenty of flavor surprises to be had. Also, we're drawing up some jukebox strategies given unforeseen circumstances; we're ready to bring back the horse blanket;...

We're hot on the case of the Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers 2025's best medal recipients (that we have access to), and we'll solve the mystery of whether or not the gold medal winner in this bunch will actually top our rankings. For this year's roundup of decorated beers, we run the Specialty/Experimental category and throw in a bonus beefy adjunct stout for fun. But also, we're wondering...

Taking a break from our usual Barrel-Aged December, we round up five festive beers that'll help make the holidays go down a lot easier. We span styles to appreciate the mostly-local lineup and their different seasonal inspirations while narrowing down our picks for what to bring to that work holiday party or extended family gathering. Also, we're learning language from musicians, we find a beer mo...

Two things are absolutely certain when it comes to Revolution's yearly Deep Wood releases: one is that all the beers are going to be slightly varying levels of excellent, and the second is that we will find any excuse to drink them for the podcast. For this round of releases, a few old favorites return alongside the steadiest barleywine currently released, plus a new variant enters the fold as one...

Just in time for another Black Friday, we sat down with our good friend Ryan Tracy at his Beer on the Wall shop out in Elmhurst to sample through this year's somewhat uninspiring (but very well made) Goose Island Bourbon County Stout lineup. We ponder what's missing this year while also recognizing where the barrels are doing the heavy lifting, the impressive use of nuts (now that we're fully in t...

This episode is a tribute to the great 1840 Brewing out of Milwaukee and a celebration of the beers and memories they made during their years of operation.  If you can help the Vetter family during this period of unimaginable grief, please consider donating to the GoFundMe that has been established in Stephanie's memory: https://gofund.me/b54fb2f25 Beers Tasted Saaziwaka (Table Beer w/ Saaz and Ri...

The latest installment in our journey to discover America's best IPA, we're going coast-to-coast for a pretty special lineup that'll help us further define what makes an IPA both an "all star" and, uh, "very good." We're getting pretty good at this guessing thing, and we might have the first IPA in this series that loses points in the appearance category. Also, we are pushing hard for an all Pure...

At the tail end of summer, we recorded this little gem when we knew we'd need it most to help keep us thinking warm thoughts as the temperature falls faster than the leaves. When our friend Aaron Keefner was in town, he dropped a heavy case of Pittsburgh goodies on us, and we use this episode to sip through an exciting lineup of lagers and hops. Also, Craig has found the perfect exclusive club for...

The barrel storm that is Revolution's Deep Wood series rages on throughout the Fall and Winter months, so we're catching up on the last release of their Deth's Tar stout and its variants - and this year's batch is better than they've ever been. We try to place these in the context of past years' releases and try not to overanalyze the calculated magic that comes out of Rev's barrels. But also, we...

Unnecessarily crammed with junk, this year's spooky six-pack is an adjunct party that no one ever wanted to be invited to, as we're on to our ninth iteration of the infamous Torture Test. We both try to outdo one another by attacking our flavor weaknesses - or just finding straight-up old catastrophes of beers that were probably never good in the first place. The goal is to avoid the Cuvée of Doom...

In our annual leadup to Chicago's best beer fest, we're talking all about the Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers as it is set to return early in November this year. Along with drinking and reviewing four barrel-aged beers from a few FoBAB regulars (and one new to the fest), we look over the new and returning breweries, share our picks for brewers not to miss, rattle off a few general festival...

Denver is the closest to Heaven that we'll ever be, and we don't want to go home right now. Broadcasting amongst the Rocky Mountains (from our very cushy hotel room), we file our annual report on America's largest beer festival and competition: the Great American Beer Festival. We open three Colorado beers over two nights and relive our extended weekend celebrating beer and the people who make it...

One of Illinois' best breweries rarely makes it up to Chicagoland shelves, so when Craig had a chance to go down to Savoy for a visit to Triptych Brewing, he loaded up for our fourth featured show in our history. We have five beers that represent what Triptych does best: from immaculate lagers to hop-driven ales to a roasty delight, this show does not disappoint. But also, we may have stumbled upo...

In our seemingly endless quest to find the best long-made IPA that America has to offer, we are a little all over the map on this one with a mix of Wisconsin and Western U.S. offerings to run through the blind scoresheet wringer. It's a study in contrasts, as each clear IPA brings a little something different to the table - and then one just blatantly steals the show. Also, we imagine if GABF allo...

Our favorite time of year approaches again, but we can't set off for Denver without doing a ridiculous amount of prep work and research. So to celebrate the oncoming Great American Beer Festival for 2025, we drink four GABF-adjacent beers while sharing our picks for what to drink from local breweries, our most dependable steady hands, the ever-exciting new-to-us names, and the familiar faces that...

Just like most good things in life, the beers we so love can be quite taxing on the planet before even getting to our glasses. But some breweries are taking the lead on exploring more sustainable practices, whether it's using regenerative grains, organic ingredients, or even solar-powered farms. The five beers on this show represent different ways breweries can make a difference for the sake of th...

There are many essential ingredients for a successful Oktoberfest celebration, but none is more important than the beer. But which style is going to fill your massive stein: the younger, bright Festbier or the old-school, bready Märzen? We found four breweries making both styles to have a side-by-side of each to help determine our personal preference - and the only thing missing is the lederhosen....

The last few months have seen a steady number of big anniversary parties from suburban breweries - and some even released a beer to commemorate it. This show consists of 5 different beers brewed to mark an anniversary, all by brewers who work out of the suburbs of Chicago. We also face some style-based fears, greet the new Mayor of the Beach, develop new slow pour Pilsner techniques, and we meet M...

When one of our oldest friends and beer industry vet, Aaron Keefner, came back into town from his adopted city of Pittsburgh, we knew we were going to have to throw down - with a blind hazy IPA tasting, of course! We each chose three of the top examples of hazy beers from our respective cities and enlisted the help of the excellent staff at Beer on the Wall in Elmhurst to arrange a blind tasting o...

For the last few years, Revolution Brewing has tried convincing us that barrel-aged stouts and barleywines can indeed be enjoyed on 90-plus degree days - and gosh darnit, they make a convincing case. On this episode, we dive into the first three 12-ounce Deep Wood beers for the release season and find some very pleasant surprises. We also let things get a bit wavier than usual as we have our first...

Miskatonic has been a western suburban outpost for great beer with an extremely loyal following for a decade now - and it's due time they get the recognition they deserve. We sit down in Darien with head brewer Cory Davidson and production brewer Mik Dempsey to talk all things Miskatonic, including how they approach brewing such a wide variety of styles with laser-like focus, how branding updates...

Matt Gallagher has been instrumental to Chicago's craft beer scene for almost two decades as a co-founder of Half Acre, but it's his new brewery Suncatcher that has had us hooked from the very first visit. Suncatcher Brewing is a relatively unique concept in this time, as they are essentially a bar that serves their own streamlined and immaculate classic craft styles right from the tank with absol...

In our ongoing series that seeks to find the best IPA we can get our hands on, we keep this one  a bit more regional with five long-beloved and well-decorated beers from Indiana and Ohio. We taste one Hoosier beer and four Buckeye brews blindly using our much more focused scoring method - and we may just have our very first perfect score on this episode. Also, Craig's Ohio trip leads him to questi...