ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Our new best friends at Cypress Grove make some of the finest goat's milk cheeses in the country, and they sent us some to pair with local beers. Win your New Year's party by learning from our pairing experiments, or find out which cheeses to make a staple of all your future bottle shares. We learn a bit about rennet, apply a few brewing ideas to cheesemaking, and once again fail to break the curs...

  We manage to throw a holiday party with no eggnog, ugly sweaters, or inappropriate mistletoe placement - just great friends and great beers. Actually, Craig does wear an insane gaudy suit, but it only enhances our talks with four guests over five beers. We are joined by our good friends MC Johnson ( Worth 1000 Beers ), Marie Cummins, Matt Johnsen (Horse Thief Hollow), and Doug Veliky (Revolution...

Need a stocking stuffer or an effective mood-lifter for a family gathering? We try six different Christmas beers to help you better lubricate your holiday train. Our top beer is a huge surprise, but the whole lineup proves to be a Christmas miracle. And like two slightly tipsy yet overly productive elves, we play two games on this one, talk fruitcakes, explore the Hintonverse, make our ideal ginge...

We celebrate the big one-five-oh with the most valuable lineup of beers we've ever put to our lips - and the bottles practically pop themselves in revelry. Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen made these four special gueuzes to save itself after a terrible mishap and released them in very limited quantities back in 2011, and we're lucky to have them all here. We also commemorate the occasion by resurrecting ever...

In the wake of another Black Friday, we sample the four releases from Goose Island's infamous Bourbon County line for 2016. So, was all the Friday madness worth it? That's really subjective based on your personal experience, but we'll do our best! At least we concur that it's a huge step-up from 2015. Two beers exceed their previous years' versions by a significant margin, and at least one beer ne...

In our yearly moment of clearheadedness after the Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers, we take on four non-alcoholic beers for the sake of science. To take our minds off of these near beers, we go over all of our FoBAB beer highlights. But you'll learn a lot about how non-alcoholic beer is made, why there are no NA-IPAs, and what might be the worst beer-like drink we've had on the show. We also find out...

Wisconsin's O'so Brewing has dabbled in sour beers for a few years, and while the whole brewery grows rapidly , their "Extreme Beers" are finding a captive audience with sour beer lovers. We review five tasty barrel-aged sours and try not to turn this episode into a Tums commercial. We discover "TA" and struggle to make sense of it. Craig explains why SNL was better back in the 1930s. Ryan reveals...

The Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers (FoBAB) enters its 14th year as one of Chicago's premier beer fests, and we are so pumped for it that we drink four beers that'll be pouring over the weekend. Expect some festival advice, relive FoBAB days of yore, and hear about the beer Ryan named. There's also talk of the 39th Annual Illinois Craft Beer Awards, Fartboy Slim, the Weekend at Bernie's unr...

Pure joy will emanate from your listening devices on this one as we taste some of the best hoppy beers on the planet. We can hardly contain our giddiness with a mixed six pack of beers from both Tree House Brewing of Massachusetts and The Alchemist from Vermont, courtesy of listener Josh Sissman. In between moments of bliss, we talk about Belgian warlocks, blacklight posters, inventive ways to ste...

We welcome Wiseacre to the Chicago market by sampling five of their beers and discovering that they will be a welcome addition even in this highly-competitive region. This show features three regular offerings, one seasonal release, one special release, and two slap-happy hosts. You'll hear us threaten to Flowzie something, try to appeal to the youth, plea for some Sex Syrup, and kill off Jerry La...

For our third annual pilgrimage to Denver, we again recorded mere hours after the closing of GABF from our hotel room to recap the fest, share some interviews, and drink even more beer. We review beers from Weldwerks, Odd13, and Copper Kettle with some help from MC Johnsen of Worth A Thousand Beers . There are also interviews with a bevy of brewers: Neil Fisher from Weldwerks Brewing, Ryan Fields...

Ah, you think Darkness is your ally? Well, it is! Anticipating this year's big release day, we drink a vertical-plus of Surly's special release Russian Imperial Stout, and we're briefly joined by head brewer Ben Smith to talk about what makes Darkness what it is. MC Johnsen sits in with us to help us make sense of these delectable beers and keep us from going too far off the rails. She succeeds in...

If you haven't heard of Triptych yet, you're not alone - at least for now. On the edge of the University of Illinois campus, this brewery is making a variety of stellar beers - and we've got five to taste for this episode plus an interview with founder/owner/brewer Anthony Benjamin. Learn why you should schedule your Savoy trip soon, how they got connected with the Pygmalion fest, and what Triptyc...

  It took a surprising amount of heavy lifting to bring together five Chicago porters, and *record scratch* none of them are actually porters! Sort of! This is a deep exploration of the porter style with our usual reviews, and the variance is wide. We draw from some of the great beer books to piece together a paraphrased history of the porter, and why what's common today is so radically different...

Levi Funk is taking the foundation laid by breweries like Russian River and Allagash and making American lambic-style beers to match the quality of Belgian masters. Or at least approach them. We have five sours from the Funk Factory Geuzeria, and we pimp that coolship. There's a whole cast of new characters here: Gushy the Bunker Bucket, Jean Cheese, Curtis Mercer, and Dreggy Topoff. Beyond a lot...

Parched after an evening of marmot spotting, we continue our 50 states quest by sipping on some Washington. We review six beers from six breweries from The Evergreen State thanks to Raj Shah and only mention grunge a half dozen times. We play a Blood Brothers-based game, do the alternating-brewery-name-pronunciation tango (the forbidden worddance), and discuss "the problem" with New England-style...

It's New Baby Hiatus time at ABV Studios, so we have gathered some of our favorite Low ABV episodes that were previously only available to our Patreon donors. Uh, sorry Patreon donors. But you'll hear four beers reviewed, and a very loose - and edgy - Ryan & Craig on these mini shows that are sure to be the talk of Craft Beer Town. There's an MC Johnsen appearance, SMaSH desires, 90s rock karaoke,...

Our next stop on our mission to taste the whole USA brings one of the overall most satisfying lineups - and maybe Craig's favorite beer of all time. Five Florida breweries are featured with two brief interviews with brewers poised to make a huge name for themselves. Matt Manthe from Odd Breed Wild Ales talks taproom plans and how they do spontaneous fermentation in the Florida climate. Corey Artan...

At one point, this show had a purpose and a modicum of decency - but this episode takes it pretty far from either. We review a bunch of our favorite (favored?) breweries' beers and debut our new theme song. It all starts with just a shameful lead-up thanks to Craig, and ends with a whole new meaning for the abbreviation "ABV" thanks to Inclement Weather . In the middle there's talk of can-conditio...

No one can ever accuse Funky Buddha of false advertising, but their brewing methods certainly seem unholy. We taste a few dessert beers and one IPA that are perfect executions of this Florida brewery's intentions. And because Craig was in Florida recently, there's a little interview with brewer Jeff Rose included here. Much more funkiness abounds as Ryan confesses a crime, Craig loses a job over k...

How does a brewery that owns a single fermenter in a borrowed space with a staff of three people with other full-time jobs not only survive but thrive in the marketplace? Jeremiah from Hop Butcher gives us the whole story - and a lot of tasty beers. Few stones are left unturned as we talk about the name change (from South Loop Brewing), the brewery's prospective growth, the importance of good artw...

It's been almost two years since we first recorded in the legendary Chicago institution, and as much as things have changed, Goose Island Clybourn is still about creative small batches from some of the most passionate brewers around. Brewers Jon and Steve join us to talk about the implications of the sale to AB InBev including equipment upgrades, recipe ownership, franchising the brewpub model, an...

Well dammit if we can't just be happy with our regular ol' IPAs, brewers have been adding all sorts of stuff to our favorite hopdrinks. This show features five IPAs...with a TWIST! Might it be possible that we built this show around a "ringer"? Perhaps. But all of the beers more than hold their own, and they bring out an unusual array of distractions: Björk, WiiKush, Offspring beers, and BagelFest...

Used to be that a beer aged in wood was a rare shelf find, but now you can't throw a bottle cap without hitting one. For this episode, we have five barrel-aged "Chicago" beers, and the results are...unexpected. We have one of the most mysterious beers we've ever opened, experience nostalgia for the days of bottle-waxing, and try to resist the urge to jibboo. And Craig might not be hunting whales,...

Not so long ago, Craig took the midnight train to Georgia and came back with a bushel of tasty beers. Here we drink five of them and throw in a few brief interviews, including yeast talk with Ford from Orpheus, and chattin' beer styles with Joran from Three Taverns. Craig also recaps his Georgia trip including ballpark food, his guest spot on Beer Guys Radio, and the profoundly stupid beer laws of...