ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

To recognize our 11th year of releasing this weekly podcast, we're putting a new spin on our annual half-blind shows by…going old. We each divvied up the past years of the podcast and selected one favorite from a year until we ended up with seven to try and stump one another while we dig through our memories. Some represent fresh takes on old faves, and some are just old - which doesn't necessaril...

In an ill-advised experiment almost 4 years in the making, this episode is our style exploration of the Belgian Single - sometimes called Patersbier, sometimes Enkel, and definitely rarely made stateside. Even most of the Trappist breweries keep them in house and rarely send them overseas. With a glacial pace of local Belgian single releases, we've held on to some American versions with hopes of o...

It took us almost a dozen years to catch on that Heavy Riff Brewing out of St. Louis is an absolute treasure, and we are more than happy to open a little vertical of their signature barrel-aged stout series, Dear Agony. Crafted from a lactose mistake, this rich and creamy imperial milk stout sees yearly release with multiple variants representing different barrel picks or adjuncts - and the only a...

Pride of the Fox River and St. Charles, Illinois, Riverlands Brewing is approaching six years with a refreshed love of their own lagers, thanks to their U.S. Beer Open Championship gold-winning pilsner, Kayak. We sit down with co-founder and head brewer Eric Bramwell along with assistant brewer Brianna Levi to chat all things Riverlands - not limited to their horizontal tanks. Eric and Bri tell th...

Back in August, we had the great fortune to drink through an entire lineup from Decorah, Iowa's Pulpit Rock Brewing (thanks to listeners Benji and Suzanne) and this resulting episode is sounding great out of the cellar, thanks to some interview snippets with co-head brewer Bob Slack from the Great Taste of the Midwest. It doesn't take long until we go a little nuts over nuts, but we also learn to...

It may not be the main course, but we make a meal out of this four bottle Side Project lineup, gifted to us by listener and friend Don Kasak. We may think we know where things are going with these four barrel-aged beers of differing styles - but we quickly get swept up in some surprising flavors. Also, we are adjusting to some of the new holiday traditions, we make some New Year's fruit resolution...

The Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers came in late November this year, and we have another episode to add to our wall-to-wall coverage of Chicago's best beer fest. As has become a delicious tradition, we have gathered medal winning beers from this year - but with a totally sessionable twist. Three gold medal winners, one bronze, and one Best in Show gives us a lineup of 4 that'll go down as o...

It's always wine o' clock somewhere, especially when you're opening up the finest barleywines and ryewines Revolution has to offer. This episode features three different 'wines and a special release stout as part two (or three?) of their barrel-aged Deep Wood series for this year, and at least one of us deems this the best set of four Rev has ever done. Also, we don't think we really want to smell...

Even though Black Friday doesn't mean what it once did, Bourbon County is still an event - and we have Ryan Tracy with us at Beer on the Wall to help us taste through this year's lineup of six from Goose Island. Sure we were banned from the official media tasting, but we assess the whole group fairly - and find some surprises that are real standouts in the history of BCBS. Also, shenanigans may be...

It's been 8 years since we last did a whole lineup of ciders, and this was just the re-evaluation we needed to fall back in love with these well-crafted non-beer drinks. But it's not just apples this time: each cider brings something else to the mix - to consistently surprising results. Also, Craig has created a glitter problem he can't solve, Ryan learns of a surprising cidery connection to the b...

Not content with waiting for one single day to stuff ourselves with our favorite traditional foods, we just had to drink our way through a feast of Thanksgiving-adjacent beers to get us hyped for what might be our favorite holiday. We see how many of this lineup of five Illinois beers would make a nice addition to the table while also playing a full game of Personal Preference: Thanksgiving Foods....

As this year's Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers approaches, we dive deep into FoBAB topics while drinking through four barrel-aged beers from breweries featured at this year's fest. Our jumbled attempts to look back at previous year's memories notwithstanding, we look ahead to new and returning breweries we can't wait to try, old favorites and dependable options to seek out for a first pour,...

The warmest thing about the colder months is that we have three different Deep Wood releases to look forward to, and we start the season with four stouts - three as variants of their annual Deth's Tar line. We talk about what makes this year's lineup unique while Revolution supports its case as one of the most dependable barrel-aged programs anywhere. Also, Craig waited in a line only to learn abo...

The horrible tradition continues for an eighth year as we try to outdo one another in a test of our ability to withstand liquid torture - and this year might be the most spiteful, mean-spirited collection of all. Seizing upon our known flavor aversions, each of us hosts finds something to attack our insecurities and threaten our actual livelihood through a half-blind tasting - all leading to an un...

After a long, arduous Brat Summer, we be-sweater ourselves for a little Farmhouse Fall by opening five autumnal saisons from some of the best in the rusticity business. Whether it's due to ingredients, barrels, or aesthetic, each saison here is the liquid equivalent of jumping into a pile of crunchy leaves, and we have some wildly divergent rankings by the end. Also, Craig immediately destroys our...

This year's Great American Beer Festival brought some new energy (with a small pour of confusion) to the four decade-old fest and competition, and we were out in Denver to cover it all. Though the theme areas were a bit disorienting at times, this year's GABF felt like more of a party than ever. We report back on the amazing beers we drank while sharing some top-notch festival floor interviews wit...

We're right at the end of hop harvest season, so now's the time to bask in the seasonal glory that is fresh and wet hop beers. We expand our understanding of fresh and wet hop beers on this episode by sifting through the research while drinking five pretty incredible local beers using those straight-from-the-bines hops. Also, we have a little unfulfilled Chekov's Corgi situation; we take some resp...

As we plan our 11th year of covering the Great American Beer Festival out in Denver, we take this episode to preview some of the Illinois beers pouring at the fest while sharing a comprehensive list of which breweries we're most amped to check out. We review the Illinois pour lists, find many exciting "new-to-us" breweries, revisit some "familiar face" breweries, and put our total faith in those "...

IPA can be a whole lot of things, but when we were cutting our teeth on hoppy beers, the West Coast style dominated. Appreciation of the style never really died off, but it's regaining a bit of ground on the still more-popular hazy IPAs. So we turn to the actual source - the West Coast - for five beers that are somewhat varied in their interpretation. And because we love this style so much, it doe...

Using rice as a fermentable in an adjunct lager has been common in Japanese brewing for a long time, and recently more American craft brewers have made their own versions with an emphasis on the remarkably dry finish of the style. We try two icons of Japanese Rice Lagers before sampling three from the Chicagoland area, and we're surprised with how much rice really does make the difference. Also, C...

Just a short drive north from Chicago, a land of interesting breweries awaits across the Wisconsin border, so we drink through five beers that'll hardly cost you a quarter tank of gas to pick up yourself. The beers bring up a lot of interesting discussion about beer styles loved and lost, and we even have a brief chat with G5 Brewing's head brewer Tim Goers about anchovy hops, gluten-free smoothie...

Like some sort of softball-sized, hairy drupe falling from a tree to knock us on the head, within this lineup of four beers is a surprise that almost completely brings the show to a grinding halt. But otherwise, it's a fun little exploration of our relationship with coconut as an adjunct in barrel-aged stouts, and there's no suntan lotion to be found here. Also, 3 Floyds is normal now, Disney is e...

The titular exclamative comes thanks to Craig's unexpected finds during a recent trip to Toledo, Ohio. This lineup of five Toledo-area beers is almost total adjunct bacchanalia - and one that surprises us at every step. We get into the geography of Toledo while shouting out most of the bartenders that made this one possible. Also, we discuss odd school fundraisers, make some major baseball and foo...

At the start of August, Craig and Ryan took extended weekend getaways to Wisconsin and Michigan, returning with a sweet little haul highlighting some favorite spots along the way. Whose weekend three-pack turns out the best? We gladly sip through these six to report back with our arbitrary opinions. Plus, we both share some recent notable DJ experiences, Ryan has a new superpower he doesn't want,...

Though this was recorded in the early summer months, this episode explores a broad style designation that's seeing a bit of a resurgence - and hopefully more so with the coming colder temperatures. We open five red ales to see what makes a good one and learn quite a bit about the broad variance that exists beyond simply "red" and "hoppy." Also, Craig recommends the horrors of MLB Rain Delay Twitte...