ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

Sometimes you want a stout that's not sweet, adjunct-free, and stripped down to just the base style interpretation, and we were so excited to find five readily-available local examples. (No barrels, coconuts, vanilla beans, or cacao nibs were harmed in the making of this episode.) In addition to our straight stout sippin', we marvel at Dog Surfing Championships, discover that The Alley is still ar...

Donning our heavenly jackets for this one, we drink the final set of Revolution's Deep Wood lineup for the 2023-2024 season. Three 'wines and a stout make up this unsurprisingly spectacular four pack, and even through all of our nit-picking we can't deny who is making the best barrel-aged beers in the city and state. Plus, we're doing our part to stop the TV game show idea shortage; Craig shares h...

Our 34th state show is just as sweet as it is sour, as we tackle five beers from South Carolina courtesy of listeners Benji & Suzanne. Even though it's a bit heavy on the tart beers, we learn about five breweries that represent a pretty good cross section of the South Carolina brewing scene. Also, Craig needs to bail someone out of the hellscape that is a community Facebook group, Ryan has stern w...

Ever since January 22nd of 2014, the ABV Chicago podcast has released a new episode every single week - and nobody could be more stunned about this fact than us. To commemorate a decade of arbitrary beer reviews, brewer interviews, and tipsy shenanigans, we open ten beers from ten breweries that all also got their start in 2014. The twist is that Craig and Ryan both present their five beers to the...

It's been almost three years since the announcement that Hop Butcher for the World would be taking over the original Half Acre brewery space, and it's been a year since the rebranded taproom opened. So we take time to sit down with co-founder and co-owner Jude La Rose for a long chat about the present and future of his brewery that was recently named Craft Beer & Brewing magazine's top Small Regio...

You don't turn to us for advice on a balanced breakfast, but we're happy to spoon up five cereal-inspired beers so good that even Mikey likes it. Through clever use of ingredients (or just throwing the cereal right in the beer), these beers really test the nostalgia influence of sitting a foot from the TV in our PJs while watching Captain N: The Game Master. Also, we consider all the different way...

We fetch another round of barrel-aged beers for this episode, but with a twist: all four beers are aged in different kinds of brandy barrels. We explore the world of sweet brandy barrels and how they work on different styles, and we are totally surprised by our takeaways. Also, we talk mixed drinks, New Year sugar fears, John Entwistle, cooked malt, surprising personal revelations, and Jolly Ranch...

Recorded on Black Friday (and previously released a month ago for our Patreon subscribers), this episode is our return to the Bourbon County lineup - after managing to get ourselves uninvited from the Goose Island media tastings. Luckily, we have our own beer sherpa in Beer on the Wall owner Ryan Tracy as he joins us to sip through all six beers in the back of his Elmhurst tasting room. Also, we m...

In what is likely our most decadent Barrel-Aged December™ episode yet, we sample four enormous stouts from WeldWerks' Medianoche series that are as complex as they are thick (or thicc, as the kids say). Co-founder Neil Fisher gave us some mic time back during GABF that is shared here, and he helps us understand how his Greeley, Colorado brewery's signature stout series differs from others. Also, C...

There's no escaping Deth, so we gather up four of the barrel-aged Revolution stouts from this year's Deep Wood lineup and drink with reckless abandon. It's no shocker that Revolution is still running the best barrel program in the city, but even with the bar raised as high as it is, the beers on the show clear it with ease. Even one beer challenges our "beer of the year" title (in a crowded year o...

For over 15 years, Metropolitan blessed this great city with high quality lagers and traditional German styles. They ushered in a second wave of Chicago craft brewing back when there were next to no options available. It's safe to say that without Metropolitan, the Chicago craft beer scene wouldn't have grown the way it did. Now Chicago will have to move on without Metro, who will be closing their...

Earlier in November, the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild put on the 21st Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers to recognize some of the breweries making the finest wood-aged beers around. We got our hands on five (out of the eleven) Illinois medal winners - and our first-ever Best of Show beer - to help us audition to become FoBAB judges some year. We share some FoBAB "by the numbers" and recap the...

Hop on the Brown Line straight to Browntown with us, as we discover a hopefully-growing local resurgence of the brown ale with five examples from Chicagoland breweries on this episode. Adjunct or not, these brown ales all have a unique angle on the style - and most would absolutely kill on cask. We also discuss the worst possible colors for mayonnaise, we consider the best brown for the Thanksgivi...

Carbonated water treated with hops is pretty simple in concept, but these five breweries prove that there's a lot of variation and skill that goes into making these "zero/zero" drinks. And it shows that no matter how well non-alcoholic beers have progressed, some drinkers looking for a dry spell just can't quit the hops - and now they don't have to! We get extremely refreshed on this zero alcohol...

Though it might be one of the smallest states, the brewing scene in Delaware is mighty, and we're ushering in our 33rd State Show with a lineup of five flavorful beers from five different breweries. Thanks to Ryan Tracy (and family), we're able to live vicariously through his travelogue while sipping these delectable beers, just missing out on the coastal views and massive plates of seafood. Also,...

Chicago's biggest, baddest and most-barreled festival is back in its 21st year, so we're eager to FoBABble about it for the first time in four years as a lead-up to the competition. We also open four barrel-aged beers from breweries that have been FoBAB staples (and previous medal winners) to lubricate our discussions of new and returning breweries at this year's fest, our "first pour" picks, fest...

The seven barrel-aged beers that comprise this year's Luchador lineup feature styles and ingredients we have rarely - or never - seen in the past, and no local "special release" lineup is getting as experimental as this one. Flavor master Jacob Sembrano is at it again, and we're here to drunkenly rave over the barrel-aged results. There are many true "wow" moments on this one, and at least one bir...

We're indulging in our capital vices for our yearly attempt to destroy each other over bad beers, and this one features some of the most unexpected pours we've ever seen. There's at least one beer here that unexpectedly brings out an extra large dose of wrath for one podcaster, and it's not even the mystery beer in the box. WHAT'S IN THE BOX?? Also, Craig is investigating some decapitated pigeons,...

Chicagoland is pretty gifted in lager-centric breweries, but now that trends have shifted back towards the more drinkable, almost every brewery is featuring more and more lagers. This is an extremely good thing. For this show, we do a blind tasting wherein we match a local lager-focused brewery's beer against a local "everything" brewery's beer along style lines and give our unbiased opinions. Our...

Now somewhat relegated to an occasional fall seasonal from breweries, the Amber style is essential to the history of American craft beer as we know it. So we're pumped to see five local breweries dabble in amber ales and lagers, and we fall in love all over again (with the beers, not each other). Also, Craig has an unexpected pet, we accidentally have a moment of real beer talk about wilds and sou...

We were just back in Denver for the 41st Great American Beer Festival, and we've got an episode chock full of interviews and beer highlights that's as good as gold (medals). Catch up on our beer-y travels as we hit the festival floor for about 14 total hours and stop into several great Denver taprooms and bars, sharing our experiences and regrettable food decisions along the way. Plus, we talk to...

In the week that we're heading out west for a certain fest, we gather up four barrel-aged beers from West Coast breweries that are pretty well-known for their wood-aged offerings. Expectations are flipped on their head and a ringer is challenged as we pop a few actual corks for this one. Also, Craig wants in on the limited-edition mattresses; we open our minds to the possibilities that breweries c...

The Great American Beer Festival is right around the corner, and since we're attending again this year, we're providing an audio guide to what to drink at the fest while also sipping on some previous medal winners. These aren't just any Illinois medal winners; our four choices here are a good drive from Chicago while also representing more traditional styles. For the GABF preview, we cover what Il...

For the second part of our big 500, we sit down with Revolution Brewing founder Josh Deth and talk about the last ten years of his brewery while sharing a rare beer from Craig's cellar. It's a fitting interview for this milestone, as no brewery has been featured on the podcast more - and it's not even close. Also, we open another cellar gem while recording in the ABV West bunker for the first time...

500 episodes is a long time to do arbitrary beer reviews, so we reach out for some help in reviewing a few beers from Craig's cellar. We chose brewers that have been around longer than the podcast to reflect on the last ten years in craft beer, and they chose a beer from our list. For this part one of two episodes, we sit down with Spiteful Brewing's Jason Klein and Half Acre's Gabriel Magliaro. W...