ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast

St. Patrick's Day in Chicagoland is a whole season, and thanks to that more local breweries are making the curiously not-traditional Irish Red Ale. To learn more about this style (and give ourselves a nearly-impossible guessing challenge), we do a blind tasting of the five beers on this show. Also, we let the AI bots tell us more about ourselves, we're dancing in the aisles over that joyous romp T...

Listener and friend Don Kasak conceptualized this show around five Illinois breweries that are practically suburbs of St. Louis, and we are more than happy to drink through a lineup from this mostly unfamiliar-to-us territory. We also can't get over Smokey Robinson's new album and song titles, Craig discovers that side-of-the-tongue flavor, and Ryan's got some hot tips on pretzel investments.  Bee...

We're taking our taste buds on a trip down south thanks to listener Crystal Nguyen we get to sample five unique and tasty beers from the Dallas area. There's a beer that's even better when sipped, one that might be made with "Skittlemalt," and one that inspires the singing of "SkaMan." Also, we're thinking big for our eventual Texas show; we look for new innovations in leather pants (and stray cat...

We're flipping to Side B of the 2022-2023 Deep Wood releases for this episode, and it's a whole lineup of immaculate bangers. It's two ryewines, one stout, and two barleywines with a bigger emphasis on special barrels and extended wood-aging to create the magic in these 12 ounce cans. Plus, Craig's looking for new ways to trick his Apple Watch; Ryan will trade you half of an open can of DBVSOJ for...

More breweries are embracing malt-forward easy-drinking options as an essential part of a seasonal lineup, and the Schwarzbier may be one of the styles seeing the most taplists these days. For this show, we put five locally-made Schwarzbiers through a blind tasting to help us better understand the style and see how subtle variations can make all the difference for our arbitrary rankings. Also, we...

Since throwing open the doors to their Lincoln Ave. taproom just a few months back, Hop Butcher has worked to offer some draft variety by stepping outside of the style(s) for which they're most recognized. For this episode, we got our hands on four cans that are not IPAs to see how well one of the country's best haze producers can make something for the hop-averse. Also, we say hello (and goodbye)...

To commemorate our 9th year of this podcast, we celebrate local breweries that opened since we first started broadcasting our shabby little beer reviews. Craig and Ryan each bring three blind beers to the table for the other to guess with a focus on years and a few additional mystery themes. It's also one of those shows where you get to hear Craig fall head-over-heels in love with a beer, which is...

After two years of selling bottles from what is essentially his front porch, Rob Brennan opened the doors to his Milwaukee taproom in 2022 - and his rustic farmhouse beers are absolutely worth a trip. For this episode, we drink through four funky and beautiful Supermoon bottles that show artistry beyond what you might expect from such a young brewery. Also, Craig has a bounce in his step (and not...

We were just as surprised as anyone to find five beers that are made to mimic a briney jar of pickles, and it's certainly something you have to be really into - or just brace yourself and gulp. Both are true for us on this episode, as one host might have some major life regrets after going through all five of these puntastic pickle beers. Also, we play a short original dice-rolling RPG called "Pic...

It's always a good idea to welcome a new year with good vibes, and we'd be hard pressed to find a brewery better than New Glarus to fit that bill. For this show, we have five seasonal or speciality release beers from Wisconsin's premier craft brewery, and the excellence unsurprisingly holds for the duration. Also, nothing beats a car full of jerky smells; Craig embraces the Live Más mentality; and...

It's not just stouts, barleywines, and sours that should receive the benefits of wood-aging. For our final episode of Barrel-Aged December, we try five beers from breweries brave enough to take their drinkable cold-fermented beers and let them rest in different types of wood for any matter of time. The results are truly unique and enlightening as to how wood can transform a lager, and we bend our...

Focusing on drinkable lagers, pales, and IPAs has already carried Half Acre to legend-status locally, but their barrel program has developed into an undeniable force over the last few years - and we're not even talking about Benthic for this one. We have five big barrel-aged beers from this year that are an impressive ode to one of Chicago's best breweries. Also, Ryan has developed a whole new fam...

Throughout this year we've been collecting barrel-aged stouts from different states without a real purpose for them: until now. From five states we have three straight barrel-aged stouts and two that are pastrified - and all are in the running for top spots in our rankings. Also, we engage with some AI-generated characters for their opinions about which states make the best barrel-aged beers; we p...

As winter barrel-aged beer releases expand into more adjunct variants and special barrels, you can't overlook the base. For this show, we blind sample six barrel-aged local stouts that are part of a seasonal release lineup - but without any of the added gimmicks. We base our opinions only on the liquid in the glass, and we continue our rich tradition of being terrible at guessing the beers. There...

We kick off Barrel-Aged December a little early with a six pack of mostly locals who took home medals at this year's Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers. Unsurprisingly, this lineup is all killer with no filler, but there are a few style surprises from some familiar breweries that steal the show. We stumble into covering a whole category's winners while running through an updated FoBAB "by the...

In this return to one of our favorite Colorado brewery's beers, we find some of the more offbeat and odd offerings from Weldwerks. Also, Craig catches up with co-founder and head brewer Neil Fisher to chat about how they've decided to grow within Greeley, why their concept of collaborations has evolved, and what makes a Medianoche so dang thick. These five flavorful beers bring out 15 barrels of b...

As we brace ourselves for an extended Barrel-Aged December, we dip back into the summer archives for this final Oregon-centric show from Craig's trip to highlight these Pacific Northwest breweries that are around a year old. And if you think new Oregon breweries can't live up to those legacy ones we all know, then you should give this one a listen. Also, we consider how breweries could ford their...

We're just going to come out and say it: this is the best lineup in the history of this series, and it might be the best complete lineup of barrel-aged beers to come out of Chicago this year. Cruz Blanca's playfully-conceptualized yet artfully-crafted Luchador series goes in directions many barrel-aged brewers don't - and all the big swings pay off. Nothing is lost with the switch to 12-ounce cans...

With one summer and one fall release, Revolution has already put six cans of this year's Deep Wood series out into the world, and we're eager to have them all side-by-side. We sample five stouts and a black barleywine aged in a variety of barrels, and nothing here is threatening their title of best barrel-aged brewery in Chicago (in our opinion). Also, we brainstorm attractions that could be added...

Unknowable horrors await us on our sixth annual Torture Test show, wherein we try to find weird, old, and terrible beers to blindly afflict one another, and this one's crawling with impossible-to-guess styles and shapeshifting ABV. We try to avoid adding ounces to the simmering Cuvée of Doom by guessing whatever we can about these beers while (often) choking down what's in the glass. Ryan pumps hi...

For the 40th year of GABF - and the first festival in three years - we had to go bigger than ever, so much so that we couldn't fit it into one episode. Even though Ryan stayed behind in Illinois, Craig succeeded in drinking all the beers Denver had to offer and bringing back some stellar interviews from some of his brewery highlights - along with an all-time bucket list guest. Even though we recor...

For the 40th year of GABF - and the first festival in three years - we had to go bigger than ever, so much so that we couldn't fit it into one episode. Even though Ryan stayed behind in Illinois, Craig succeeded in drinking all the beers Denver had to offer and bringing back some stellar interviews from some of his brewery highlights - along with an all-time bucket list guest. Even though we recor...

The 30th installment in our State Show series takes us to the Southwest thanks to listener Don Kasak's recent trip to New Mexico. To beat that dry heat, things stay pretty light on alcohol with five beers from four breweries that fortunately aren't light on flavor. Also, Craig runs into a surprising t-shirt at a beer fest, Ryan looks for the flavors that exist in the negative spaces ( ooooooh ), a...

Just off the Lake Michigan shoreline sandwiched between popular vacation beach towns, there's a little farmhouse brewery in Fennville, MI called Waypost. Opened in 2018, the folks at Waypost make a variety of styles exceptionally well (and even have a GABF Gold for Saison in their recent history). Ryan brought back five beers from his summer trip, and he's positively giddy to finally share them wi...

Further expanding our recent slew of city-centric shows, Craig took a brief trip to the Twin Cities area and scored five killer beers from Minneapolis breweries. In addition to learning about weird Minnesota beer laws and Ryan trying to imagine Feather Bowling, Craig snagged an interview with Dan Herman and Tom Berg of Falling Knife Brewing. Also, we consider what it'd take to become a sommelier f...