INSPIRED BY BELGIUM - An awesome CBS event coming up

A Feast of Belgian-Style Beer & Food

If you love great beer, this will be an opportunity to sample some of
the best, in a relaxed context with some great food. This will be the
one big 2007 Chicago Beer Society summer event, so don't miss it!

Sunday, July 8, from 1 to 5 pm
The Dank-Haus, German-American Cultural Center
4740 N. Western Ave, Chicago

This will be a walk-around event featuring some of the best Belgian
and Belgian-American beers available. And with a great lineup of
food, this will be a really great experience. The Dank-Haus is a
large and very comfortable space, one of the best venues we've ever
used.

Catering will be by the very highly regarded Hearty Boys
and the HopLeaf and will feature lots of
delicious dishes:

Menu:
Appetizers
Mussels by The HopLeaf
Endive with Goat Cheese Mousse
Kriek Glazed Chicken Wings
Belgian Leek Soup

Meat Dishes
Flemish Beer Stew (Carbonnade Flamande)
Sauteed Shrimp and Arborio Rissotto, Stella Artois,
and Asparagus Tips

Vegi Dishes
Belgian Stoemp Aux Carottes (Carrot Mashed Potatoes)
Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Parmigiano Reggiano

Dessert
Assortment of Belgian Chocolates

And, as usual, we have a great lineup of delicious, hard-to-find
beers. Many brewers and beer representatives will be there. Here's
the current lineup, with more to come:

Rock Bottom Chicago A Mash Made in Heaven (Saison)
Goose Island Clybourn La Deuxieme (Dubbel)
Goose Island Clybourn Belgian Blonde
Goose Island Fulton Matilda
Goose Island FultonPere Jacques
Piece Superfluous Triple
Flossmoor Stationl Hoppy Little Gnome
Flossmoor StationBlanche DuBois (Wit)
Mickey Finn’s Imperial Red w/Brett, Oud Bruin
Emmett's Clooney Wit
Lakefront Wit
Dogfish Head Raison d'Extra
Dogfish Head Black and Blue
New Belgium Abbey
New Belgium Trippel
New Belgium Wit
New Belgium 1554 Black
Lagunitas Nuevo Noir
Lagunitas Sonoma Farmhouse Ale
Lindemann’s Cuvee Renee
Westmalle Dubble
Westmalle Tripel
Hoegaarden
Leffe
StellaArtois
Gouden Carolus Ambrio
Kasteel Triple
Houblon Chouffe
Duchesse de Bourgogne
Affligem Blonde
Affligem Noel

This is your total access to the best Belgian bar on the continent
for that one afternoon. Price for members is $50, non-members $60.
Remember, we price events just at cost for members, and most of the
beer is kindly donated, so you'll never get this great a deal
anywhere else. If you're on the fence, please sign up as we are still
trying to hit the magic number to make this event a winner for YOUR
Chicago Beer Society.

We have a large room, so plenty of tickets are still available--
busloads welcome!

To reserve your tickets, please email Dave Phillips: dfun61@YAHOO.COM
or call the CBS Beerline at 773-905 2537 (ALES).

Please pass this email notice on to your beer-loving friends. We hope
to see you there!

--The CBS Bored of Directors

The Chicago Beer Society is America's oldest beer appreciation group,
founded in 1977. A not-for-profit, totally volunteer-run
organization, we are dedicated to the sensible enjoyment of fine
beer, and promoting beer culture and community here in Chicagoland.

Tap List 6/26/07

Black Moon Rye-sin (5.5% abv)
An American Stout with the addition of Rye. Roasty and chocolaty aroma with a slightly hoppy background. It's a full bodied stout that has coffee and roast flavors in all the right places with a lingering bitter finish from the hops.

ZikadeWeiss (4.5% abv)
No Cicadas were harmed in the making of this beer, but we did have to fight them off while brewing this. Crisp, light, citrusy, and very refreshing. Except for pulling cicadas out of your lady's hair, nothing says summer like a Hefeweizen.

HopSmack (8.5% abv)
It's really hoppy. It's an Imperial Reddish beer that has a lot of hops in it.

I see a black moon a ryesin......

    
                                            DUDE
                             Huh?  Oh.  Yeah.  Tape deck.  Couple
    of Creedence tapes.  And there was
    a, uh. . . my briefcase.

      YOUNGER COP
    In the briefcase?

      DUDE
    Papers.  Just papers.  You know, my
    papers.  Business papers.

      YOUNGER COP
    And what do you do, sir?

      DUDE
    I'm unemployed.

      OLDER COP
    ...Most people, we're working nights,
    they offer us coffee.

  There is silence.  Dude continues to stare at a spot on the
  floor.  The older cop stares at him.

      DUDE
    ...Me, I don't drink coffee.  But
    it's nice when they offer.

  AT LENGTH:

      DUDE
    ...Also, my rug was stolen.

      YOUNGER COP
    Your rug was in the car.

  The Dude taps the floor with his foot.

      DUDE
    No.  Here.

      YOUNGER COP
    Separate incidents?

  The Dude stares at the floor.

  Silence.

      OLDER COP
    Snap out of it, son.

  The home phone starts ringing--a ring distinct  from the
  chirp of the portable.  The Dude makes no move to answer
  it.   Finally the rings stop as an answering machine kicks
  on.

      DUDE
    You find them much?  Stolen cars?

  Dude's Voice on Machine The Dude's not in.  Leave a message
  after the beep.  It takes a minute.

      YOUNGER COP
    Sometimes.  I wouldn't hold out much
    hope for the tape deck though.  Or
    the Creedence tapes.

Wooden Hell

Surprise.
We are putting on four (4) gallons of Wooden Hell starting in about 10 minutes. We'll pour it until it's gone.

Wooden Hell is the reigning 2006 bronze medal winning strong barrel aged beer at GABF in the event that you forgot.

Tap List 6/16/07 Saturday Tap List

ZikadeWeiss (4.5% abv)
No Cicadas were harmed in the making of this beer, but we did have to fight them off while brewing this. Crisp, light, citrusy, and very refreshing. Except for pulling cicadas out of your lady's hair, nothing says summer like a Hefeweizen.

HopSmack (8.5% abv) [almost gone!]
It's really hoppy. It's an Imperial Reddish beer that has a lot of hops in it.

Tap List 6/13/07

HopSmack (8.5% abv) [almost gone!]
It's really hoppy. It's an Imperial Reddish beer that has a lot of hops in it.

Hoppy Little Gnome (10% a.b.v.)
A beautiful marriage between American and Belgian beer, Hoppy Little Gnome is our nod to Belgian brewers that are nodding right back at us. Chouffe Houblon Dobbelen IPA Trippel and Urthel's Hop It are two belgian beers that are big on American hops. Ours leans closer to Chouffe with it's abbey trippel style dry body but is full of Amarillo, Saaz, and Columbus hops. This is IPA Experiment #2 this year.

Blanche DuBois (5.5% abv)
A painfully delicious Belgian-style wit spiced with coriander and two types of orange peel. Citrusy, crisp, and very thirst quenching, this beer is slightly hazy and perfect for the beginning of spring.

Cicadas..............!

In Flossmoor, the Cicadas are everywhere. The noise is deafening during the day. It's quieter in the brewhouse than it is outside. They are fighting their way into the brewhouse, they are fighting their way into the mash tun, they are fighting their way into the kettle.



When patrons come into the restaurant the hostess has to have them turn around to make sure there aren't any hitchhiking their way to the tables.


I'm not sure what we are going to do about this. Their are seagulls that have invaded Flossmoor too to eat the cicadas. And seagulls poop, a lot.



It's bad people.

I think the marmosets are coming next....

Beers to Come

Saturday the 16th we are having a mug club tapping to debut this years first batch of Hefeweizen. It's tasting really good, if I do say so myself, and it isn't even carbonated yet. For those of you mugclubbers out there the breakfast tapping is tentatively going to feature German Weißwurst.



I really love Weißwurst and I was first introduced to it in Germany, on the German-Austrian border in a town called Burghausen. You eat it with a sweet mustard called Süßersenf, and suck the meat out of the casing instead of eating it.

Burghausen is an amazingly picturesque city with a river, a castle, and mountains. It also has/had one of the best chinese food restaurants I have ever been in.

So hefeweizen and Weißwurst should be a good time.

Also coming is an American Rye Stout.

+ + =
American rye stout

5.5%, dark and stouty, but hoppily bitter and dry hopped. Should be coming on towards the last 1/3 of June. about. ish.



Schwarzbier will make another appearance to defend it's title of best Schwarz in the U.S. at GABF this fall.

A rotweizen is in the planning stages. And it won't be a traditional german style red wheat. It's going to be American hoppy. Think red Gumballhead.

Hit the Road

Have you ever wanted to take a road trip? No, I don't mean to just drive up to Milwaukee to grab some cheese or to grab a Brat and a beer at the famed Brat Stop. I mean really go. Like across the country? Search for beer and good people? Unfortunately, I can say that my only spontaneous road trip was the last minute trip from Iowa City to Champaign to watch the Hawkeyes trounce the Illini when I was 18. Ah..sleeping on some fraternity floor-now that's livin'! you see, I'm a pretty calculated person. I like to look before I leap.

So, where is this going, you ask? Well, Teri Fahrendorf, brewing industry veteran, brewer, colleague and friend of mine left her job as brewmaster at Steelhead Brewing in Oregon and is heading East. During her trip she'll see old friends, make new friends, and visit family. Also on her agenda is guest brewing at any place that will have her. You see , she brought her boots. She'll be here around mid July. Check out her route on her blog at http://www.roadbrewer.blogspot.com/

I'm jealous!

Session #4 Local Beer

So where did session #2 and #3 go? I'm not sure either. Here are the rules for session #4

From Gastronomic Fight Club:

You can pick anything commercially made within 150 miles of your house, but try to pick the brewery or brewpub closest to your house (NOTE: the average American lives within 10 miles of a craft brewery).

You can select any beer or even a sampler if you want.

If you select a single beer, let us know why you choose this beer (e.g. favorite, seasonal, limited edition, best seller).

Preferably you'll shy away from beers with wide distribution outside your immediate area.

So if I played strictly by the rules, I would pick Piece because it's only a few blue line stops from my house. But Piece just got another write up in the Trib, and they sell beer like gangbusters. Rumor is that they are expanding, which is very good news, because they push that system to the max. So the point is that Piece doesn't need anymore press.

The closest brewpub to Matt's house according to beermapping.com appears to be the new Rock Bottom in Orland Park. Their head brewer is Iain Wilson whom I recently met at our Illinois Craft Brewer's Guild Meeting. Iain is from the Scottish/English school of brewing so expect to have some more seasonable beers, ones that you can drink more than one of without falling over. Orland is still getting off the ground, so if you haven't been out to check it out yet do. Tell them the boys from Flossmoor sent you.

If Orland Park isn't your local brewpub, go to Beermapping.com and find out where all of the breweries, brewpubs, better beer bars, beer stores, and homebrew shops are near you.