Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Tap List 10/29/08

Big Black Pumpkin (8.0% a.b.v.)
Made with 100lbs real pumpkin, 20# cocoa nibs, and pumpkin pie spices (ginger, allspice, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon). Nice and spicy in the nose, full bodied porter, with a smooth chocolate finish.

The Curse IPA (7.3% a.b.v.)
Matt's beloved Cubs proved their worth again this year. Let's drink to forget with a big American IPA made with Columbus, Simcoe, Cluster, and Cascade hops.

Collaborative Evil (10% a.b.v.)



Hoppy Little "O" (6.5% a.b.v.) [Almost Gone]
Just like last time, except a little easier drinking. A beautiful marriage between a hoppy American IPA and a belgian ale. And made with organic malt of course.


Guest Tap: Surly's Coffee Bender
Guest Stout: O'hara's Irish Stout Founders' Breakfast Stout

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Tap List 10/21/08

The Curse IPA (7.3% a.b.v.)
Matt's beloved Cubs proved their worth again this year. Let's drink to forget with a big American IPA made with Columbus, Simcoe, Cluster, and Cascade hops.

Collaborative Evil (10% a.b.v.)


Oktoberfest (6.3% a.b.v.)
I think we have really nailed this recipe.


Hoppy Little "O" (6.5% a.b.v.) [Almost Gone]
Just like last time, except a little easier drinking. A beautiful marriage between a hoppy American IPA and a belgian ale. And made with organic malt of course.


Guest Tap: New Holland's Ichabod
Guest Stout: O'hara's Irish Stout

Monday, October 20, 2008

Up Coming Calender of Events

Here are some dates to write down on your calender and sign up for.

  • Wednesday, November 5, 2008 -In Fine Spirits Harvest Beer Dinner 7:30 to 9:30pm $60 per person

    Join us upstairs for a fun night featuring six beers and six courses!

    Matt Van Wyk, brewmaster at Flossmoor Station Brewing Company, will present a line up of six craft brews, paired to delicious harvest-themed dishes from our chef, Marianne Sundquist.

    Flossmoor Station's beers are handcrafted from the finest all-natural ingredients, with no preservatives, chemicals or artificial flavorings. This event will be a great introduction to beer styles (if you're new to craft beer), and a great tasting tour for beer lovers! Our menu will include some fall favorites as well as fresh seasonal plates.

    Join us to celebrate autumn and the harvest!

  • Saturday, November 8
    The Sixth Annual
    Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged BeerSM

    Chicago Journeyman Plumbers' Local Union 130
    Stephen M. Bailey Auditorium
    1340 W. Washington Blvd.
    Chicago

    Two Sessions: 1:00-5:00 & 6:00-10:00 P.M.
    $35 in advance, $45 at the door (if available)
    A maximum of 500 tickets will be sold for each session.
  • November 17th Bluebird event
    1749 N. Damen | Chicago, IL | 60647
    (between Bloomingdale and St. Paul)
    773.486.2473
    More details to follow
  • City Provisions Supper Club: Get Local with Beer & Beef—Wednesday, November 19, 2008,
    7 p.m. at City Provisions (1820 West Wilson, Chicago, Illinois)

    Cleetus Friedman, owner of City Provisions Catering and Events, has put together an event to educate, enlighten and entertain his guests. Joined by Flossmoor Station Brewery from Flossmoor, Illinois and featuring beef from Dietzler Farms of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, this month’s Supper Club will help guests gain a better perspective on eating locally and promote understanding of the farming process…from farm to table.

    The experience will comprise of a five course meal, paired with beers by Flossmoor Station. Both Michelle Dietzler from Dietzler Farms and Matt Van Wyk, brewmaster at Flossmoor Station, will be on hand to discuss the their processes and speak about the amazing, quality products they each produce. The cost for this event is $60 (all inclusive).

    Each of Friedman's dishes will be served on pottery made specially for the Supper Club by local artist, Melissa Monroe.

    City Provisions is a Chicago-based catering company that uses sustainable practices and focuses on connecting people with their food. To RSVP to this event or for further information about City Provisions, please call 773-235-2489, email info@cityprovisions.comor visit us at www.cityprovisions.com.

  • Friday, October 17, 2008

    Mention on Gapers Block



    Tough Competition at Great American Beer Festival

    Every October, the Brewers Association puts on the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), where hundreds of brewers and thousands of people descend upon Denver for three days of celebrating beer. The culmination of this event is the awards for the best beers in 75 categories, as well as naming the breweries and brewers of the year.




    Jill Jaracz talked to Matt this week. Read about it at Gapers Block.

    Monday, October 13, 2008

    Denver Week

    Now that we are back, and every so slowly re-acclimating ourselves to the daily grind, let me try to tell you what we did this past week in Colorado. Matt was judging so he was busy most days from Tuesday until Friday. I flew in Wednesday, got our materials, and we went to the Brewer's gathering that is held every year at Wynkoop brewery in LoDo on Wazee and 18th. Our friend Charlie,(seen here in the red shirt) who used to brew at O'Fallon in Missouri, is now on the brewstaff at Wynkoop. He gave us the full tour and made sure that we had a great time.

    Thursday, while Matt was toiling away at the judging tables, I was riding in a Escalade Limosene with the Pizza Port Crew. Jeff Bagby, the brewer at their Carlsbad location, and director of Brewing operations set up a tour for us of New Belgium with none other than New Belgium's brewmaster Peter Bouckaert.



    They set us up with special lanyards that doubled as bottle openers that let the staff know that we were allowed to have free reign over wherever we wanted to go. And we certainly did. Peter asked us first thing, "Vat iz it that you vant to see?" And we responded with pretty much "everything."


    Lauren Salazar also came with us to help answer our endless questions. Lauren is New Belgium's Sensory guru and is also very involved in their sour beers.


    Heat exchanger for their 200bbl Steinecker brewhouse.

    Hop and spice dosing tanks.


    Peter explaining something important.

    A view inside their kettle equipped with a calandria.

    We checked out their mostly out of use 100bbl system that will eventually come back into use once they can max out their fermenter space. Then we got to see their 200bbl system that is in full use.

    all breweries should be this cool.


    The view from "acid alley." Peter asked us if we wanted to see the view from the tops of the fermenters. Nobody said no, so up we went.


    A quick trip through the filtration and transferring room. and then UP.


    and up.



    The view was pretty awesome. You could see the Ft. Collins AB plant, and a whole bunch of other stuff in the vicinity even though it was cloudy.

    Working preparing concrete molds for new fermenters that are coming.

    New canning line!

    Foeders in a line. These wooden vessels are typically used for wine production, but some breweries use them for aging beer in.

    Lauren and Peter explaining the wood aging process of their sour beers. This was some of the coolest stuff on the tour for me.

    Foeder #2 was tasting especially good to Lauren. Peter said the beer inside it would probably be used to make Le Terroir, an amazing sour beer that is dry hopped with Amarillos. We gave it third place last year in the sour category at FOBAB (tickets still available for this years fest).
    But enough talk, it was time to drink!

    After that went to the bottling building.

    Thunder Dome is no joke. There was no Master Blaster, but it was loud. And this is a serious bottling facility.

    700-800 bottles per min. Robot arm that automatically sorts and palletizes cases of beer. A lazer machine that prints the dates on the labels as they zoom by. It nearly made me cry to know that they bottle more beer in five minutes that I have in a year.

    But to make things better, Lauren let us grab beers right off the line and drink them. Very Cool.


    Then finally, the tour was just about over. The only thing we hadn't done yet was go down the slide.


    This is the slide from the offices to the downstairs. Lauren says that she uses it at least four times a day.

    It was an especially awesome tour. I can't reccomend New Belgium highly enough. And if you get a chance to go there in the near future, make sure to try Ben's Saison, part of their Lips of Faith series. Ben was in my Siebel class and made a great Saison.

    Tap List 10/13/08

    Collaborative Evil (10% a.b.v.)


    Oktoberfest (6.3% a.b.v.)
    I think we have really nailed this recipe.

    Hoppy Little "O" (6.5% a.b.v.)
    Just like last time, except a little easier drinking. A beautiful marriage between a hoppy American IPA and a belgian ale. And made with organic malt of course.

    Replicale Belgian Pale Ale (5.7% a.b.v.)
    13 Lucky Brewers- One Similar Recipe - 13 Different Beers
    American Belgian Pale Ale. A moderate-strength golden ale with a fruity American hop nose, a spicy and fruity "Belgian" complexity with a slightly sweet character and a dry finish. Ingredients graciously donated by The Mid Country Malt Group and White Labs Pure Brewers Yeast.


    Guest Tap: New Holland's Ichabod Dogfish Head Punkin
    Guest Stout: O'hara's Irish Stout

    Killer Kowalski wins Silver

    Saturday, October 04, 2008

    We're off to Denver!


    If you don't see us around the brewery the next several days, it's because FINALLY, this is the week. On Tuesday I head to Midway to jet off to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. It's put on by the Brewers Association. This is the biggest and best beer festival and competition in the country. Any beer brewed in the United States is invited to compete. In past years, if you haven't heard, we've done rather well. I always look forward to GABF time as we get to try world class beers, interact with colleagues across the country and see how our beers measure up with some of the best beers in the world. It's really a brewer's chance to shine and it gives us a little something to shoot for each fall. This year should once again prove to be profitable from that perspective.

    Andrew arrives Wednesday. I've been asked to judge, which means I'll be beer sampling and evaluating all day Wednesday thru Friday. Yeah, rough, I know. This year we choose 8 beers plus an additional beer in the Pro-Am Competition. The big guns we've pulled out are:
    Panama Red
    Killer Kowalski Baltic Porter
    Black Wolf Schwarzbier
    Hoppy Little O
    De Wilde Zuidentrein
    Sheol
    Organic Woody
    Collaborative Evil
    and in the pro-am: 12

    Wish us luck. See you next week!
    Matt