Tap List 9/28/08

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: Dogfish Head Punkin
Guest Stout: O'hara's Irish Stout

Whoooo Weeeee. We Sold out in an HOUR!

Thank you to everyone that came out and waited in the sun. We sold out of all of our Bottled Evil in almost exactly one hour. We even went through a half dozen cases of different vintages of De Wilde Zuidentrein. Thank you for understanding when we changed the limit to one case and then 6 bottles and then two bottles as the line got down to the end. Some people got a chance to go though the line more than once but we also had at least one person come from as far away as Ohio and we didn't want people to walk away with nothing. Mug Club got first crack as you can see above.

If you are interested in the mug club, click on the link to the left or call and ask the bartender to put you on the waiting list.

Keep an eye on the blog, because we should be having a city debut at Lush in University Village next week.

Evil is still on draught if you come down to the pub. Cheers!

CFF FestivALE a huge success

On Thursday we poured beer at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Festivale at Goose Island Wrigleyville. Great Turn out, everyone loved the beers, and we helped to raise over $40,000!

Gettin' Ready

60 Cases was the final count. That means only 720 bottles will be available.

Don't miss your chance.....

Half way to St. Paddy's Day and one oyster too many.

So you may have heard that our farm beer dinner to Wisconsin was postponed for last Saturday. Well, I had my parents watchin' after the rugrats, so we ventured out to Galway Tribes for their "Half way to Paddy's day celebration". While intrigued by the thought of an oyster eating contest, I was really headed for some great craic and several pints of awesome beer. But, one thing led to another and after a little peer pressure from some strangers, I was in.
I didn't really dominate like Kobayashi at Coney Island, but I downed 27 in two minutes. Peeking at the finals it looked like I was about 8th out of 16. Not bad! The winner, by the way did 43 oysters in 2 minutes. Dang! It wasn't too hard and most small ones I grabbed slid down easily, but there were a few big ones that got stuck on the middle floor let's say. I wish I had a pint of Guinness to wash that down. No bad after effects or anything (unless you count that afrodisiac thing they talk about with oysters..........)
Cheers!
Matt

One Week (and a day) Left Until Evil

The Rundown:

What: The Release of COLLABORATIVE EVIL our 10% a.b.v. Belgian Style Strong Dark ale made with exotic sugars, honey from the Morton Arboretum, Orange Peel, Black Cardamom, Raisins, two strains of Belgian yeast, and love.

When: Saturday September, 27th. Noon for mug club members, 1 p.m. for General Public

Who: Hopefully you, because we only will have 60-70 cases to sell. (period.) $12/bottle $120/case of 12

Where: At Flossmoor Station. Where else?

Why: Why? Are you serious? This is our first bottled seasonal release. AND it's an Oktoberfest party at the same time! (and you never know what other nuggets might be for sale) Plus the forecast for Saturday, unlike last week, is 78 degrees sunny and pleasant. What other adjective would you look for when dealing with COLLABORATIVE EVIL!

City Provisions Farm Dinner Menu

Here is the Menu for the Dinner we are going to have on Saturday with City Provisions as I wrote about here.

BUS

Sliders, chipotle ketchup
Zephyr Golden Ale

ONE

Mixed field greens with mission figs, candied pecans, Roth Kase
Buttermilk Bleu cheese crostini

Station Master Wheat

TWO

Asian braised pork hocks over pineapple rice

Panama Red

THREE

Fried Crave Brothers goat cheese ravioli with oxtail sauce

Pullman Brown

FOUR

Cumin spiced beef skewers, pureed sweet potato, beer battered onion
frizzles

Organic Woody

FIVE

Black bottom cake with raspberry puree
Sarge Imperial Stout

FIVE POINT FIVE
Roth Kase Five year cheddar with toasted almonds
Wooden Hell

We need approximately 10 additional sign ups for this dinner to work out. Word is that there is going to be a write up in the Trib tomorrow about this potentially awesome farm trip dinner. To RSVP to this event or for further information about City Provisions, please call 773-235-2489, email info(at)cityprovisions.com

Featuring Flossmoor Station Brewery, Flossmoor, IL Dietzler Farms of Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Saturday, September 20th
2 :00pm
City Provisions
1043 North California
Chicago

$125 all inclusive

Joined by Flossmoor Station Brewery from Flossmoor, Illinois and Dietzler Farms of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the Farm Dinner is designed to help guests gain a better perspective on the origins of their food, the farming process, and how this all gets incorporated into the dining experience. At 2 p.m. guests will meet at City Provisions (1043 N. California, Chicago, Illinois) and board a chartered bus to Dietzler Farms with arrival scheduled at around 4 p.m.

The experience will comprise of a five course meal by Cleetus Friedman, paired with beers by Flossmoor Station and will also include a tour of Dietzler Farm. Matt Van Wyk, brewmaster at Flossmoor Station, will be on hand to discuss the brewing process and speak about the beers.

Don't miss out!!

Cross your fingers.

G.A.B.F. beers on their way.

Tap List 08/09/08

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.

Ahtanumous IPA (7.0% a.b.v.) [almost gone!]
Ahtanum hops + self awareness = AHTANUMOUS
Put enough of something together and sometimes something special happens with intelligence. We added loads of Ahtanum hops to this beer and the beer became self aware. It wants you to love it.

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: Three Floyd's Gorch Fock Helles
Guest Stout: O'hara's Irish Stout

Session #19 German Beer

The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer. On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s nice archive page.

Ah, yes - here we are, September 5th and time for Session 19! So far I’ve gotten a bunch of great responses, and will be poring over them tonight for the roundup post tomorrow (as well as writing my own post - nothing like procrastination)! I’ll just tack the roundup onto this post, so go ahead and link here if you like.

It's #19 already! Lootcorp 3.0 is the host this month. We are pretty bad about being good Session participants, mainly because Friday is a bad day for us to blog on a regular basis. But German beer isn't something to be missed. Here are some German beer photos from my collection.

It's Official! Collaborative Evil Release Details

On September 27th, at our Oktoberfest party, we will debut our Collaborative Evil Belgian Style Strong Dark Ale.

Mug Club Members get first crack at noon and normies get it at one o'clock. Bottles will be $12 a piece with no limit. Don't wait until the last minute, because this might just go as fast as Dark Lord does.

City Provisions Farm Dinner

We have a very special and exciting announcement to make.



Saturday, September 20th at 2 :00pm we will be embarking on a potentially life changing beer dinner that involves food pairings, bus trips, and farm visits. From the City Provisions site.

Join us September 20th for the City Provisions Farm Dinner

Featuring Flossmoor Station Brewery, Flossmoor, IL Dietzler Farms of Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Saturday, September 20th
2 :00pm
City Provisions
1043 North California
Chicago

$125 all inclusive

Joined by Flossmoor Station Brewery from Flossmoor, Illinois and Dietzler Farms of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the Farm Dinner is designed to help guests gain a better perspective on the origins of their food, the farming process, and how this all gets incorporated into the dining experience. At 2 p.m. guests will meet at City Provisions (1043 N. California, Chicago, Illinois) and board a chartered bus to Dietzler Farms with arrival scheduled at around 4 p.m..

The experience will comprise of a five course meal by Cleetus Friedman, paired with beers by Flossmoor Station and will also include a tour of Dietzler Farm. Matt Van Wyk, brewmaster at Flossmoor Station, will be on hand to discuss the brewing process and speak about the beers.

To RSVP to this event or for further information about City Provisions, please call 773-235-2489, email info(at)cityprovisions.com

Matt and I are really excited about this. Two Brothers had one earlier this year and there were nothing but rave reviews. Here are photos from their trip. This is not going to be any sort of regular beer dinner. You'll get a chance to see the farm where your food was grown, talk to the farmers, talk to the brewers, talk to the chefs, and have what should be an amazing time.

Elkhorn, Wisconsin is just over the border.

View Larger Map

You don't want to miss this event.

In Memoriam Walter "Killer" Kowalski 1926 ~ 2008

This past Saturday Walter Kowalski died after suffering from the effects of a massive heart attack. We named an award winning Baltic Porter after him that is currently the G.A.B.F. reigning champ. Maybe we'll win again in Denver and can pay tribute to the former giant.





From the Chicago Tribune:

Pro-wrestling icon turned 'pussycat'

By Richard Goldstein |New York Times News Service

September 2, 2008

Walter "Killer" Kowalski, one of professional wrestling's biggest stars and most hated villains when wrestlers offered a nightly menu of mayhem in the early years of television, died Saturday in Everett, Mass. He was 81.

Mr. Kowalski's death was announced by his wife, Theresa, who said he had been hospitalized since a heart attack in early August.

At 6 feet 7 inches and 275 pounds or so, Mr. Kowalski was a formidable figure who delighted in applying his claw hold, a thumb squeeze to an opponent's solar plexus, when he was not leaping from the top strand of the ropes and descending on his foe's chest.

Emerging as a featured performer in the early 1950s, he became a TV celebrity with wrestlers like Antonino Rocca, Lou Thesz, Gorgeous George, Haystacks Calhoun and Nature Boy Buddy Rogers.

Mr. Kowalski wrestled on the pro circuits for some 30 years and appeared in more than 6,000 matches, by his count. Early in his career, he called himself Tarzan Kowalski. But, as he often related it, one particular match, at Montreal in the early 1950s, literally made his name.

"I was leaping off the rope, and Yukon Eric, who had a cauliflower ear, moved at the last second," Mr. Kowalski told the Chicago Tribune in 1989. "I thought I missed, but all of a sudden, something went rolling across the ring. It was his ear."

Yukon Eric was taken to a hospital, and the promoter asked Mr. Kowalski to visit him and apologize for severing his ear. Reporters were listening to their chat from a corridor.

"There was this 6-foot-5, 280-pound guy, his head wrapped like a mummy, dwarfing his bed," Mr. Kowalski said. "I looked at him and grinned. He grinned back. I laughed, and he laughed back. Then I laughed harder and left.

"The next day the headlines read, 'Kowalski Visits Yukon in the Hospital and Laughs.' And when I climbed into the ring that night, the crowd called out, 'You animal, you killer.' And the name stuck."

Mr. Kowalski came to incur the wrath of the fans. As he told Esquire magazine in 2007: "Someone once threw a pig's ear at me. A woman once came up to me after a match and said, 'I'm glad you didn't get hurt.' Then she stabbed me in the back with a knife. After a while, I got police escorts to and from the ring."

Mr. Kowalski was born in Windsor, Ontario. His parents, Anthony and Marie Spulnik, had emigrated from Poland. He hoped to become an electrical engineer, but while he was working out at a YMCA, someone who was evidently impressed by his physique suggested he become a wrestler. He made his pro debut in the late 1940s.

He eventually tussled with all the famous names of wrestling, and in his later years he teamed with Big John Studd as a tag team called the Executioners.

"He was a hell of an attraction," Thesz told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998. "He had a great body back then. He was not a sophisticated wrestler, but every promoter wanted him because he made a lot of money."

Mr. Kowalski retired in 1977 and founded Killer Kowalski's School of Professional Wrestling in Malden, Mass. His proteges included the wrestlers Triple H and Chyna. He sold the school in 2003, and it is now in North Andover, Mass.

Beyond the ring, Mr. Kowalski displayed a gentle and even aesthetic side. He became a vegetarian in the mid-1950s, pursued charitable work for children with special needs and delighted in photographing fellow wrestlers. His work was sometimes displayed at galleries.

"I wanted to take action picture," he told The New York Times shortly after retiring. "But I went up to the ring, the fans screamed at me and threw garbage at me. It was detrimental to my health. So all I took were posed pictures. I sign my photographs Walter Kowalski. I used to be a villain, but now I'm a good guy. I kiss old women and pat babies. I've gone from 'Killer' Kowalski to a pussycat."

I was on the cover of the Trib's "At Play" section Thursday

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/explore/chi-brew-inside-0828aug28,0,7420795.story

The online version doesn't include the photo of me but you can still read this anway.

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery

1035 Sterling Ave., Flossmoor; 708-957-2739, flossmoorstation.com

Situated in an old train station, next to the current Metra station (you can spit and hit the brewpub from the platform—but don't) Flossmoor boasts wood-trimmed white walls, shimmering copper tanks and a bar made from enough gleaming wood to build a yacht. A deck for outdoor seating connects to a caboose rehabbed to house an ice cream shop. Flossmoor Station was named best small brew pub (and best small brewpub brewer) in 2006 by the respected Great American Beer Festival. With praise like that and easy Metra access, you can't not visit.

Beers: 10 to 12 beers on tap at any one time; $4-$4.50 per pint. Eight are year-round; 2 to 4 are seasonals. Flossmoor makes about 20 to 25 beers a year. Flossmoor started bottling three of its beers (Station Master Wheat Ale, Pullman Brown Ale and a rotating India pale ale) in April, says brewer Matt Van Wyk, but they are also available at the pub. I tried the Gandy Dancer Honey Ale (made with orange blossom honey, it has an easy hoppy bitterness with light honey flavor and aroma) and the Roundhouse Raspberry (lambic-like flavor, with raspberry tartness).

Food: A mix of American restaurant staples (cheese fries, Caesar salad, burgers, brats), many with beer and/or railroad inflected names, such as beer cheese soup, brew kettle chili, Pullman beer-b-que. Try the country fried chicken sandwich (crispy, plump, juicy) with the Roundhouse Raspberry or sauteed perch fillets (tender, moist) with the Honey Ale. Don't miss the amazing beer-christened tartar sauce with tarragon.