Brewer's Dinner tomorrow night!

Just wanted to put up a quick reminder that we're doing our Brewer's Dinner tomorrow, Thursday the 27th, here at Flossmoor Station. We got a great line up of beers and food pairings, and Bryan and I will be pouring beer for the event. So come on out for a great 4 course dinner with us! The price is $35 for mug clubbers (and significant others of those mug clubbers will be at the same price) and for everyone else it's $39.

Hope to see you there
cheers!

Brewpub Shootout 2011

We had a great time at the Brewpub Shootout this year, they really put on a great show and all the breweries that attended brought out some truly great dishes and tasty brews! We got to walk away with some accolades as well, which is always a terrific feeling.

We were granted 2nd place for best beer, and we're not totally sure which beer fetched the title, but we're very proud our beers were well received

Additionally, we got 1st place for our food, which Chef Eduardo pulled together an amazing dish of beef tenderloin served over sweet potato mash. He seared the beef on the spot, which may have helped draw extra attention to our table. In fact, almost everytime he flared the burner up, a large group would gravitate toward us, drifting with the smell of beef.

This was my first time attending the Shootout, and it was an absolute fantastic event. It's really nice to have food being a focal point of a beer fest, especially after tasting so many great beers. Some of my favorites from the day were the potato dumplings from Rock Bottom and the Nutella bread pudding from Half Acre. Also, the other group of Rock Bottom'ers (east and south? or north and west? I can't remember how they split that up) brought out the liquid nitrogen to flash freeze raspberries over ice cream, which was really cool to see! I wanted to steal some of the liquid N2 to play with...

Revolution walked away with the best food and beer pairing, and I can't remember exactly what they brought, but it was a great dessert pairing with a Citra hopped IPA. The newly established Haymarket also received some awards, I think one in each catagory (beer, food, and pairing), and took first in the best beer.

We have pictures to come soon

cheers!

Bottling a Station Master

Seems like a difficult task, especially when contracting Phil Conners, but we managed to bottle 60 cases of the Station Master Wheat, so it is available today again in bottles behind the bar.

Additionally, in having a little fun with our bottle caps, we found the world infamous Gringo Extra cap

If you happen to be the lucky Gringo, then you get an Extra! Find the Gringo bottle cap and you get a 2 for 1 deal of the same beer, which this time happens to be the Station Master.

This might become a more regular tradition, but for now this is a first

Cheers!

Upcoming events

Just wanted to extend our upcoming events onto our beer blog. Thursday night we're doing a fundraising event with the Save-a-Pet no kill animal shelter. Their funds are rapidly running out and are in desparate need. They currently only have enough funds for the next 6 months. Bryan and I are going to be there, doing some tastings of our IPA, Pullman Brown, and Station Master Wheat. Appetizers will also be available. Tickets are $25, and space is limited, so call ahead for a reservation. Hope to see you there!

Also coming up, if you haven't heard already, the Bears are supposed to play on Sunday. I'm not gonna say whom I'm rooting for, as to not be ousted by this intense rivalry. But here at Flossmoor, we're doing a "Brown Down" day for the Bears! We'll have a few beer and food specials:

$1 Tacos

$5 BBQ Chipotle Wings

$3 Pullman Brown Ale pints

And as always, we'll have a free half-time buffet. So come on out and cheer on the team!

Cheers!

Anti-matter, stouts, food and gas

We had a nice turnout on Saturday for our Killer Kapowski bottle release, which was a pleasant surprise given how freaking cold it was (Bryan and I had to call it off a little early due to the lack of feeling in our fingers and toes, and faces for that matter). Thanks to everyone who made it out, hope those bottles are treating you warmly!

We decided to brew our Imperial Stout, the Dark Matter, again a week back. It's about done fermenting and tasting great, with a big starting gravity of about 23*P. We dry hopped it today with some Centennial and Chinook hops to round the nose out with a big dose of pine and grapefruit, and we additionally spiced it with just a hint of Star Anise, to add an extra depth of flavor. We're really excited about how this one will turn out, and we should release it next month for our next tapping party.

Another return for our cellars is the Iron Horse Stout, which we brewed last Friday. We are planning to release part of it on nitrogen, and then carbonating it for the remainder. It'll be a fun experimentation on the effects the gas has on the beer itself. Bryan and I call the carbonation of a beer the fifth ingredient, because of how much it impacts beer's flavor. With beer served on nitrogen, the flavor comes through much smoother, more mellow and more creamy. Plus, the head of a nitro beer has the classic Guinness ever-lasting pillow effect. This is all due to the insolubility of nitrogen in beer, and once it breaks out of solution, it does so in very fine bubbles, which create that creamy ever-lasting head. Additionally, with stouts, the nitrogen doesn't pull as much of the roasted flavors out of the beer, creating a smoother, more mellow stout. Serving a beer on nitrogen is a way to emulate serving a beer "real ale" fashion, with the low carbonation and the creamy effect of the nitrogen. In fact, most real ale beer engines have sparklers attached to the end of the faucet, to whip up more nitrogen into the beer upon serving to give it a creamy head. In contrast, the solubility of CO2 gives a very coarse mouth feel to the beer and, with stouts, pulls the roasted flavors out, lending to a drier, more roasty stout. Additionally, the acidity of CO2 gives a sharper bite to the beer, giving it a more crisp taste.

This of course isn't anything new, many breweries have been playing with nitrogen draft systems for a while now. In fact, many breweries are trying nitrogen on many different beer styles other than stouts, such as Pales, IPA's and so forth. It's fun to taste the difference the gas can give a beer, and we'll get to taste that change with our Iron Horse!

Alright, enough of that ramble, on to our big event this weekend. We finally have decided on our dish for the Brewpub Shootout. We're pairing our HiFi-Ryewine, non barrel aged, with Chef Eduardo's green peppercorn encrusted beef tenderloin, sitting atop a mashed sweet potato with pasilla peppers whipped with a housemade HiFi butter sauce. It tastes great (from what I've heard, I'm a vegetarian and haven't tried it), and everyone here is really digging it. So hopefully it'll show well come Saturday. Additionally, we're entering our Intercontinental IPL (6.7%) and our Wooden Horse Barrel Aged Stout (5.6%).

Cheers!

Some year end closings and upcoming events

Hello all craft beer enthusiasts, I just wanted to give some brief updates around the brewhouse. We were excited to end this past year ('10) with 816 barrels, which is up 91 barrels from last year, closing with 725. We're excited to have pushed out this much beer, and you are to thank! A good portion of our growth has come in bottles, and Glunz beer distributors have been working hard to deliver our great brew around the Chicagoland area. You can find our brews at most of the Binny's around the area, as well as Wholefoods. We're working with them to bring our beer into new craft beer markets, so keep a look out!

The new year is also bringing us some delicious beer and food pairings! We have a delectable Mardi Gras Brewer's Dinner lined up on Thursday the 27th, starting at 6pm, with tickets going for $35 for mug clubbers, and $39 for non-clubbers. Here's our menu line up, featuring a great collaboration with us in the brewery and our Chef Eduardo:

6pm Welcome with our ReplicAle Pale

Dinner Menu, starting at 630pm

Appetizer
Shrimp Etouffee over Cajun Rice w/ Andouille Sausage
Beer: Panama Red Ale

Soup
Chicken Gumbo
Beer: Intercontinental Pale Lager

Entree
Beef Tenderloin Medallion Ratatouille
Beer: Killer Kapowski Baltic Porter

Dessert
Bourbon Rice Pudding Broule
Beer: Bourbon Spiced Red Ale

And in upcoming events, we will continue our food and beer pairings with the 13th annual Chicagoland Brewpub Shootout, on January 22nd at the Irish American Heritage Center, from 1-5pm. We've got some great ideas flowing for our food pairings, as well as some creative beers using some special barrel reserves, but I won't spoil the surprise just yet! Brewpub Shootout

There's also some rumors passing around about an early March visit with the alive.....a day spent with the living ales.....but more to come on that



Cheers!

Killer Kapowski Bottle Release

With the new year comes a new beginning for an old great here at Flossmoor. After a year off, the Killer Kapowski Baltic porter will be available again in bottles. We are going to release the Kapowski on Saturday, January 15th, and this delicious beer will be available starting at 12 noon. We will be selling this beer out of the rolling door south of the main entrance on Sterling Ave., and each bottle will be $10. We expect to have enough KK bottled so that everyone has a chance for a bottle, however there will be a one case, 12 bottle, limit.

We look forward to seeing everyone and have a wonderful new year.

Cheers,

Bryan