Great Taste 07 recap

Damn, it was hot and humid. Easily the hottest year in recent memory. Anyway, here's what we did over the weekend.

Friday Night

Started at Capitol for a dinner by the Museum of Beer and Brewing honoring Charlie Papazian with the Karl Strauss Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Beer & Brewing Industry. If you don't know who Charlie Papazian is, just do a simple google search. He's been talked about a lot because he's done a lot.




Unfortunately however, Capitol double booked the room we were supposed to eat in and instead we ate in their warehouse. It had to be at least 97 degrees in their which made dinner a bit less pleasant. But the beer was cold and we did our best to stay cool. After dinner we got to look around the brewery, which I had never seen.


(The biggest Hoff-Stevens Keg ever!)


(Kirby, Capitol's Brewmaster)




(Matt Drinking Autumnal Fire off the Lagering tank)

We headed over to the new Great Dane in Hilldale after that and saw a lot of familiar faces. By that time I had drank plenty and I didn't bring my camera. Matt pried us away from the new Dane and we went to Maduro, a cigar bar near the capitol that was serving all Bell's beers. But I don't think I even finished half a beer. By that point I was done in.

Saturday







We poured through a lot of beer and everyone seemed to have nice things to say. Highlights for me were from The Livery in Benton Harbor, who not only had great beers but are great people. And also New Albanian in New Albany, Indiana. They had a rauch-schwarz beer that was aged in a port barrel and I bought my new favorite t-shirt from them. I'll try to get a picture of it up on here soon.

What are we taking to Madison?

get excited!


Barrel Aged Killer Kowalski
Barrel Aged Man Skirt Wee Heavy
Rot Geist American Red Wheat Beer
11
Ella's Reserve!
X-IPA
Killer Kowalski
Wooden Hell
Hoppy Little Gnome

See you in Wisconsin

Tap List 8/7/07

Rot Geist (6% a.b.v.)
We set out to create a deliciously hoppy American wheat beer that wasn't as burly as our normal I.P.A.s but still satiated the hophead inside of us. What came out was Rot Geist (Red Ghost) American Red Wheat. It's a reddish hued American Wheat made with Summit, Centennial, and Amarillo hops with an additional dry hopping of 1lb/bbl Amarillo for aroma.

X-IPA (7.5% abv)
Our doubly delicious double I.P.A. made with 100% Amarillo hops. Dry hopped at a generous pound/bbl, X-IPA is a citrus bomb that will send you to grapefruit heaven.

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.

Replicale Red (5.5% abv)
This year's Illinois Craft Brewer's Guild replicale project, where all participating breweries make the same beer, using the same recipe, same ingredients, and all end up tasting different. This year's beer is a west coast amber ale that is hoppy and crisp but well balanced against caramel malts to create a very quaffable reddish pale ale.

Batch 500!

What is Batch 500 going to be?
Answer on the right in our new Poll.

If Batch 500 seems like a really low number to some of you remember that we aren't Bells who probably brews 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I think they just released batch 50 million by the way. Consider that Flossmoor Station has been around for 11 years this summer and typically makes 45-55 batches of beer per year. Some years are more and some are less but Batch 500 is coming and Matt and I are both excited about it.

Session #6 - Fruit Beers

Beer, Beats, and Bites were on deck this month for the Session.

I love fruit beers. Kind of. I love some fruit beers and I really loathe others. We have two "fruit" beers on year round, one of which I like and one of which I hate. If I had my druthers I probably wouldn't have either one on, but the public demands it! Some people really like the cough-syrup flavored beers that were all the rage in American brewpubs in past years.

The fruit beers that we make that I love are entirely different from the syrup added variety. Two of them are national and internationally award winning. De Zuidentrein Frambozenbier is a Belgian style brown ale that we age in a wine barrel that has fresh raspberries in it. It picks up some vinous character from the barrel and has lots of raspberry flavor and aroma. It isn't one of those syrupy sweet raspberry beers though. Let's look at some of the reviews from one of the popular beer rating websites:

2.8 / 5
Aroma 7/10
Appearance 3/5
Flavor 5/10
Palate 2/5
Overall 11/20

Tap @ GTMW. Clear ruby brown in color with a dusty, swirling grey head. Ripe strawberry and raspberry aroma with hints of scotch and a cedar component. Thin and watery on the palate, met with a bourbon with a splash or raspberry liqueur. Not very well balanced and pretty boring.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 / 5
Aroma 8/10
Appearance 3/5
Flavor 5/10
Palate 2/5
Overall 12/20

sampled at barrel-aged brewfest. terrible. raspberry megasou aroma. red toffee color. some head. flavor profile is short with a clear, unfulfilling finish. SO thin. SO watered down. miserable. god, that was an unforgiving review.

This is the beer that in 2005 was awarded a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival.

Brewery	Beer	State	Medals	Category
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.	9th Street Market Tuscan Orange	MO	Silver	Fruit and Vegetable Beer
Flossmoor Station Brewing Co.	De Zuidentrein Frambozenbier	IL	Bronze	Fruit and Vegetable Beer
New Glarus Brewing Co.	Belgian Red	WI	Gold	Fruit and Vegetable Beer

Does that mean that the reviews are wrong? I don't think so, because you can't really say that someone's opinion about a beer is "wrong." It's what they thought after they tried the beer and what they perceived. I'm not really sure where a Scotch component comes from out of a beer with fruit that has been in french oak, but people are all different and everyone finds something else. To me what it does say is that unless they had a sample that was terribly tainted or were drinking out of a dirty boot (let's assume that they weren't) that these two people probably don't get it. "It" being fruit beers. They were probably expecting something more along the lines of that '05 GABF perennial Gold medal winner, New Glarus Belgian Red.

Now what I really find interesting is that the very same beer secondarily fermented with two different strains of wild Belgian yeast, Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus, then blended to please our ultra sophisticated pallets, hand bottled, and aged, went on to win a Silver medal at the '06 World Beer Cup in the Belgian Style Sour Ale category. What was the Gold? Rodenbach Grad Cru, a beer that I think is incredible.

Category: 43 Belgian-Style Sour Ale - 22 Entries
Gold: Rodenbach Grand Cru, Palm Breweries Belgium Site Brewery Rodenbach, Roeselare, Belgium
Silver: De Wilde Zuidentrein, Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery, Flossmoor, IL
Bronze: Festina Lente, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE

And some other brewery won a bronze.


So what's the difference between the two? Well Loads! That yeast took the beer from the realm of dry tartness to mouth puckering but refreshing sourness. By the way the reviews for De Wilde Zuidentrein on that same beer review site are all very positive, which I attribute to the fact that the only people who have had a chance to drink it understand the painstaking work that went into the beer and the ludicrously small amounts that are available to consume. (And I'm sure that while they were drinking it we reminded them more than once that they were drinking the second best sour Belgian ale in the world. That might have tainted their opinions.)

In other fruit beer news, my wedding beer is going to be a light bodied Belgian style wit beer made with blood oranges. I have high hopes for it. Stay Tuned.

For Immediate Release: Flossmoor Station Acquires Tom Sheehan Before Trade Deadline

Bartender added to active roster and will start immediately

Flossmoor -- Flossmoor Station Restaraunt and Brewery announced today the acquisition of bartender, idea man, and jack of all trades, Tom Sheehan from the free agent market. As per league policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"A former farm hand, engineer, and experienced bar tender, Tom brings a lot to the table," says brewmaster Matt Van Wyk. "We had an opening and the pieces just fell into place. We are excited that things worked out the way they did."

The central Illinois native is hitting .304 in 1,140 games during his major league career with Champaign. Sheehan is 14th among all active major league players with his .304 batting average and has finished in the top 10 in hitting in the National League three times during his career. He has collected 271 doubles, 121 home runs and 634 RBI during his career.

At Flossmoor, Sheehan will spearhead Brewery plans to open a craft beer store, also in downtown Flossmoor with an opening date to be determined in the future. He has opened other bars and retail outlets in the past and has a solid feel for the pulse of the craft beer scene in the U.S.

In addition to the acquisition of Sheehan and plans of future shop openings, Flossmoor Station announced yet to be determined plans for bottling their award winning beer. More details were not available at press time.

Flossmoor Station was also awarded with the title of 2006 Small Brewpub of the Year, and Small Brewpub Brewer of the year for brewmaster Matt Van Wyk at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival. Flossmoor Station is a 500-600 barrel brewpub located in Flossmoor, Illinois, USA that specializes in American Heartland Cuisine and hand-crafted, flavor forward ales and lagers.

###

Tap List 7/24/07

Rot Geist (6% a.b.v.)
We set out to create a deliciously hoppy American wheat beer that wasn't as burly as our normal I.P.A.s but still satiated the hophead inside of us. What came out was Rot Geist (Red Ghost) American Red Wheat. It's a reddish hued American Wheat made with Summit, Centennial, and Amarillo hops with an additional dry hopping of 1lb/bbl Amarillo for aroma.

X-IPA (7.5% abv)
Our doubly delicious double I.P.A. made with 100% Amarillo hops. Dry hopped at a generous pound/bbl, X-IPA is a citrus bomb that will send you to grapefruit heaven.

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.

Replicale Red (5.5% abv)
This year's Illinois Craft Brewer's Guild replicale project, where all participating breweries make the same beer, using the same recipe, same ingredients, and all end up tasting different. This year's beer is a west coast amber ale that is hoppy and crisp but well balanced against caramel malts to create a very quaffable reddish pale ale.

Ever had American Red Wheat Beer?

...me either. But next Tuesday night we are tapping Rot Geist (red ghost for all you non-Germans). This is something Andrew wanted to try and we gave it a go(this is the reason we can't get to all those favorites you guys keep asking us to brew-we keep chasing the golden snitch (guess you gotta go see the Potter movie) of perfection.)
Anyway we used just shy of 50% wheat malt, added a bit of caramel malt for color without adding too much flavor and then loaded it up with American hops. It is also dryhopped. Crisp, refreshing, and hopped up. A session beer for hopheads?? Will it taste like a summer wheat ale? maybe. Will it taste like an American pale ale with all those hops? Maybe.
Will it be good? Absolutely. And you'll just have to come by Tuesday night to find the answer to the other questions. Mug Club Tapping as at 7PM. Everyone else will enjoy it at 8PM.



Beyond that we have a new lager fermenting away. During the last week of August, we'll tap Black Wolf Schwarzbier, our gold medal winning beer from last year's Great American Beer Festival. We'll be entering it again and you get to judge fro yourself whether it is worty of gold.

INSPIRED BY BELGIUM - An awesome recap

Well, the CBS event this past weekend was pretty cool. A lot of really great beers and a ton of awesome cheeses and other food stuffs too. I probably ate too much but it's hard to say no to belgian dark chocolate, super rich cheesecake, and glorious glorious cheese. I didn't have any mussels but Matt insists that they were delish as always.

The Session #5 - Atmosphere

-Hop Talk picked this month's topic-

"So, we want to know about the “Atmosphere” in which you enjoy beer. Where is your favorite place to have a beer? When? With whom? Most importantly: Why?"

This is a really tough one, and I'm not going to be able to do justice to such a broad topic on this blog. I think I'll dig through my photo archives and find places that I have had some great drinking experiences and talk a little about them.

-Belgium-


Belgium, just about any cafe will do that has a lengthy beer list. The whole country is amazing. This was in Bruges in 2000 when I was traveling with my family. One day we had a Chimay lunch, which was Chimay cheese and a few different bottles of Chimay in a park with some crackers. The simplicity was perfect.


-Munich -Augustiner Brauhall-



To me, this is the quintessential beer hall in Munich. Long maple tables, incredible German lagers, and full of local Muncheners. The pork knuckle is to die for. I had thanksgiving dinner in this beer hall one year. Maximator dopplebock, from the source... I'm drooling right now.

-Bamberg- Brauerei-Spezial


There are a lot of really great places to drink in Bamberg but this one was the first I went to so it has a special place in my heart. Whenever you are in Bamberg, the "rauch" seems to permeate your entire being. Some people never develop the taste for Rauch beer but I fell head over heals for it. The smoky bite balanced with that crisp lager finish makes me want to have one after another. I remember at Spezial, they had a little probe that they would put in your beer before serving it to slightly warm it up. This was another place where we were the only tourists. Everyone else was just a local having lunch or enjoying a smoky marzen.

-Flossmoor IL- Flossmoor Station Brewing Co.-


More than just a shameless plug, there is a special feeling about drinking a beer that you made that tastes really good, at the place that you made it. It's very hard to explain unless you have done it yourself, maybe only fellow brewers can fully appreciate it. But there is a lot to be said about drinking beer in its "home."

Why Blog?

If you have done any searching on the ol' net these days, you're sure to come across a blog. People have documented everything on-line from food lovers to brewery planners and from wine enthusiast to star-gazers. Everyone's got a spot on the www. (make sure you check out our links on the side-there are some great beer blogs-and many more we haven't yet linked too.)

Why did WE start ours?(Andrew, asst. brewer at Flossmoor Station, to be exact) Well, those of you who are new to the site may not have seen early posts where we told you that like most company's websites, ours was not really up to date, and we weren't/aren't using it as a good marketing tool. We wanted a place where we could not only tell you what was on tap, but what was coming up. We wanted to make it a window into the brewhouse. Along the way we have added pix and documents on our trips, competition, and other misc. meat eating adventures!

I think we(and by we I mean Andrew) have done an adequate job of keeping a taplist on here and trying to post various pieces of info so you can see what is going on. However, I have dropped the ball on keeping you updated on what is coming down the road. As much as I try get on-line and put something on this blog, time always seems to slip away. I struggle to carve out that quiet moment to sit down and do this. In fact right now I'm trying to get my kids to settle into an afternoon nap before their mom gets home so I can get into work (real glamorous life of a brewer, right?). Well, instead of continuing to tell you how pathetic I am, let me look into the brewing telescope and let you know what to look for as we head through the second half of 07:

First the current:
-We put on XIPA Tuesday night. This will go FAST. Don't wait b/c we don't have another IPA available til well into the fall.
-Our newest stout is an American Rye Stout. Black and hoppy. Yum!
-FRIDAY, FRIDAY, FRIDAY-11th Anniversary Beer called, 11, will be on tap. Milk Stout on raspberries in a bourbon barrel. $6.00 snifters. Beauty. Limited supply.

Now for the rest of the sumemr:
-We made an American Red Wheat two days ago. Is it a style? I don't think so-but we don't mind making one up. Maybe we can be the pioneers the way Vinnie Cilurzo is to the Double IPA?? meh...maybe not. So it's a hoppy wheat beer with a red tint. Should be good.
-Next Wed. we will be making Black Wolf Schwarzbier in an attempt to repeat as champions at GABF this Oct. This beer will be on tap in late August.
-We will be making an Oktoberfest and a Zwickelbier(unfiltered helles/pilsner type beer) from this yeast, but you won't see those until Sept. or Oct.

Pushing on to the fall:
-OCTOBER is the month Andrew decided to get married. CONGRATS to he and Meg. We will try to brew a Bride-Ale type beer. More info on that later.
-I would like to get a Barleywine or an Imp. stout in the tank, but that surely won't be ready until late fall to early winter. If I get a chance we'll make a small beer off of the second runnings if we can.
-I will try hard to make a pumpkin ale as many of you clamored for it last year. However, Andrew's wedding beer takes priority and we'll see how it falls. It also depends on how fast the lagers turn.I can't serve the pumpkin ale in Dec. It usually doesn't work.
-I'd like to make a wet hop beer as well, but I don't think there will be room in production. For those who don't know, a wet hop beer is when the hops are pulled directly out of the field and overnighted to the brewery before they are allowed to be dried. Fresh and aromatic, it's a wonderful fall beer.

So, that should keep you interested for a bit. We've got tons of barrel aged beers hanging in the cellar as well, so when the snow flies, we'll crack those out too.
If you are reading this, I have to assume that our posts have been entertaining or at least of interest to you that you keep checking back. I hope you will continue.
As much as I can make time, I'll keep you up to date on where we're going. I hope!
If you have any suggestions on how we can serve you better through this blog(don't say, make more xyz beer), please leave a comment and let us know.
Cheers,
Matt

Tap List 7/3/07

X-IPA (7.5% abv)
Our doubly delicious double I.P.A. made with 100% Amarillo hops. Dry hopped at a generous pound/bbl, X-IPA is a citrus bomb that will send you to grapefruit heaven.

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.

Replicale Red (5.5% abv)
This year's Illinois Craft Brewer's Guild replicale project, where all participating breweries make the same beer, using the same recipe, same ingredients, and all end up tasting different. This year's beer is a west coast amber ale that is hoppy and crisp but well balanced against caramel malts to create a very quaffable reddish pale ale.

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.

This is Radio Clash Maria, from Pirate Sattelite

This past week Matt and I finally juggled the schedule around to take Tom Sheehan up on his offer to visit at Radio Maria in Champaign. They are a really cool restaurant that has been around for a long time in Champaign that took over an antique store next door to them to open up a full service bar. They feature an impressive list of 27 beers (including ours) and an even more impressive bar.



The bar has all kinds of cool recycled and found objects and materials integrated in the design.



The draught system is an old hand washing sink that was custom modified into a 27 head tapper. They did so much work on it that they patented the design.



The top of the bar is a really cool blue acrylic plastic with lights underneath, and a rubber escalator railing along the edge. The owner fabricated the whole bar himself in his workshop, cut it into transportable pieces, and brought it back to the bar and reassembled it. And although you can't see it in the pictures, the foot rest underneath was fashioned out of slate from an old hospital or school or jail or one of the dozens of places Tom told us his owner found materials for the bar. One of my favorites were these really cool lights that were hanging from the ceiling.



If you can't figure out what they are, think of going to the bank teller. These are old pneumatic tube message carriers that the University used to use in the 60's and 70's to pass information around the school. Radio Maria is crawling with little details like this that really impressed me. Everything had a story attached to it.

So Tom insists that people have been coming into Radio Maria, drinking good beer, asking where the hell Flossmoor Station is, and telling them how to get to us. I believe him so now it's time to return the favor. If you are traveling through Central Illinois, visiting a friend in Champaign, looking at a school to go to, getting a family pleaser at Monical's, or anything that would bring you into the proximity of Walnut and Taylor streets, you need to go to Radio Maria.

Memphis in May

For those of you who don't know me very well, I love meat. And when it comes to meat, pork is easily my favorite. When it comes to pork, I don't think there is a better way of preparing it than BBQ. Earlier this year my girlfriend and I got a personal invitation to come to Memphis in May, the World BBQ Championship. Memphis in May works like this: You get together a cooking team, decide if you are going to compete in either pork shoulder, ribs, or whole hog, set up a tent, invite your friends, and have an incredible time.



We were with the team Sweet-Sine-O-Mine, who won first place in shoulder in 2005. It goes without saying that these people were serious about Cue. They even had SSOM '05 tattoos.





Obviously, the food was incredible and the bottle of Makers that my dad and I polished off certainly made the evening even more enjoyable. While we were there I met one of the greatest innovations in pork rib preparations. Deep-fried Buffalo pork ribs. The ribs are smoked, separated into one-rib segments, and then deep-fried in hot oil, and tossed in wing sauce. I was in Pork Heaven. (Pork Heaven also manifests itself in places like Bavaria, where almost every meal involved pork)

And as much as I know you love to read about all the mouthwatering pork that you didn't get to eat, this trip was not without delicious beer either, (although at MIM you're lucky to find someone with a cooler that isn't filled with cans of Light this, or Light that.) Bosco's in midtown Memphis, is one of the best brewpubs in the country, as far as I'm concerned, and they didn't disappoint on this trip either.



I sampled a Hefe-weizen, Scottish ale, Vienna lager, brown, and an Alt that were all above par. Jimmy, their more than capable brewer, even came out to say "hi" and shoot the breeze for a while, (on a Saturday no less!) If you are in Memphis, Little Rock, or Nashville, and you don't go out of your way to visit a Bosco's location you are doing yourself a great disservice. And the beer isn't the only reason to check them out either, they have one of the best brewpub menus of any place I have ever been to.



All of my Memphis pictures are here.