12 Beers of Christmas

To celebrate the upcoming holidays, we're releasing 12 spiced, blended, steeped and hopped beers; starting today the 13th through the 24th.  We're tapping a new beer everyday, starting at 11:30am, and will be served all day or until it kicks.  Here's a list of what to expect!

Dec 13th - Corriander and Orange Zest 12.21 Ale
Dec 14th - Maple Syrup and Candied Pecan Pumpkin Lager
Dec 15th - Cold Pressed Coffee Barrel Aged Smoked Porter
Dec 16th - Cold Steeped Midnight Wheat Golden Opportunity Ale
Dec 17th - Star Anise Barrel Aged Imperial Schwartz
Dec 18th - Chocolate and Raspberry Imperial Schwartz
Dec 19th - Smoked Chile Pepper Smoked Porter
Dec 20th - Rooibos Steeped Golden Opportunity Ale
Dec 21st - Cinnamon Orange Peel and Nutmeg Golden Opportunity Ale
Dec 22nd - Passion Fruit Golden Opportunity Ale
Dec 23rd - Apricot 12.21 Ale
Dec 24th - Mango and Dry Hopped Golden Opportunity Ale

Cheers!

Barrel Aging Division (B.A.D.)

As regulars of Flossmoor, you may have noticed some missing beers in our lineup, which is only temporary and will be back soon.  But in the meantime, we've broken into our cellars and starting bringing out the goodies from B.A.D.

We have 4 barrel aged selections on tap currently, and are tapping 2 more tomorrow.  We'll even have a duo of flights featuring both barrel aged selections; the Petite Mutants for the sour ale selections, and the Wooden Forged for the bourbon barrel selections.  Both feature 3 four oz samples for $5

Most of these selections are true experimentations, ranging from a simple barleywine in second use bourbon barrels, to a wheat wine in bourbon barrels, to a sour Belgian IPA.  (the latter we'll be tapping tomorrow)

Cheers!

FoBAB Results are in!

The Festival of Barrel Aged Beer is such a great event and was well executed by our fantastic staff at the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild (a very big thank you to you all!)

Great beers were had by all, and some really creative experiments that I think were pulled off really well.  We were lucky enough to have two that were deemed exceptional, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why

The Imperial Schwartz won Gold in the Dark Strong Category and the .357 Brett won Gold in the Wild Beers Brettanomyces Category! 

Both are on tap currently at the Station, but may be departing soon, so please come down and enjoy and have a great holiday!

Cheers!

Jack the Pumpkin Lager

We have a delicious treat for the October month, which is Jack the Pumpkin Lager.   The lager yeast allows for the pumpkin flavors to really come thru, and spiced lightly but accordingly!

Jack will be carved on Monday the 8th
Cheers!

Shadows in the Smoke Oktoberfest

We'll be releasing the Shadows in the Smoke Oktoberfest in bottles this Saturday, at our annual Oktoberfest Party.  The bottle release will start at 4pm; 1 case per person limit; $10/bottle

Cheers!

Shadows in the Smoke Oktoberfest!

We're having our annual Oktoberfest Party this month, held on Saturday, September 29th, from 2-10pm; accompanied with beer in liter mugs, buffet and music!

We're also releasing our "Shadows in the Smoke" smoked Oktoberfest; both draft and in bottles.  The first tapping will be at 2pm, mug club members will get their first liter free, and the bottle release will start at 4pm.

More information regarding the bottles (price, quantity, etc) will come soon

Cheers!

A fine, noble belgian

We are tapping a new beer next Monday, the 16th, which will be the Noble Belgian, a Belgian Pale Ale hopped heavily, but not bitterly, with noble hops to give a unique floral aroma and flavor atop the fruit and spice of the belgian yeast!

Cheers!

Collaborations and Dunkels

We're tapping 2 new beers next Monday, the 2nd (already it's July????)

The MCAison collaboration with City Provisions, which we added fresh Rhubarb and Strawberries to the fermenter post-fermentation, great for summer drinking!

Also, we're tapping Chautauqua DunkelWeizen, a nice, slightly sweet, slightly toffee dunkelweizen!

Cheers!

Next Tapping

We'll be tapping our Red Rye Ale next Tuesday the 19th at 5pm.  It's a great, malty/hoppy/fruity/spicy/americany ale!

Cheers!

Brewer's Dinner

We're preparing to have a delicious beer paring dinner on Thursday, June 7th, complete with ribs, smoked balsamic salad, IPL, Barrel Aged HiFi Rye, and more

I'll post the menu soon, but it starts at 6pm with a welcome beer and is $39/person

Cheers!

Rift on session ales

There's been some good buzz about session beers lately; having been brought to the cover of a few beer periodicals. It's a great topic, and certainly bringing attention to some overlooked styles.

We wanted to brew an ale reminiscent of the real ales of the UK; rich in flavor, refreshing, and a low gravity meant to enjoy during the work day or throughout the evening. Armed with loads of caramel malts and fruity English hops, I feel pleased that we hit our mark introducing our Hammersmith Pub Ale

We'll be tapping this tasty ale on Tuesday the 29th, just in time for a hangover cure from the Chicago Craft Beer Week

Cheers!

Craft Beer Week Tapping

Hi all, we're getting into the spirit of the Chicago Craft Beer Week and have just tapped a very limited amount of the HiFi Ryewine at the bar. Come on out and enjoy!

Cheers!

Bronze IPL

Just wanted to acknowledge our recent accolade at the World Beer Cup that was held in San Diego at the beginning of the month, we were honored with a Bronze Medal in the English IPA category for our Intercontinental Pale Lager!

We still have it on tap, but just for a short minute further, so please come on down and try it!

Cheers!

Half Day Hefeweizen Tapping

Well, it's getting that time of year again when those partial work days seem to beg to be taken; early afternoons, sunshine, maybe a beach day, and of course some refreshing, delicious Hefeweizens!

We'll be tapping our Half Day Hefeweizen tomorrow, Tuesday the 15th to welcome this fine burst of sunny weather we've had lately and hopefully in good promise of continued fine weather.

It'll also be our pint special through the Chicago Craft Beer Week, priced at $4 throughout the week, so come on down! We'll also have maps and all the goodies that you can snag to help celebrate the city's own craft beer week

Cheers!

Thanks!

I'd like to thank everyone who came out for the pre-Dark Lord Day festivities last Friday, you all made for a great event!

We have just a few cases left of the bottle releases (Imperial Schwartz and Finlaggin) here at the brewery, so come on by and pick yours up before it's all gone

Cheers!

Pre Dark Lord Day Bottle Release Info

Just to note an update for the bottle releases this Friday;

Barrel Aged Finlaggin Scotch Ale, $15/ea, 6 bottle max

Barrel Aged Imperial Schwartz, $15/ea, 6 bottle max

Cash Only

We'll also have a good selection outside on tap, $5/ea for the "premium" selections, and $3/ea for the everyday stuff

Cheers!

Pre-Dark Lord Day

We'll be having another set of festivities here at the Station for the evening before the Dark Lord is unleashed.  We'll get started this Friday, the 27th, at 4pm with grilled food, music, a trading/sharing area for those inclined to bring some closet goodies, and of course a selection of fun oddities out of our cellar.

We'll also be doing a bottle release this year of two Barrel Aged beers; the Finlaggin Scotch Ale and the Imperial Schwartz, both aged in bourbon barrels.  Both are tasting great, and we'll have the release begin at 5pm and go until we run out.  There's a 6 bottle limit per brand.  Both brands will also be on tap to sample before you buy.

Cheers!

Opening Day Pils

We'll be tapping our next beer, the Opening Day Pils, to welcome the beginning of baseball season, namely the Cubs' first game (I know you south side'ers might be hating, but you know as well as anyone that the sad truth is the Cubs are prolly the best chance for post season)

Anywho, about the beer...it's a nice, lightly hopped and soft bready malt body pilsner (try saying that five times fast) At about 5.2%abv, it makes for the perfect replacement of Old Style to session the game with, and with this early summer, makes for a great warmer weather beer.

We'll be tapping into the beer with the first pitch of the game, at 120pm, and will be doing the normal tapping occasion at 5pm in our pub room

Cheers!

Hi-Fi Bottle Release, Feb 18th, 11:30am

We have finally set a date for the bottle release of this year's Hi-Fi Barrel Aged Barleywine: Saturday Feb 18th, at 11:30am here at the brewery.

The crowd control will be similar to last year, in which there will be a numbered ticket issued upon your arrival, and we'll call 10 ticket holders at a time to come and purchase thier bottles. The ticket numbers will be called numerically, so the release will be essentially a "first come first serve" basis, though the first 120 tickets will guarantee an opportunity to buy a bottle. The "ticketing window" will be at the hostess stand as you walk in the restaurant, issued by the very charasmatic Arnold, and the bottles will be sold at the doorway into the brewery by yours truly.

We're releasing 60 cases of 22oz bombers, waxed dipped, and limiting it to 6 bottles/ticket holder. Bottles are $15/each and it's cash only (there is an ATM on site in case you forget)

Looking forward to the release, we'll also have some of the Hi-Fi available on draft that day too!

Cheers!

A pair of tappings

We'll be releasing our "Busman's Holiday" Chocolate/Vanilla/Milk Stout this coming Monday the 6th. The name refers to what one would do is his/her off time: example, a brewer oftens spends his or her time away from the brewery homebrewing. The beer is Mark's last brew, and is mighty tasty!

Also, the following Monday, the 13th, we'll be releasing the Buddy Holly Barleywine!

Cheers!

St Patty's Day

As a fun addition to the St. Patrick's Day shannanigans, we'll be releasing our Barrel Aged Iron Horse on Nitro that day! Ought to be delicious!

Cheers!

Bottle releases

It's coming that time of year again for the HiFi bottle release! We'll be releasing 90 cases of the Barrel Aged HiFi in mid-February (exact date TBA).

Also coming along shortly afterwards will be the release of the Finlaggin Barrel Aged Scotch Ale, which we brewed back in September specifically for barrel aging with peated malt to reflect the flavors of a fine scotch (the name is a loch in the scottish highlands). The release of this ale will be about mid-March, again the exact date will be announced later.

Cheers!

Wallonian Saison

We'll be finally getting into our Wallonian Saison this coming Monday, the 23rd. For those anxious mug clubbers who are ever so desirous for a free pint, we'll be holding a tapping party in the Pub Room from 5-6pm. Tapping at the bar will be at 5pm as well

The term "Wallonian" refers to a region of Belgium, which I suppose has some governing forces on the style, but mostly it's just fun to say. We threw a pound of ginger root into the last moment of the boil to give the brew just a light kick of ginger spice. It finished out nice and light in color (a contrast to the weather and stouts that reign this time of year) and came out to about 9.4%abv, with a very light hopping giving way to a slightly sweet finish.

Cheers!

Next Tapping

We're tapping into our Imperial Schwartz Bier just before the holidays, which will be on Thursday the 22nd, at the bar at 5pm. The Schwartz came in at 9.5%abv with 56IBU's, and is just the smooth, mellow dark beer we need at a time like this! The very subtle roast compliments the malt very well, and finishes nice, smooth and dry.

Cheers!

Toys for Tots and a Winter Warmer!

On Tuesday, the 13th, we'll be tapping our Spoonless Winter Warmer, and in celebration in junction with the Toys for Tots drive, if you donate a toy you'll receive a free pint!

Enjoy!

Revision to the Beers of Christmas

Just wanted to note that we are going to change the time of the tapping of the 12 beers of Christmas to 11:30am (opening time), so they will be available all day long

Cheers!

Next Tappings

We're incorporating the next tappings into our 12 days of Christmas and will release them at the bar at 5pm (same time for all the 12 beers). All mug clubbers will receive their first pint free!

The Spoonless Winter Warmer - 7.1%abv, OG 19.5 IBU 37
A nice, rich, mahogany colored ale, that we spiced with cinnamon, orange peel and elderflowers.

Belgian Abbey Ale - 7.9%abv, OG 17.2 IBU 22
Reddish in color, finishes quite dry slightly sweet, this belgian ale is full of fruity aromas mixed with spices.

Cheers!

Beers of Christmas

We're doing our 12 beers of Christmas again this year, starting next Monday on the 12th! Everyday we'll be tapping at 5pm a "one-off" beer to celebrate the days prior to our favorite corporate holiday.....oh wait, I mean "favorite holiday."

A couple of the releases with an ( * ) beside it are actual new releases, and will be of course be available after that day. Because of the holiday spirits (meant to be plural) the tappings will be held at the bar and Mug Clubbers will receive their first pint free.

Anywho, here's the line up

1 Coffee Stout
2 Spoonless Winter Warmer*
3 Belgian Abbey Ale*
4 Ginger Red Ale
5 Wassail Wheat
6 Spruce Red Ale
7 Chocolate Vanilla Porter
8 Blueberry Kellehers
9 Cardamom Raspberry
10 Anise Stout
11 Juniper Pale Ale
12 Apricot IPA

And then to celebrate the Ebenezer in all of us, we're releasing a "13th" day of Christmas Ale which will be the Barrel Aged Beelzebeer! It'll be available on the 26th of December (black monday?.....no wait, that's "black boxing day")

Cheers!

No Show ESB

We are tapping into our "No Show" Extra Special Beer on November 30th, Wednesday at 5:30pm. It's a lovely take on the British Bitter and features a nice, rich caramel body with a kick of British hops to round it out; 5.9%abv.

Cheers!

Next Tapping adjustment

Just wanted to post that we are changing the date of the next tapping, the Belgian Single, to Tuesday, November 22nd, starting at 5:30pm.

Hope to see everyone there!
Cheers!

New Tappings

Hi all, we are going to have back to back tappings coming up, starting with our TwoTime Double IPA (8.8%abv), which will be tapped on Monday, November the 14th at 7pm for Mug Clubbers, and 8pm behind the bar.

Next in line is the beginning of our Belgian series, starting with the Restless Wind Belgian Single (5.0%abv), which will be tapped on Monday, November 21st at 7pm for Mug Clu....yadayadayada

Cheers!

Collaborative Evil 2010 Barrel Aged Smoked Porter

I think the title pretty much sums it up, we have the Collaborative Evil from 2010, which was a Smoked Porter with the smoked malt being driven by Cherry Wood, which has a nice, subdued smokiness. Barrel Aging it brings out the vanillin and oak, as well as hints of bourbon and finishes dry and slightly spicy.

Cheers!

English Style Brown Ale Collaborated with an Irish Pub

We are going to tap our "Derailed" Kelleher's Brown Ale this Thursday, the 27th, at 7pm for Mug Clubbers and at 8pm for the rest of the you folk.

We did the beer as a collaboration with Kelleher's Pub in Peoria, as part of their "Beer of the Month," which will be featured thru November. It's an English Sytle Brown Ale, a little lighter in color than our Pullman, and a bit less chocolately. It has a really nice, very sessionable, malty body with tones of toast riddled through it, and finishes crisp with just a touch of hops mixed with roasted nuts. 5.9%abv

Hope you can make it!
Cheers!

Brewmaster'ish kinda Dinner

We are having our Brewer's Dinner on Thursday, October 20th at 6pm. We will have a splendid paring with the food prepared by our Chef Eduardo, and will be entertaining the "harvest" theme in which most of our food will embrace the lovely fall weather we're having!

Also, in celebrating the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a portion of our proceeds will be donated to saving the boobs!

Kellehers Collaboration brew

We just had a great day brewing with Bill from Kellehers Pub down in Peoria and Pat from Specialty Importers. I should more accurately say that they brewed for us, and we micro-managed...

We brewed a nice, toasty nut brown ale, more adkin to Samuel Smith's Nut Brown than to our Pullman, which should be perfect for the fall season to come.

The next tapping is set for the 10th of October, Monday, starting at 7pm for Mug Clubbers and then 8pm behind the bar. We'll be getting into the Bear Claw Wheat Wine, which is a fruity, velvety and boozy wheat wine at 9.7%abv, fermented with the Weihenstephan Hefeweizen yeast strain. Should be fun!

Also, hope to see everyone out for our Oktoberfest, in which we're tapping our Bier Leichen, Vienna Lager ein mas! Festivities start at 2pm and go thru 10pm, Saturday the 8th

Cheers!

Oktoberfest!

Just wanted to give a heads up about our upcoming Oktoberfest on Saturday, October 8th. We'll be trying our best to re-create a biergarten on our Caboose patio, with long rows of bench tables, Bier ein Mass mit Bier Leichen Vienna Lager, lots of good food via buffet style, music, etc etc. (byo leder hosen)

**we had to change the price on the buffet to $15/person, sorry!!

Here comes that cool autumn breeze

You can feel it in the air, the cool, dry windy days, crisp evenings perfect for a fire, and the best season for beer drinking of the year! We're excited about fall coming, and making some great beers to line up for the Fall, as well as bringing back our bourbon barrel aged beers.

With the "summer of sours" ending at the end of this month, we'll be busting out some barrelled goodies. First on will be the barrel aged Collaborative Evil from 2010, which was a Smoked Porter. We'll also be bouncing between a few different barrel aged beers to keep the varietals flowing, so after the first keg of CE 2010 blows, we'll follow up with a keg of the barrel aged Beelzebeer, and then most likely the barrel aged Pullman, and so forth!

Also coming online for the Fall is our Vienna Lager, which will be our Festbier for the Oktober season. We should be tapping that toward the end of the month as well.

Also coming up is a double IPA, an Imperial Schwarzbier, and some other yumminess.

We also recently brewed a Scotch Ale, the Jar of Heads, which will be put entirely into bourbon barrels, and won't be tapped until it's reached its proper level of sophistication.

That's about all the new news i got, thanks for checking in and hope to see you all soon!
Cheers!

New sours

We just tapped into our new sour, the Rate and Pillage, which is a secret blend and you'll have to come out yourself to try and taste, and then of course, rate and/or pillage it! Let us know what you think!

Coming up in the near future is some fun projects. This week we'll be brewing the Jar of Heads Scottish Ale, that will be put entirely into bourbon barrels and stowed away for the duration of this beer siege our patrons are exercizing! We'll have a bottle release of it on the onset of spring next year, and it'll hopefully route us through a more spring like spring next spring (did i mention I'm not looking forward to winter?)

Coming along this fall we're looking at putting forth an Imperial Scharwtzbier for the zombie ghoul day of halloween. Also in line is a nice Vienna Lager for Oktober Fest, possibly a Pumpkin Ale, a Double IPA and maybe even a Harvest Fest to try and cling onto the lovely fall weather before old man winter settles in.

Lots to come, but really little to say about them, check back soon once we have more of our ducks in a row!

Cheers!

Triple tappings

No, not that kind of Triple Tappings, but 3 tappings in a row! We're all set to have the next 3 seasonals/specialties lined up for a sequential tapping party.

We'll be tapping the HopfenWeizen, which is a Hefeweizens but hopped like an IPA, including a healthy dry hopping. We used a nice, equal blend of Galena, Casacade and Palisade for each addition. It's debut will be Monday, the 15th, starting at 7pm for mug clubbers and 8pm behind the bar.

Next is a collaboration we did with City Provisions which is a Dunkel Weiss that we added 100 lbs of fresh Michigan Cherries to the mash. Cleetus, the head chef/proprietor of City Provisions dubbed it the Kirsch and Blucher DunkelWeiss, (Kirsch meaning German for Charity, and Blucher....well, just watch Young Frankenstein). That tapping will be Monday, the 22nd, again at 7pm for mug clubbers and 8 pm for behind the bar.

Finally, our last tapping this month is the Intercontinental Pale Lager, which we're doing again, and for those who don't remember or didn't get a chance to try it, it is a IPA style, but with a lager yeast and a blend of hops, predominately from continental Europe, with American hops. That'll be toasted on Monday the 29th, once again at 7pm for mug clubbers and 8pm behind the bar.

Whew, with all that going on, we also have a new sour on, which is the Candor*2. It's a blend of the peach sour with our station master wheat, but in a 70-30 blend, which makes it quite tart, but in a pleasing way!

Cheers!!

Sophomoric Sour

We just tapped into our new sour blend, which is 33% Hefeweizen and 66% sour, which complements each other quite well. Come on out and try it!

Next in line

Many thanks to those who were able to make it to the anniversary party and bottle release last Friday, it made for a great night! We do still have bottles of the 15th Anniversary Tripel available, and they'd be great for laying down for a while as well as enjoyment right now!

We have a new sour on for the moment, Decadence, which is a peach sour, blended with our Wit and also an addition of fresh mangoes, pureed and added directly to the serving barrel.

Also, next tapping is the Half Day Hefeweizen, which is on Monday July 18th, 7pm for the Mug Club and 8pm for the bar. It's a traditional Hefe made with 70% wheat, 13% of which was unmalted, which made for a rather interesting, and exhausting, brewday (just imagine trying to churn 900 lbs of cement.....) It turned out great though, with lots of bready rich flavors and a big nose of cloves and banana!

Next on the horizon will be a Hoppenweizen, which will be the same base as the Half Day, but hopped like our IPA, including a dry hopping addition (a healthy one at that!) Also coming up is a Dunkel Weiss, which we'll be doing a collaboration with City Provisions, made with real cherries added to the mash.

We're also doing a collaboration with Ken, brewmaster at Limestone Brewery, which we're still in talks of at the moment, but it's leaning towards a nice English Dark Mild. We're also planning to do a beer dinner pairing with Limestone as well later in August, but the specifics haven't been finalized, so check back for more details on that later!

Cheers!

Playground Savior and the Half Day Hefeweizen

We'll be having our next tapping for the Half Day Hefeweizen on Monday, July 18th, at 7pm for mug clubbers, and at 8pm behind the bar. Hope to see you all there!

Also just out is our Playground Savior, which is our new sour that just went on tap today. It's a blend of a sour from long ago (and don't really know its history), mixed with our .357 Imperial Pils, and a small addition of Apple Juice, which brings together a really nice, tart and refreshing beer. There's only a 1/4bbl of it, so come out and try it while it lasts!

Cheers!

Half Day Hefeweizens and Big Belgians

With the Summer Solstice behind us and in full summer mode, we've been creating some tasty beers to soothe our dry, thirsty palates! We have a tasty little Belgian Wit on tap now, which has a nice balance between being uncomplicated enough to be sessionable, and complicated enough to be interesting and full of flavor. Next along is another wheat beer, a bit south of Belgium. We brewed a traditional German Hefeweizen yesterday, with 70% wheat (13% unmalted), and it's already fermenting along very happily and filling our brewhouse with the aromas of clove and bananas! That should be ready for thirst quenching in a few weeks.

Also, for our less than hydrating beers, we have our Belgian Triple 15th Anniversary Ale coming along very nicely. It's approaching the end of its fermentation, and (by the best of our abilities and calculations) has come to its full 15% abv. Surprizingly, the flavors are smooth and rounded without much heat or hit of the high alcohol levels. It'll be released on July 8th, both on tap here at the Station and in bottles. Additionally to celebrate the day (which is the actual 15th Anniversary) we'll be tapping into a few specialties of barrel aged beer and sours; but more on that is to come.

Next in line for fermentation of funness will be a Hopfinweizen. We'll be brewing another Hefeweizen, but this time be hopping it heavily with a regime more adkin to an IPA, as well as dry hopping it. The balance in flavors from the citrusy, piney hops works really well with the fruity esters of the Hefe.

Other than that we'll keep you posted on the sours as they rotate and any other special tappings!
Cheers!

Candor Sour

We have a new sour on now, which is our Candor American Sour blend. It's about 50/50 of a sour, that I have no clue as to what it was originally, but I do know that it was put away to sour back in 2009 (or at least I think I do). To balance out its tartness, I added 50% Station Master Wheat, which helps to make a more palatable beverage.

Next in our line up of sours is the Playground Savior, which Mark put together (and also named). It's the same base sour as the Candor, but blended with the .357 Pilz and an addition of Apple juice, which creates a very interesting, and highly alcoholic sour, which is really tasty! The Savior will be coming along after Candor kicks!

Cheers!

More Sours and a Little Wit

We are finally going to be tapping our Belgian Wit, the Le Chien Blanc (which just means "the little white dog" in French....just sounds better in francais). That'll be happening on Monday, June 20th at 7pm for Mug Clubbers, and at 8pm behind the bar.

Also coming along is our Summer of Sours. Mark pulled together a nice blend this afternoon, featuring a sour with over 55 lbs of peaches that has soured away for over 2 years, blended with just a touch of apricot. The sweetness of the fruit helps to balance the tartness, but is mellow enough not to be at all dominating. That'll be on tap once our Bare Brett kicks, so please come out and tell us what you think!

Cheers!

.357 and a little Wit

Well we finally got the .357 Imperial Pilz to finish fermenting....whew! It took a long while, but it still came out tasting great! The starting gravity was about 25 P, and finished about 5.5 P, giving it a healthy dose of alcohol to a warming 11.0% abv! It seems fitting for the schizo-weather that we're having to have such a light colored beer, more suting to warm weather, but at 11.0%, which lends more toward cold weather; that somehow seems to work right now!

We'll be tapping the .357 Pilz on May 31th, a Tuesday, at 7pm for Mug Clubbers and at 8pm behind the bar. Hope to see you there!

Also coming up is our Le Chien Blanc Wit, which will be a nice contrast at a much more sane 5% range. It's got some great notes of Corriander and Chamomile, with a nice orange zest in the flavor of it. We additionally have used this beer to propagate enough healthy yeast cells to adequately ferment our 15th Anniversary Ale, which we'll be brewing next week!

We have also started with our "Summer of Sours," though the phrase seems ironic right now. We just tapped our Saison & FUNKale, which is a blend of our Saison and the Bare Brett, which is a 100% Brettanomyces fermented beer. It was first tapped into at the Pre-Dark Lord Day, and is on tap behind the bar now, and has actually gotten more tart and even more Brett character into it now.

Cheers!

Illiana Mayfest Tickets

I'm not sure if everyone knows about this event, the Illiana Mayfest, put together by our friends at Crown Brewing.

We're selling tickets to the event, which is May 21st, here at the Station for $30 cash only. We only have 10 tickets, so grab 'em while you can!

Our new brewer, Mark, will be at the event, so come on out and meet him!
Cheers!

Next on Deck

Even with all the events going on around the Station lately, we managed to introduce another beer; our Impromptu Pale Ale. This assertively hopped, yet refined pale ale will be a great session beer with a nice straw color, malty backbone and clocking about 5.4% abv. We'll be tapping into it next Monday, the 16th, at 7pm for Mug Clubbers in the back party room, and at 8pm for the bar and everyone else. Hope this time it'll be greeted with nice, warm weather!
We additionally have hired another brewer, Mark Weinert, who interned with us earlier this year and has just finished the Siebel international course. I'll let him introduce himself more properly, but we're really happy to have hime on board (excuse the silly train pun).

Our .357 Magnum Imperial Pilsnalebeerwhatchamacallit has been a painful fermentation, but it seems to be chugging along and might yet still make its debut in a few weeks. We had to press the emergency button and bring back up, which came in the form of some super yeast that's able to revive stuck fermentation (our protagonist stalled in the 3rd act). We're going to continue to monitor the flavor and condition of the beer, and if it meets our expectations then we'll unleash it in all of its uncouth, irreverent tenacity...just like Dirty Harry...

Coming up next on the agenda we'll be playing with some new yeast strains and venturing into very high abv territory. We'll be brewing a nice light Wit, Le Chein Blanc, brewed with unmalted wheat and spices to create a rich, mysterious concoction. Other than just a tasty brew, we'll be using that Wit to grow up a healthy amount of yeast to pitch from the barracks into battle; our 15th Anniversary Belgian Tripple 15%abv! We'll be brewing that in a couple of weeks and be releasing it on July 8th, our 15th Anniversary for Flossmoor Station R&B. It'll be released both on tap and in bottles, but as usual with our limited space, the bottles will be limited. We'll have some more information on that release as the date comes closer.

Behind the bar, we'll be making our transition to summer (weather allowing....will this week bring us the long awaited spring we've hoped for??). We're going to blend some of our very tart, acidic sour beers downstairs still in the barrels, with some of our house beers to create a "Summer of Sours." They'll provide some crisp tartness to refresh ourselves from the warm summer days. To kick off our summer, soon we'll have a very small amount of our Saison & FUNKale back on, which is a blend about 50% Saison and Garfunkel and 50% Bare Brett. Our Bare Brett, which we'll have on tap following the FUNK, is 100% fermented with Brettanomyces, a wild yeast strain that gives a pleasant acidity and earthy flavors on a nice light colored beer!

That's about all there is on the agenda, but continue to check back for updates on other barrel aging projects and other goofy, fun stuff that makes a brewer happy! Thanks again for all the support and hope to see you all soon!

Cheers!

Some changes rolling thru the Station

As many of you have already caught wind of the recent departure, Bryan has stepped down as head brewer here at Flossmoor. I think he simply is ready for a change of pace. He'll still be here (much to my comfort) as I'll be getting trained up to take over as the head brewer. I know there's been a lot of talent to come through here, and Bryan certainly is no exception. I've had the pleasure to work with him here and learn a lot along the way. I'm excited to try and continue the reputation of Flossmoor, both in innovation and quality, and hope my attempts will meet the scrupulous expectations of our well ventured palates out there!

To get onto our little party (it happens to precede a certain "sinister day" at an Indiana brewery), we'll be tapping into some pretty cool beers dug up from our cellars. We'll have 9 taps flowing from our jockey boxes, all of which won't be found behind the bar, starting at 2pm and running until they kick or the village ordinance kicks us out. We'll also be firing up the grill at 4pm, and the live band will start around 5pm. Everything will be outside (so pray for sunshine!) on our back patio, and for those interested in beer swapping, there'll be a nice area to do so by the caboose.

We'll also have our Saison & Garfunkel in bottles and available for purchase. Additionally, we'll have a raffle for our last 12 bottles of the HiFi Rye, with the raffle tickets going for $5.

Alright, here's our list of brews:
Barrel Aged Beelzebeer
Raspberry infused Barrel Aged Beelzebeer
Magnolia Star Malt-Bourbon Liquor (also barrel aged)
Barrel Aged Panama Red
Brett Saison Funkel
Dean's Beans (coffee stout)
Bare Brett (100% brett. fermented)
Rosie Pom (our gold medal for sours from last year's FoBaB)
Colaborative Evil 2010 (Smoked Porter)

I hope to see you there!
Cheers!

Stammtisch Alt

We have the perfect bier for these windy spring days, and it's our Stammtisch Alt! We're tapping the German ale next Tuesday, the 19th. It gets its name, stammtisch, from the German word to describe the "regulars" table. Found at many pubs, the stammtisch table is set aside for the regular diners/pubbers, and is generally set aside and marked off so that not just anyone can sit down at it. Not to worry, this Alt won't be just for our mug club members, but they will be the first to taste it next Tuesday, in our pseudo-stammtisch room! Cheers!

On the horizon

It's been a little while since I've posted here, must be seasonal affect disorder...
I'm probably sure you're like me and very ready for this winter to quit dragging its butt and move on, especially with the forecast for more snow.

Anywho, with that out of my system, we have some nice things coming up on our horizon that we're really looking forward to. We had a great tapping last night of our Saison & Garfunkel, which I really like as a nice transition into warmer weather.

We're admist fermentation of our .357 Magnum Imperial Pilsner, which is making a second debut. It's a big beer, hitting around 12% abv, and it's chugging along right now chewing thru all those sugars and should be finished up in time for our Pre-Dark Lord day party on April 29th. The rumor I've heard is that the party will be outside on our back porch with a live band. We also have some really great beers that we'll be releasing for that day only, so come on out!

Also in our fermenters is another batch of the HiFi Rye, which we will be putting directly and totally into barrels, so we'll have to be patient and wait until this fall to enjoy it (which might actually be rather difficult...)

And the last beer-horizon that we have coming is our Alt bier, that we're brewing next week and should be ready toward the end of April. With the glimmers of sunshine that have peaked out, I'm getting excited about drinking this beer on our back porch with warm winds and sunny skies, birds and budding trees........I'm really ready for this winter to be over....

Cheers!

Saison and Garfunkle Tapping March 22nd

We are having a tapping on March 22nd, at 8pm for our Saison & Garfunkle Belgian saison. This saison was a small collaboration with an eatery in the Wicker Park area of Chicago, so we wanted this beer to be easily paired with food.

The initial idea was a saison with citrus flavors, so we took notes and went to work on a test batch. Pleased with the test batch, we moved to the large system. The amounts of spices translated to 3#s of peppercorns, 1.5#s of fresh rosemary, and the peels from 20#s of clementines on the 15bbl system. This beer also did all of its fermentation above 80F, peaking at around 88F. What we have as a result is a very aromatic, freshly citrus beer with all the great characteristics of a Belgian farmhouse ale. The ABV on this brew is a hefty 8.3% so don't let the delicacy fool you.

Hi-Fi and BA Hi-Fi Release this Saturday, February 26th at NOON

The release of our 2011 rye barleywine, Hi-Fi, and the 2010 bourbon barrel aged Hi-Fi, will begin at NOON on Saturday, February 26th. Here are the details:

- We will begin to hand out numbered tickets beginning at 11am. These tickets are to help the release go more smoothly, as we will call groups of 20 people at a time according to these numbered tickets.

- When your number is called, please line up down the hallway that leads to the Metra parking lot. We are doing the bottle release out of the brewhouse so that no one has to wait in the cold (and so your friendly brewers don't have to either!)

- There is a 6 bottle limit on each variety for a total of 12 max possible. The price will be $10/btl for the 2011 Hi-Fi, and $15/btl for the 2010 BA Hi-Fi.

We are looking forward to this one!

Tapping into the Black Magic at the Station

We are happy to announce the return of Black Magic IPA at the Station and you are all invited! In addition to the year round Rail Hopper, we will tap one of these seasonal IPAs every now and again.

Black Magic IPA (or IBA, India Black Ale if you are going to be sticklers) is going to be tapped on Wednesday, March 9th at 8pm. This is the same recipe as last year's Black Magic and will also be available in 22oz bottles with a black wax.

Kapowski tapped out

Well, we have already finished the last of our Killer Kapowski on draft. He sadly tapped out just yesterday, but luckily, he tapped out to our Dark Matter Imperial Stout, which will be officially tapped in tomorrow, Wednesday the 9th at 8pm. Okay, enough of the tapping references...

We do still have a lot of the Kapowski in bottles, selling for $10 each

Cheers!

Environmentally Conscious?

We're hosting an event here at Flossmoor Station called Green Drinks, which is "an informal networking event where innovative people meet at a bar or coffee shop to share ideas and make new connections."

We're having the innovative session on Thursday, March 3rd, starting at 6pm.

For more on Green Drinks, click here

Cheers!

Wooden Horse, pins and firkens and a new Saison

In continuation of our barrel aged beers on tap, we are finally moving along to our next selection. We finished the Grandma's Sleigh Ride, and she's rode on over hills and is gone for the year. We now have our Wooden Horse on tap, it's our house stout, the Iron Horse (note it is "our house"....not "out") aged in Buffalo Trace barrels for 5 months. We're really happy with the way it came out! It picked up some nice notes of the oak and vanillins, and the bourbon is more of a background note. It was really well received at the Brewpub Shootout, so come on out and try a snifter of it! We'll also be rotating these next selections of barrel aged beers more quickly, so come on out now as it'll be gone pretty fast!

In preparation for the Day of the Living Ales (formerly the Night of the Living Ales, which completes the reference much better) we are preparing our firkin's for the event. We already have one filled and is conditioning. We used our Zephyr as the base and put Cactus Pears in, with a nice Lacto culture to expand the flavors. We did one similar to this one, which reportedly turned out very well (we didn't get a chance to try our own creation!). So we're really excited about trying this one again. We're also doing our Ghost of the Iron Horse again, which is our stout spiced with Ghost peppers to give it a nice hot zing; note that ghost peppers are the world's hottest pepper.

We also are playing with another real ale. It's not really for anything in particular, but it'll be really fun to see how this turns out. We put in a pin part of a test batch Saison (more on that in a moment) and pitched a Roselare culture into it. The Roselare blend culture is supposed to replicate the ambient micro flora of the West Flanders region, best known for its spontaneously fermented Lambics and Geuzes. It contains two saccharomyces cultures, a belgian and a sherry, two brettanomyces cultures, a lactobaccilus and a pediococcus cultures. It'll be quite interesting how this project turns out!

Now on to that Saison. We're doing a seasonal batch in conjunction with The Bristol Eatery and Bar in the Bucktown area. It's a lighter colored Saison, brewed with Clementine peels, Rosemary, and peppercorns, and fermented with a traditional Belgian Saison yeast which complements the spices really well. We're brewing that this Thursday, so it should be presented in about 6-8 weeks.

Cheers!

Bottles, Barrels, and Horses (?)

We are happy to announce a few things going on in the near future and hope to see you there..........

* The next tapping will be held Wednesday, February 9th at 8pm in the pub and restaurant. We are tapping the Dark Matter Imperial Stout, which has finished up nicely at a winter warming 8.1%.

* We are pleased to announce that the Iron Horse oatmeal stout will be on tap starting Tuesday evening February 1st, and will be on permanently as our house stout.

* The bottle release for the Hi-Fi Rye Barleywine (2011) and the Barrel-Aged Hi-Fi Rye Barleywine (2010) will be released in tandem on February 26th at Noon. Bottles of the Hi-Fi will be $10 and bottles of the Barrel Aged Hi-Fi will be $15. There will be a 6 bottle limit for each.

* Finally, the last of the Grandma's Sleigh Ride is on and for the remaining months of cold weather and big beers we are going to be rotating the bourbon barrels so one style isn't on too long. The first will be the Wooden Horse, the barrel aged version of the Iron Horse.

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

Departures: End of the Line 2010

The holidays and end of the year season are always a time for reflection and remembrance for people. As we reach the end of 2010, there are many things to look back on and forward to here at Flossmoor Station.

The completion of Bryan's first entire calendar year at the helm here at the Station gives us a lot of fond memories to look back on and the entire Flossmoor family couldn't be happier with the results.

Our competition slate saw us taking home an award in every event we entered this year:

Chicago Beer Society 12th Annual Brewpub Shootout
Beer - 2nd Place	Dry Hopped Panama Limited Red Ale
Pairing - 2nd Place	Panama w/ Applewood Smoked Bacon Wrapped Fiery Shrimp

2010 Day/Night of the Living Ales
Overall Award	1st Place / Best of Show	Bourbon McElroy Imperial Stout

2010 World Beer Cup
Category 16: Wood/Barrel Aged Beer	Bronze Medal	Pullman's Reserve Ale

2010 Great American Beer Festival
Category 69: Brown Porter	Bronze Medal	Pullman Brown Porter

8th Annual Festival of Barrel Aged Beers
Category 3: Barleywine/Wheatwine	Silver Medal	Barrel Aged Hi-Fi Rye Wine
Category 10: Wild Acidic Beer	Gold Medal	Rosie Pom American Pomegranate Sour Ale

Beyond all the competition, 2010 also saw Flossmoor enter into a partnership with Glunz Beer. Distribution through Glunz allows our fans around Chicagoland the opportunity to grab our beers with more ease, showing up at beer stores around the area including our special IPAs and the occassional special release bottles.

2010 also saw the "Changing of the Guard" with our Assistant Brewer position. As former assistant Richard Grant moves on with his own endeavors at Finch Beer, we welcomed Nick Barron into the position. If you haven't gotten a chance to say "Hi", make sure and stop by for a tapping event or pint soon.

Add to all this our new dedicated IPA fermenter, expanded banquet room facilities, a new spin on and more inclusive Mug Club, not to mention all of the great non-competition festivals we saw in 2010 (Illiana Mayfest, Great Taste of the Midwest, and On Photon! to name a couple) and everything we are already excited about in 2011 (See Bryan's post below for starters!), and it certainly has been a big year for us here at Flossmoor.

As always, we at Flossmoor thank you for your continued support and encouragement. Happy holidays and see you in 2011.

Cheers,

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Tapping Reminder and additional happenings at Flossmoor Station

We definitely hope all of those had a very beery Christmas and tried all kinds of delicious craft beer wherever your travels took you (I know I did). With all the excitement around the past month, we thought we'd reiterate some of the upcoming events as well as let you all in on the newly planned ones for the new year as well.

12/29 Tapping the "Intercontinental" India Pale Lager 7pm Mug Club, 8pm on tap for all. There will be bottles of this for sale in BLUE wax topped IPA bottles (we'll make the IPL feel special in that bottle)

1/4 Tapping the Killer Kapowski Baltic Porter. This will also be available in bottles, but we will have a separate release for that which will be announced at a later date.

1/27 Chef and Brewer's Dinner. The theme will be Mardi Gras, and Chef will be preparing a beautiful 4 course dinner. Paired with it will be 4 of our beers, plus a "Welcome Beer" at the onset of the dinner. The price will be $39 ($35 for Mug Club and significant other) so make your reservations now! Menu and details to follow when they are completed.

Arrivals: Putting4Charity Event

If there is anything we at Flossmoor Station will throw ourselves behind, it's a good cause and a good time:

"Some of our Mug Club members have started an indoor golf competition at Flossmoor Station on Wednesday evenings from 7-10 pm. On December 22nd, Flossmoor will host the first Putting4Charity event using the putting game invented by one of our Mug Clubbers, Tim Prentiss, with encouragement from Mug Club member Alan Cromwell.

Putting4Charity is a bracketed competition, similar to the NCAA tournament. We would like to begin with 32 players contributing at least $20 each. At the end of the contest, one player will be declared the winner. Half the total donations will go to charity, and 25% of the total will go to the winner. (The other 25% is shared by the host venue and the indoor golf association organizing the event.)

Which charity will receive the donation? The winner gets to select the charity! So you’re not only playing for pride, you’re playing for your own cause.

Bring your putter (and favorite golf balls, if you like) and give it a shot, for charity. It’s fun and anyone can play. After all, anybody can hit a golf ball 6-7 feet. Enjoy some of Bryan’s brew while putting the evening away. You’ll be helping a cause (which cause, we won’t know until it’s all over) and you might improve your golf game too!

We hope to see you Wednesday, December 22nd for our first Putting4Charity event. If you’d like to see how the game is played and practice it in advance, there will also an smaller event played on Wednesday 12/15 in our south banquet room.

For more info, visit the game’s official site Putting4Dough. Check out the origins of the game, the rules, and details on events! While you’re there, you can check out the link to our video filmed at Flossmoor Station. Fore!"

As always, stay tuned for more updates from Flossmoor and be sure to stop by leading up to and through the holidays to try our 12 Beers of Christmas, daily pint specials, and to pick up beer or giftcards for your loved ones!

Cheers,

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First of Specialty IPAs to be bottled

As promised we have not let the special IPAs go by the wayside. We will be releasing the Intercontinental IPL (okay, so technically its not an IPA) in bottles on December 29th. This will be the same day as the tapping, so they technically are available before the official pub tapping time of 7pm! This IPL will feature a blue colored wax. More on the Intercontinental to come later. Cheers

12 Beers of Christmas are here

Sunday, December 12 - Cinnamon IPA

Monday, December 13 - Vanilla Bean Brown

Tuesday, December 14 - Ginger Marzen

Wednesday, December 15 - Licorice Stout

Thursday, December 16 - Spruced Red

Friday, December 17 - Chocolate Cherry Brown

Saturday, December 18 - Wassail Wheat

Sunday, December 19 - Clove Red

Monday, December 20 - Mint Stout

Tuesday, December 21 - Juniper Gandy

Wednesday, December 22 - Chocolate Magnolia Star

Thursday, December 23 - Apricot India Pale Lager

12 Beers of Christmas Pt. 2

This year we will again be doing our "12 Beers of Christmas". On December 12th for 12 days straight, Flossmoor Station Brewery will release a one-of-a-kind, completely unique beer especially for that day. We will tap the beer when we open and when it is finished, we’ll have the next day to look forward to! Beers to be announced soon.

Next Tapping Date

On December 29th, we are tapping our Intercontinental IPL (India Pale Lager). Probably not a style, but it sounded good. For this beer we have used a blend of hops from North America and Europe for a great blend of what both hop classes have to offer. The result is a nicely bitter, very floral and non-citrus fruit flavors in the aroma and flavor. The Intercontinental clocks in at 6.7% abv. Join us at 8pm in the pub (7pm for Mug Clubbers) for this final tapping of the year.

IPL's, Kapowski's and Coffee Stouts

I haven't had much of a chance to contribute to this blog and wanted to use this chance to give a brief update to what's going on around here.

A few weeks back we brewed our IPL, the Intercontinental. Bryan and I had talked about using a lager yeast to ferment an IPA-hopped beer, so we came to the idea of blending not only the fermentation regiment, but also the hops. We used both Pac NW hops such as Armarillo and Northern Brewer with the continental varieties such as Mt. Hood, Liberty and Halleutaur to create a true blend of continental lagers with US IPA's! Today, we dry hopped it with Mt. Hood, Liberty and Ahtanum to keep the blend going, and are very excited to see what becomes of our first IPL, which we should release come December.

In continuing our lager phase, we also brewed our Killer Kapowski yesterday, a lovely Baltic Porter, using 8 different malts plus molasses, which we are anticipating big results come ring-side!

Last, but not least, we'd like to introduce Dean's Beans, our coffee stout using fine Italian roast whole coffee beans, cold brewed with our Iron Horse Stout. Look for it around the beginning of next year!

Departures: Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers 2010

What a day it was at the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Hall in Chicago this last Saturday! The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild did not dissappoint in the production of it's 8th Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers. With over 150 entries vying for 30 medals in 10 categories, the competition was more fierce than ever as brewers continue to step their game up for bragging rights and innovation with wood and barrels becomes standard in the craft beer world, no longer taboo or rare.

We entered a modest 4 beers in the festival this year, some old friends and some new comers, and couldn't be happier with the results.

Flossmoor earned a Silver in Category 3 Barleywine/Wheatwine (17 entries) for our Barrel Aged Hi-Fi Rye Wine's debut to the public. Not done yet, the boys were able to grab a Gold in Category 10 Wild Acidic Beer (25 entries) for the oft-requested Rosie Pom Pomegranate American Sour Ale.

You can see the full results here. Special shout-outs to all of our Illinois colleagues who won awards and our friend and former brewer Todd Ashman of Fifty Fifty Brewing for grabbing a medal.

Thanks to everyone that came out, gave feedback and encouragement, and continue to support the beers, our brewers, and Illinois beer!

Cheers,

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PS - We'll have our newest beer, Cactus Pear Wild Ale, at the Beer Mapping 5 Year Anniversary Party this Friday, November 12th at SmallBar Fullerton in Chicago! The party starts at 7 PM.

Don't Be Afraid of the Ghost

This Friday at 5pm we will be tapping a very limited amount of a brew especially made for the Halloween festivities. After receiving numerous inquiries into whether we would be doing a Halloween beer, we have and it is scary. We have infused a little ghost pepper (a.k.a. Bhut jolokia) into our Iron Horse stout and have made Ghost of the Iron. We used just a single pepper in 7.5 gallons.

Widely recognized as the hottest pepper in the world, the Bhut Jolokia measures in at over ONE MILLION Scoville heat units. Not just hot though, the Ghost pepper also has a very nice smoky flavor when dried and adds an additional dimension than just pure heat. We do not promise this beer is balanced and actually are hoping that this is a pretty intense brew. Drink at your own risk!

$3 Daily Beer Specials

Come in for the new $3 daily pint special. The style rotates every day so come out and enjoy each one. Here is the list for this week (yes there are duplicates, we feel those are twice as good)

Monday-------Replicale Pale Ale
Tuesday------Slump Buster Mild
Wednesday----Magnolia Star
Thursday-----Iron Horse Stout
Friday-------Replicale Pale
Saturday-----Good AdWeiss Hefe
Sunday-------Magnolia Star

Next Beer Release Coming Soon

We will be tapping our Märzen style lager on Tuesday, Nov. 2nd at 8:00pm.

Our "Breinheitsgebot" Märzen style lager is characterized by a medium body and a light copper color. Maltiness (light and toasty) is definitely the dominate flavor, but this beer finishes with a clean hop bitterness. The European/German hop varieties are subtly present in the flavor and, to a lesser extent, the aroma.

Join us at 8pm as we tap this seasonal lager.

Tapping Announcement (and a welcome too!)

We are going to tap our Replicable this Tuesday, October 12th. Sorry for the late notice, but in an effort to keep the beer flowing from every single tap, this beer had to be tapped.

For those of you not familiar with the Replicale project, it is an annual brew in which each brewery gets a single style of malt donated (a very kind thanks to Mid Country Malts) and then chooses a single variety of hop (also thanks to Mid Country) to use in a pale ale, and the yeast strain is also donated (thanks to White Labs). The style varies with the year, but the idea is always the same - vary an ingredient and find out what each brewery produces.

Our Replicale is a light pale ale in which we used Brewer's Gold hops. This hop imparted a light lemony flavor with other citrus flavors. The overall impression of this beer is a light pale ale with a refreshing moderate hop presence. At 6.3% this beer is on the upper end of a pale ale A.B.V., but it drinks very smoothly as it has been conditioning for a bit.

Former brewer Richard Grant has moved on to a new head brewer position at Finch Beer Company, (we are very proud of him) so it is time to extend an official and very warm welcome to Nick Barron as our new assistant brewer. Nick brings his experience from out east to Flossmoor and we are sure that he will help make some extraordinary brews here too.

Please join us at 8pm for a good brew and a good time!

Bryan

Oktoberfest this Saturday!!

Roll out the barrels, we're going to have a barrel of fun this Saturday. Here are the details for the fest:

Event is from 2pm to 7pm, held in the caboose area south of the restaurant

It is going to be chilly - dress accordingly

The restaurant will be open for normal business if you want to have something off the regular menu or a different beer at the bar

There are no tickets to buy, the $35 is an admission

Guests receive a 6oz tasting glass and all the tastings you wish (please drink responsibly)

There will be a food tent that will be offering some German food items (separate from the $35 admission)

A Flossmoor Farewell

Tomorrow is my last day as an assistant brewer at Flossmoor as I go to a head brewer position elsewhere. I've had a great time at Flossmoor and will miss seeing everyone on a regular basis. I'm remaining in the Chicagoland area, so I hope to foster some of the friendships I've made at Flossmoor. I've learned a lot under Bryan's leadership this year and look forward to expanding my knowledge as I move forward in my career. Thanks for coming in and sharing a pint with me. I look forward to many more!

Cheers,

Richard Grant

Departures: Great American Beer Festival 2010

Well, when it's all said and done, you're exhausted and humbled.

The 2010 Great American Beer Festival has come and gone and we at Flossmoor are very proud of the guys! In a festival that saw about a 10% increase in entrants and more competitors than ever, Bryan and Richard were able to pull away with a well deserved bronze medal for our Pullman Brown in Category 69: Brown Porter!

With about 3,523 beers entered in total and only 80 total categories (79 Official, 1 Pro-Am) devoted to entered beers (and 3 max possible awards per category), less than 7% of beers see any kind of medal recognition. That's pretty competitive when it gets down to it. Great job, guys! If you haven't revisited the classic in awhile, it might be about time.

Bryan blogged about his experience at GABF on his section of The Chicago Brewhouse on Metromix. See his thoughts about the festival and it's growth here.

PS - Clear your schedules for our double bottle release this Saturday at NOON! See the details in the below post!

Cheers,

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BOTTLE RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT

The day is finally here! We will be releasing TWO bottles on Saturday, September 25th, starting at NOON. These will be the Collaborative Evil 2010, and the Beelzebeer. There will be a ONE case limit on each one, and the price is still TBD (balpark is probably $10 +/- a buck or two). We will be selling these out of the rolling door just to the south of the main entrance on Sterling avenue. This is rain or shine so please come prepared. We look forward to seeing everyone there.

Upcoming Schedule(s)

Well, the boys are off to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival! What stories will the 2010 version bring? We'll have updates as they are available from the guys or if anything happens on Saturday. For those attending, be sure to try and seek out all of the different Collaborative Evil versions available at the festival!

Speaking of Collaborative Evil, we know everyone is waiting with anticipation to find out the time/date of our upcoming bottle releases. Our 2010 Collaborative Evil and Batch 666 (Beelzebeer!) are pending release and once we know and get all the label details squared away, we'll let you know first via the blog when you can get them. So keep checking in!

However, there are a few other events on the horizon that you should get on your calendar (Or can add via our Google Calendar):

First, our annual Oktoberfest Celebration is growing! On Saturday, October 2nd from 2-7 PM we'll be holding our annual fall event. Things are going to be a little different this year: Admission will run $35/person and include a tasting glass and beer samples. We'll be offering a traditional German menu in the restaurant and we'll be grilling brats and other German fare outside. One of the largest changes this year will be our slate of guest breweries. Along with our own brews, we'll have Rock Bottom Orland Park, Brickstone Brewing, America's Brewing Company, and Limestone Brewing pouring their craft. In addition, our good friends at BOSS (Brewers of South Suburbia) will also be here! More details to come.

Also, tickets have gone on sale for the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild's Annual Festival of Barrel Aged Beers. If you are unfamiliar with the event, "FoBAB" offers a rare look at the specialty beers aged on wood and in barrels of not only the premiere craft brewers of the Midwest, but the nation! Traditionally, you are able to sample not only Flossmoor's private stock at the event, but a wide variety of different styles of beer not commonly found on tap. More details and tickets can be found through the ICBG's website and Brown Paper Tickets.

That's it for now. Goodluck at GABF, guys!

Cheers,

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IPA Named!

We have decided on the name for the new house beer................................(drum roll)............................... Rail Hopper IPA. Thanks to all who submitted names for the IPA, some were good, some weren't, some were taken already, but all were appreciated. Congratulations to Westy for submitting the winning name! For this submission, we are awarding you a IPA keggie (3.3 gal) of the Rail Hopper IPA.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

Regrettably there will be yet another delay in releasing the bottles for the Collaborative Evil and the Beelzebeer.

We have been told from our printer that they are refusing to print the labels for these two beers because of the content. I can only guess that they are referring to the Godless, Devil speak that we have adorned our bottles with.

Your loving and God fearing brewer

Names for the IPA

We have whittled down the list of potential IPA names from thousands to just nine. It was a grueling process. Here they are in no particular order:

Hop Toad
Flag Stop
Green Diamond
Pin Lifter
Railbender
Crow's Nest
Hot Shot
Highball
Rail Hopper

The list will be pared down to just two before we have our decision...

IPA Names

We have gotten some great submissions for the naming of the IPA. So far we have whittled the list down to 9 names that we will ponder and pick from two. Right now we have 9 that make the cut.... any more??

Tapping Tomorrow and Next Tuesday

We are on our FOURTH tapping in as many weeks, with another to follow next week. Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 31st, at 8pm we will be tapping our Collaborative Evil for 2010. We will be also be tapping the IRON HORSE stout on Tuesday Sept. 7th at 8pm.

For those unfamiliar with what the Collaborative Evil is, let me explain. Todd Ashman (former Flossmoor brewer), Matt VanWyk (former Flossmoor brewer), and Zac Trimert (not a former Flossmoor brewer) started the CE project with the idea that each beer will have a common theme of a style, with each brewery throwing a twist to the ingredients to make it unique. This year's style was either a Baltic Porter (lager) or an Imperial Porter (ale). We added 5% Breiss cherry wood smoked malt to make this 8.4% imperial porter our own. Here are the stats.

Collaborative Evil – Flossmoor 2010

8.4% ABV, O.G. 19.2, 32 IBU

Style: Smoked Imperial Porter. Made with Breiss cherrywood smoked malt, this higher octane porter is anything but harsh. Smooth smokiness balances with the rich porter character, and this medium brown ale has subtle flavors of chocolate. Part of a countrywide collaboration, check out the special presentation by all the collaborators at the 2010 Great American Beer Fest.

New Label Images

We got some requests to post the #666 label (ABV is actually 9.5%), so here it is along with the CE2010

In Search of: TRAIN THEMED NAMES

Our IPA needs a name! Inner Sanctum is a fine name, but all of our house beers have a train themed name. So all of you that have obscure train trivia and knowledge locked up and put away in the old noggin need to find the key. Be the one to gain a piece (albeit minuscule) of history here at Flossmoor. When submitting, please give us the meaning of the name if it is a train term that is unfamiliar to most. For example - Pinhead IPA, (a pinhead is a brakeman). The best name will be collected from the thousands we get :)

Departures: Great Taste of the Midwest 2010

Well, that certainly was a crazy time!

It's amazing how time flies when you are up in Madison, Wisconsin. The dust has settled, the kegs packed up and brought back to the brewey in one piece, and somehow.. all of us are accounted for.

Thanks to everyone that made it out to the Great Taste this last Saturday. We had a blast pouring for you, sampling our colleagues brews, and sweating constantly in the sweltering heat (Well, maybe not that last one).

We ended up pouring through A LOT of beer. Pretty much everything blew by the end of the day and our record of the day was 12 minutes set by our final keg of Rosie Pom American Sour Ale. The Sourheads made their presence felt.

Have no fear though, the early run of Collaborative Evil '10 was just the beginning of that beer. We'll have a proper tapping in two weeks and bottle release some time down the road! Barrel Aged The Turk Saison will see time on the taps and at more festivals in the future and Magnolia Star Malt Liquor is getting tapped proper in just one week! If all that is too long for you, we've got a new IPA tapping TODAY! Catch Inner Sanctum, our first IPA fermented in our brand new dedicated IPA tank in the brewery addition on tap today at 7 PM!

If you want to get in on the festival slate but missed out in Madison, check us out at The Oak Park Microbrew Review this Satuday. We'll be pouring and debuting our version of this year's ReplicAle project (2010 = American Pale Ale). There should be tons of beer, food and fun, and a whole mess of Illinois Craft Brewers Guild breweries to try.

Tickets can be purchased here

We'll have more updates soon and take a look at our Google Calendar when you get a chance. I'll be trying my best to keep it updated as we go forward so you don't miss a thing.

Cheers,

BloggerA

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It begins! Great Taste of the Midwest 2010.. with new and improved banner!

Representing the Illinois Central and Metra Electric

One of our dynamic husband/wife duos manning the taps

Hot weather, tons of beer, and a big crowd = trainwreck? Never.

Bryan and Arnie looking rather official

Like a beacon in the distance.. for those that know the Great Taste of the Midwest..

Upcoming tappings and bottle releases...

Folks, we are at a point where several of the specialty beers are going away and more need to be welcomed (with a party for each of them). I'm tearing up with excitement and anticipation. We are going to have a tapping each week for a month starting with the Good AdWeiss hefeweizen on the 10th.

Next tapping will be August 17th for "Inner Sanctum" IPA 7pm

Next, next tapping will be August 25th for "Magnolia Star Malt Liquor" at 7pm

Next, next, next tapping will be August 31 for "Collaborative Evil - 2010" at 7pm

We will also have a double bottle release of the Beelzebeer and Collaborative Evil at the same time in mid-September, date TBA right now.

Good AdWeiss - Hefeweizen Tapping Tonight

Please join us tonight at 8pm for our tapping of our GABF Pro-Am entry - Good AdWeiss. Homebrewers Zbig and Sylvia Banach have graciously agreed to replicate their award winning hefe here at Flossmoor for a shot at a national medal this September in Denver. Pronounced “Good Advice” since German W’s sound like V’s, this hefeweizen represents a classic ale style originating from southern Germany (Bavaria.) Hefeweizen literally means yeast (hefe) and wheat (weizen), and derives its predominant banana and clove flavors strictly from the yeast. Made with German pilsner and wheat malts and German hops for that “oh-so-authentic” taste. One drinker comments, “It’s like I was at a Munich beer garden right now!” A perfectly refreshing, summer ending German wheat beer.

Cheers!