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