Chicago Craft Beer Week 2016

Looking at the event list for this and noticed an Evil Horse Brewing Company. How long before Dark Horse Brewing Company asks them to change their name?

 

Maybe its joint venture between Eviltwin and Dark Horse

 

If no one has mentioned it yet, Bitter Pops (a new liquor store with taproom in Roscoe Village/Lakeview) is having an Ultra Fresh event next Friday. All beer is from local breweries and packaged just days before the event. Seems like it is going to be a pretty awesome event if you love fresh beer.

 

@FBarber nailed most of it. BUG was well-organized with tons of breweries pouring good beer. The event was spread out all over the grounds, so very few spots were too crowded. Mikerphone and Pipeworks had steady lines, but nothing too bad. It only took me like 20 minutes to get and Imperial Bean Spirit, Pale Pauper and the very tasty BA BUG exclusive. The stemware was a nice surprise, and only $5! The only downside is that they didn't have change, so I had to go back to the front, buy a water and come back.

Highlights other than Mikerphone: GDDC, BA Dark Crusader, Imperial End of Days, Icelandic Pants of the Dead (great name), and the Penrose Taproom IPA (pleasantly surprised given that's not their style).

 

Oof. Was told that they added a 'pale ale' to blend. We thought this beer was a mess. No one could choke down more than a couple sips and it seemed to somehow get worse as it warmed.

 

Guess I'm weird then, I thought it was fine.

 

I was/am in the minority and liked/like Tiberian Inquisitor so I was hopeful this might be weird in that kind of way, and unfortunately it wasn't. To each their own though for sure - just wish they would dial in their sours a bit more if they are going to keep going in that direction for these one-offs from time to time. Seems to be quite a wide range of how each of these come out without any sort of consistency to be had.

 

I'm generally not a big sours guy, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm going to the Sour Fest at Delilah's Saturday, so I'm sure I'll find some much better ones.

 

I found a couple bottles of this I forgot that i had. It has... not held up well =/

 

I'm out in the 'burbs and only day I really have to do anything during the beer week is on the 24th when I'm off work. Gonna check the schedule for that day and do a couple events.

 

I wish there was someone doing a big tap take-over someplace in the western burbs. I haven't seen anything, so if anyone has info that I don't have, please share. Between work and kids there's not a lot of time, but I'd like to support the cause and have a few good beers.

 

Bavarian Lodge is doing an Allagash tap takeover tomorrow, if that's your thing:

Available on Draft:
16 Counties
Astrid
Avance
Aventureux
Black
Century Ale
Confluence 2015
Confluence 2016
Curieux
Dougernaut
Dubbel
Evora
Farm to Face
Fluxus 2015
Helena
Interlude
James Bean
Little Brett
Midnight Brett
Monmouth Red
Nancy
Northman
Saison
St. Klippenstein
Tiarna
Tripel
Uncommon Crow
Victor 2016
Victoria 2016
White

 

That appears to qualify as a 'big tap takeover'

 

The sour fest at Delilah's was legit. I didn't count them, but it had to be 100+ beers. The upstairs had all the lambics, so that got pretty crowded. Supposedly the Lou Pepe lasted about 15 minutes, the other Cantillon might have made it an hour. The one drawback was numerous beers were 3 to 4 tickets (I think the highest I saw was 6 for a 99 Drie Fonteinen Oude Kriek), so you could go through your 20 fairly fast.

 

I live in southwest suburbs and like others, with work and kids in sports not a lot of free time to get out. Would like to find something relatively close to get some good beers.