Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

O's Tap on Western in Bucktown. It's a shitty hole in the wall dive bar and is cash only, but they usually have a Mikerphone on Tap, and they sell bottles for on-site consumption at like $12-so basically retail after tax.

They're basically a partner bar.

However,nothing has been brewed in a few weeks because he's focusing on opening his taproom in elk Grove Village, and has not proved anything for packaging.

 

Cool, thanks everyone.

 

They used to be called South Loop Brewing & just changed their name to Hop Butcher ~ 6 months ago

 

Grabbed some crowlers of the Ram release today of Slapper, really good stuff!

I'd highly recommend it if you can make it out!

 

Any indication how soon they will run out if crowlers?

 

They kept bringing them out from the back, so I'm not really sure. It didn't seem like they were running low at all, and the bar wasn't all that busy except for a lunch crowd - if that helps you out at all

 

anyone pick up noon whistle's new one today?

 

The Noon Whistle one comes out on Thursday

 

I have to agree with this, the smell is amazing and the mouthfeel is great. I did not have the pleasure of getting Hop Slush or Hops on Hops, but I did get Morning Fog and I prefer Slapper, albeit they are both excellent beers.

 

I like RAM NE Slapper > RAM Juicy >> hop slush >>> Morning Fog.

Full disclosure... i love citra hops. Zombie Dust is the reason I like IPAs circa 2013

 

In my opinion, Juicy had more citrus-y flavors coming through and that's the only thing that keeps it at #1 for me. The mouthfeel on NE Slapper is unreal though - on par with, if not better than, Juicy for sure

 

Was only the second time I've had a hop butcher beer but I Want To Believe tasted like a Munster, IN beer and not a NE style beer. Was pretty tasty though. I'd buy some if readily available.

 

So... I saw some people asking about what to go drink downtown. Forbidden Root is upping their game in the NE style. Right now they have a Pale, IPA, IIPA all on right now that are takes on the style. While not as good as Mikerphone I think they have tons of potential to get better... Also super close to the city, not expensive, and other cool stuff on tap. Don't let their package stuff fool you- their taproom is much better..

 

I stopped by last night. I had Glow With The Flow, Jacob Goes to Juicetown, and Snoochie Boochies.

Glow and Jacob were meh. I suppose you could call them decent takes on the style, but they both seemed undercarbed and were just missing anything special. Before NE-style IPAs became all the rage, there were great IPAs and then there were beers in the Daisy Cutter range. It's a solid beer, but it's not really going to hold up compared to the best of the style. That's where these fell - in the Daisy Cutter range.

Snoochie Boochies was noticeably better. It had more flavor and more bite. I'll be taking my fiance back to try that beer.

 

Glow with the Flow reminded me of Maplewood's SoJ. Jacob Goes to Juicetown was not as good as it was two weeks ago. The tropical high notes that made it so tasty were gone and it was getting a bit, I don't want to say vegetal as that isn't good, but I will say it, vegetal. These Midwest NE beers go from amazing to meh pretty quick. I had Snoochie Boochies batch 2 when they put it on Monday and I thought it was a one dimensional weed bomb- nothing like a NE DIPA.