Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

Agreed. It's almost assuredly driven by beer nerds. When Tree House is the most in-demand beer across the country & breweries in people's cities start brewing their Tree House inspired beers, beer nerds are overjoyed. Then beer nerds have to scoop up these local Tree House inspired beers so they can send them to their fellow beer nerd trading partners in other cities (& they in turn reciprocate the same) so they all can compare them against each other, as well as Tree House beers themselves.

 

It's only anecdotal, but I personally know three guys who were vaguely into craft beer that now go to all the releases and follow brewery news because of how much they like NEIPAs.

Now, with that being said, it's definitely still us nerds driving most of the hype. But I don't think it's that crazy to imagine a future where a medium ABV, hazy IPA is selling huge for a place in Chicago and has a consistent tap presence next to Half Acre and Revolution stuff.

 

I'm discrediting the "burby" $20 4 pack because their cost of business (and living) is significantly less than brewers in Chicago who seem to be able to come in under that price point easily....Cook County sales tax anyone?

 

I think you may be the Bizarro version of me...we seem to have the opposite experience of nearly everything.

 

To that, many Chicago breweries have backers with deeper pockets than those in the burbs. Having once worked for a brewery out in the burbs, we hated having to price our beer higher than what we thought. But bills need to be paid.

 

Was able to grab a couple of crowlers of Cosmic Juicebox. I'm excited to try my first Corridor beer.

And a hard pass on a $20/4-pack from Solemn Oath. And honestly, the price doesn't dissuade me from the purchase of an established, quality beer, it would more than likely just limit how much I purchased. As far as S.O. is concerned, I just don't feel like being a guinea pig at that price.

 

Lol. Okay. The sole reason the suburbs exist is for cheaper cost of living.....

 

That's a far fetched statement. Wasn't Solemn Oath founded by people with massive $$$$ pockets?

 

To be fair, I do not know who their backers are so you could be correct. But can 100% say that many breweries out in the burbs do not have big pockets.

But since we were specifically talking about SO's prices originally, you could be correct then that their price point is just way too high. BUTTTTT, I still thing anyone disregarding any company just because they are "burby" is still unjust. But that is just me, and I'll leave it at that haha.

 

Now that we're on the subject..would you guys say it's better to raise my step-daughters in east St. Charles, or west Aurora ?? I'm running out of time to decide with my bae.

 

At Corridor now (had to do some running around in the hood, so figured I'd stop in to try CJB). It is getting very close to kicking according to the bartender, starting to pour slow. So I don't see it lasting into the early evening.

 

I will also agree that CJB is on par with the OG Squeezit as the best I've had from them. Has a bit more of the hop bite I prefer compared to Squeezit v2.

Side Note: Pining the West is a fantastic west coast IPA, and definitely the hop-forward beer I've had here other than their NEIPAs, for exactly the opposite reasons most enjoy the haze craze. [crawls into corner for mentioning another style in this thread]

 

It will burst when NE IPAs are everywhere and really good. I'm starting to see that in the near future in the Chicago area. If More Brewing's beers are as renowned as RAM then that will speed up the process. Treehouse value is going down as we speak.

 

I'm up in the air with that. I've heard great things about Juicy, but never having it, can't say much on it. But Morning Fog, did not live up to the Shaun the Brewer hype I was hearing so much about. So I am curious to see what happens with More.

 

NE slapper was very good. Haven't had Juicy.

 

That was the other one, I was trying to remember the name. I did like NE slapper a lot. Hop Slush, I thought was a miss, very thin body. So I feel he really has his ups and downs as well.