Chicago Stout Releases (2020)

Well with coronoavirus maybe you'll put that to the test!

 

Man, talk about upside...

 

How do you feel about waxed cans though?

Right? I'd finally get to burn down this absurd cellar that I'm not real clear why I have a majority of it anymore.

 

I don't care about immigration, but the moment Canadian berries I've never heard of come into this country and take good stout jobs away from berries in this country....

 

Drinking my cellar down to nothing over the last year was one of the better things I did in 2019...although my liver may disagree.

 

last year BA Darkness was 32 bucks most places. Happy to see the price drop! Now if Surly could make it 4 pack of pint cans that would be awesome

 

May possibly see Darkness variants in cans this year per this post.

 

Were you a big Pokémon fan as a kid?

 

No sir. Some D&D in high school for a few years. That's about it on that end of things.

 

I used to collect baseball cards... just had a theory that adults that collect a beer cellar used to collect cards/Pokémon/whatever haha... I’m down to about 20 cellar bottles after 18 months of drinking it down”

 

I definitely collected baseball cards. Also played from tball through some of HS. So there's one more data point for your hypothesis.

 

I definitely have The Collector's Disorder® and it's been a lifelong affliction. First it was Ghostbusters. Then I had every damn Ninja Turtle toy. Then came the sports cards and when I started getting on to middle school age I got very academic and turned to fossil collecting. As a young adult it was collecting concerts seeing every band I liked any time they came around and I actually got to see most of them before settling down and taking up beer collecting. Now it's time to move on from beer and take up I don't know, rare carpet samples or some shit. After all these years my (free!) Chick Tracts I gathered over the years might be my favorite collection and the fossils are the only thing that gained any value.

 

So way off topic, but have you collected fossils locally as in WI or IL? #fossiladvocate

 

I grew up in the UP and there was never a shortage of coral fossils to be found on the Lake Superior shoreline (maybe this collecting is illegal now?). One time even a rare Crinoid stem. Back when the Nature Company was a thing they sold fossils with certificates of authenticity. Now the value of things like Trilobites and pyritized Ammonites has surged to ridiculous highs as specimens get mined out and scooped up so the existing markets are flooded with fakes. It's like beer, shoes, memorabilia, and any other collectable - once word got out there was easy money to be made on flipping the vultures swooped in and stripped the carcass. After being taken a couple times I moved on from buying but I'll always keep an eye to the ground if I'm on a secluded beach up north.

 

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Here in IL, I went as a kid to Coal City which is part of the Mazon Creek fossil bed. We could easily find a lot of different specimens at that time, but now the land and collecting has been privatized.

 

True story. My kid finds crinoids all the time during recess in the gravel at his school's playground. We're in Urbana, so I assume the gravel came from somewhere else, but I could be wrong about that. He has a whole tin filled with them. He was coming home from school telling me they were fossils and I was all, "Sure buddy, that's awesome." Then one day his principal tells me they are actually fossils called crinoids. Get home, Google it, sure as shit they are.

 

I've heard of this place but never got a chance to check it out. Cool that you made it there when it was still open. Last summer as part of a road trip we visited the Tyrell Museum in Alberta at @MattilaRage 's suggestion and 12 year old me came back to life for a few hours.

Limestone gravel I'm guessing? Crinoids wouldn't be uncommon in limestone or shale but seemed rare in the UP despite the abundance of crazy coral chunks I'd find all the time. Gravel could be from anywhere but there's a limestone quarry in Racine, WI that's been known to pull out some crazy specimens. We'll never even know how many insane finds we've dynamited and crushed away.

Okay I promise no more fossil replies from me but to get back to my original point collecting can be like a contagious mental disorder. Lol

 

Old Irving has a pastry stout collab with Illuminated on draft and in two-pack cans called Ancient Magick. I drank it and it was pretty good. The food at Old Irving today was not very good, which is sad - previous visits seemed better.

beer description from untappdAdvocate: Brewed with cocoa nibs, vanilla, cinnamon, peanut butter, and marshmallow. Collab with Illuminated Brew Works.

Paleontological C-c-c-c-c-combo Breaker!!! Trilobite me!