A friend is asking what beers I'd like him to pick up for me next week in Champaign & Bloomington, IL. Now living in Pennsylvania, I've lost track of the breweries that distribute to that area. Can anyone recommend some breweries or specific packaged beers he should look out for at bottle shops in those towns? I favor a lot of the typical beer geeky stuff: IPAs, barrel-aged stouts/barleywines, barreled sours and the like. Thanks for any help!
If you like NEIPA's the one that comes to mind for me is Triptych, which is just south of Champaign in Savoy. Otherwise there's a Binny's in Champaign that should have a wide range of area beers.
Revolution Brewing distributes down there so if he can get you any of their Deep Woods series, I would certainly recommend them. Destihl Brewing's Dosvidanya beers are all barrel aged goodness - they might also be sitting on shelves especially at either a Binnys or Friar Tuck (There are both stores in both cities). @randjuke is spot on with the Triptych recommendation - pretty much all of their stuff is very good.
I don’t think they do much in the way of the styles you mentioned, but Riggs in Urbana is a brewery that I hear nothing but good things about. To the extent your friend sees any in distro, Scratch Brewing is an excellent saison/wild/mixed ferm ale brewery that’s wel worth seeking out. As far as bottle shops, another one I’d toss out there is Sun Singer in Champaign, which was my co-go to spot with Binny’s when I lived there. They used to stock pretty much all of the good hyper local stuff with a good smattering or pretty unique items. Got hooked on Fantome because of them!
+1 to Rev, Triptych, Scratch, and Riggs is very good too. White Oak has bottled some BA stouts/barleywines in the past, which were available to go from the brewery. Lil' Beaver does a few good hazy IPA's. Regionally, Big Thorn Farm does a few good BA sour ales, in the vein of Scratch and White Rooster. Blind Pig is usually pretty good, although their brewer recently left for WI.
Long winded response incoming...You've gotten a lot of good advice so far. As someone who has lived in CU for a while now, Triptych is going to be your #1 choice for locally made beer IMO. While NE/hazy stuff probably is responsible for getting their name out there in the state/region, they really make an array of styles that are excellent. Their taproom is open right now if your buddy is looking for a nice spot to get a beer. They took pandemic shut downs to remodel the tap room and it's quite nice in there. You can actually purchase cans online and your buddy can pick them up. Few benefits to this: 1) you know it's been fridged the entire time; 2) You can buy singles or 4 packs; and 3) Your buddy doesn't need to bounce around to find stuff. It's all right there and you can buy it, he can grab it. Their cans are organized on the sales page in order of release. So things at the top are the newest releases. They'll probably drop another can or 2 tomorrow/Friday. There's a smoked lager collab from Narrow Gauge and a TIPA hazy collab w/ Mikerphone available, along with lots of other solid choices right now. https://shop.triptychbrewing.com/ In terms of other breweries in the CU area, Riggs would be next in line for me. They make German style beer, and while they are no Dovetail, they make some decent beer. Their taproom is a really nice spot, especially outdoors if the weather is nice. It's a great place to hang out, good for families/little kids, etc. They started canning during the pandemic and you can find their beer at Binny's, Friar Tucks, etc. around town too. I was never a big fan of Blind Pig's beers, but the original location (on Walnut St) often has a great tap list of stuff from around the globe. The downtown Champaign area has some killer bars with great draft lists if he's looking to get out for a few. In terms of distro, we see almost everything from Chicago. Pandemic really changed up distro a bit in a good way, and it was already ridiculous before that. Half Acre, Revolution, Pipeworks, More, some Mikerphone, Phase 3, Dovetail, Noon Whistle, Three Floyds, etc. are all here and readily available. It's not just Chicago too, we see a LOT of beer here from all over. Bottles shops - Binny's is your big one. They have just about everything. Make sure to check the coolers too - sometimes there are one off distro IPAs from Weldwerks, etc. Friar Tucks also has a big selection and things tend to hand around a little longer there too. Both places still have Revolution Deep Woods - Cafe Deth, Straight Jacket, maybe Ryeway to Heaven. Definitely get some of those. Dosvidanya from Destihl is still around and a great beer too in terms of BA stuff. There's several Central Waters BA beers sitting on the shelf right now too. As @A-Smoove said, Sunsinger is a nice spot especially for food, sometimes a decent draft is on. Their bottle shop game has gone down dramatically over the last few years though. I just don't think they are prioritizing beer much there anymore. Might find some dusty winners in there though... One place that I can hands down recommend, is a local business owned by a good guy, is Collective Pour. It's a craft beer bar with a nice bourbon selection too. Also back open for on site drinking. Like many businesses over the past year+, they've had to pivot a bit. One of those things was selling cans to go online. They have a nice selection of Hop Butcher (the last several releases) and it's the only place in town to get it right now. This week's release will probably get posted tomorrow or Friday morning. Lots of Chicago breweries, along with out of distro cans from Weldwerks, Other Half, Outer Range, Humble Forager, etc. You might also get lucky and score some nice bourbon if that's your thing. Again, you can make the order online and your buddy can pick it up and be in and out. As much as the pandemic has sucked, these types of sales have certainly been a bonus for beer nerds... https://shop.collectivepour.com/ Regarding BloNo, the big ones would be Lil' Beaver, White Oak, and Destihl. I'll let my guy @Jinx989 give you the full run down for BloNo. Cheers and happy hunting! There's a lot of beer to get on here that I think you'll be really pleased with.
Bummed to hear Sun Singer has gone down in quality, but maybe not surprising given that they always seemed to be primarily wine focused and it seems tougher and tougher to be a casual beer store these days. Wonder if some of my old favorites from six years ago might still be hanging around haha!
They're still a quality place for sure. I don't want to give any other impression. But yeah, wine has always been more the focus for them. TBH, I think Binny's ultimately ramping up a customer base hurt foot traffic there and Tucks for sure. Hell, Tucks has JW Lee's Barleywines going back to like 2005 or something. It's crazy the amount of old things on the shelf there. Sometimes it makes for awesome scores, other times...well...I'm looking at you Toppling Goliath bombers sitting warm on the shelf. As was mentioned, Scratch is another brewery worth checking out. They're 3-4 hours away in southern IL, but they have a few bottles at Binny's for sure. Big Thorn (located about 30 minutes east of Urbana) also puts out some unique brews too. Urbana has a newer brewery (in pandemic time) called 25 O'Clock. For my money though Triptych is still #1 by a lot in terms of quality and diversity of what they brew, then would be Riggs. At least for my preferences - I'm a hops, stout, barleywine, lager kinda guy.
@jwat a few more Chicago area breweries that we now see as of pretty recently include Riverlands and Old Irving. Their stuff is at Binny's too. There's others too. Again, the selection there is pretty overwhelming.
Wow, thank you so much @randjuke, @FBarber, @A-Smoove, @emerge077, and @flat_lander! You've all been far more generous with your advice than I ever hoped, and now I look forward even more to what my buddy brings back. He certainly has quite the list!
My buddy did a great job with this haul! Looking forward most to the White Rooster and Cafe Deth. The Triptychs were as delicious as you all said, so thank you again for all the help! Also shout out to the beer staff at Champaign Binny's, who were apparently very knowledgeable and helpful.
Doesn't help you now OP, but totally forgot we have Schramm's now too. Just sits around. It's beautiful.
Oh man, I love Schramm's! And you definitely can't get it around here. At least I have something else to look forward to the next time I'm in IL!
