http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/almanac-beer-chicago-farm-to-barrel-story.html I must say I am quite excited about this. More sours to the midwest, yes please! Hopefully they come in a wide enough supply to keep shelves filled, liquor stores headache free and tongues stinging with tartness.
Crap... there goes my trade bait Hopefully it is as plentiful as when releases hit in San Fran. Usually (I go there for work) they are in every liquor store in good volumes, so it isn't hard to find them at all, but usually only the current release.
I used to be a huge Almanac fan when distribution wasn't far beyond San Jose. The second batch they ever did was a huge improvement over the first but it seemed like success came quickly and batches 3 and beyond were distributed far and wide. Gone was the small batch brewery. Because a friend knew I loved batch 2 they hooked me up with a few mixed cases and I have been enjoying them slowly. They are all getting better with age. In NYC they are very easy to find and most the original styles can be found on regular rotation. Side by side taste tests between mass distribution bottles and the small batch bottles shows IMHO an obvious difference. I still like the beers and adding Chicago to their distribution is great. It will be nice to have them as a local beer. I hope I am pleasantly surprised by the quality.
Chicago events posted on the FB Also from their FB You can expect to start seeing Farmer's Reserve Citrus and Dogpatch Sour on shelves really soon, and we'll be pouring a few older releases like Strawberry, Pluot, and Blackberry at some of our release events next week.
