Illinois Craft Beer Week 2023

I am over the fifty breweries required by ICBG, but I intend to continue on in July and into August.
I will visit breweries in all classifications:

1. ICBG breweries listed as participating in the Passport scheme
2. ICBG breweries not listed as participating in the Passport scheme
3. Non-ICBG breweries which I feel are quality

#2 makes sense because as previously indicated here, there are breweries such as Horse Thief Hollow and Ravinia Brwg. Chicago (I suspect Ravinia Brwg. in Highland Park would also give me a visa sticker.) which have the visa stickers but did not make the printing date for the Passport.
#3 is for quality breweries like Metropolitan Brwg., Spiteful Brwg., Emmett's Brwg., and Two Brothers Brwg.
My most recent brewery visits were in Highwood for (classification 1) Broken Tee Brwg., (classification 3) and Kings and Convicts Brwg. (!), and (classification 3) Lake Bluff Brwg. Co. I have visa stickers for all of them. Two of them will not count for ICBG, but they do as far as I am concerned.
I am pausing this weekend. I have applied for a new Visa credit card from Wells Fargo bank. If approved, it will provide travel bonus points with purchases used on it in classifications that include dining, entertainment, and transit. If I reach a certain dollar amount threshold in the first ninety days, I get a barrel of additional bonus points.

 

The totalisation:

How did I do on the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild's "Drink Illinois" Summer Passport scheme?

I did quite well. The count, covering dates from 19 May to 22 July {I'll relate what occurred that I halted then.} was seventy-five breweries.

There were four classes of these 75 breweries:

• ICBG member breweries listed in the Passport and issuing official | improvised visa stickers (60)
• ICBG member breweries not listed in the Passport, but issuing official | improvised visa stickers (6)
• ICBG member breweries not listed in the Passport and not issuing official visa stickers (4)
• non-ICBG member breweries who were solicited for an unofficial visa sticker (5)

There is a fifth and sixth class which extends to ICBG member breweries: The fifth being Crystal Lake Brwg. Co., which was visited twice in ten days, and Mickey Finn's Brwy. during which I did not possess my ICBG Summer Passport; and the sixth being ICBG member breweries in Waukegan [Nighshade and Dark's Pandemonium Brwg.], Lemont [Pollyanna Brwg.], and Joliet [MyGrain Brwg. - closing] where I did not go because I did not have the Passport.
Metra did not operate the additional trains on the Heritage line on Saturday this year, so I did not get to Lockport.
It was the Tinley Park Wednesday night trolley [It has two more Wednesdays.] which enabled me to go to Flipside and Soundgrowler Brwys. (Banging Gavel Brews was still not open. Do not try to walk from Soundgrowler to Hailstorm. I did it once. I will never do it again. Besides, Hailstorm was not participating in the Passport.)

I have to dump the dirt on myself here, people. I catastrophically messed up twice during mid-July. I rode the UP-West train line to Glen Ellyn for Two Hound Red Brwg. I boarded the train back to Chicago and was instantly solicited by the train conductor for my fare. The ticket was in a rubber-banded bundle, which also holds my RTA Reduced Fare permit, and goes in a jacket pocket. The ticket was withdrawn and presented. But the bundle somehow did not go back in the jacket pocket. This was not discovered until after departing the train when it was reached for to pay my CTA fare. I have a second Ventra Card where I can buy one, three, and seven-day passes. This was revived to get a pass to return to the abode.
I had all the detail of when and where [E.G.: which train car] the bundle was lost. The bundle was located on the train! I attempted to retrieve it that Friday, but somehow, UP's 'Lost & Found' room closed a half-day early on Friday.
It was retrieved on Monday. On the Saturday night of that weekend, I visited a number of breweries in Lake County, including Kings and Convicts Brwg. (Yes, it is still open for business. Where else in Illinois could you find Ballast Point Victory At Sea Imperial Porter on draft?) Another non-ICBG brewery hit on Saturday was Lake Bluff Brwg. [c.v.], which used to be a member. Somehow, after paying my tab, I left my MasterCard credit card there. This was not discovered until Tuesday of that week. I took another train back there and recollected it.

But this pales compared to what almost ultimately slayed me.
On Sat., 22 July, I went to Black Lung Brwg.'s hard opening in Fox Lake. It is a picturesque venue on Lake Nippersink. It was popular, and I departed there after a few of its beers, and getting its ICBG Visa sticker {improvised}. A good beer bar in Fox Lake which I can relate is Hello Folks. Its Saturday special is $2.00 12-oz. bottles of Miller High Life. I had three. After this, I was in pretty good shape when I got back to the Fox Lake train station. This is the terminus, so I just had to wait for the train crew [#2622] to open its doors.
Somehow {I am officially over the limit on usage of "somehow" in this post.}, I boarded the train, but my satchel was left on the platform. This was discovered by the time the train got to Round Lake. I walked through all the open cars on the train to ensure I had not stowed it elsewhere. The train crew was alerted. This was the last train back to Chicago Union Station, but there were two more trains arriving in Fox Lake that night. Somebody on one of those crews must have noticed it. I do not swear, but this is a W-T-F.
The satchel holds my laptop computer, which is not as critical as since before Sep. 2021. But it had my ICBG Passport in one of its pockets.
I called Metra 'Lost and Found' at Union Station during that week, leaving voicemail to contact me when it turned up. Nothing, and nothing in the week after it. Chicago Beer Society members may recall my appearance at The Beer Temple on "Thurst Fursday" the 3rd, without any accoutrements. On Fri., 4 August, I was preparing to head to Union Station deducing it had to have it by then, but it was not going to contact me to inform.
I got a valid phone call here not from Metra, but an individual. He had found the satchel on the platform Sunday morning. I would have rode the train to retrieve it anywhere, but he rode the Fox Lake train line frequently. We set the rendezvous point as the McDonald's at Cicero & Pensacola for that Sunday morning at 11:57 am.
It does not end there! I was in the McD's. I had a $3.29 bundle. When the time showed 12:35 pm, I surmised he missed the 10:45 am train (I completely forgot there were additional trains running for Lollapalooza.). I was not going to sit in that McD's until 2:00 pm. I returned home. Fourty minutes later, I took the #54 Cicero bus back to its terminus and staked out the inbound platform at Mayfair.
He must have caught one of those additional trains. I noticed somebody northward on the platform with a familiar-looking satchel in his hands. I remain uncertain of his real name; I had him as "Joe Glenn". I greeted him and told him my real name, and "This looks like a satchel I left on the platform at Fox Lake. May I please have it back?"
He was glad to give it back. He figured out who it belonged to from the address label sticker on the laptop. Thanks to Illinois corporation records [P Q R S, Ltd.], he uncovered the telephone number here. Yes, the laptop was powered up and inspected. How he got past the user logon password is | was perplexing. He messed with the laptop's properties. There is nothing questionable on the laptop, or on the flash drive which is separate from it in the satchel. But the one item I did not get back was the flash drive. He completely drained the laptop's battery. I comprehended this would happen, so I planned to visit a beerworthy venue where I could get a plug-in afterward. This became Illuminated Brew Works.
After this shock, I decided to send in the ICBG passport page. Bar staff at I.B.W. counted up the breweries and affirmed I was over fifty [that counted]. My bank warns everybody that people with keys are capable of raiding the blue U.S.P.S. street corner mailboxes looking for envelopes that could contain financial instruments. One of my envelopes might be a tempting target for a miscreant getting into the mailbox at Cicero & Belmont. So I walked the two blocks north to the 60641 post office to mail it there.

I now await ICBG pronouncing me as eligible for some sort of reward. It only states there will be a drawing for a gift card to an ICBG brewery. It had better be worth at least one hundred dollars. (Do the math. If you lowball it and compute paying $7.00 for a beer, that is $350 expended. Would it dare try to give away only a $50 gift card?!)
How many 'winners' shall there be? Do you have to specify from which Illinois brewery you want to receive the gift card beforehand? What happens if five people specify they want it from Hop Butcher? Do four of them go away empty-handed? ["Thanks for participating. You did not win the drawing for the gift card. We have extended your ImBIBE membership for another year."]

I am glad I did this. Compared to 2019, the last time ICBG had the physical Passport scheme, it was more difficult to accomplish what it challenged you to do. Also, I will echo what a server at One Lake Brwg. uttered: The ICBG Passport is too close in appearance to the United States Passport! ICBG should definitely change the cover color in 2024 (if it does this again). A color approaching that of a beer would seemingly be preferable.
To those ICBG member breweries who did not participate: Why did you not? LoRez (closing) expended the funds for it, and it knew its financial status. I should not have had to perform triage on which breweries to visit.
Octoberfests shall occur. At least now I can resume more visits to craft beer bars. Maybe I will espy you out here.