Riverlands (2021)

Is Tranquil straight fire? Or is it straight fire?

BA GV no slouch either.

Grabbed draft pours of each. Tranquil won out. My...God... might be one of my favorite pours of the year. One of the thickest, too. Their barrel program has gone plaid.

 

BA Tranquil is perfect. Hope a lot of you didn’t sleep on this release.

 

Tranquil is my sleeper hit of the year next to Crushing Mass. Also drank a lot of out of state hype during the year so this puts me in a comfortable place knowing my local options are better than most. #slamfuckingdunk @RBCBrams17

 

Tranquil is what I want BCS to be. It's so fucking good.

 

rough, hopefully Budweiser starts making stouts better

on a serious note, I found tranquil to be a bit spirited and boozy compared to a few beers next to it at FoBAB. Do the bottles have a nice bourbon heat to them? Tranquil smelled like spirit at FoBAB, I liked it, but I was surprised that it stood out in that regard. Wet barrels for sure

 

The two Buffalo Trace barrels we pulled for that beer were crazy smooth, almost too smooth, so we blended a Heaven Hill barrel with them. In our experience, the Heaven Hill barrels we've gotten have run pretty hot. That spirit character definitely comes from that third barrel

 

Hey guys, as another kinda bizarre year comes to a close, I just wanted to say thanks to each of you who post/read in this thread. It means the world to us, especially me, that you guys are enjoying the beer that we pour so much thought and effort into.

We closed out the year with some fun collabs. In case you missed it, we brewed massive stouts with Foreign Exchange, More, and Mikerphone. The Foreign Ex and More stouts are going straight into barrels, while the Mikerphone will see some fresh, some barrel aged. We did a version of that beer at Mikerphone as well, and plan on going to More to do a stout there. We also went up to Black Lung in Round Lake Beach and did a stout destined for barrels up there. We're releasing a fun and unique Lager today that we did with our really good friends at Penrose.

Look for more of the same going into 2022. We've got Roaring Table on the books for a couple lagers we're really excited about, plus a killer hazy with Forbidden Root. We're also coming back out with a new and improved Box of Chocolates collab mixed pack that we did a couple years ago. 4 beers by 8 breweries this time, it'll be awesome.

As far as our usual stuff goes, expect our lager program to continue to grow and improve. It's been so much fun to dive deeper into these styles, and I plan on continuing that going forward. We're also putting a big emphasis on our barrel program this year, and while it'll take some time aging to enjoy the fruits of those labors, we can't wait to put more stout, barleywine, ryewine, and maybe some others into barrels. We're also putting emphasis on bringing the hoppy beers back that people enjoy more often. While we don't have a flagship IPA, expect to see your favorites more often and less "new hops of the week." That's not to say we won't bring out new beers, but we've figured out what we like, what we think you like, and we want more of that. Of course if I get a hold of some fun new hops though, we'll make something new and fun with them!

Once again, cheers and thank you all so much for the support. This is a great beer scene around Chicago, from the breweries, bars, shops, and consumers, and we're grateful to be a part of it.

Here's to 2022!

 

In turn, let me thank you for being an active member of the BA community; it's great that you keep us up to date on what Riverlands is up to, and that we can get questions answered.

 

All of this sounds really Awesome! You and the Riverlands crew continue to bring it. For such a young brewery, you guys have a crazy beer portfolio and just keep it going! I seriously haven't had a bad beer from Riverlands that I can remember. Keep up the good work!

I also echo what @darktronica said... Thank you for posting and being an active member of BA community. I look forward to your posts on this forum and find it interesting on what you have to say! Cheers to 2022!

 

Great news and great job! need more Silt and DDH silt in my life

 

One thing you'll notice, and we've started doing it without really calling attention to it, is all of our hazy DIPAs are now double dry hopped. We're updating our can art and you'll see it mentioned on the cans. It just never really made a lot of sense to me to make what is essentially a greater and lesser version of a beer. Every time we did it, the DDH version was just better, so we decided just to make that the norm for doubles.

Also, you won't have to wait much longer for Silt, it's going into the fermenter on Monday!

 

It was a cool project we did with Penrose. We had these French Barbe Rouge hops that sounded really interesting. They're kinda new school fruity mixed with some old world hop elements too. We had thought about maybe doing something more hop focused like a Pils, but once we started talking with Penrose, something more rustic sounded really interesting.

The beer itself is a Bock strength copper colored lager nicely balanced between malt and hops. There's a nice biscuity quality to the lager, a splash of rye, and a fruitiness that goes well with the malt without being the star of the show.

 

I nominate Silt or Muddy Waters plz. And they don’t have to be a double either! Just always available when I make the drive lol