Focused on small batch, craft and artisan goods.

After being turned away by the Illinois Liquor Control Commision to increase their stake in City Beverages, InBev has filed suit within the state of Illinios protesting a law that allows small, craft brewers to self-distribute.   InBev has been coveting the money that distributors make for a long while.   Reports have suggested that they’ve also been interesting in consolidating the distro landscape.

This is a pretty big shot fired across the bow of how business is done in Illinois.  As mentioned earlier, Windy City Distributors, the distribution arm of Two Bros. is the only large craft beer player in the area.  City Beverages (AB) and CBS (MillerCoors) dominate the local landscape.  InBev desperately wanted to own City Beverages but was shot down.  During that phase, the large distro’s (Wirtz, CBS) as well as the breweries (MillerCoors) complained that InBev couldn’t be allowed to own City because it would violate the three-tier system.   In the end, it appears that the ILCC’s ruling was based on the fact that InBev was not an Illinois-based company.

So, in return, InBev has filed a suit that threatens to either tear down the three-tier model completely or strip small, craft brewers of their (current) legal right to self-distribute.  In many respects, the ability to self-distribute is a practical matter.  Many craft brewers covered by the existing legislation brew such small quantities that it simply makes more sense for them to drive the cases/barrels to their customers.  Also, finding a distributor interested in doing that for these small brewers is next to impossible.   The big boys are far too busy taking over shelf space with vortex bottles and innovative packaging, and the small guys need sure things for their limited allotments.

This will be interesting to watch.  It’s hard to imagine it just going away.  InBev’s budget in this regard is, of course, limitless.   Of course, small brewers have long desired the right to self-distribute.  So a ruling that demolishes the three-tier system seems like it may be a bit of a win for the craft beer aficionado and the craft brewer.  However, don’t underestimate the power of the distros in any state.  Thanks to consolidation, they are large, multi-million dollar operations and are all politically well-connected.  The easy way out would be to kill the law that allows small, craft-brewers to self-distribute.  It would seem that the money bet would be on this, right now.  And, that, of course, would kill the small brewers (and wineries) in the state.  It’s essentially a win-win for InBev.

Hey, at least there is a round-up.  The laptop has been resurrected with the help of a new power brick.  I also took the opportunity to repartition the HDD and add the latest version of Ubuntu on top — Lucid Lynx.  Man.  It’s come a long way.  A while back I raved about how Windows 7 had no problem adding our wirelessly networked printer (an HP6890).  Well, the ubuntu machine had no problems either.  It was, truth told, even easier than in Win7.  Linux has come a long way.  I’m dual-booting right now but even the misses is comfortable with the Ubuntu.  Of course, a great Chrome port (our browser of choice) helps.  Check it out, if you are so inclined.

Anyways, on to the round-up.

A great beermapping project outlining the sights to see in a 36-hour trip in Chicago (these are like those trips in the United infilght mag! — ugh, too much travel).  I’d have to agree with Ray Daniels (@Cicerone_org) ** though and add a cab ride and a trip to Revolution Brewing Co. The food is top-notch, the brews are just as good (really enjoyed an Anti-Hero Pale Ale last week).  Terrible oversight by the beermapping guys.  I know RevBrewCo is new to the scene but they are doing it right.  Last week I had a burger there that was topped with spinach, an egg and beets.  It was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.  And, their cheese ale soup is the bomb.  Though, this really isn’t the season for it.

Here’s 10 reasons to try canned beers (HuffPo).  The Fat Tire in the can should become a staple of the beach and tailgating.  I also have to add any of the Ska brews (Modus Hoperandi or their Blonde, for starters).  And, I’ve seen pictures of Half Acre’s Daisy Cutter Pale Ale in cans that I’m itching to get my hands on.  Once, last spring, I was building a raised-bed for our garden in our backyard.  I had some Modus Hoperandi in the fridge (in cans) and was drinking some during the project.  But, I tricked myself into thinking that, because it was canned, it was lighter than most craft pale ales.  Nuh uh.  I was pretty quickly heading towards Don Draper-land.  Though, I realized my error pretty quickly and I didn’t abandon a birthday party and spend the night at the train tracks.   Either way, this is also an argument for some more tasty session ales from our craft brewing friends.  Session ales that aren’t creeping up the ABV charts, that is.

** The Cicerone program, by the way, is run by Ray and is, essentially, a beer sommelier program.  That is, folks who are Cicerone certified have passed a particular program and know their crap about beer.  I think that Two Bros.’ distributor arm, Windy City Distribution, boasts that all of their reps are Cicerone-certified.  At the very least, it shows that the distributor will do their best to position beers that they think are quality.

We had the privilege of catching a meal late last week at graham elliot.  It was a great time with excellent food.  We got there a bit early so we had time to hit up the bar.  (I had no idea that it occupied the former site of Allen’s.  The renovations are great.).  I had  Rogue Juniper Pale Ale which was tasty, though I had trouble locating the juniper.  Subtle is the operative word.  The better half tried one of the cocktails (the tequila-based one) and it was very nice, complete with the lemon zest/lighter trick.  Very tasty and a great way to start the evening.

The music is loud.  Loud, loud, loud.  And, it’s a blessing that it was good.  Because it was so good, I really enjoyed it.   I rarely get to enjoy fine drinks, really fine food and really good music.  All turned up to 11, so to say.  But at ge, you can.

As I tweeted, the pre-course, truffle-oil popcorn with chives, black pepper and pecorino was dropped at the table as the opening strains of Metallica’s One kicked in.  That was pretty awesome.   I don’t want to write too much about the specific courses, lest I remove some of the surprise but there were some definite highlights.  The sweetbread hush puppies were ridiculously good (and rich).  It was my first adventure with sweetbreads, to be honest, and I was looking forward to it.  I must also mention that my love of anchovies was rewarded with the deconstructed cæsar salad.  Oh, and the wagyu flat-iron pretty much blew the place up.  Until dessert, that is.

Bottom line: ge occupies a nice little place in the Chicago dining world.  It’s cheaper than moto (and, obviously, Alinea) but has some tricks up its sleeve just like those places.  But, its also a bit more mainstream — I say that knowing my audience, after all, I’m calling a sweetbread dish (which featured a Pernod foam), mainstream (hell, the foam may even be cliched if it wasn’t so damn tasty and so, so fitting for the sweetbreads).

Oh, and the service was exceptional.  Really exceptional.

MillerCoors have released two versions of their new ‘home draft’ system to the Chicago market.  One is pictured above and the other is full of the Silver Bullet.  They are 1.5 gallon (5.7L) minikegs with a new, CO2 based pressurization system.  Like the Heineken mini-kegs, these things are said to be good for thirty days but instead of priming them with regular old air (which contains O2) these are equipped with small CO2 cartridges that pressurize the keg as the beer is withdrawn.  The 1.5 gallon container works out to a 16-pack of 12 ozers if you are curious.

Because I am a sucker for this kind of thing, and because the weather has finally gotten a bit warmer, we picked one up on our recent trip to the supermarket.  It had been a long time since I’d had a lite american lager from one of the big boys.  Boy, had it been a long time.  I’ve had Heinekens but no light beers in a long time.  There isn’t much to recommend here.  I tasted one yesterday afternoon — or at least, maybe it was closer to a 1/4; the draft system is very good at dispensing foam but not so much at beer.  A little while later we found ourselves at a nearby restaurant to watch the 1st and 2nd periods of the Flyers game and I decided to order a draft Lite since it was on sale for $2 due to the Hawks game.  It didn’t taste much different from the one I had at home.  But, neither of the ‘beers’ really tasted much of anything so discerning them is difficult to say the least.  In that sense, I suppose it is a success.

But, another thing  I was reminded of, was that it is sometimes nice to drink a beer that is a bit lower in alcohol content.  There is a fine op-ed piece in the most recent Beer Advocate (can’t link, dead-tree version) about Session beers.  Session beers are typically low-alcohol (<4.5% ABV) quaffs.  But many craft breweries are inching their sessions higher and higher.  Much to the chagrin of the author.  He maintains, correctly, that there is a time and place for sessions — playing poker with friends, sitting in the sun enjoying a summer day, etc — and these events are not conducive to drinking higher ABV beers.  As much as I enjoy them, imagine settling in for a few hours of cards or just a bull-session and having nothing but 5.8%, 6.5%, 9.5% etc ABV ales on hand.  Things deteriorate pretty quickly.  On a recent trip to Goose Island’s clybourn brewpub I had one of their lesser bitters.  It would be very suitable for such a night clocking in at a modest 3.5%.  Granted, that’s close to Utah territory but sometimes that’s what you’re looking for.

I also got the home draft system to celebrate American Craft Beer Week (#ACBW for the twitterati).  Towns across the country are doing their best to celebrate the legalization of home brewing with special events, meetings, dinners, tastings, etc.  Chicago has a full sked of events.  Some of the more interesting ones are the Michigan night at the Bavarian Lodge as well as the Metropolitan night at the same location.  Incidentally, a source told me that Metropolitan is going to start cutting back production and focusing on their Kölsch and one of their two lagers (the Dynamo or the Flywheel).  They recently released an Alt (I-Beam) but the source suggested that they had grown a bit too fast and needed to pull back.  I hope they are able to survive.  They have nicely filled a void in Chicagoland (the craft lager) and the Dynamo was a house, and guest, favorite.  Speaking of Chicago breweries, we found ourselves in the city a couple of weekends ago and I managed to escape with two 6-packs of Half Acre’s Over Ale (I can’t get in my part of Cook County a scant 1 mile across the city line) and I have enjoyed it very much.  They’ve recently begun canning and I am looking forward to grabbing some more of their products )in cans) when I get a chance.

Sorry its been so long since the last post.  The laptop cannot be charged because HP manufactures crappy adaptors that fail quickly — it should be noted that besides this, I am a complete HP fanboy and continue to use reverse polish on both a real calculator and an iPhone app.  Once we get that squared away I’ll be posting more regularly.

Forest Park has a new gastropub on Madison Ave, the above-pictured Duckfat Tavern.  This is somewhat exciting.  Any place that is proud of using duckfat to make their fries garners a solid look from me, particularly when you can also get those same duckfat-fried fries with truffle-oil and parmesan.  The food menu looks pretty good, very comforting shall we say?

Unfortunately, they’ve completely dropped the ball with their beer list.   This is the old Morans and it seems as if they just kept the same exact approach to beer as that place.   I mean, c’mon, set yourselves apart!  Embrace craft brews!  Goose 312 and Bell’s are the only ‘local’ beers that appear on the draft list, unless you count Miller Lite as a local beer.  But, it needn’t even be local, at least put beers on tap that compliment your menu.  Better yet, choose one semi-local brewery and champion their beers.  Say, Metropolitan or Goose or Two Bros., etc.  and dedicate 3-6 tapheads for them.  Recommend pairings confidently on your menu.  Take a risk.  The people are sick of Stella.

A bit of a change of pace for this Wednesday.  First, I cracked into the Easy Wind yesterday for the first time and things are going OK with that beer.  It’s got nice carbonation, good head retention, etc.  but, it is still a bit rough around the edges.  It has a slightly burnt aftertaste, which I am going to chalk up to the Carraffa malts I used.  The color was a bit darker than I expected.  It is definitely drinkable, but it is a strange brew — lots of typical ale character with some wheat body and character from the wheat yeast, and than the roasted/toastedness from the particular malts involved.  I think it needs some time to mellow a bit.  I’ll probably open a bottle a week going forward to see how it is progressing. Those of you out there with bottles, sit tight, keep them cool (~60° F) and keep checking here.

Now for links:

Great article on small-batch rye whiskey from the Chicago Tribune. Follows close on the heels of a great Atlantic article I read about the new bootleggers (homebrew geeks in cities who have turned to home-distilling).  I wish I could link to the latter but I can’t track it down.  If you don’t get the Atlantic, borrow someone’s.  Is it just me or has rye whiskey suddenly become very popular amongst 30-somethings?  I mean, for years it was difficult to find rye whiskey anywhere and very few bars kept any high quality brands around.  Now, it seems like you can find boutique brands of rye whiskey in lots of places.

Speaking of whiskey, Crown Royal has launched a new blend:  Crown Royal Black.  With higher alcohol content it also attempts to deliver a fuller flavored whiskey (much desired these days) with the smoothness of original Crown Royal (which would  be Crown Royal Purple?).  I’m sorry, but this may end my Crown Royal days.  I’ve always had a place for that whiskey in my heart, but this seems a bit reaching.  Besides, who wants a black velour bag when you can have purple?

Also, was reading about using a beer-cooler (the kitchn) to do some Sous Vide cooking and stumbled upon the comment below.  I think this guy deserves some sort of award.

I never realized there was a name for this cooking style, but I’ve used it accidentally for years. When ever I make beer, the wort needs to cool. I don’t own a wort chiller, so this can take 4-5 hours for a 20 Gallon batch before you can pitch the yeast. So I double bag a corned beef brisket and toss it into my brew pot. When the yeast is ready to go in, I’m usually already eating a fresh ruben.

Gotta give a hat-tip to @Tricerapops for alerting me to the fact that 72-year-old Fritz Maytag savior of Anchor Brewing (and the California Common beer style) sold his brewery to a duo that is repeatedly described as ’spirit industry vets’.  I’m still trying to digest this.  I can’t imagine that Fritz needs the money — though he has said that he sunk his nest-egg into rehabbing the beleaguered brewery when he purchased it.  I’m tempted to believe that since he has stated that the brewery was in terrible shape when he acquired it and required a substantial investment.

Also, I don’t recall hearing about any heir apparent and Fritz isn’t getting any younger.  I’m sure, amongst other things, that he desires the legacy of Anchor to be maintained.  Perhaps, he thought that this was his best shot.

Nevertheless, lots of people are skeptical:

That’s Brian Yaeger, author of Red, White and Brew which is a very fun look at the personalities behind the beers we love.   It’s worth reading even if Yaeger is like a super-light version of Hunter S. and his gonzo protégés.

In the end, I think only time will tell.  Will the new guys continue the great tradition that Fritz began?  In Fritz’s absence, because that day will come, will they continue to be such a great friend to the micro- and homebrewing community that Fritz’s Anchor was?

I cracked open another bottle of porter this evening and was again pleasantly surprised.  It’s perfectly drinkable.  I don’t think it is as good as my very first batch of beer (the American Pale Ale) but it’s beer and it’s a style that isn’t readily available from the macrobreweries.  There isn’t anything terribly notable about the brew but it seems like it does a good job representing the porter style.

I had a very busy day yesterday, spent all day at the National Academy of Engineers Grand Challenges Summit which turned out to be a very interesting day.  The only reason I mention it is that the cocktail hour at the Fairmont Hotel featured the usual swill but it also provided the option of Half Acre Over Ale.  Half Acre is a very promising Chicago brewery.  I’ve raved about their Ginger Twin in the past, but as they do not distribute outside the city (even to suburbs that border the city!) it is very hard to try their acclaimed products — like the Daisy Cutter which gets consistently high marks.  The Over Ale is a brown bitter ale and it is very tasty.  Huzzah to the Fairmont and to Half Acre.

But despite the business, I have a couple of links:

A good entry about the efforts to market beer to the female palate/sensibility. (The Beer Wench)

A seemingly absurd ebay auction concerning Dark Lord. (Chicago Now)

I got my hands on this new collaboration brew from Stone Brewing, Firestone-Walker, and 21st Amendment brewing.  It is a black ale called El Camino (Un)Real.  It’s brewed with fennel seeds, chia seeds, pink peppercorns and mission figs.  Chia seeds are the odd-ball here, at least for an East coast native living in the upper Midwest.  They are, as you may suspect, the seeds one would use to grow this:

This is the second spicy black ale I’ve tried in two weeks. Last week, I picked up the Marion Street Cheese Market’s ‘beer-of-the-month’ selection which included a growler of Goose Island’s Pepe Nero.  Pepe Nero is a black farmhouse/saison ale but spiced with black peppercorns.  The ABV of the Pepe Nero (6%) comes in a lot lower than the El Camino (Un)Real (9.5%) due it being a saison, though it is on the high end of the range for that traditionally low-ABV style.

Whereas the spiciness in the Pepe Nero was a touch subtle to my palate, particularly considering the color, there isn’t much subtle about the El Camino (Un)Real including the hop presence.  This is a full-flavored, spicy, sweet and hoppy ale.  I noticed a stout-like nose and the beer has a pretty good body.  My main impression was surprise at the hop presence.  This is a very full-flavored beer.  Maybe too full-flavored for me last night.  I think it tasted good but for whatever reason, it wasn’t matching well with what I was looking for despite it being a very cool (<50° F) spring evening.  I needed to share this bottle as finishing the 12 oz by myself just wasn’t going to happen.  As a contrast, the Pepe Nero, despite its spiciness, was a great pre-BBQ quaff on a warmer spring day last week.

Isn’t that awesome bottle artwork?  That’s Invasion, a new Helles Bock that is a collaboration between Half Acre and Three Floyds.  The beer, and label, celebrate the arrival of the much-feared Asian Carp in Chicago waterways.  I hope to get a chance to taste it soon.

I bottled the Easy Wind Weizenbock last night.  All went off without a hitch.  This is my first batch that yielded a true 5 gallons.  I bottled a case of 12 oz bottles, a case of 22 oz bombers and a few extra bombers and 12 ozers.

Both myself and misses gave it a taste last night and agreed that it is good but that the flavors need to come together a little bit.  I think it may turn into a excellent fall beer.  We’ll see.

I’m also excited because I cracked open another porter today, after arriving home from work, and it tastes pretty good.  The head retention is still poor but it isn’t soured.  I’m thinking I just had a bad bottle and/or it was still too early.  For all I know, it may still be a bit too early.  Sadly, I won’t be aging this one, though, due to the open fermentation process that I chose.  But, it looks I will be drinking it!  That’s a small victory.  I’ll keep updating this thread.