Our lost in Indiana at night excursion to Three Floyds not only netted us an amazing meal, but a growler of amazing beer. Because who knows when we'll find ourselves down Munster way in the near future? This selection is a recently re-christened beer from Three Floyds that's taken off on drafts throughout the city. more ›

We learned a couple of things from Tuesday night's ill-fated "Screw the Blizzard" tweetup. First, Timberlands are only good for one hard winter, then need to be tossed. Second, The Beer Bistro makes a damn fine bowl of chili and buffalo chicken pizza. Third, they have specialty beers brewed for the bar from Brooklyn Brewery. more ›

A few of us met up at Maria's Community Liquors in the wunnerful Bridgeport area last night for a beer or two. It's been a few months since Ed Marszewski unleashed his family's rehabbed lounge and package store on an unsuspecting Bridgeport and business is a-booming. Part of that is a commitment to good craft beers. Maria's is walking the walk with their beer program and it seems as though they've got a lot of nice selections from Founders Brewing in stock. One of the tap selections that you must try is Founders' "Double Trouble." This is an Imperial India Pale that isn't too bitter for new converts to the style. It's also a great winter beer. more ›

We here at Chicagoist had our monthly staff meetup at Quencher's last night, which may account for some of the staff's slow movements today. Kids. more ›

Cold outside and here we are reviewing a summer seasonal again. But this one's worth it. more ›

I've said it once and I'll say it again: the evolution of Half Acre from a contract brewed label to their own growing local brewery is one of the feel good food and drink in the past two years. I'm on record as declaring Daisy Cutter the best local beer available. The shift from the contract brewed lager they originally launched the company with to the Chicago market to aromatic ales is part of that story. more ›

For obvious reasons, there was no "BotW" last week. Which wound up being a good thing for this week's installment, actually. I had some questions about this beer that only a brewmaster could answer. more ›

Like Coors before it, New Belgium's Fat Tire ale lost a lot of its allure once it became available in local bars and liquor stores. Any beer geek worthy of the title will tell you that there's more to New Belgium than just Fat Tire. more ›

In less than five hours those of you planning on attending the reader meetup this evening will finally be able to taste what I've been writing about for weeks. Yesterday I finally had an opportunity to sample the final, carbonated, dry-hopped Sai-Shan-Tea. To say that it's exceeded my expectations is an understatement. more ›

When looking for a good saison, it's best to find one that has has a good balance of alcohol content and flavor. Ideally, it should come in at between 7-9 percent ABV, but have the mouthfeel and flavor of a session beer. We've been sampling from a wide cross-section of saisons lately in preparation for something site-related in the works and was floored with our first sip of Saison Rue from The Bruery in Orange County, CA. For the beer drinker who wants to crack open a beer now, it's perfect. As a bottle conditioned, unfiltered farmhouse ale, it's also a prime candidate for cellaring. more ›

Like a good tub whiskey, one can't discount the importance of a good shower beer. This week's "BotW" selection manages to straddle the difference between the two: a quality brew intended for sipping in a mess-free container. more ›

Saturday found our path crossing Jake Melnick's Corner Tap and studying their deep beer menu. The Lagunitas kick we've been on lately steered us toward Melnick's "Beer of the Month" selection, which contains all the classics identifiers of a Lagunitas brew: rich flavor, bold hops and an entendre for a name. Wilco Tango Foxtrot (WTF? Get it?) is an Imperial Brown Ale redolent with floral hops, caramel, and some good carbonation. The mouthfeel has some similarities with a barleywine, with a heavy malt foundation and surprisingly strong hops on the flavor profile. You'll really taste the roasted barley malt here, if you're into that. Naturally, we paired this with Melnick's "burger of the month," the "Smoker," a monstrosity topped with pulled pork, BBQ sauce, cheddar and beer-battered onions. more ›

We head West to California for this week's "Beer of the Week." more ›

We were running around on New Year's Eve stocking up on champagne and snacks when we stopped by LUSH Wine & Spirits University Village location (yeah, we know...) looking for something we haven't had before. And we found it, nestled among the trippels, Imperial IPAs, sour ales and other extreme beers. the label read, "brewed with sweet potatoes and black pepper." more ›

For fans of heavy malted or high gravity beers, this is the harvest season. Whether you're slipping into sweats, socks or even (ugh) a snuggie, or bringing a heavy beer to a BYOB resto, if you apply yourself you won't have to drink the same beer twice. more ›

It's December, which means that the focus is on winter ales for "BotW." This week's selection was suggested by Local Beet editor Michael Morowitz at mado's mutton dinner last month. mado's a BYOB establishment, which allowed Morowitz and I to trade samples of our beers. Specifically, a pour of my Malheur Dark Ale in exchange for his Jolly Pumpkin Noel de Calabaza. This is a sweet spiced ale that contains all the flavors associated with Christmas: sugar plums, figs, raisins and hot buttered rum. It paired as well with all those mutton dishes than the Malheur and at 9 percent ABV, you drink a bottle of this and you'll be all lit up like a Christmas tree. more ›

While in DC the previous weekend we decided to dive deep into the beer menu at the Brickskeller. Our favorite selections from our visit belonged to Green Flash Brewing in Vista, CA, particularly their hop Head Red Ale and West Coast IPA. We were back in town in time for all the "OMG! BIG STAR IS OPEN!!" twittering going on. We went to Big Star last week and made sure not to use any tasty adjectives that would draw the ire of the Twitterati. more ›

Craft breweries may receive (deserved) recognition for the inventiveness they're using to raise the profile of beer in the marketplace. It's wise to remember that today's brewers are merely dusting off techniques that date back generations, to those first groups of friars who discovered that fermenting malt made for a nice loophole to their fasting. The brewing history of the De Landtsheer family starts in the 1600s, but Emmanuel "Manu" De Landtsheer's Malheur (French for "misfortune") listed his first beer for public consumption only 12 years ago. The Malheur brews we'd shank a man with a sharpened toothbrush handle for are the ones brewed in the "methode champenoise" style. more ›

Our biggest issue with pumpkin beers is an imbalance between the flavor of pumpkin and spice, usually favoring the latter. Ideally a pumpkin ale should bring to mind memories of good pumpkin pie. You know, with the graham cracker crust and all, some gingerbread or some cloves balanced delicately with the flavor of pumpkin. In short, If you're going to make a spiced ale, make a spiced ale. we want to taste pumpkins in our pumpkin beers. Southern Tier gets it right with Pumking, one of Karl's favorite beers this time of year. Pumking will blow your mind, you'll ask for ice cream for an a la mode. more ›

Our nose was assaulted by the scent of apples and spices from the moment we opened a bottle of Two Brothers Avalon. It was the olfactory equivalent to hearing Christmas carols in October, but much more pleasing. Avalon is another in Two Brothers' "Artisan Bottling" series — Bonfire Dunkle Weiss is part of that series. get past the nose of this beer and you'll immediately pick up a pretty serious hop flavor to Avalon. Most beers or ales brewed with apple cider or must err on the side of malt. Since there is a fair amount of spices in Avalon, the hops work to complement that aspect of the taste profile. more ›

We were at otom last week checking out some of the offerings of new executive chef Thomas Elliot Bowman, who's slowly but surely transformed the menu from the moto light of his predecessor Daryl Nash to the more traditional bistro fare originally envisioned for the restaurant. otom has a $25 Tuesday tasting menu that is the very definition of value. For an extra $15 you can add wine pairings or you can pair one beer with the menu for $6. more ›

It was Labor Day Weekend and we just finished watching "Inglourious Basterds" downtown. Nowhere to go and nothing to do we wandered around and found ourselves at Jake Melnick's (41 E. Superior, 312-266-0400, jakemelnicks.com). Within minutes we were wolfing down their burger of the month and begging not to be served the Budweiser they give away for free with the burger. The bartender went out of the way to comp us a Surly Bender. She poured us a Surly Furious, instead. more ›

We admit that sometimes we tend to fall into ruts here with the "BotW" installments. We find ourselves visiting the same styles and same places. No excuses, really. Now that we upgraded our cell phone from the universal remote we used to carry to a smart phone, we can also take photos on the go again. more ›

We had a scheduled softball with WBEZ called because of rain on successive Fridays. A shame, really: we were looking forward to hearing Carl Kasel do the play-by-play while we made Justin Kaufmann cry and slid with high spikes into "Sound Opinions" producer Jason Saldhana. Digressing, with the first game called we retreated to some shelter underneath a bridge like the blogger trolls we are and commenced to drinking. Which would have been the end result of the game, win or win by slaughter rule. more ›

Decided to cook with beer Sunday and whipped up some amazing buckwheat pancakes using a cup of Lost Abbey Inferno ale. Damned if they weren't some of the fluffiest we've had in a long time. the beer was good, too. more ›

The adjective to describe Sunday was "epic." There was a lot of eating involved with going to Fiesta del Sol; there were two trips alone Sunday. In between was a visit to LUSH Wine & Spirits University Village location for their free Sunday wine tasting (2-5 p.m. every Sunday). After we ran through the wine selections, a palate cleanser was needed and another customer cleaned them out of Gumballhead. Scouring the cooler we came upon some organic beers. Our history with organic brews is not a good one, but we're anything if not an equal-opportunity drinker and one bad experience won't deter us. more ›

It's common knowledge that the four basic ingredients in brewing beer are malted grain, hops, yeast and water. Most breweries tend to stick to variations of a grain: e.g. barley; wheat; rice if you're Anheuser-Busch or Miller. Belgium's Bosteels Brewery utilizes a 310-year-old recipe for Tripel Karmeliet using wheat, barley and oats in the brewing. The result is a smooth and sweet Belgian Golden ale that can appeal to both serious beer drinkers and folks looking for something cool to drink on a humid day (rare as they've been this summer). more ›

The soup outside is not exactly conducive to enjoying a hoppy India Pale Ale, but this is one you might want to search out. more ›

Jesus: Oh, great! Just what I need: a gum resin!! What am I gonna do with a gum resin?" more ›

Staff at Delilah's, take note. We love that you put together an annual barrel-aged beer festival, but the size of the bar just doesn't make it enjoyable. Let's take a look the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild's 6th Annual Festival of Wood and Barrel-aged beer, held Saturday at the Journeyman Plumber's Union Hall (1340 W. Washington). more ›