A reader mentioned last week that Hackney's South Loop location has an excellent beer selection. We think it's probably one of the more underrated beer bars in the city. Their draft selections are a creative and varied blend of some of the best European and American craft brews around. Minnesota's Surly Brewing Company is one of the latter. We've profiled their "Smoke" Baltic style porter earlier this year. While we wished we could get our......

Few things are as satisfying as an ice cold beer after a pounding bike ride. Whether it's an extremely hopped IPA after a day of riding Kettle Moraine's Emma Carlin Trail or turning a scenic tour of Chicago's boulevards into a sprint, the two go hand-in-hand. So it was that we were at Dixie Kitchen after the Boulevard Lakefront Tour for some lunch and the aforementioned beer. Can't remember the last time a Dixie Blackened......

This week, we hopefully compare tasting notes. Two weeks back we wrote about a sampling of Moloko, a milk stout brewed by Three Floyds, that was happening at Smallbar in Wicker Park. Milk stouts are typically made with lactose sugar; the resultant brew is sticky sweet. Moloko isn't your typical Three Floyds hop bomb. Actually, it's the complete opposite. Moloko is far and away the sweetest beer Three Floyds brews. Nick Floyd and company use......

We're on record stating Unibroue to be the best brewery in North America, for their amazing recreations of Belgian-style ales. There are a few other breweries of note that pray to the Belgian shrine. One of them is Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY. Oh, God, oh, God the poetic we could wax about their Hennepin, Three Philosophers or Rare Vos brews! Then we went through previous posts and realized that we've never featured an......

With apologies to Susan Sarandon in "Bull Durham," "This is the damnedest year. The Cubs and Sox are both in first place and Bell's is back in Chicago." Yes, it is and all is right with the world for now. Except that the Bell's product won't be rolling out fully until we can finish the Kalamazoo brands. Both Larry Bell and Bell's local sales manager Jim O'Connor told us that the Kalamazoo line will......

"A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey..." - Deuteronomy Chapter 8, Verse 8 The Schmaltz Brewing Company, makers of the He'Brew line of beers, make both tasty ales and have a good sense of humor about their Yiddishness. The above quoted Scripture, where the presence of barley, wheat and pomegranates proved the bounty of the Land of Milk and Honey, formed the......

We often find Colorado breweries lacking when it comes to finding intense hoppy flavor in their beers. They certainly don't stack up to Midwestern breweries in that category. If anything we find beers from the Rocky Mountain State to be too sweet. The exception seems to be Breckenridge Brewery. The selections we've picked up from this Denver-based brewery over the years seem to indicate that they can tell their Liberty hop from a Saaz, a......

A problem we have with Skylark — a good one to have, mind you — is that we've managed to work our way through their entire draft beer menu, save for the most recent additions. Last week while enjoying the grilled tuna sandwich (the address for Skylark is in the "One Great Sandwich" post that went up yesterday) we were equally blissed on the beer we were drinking. Lagunitas doesn't get enough of the "BotW"......

This week's selection was born from a desire to do something positive for a friend in need. Shortly before her 40th birthday, Virginia MacLean was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. MacLean was already raising funds for cancer research running triathlons and endurance events, so she enlisted the help of two longtime friends to assist her in a new fundraising endeavor. Those friends just happened to be Alan Shapiro of SBS Imports and Pete Slosberg of Pete's......

Taking a look at the reader's choice selections this go-round, it looks as though I roped myself into a style theme. Three of the four selections — including this week's — have been porters. By no means was this intentional; they were simply the selections that stood out the most. Digressing, this week's selection comes from D.H. "The Meterologist" Lee. His words about Anchor Porter: "I know it's not the most summery beer, but it's......

Dan Roush wrote his main choice in the header of his e-mail, along with a couple other selections that we needed to hunt down for later. Thankfully, Dan stayed local, recommending Two Brothers "The Bitter End" Pale Ale. This American pale ale, a winner at the US Beer Tasting Championship, is a wonderful brew. It pours a light amber to copper in color with a lot of head and lacing on the glass. We could......

Our second annual "reader's choice" month here at "BotW" begins with a simple question from Dan Jones: "How about Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter?" How about it, Dan? We've been on a porter kick lately as grilling season is starting to kick into high gear. The smell of smoke normally suggests to our senses barbecue and smoke is what you get on the nose with Edmund Fitzgerald immediately upon pouring, along with a deep black......

Leading into next week's "Reader's Choice" selections, we figured we'd stick local. You'll remember that last month Flossmoor Station Brewpub launched a bottled beer program. One of the three selections they bottled also happens to be a longtime favorite of ours whenever we take the Metra Electric down that way. For folks who think brown ales start and stop with Newcastle you are in for a treat with Flossmoor's Pullman Brown Ale. This monster ale......

Last year we dedicated our "Beer of the Week" columns for the month of June to highlight selections by you, the readers. The responses from you, both in recommendations and response after we made our selections, actually surprised us. We liked doing the readers choice selections so much that we decided to do it again. Next month's "BotW" columns will be readers choice selections. In order to have your selection qualify, you need to e-mail......

We had our gripes about DarkLord Day, to be certain. But there were some good things about heading down to Munster and waiting for four hours in line with nothing to show for it except a farmer tan. For beer lovers it means getting to hang around with your own for a day, sampling from folks' private collections. At times, the combination of beer and the crowd made DarkLord Day resemble "Heavy Metal Parking......

The Abita Brewing Company in Abita Springs, Louisiana makes some fine brews. With the recent run of good weather, we needed something to wash down the catfish po'boy we had at Dixie Kitchen the other day, as well. Lucky for us, Dixie Kitchen has a wide selection of Abita brews on their menu. One of our favorites is the "Purple Haze" wheat ale. this is an American-style wheat ale (think "312" or New Holland's......

This week's "BotW" selection is one of those "day late, dollar short" deals. It was available briefly right around WhiskyFest at Guthrie's, Delilah's, Map Room (actually, Map Room may have some left), Long Room, Underbar and Weegee's. It also tied in to WhiskyFest in that the malt used in brewing was whisky malt. The beer is the ultra-rare Unibroue Raftman. This Belgian pale ale is lighter than most anything Unibroue has ever brewed, including Blanche......

First, a disclaimer: we've been thoroughly underwhelmed by Sam's new South Loop store, which just seems like it was thrown together ad hoc in order to start generating revenue for South Loop residents starved for retail and has all the charm of a run-down Armanetti's. But we did manage to pick up a couple of brewed gems on our recent visit. This week's selection comes from Bear Republic Brewery, which was featured here last autumn......

With a name like the Schmaltz Brewing Company you'd think this would be some sort of April Fool's joke. It isn't. Schmaltz is the brewer behind the He'Brew line of kosher ales like Jewbelation, Genesis/Messiah Bold, and Origin Pomegranate Ale. All of these are strong, serious session ales. He'Brew's Bittersweet Lenny's (named in honor of Lenny Bruce) is a double India Pale Ale brewed with Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe, Crystal, Chinook, Amarillo and Centennial hops, then......

We've had a hard time warming up to Maryland's Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery and have a hard time explaining why. They have everything we expect in a great brewery: a commitment to brewing inventive, high quality brews; a balance of hops and malt; wide selection and good word-of-mouth. For us the problem with some of Dogfish's signature selections is in the balance. Some of their brews are so overboard on both hops and sweetness that......

Take that shot in, will you? Just look at that stein filled with the proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Sometimes you have to keep your beer simple, but not too much. There are a lot of reasons that should not be featuring Bitburger in the "BotW" series. But two moments in the past two weeks override all the arguments against it. The first was the way the crispness......

This week we look east to Burlington, Vermont. Vermont is home to Ben & Jerry's (yeah!), Phish (ugh!) and the Magic Hat Brewing Company. We've been fans of Magic Hat for quite a while, owing to their inventive brews and off-beat sense of humor, both reminiscent of Three Floyds. A few weeks back we received an e-mail from Magic Hat's Dave Obenour, who pointed us in the right direction (to Morgan's on Maxwell, specifically) to......

Longtime "BotW" readers might remember that we reviewed a barley wine last spring from Louisville's Browning's Brewery. We bought it retail in town but, after making a phone call to the brewmaster in Louisville, didn't disclose where we made the purchase for fear of outing the store in question for selling booze outside the three-tier distribution system. During a New Year's Day discussion with the store owner, Mitch Einhorn of Lush Wine & Spirits,......

So there we were on that really vicious cold Tuesday night last week, enjoying a steaming plate of pasta at Café Bionda (the good location on south State, not the skeevy Wicker Park version) when we remembered a tip from a frequent reader that Joe Farina was stocking Montegioco beers. Now if you're the type of beer drinker whose knowledge of Italian beers runs to Moretti and Peroni, you're in for a treat. Montegioco brews......

You might have the headline to this week's installment and thought, "Isn't it a bit late to review a Christmas ale?" And you may have a point, if you're a Grinch. We found this beer at Lush Wine and Spirits University Village location over the holidays. The two things that drew our attention to the bottle were the size of the bottle (one full liter) and the top. The beer had one of those ceramic......

when we made it a Unibroue weekend a couple weekends ago, we were floored by the quality of their 2002 Quelque Chose ale. Prior to either of the dinners we attended we thought we had tasted practically everything Unibroue had to offer. There's a movement among some craft breweries to blend and age their beers, like wines or spirits. Three Floyds and Goose Island both do this with their stouts and darker ales (see DarkLord,......

We chronicled our Saturday night earlier this week, and we need remind no one that it was colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra all day long. We arrived at Sheffield's with about twenty minutes to spare, and decided that a hearty beer was needed to both whet the appetite and warm the bones. We'd been dying to try out some selections from Minnesota's Surly Brewing for a while. The folks at Sheffield's......

For some people, the ultimate gift is something techy, like a Wii, an iPhone, or a GPS device. For us, it's a growler of beer, which we received over the holidays. The beer inside, "312." was nothing special. the growler, however, was refillable. It's the gift that keeps on giving, like a communicable disease. A couple weekends back we made the trip to Goose Island's Clybourn brew pub to trade in our empty for......

Last weekend we had the opportunity to eat at the recently opened Takashi in Bucktown (we'll have a full review of that later this week). Normally when we frequent the chef-driven concepts we try to take a seat at the bar - when there is one - and watch the goings-on around us. Sometimes, the bar is where you find all the real action and, if you're lucky, find out the behind-the-scenes dirt. Chef Takashi......

We're still suffering from the post-New Year hangover, so we're going to start off this year's run of "BotW" with a crisp, refreshing palate cleanser. Before Augie Busch and his progeny set a low standard for how lagers should taste, the Czechs were making the brewing of them an art. We've been known to hoist a bottle of Czechvar in lieu of the King of Beers. The folks at our new local watering hole, Bernice's......