Gas prices continue to rise and food prices are right behind, riding the bumper. As a result, not only is the move toward fresh, local ingredients (which require less transport) becoming more important but food banks are finding themselves in short supply. America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization, is teaming with Epicurious.com to sponsor an event that will not only raise money for hunger relief, but also give attendees a taste......

While a sizable portion of the greater Chicago area were making a beeline to the Feist/Juana Molina show at Ravinia Friday night, we were at a loft in Humboldt Park taking part in another one of Efrain Cuevas' Clandestino dinners. The five-course menu Cuevas had planned was teeming with a lot of bright flavors, spices and acidity, so we were looking for a wine that could pair well with all the courses. From our kitchen......

I remember my first beer. Hopefully, so will this kid:......

It's mid-July which means that many tastings and fixed price dinner events have a Bastille Day theme. Here are a few of note Whole Foods Lakeview (3300 N. Ashland), one of the WFs not shut down with a rodent infestation, is hosting a tasting of seleced wines from local distributor Cream Wine Company from 4-7 p.m. this afternoon. Both Lush Wine and Spirits locations (1257 S. Halsted and 2232 W. Roscoe) are hopping on Bastille......

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"......

Hard to imagine that Chicago, a city who's seen its major breweries go belly-up decades ago (save for a brewpub or two) could become the homebase for the offices of both the Silver Bullet and Purveyors of the High Life. But it could happen. Crain's reports today that the joint beer venture MillerCoors are eyeballing locations in both Chicago and Dallas for their headquarters and offices. Where might MillerCoors put the approximately 400 new hires......

Hybrid grapes, with regard to winemaking, are often ignored or ridiculed by the wine "experts." Sometimes this is with good reason; a mere mention of the word "chardonel" transports us back to Sundays at the Magic Pan. But these "frankengrapes" have their attributes. One such grape is the cayuga, a hybrid of Seyval Blanc and Schuyler that vintners from the Finger Lakes to the Midwest have embraced for its ability to withstand frost, its high-yield......

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......

We've got a Taste of Chicago preview for you later. In the meantime, here are some things around town to check out in the coming days. The Red Witch Pirate will set sail this evening for a 2-hour cruise and dinner with food catered by Bonsoiree. Cost is $45 and interested parties may RSVP here. The churrasco-meets-slow-food restaurant ZED451 (739 N. Clark St.), which has become one of the hottest destination restaurants in town largely......

Discounted passes for September's Chicago Gourmet event at Millennium Park will end Monday. If you want to save $20 off the $150 ticket price, act fast.......

A couple of localvore items of note to start: If you haven't checked out Fruit Slinger, do so. This blog chronicling the life of a freelance writer working on an orchard in southwest Michigan and his interactions at local farmers markets is engaging without over-the-top snark. It's a wonderful addition to the RSS feed. There was an interesting article at Salon.com on the concept of "food miles" and whether buying local is better for the......

Sam Adams head honcho Jim Koch will be at Binny's South Loop this evening from 5-7 p.m. Koch will be pairing several Sam Adams selections with various summer grill dishes, as well as give a historical overview of how he founded Boston Beer Company using his great-grandfather's recipes. RSVP to (312) 768-4400. Folks around here love a good riesling. Lucky for us that it's Riesling Week and Julia Thiel has comiled a list of......

Occasionally I receive e-mails from readers asking what taverns or restaurants they can find the "BotW" selections and if I could include them in the reviews. Admittedly I take for granted that readers know I buy most of the selections from one of two stores: Lush Wine and Spirits University Village location and Archer Liquors. But knowing that a certain bar carries a "BotW" selection may spur some readers to both seek out the beer......

New Belgium Brewing's Tour de Fat is only four days away. Already, someone's decided to trade in his vehicle for a bike and it's a longtime Chicagoist reader. Matter of fact, it's someone we'd thought would do it. Joe M500 is taking the plunge Saturday, trading in his 2001 Jeep Cherokee for one of the bikes New Belgium is offering at the Tour de Fat. Having participated in Critical Mass rides and hung out......

There are many things to like about New Belgium Brewing. All employees are also owners in the company; they practice open book management; they're a sustainable company using wind power and methane from processed water treatment to produce their own electricity, recycle waste water and utilize the latest green practices in their buildings; they give their employees a bike after one year of employment. Biking and New Belgium are almost symbiotic. Their latest folly,......

This is wheat ale weather, people. This evening from 6-9 p.m. at West Lakeview Liquors, Kalamazoo Brewing Company (popularly known as Bell's) will be tasting out the amber, wheat and hop solution brands. The Lincoln Park Young Professionals will do their best to tie status symbols together this evening with their summer wine festival at Howard Orloff Imports (1924 N. Paulina). Cost for the $35 per person event will grant you access to samples......

Graham Elliot Bowles' eponymous restaurant (217 W. Huron) had a soft BYOB opening over the weekend. Mike Nagrant attended. So did we (bypassing a planned trip to Lincoln Square Mayfest) and HOLY SHITE we can't return fast enough. If what we ate was an indication of what Bowles has in store, this will easily become the most sought after reservation since Art Smith opened Table Fifty-Two last year, except without Oprah's army having been......

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......

After a full day in trade show hell, we needed a beer to the point that we might have accepted a Budweiser if it was presented to us. Lucky for us we moseyed past the Food and Wine of Australia booth before it came to that. The Australian-based Coopers Brewery is noted for making simple, clean beers, and home brew kits. We've actually experimented with their malt and yeast extracts in the past and came......

The press conference yesterday announcing the September Chicago Gourmet festival at Millennium Park went off without a hitch. Mayor Daley brought to the conference the "Chi-CAW-go is a world class city" enthusiasm that earned us (read: him) the right to fight for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Reading the press release last night, however, caused us to break out in cold sweats. If you want to attend the festival, it'll cost you a cool $150......

Last month the Chicagoist food and drink staff gathered at Binny's South Loop for a Riedel stemware seminar led by the current head of the company himself, Georg Riedel. For the better part of two hours, the exuberant Austrian alternately enraptured and berated his attentive audience, preaching the gospel that his Vitis stemware line (vitis being the Latin word for "vine") would make drinking any wine a religious experience. At one point we half-expected......

A conversation we had with our downstairs neighbor and good friend last night as we were preparing to clean out Sam's Wine and Spirits out of what was left of their closeout sale: Her: Have you tried this beer yet? Chicagoist: What is it? Her: Kalamazoo Royal Amber Ale. Chicagoist: I have. Her: What does it taste like? Chicagoist: Bell's Amber. Her: Why do you say that? Chicagoist: Because that's what it is. You really......

The Day After: Don't expect to see foie gras back on menus immediately after the repeal of the ban yesterday. The earliest that's going to happen will be June 11th. What did leave a bad aftertaste was the end-around used to repeal the ban and how Mayor Daley put Alderman Joe Moore's dick in the dirt in the process. If you don't know after that why Daley is often referred to here as "His......

Beer is made from four ingredients: water, malt, yeast and hops. It's the hops that provides bite and spice to the mix. Hops also help preserve beer, making it last longer. Back in the days when the sun never set on the British Empire, brewers working in India would add extra hops to their English bitter in order to survive the trip home around the south African Cape Horn and ensure its drinkability when it......

This is South Chicago Heights resident Bill Bramanti. He had a his coffin specially made to look like a can of his favorite beer, PBR. He's 67 and in good health, so in the mean time, he uses it as a cooler. [AP]......

All About Beer magazine (via) listed their "top 125 places to have a beer before you die" (a nice arbitrary number, by the way). Five local taverns made the cut: Hopleaf (#24), Clark Street Ale House (#43), Map Room (#47), Goose Island (#84) and John Barleycorn, which makes the cut ten spots from the bottom at #115. Our doppelganger in the Emerald City wholeheartedly agreed with the inclusion of Hopleaf and Map Room, although Map......

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......

Was clued in to this interesting article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about the Brew Blog, a beer and brewery industry blog sponsored by Miller Brewing Co. Written by former Advertising Age reporter James Andorfer, Brew Blog reports on industry news when it happens, as it happens. Seeing as how Brew Blog is also sponsored by Miller, Andorfer does his job while simultaneously taking some requisite and light-hearted shots at Anheuser Busch and its best......

We were out at Silver Cloud last night, when we remembered the interview we did with Larry Bell from last December. Didn't he say that he was going to have the new Kalamazoo Brewery beer at Silver Cloud? Indeed he did. We were excited to give it a shot, so we asked the waitress what they had on tap from Kalamazoo. When she said that they had Oberon on tap and on special, as soon......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Free Rock Evil Beaver's still around, you ask? Shocked us, as well when we saw that they were playing a free show at Cobra Lounge tonight. Evie Evil is still on bass with what appears to be a rotating succession of drummers every 9-12 months (all except for original drummer Laura Ann Beaver have bios......