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,......

Some things to do this weekend, and into next, as an excuse to dress in costume. Rare and fine wine auction house Hart Davis Hart is holding an auction of private collections from both coasts today from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at Tru. The auction is free to attend, but anyone taking the time to head to Tru and not eat is an idiot, quite frankly. Lunch today at Tru is fixed-priced at $75.......

Good American-made stouts are plentiful these days. With more breweries applying aging techniques to their beer, barrel-aged stouts are just as plentiful. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout benefits greatly from being allowed to age in 12-year-old Heaven Hill barrels. Three Floyd's DarkLord, the stout of the moment, has an aged version that uses barrels purchased from Woodford Reserve and allowed to sit for a year. Because wood is permeable, barrel aging allows a stout to......

Chicagoist isn't one to brag, but we had a golden ticket to see Tom Waits last night at the Auditorium Theatre. While we were blubbering like a five-year-old on his first day in kindergarten as Waits sang an appropriately boozy rendition of "Tom Traubert's Blues", we wondered if we could name a beer that we wrote a review over a year ago "beer of the week." We decided, "Why not?" With all the happenings going......

Last week in Seattle, brewmasters from around the world gathered together to have their frothy malts, potent elixirs, and hop-laden potions judged in the 2006 World Beer Cup. We found while reviewing the winners list that: - we don't drink nearly enough beer - area breweries accounted for all 10 of Illinois' medals, good enough for sixth place overall among American brewery entries. We already knew that Chicago had some pretty good breweries, but the......

With apologies to Eric Zorn if it weren’t for Phil Rosenthal’s media columns and “The Boondocks” Chicagoist’s Bridgeport correspondent would have no concrete reasoning for actually reading the Tribune. However, when someone (um, Scott Smith) clues us to an article like this from Tuesday’s edition of the World’s Greatest Newspaper (an aside to Neil Steinberg: that’s the Tribune’s slogan) and asks us if we can work a local angle into this we’re happy to oblige,......