Kahan and New Holland Give Their Baby Beer A Name

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jul 21, 2009 6:40PM

One of the agenda items left on the table when Paul Kahan and his entourage returned to Chicago from New Holland Brewing was finding a name for the biere de garde they brewed for their August 23 beer dinner at the Publican. Kahan and New Holland's Fred Bueltmann were riffing on mutual jazz musicians they were fans of, before the New Holland Knickerbocker gin and Zeppelin whisky took the riffing to a very dark-but-funny place.

We caught up with Publican beer director Michael McAvena Sunday, who said they decided upon a name: Van Garde. "Paul and Fred picked back up on their mutual musical interests and it just sort of came to them once they started discussing record labels," McAvena said.

Can't wait to taste it.