Category Archives: Barrel Aged

Pubcast 211 – Stout Brews, Stout Fellas

As we missed a week for Thanksgiving, we are back with a bumper edition.

Heading into the dark winter days, we select 6 hearty stouts that we think are good selections for either go-to or treat beers from the dark side.  Joining Mark and Phil is Chuck Fort, assistant brewer from Church Street. As all the beers are great in their own right, we won’t be rating them, but instead we select our top 2, based solely on personal preference.  Chuck brings their Holy Cow! Milk Stout as our starter brew.

To break up the Stout session, we cleanse our palate with a short interview with Brandon Wright, head brewer at Plainfield’s Werk Force Brewing. He won a gold medal at FOBAB 2016 for his Beautifully Broken, in the Fruit Beer category, and we caught up with him to find out all about his win and the beer.

Here are the stouts we reviewed, plus the timings if you want to skip around:

2:41 Holy Cow! – Church Street Brewing, Itasca, IL – Milk Stout, 6%
13:51 Double Cream Stout – Bells Brewing, Kalamazoo, MI – Sweet Stout, 6.1%
21:40 Dark Truth – Boulevard Brewing, Kansas City, MO – Imperial Stout, 9.7%
32:34 Black Note – Bells Brewing, Kalamazoo, MI- Bourbon Barrel-aged Stout, 10.8%
51:41 Turbulence – Sketchbook Brewing – Imperial Stout, 9.7%
63:06 Ten Fidy – Oskar Blues, Longmont, CO – Imperial Stout, 10.5%
73:33 2016 Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Oatmeal Stout – Pollyanna Brewing, Lemont, CO – 10.5%

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Pubcast 200 – Bicentennial Show

It is our 200th pubcast, and we are celebrating in the Brit and Yankee studios with many of our friends from over the years.  Our guests include tavern owners, beer servers, beer historians, brewers, and beer experts…oh, and beer consumers!
Joining Mark Naski and Phil Clark are Chuck Fort (Church Street), Ken McMullen (Hopvine Brewing), John Bittermann, Jon Harlson, John Karwoski, and live by Skype, the original Yankee, Mike Lingafelter.  Plus we have a couple of congratulatory messages from Sketchbook, Cademon, and Miskatonic breweries.

The Landlord has selected 8 beers that are examples of the range of brews from Illinois suburban breweries (with the exception of one from downtown), and we have a marathon tasting session. Opinions vary, and what we do find out is that there is a style for everyone.
Thanks to all who have listened over the years, we hope that we have educated, informed and entertained.  Here’s to the next 200 shows!  Cheers!

NOTE: this is a bumper edition, which we preface with our PSA, so listen carefully and don’t exceed your intake…spread it over a couple days!

Brews we taste:
Cahoots Brewing, Krule Summer, Kolsch Style Ale   5.2%, 20 IBU
Noon Whistle Brewing, Guave Gose Smack  3.8%
Cademon Brewing, Tropical Kingpin, Hefeweizen with Pineapple 5.5%
Lena Brewing, Scrap Iron, Black IPA ​7% 60 IBU
Hubbards Cave, Fresh IPA v1, Double/Imperial IPA 9.0%
Galena Brewing, Cortes, Barrel-aged Brown Ale 11%
Noon Whistle Brewing, Bob Ross Did It, Barrel-Aged Scotch Ale 10.1%, 1 year later
Flesk Brewing, 2nd Anniversary Ale, Belgian Strong Ale 9.8%, 2 years later

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Pubcast 190 – Smacked and Bruised!

We record a show over at John’s Tavern in Winfield, and we’re getting violent on this show with some Smack and Bruising!   Noon Whistle has been producing their Smack series of beers and we have 2 of the barrel-aged varieties to review.

The first is Swanky Smack, a red sour aged in cabernet barrels and checking in at 4.8%.  The other is Face Smack, a Berliner Weisse aged in cabernet barrels, and 4.0%.  In between, we sandwich a rarity from The Bruery, Hottenroth Berliner Weisse (3.1%), something that is discontinued according to their website but we have it on draft at John’s.  We recommend all three!

To end our evening we check our bruises with Bruiser, a 9%, wood-aged Imperial Stout from Emmett’s Brewing.  And as this is a sipper, we will use the time to go over the World Beer Cup 2016 winners from Illinois, and give them the kudos they deserve.

All this and we throw in another Instant Brew Review, this time from craft brewing seniors, Two Brothers, and their new A bretter DAY, Biere de Mars, 5/5%. Why is the last word in upper-case?

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Pubcast 189 – Beer and a Curry 2: Leather Chair Beers

Phil revisits with Sean Curry from Sketchbook Brewing, and this time Sean brings out some special brews from his extensive cellar.  All of these brews can be considered ‘Leather Chair’ beers, in other words those that require you to sit down, relax, and sip them at the end of a great evening.  Together with Tom Ryan, the three forego the leather chairs and relax on wooden chairs up at Sketchbook’s new tap room in Evanston.

First up is Asheville, NC’s Wicked Weed Chocolate Covered Black Angel, the light-weight in the collection. It’s a sour dark ale with cherries and chocolate and comes in at 7.2%.
Second LC&C brew is a 2013 Imperial Oatmeal Stout called Dark Star Bourbon Barrel Aged, from Fremont Brewing Co., Seattle, WA.
And the last comes from The Bruery, and is an Imperial Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels with Hazelnut called Grey Monday.  This beer gets solid 100 ratings in Beer Advocate and Rate Beer, and comes in at a whopping 18.6%.

This edition also features a couple of Instant Brew Reviews, featuring Tinley Park’s Hailstorm Brewing Prairie Madness IPA, and 4 Hands Alter Ego, Black IPA.

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