Monthly Archives: February 2019

Pubcast 302 – Trader Costco

Last week, the Chicago Tribune published an article by local beer writer, Josh Noel, which took a stab at reviewing 30 of those ‘cut-price’ brews from Aldi, Trader Joe, and Costco. The Brit and Yankee had already taken a stab at a blind taste test for 6 Aldi brews in show 269 back in May, and was in the process of reviewing Costco and Trader Joe offerings, just going to show that we are ahead of the craft curve!

So hear what a couple of brewer / beer judges say about these beers – are they worth a try, or should you stick to locally-sourced frosty beverages? Join The Brit, Chuck Fort, Ken McMullen and TJ Bachorz when we taste and rate a few of these and find out if indeed they aren’t as good as we think, or if maybe they aren’t that bad. Plus, we he TJ pop his cork twice, as we crack open the Trader Joe offerings!

We don’t suggest you forego your local offerings, and always Drink Illinois, but perhaps these are worth trying as a comparison beer.

Play the show from our player or the Podbean player below… 

Pubcast 301 – We ❤ Beers and Valentine’s Day

We’ve gathered 5 beers that have a connection to Valentine’s Day, although we’ve taken artistic license and stretched that a tad! Joining The Brit, Phil Clark, in the Brit & Yankee Pub studio is co-host Chuck Fort from Church Street Brewing, craft-beer consumer and friend of the show, Tom Ryan, and out guest of honor is Ed Malnar, VP of Operations at Pollyanna Brewing in Lemont IL.

We hear about the possibly dark origins of Valentine’s Day and connect this to each of the selected beers. We hear from the panel about their perfect Valentine celebrations, and they also provide suggestions for pairing up a brew with a special V-Day dinner. All this and the usual pub banter on many topics!

As a bonus, we also hear from a couple of other brewers about their thoughts on Valentine’s day…Metal Monkey‘s Dan Camp phones in and tells that Tiramasu and Lady Middlefinger might figure in his dinner, and Oliver Bulley from Dry City has a special evening planned for his Valentine! Plus a guest appearance from The Yankee, Lingo, with his ideas for a brew for his wife!

The brews we selected and reviewed are:

Play the show from our player or the Podbean player below… 

Pubcast 300! Big Barleywines

It’s a momentous occasion in this episode where we have reached our 300th podcast, and we have a momentous panel and some momentous beers to review. To help us celebrate, Ken McMullen from Hopvine invited us up to the brewery, and the host of cool dudes joining us are Steve “robo-judge” Kamp from Evil Horse (knackered after a hard days brewing), Chuck Fort and TJ Bachorz from Church Street, Travis Beard from Ugly Trucking who is later joined by his wife Carol-Anne, and on the consumer side, Tom Ryan, John Karwoski, The Yankee, and of course me, The Brit Phil Clark.

Every year in the winter we get together a collection of barleywines, those higher alcohol winter warmers, and we fight off the cold weather with some samples. This year we have a six-pack of Illinois barleywines, but we start off the session with one from Ommegang, just as a teaser to the final series of Game of Thrones coming in April 2019.

Once we get through the first brew and we start to loosen up a little, the conversation flies and the fun ensues! It’s a ‘raw’ recording but it’s a great evening with brewers and friends…so, here’s to the next 300 shows. CHEERS!

Brews Reviewed:

Play the show from our player or the Podbean player below…