Category Archives: Berliner Weisse

Pubcast 263 – Indiana Wants Me (to drink their beer!)

Belgian Dubbel, Berliner Weisse, Craft Beer, Gradziskie, Helles Lager, IPA, NE IPA, Russian Imperial Stout

Friends of the show Deb and John took a trip to Indiana and ended up in Griffith where they discovered 2 of 3 great breweries in that town. Griffith is just over an hour from the Brit and Yankee pub here in the western suburbs, so very attainable as a day trip. Our friends visit Pokro Brewing and New Oberpfalz Brewing and return with 3 samples from each and report on the ambience to be found at each. Joining the pub crew and Deb and John, are listeners Big Dave and Big Nate for a final tasting panel of real consumers and craft beer fans.

Both of the breweries featured have a European flavor to their brews, Pokro specializing in Belgian, English and other European styles, and New Oberpfalz on German-influenced beers.  We also have included an American IPA from each just to entice those who prefer that style.

By way of introduction, and because our first love is Illinois brews, we take a local brew from Noon Whistle that is a European style and make it our ‘warm-up’ brew, their Face Smack Berliner Weiss.

There’s plenty of pub chat, and the panel all have their own tastes so we think we got a pretty good representation of these breweries and the overall opinion is they are well worth visiting!

Beers sampled:

Noon Whistle, Face Smack Berliner Weiss, 4.00% ABV

Pokro Brewing
Pokro’s Grodziskie, Gratzer/Grodziskie, 4.00% ABV
Sea of Cheese, New England IPA, 6.5% ABV. 51 IBU
Abbey-licious, Belgian Dubbel, 6.5%ABV, 25 IBU

New Oberpfalz Brewing
Helles Lager, 4.8%, 17 IBU
Hopwagen, American IPA, 6.0% ABV, 56 IBU
Russian Imperial Stout with Coconut and Vanilla, 9.2%, 50 IBU

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Pubcast 190 – Smacked and Bruised!

Barrel Aged, Berliner Weisse, Imperial Stout, Red Sour

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 183 – Mark’s Mystery Beers

Berliner Weisse, Brewery, Craft Beer, Lager

This week’s show see’s Mark Naski bringing 2 brews to the show that remain a mystery as we taste them, plus we book-end that session with a beer from Florida, and one from a local Chicago brewery.

Joining Mark and Phil is Chuck Fort, brewer over at Church Street Brewing in Itasca, and as we are recording at John’s Tavern in Winfield, owner John Karwoski joins us.
The first brew comes from Florida brewing giant, Cigar City with their Cigar City Lager.
Ram Brewery in Schaumburg, and brewer Shaun Berns has given Mark some samples of test brews, and Mark promptly lost the labels.  We turn this into an opportunity to try our tasting expertise, and we guess at what the styles might be.  How close did we get? Judge for yourself.  The first brew is actually called Woodfield Wild and was inspired by a Belgian Pale Ale, but ended up being a hybrid-pale ale fermented 100% with Saccharomyces trux trois, in American oak and dry-hopped with Galaxy hops.   The second mystery beer is called Rabbit Punch, and is also a hybrid, cossing an American Red with an Irish Red, exclusively hopped with Citra.

Finally, and on draft as we record at John’s, is Cahoot’s Brewing BluELiner Berliner Weisse.  John also brings out an example of the proper glass to drink Berliner Weisse from, a bowl!  One of the best of it’s style that we have tasted, and just right for Spring!

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