NE IPA Archives - The Brit and Yankee Craft Beer Pubcast

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

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

In this show, recorded live at the Church Street Brewing tap room, Phil and Mark select 4 brews from Illinois to celebrate Chicago Craft Beer Week which runs from May 18^th through May 25^th. Joining them once again are CSB’s head brewer, T.J. Bacholz, assistant brewer Chuck Fort, beer historian John Bittermann, and CSB owner, Lisa Gregor who keeps us all in check!

We have selected 4 brews we think you should try, all from Illinois breweries, near and far, new and well-established. In order of sampling we have Hailstorm, Noon Whistle, newcomer White Rooster, and finally old-timer Two Brothers.

This will be the last episode for a while as the staff are heading out in vacation, but stay tuned for new episodes later in June.

Brews Sampled:

Noon Whistle, Lombard – Mr. Nice Gummy, HopHash NE IPA, 6.8% (Crowler)
Two Brothers, Warrenville – Sour Beer #2, Sour/Wild Ale, 5.5%
Hailstorm Brewing, Tinley Park – English Gentleman, Imperial Milk Stout w/Hazelnut, 13%
White Rooster, Sparta – Solitude, Dark Farmhouse Ale, fermented and aged in Used Bourbon Barrels for 12 months, 8%