Arcadia starboard stout and hofbrau weiss

Surly schandenfreude

Black bier

Lips of Faith - Eric's (sour) ale

Trader Todd's light beer

Taking one for the team on this one. Bumped into a woman we met at a
'hawks game last season and she remembered me! We joined her for a beer.

Goose Island

I know what you're thinking, CW, but the one on the right isn't bad.
On the left is the Sovereign Bitter. On the right is the Maple Bacon
Stout. The bitter is fairly non-descript. The stout, however, is a
complex combination of flavors. Except bacon. I cannot taste the
bacon, which probably is a good thing. The abv is 6.5%, which almost
makes it a session beer. Try it if you can.

The best school, ever

For my birthday, we went to Beerscool at The Motel Bar. I previously
went to Beerscool for the class / dinner on IPAs. I had such a good
time, that I had to go back when class was on my birthday. The beer
style for the class was lagers. I was not super excited about lagers
because I thought it would not be as good as the IPA class, but I was
wrong. We tried five lagers: Heineken in a keg can, Sam Adams,
Brooklyn Lager, Shiner Bock and Coney Island American Lager. All were
good. And the keg can makes a difference; it's so much better than the
green bottle.

After tasting the lagers, we then had some amazing food. First, smoked
salmon wrapped around cream cheese. Then we had BBQ ribs and fries. It
was all awesome.

We are going back for the next class: pilsners. And we are trying to
arrange our schedules for the Motel Bar's roller derby bus trip. If
you have a chance, check it out. It even has a pool. Table that is.
And a photo booth.

There's something wrong with this picture

Steven's Point pale ale

Bell's two hearted

Aventinus

No, that was not a horrible pour. This beer has an amazing creamy head
that sticks around for a while. I still prefer the wheat dopplebock,
but this was pretty good.

Lagunitas wilco tango foxtrot

A malty, robust jobless recovery brown ale. Happy early birthday. A
nice way to kick it off.

Hopf Helle Weisse

Negra Modelo

Shiner Bock

This tastes like your average lager, but it comes with this message:
small town, small brewery. Every drop of shiner beer is brewed right
here in shiner, Texas (pop. 2070), by a handful of local craftsmen who
take pride in our little brewery and our classic shiner bock first
brewed in 1913, this lightly hopped American style bock has a clean
flavor and a slightly sweet finish. We hope you enjoy drinking it as
much as we enjoyed making it.

I'm not buying it.

Hacker Schorr Weisse

A smooth drinking wheat beer. Easy on the palette and great for a
summer day. Too bad it's 40 degrees here today.

Piece ... Out

L to R:
Surrender
Wack Job - double hopped IPA
Marketing Ploy - pale ale brewed in conjunction with Three Floyd's

Stone Old Guardian

>

> Says it's white (on the tap), but it doesn't taste white! It is
> sorta hoppy and more like an amber.
>

Great lakes holy Moses

This says it's a white and it tastes like a white! Very smooth and
easy to drink. A nice beer for a hot summer day, if we have any in
Chicago this summer.

Weissbier

A Franziskaner Weissbier. I had not had one in a long time. I had
forgotten how much this tastes like a Belgian white beer. We used to
buy this by the case in Philly. Now I remember why.

Smokin'

Stone recently started to distribute in Chicago. I tried a number of
drafts during the craft brew convention last week so I decided to try
this smoked porter. I thought it was not bad for a porter, but I could
not taste the 'smoke' part of it. My favorite smoked porter is still
from Right Brain - very smoky and smooth.

Surly Mild

4.2% abc. Malty but bitter.

L to r:
Arcadia and redwood - rapunzel
Dark horse and waldorf - cobain's
Nh - golden cap

Daisy cutter pale ale

You think it's going to be hoppy, and it starts down that road, but it
finishes on a high note without all the hoppiness. I had tried this in
a bottle about six months back and not liked it. Either they got their
act together or the draft is better.

Post Cubs loss

Left - shorts nicie spicie
Right - nh and livery collaboration Laterne

Kickin' it Old Style

At the Cubs game at Wrigley having an Old Style. When in Rome ... I
think this beer is pretty bad, like beer-flavored water, but it just
won the silver medal at the Chicago Craft Brewer Convention in the
American lager category or something. I'm not impressed, Natty Bo won
a bronze.

Mead

I read a fair amount of historical fiction about England and now
Wales. People are constantly drinking mead, which I think is made with
honey. I tried this Polish mead last fall at the urging of a friend.
He tried again to get me to drink the
Mead but I resisted. It's no wonder the English were always at war
when they drank this instead of water - they were a bunch of drunkards!

Allagash - Other Brother

This is an Allagash Other Brother as poured at the Hop Leaf during the
Chicago Craft Brewers' Convention. I thought it was okay, but not good
enough to have a second. It was light and a little fruity, but there
was something about it that I can't remember now that caused me to
switch to a different beer. Overall, I like Allagash. I'm not sure why
I didn't love this beer.

Kuhnhenn Fourth Dementia

This is an old ale from a small brewery outside Detroit. The brewers
are two brothers who were in the hardware business and brewed beer at
home. After a big hardware store moved in across the street, they were
put out of business. So, they decided to brew beer. A number of their
beers make the top ten list for the best beers brewed in Michigan.
This is the Fourth Dementia. It is 11.8% ABV and it sort of tastes
like it. It starts sort of sweet and then finishes strong. Overall,
it is a good experience, but I can only have one per night.

Sierra Nevada - Fritz and Ken's Ale

This is a 30th anniversary special batch. I tried it at the Hop Leaf in Chicago during the Chicago Craft Brewers Convention. It was the last beer of the night, but I remember liking it a lot. It is classified as an American Double - Imperial Stout, but does not have an overpowering alcohol taste, even with an ABV of 9.2%. It poured with a nice brown head that was thick and stuck around for a while. If I had the chance, I would definitely have another. Thanks, Chris.

Stone sublimely self righteous Ale

This is an American Strong Ale - 8.7% ABV. I liked this a lot. It was very smooth and did not taste all of 8.7%. Stone is new to the Chicago market. Welcome. I hope you stay a while.

Two Brothers Long Haul

This is a nice session ale - balanced malt and hops. 4.2% ABV, 27 IBU. Smooth and enjoyable.

Bruery imperial porter

I usually don't like imperial porters or stouts, but this is an exception. Usually, I find imperials just taste like alcohol for the sake of having a higher alcohol content. This was different. This porter was smooth and malty; it had a chocolate taste that I enjoyed, but despite being a higher gravity porter, it did not taste too strong.

Two brothers white rye

Again, I stole a sip from a friend's beer. I did not expect to like this because I don't usually like ryes. However, I enjoyed this. It tasted more like a cross between a tripel and a witbier. When I visited Two Brothers last fall, they had just purchased a number of large oak vats for aging beer. They said they were going to be introducing some new oak-aged ales. This must be one of them. I liked it and hope they continue to make more oak-aged ales.

Stone levitation

I did not order this, but I stole a sip from my friend's guest. This was a pretty smooth amber ale.

Allagash Interlude

I tried this because I like Allagash. I still like Allagash. And this ale. It was complex, but not too heavy, and sort of sour, which I would not have guessed from the description. It was also expensive, this glass cost $9.50, but it was worth it.

IPA tasting

I went to a beerschool tasting dinner with a few friends. We sampled
these IPAs. Of these four, I liked the Crooked Tree and Modus
Hoperandus the best. I understand that the Brooklyn is more like the
traditional IPAs that were first brewed to ship to India. The west
coast IPAs tend to be more hoppy than the original IPAs. And the can
didn't taste like aluminum, like it used to. If you have not tried a
microbrew in a can, give it a shot. It's the wave of the future.

Oak aged = yummy

This is a Two Brothers Moaten. I think this may have made the blog
before, but only as a label. I like the oak-aged taste of this Flemish
Sour Ale. Two Brothers does not use bourbon casks that have previously
been used to age bourbon. Instead, they have purchased a number of
large new oak aging tanks, which they use for a few of their different
ales.

Saison

This is a Jolly Pumpkin Saison. At the beer tasting, many people
thought there was too much going on with this beer. Put differently,
they thought it was too spicy. I, however, liked this saison.

Green line

I finally tried the Goose Island Green Line, a new pale ale that is
environmentally friendly in one way or another. For a goose Island, it
wasn't bad, but for a pale ale, it was sort of bland. I will still try
their other new offerings.