The Manhattan, Kansas-based brewery Tallgrass Brewing Co launched in Chicago in 2013 and they haven’t slowed down since. You may know them for their 8-Bit Pale Ale, 16-Bit DIPA or Buffalo Sweat Oatmeal Stout, but last night we celebrated the return of Zombie Monkie, a robust porter, being back in season. We hosted the party at Emporium Wicker Park and things got… weird. Read More
We celebrate craft beer in Chicago every day but that doesn’t prevent us from getting excited when Chicago Craft Beer Week rolls around. This year we sent Matt Tanaka, our blogger and beer traveller out into the city to liveblog his way through all 11 days of #CCBW. He drank fantastic beer, ate tasty food and spent time with people from every corner of the Chicago craft beer scene — and brought his camera with him as he did so.
Check out this video we put together of some of the highlights and then see our favorite photos below.
Music: "Rob Myself" by Mooner
Chicago is not known for being kind to its residents weather-wise. Day 10 of Chicago Craft Beer Week, however, was one of those days that makes us forget the midwest’s moody temper(ature)ment (couldn’t help myself…is anyone reading this?) as we spend the day in the sunshine. Saturday was Welles Park Craft Beer Fest, the official closing event of CCBW, although the week technically extends into tomorrow. Read More
Day 7 of Chicago Craft Beer Week was pretty much dominated by a single theme: animals. There were animal-themed beers, animal-named breweries, and actual, real life animals.
The evening started with the Logan Square Petting Zoo, in which our friends at Scales & Tales Traveling Zoo brought some of their exotic animals to a parade of Logan Square bars. We met chinchillas, giant snakes, a hedgehog named sonic, a pig, an anteater, an owl and, as was clearly the highlight for most in the room — a sloth. We drank beers from an all animal taplist from Goose Island, 3 Sheeps, Against the Grain, Evil Twin, Uinta and Tallgrass Brewing. Read More
Beer Under Glass. Beer Under Umbrellas. Beer Amongst Ferns. There are a lot of names that this event tends to go by, but any way you slice it, BUG is a great way to kick off Chicago Craft Beer Week. It’s also one of my personal favorite events of the year.
Beer Under Glass is great because there’s really nothing quite like sipping beer with a few thousand friends in the beautiful Garfield Park Conservatory. But it’s also a rare opportunity to see such a large collection of Illinois breweries under one (glass) roof. From self-distributed operations all the way up to Illinois’ largest producers, everyone’s pouring beers and celebrating the beginning of the magical celebration of our community that we call CCBW. Read More
The beer experts at Lakeshore Beverage love beer pairing. We pair our beer with food, cheeses — even music and movies. We view beer as an experience that can be elevated when combined with other experiences. It’s this passion that led us to explore an often-overlooked pairing: beer and cigars.
We partnered with the cigar experts over at Famous Smoke to put together a few craft beer and cigar pairing suggestions.