Distributor Locations: Lakeshore Beverage (IL)
Kim Leshinski, founder of Hail To The Ale is a graphic designer, beer judge, homebrewer, event planner, and beer blogger… and somehow, we’ve convinced her to spend some time with us each month to develop a blog series about an often overlooked part of the craft beer experience: glassware. Over the next few month’s she’ll dive into the history, design and style of glassware and teach us all something new about our beer glasses.
Last week, we invited 300 of our closest friends to Lakeshore Beverage Beer HQ to celebrate the Chicago launch of SweetWater Brewing co. Check out the photos below and then sign up for our newsletter for invitations to future parties!
To celebrate the release of Brewery Ommegang’s Three-Eyed Raven Dark Saison, we joined 150 Game of Thrones fans for a cosplay bar crawl throughout the city. Crawl Beyond the Wall kicked off at AlleyCat Comics in Ravenswood. From there, guests were assigned one of four houses — Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, and The Night’s Watch — and spent the evening hopping from bar to bar and enjoying Brewery Ommegang Witte, Gnomegang, Valar Moghulis and the brand new Three-Eyed Raven. There was a costume contest hosted by the one-and-only Geek Girl Chicago, a raffle, a plethora of tasty bites and even a battle cry or two (see: #StarkLife).
Arguably Founders Brewing Co’s most sought-after release, KBS is a barrel-aged version of a variant of the brewery’s Breakfast Stout. Massive amounts of chocolate and coffee combined with the character the bourbon barrels impart are what make this beer so popular but it’s the difficult brewing process that make it a labor of love for the brewers.
Bernie Murphy of Rappahannock Oyster Company joined us for an evening of craft beer and oysters. He brought with him oysters from his family-run company in Virginia that’s been around since 1899. They harvest to order with a technique called aquaculture which is a sustainable, responsible farming method designed to protect the shellfish population in the Chesapeake Bay. We served the oysters alongside SweetWater Brewing Co’s 420 Extra Pale Ale, IPA, Blue and Hop Hash.
