Category Archives: IPA

Pubcast 269 – Cut Price Craft Beer?

May 3, 2018American Pale Ale, Belgian Amber Ale, Craft Beer, IPA, Maibock, SchwarzbierLandlord

This week we have gathered our panel of usual suspects, co-host Chuck Fort from Church Street Brewing, ex-tavern owner John Karwoski, and craft beer nerd, Tom Ryan. They are press-ganged into a blind taste test, this time with brews from cut-price supermarket Aldi.
Their web site states “Brewed To Exceed Your Expectations”…so is it?

We collected 6 sample brews, a range of styles, and we use a very arbitrary rating system that covers Appearance, Smell, Taste, After Taste, and Drinkability, across a 100 point weighted rating system. We blind tasted the brews, then averaged the total scores to find out the beer we best liked.

Interestingly, a real micro-brewer produced the one we liked the most, but overall it seems that getting your fresh brews from a local craft brewer is the way to get good beer!

Stick around after the show for a bonus beer review of Noon Whistle‘s Dubbel Giggidy. Aged in Old Forester bourbon barrels, ABV 9.1% – we saved the evening with a decent local brew!

Tech Note: this week we had a slight hitch where some sound was too loud. All I can say is sorry, live with it!

Below is the list of beers in the order we tasted them, with their final average score and their final standings –

Folded Mountains Pale Ale, ABV 5.3% (Brewed at Gennesse, Rochester, NY)
Average score 49 / 100 – #5

Wild Range IPA, ABV 6.9% (Brewed at Gennesse, Rochester, NY)
Average 37 / 100 – #6

Hoplift IPA, Third Street Brewing, Cold Spring, MN., ABV 6.2%
Average 76 / 100 – #1

Boot Tread, Belgian Amber Ale, Brouwerij Martens, ABV 5.0%
Average 69 / 100 – # 4

Feldschlossen Maibock, Feldschlossen Dresden, ABV 7.2%
Average 70 / 100 – #3

Wernesgruner Dark, Schwarzbier, Wernesgruner Brauerei, ABV 4.9%
Average 73 / 100 – #2

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

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

March 15, 2018Belgian Dubbel, Berliner Weisse, Craft Beer, Gradziskie, Helles Lager, IPA, NE IPA, Russian Imperial StoutLandlord

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…

Pubcast 239 – Forecast is Hazy Today

August 18, 2017Craft Beer, IPALandlord

There’s a current trend to drinking hazy, fruity, IPAs which some call East Coast IPA and others New England IPAs. Far removed from the traditional British IPA, and even from an American IPA, these styles seem to be the darlings of the craft beer drinking demographic and are very popular during these summer months in particular. Chuck and Phil are joined by John Karwoski of John’s Tavern to sample just a couple of these and try to figure out why this style has boomed over the past couple of years.

We received a donation of two cans of Sketchbook IPA which prompted this show, and John provided draft samples from his tap selection of two more. One of the Sketchbook cans was voted 19th Best IPA by Draft magazine this year, so we were intrigued to find out why. Did we agree? Listen in and find out!

The beers discussed are:
Maplewood Brewing and Distillery, Chicago IL, Grapefruit Son of Juice, 6.3%
WarPigs (collaboration of Three Floyds and Mikkeller), Denmark, Foggy Geezer, 6.8%
Sketchbook Brewing, Evanston IL, Orange Door, 7.2% – NOTE: this is not a hazy IPA, but we used it as a contrast and compare to Insufficient Clearance. Free beer MUST be drunk!
Insufficient Clearance, 5.0%

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

Pubcast 233 – Everyday Beers

July 7, 2017American Pale Ale, Craft Beer, Imperial IPA, IPA, Lager, Red Ale, Scottish-Style AleLandlord

This week we pull out a number of brews collected from across several states, ones which which we think could be everyday, very drinkable beers. We visit Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, and of course we had to include one from Illinois. Joining Phil this week is Chuck Fort, assistant brewer at Church Street Brewing, who now seems to have taken over the reins from Mark as our resident smarty-pants and BJCP judge! John Kaworksi from John’s Tavern comes by for our last 2 brews.

Our first trio of beers come from Bristol Brewing Company out of Colorado Springs, CO.
Beehive, Honey Wheat, 4.4 ABV
Laughing Lab, Scottish-Style Ale, 5.4 ABV
Compass, IPA, 6.9% ABV

Next we hit Ohio, and a quartet of brews from Sibling Revelry Brewing
Sublime, Lager brewed with Lime, 5.0% ABV
Red, American Red Ale, 5.5% ABV
Swing State, Dry-hopped Pale Ale, 4.5% ABV
IPA, India Pale Ale, 6.5% ABV