This is Beer in Front, part of the Odd Pods Media Network. Sometimes
the beer in front of you is the best one yet. I'll talk about
some old school beers that maybe you've forgotten about, some new beers that have
the potential to be a classic. I'll also talk to various people around the
beer world and get their stories all about beer. That's Beer in Front and
it's coming up now. Welcome to the November seventh edition, episode one hundred
and eighty five of Beer in Front. I'm your host, Dave z Alatorres,
and Beer in Front is a proud Odd Pods Media Network member. Last
weekend, the Festival of Barrel Aged Beer was held here in Chicago at the
Credit One Arena. This was my first FOBAB and what a great experience.
There were so many great beers to try, plus the awards ceremony. Fau
Bab is a must visit for anyone who calls themselves a beer enthusiast. You
have to go to fae Bab. Thanks to my back flaring up, I
had to tap out on the last hour. However, I'm going to be
doing this again year after year. The Beer in Front this week will be
the Great Lakes bourbon barrel aged Christmas ale. They poured this at the festival,
and when I saw it at my liquor store, I didn't have a
cart, but I grabbed it. Hey, this is Russ, this is
Kyle, this is Michelle from the Infectious Groove podcast. Join us every Monday
for the most fun you can have with a music podcast. The Infectious Scroof
podcast uses a positive and fun approaches. We take time every week to share
our Jamie jams, then dig into a thought provoking topic discussing all decades and
genres of music. You can find the Infectious Groove Podcast on all major podcasts
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subscribe. We might have a controversial opinion here or there, but we always
have fun with it. I'm sure I'll say something dumb. Subscribe to the
Infectious Groove Podcast, part of the Odd Pods media network. A couple other
things outside of beer. Ruby's birthday was this week, so we went to
the Aroma workshop and you could make your own perfumes, clones, body lotions,
things like that. That was a lot of fun and I now have
my own signature scent which is called in the Cart. But if you're in
the Chicago area and looking for something to do, I would hit up Aroma
Workshop. I thought that was a really fun time. You get to smell
all these different sens and then combine the ones you like to make a scent
of your own. So if you see me out and about, you know,
have a with because it's in the cart. Also, my god,
she went to this place called the Taste of Heaven and brought some desserts back.
If you go there, it's on Clark Street. You gotta get the
banana pudding. Holy shit, that was probably the best dessert I've ever had,
So you gotta get you the banana pudding. And of course now I
have the Southern culture from the Skid's song in my head every time I think
of this delicious banana pudding. But just a couple other things to do in
the Chicago area outside of beer. In beer News, Blake's hard Cider is
merging with Austin Eastsider. I only had the Austin once. I thought it
was excellent, So hopefully we'll be able to get that here in the Chicagoland
area. Now Molsen Core's is making money they raised their full year growth from
an estimated gain of twenty three to twenty six percent to thirty two to thirty
six percent. I hope you have stock at Molson Coret. Bell's Brewery is
having its annual Eccentric Day on December first. This will be the thirty second
Eccentric Day and the Kalamazoo Breweries teaming up with five other Midwestern breweries on some
collaborations. These will only be available on tap at Bell's and some are limited
to go at the Bell's general store. Firestone Walker announced the twenty seventh anniversary
aile that's going to come out soon to all of their markets. This will
be a blend of five different ales aged in bourbon barrels. There was a
really cool article on crafter dot com on breweries having game nights such as Majong
and being to increase local participation, especially with folks who might not visit a
brewery tap room. Check out crafter dot com. I thought that was a
really cool article. Bear Republic is coming out with Racer seven. It's a
HAZYIPA. It's going to be in that stovepipe nineteen ounce can and this is
I guess the hazy version of Racer five. Finally, in Chicago, Revolution
and Half Acre are teaming up for On and On Part three. According to
the label that I saw over on my Beer Buzz, this will be a
double barrel age stout. If it's anything like the pass versions, this is
going to be absolutely fantastic. As I mentioned in the open, the festival
the Barrel Age Beer was held here in Chicago a couple days ago. This
was hands down the best festival I've been to. In addition to hundreds of
barrel aged beers to sample, they had the Logger Lounge where you could cleanse
your palette, and a hop water lounge featuring Revolutions super Zero. I thought
the event layout was great on the floor of the arena as well as the
concourse, and Goose Island had their train car outside pouring Bourbon County brands out.
Even for the popular breweries. I didn't think the lines were bad at
all like I was expecting, and I've been to some other festivals where lines
for the popular beers are just hideous. You're gonna spend more time in line
getting gas at Costco than I did for Best in Show winners, more in
hidden hand at the festival, so I thought the layout and how they had
everything spread out was excellent. Another thing I liked. You didn't see anyone
that was hammered or obnoxious. I had not, I mentioned earlier, leave
an hour early because my back was jacked up, so maybe at the end
there were. However, everyone I saw was just enjoying themselves. They were
well behaved, just enjoying the festivities and sampling great beer. I really thought
that was cool. The Illinois craft Brewers Guild puts out a great festival.
Why the other ones they do beer Underglass and Friday night flights. Faux Bab
is something you should definitely attend if you're in the Illinois area. A couple
of the beers I want to talk about that I really loved. I had
one from Ike and Oak. They're in Woodridge, Illinois. They had this
coconut macaroon. Wow, it was that great. I had one from Superstition
Metery. They're in Prescott, Arizona. They had one that was rye barrel
aged that just I thought was phenomenal. I had to go back and get
a second of that. Another one I had to go back for Ale Smith
out of San Diego. Their speedway stouts phenomenal. But they had a Mexican
hot chocolate version. Oh my god, that was just absolutely fantastic. Now,
when Raced Out from the Guild was on the show a couple of weeks
ago, he mentioned trying things you might not ever do or get a chance
to. So I took him up on it and I had the from de
Still they had a dill pickle goza. I thought that was really good.
If you follow me on like Instagram and YouTube, I did a quick,
like forty five second review of that. I thought that was excellent. There
was also one from Off Color which was a mescalaged beer for tacos that was
just killer as well. That one an award and it was well deserved.
Hey, this is Greviman Brisket Podcast. Join us every Monday where we talk
about the latest trends in barbie, interviews with world top pitmasters, celebrity cooks
oh like we Man from Jackass, and musicians like rich O'sool. So check
us out. We do beer reviews, barbecue fails, so many fires do
a lot of people just burn their houses down for no reason. We also
talked about cocaine, hippos versus Besgators learn how to make some tailgate gravy altercations
with Texas Rangers people throw on recent peanut butter cups. Yeah. So check
out Grab the Risk at dot com for podcast info, viral social media post,
and so much more. All Right, the beer in front of me
is one that I had at Fox Bab and I liked it so much I
went out and picked up a four pack of this. This is the bearrel
aged Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewing Company out of Cleveland. There was another
one that I had then I talked about it on the Beers that I had
from Off Collar, their mescal aged beer for tacos, and I couldn't find
that, So I will find out of my travels and I'll have that on
a future episode. But this one from Great Lakes I really loved. I
talk about Great Lakes on the show a lot. I'm just a big fan
of that brewery and the beers they put out. I know I've talked about
Christmas Ale in the past couple of years, so when I saw a fauxbad
that they had a barrel age version, I had to try it really really
liked it. And then when I saw it on the four packs I had
to pick it up. So unlike a lot of barrel aged beers, this
is only eight percent alcohol, so it's not your fourteen to fifteen percent stouts
that'll knock you on your rear. End. The Christmas Ale it's had spices,
honey, and it's always one of my favorite beers around the holiday season.
So enough of me rambling on about this and let's crack open the Great
Lakes barrel aged Christmas Ale. It's a beautiful color, really nice, dark
reddish brown, good couple fingers of foam. I don't get a lot of
bourbon notes out of the aroma. I just get the Great Lakes Christmas Ale.
Oh that is so good. You get all of the flavors from the
original Christmas Ale and then you get like the bourbon notes, you know,
picking up the back end of it. It's really good. The bourbon notes
aren't very strong, you get a little of it at the back end,
but I think it's a nice compliment to the Christmas Ale. So this is
definitely something that I'm going to be picking up every year, or whenever they
release it, I'm gonna put it in the carts. I think it's that
good. You could pick it up everywhere the Great Lakes distributes. I picked
it up at my local chain liquor store, Bennie's here in Chicago. It's
excellent. So if you see the barrel aged Christmas ale, you have to
put it in the cart. I mentioned on the show a couple weeks ago,
when I had Julia Herzon from the American Home Brewers Association, I brewed
a beer. I brewed a pale Ale, and no fault of anybody but
my own. I thought it was good. It was decent, but it
was nothing that I would like rave about or hand out to people. I'm
sure there was something that I did wrong because it's been so long since I
brewed a beer. So I'm going to dial in the recipe a little bit
more. I know there's a couple things that I know now that I didn't
know a couple months ago, So I'm going to have another crack at this.
But I thought the pale Al was it was good, it was decent,
but there was something missing there. And I don't know if I kept
it too long in the fermentor you know. I had some issues with my
back, physical issues that kind of prohibited me from doing some things, so
that probably had something to do with it. But I think I know now
what I didn't know then, and the next version of this is going to
be a lot better, and I'm going to talk more in detail about that.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for this edition of Beer
in Front. I thank you very much for listening. If you need to
get a hold of me, you could email me Dave at beerinfront dot com
or find me on all the social media channels at Beer in Front. I
want to thank again the Illinois craft Brewers Guild for setting me up with the
media pass to go to Faux Bab. I had such a great time.
I thank you guys so much for hooking me up with this. Whether I
get a pass or not, I'm going from now on so you could find
my mug at fau Bab every year. Have a great week everyone, I
will talk to you next week on Beer in Front, and remember sometimes the
beer in front of you is the best one yet.