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 great beer, and I'll also talk to various people in and around the
beer industry to get their stories all about beer. That's Beer in Front,
and it's coming up now. Welcome to episode two hundred and five, the
April sixteenth edition of Beer in Front. I'm your host, Daves Alatoris,
and Beer in Front is a proud odd Pods Media Network member. May third
is the beginning of Illinois Craft Beer Week. This week is all about the
great state of Illinois. I'm going to talk again to Race Stout, who
is the executive director of the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild. Stay tuned for that.
That'll be coming up in just a minute. Some other news my back.
So I'm recording this Monday night, the fifteenth. I talked to Ray
earlier this afternoon. I had a procedure scheduled for the sixteenth, So I'm
rushing to get stuff done, rushing to talk to Ray. Gotta edit this.
I get a call now, the procedures supposed to be in like twelve
fourteen hours whatever. I get a call well, this was never approved.
You can't have it. So now what am I supposed to do. I'm
supposed to sit around until my next appointment in May and be in pain and
not sleep. So I got another appointment with this jamoke on Wednesday and we'll
see what happens. Now. I talk to my attorney and they're working on
getting this scheduled. It's been a nightmare, but I can hardly sit.
I could hardly st and I could hardly walk, and I'm getting tired of
it. So if you see, and thankfully the nice lady at the jewel,
I'm at the jewel just to pick up some stuff for dinner. I'm
walking with the cart because my back is killing me. I don't have a
lot of stuff, but I need the cart, so I'm looking around because
I'm not that guy. I returned carts to the cart rack and the woman
saw me and she was like, oh, let me take that for you,
sir. So there are good people in the world who knew that I
would one day be sir. But thank you to the nice woman at the
jewel this afternoon. Also be on the lookout. Last week I was on
PFM after dark and I gave these guys some lort so I'll include the link
there, but if you want to check that out, check out PFM after
Dark. I didn't see a lot of beer news for the week, but
one thing that I noticed, and also when I was on my friend Rod
Jay's show last Thursday, he mentioned it, but North Coast is coming out
with a new barrel aged old Rass sputant. This is going to be aged
two years in barrels from Westward Whiskey. Check out my friend Rod j.
He's been on the show before. I'm on his show every now and then.
He's gonna do an unboxing video of that one soon. He was able
to score a bottle of that. I had this and I don't know what
bourbon company was. It was probably fifteen years ago. I mean I loved
old ressputant for twenty five years now. Friends of mine gave me for my
birthday a barrel aged old rassputant and it came with like a chunk from one
of the barrels that they used, and that was just outstanding. I asked
around. I went to my bottle shop during the week, Bottles and Cans
over on Lincoln Avenue, and asked if they were going to get it,
and he didn't think they were, so I might have to check Binnie's or
I'm going to live through Raja and hopefully this beer is as good as I
remember. In other beer news, I'm going to start another thing going,
and this is called the Beer Media Group. There's a lot of people like
me were beer enthusiasts or advocates for craft beer. We're not influencers or anything
like that, but we just like craft beer and can whether we talk about
it on podcasts like this or on video. Some people write, they do
blogs. There's a group of people similar to me and what I do when
my friends do. So I think I'm going to start this group. I've
talked to a couple people when they're enthused that we could kind of kick around
ideas with each other. I did secure the naming rights to the website,
so I do have Beer Media Group. There's nothing on it right now,
but I think this will be an avenue for you know, different beer companies,
different r reps who could reach out and see these are like minded people,
and you know, I'm going to try to keep it to just advocates
an enthusiasts. I'm not going to get into the influenza route. I mean,
God, bless you. You do you, you know, you do
your thing. That's not for me because no one wants to see me in
an Italian speedo holding up a can of beer. No one wants to see
that. So I think I'm just gonna make this for the people that are
advocates and enthusiasts of craft beer, and we'll see where that goes. But
I'll give you more details when I launched the website for that. Hey,
this is Grabbing the Brisket podcast. Join us every Monday where we talk about
the latest trends in barbecue, interviews with world top pitmasters, celebrity cooks ooh
like we Man from Jackass, and musicians like rich O'Toole. 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 talk
about cocaine, hippos versus Besgators, learn how to make some tailgate gravy,
altercations with Texas Rangers, people throw on recents peanut butter cups. Yeah.
So check out grab the Brisket dot com for podcast info, viral social media
post and so much more. Well, it's the most wonderful time of the
year. I don't care what Andy Williams sayings. Illinois Craft Beer Wee twenty
twenty four will be from May third through the tenth. The week will begin
with be always outstanding Beer under Glass, held this year once again at Union
Station in Chicago. Other events throughout the week will be the Summer Passport,
this really cool looking pint glass for twenty twenty four, and much more.
Joining me now for his semi annual appearance. He is the executive director of
the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild. Raced out Ray. Welcome back, brother.
How you doing today. It's good to be back, and I'm doing okay.
We're getting ready for Illinois Craft Beer Weeks and lots of things in the
hopper. I haven't been to Beer Underglass since it moved to Union Station.
I know, like last year was like around my birthday. Year before was
my anniversary, So I'm psyched about it. What can I expect this year?
So this year is really an extension and the growth of where we are
as an industry is where we are as the guild, and so you know,
right now you can anticipate well over one hundred breweries. I think we're
around one hundred and twenty five breweries each, you know, with two to
three to four unique orders of beer or and so you know, in terms
of in terms of an event, you know, I keep going back to,
there's from a value proposition, you know, having the opportunity to sample,
you know, two hundred beers for fifty bucks is really unheard of.
It's not ecotomy. Yeah, and they're not like your regular stuff. These
are generally special releases too, where a lot of them are without a doubt.
And so, you know, the line in the sand that we like
to draw with our events compared to you know, any other brew festival you
can go to, is that this is a festival for the brewers by the
brewers. Right, so people are always going to bring their best or their
most hype releases or you know, their their new barrel program that they're working
on. So you're gonna try beers here that you're not going to be able
to get at other beer festivals, and you know, won't be able to
get through distribution. And so you know, my my favorite thing is when
I walk into a brewery and all I see is crowlers. Yeah, because
you know or you are going to get up beer that you're not able to
get anywhere else, and this saves you driving all over the state of Illinois
to do that. I remember, I don't know, it was twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen, like, and my friends and I always still talk about
this beer from Pipeworks. They did one was like Imperial End of Days and
we still remember this beer and like talk about it, like if you ever
seen that, you know, out in about I'm like, dude, I've
never seen it. If I had, I would pick it up. And
that's exactly right. Is that. That's what one of the things that I
love about the craft brewing industry because it's all about innovating and it's all about
trying new things, and you know, and as a consumer, and that's
exactly what bug gives you. You're on the class spug we fectually call it
that, but it gives you the opportunity to explore breweries and explore styles of
beer that you might not order because you know, a pint of beer at
a bar or brewery is five six seventy eight dollars, and so you want
to make sure you're getting into something that you like. So the best the
best thing I always tell people is, you know, just just ask for
a sample. Yeah. Well, and if people are going this year,
I will be there. Look me up because I have a bunch of scorecards
that I could write down what I had. So if you want to remember
what you had, you know where to find it. Are there any plans
to go back to Garfield Park after like their renovations are done? You know,
I think these events have really just really outgrown Garfield Park. Okay,
you know the one the one thing that I did love about Garfield Park is
the option to have an indoor setting in the event of inclement weather weather but
I've heard so many stories of people wading through knee deep water and mud just
trying to sample beer. And you know, sometimes we have great, great
weather in May, but a lot of times it rains a lot, and
so have an indoor setting for this event moving forward is something that you know,
puts us in a position to be more successful because what I don't think
people realize that this is the This is our second largest fundraiser for our non
profit organization, and so you know, we want to make sure that is
widely attended as possible. While still maintaining you know, intimate feeling as intimate
as you can get in station, but not over selling via. Yeah,
I mean, and it's good too for people that aren't from the city.
It's right there in Union Station, so you could take a train right there.
You don't have to take an uber. You don't have to you know,
take a train or you know, the l or a cab or anything.
That's like the perfect spot, without a doubt. It's there's nothing more
accessible in the state of Illinois or ross the state than Union the Station.
And also, you know, an important point that I'm talking to more and
more brewers is that it now is one of the more sustainable beerau events in
the country in terms of environmental sustainability because most people are bringing reusable kegs,
we're using glassware that is reusable, they're not thrown away, and we're encouraging
people to arrive in public transportation, unlike any other beer event I think in
this country. Yeah, No, I'm really looking forward to it. Are
are tickets still available? Could people still pick up a ticket? Definitely,
tickets are still available, you know, will we'll we'll sell tickets until we
reach our magic number fifteen hundred's. That's our cap for this event, because,
like I said before, we want to make sure that we're retaining,
you know, an environment that you're not packed in and you're not waiting for
beer. We want to make sure people aren't waiting in lines for beer.
And so tickets are still available. There's two types of tickets. There's the
general mission ticket that gets you in at five thirty and you have from five
thirty to eight thirty of you know, free reign of all the brewers.
And then there's a VIP ticket which gets you in an hour early. And
so when people ask me what ticket to buy, Iowa is in urge them
to do the VIP ticket and so they could get the lay of the land
a little bit before it fills up a little more. But you know,
and that's that's that's only a ten dollars difference. So PIP tickets are sixty
bucks. Yeah, I mean it's a real pro move too. Yeah,
the VIP to get you in that first hour, not that you're gonna you
know, pound down beers for that extra hour, but the fact that you
could get to like the release is before everyone else gets in there. Yeah,
that's definitely the pro move to do that's right, you know, get
the lay of the land, figure out who has the crazy barrel program beer
and who ask these one offs and what you know, and visit breweries that
you have been excited to get to that may not have gotten to yet.
Now, like at Paubab you had the Logger lounge and you had like the
I think Revolution did the not the hop water. Are you going to do
something like that? You know, we're still we're still figuring out the exact
layout. We're definitely gonna have a food area, okay pretty quickly. Is
that people want to you know, fortify themselves during these events, So we're
gonna have some food, you know. We're also you know, I don't
want to spill the beans too much, but we're also talking to another organization
that produced this alcohol that may want some of their members here as well,
and so well more admission about that will be becoming sin Well, I'm doing
a series, he said, I'm gonna let you be the judge on this.
So I'm doing a series on drink Illinois beer for the podcast and videos.
Trying to feature is many different breweries from the state of Illinois. Now
I see on your website, there was over one hundred different ones that are
listed. If I check off on the third, do I still need to
hit their brewery up? Or am I good at Beer Underglass? In terms
of your your own success, I would I would count that as a check.
But in terms of our our summer Passport program, which also starts to
make third, you know, that's really we're really encouraging people to get out
and you get around the state and visit the brewery. All right, right,
you drive a hard bargain. Talking about the passport, now, can
people pick that up? It Beer under Glass as well as participating breweries.
So all of those are only going to be available at participating breweries. So
the whole point of the passport is, like I said, to get people
out and about what's so cool about it is last year some back of the
napkin mat it helped generate over two hundred thousand dollars for Illinois breweries and so
and the thing that I always like to remind people that these are these are
small, local independent businesses, so every single penny batters, and so you
know, we encourage people to get involved in the passport, pick up their
passport, and you know start exploring the state starting on May third. You
know, one thing we did do this year was we changed the points of
the reward system. So you know, I got some feedback that if hey,
fifty breweries is a good amount of breweries to visit over the over a
couple of month period. Yeah, well, plenty of people did it.
You know, we had well over three hundred passports come in fully completed.
You know, we wanted to get it more accessible and more exciting for for
other people. And so now we have prizes, prize drawings, a twenty
five stamps, fifty stamps, seventy five stamps, and one hundred stamps,
and you know, so as well as another another another prize for people who
are participating in the Pine Class program. So you know, we're kind of
bringing all this together. But the ideas is is to go out and explore
the state. We're calling Adventure Crafted in Illinois. Yeah, you mentioned the
Pine Class too, Like didn't you have like the last couple of years,
like you take a picture and use like a hashtag and then like winners can
get like a gift card to a in the Illinois brewery. That's exactly right.
So we're standing up the exactly the same program this year with a little
bit of a twist. So if you when you see our pine classes,
and I really hope they sell it really quickly as they usually do, but
all over the pint, lesser different, kind of lesser known Illinois. Yes,
right, And so the idea is that you'll take your glass and travel
around to those landmarks and take a picture with the glass in those landmarks and
tag ile my il beer. Okay, cool? What else throughout the week
is happening besides like beer underglass, the pine glass and the passport. You
know, what makes Crap Beer Week such an important part of Illinois is that
it's the culture that it brings, right, and so it's it's all about
getting people to breize bottle shops and retailers. And so you know, we
are putting it on our brewer members and not our retail partners to host events
across the state, and we've given them the tools, the events, and
so it's our hope to kind of bring that statewide excitement and statewide height around
this week that goes well beyond you know a really great ad to beer underglass
or you know some some some some kind of scheduled events like we did in
the last years. This is really cool. It's fun to talk about festivals
and events. But eventually craft Beer Week in full bead. They helped the
fund the guild and all the initiatives you do throughout the year. Correct,
that's absolutely right. So you know when I when I referenced our nonprofit deal
in my craft Bruise Guild is the nonprofit trade organization that represents the craft breweries.
You know, we do education, we all conferences, and we make
sure that the beer in the state is the best the best beer it can
be. We do a lot of marketing or promotion, you know craft Beer
Week for example, but we also do a lot of legislative advocacy, whether
that's in Chicago around the state, you know, most regionally. One of
our accomplishments to Chicago is the extension of the outdoor dining program for all breweries
in the city. You know, people didn't realize that breweries were left out
of the extension of outdoor dining because they operate in manufacturing districts. So you
know, we went to we went to the city all and advocated lobby for
the extension and you know, we won that for our members. So,
you know, piece there's a couple of pieces of legislation that we're working pretty
hard on. One would allow for rewards programs as well as mud clubs to
be formally legalized in the state of Illinois. You know, these are programs
that are essential to the craft we're in community. It's actually how a lot
of them fund their very lean months of January and February is through those those
pip sales up pipe, you know, of mud clubs, and so you
know, it's just become incredibly more and more important, and you know,
advocating for Brogers to maintain those sports programs and is essential to their survival.
You know, there's lots of other great things happening in Springfield, some some
we agree with and some we don't. You know, we are fighting twenty
four hours a day, two undred sixty five days a year to help this
industry, you know, recover and grow and reach consumers because you know,
once you get in Illinois craft beer in somebody's hand, they you'll see a
light turn up. So we're making great beer. We're making great beer in
the state. We're employed thousands of people, contribute about three billion dollars to
the Illinois economy, and it's just a no brainer from a Springfield and Chicago
like to support support our initiatives. You were just talking about the omnibus bill.
What about Senate Bill twenty one ninety three? Now did they had ever
passed? I was trying to find info online a couple hours ago. That
was the shipping go Yeah, so shipping was met with pretty intense opposition from
distribution tier. Okay, you know a lot of what we're able to get
done in Springfield is based on getting agreement between you know, all the affected
parties, and you know, they they were able to stand up an argument
that looks something like, hey, if you allowed for the shipping of beer,
it would replace the need for people to go to the store and buy
beer, which is just bunk. Yeah. I think most people realize that,
but it resonated with enough legislators to to to derail this. There there
is a bill this this session which would allow for the for the a third
party delivery of alcohol and so that's more of like a door dash kind of
situation, and that's something that we are working on and hopefully trying to get
brewers included. And that because right now they are purposefully excluded again because of
you know, the topsy turvy world of Springfield, where people can convince legislators
that it might not be in the best interest of the entire market to lots
to happen. But you know, there's there's lots of data on our side
that show that it doesn't derail the retail market at all. It actually helps
it grow. And look at the case of wine, right there'll be no
wine on the shelves at Target if shipping up wine to ruin the three ger
wine system. Yeah, and you know, I don't know, I can
only speak for myself, but shipping beer and I know from sending beer out
to friends, that's not cheap. So no one's going to sit in order,
you know, a six pack of Halfbeaker when I could just drive ten
minutes and go pick it up without without a doubt. It's not it's not
a replacement. It's just an enhancement right of access. And you know,
it's all about reaching consumers and all about access. And you know, at
this point consumer access is still stymied by by Illinois law. And that's why
it's so important to help funder an organization because you know, these are the
fights that were we're having, and you know, legislators don't get elected to
Springfield to go there to you know, fix alcohol policy, right, and
so keeping that on in the front of minds of legislators is something that takes
the full Court Press twelve months a year to realize because you know, when
if you talk to the average consumer, they must say, hey, everything
must be great with craft breweries. I see them all over the place,
and there's beer everywhere. But the fact is that there's laws written in nineteen
thirty four and the state that we are working modern ice every single day.
Yeah, yeah, I mean so far. I mean, granted, the
weekend was gorgeous here. I know, driving by a couple of places,
like I'm closest to Burning Bush and they had that place was packed over the
week so that's good. I know. I was over at the Newest One
demo on their opening day and there was a line, you know, a
block long to get in there when they opened. So I mean, it's
good to see. It's good to sease. You know, some of these
breweries, you know, recover or in demos case start out, and I
know it's you know, it's definitely an industry that's still continuing to grow,
the past two years were marked by a lot of closures, right We lost
some forty to fifty breweries in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. You
know, for a couple of reasons. Number one is that you know,
consumers did not come back to tap brings at pre pandemic levels. It's starting
to trickle up a little bit, which is great. But the other is
that a lot of breweries took on an meant amount of debt to stay viable
during the pandemic. And you know that mixed with increased increases in price in
operation. You know, I think breweries UH opted to close rather than continue
to weather those storms. But things have looked to sell down a little bit.
We you know, had a couple of breweries open. You know,
Industry Ls is another good one right downtown that just opened in Chicagoland. And
so you know, we're we're starting to see we're starting to see the recovery.
And you know, I will give a plug for for buddies of Burning
Bush. I know they've been victim of a couple of pieces of vandalism and
break ins and you know, and that's such a sad story. But you
to see go out there, people out there supporting them, and I encourage
you guys to support them, Brent. They're doing beer the right way and
it's a really cool space. Yeah. And actually Demo got hit with the
same thing. They put a thing out. Somebody broken into their like glass
as yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, it's a shame. So
I know Birding Bush just you know, they have a sign up on their
window yesterday like they're just going to credit card only now because you know,
in case people are trying to break in the rob them. Yeah, yeah,
shame. No, it's it is and and and breweries operating. My
favorite breweries are in those areas. And not to stay either one of these
breweries are in these areas that are kind of like you know, growing,
expanding out and you know, sprawling. But but yes, it's a it's
a very it's a very sad state of affairs that you know, businesses are
being batalized and broken into and you know, more and more I hear about
breweries moving into you know, cart only options just because for for the safety
of their their their employees and yeah, and their business. Well Ray,
I appreciate you coming on again. I'm looking forward to seeing you and getting
in person at Beer Underglass. You could pick up tickets head over to Illinoisbeer
dot org. You could get the regular ticket for fifty or the VIP ticket
for sixty bucks Union Station. You could take Metra right downtown and you're in
there. You don't have to worry about anything. Always a great event.
Ray, Thank you so much again. Brother. I'll see you in a
couple of weeks. Thanks so much. And I want one of those tied
T shirts. I'll look you up. What size are you, I'll hook
you up double X good guy, I got you, gotcha. I'll see
you. See you on the third for you there, Paul. Right after
talking with Ray, I need to drink a beer from Illinois, so I'm
gonna have one from Sketchbook. They have two locations, one in Evanston,
one in Skochy. This is Hop Thirsty Lloyd. This is a double IPA.
This has V nine mosaic and Cryo pop El Dorado hops in the air.
So I'm looking forward to it. I'm a big fan of Sketch Book.
Let's Crack open the Hop. Steve Void Poors nice has a really good
faum on it here, nice color, you know, it's hazy ipa.
Smells really good. I get a big like whiff of melon in the aroma.
I think it smells fantastic. Now this really tastes good. Get big
melon notes in here. Now. According to the can, this says that
it's a tropical stone fruit and citrus. I'm getting more melon. But we'll
see as I drink this if those other notes come through. But I think
the taste is really good. This is seven point six percent alcohol. I
think it's just a great you know, double ipa, double hazy IPA.
I think this is really good. You know, I could see maybe some
of the stone fruit now, but now this is outstanding. I mean,
Sketchbook puts out such great beer. I haven't been to the Skulkie location.
I've only been to the one at Evanston, and that's one of my bab
tap rooms in Illinois. So if you see anything from Sketchbook, it's great,
You're not gonna be disappointed. Put it in the cart and remember to
drink Illinois beer. All right. That's gonna wrap things up for this edition
of Beer in Front. I thank you very much for listening. I want
to thank once again, raced out, the executive director of the Illinois craft
Brewers Guild. You could check out their website and get tickets for Beer Underglass
at illinoisbeer dot org. It's a great, great festival. I've been to
it before for fifty bucks. Like we were talking about, you're not going
to get a better deal easy around Chicago. You're right there at Union Station,
so check out illinoisbeer dot org. You can get a ticket. You'll
see me there. I've got scorecards, so if you will see me there.
Okay, yo, Dave, how about a scorecard. I want to
write down one ahead so you're not going to be a drunken idiot on untapped
at eight o'clock trying to remember what you drink. You could just write it
down and then try to read your own writing after ten samples. But look
for me at Beer Underglass. Have a great week, every one. I
will talk to you next week, and remember sometimes to beer in front of
you is the best one yet.