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 January ninth edition, episode one hundred
and ninety two of Beer in Front. I'm your host Dave Xalatoris, and
Beer in Front is a proud odd Pods Media Network member. On the podcast,
today, I'll talk with Karen Shehan, who you may know is all
the Beer More Beer on social media. Karen is also a beer enthusiast advocate,
and that was a good talk. I talked to her a couple of
weeks ago before January, so I had a beer she mentioned from Pipeworks and
I'll talk about that later in the episode. There was a story so absurd
last week that I'm bringing back the jag off of the week one week only.
But yes, we have a jag off this week, one week into
dry January, and I'm still going strong I'm recording this on Saturday the sixth,
and I'm already down four pounds. I noticed it in my face where
it's definitely not as puffy. My sleep is still jacked up, but that's
because of my back. But overall, I'm glad I'm doing this. Ruby
and I are going to go to a mocktail event this week. I think
it's near me on Ravenswood, so I'll let you know all about that on
the next podcast. If you'd like to support the show, head over to
Patreon dot com slash beer in Front and you can find out more details there.
Also, don't forget to check out the rest of the social media peeds.
You could follow me everywhere at beer in Front. I put videos up
on YouTube a couple times a week, so if you got some spare time,
check out the rest of Beer in Front on social media. In Beer
News, Japanese brewing company Asahi they're going to purchase Wisconsin based Octopi Brewing.
Octopi is one of the country's largest craft contract breweries. You find their stuff
at Trader Joe's all the and they do contract brewing for a lot of breweries.
This acquisition is going to allow Japan's most popular beer, Asahi Super Dry,
that's going to now be brewed here in the States. Sunday, January
fourteenth is Thank You for Smoking. This is a day long celebration of smoked
beer over at Dovetail. Now this and I'm gonna mispronounce this. This is
a bru shop in This is going to be held in collaboration with Kaiser Tiger.
This is an all you could eat and drink event. Check out Dovetail's
website for more details. The Craft Beer Marketing Awards the Crushies are open for
submissions now. Head over to the Crushies dot com for more details. Once
again, I'm gonna be one of the judges. This is a really cool
award and it's always great to see some fantastic artwork in the field of beer.
Twenty first Amendment is coming out with Find Your Fortune. This is going
to be a Golden Ale with toasted sesame and vanilla and I guess on the
can. It's gonna have a QR code that you could scan for a virtual
fortune cookie. New Whistle out of Lombard is going to start making pizza at
their grouphub. They posted a picture on social media of this ginormous stand mixer,
so that should be cool. Chicago Cider Week is coming up. That's
going to start on January twenty eighth and run to February third. Lot of
cool events all over the city. Check out Chicagosiderweek dot org. And finally,
Haymarket is thirteen years old. They're going to be thirteen years old on
the twelfth, so you could check out Haymarket if you want. They have
a four pack. They're bringing back a couple of old school beers. So
check out Haymarket and Happy birthday. 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 Osool 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 Desgators,
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. All
Right, I'm happy to be talking to Karen she and today. You may
know her as All the Beer More Beer on social media. Karen is a
Chicago based digital creator and you could find her all over Chicago land enjoying a
great local brewery. Karen, thanks so much for talking today. Thanks Stave
for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Before we get
started, can you tell people a little bit about yourself. Yeah, I
grew up in the suburbs and I went to college at u of I and
when I got back, I've been living in Chicago, the city ever since
then. And I'm a teacher. I teach special aed on at a school,
a high school on the North Side, and that's about it. I
live in Portage Park, which is by Irving and Cicero. Actually, I
partially grew up in that area. My parents divorced and my dad lived at
six Corners, so yeah, I'm quite familiar with the area. My parents
there used to be a Giant Seer is there a Flagship store? And that's
where my parents met. Oh really, Oh that's cool. Yeah, now,
God knows what they're putting up with it? I know who is it?
The graffiti artist, mister Fungi must be upset that they took away as
graffiti. Yeah. I didn't know that was a thing until I saw it
pop up in a number of places and I was like, okay, yeah,
okay, am I who knew there was a mister Fungi out there.
He's a fun guy, Yes, fun guy. Do you remember the first
craft beer you had where you said, oh, yeah, yeah, this
is it, this is what I want to be doing. Oh that's a
great question, I know, and so I this may lead into other questions,
but I remember specifically trying a Sierra Nevada ipa and being like just spitting
it out, like being like, what is this? This tastes awful?
What is that fleavor? What is that taste? And that must have been
in like the early two thousands. I was a hacker shore wheat girl,
like there was I wouldn't drink anything. If I went to drink beer,
I would look on the menu to see what they had in a wheat and
that's what I would get, which is probably either yeah, Hawker Shore or
Blue Moon at that time. Really exactly, I remember drinking a lot of
like three one two Frae Goose Island. I don't consider that craft beer,
but that's probably like I drink a lot of that back in the day.
Like now, you know this is going to come out in January, So
now in twenty twenty four, do you have a go to beer style?
Sure? I probably lean more toward hazy's if if that, you know,
if I'm just gonna enjoy something, it's probably going to be in New England
or you know, just something that they call hazy. But in the winter
it's stouts and porters. I'm really kind of getting into laggers now. So
yeah, is that chained? It's like so much cause you mentioned you started
out with wheat. What other styles are you into? Yeah? So I
think my beer renaissance happened when I got together with my partner. We got
together about twelve years ago, and at that time she was drinking she andyes
like Line and Google Summer Shandy. That was a the beer that she drank.
Otherwise she was like a jack and coke person. And we really liked
cider. So we went to like Virtue Cider which before it was bought by
IMBV, and we went to Vandermill and Grand Rapids, and we went to
this little outfit in Burlington, Wisconsin called Apple True, and I think it
was it was doing that process of just drinking a lot of cider and being
able to kind of like, this tastes this way on my tongue, this
tastes I get, I'm getting flavors on the nose, I'm getting flavors on
the front of the tongue, in the back of the tongue, and just
developing a palette that way. So I think that that kind of paved the
way for me to just want to try everything. I when I go out
still, I will get a flight and generally i'll get the styles that I
think are going to be palatable for me. But I will try anything.
And you know, five months of anything is golden, you know. Looking
at your Instagram, I see you were at Point at one time. Did
you try the Cider Boys stuff there? So that was many years ago.
I have tried Cider Boys, but I'm not I don't I don't recall specifically
at Point okay, but at the time we were up there, I was
really into oh soo brewing haw Yeah. So so really we went to Point
to it, you know, to the end was ohso, and there is
and there is us and we have there's a picture on the Instagram and it's
us and we have like twenty four beers in front of us, because that's
like just we tried every single one of them. Yeah. Also, it
is a great spot, and I thought the food there was phenomenal. Yeah.
I mean we're going years back now and we went to point because we
were traveling to like northern Wisconsin. But like we make it a point now
to if we hear of a brewery then we will make our way there.
I feel like we've done a pretty good job throughout the Midwest. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm trying to remember what I had it Ohso, but it was
one of probably the best meals I've had at a brewery. And I wasn't
expecting much. You know, usually you go to a brewery and it's like,
all right, you're gonna have bar food or you know, what have
you. But I had something I think it was like a beer brace port
shop or something like that that was absolutely phenomenal. But yeah, Ohso is
a great spot. Yeah. Again, I haven't been there in many years,
and I don't know if we ate there. Well, next time you
go, you're gonna have to brand the board chat if I'm ever up that
way again. It's kind of out of the way. How he has the
beer scene changed in the time that you've been a part of it. It's
just the sheer volume has It's just it's intense. There's so many, there's
so many breweries everywhere you go. And recently I got my hands on the
latest Illinois Brewing magazine from the fall, and they do a lovely job of
like categorizing all the beer by location in the Chicago area, and they list
just every brewery and I was going through and I'm like, okay, I'm
gonna mark the ones that I haven't been to, and there are very few
in Chicago, but there are so many in the suburbs. And I think
that that expansion and in the burbs has really been the something that's really changed.
It's just like you can't even keep up. Back in the day,
you could go to your five breweries and be like, all right, I've
you know. And one of the things that I really used to love about
the past is that you just got to know those breweries so well, like
you knew all of their flagship beers. You knew all of the beers.
When you went there and you tried something new, you remembered it and you're
like, oh, yeah, let's go back, let's try that again.
And now it's like, unless a brewery is doing something is incredibly special,
it's hard to even keep track. I mean, that's just basically what I
do. That's my purpose in this game is to just keep brack of the
beer. But it's really hard. Like I'm going through here and I'm like,
hey, I haven't been to any of these breweries, and b I've
been to some of these breweries and I can't remember anything, you know,
off the top of my hat about them. Yeah, there's just so many.
It's like practically every neighborhood now has their own local brewery, and every
suburb like you mentioned. I know, last week I had to go to
Naperville and it's like, look at all these I'm looking at Google when I'm
there, like breweries near me. I'm like, yeah, so what.
And it used to be Solemn Oath and it was like all right, I'm
going to Solemn Oath. And now it's like you go to and and they're
just further and further away, like like Batavia. Not as a drive man,
I really like to go out there and drink all the beer, but
then you're trying to drive home exactly, you're kind of suck with like going
to maybe your top three. Do you feel breweries tap rooms are they more
welcoming now towards women and people of color from like the time you first started
going to breweries. Yeah, I think that I don't really notice in terms
of like, well, I'm a woman and therefore I'm different, but I
goice, I'm also queer. My partner is a woman, So I notice
that there's definitely more breweries that have like a flagsticker, like a Pride flagsticker,
like the progressive flagsticker in it. That really warms my heart. I
think that as a woman, I still I really like to talk about beer.
So if I'm at a brewery and I try to chat up the people
behind the bar, like they're super willing to like chat with me, I
just think it's because you know, we like beer. But as a member
of the LGBTQ community, like that has become much more like welcoming, I
think, and just like advertising their welcomeness, like I've never actually gone into
a brewery and been like Ooh, let's get out of here, but like
advertise it in a way that's like, yes, we want people of all
sorts to come in here, and it kind of sends a message to people
other people who might you know, want to go there and don't want it
kind of keeps off of the riff raff, I guess, keeps out the
bearded guys like me. No, no, not at all. I just
think that if a brewery is going to advertise that they are open to the
LGBTQ community, you know, like that just means that the beer world itself
is more accepting. Yeah, and I love going to breweries where there's a
variety of people that one don't all look like me, which is how it
was when I first started drinking. I remember, like I went with my
wife, who's Mexican American, and we went to Temperance I think it was
an Evanston and there was just this wide variety of people African American, Hispanic
gay community. I'm like, this is really cool, and that was like
one of the best times we had because it was such a wide variety of
people there just all you know, shooting the breeze with each other enjoying a
beer. That was one of the best times we've had. Yeah, I
do think that it is still dominated by white people or white appearing people.
So when breweries like Funky Town and Moore come into existence, like I think
and I know that, there's a lot of groups on Instagram. I can
think of like five off the top of my head that are just like we
want to showcase more women and minorities in brewing and things like that, and
I think that's great. I would really like to see even more representation,
especially for people of color. I don't think I don't think that is happening
quickly enough a few years. When you think of like who's opening breweries,
there's definitely a type. You can picture them and that stereotype is true.
Like it's just it just is so. Yeah. You mentioned earlier that you
were a flight person when you go to a brewery or attack room, and
I was there was one of the questions I was going to ask you going
through your feed, why the flight instead of just having the regular ber,
Are you ever afraid of like the first one you have in the flight or
the second you wish? Oh, I wish I had a full pint of
this, but now I have to commit to these others. No, I
I it's just something that my partner and I do. We usually even share
a flight so that if we want to get a pint later, we will,
all right, So the flight means that I can try everything. I
think that's kind of annoying for servers sometimes. But I do not understand you
can charge breweries. There's some like marketing thing like you can charge so much
for a flight, and people will do it. They want to try everything,
they're interested, and when breweries don't have have a flight option, it
just boggles my mind. Why would you not capitalize on that? I think
that And now there's even like fewer flight boards like oh you can get five
ons pores, but they're going to cost you four or five dollars to each.
I will do it. I will just you know, I will get
sixty dollars worth of beer just to try them all. Yeah, I think
that's for me where I'm not on team flight, I think I am.
I'm afraid the first one I have, which usually you go from light to
darker, lower alcohol to the higher alcohol, I'm gonna want this and all
of a sudden, and I've already two beers worth of flight, so I'm
not going to be able to enjoy it. Yeah, no, I not
at all. Like even at Hot Butcher that all their beers kind of taste
the same, right, you get like one double and you've tried all of
them. But I like to I like to pick out the differences. I
think that I have a established enough palette where I can say, like,
oh, I want this beer more than I want that beer, and sometimes
there's just a huge variety and I just end up having another flight so that
I can. I definitely do not need to drink a pint. It's almost
like too much beer sometimes. Like I really like so Old Irving is one
of my favorite breweries, someone that's really closest to my house, and they
offer like a five once and a ten ounce option for a lot of things,
and I like that. I think that that's a great idea, especially
if you can charge people and they're going to pay for it. Yeah.
I think the one place I don't know if they even still do it Short
Fuse when they opened up. I mean this was pre pandemic where a lot
of breweries had grouponds and all of that, But you'd go to short Fuse
for a flight, they would give you eight Yeah, I think they were
five ounce pores. And I'm like, I'm gonna be hammered if I finished
this, so I can't enjoy one of them. Does your wife like beer?
You need to get her into the uh in the into beer because that's
like the I know that if I go and have a beer with my partner
that we'll be able to drink whatever we put. Whatever is put in front
of us, and we don't have her waist beer, we'll drink it no
matter what. Yeah, she's more. She doesn't like hoppy beers. She'll
like like old school laggers or like a goza, but typical like ip eight
beers or stouts. No, she wants nothing to do with it right right.
We got to develop her palate so that you have a beer drinking partner
there. I know she's home in San Diego right now. It's like,
can you bring me back something? And you know she's not even stopping anywhere.
Oh wow, Yeah, San Diego's got a lot. Yeah, I
mean you mentioned older ving. Do you have a favorite tap room in the
area, and if so, why does that one stand out to you.
My favorite tap room in the area is eliminated Brewer Brewworks Northwest Highway. There.
First of all, their beers are super solid. They're really good.
I really enjoy a smoothie sour and not gonna lie. And they do a
fantastic they it's not even a beer, they do a fantastic version of a
smoothie seltzer and so I it's just it feels like when you go there,
you're walking into bizarro world. It's like another universe, and it's it's so
strange. There's always like some random like Gore erotica movie playing on the TV.
It's very very like. And they're bartender. The one who has been
the most stalwart bartender in terms of when I go there is this man named
Rob and he's great. And the beer, the ambiance, the gore,
it's all all, you know it, It's like a picture of craziness.
And I think that the people who go there are the beer drinkers themselves are
also just really into the whole thing. Okay, and you can have dogs
even better. I've never been to their tamproom. I had there. I
picked it up some of their stuff at Bottles and canned. Are they in
you said Northwest Satmary? Are they in park Ridge? No, They're in
Chicago. It's okay, way way out Addison Park, all right, and
it's come a long way. It used to be kind of just dark and
like dingy and now and they're also really super open and welcoming. There's like
a Pride flag and I don't know. I think that it's maybe not for
everybody, but I've never not loved every time I go there. Yeah,
I'm gonna have to. One of my doctors for my back is in park
Bridge on Northwest Highway, so I'm going to just have to take Northwest Highway
all the way and check that out next time I go for an appointment.
Yeah, they're they're. One of their flagships is a logger called Trust And
even if you're not interested in anything else, Trust will always always, you
know, be there and will be something that you you'll enjoy drinking cool.
What tamp room, in your opinion has the best food. I have been
to many tap rooms. I really like Old Irving. I think that they
have really good food. More Brewing out in Phillip Park has really nice food.
I'm trying to think. I you know even if I'm doing a brewery
crawl, which is mymo I don't know. I haven't there's no stand out
to me food like you were talking about oh so like I if I ate
there, I don't remember it. So now I like Old Irving a lot.
Like they're cheese curds. I think every time I go, Yeah,
I have to get in order where the cheese curds are. They also have
this really delicious key lime pie. Okay, it's very tart, which I
really enjoy. You mentioned ciders earlier. Are there any other types of alcoholic
bever? Does you enjoy all? I mean, I don't have a I
like all types of like liquor and liqueurs and wines. I just I don't
have a palette for those types of things. So like I can drink a
crappy wine and be like this is delightful, or I can, you know,
So, I don't know. I think that I prefer beer, but
sometimes I really want a cocktail and I'll drink. I'll drink whatever is put
in front of me. I see you have a can of something there.
What are you drinking now? So when we first were talking about you know
this and having our the timing of our recording year, I was like,
well, do I really want a beer that early? I could? You
know, I get it. I'm on vacation too. I can have a
beer, but I'm not. I'm drinking the Revolution Brewing Super zero. It's
a starting hop water, so it's it tastes like beer. Yeah, but
I'm not getting drunk, and I'm also getting my my you can hear my
voice. I've been having some laryngeal issues and this is keeping me hydrated.
So when I like the hop waters a lot, I know, uh locally,
Noon Whistle has a really good one as well. I will have to
check that out. I tried the hop Water brand, yeah, and I
don't like that. I felt that I really liked just playing Seltzer water,
and I thought that the hop Water brand tasted just like Seltzer water. Why
yeah, I mean for the price with that, Like I didn't get as
much hops. It was just hey, drinking a Lacroix. I'll just spend
the money on the Lacroix and say five bucks a twelve back up. Yeah,
So this is like, this is super hoppy. It's not like overly
bitter or anything, but it's it's good. I highly recommend it. I'm
gonna put un Whistle on my list because I would like to try that.
Yeah. I think they're even coming out with a few varieties now, but
they just had one. It was a light blue can, beautiful artwork,
big hop on it, sixteen ounce cans. But like of all the ones
that I had, I would have to say that one was my favorite.
Yeah, okay, big blue can, got it. Yeah. On one
of your posts, you had a thing at Omega Yeast that that's a really
cool place. What can you tell people about that experience? Well, in
Chicago there is a long running women's spear drinking club called Barley's Angels, and
I had never It's one of those things that I've learned about pre pandemic,
and then throughout the pandemic, I just obviously wasn't going anywhere, and then
I saw a bunch of activities that they were doing that I really wanted to
do and just didn't, and I was like, well, how can I
pass up? It's like I go to these breweries anyway, so you know,
do I I there's that kind of like do I want to meet this
like big group of women go to a brewery? Like maybe drink too much,
maybe have a little too much fun and then end up making a fool
of myself. No, but at Omega, I was like, I can't
pass this opportunity up right, how do you? It's super close to my
house and it's also just like I don't know when I will have access like
this. So I did meet up with those ladies and it was fantastic.
They had basically we had a tour and we got to see I was like
very surprised. We were like walking around wild Yeast. We were we were
not masked, we were just like walking, We're on the facility. We
saw all of their like labs where they're actually creating yeast and different things,
and we saw all of their production line, and then we saw like a
refrigerator where there they are like fermenting yeasts and like just storing them for different
breweries around. And I thought it was super interesting because basically the people who
started it were these two lawyers who were like, how can we a be
lawyers still but make money in beer? And we can't open a tap room
because there's no money in that. So they decided to start this yeast company,
and you know that's some privilege right there. Yeah. I mean I
went there and I did the tour a couple of years ago because I talked
to one of the owners and that was like such a cool time. I'm
like the geek in me was like flipping out. I'm like, oh,
this is so cool, right. I am like not interested in a brewery
tour, like I've been there, you know, Like I remember doing this
Sprecker Brewery tour in Milwaukee like twenty years ago, and it was awesome,
and I was like, for you learn and for the first time about like
hops and like Barnie and whatever or malt, and I'm just over brewery tours.
There's there's not much to it for me. But the yeast tour was
really cool. And then the ladies also brought a number of Octoberfest beers that
that we tried. You know, normally they're at a brewery, but they
applied us with Octoberfest and fast beers and it was super fun. I definitely
am looking forward to meeting up with those ladies again in the future. On
your bio, you call yourself an enthusiast or a beer enthusiast, which I
consider myself. It was weird a couple of weeks ago, I was talking
with a friend of mine about the same thing, and what, in your
opinion is a difference between an enthusiast and an influencer. Well, I was
just speak from my experience, because I don't have any other experience but my
Instagram. I started it because I took a lot of photos of beer's it
just in my past, and I was like, you know what, I'm
just going to start an Instagram where I'm going to have this archive and I'm
going to revisit this archive. And then because I met my partner in twenty
twelve, and I think that was when like the year things changed for me.
So I decided to just post and every three days I would post a
from the archive. And by the time I got done with my archive,
I had over three thousand followers, and I was like, well, this
is fun and I want to keep doing this. And so I kind of
shifted my mindset from somebody who just loved beer was a beer enthusiast to the
possibility of being more of an influencer. And honestly, I'm kind of straddling
that line right now. I spend so much time on my Instagram and that
is when it grew, and right now it is like kind of just stagnant
because I don't spend the time. If you want to be an influencer,
if you want the followers, then you need to spend all of your time,
all of your time doing it, and I just I don't have the
time. I kind of stopped having the interests a little bit. But I've
also noticed that because I'm not posting every three days, like I don't have
a regularity. When I don't do it, I miss it. So I
like to create content. I like to think about it. I see so
many people doing so many like really interesting things. So I don't consider myself
an influencer, but I do like to reap the rewards of having people notice
that, like I'm there. A number of companies have reached out to me
and been like, will you showcase our beer? Will you drink our beer
and showcase our beer? Will you use our product and showcase our product?
And yes, absolutely, and I want to. I think that that is
what makes it a community. So enthusiasm can lead to influencer. But if
you want to be an influencer, it has to be like your full time
job. There's really just no in between, and I am in between,
so I know, yeah, like there's just no way I could commit the
time to do that. And I don't even know if I could, Like
right now, I'm so off with my back. I have all the time
in the world. It's like, I don't know if I want to to
be honest with you right right And I you know, I think you have
this niche with the podcasting, and I think that that's super fun. I
didn't expect any anything, And I think that you you have to do it
for the love of beer and the love of talking to people and meeting people
and not have any expectations. Like I think that if I were in your
shoes, I would be more disappointed that I didn't have more followers because you
put so much effort into it. Anyway, So I actually don't know how
many followers you have, but if I didn't, if I did not that
many, if I put a lot of effort into it, I would expect
to reap the rewards, and I have, you know, I have aspirations.
We'll see. I would love to get to a point where, uh,
you know, people send me things all the time. Yeah, but
I'm not going to put all. I'm not going to put the time into
it. I do have a full time job and a full time life,
and I I'll have to send you a glass or something. Oh yeah,
for sure, absolutely. I mean I pay for that stuff too, I
would. So yes, if anybody's listening to this and you want me to
promote you, I absolutely will, and I will pay for it too.
I will. Yeah, I want to do that. Like now that I
have like a bit of a following, then if people are going to see
your product, like, I want to be able to help people that way.
I think it's Oh yeah, before I let you go, do you
have a of all your favorite breweries in the Chicago Land area. I mean
we'll go suburbs as well. What would be in your mixed pack, your
Chicago Land mixed back. Well, you kind of gave me this question before
we started, So I actually design mixed packs. I designed a Chicago mixed
pack, and I designed a I designed a suburban mixed pack. The Chicago
mixed pack is more, you know, is a little bit more, has
a little bit more ooth. So this is what I would include. I
would include illuminated Trust lagger, I would include old Irving Breweries Beezer, which
is a hazy IPA. I also really really like their Life's Blood, which
is a dark lagger, and that would add if I swap out the Life's
Blood for the Beezer, that would add a little bit more diversity versatility to
it. I would put in Maplewood's Fat Pug, which is an ohmeal stout.
Depending on if we consider solemn Olf well, I guess we would put
in solemn Olfs Still Life, Snaggletooth Bandana which is an IPA, Revolutions Eugene
Porter or sun Crusher, which is a happy wheat, Pipeworks Pipe Works Ninja
Versus Unicorns, which is a double IPA off Colors Dinosaurs which is an Imperial
spot, and marsh Mars Breweries over Hays, which is a New England I
pa, okay, and maybe if we're you know, being saucy, we
could add Blush, which is a site by Airis. Yes, Paul,
Yeah, Airis puts out. I love the Eiris and right b they make
some great you know locally. I'm a big fan of both of theirs.
Yes, and I haven't been to Second City Meady. I'm not like a
huge meat fan, but I think that if I really consider myself a true
Chicago brewery and enthusiast, I gotta get to every single brewery in the In
this Illinois Brewing magazine there are fifty six a list of fifty six Chicago breweries.
I haven't been to seven of them, so I'm pretty pretty well traveled
around the in the city proper. And then if I were doing a suburban
mixed pack, I would absolutely include more. Yeah, bring microphone, Alter,
Noon Whistle, Phase three. If you haven't been to the new Phase
three in Elmhurst, it's it's a go, like you have to get there.
Sketchbook or not a which is in Niles, and Energy City, which
is known for their smoothie sours and it's just one of my faves. So
I did not have any styles that I picked for the suburban mixed pack,
but those are the breweries I would include. Yeah, I haven't had a
lot of Energy City, but the couple that I've had I really like,
so I want to do like more research on them. And also I think
the second City Meter he was really good. I talked to the owner over
the summer and like I sat there and like talked to him that's a really
cool little spot that's not far from you. The meads I thought were really
good, so I bought a bottle to take home. This was I think
in the summertime, so they had one. It was like a Coconuty thing
going on that was like a tropical that was really good. But yeah,
definitely I would hit you know, Second City Metery, but yeah, I
think they're only open Thursday through Sunday. Yeah, a lot of breweries have
weird hours. Like we happen to get to Junior for Menta down in the
South Loop and it was like, oh, we're here in the one hour
that they're open every week. Yeah. I think I've tried Second City Metery
at a couple of roof ESTs that I've been to, Yeah, but I
haven't actually been to their location. Yeah. That was the same with me.
I think at Friday Night flight I had their stuff. I'm like,
oh, wow, these are really good and I just happen to dry down
past them all the time on Elston and I love their logo, so I'm
like, oh, I need to reach out and see if I could talk
to these people. But yeah, really good stuff there. Okay, awesome,
Yeah, I will I will give it a try. There are there
are a few more. They're all and that that I haven't been to.
They're all in that Broadway corridor like dry Hop. Yeah, I don't even
know. There's some there's some other ones corridor provisions or I don't know.
And then the ones downtown, I haven't been there, and I have not
been to the new there's that one that opened in that theater. Oh yeah
talking about Yeah, that one looks really good too. I have not been.
Yeah, I'm really excited to see some of these actually, but you
know, how often do you go downtown and who wants to spend time in
that Broadway corridors? Like yeah, it's parkings that It's been a couple of
years since I've been to Dry Up, And I know when they started,
and this was a long time ago, they would have a deal where you
could get a full growler for six bucks on Saturdays only. So I had
to fight the Broadway traffic, you know, pay a ton of money to
park just to save a couple bucks on a growler. But I did it.
Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds fun. There's just a few
that I just you know, never have access to. So yeah, well
Karen, I appreciate so much you coming on. Nice to meet you via
a screen instead of Instagram. Can you tell people where they could find you?
Yeah, so I physically am at a Chicago brewery. You can find
me there, probably illuminated and on the internet. I'm at All the Beer
Underscore more Beer on Instagram. That is also my handle for untapped, and
that is also my email Karen at Allthebeermorebeer dot com know underscore. Yeah,
thank you so much, Dave. This has been so much fun. Yeah
awesome. I will see you down the road, and I'll include the links
in the show notes, So if you're driving listening to this, just hit
the show notes and then you can find out where to reach Karen. Karen,
thanks you again. I will talk to you down the road, all
right, take care, Thanks so much. All right. I want to
thank again Karen Sheen for coming on and talking about herself. That was a
lot of fun. Thank you again, Karen. The beer that I'm going
to have now, the beer that's in front of me, I wanted to
have one that we talked about on the show, and we recorded this on
the twenty seventh of December. So as I'm according to this. It's still
wet December, so I'm having Ninja Versus Unicorn. This is a double ipa
from Pipeworks. This checks in at eight percent. It's been around a while.
I don't know, maybe nine years, eight years, ten yures,
somewhere around there. It's been that it's no Johnny Come lately. Ninja Versus
Unicorn has been around for a while. It's a classic double ipa, so
let's bust open the Ninja versus Unicorn. Really nice color. It's not a
hazy so it's a nice clear color. Good amber. The foam is good.
You get a good couple of fingers of foam. Smells really good.
I don't think I've had this one in a year or so. It's been
a while, so now it smells fantastic. Yeah, that's good. Get
the hops are there, almost getting some like melon with the hops, it's
balanced with the sweetness of the malt. I think this is really good.
I'm a big fan of this, and I'll have to come February drink some
more of these, because it's been a while. Trying to look on a
candacy. When this was canned by and this is pretty fresh. So this
was cannoned on the eleventh of December. I picked it up at my grocery
store, Mariano's, after I talked to Karen. It's a really good beer.
So if you're in the Chicago Land area, check out Pipeworks. If
you go to their website, it's pretty sparse, but they do distribute to
other states besides Illinois, so you could check that out and see if it's
available near you. They had maybe ten fifteen different states that you could pick
up Pipeworks at, So this is probably their most popular one, the one
that I see most of. So if you're around you haven't had Ninja Versus
Unicorn in a while, by all means, throw this one in the cart.
I think it's really good. Oh it's been a while, but here
is your jag off of the week. A woman in Tampa, Florida.
She's pursuing a class action lawsuit against the Hershey Company. She's saying they were
misleading in the packaging of the rece's peanut butter pumpkins. Now. The woman's
name is Cynthia Kelly. She says she bought a pack for four dollars and
forty nine cents at Aldie, but she was upset that the actual product did
not resemble the image on the packaging. Now, I guess the packaging had
like the eyes, nose, and mouth on a jackal lantern, but when
she opened up the package, it was just a regular peanut butter cup shaped
like a pumpkin. She was very upset, saying that this is materially misleading
and claiming that numerous consumers were tricked hats. There were redded complaints that reces
lied to me and it's just absurd. But here's the best part. She
says she wouldn't have purchased the pumpkins if she knew they did not have the
detailed carvings of the mouth and eyes that was on the label. Eh,
she's suing for five million dollars over a four dollars and forty nine cent pack
of peanut buttered pumpkins. One you went to fucking Aldy. Aldy not only
will give you your money back, they'll also replace the product. So,
Cynthia Cindy Tutz, listen, you could have had two packages of these for
free, but now you're suing for five million dollars because the pumpkins didn't have
the Cynthia Kelly, you're a jag Off. All right, that's going to
wrap things up for this episode of Beer in Front. I thank you very
much for listening. I want to thank Karen Sheen from All the Beer More
Beer again for coming on to talk this week. Have a great week everyone,
I will see you next week. And remember, sometimes the beer in
front of you is the best one yet