Hop Cast

Hopefully you’re not drinking that green beer this St. Patrick’s Day because there are a lot better options to celebrate with. At the Hop Cast we love to celebrate with a great Irish Red Ale like Conway’s Irish Ale, a Smithwick’s or even Three Floyds Brian Boru. Brian Boru is an old favorite over here at the Hop Cast and our Camera Girl / Editor, Maeve can’t get enough of it.

Before opening this up to taste, you have to take a look at the bad ass label. Mr Brian Boru himself in his celtic gear, drinking beer out of a giant horn. The Brian Boru pours a dark copper with ruby highlights. A slight small head that leaves a good amount of lacing in the glass. The sweet delicious aroma of hops begins to pour out of the glass. This is a Three Floyds beer so you’d expect a heavy dose of hops. As it starts to warm up more malts begin to come out. The taste not surprisingly is heavily hopped but it’s very well balanced too. Caramel with a citrus sweetness up front and a touch of bitterness in the finish. The malt comes through in the aftertaste to bring it all together. If you’re looking for more of a toasted Irish Red this might not be what you’re looking for. But hop heads will have no trouble putting away maybe ten of these because Brian Boru is one drinkable beast.

Here are Ken & Brad’s ten favorite midwest craft breweries and the towns they are in.

1. Three Floyds – Munster, Indiana
Three Floyds is located just 30 minutes outside of Chicago in Muster, Indiana. These guys love the big beers. Three Floyds knows how to really bring the hops in their beers though they may be most famous for their Russian Imperial Stout, Dark Lord that tops many lists as one of the best beers in the world. Dark Lord bottles are sold only on ‘Dark Lord Day,’ the last Saturday in April where you are sure to find Brad and Ken and several thousand other fellow beer lovers in line and having a good time. Besides being an excellent brewery, they also have a brew pub that is cranking out some seriously tasty food. Don’t think you can come to Chicago and not make a trip out to see these guys

Episodes Featuring Three Floyds – Episode 3, Episode 12, Episode 23, Episode 39, Episode 66, Episode 74, Episode 75

2. Bell’s – Kallamazoo, Michigan
Bell’s was the first Michigan brewery to serve beer by the glass to the public. With over 20 years of brewing, Larry Bell has built a nationwide reputation with Bell’s Brewery. They played and are still playing a significant role in changing the craft beer landscape of the nation. They continue to produce a large variety of excellent beer and that’s why they are one out our favorites.

Episodes Featuring Bell’s – Episode 3, Episode 37, Episode 65, Episode 71

3. Founders Brewery – Grand Rapids, Michigan
Founders Brewing is talked about constantly in the craft beer community for so many great beers and they just keep coming out with more. More flavor, bigger body, huge aromatics and increased complexity is the goal of Founders and they bring it to you. They continue to push the envelope and that’s what makes them great. Both Ken and Brad are excited to see what they have coming out in the years to come.

4. Boulevard Brewing – Kansas City, Missouri
Boulevard Brewing is one of the few breweries that Ken and Brad haven’t visited in the midwest. They are a fairly large brewery and also have a rather large distribution area but unfortunately you can’t find their beers in Chicago. Outside of the quality year-round brews they offer, its what they’ve been doing with their Smokestack Series releases that has really made us drink up and take notice.

Episodes Featuring Boulevard Brewing – Episode 15, Episode 56

5. New Glarus Brewing Company – New Glarus, Wisconsin
Just on the outskirts of the small “Swisstown” New Glarus, Wisconsin is where you will find the New Glarus Brewing Company. They are perhaps the biggest of the Wisconsin craft breweries and it’s hard to find a bar in Wisconsin that doesn’t have New Glarus beer on tap. They don’t distribute outside of Wisconsin so if you live outside of the state then a road trip is in order! Luckily Ken drives to Wisconsin often enough and brings back beers to share with fellow beer lovers in Chicagoland. As well as excellent year-round offerings, what these guys are doing with fruit is incredible! It will make the ladies and the gents in your life extra happy. Just.. wow!

Episode Featuring New Glarus Brewing Company – Episode 56

6. Jolly Pumpkin - Dexter, Michigan
Jolly Pumpkin has a little something different going on there and their beers are not for everyone. Focusing on traditional rustic country style beers they use open fermentation, oak barrel aging, and bottle conditioning. Many of you know that Brad isn’t a huge fan of the sour beers but Jolly Pumpkin is slowly helping him to learn to appreciate that style and the Hop Cast really respects the quality product that Jolly Pumpkin creates.

Episodes Featuring Jolly Pumpkin – Episode 4, Episode 57, Episode 70

7. Surly Brewing – Brooklyn Center, Minnesota
If you’re visiting Minnesota and love beer it’s likely you have heard of what Surly Brewing is producing. You’ll find most of their beers in 16 oz cans at local liquor stores throughout the Twin Cities and beyond. If you are willing to brave the weather in Minnesota in October and stand in line early then you get a rare, magnificent taste of their much lauded once a year release, Russian Imperial Stout; they call Darkness.

Episodes Featuring Surly Brewing - Episode 20, Episode 62, Episode 69

8. Goose Island – Chicago, Illinois
Goose Island and Chicago sort of go hand and hand. They are widely distributed throughout the majority of states and many people know about their bottled beers including the much loved and praised, Bourbon County Stout. But a trip to Chicago wouldn’t be complete without seeing what else Goose Island has to offer. At the Goose Island Clybourn brewpub you’ll find about 10 beers that are not in bottles and exclusively only available there. They are constantly rotating in new offerings so make sure you stop on by and see what they have on tap.

Episodes Featuring Goose Island – Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 47, Episode 65, Episode 77

9. Two Brothers – Warrenville, Illinois
Head directly west of Chicago to Warrenville and check out Two Brothers and their brew pub. Since Warrenville is Brad’s birthplace, Two Brothers holds a special spot in his heart. Two Brothers beers are solid and although with the exception of Hop Juice, many of their beers may not completely blow away the craft beer lover. They are go-to beers; the kind of beers that you can also give to your average beer friends (if you have any) and they are still going to enjoy them. When you need a good, solid beer that isn’t too experimental then a Two Brothers is a dependable choice.

Episode Featuring Two Brothers – Episode 11

10. Kuhnhenn – Warren, Michigan
Kuhnhenn Brewing Company is your typical hardware store turned microbrewery story… ok there’s nothing typical about Kuhnhenn. Run by brothers Bret and Eric Kuhnhenn in the small town of Warren, Michigan these brothers have the craft beer community talking. You can find their beers in 12 oz and 22 oz bottles. And if you see them, pick them up because they are pretty amazing. A couple favorites are the Simcoe Silly, Creme Brulee Java Stout & the Solar Eclipse.

Honorable Mention
With so many great top notch breweries in the midwest it was hard to just pick 10. There were a few that almost made the list and we just wanted to give them props for what they are doing.
Half Acre – Chicago, IL
Metropolitan Brewing – Chicago, IL
Dark Horse Brewing – Marshall, Michigan
Futhermoore Beer – Spring Green, Wisconsin

For episode 75 of the Hop Cast, Ken Hunnemeder and Brad Chmielewski are at Three Floyds once again but this time with Lincoln Anderson the Minister of Propaganda for Three Floyds. Lincoln shares a little background about Three Floyds and what they have going on. He also shares some info about the much anticipated 2010 Dark Lord Day. What came as a surprise to Ken and Brad was the length of time before the event that they brew Dark Lord. If you are in the area, make sure you make it out to Munster, Indiana to check out what Three Floyds and Three Floyds Pub has to offer.

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For the first episode of 2010, Brad Chmielewski and Ken Hunnemeder venture out to one of their favorite midwest breweries; Three Floyds. The two of them sample a couple Three Floyds beers that you have to make it to the brew pub to try. The first beer they try is the collaboration beer with Jonathan Cutler at Piece Chicago and Three Floyds called Ham On Rye. This rye beer has some amazing flavors and comes in with an ABV of 6.0%. Brad and Ken also have a glass of one of Three Floyds newest American Barleywine, Stay in School. The use of coconut in this beer rocks and makes it a unique, interesting and mighty tasty barleywine. With an ABV of 10.0 % you gotta watch out, cause this is a big beer.

Stay tuned more Three Floyds videos soon.

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Brad Chmielewski and Ken Hunnemeder are at Small Bar on Division Street in Chicago for a beer pairing dinner featuring beers from Three Floyds. In episode 66 of the Hop Cast Brad and Ken go behind the scenes to see what it takes to prepare a dinner that has a beer to go with each course. Stephen Freshnock joins Ken in the kitchen to talk with Chef Todd Davies about his food plans and thoughts. Brad and Ken also have a chance to talk with Phil McFarland, who helped put the dinner together. Phil talks about future dinners coming up and why beer and food make a perfect combination. If you were able to make it to the dinner, we are sure you didn’t go away unsatisfied. Each course of food was amazing and worked wonderful together with the beer. The Hop Cast highly recommends checking out a beer pairing dinner if you see one coming up near you. Keep an eye out for what Small Bar has coming out.

Download the Podcast (214.5 MB).

We hate to say it but fall is coming whether you are ready for it or not. With changing seasons comes new beers, so this month Ken and Brad decided to pick a beer to help usher in the coming cold weather. The Hop Cast September beer of the month is the Moloko Milk Stout from Three Floyds. If you watch the Hop Cast often you know that Brad and Ken are huge Three Floyds fans so its really no surprise for them to pick one of Three Floyds beers as a beer of the month. The Moloko recently just started appearing on the shelves again. It is usually available for three to four months in the fall to early winter. When you pour out the Moloko it is pitch black with a small one finger chocolaty brown head. Coffee and sweet chocolate notes begin to erupt from the glass. In addition there are some nice overtones of vanilla and caramel adding nice depth. Don’t be scared if this beer is a little too sweet at first. The sweet malts and sugar hit you right off. But immediately that Inteligencia coffee kicks in and washes out the heavy sweet taste. The bitter tasting coffee is combined with a dash of hops to help balance the entire beer out. For a 7% ABV this beer isn’t too heavy but it does leave your mouth feeling silky and creamy after every sweet sip. If you’re lucky enough to pick up a bottle while it is available, you can easily enjoy it alone or share it with friends. Another great beer from Three Floyds!

With the 2009 Dark Lord Day still on their minds, Brad Chmielewski and Ken Hunnemeder decided to open up a bottle of the Three Floyds Dark Lord. They wanted to make this episode even better so Brad pulled out a 2008 Three Floyds Dark Lord from his cellar. The two of them have the honor to sample both a 2008 and a 2009 Three Floyds Dark Lord. They take a look at what makes both beers unique and how the 2008 holds up to age. They also share with everyone the events that took place at the 2009 Three Floyds Dark Lord Day.

Download the Podcast (179.8 MB).

#gents or The Fellowship of Gentlemanly Gentlemen is a weekly, exclusive gathering of some of the world’s finest. Sampling exceptional craft beers, cigars and spirits; discussing politics, design and entrepreneurial affairs; the Fellowship aims to capture the true essence of living as a gentlemanly gentlemen. In a nutshell its a small group that gets together and share beers. It started in late February 2009 at Bridges Media Group, as a small after work get together but has quickly become much more. Each week there is a theme and everyone brings beers that fit into that theme. The beers are either ones that were picked up at the store that day or maybe that have been aging at home for years. Most weeks the group consists of Brian McCauley, Mike Kislovsky, Nick Campbell, Stephen Freshnock and myself. More recently the group is growing and more people have attended, including: Ken Hunnemeder, Timothy O’Connell and Brad Stark.

Most of the #gents are on twitter, so in order to sort of catalog and take notes on the beers that are being sample and enjoyed they put #gents into their twitter updates. This #gents code also allows for all the messages to be seen on The Fellowship of Gentlemanly Gentlemen’s website. These weekly gatherings make it a wonderful opportunity to experience a great selection of craft beers in a smaller non event setting.

Tuesday, May 6th marked the latest meeting of the gents with the theme, “Best Of Your Cellar“. Really it was more of a bring the best you have, it could include rare, aged, or even just a favorite. I brought with me a Three Floyds 2009 Dark Lord, a Pliny The Elder from Russian River and a Crack’d Wheat from New Glarus. Tyler a friend of Brian’s brought a Three Floyds 2008 Dark Lord, which was fabulous. I feel honored to have gotten to sample the 2008 Dark Lord twice in one week… the first being episode 39 of the Hop Cast. Brian shared a 60th Anniversary Special Edition Abt 12 that he had been aging for over a year. Stephen usually brings one of his home brews and he didn’t disappoint this weekend. He brought one of the few remaining bottles of his Rye. Stephen also brought a Fred which is from one of my favorite breweries Hair Of The Dog. Ken and I sampled the Fred and an Adam in a previous special. Finally from Stephen was the Ballast Point Victory At Sea. Looking back, I can’t believe we had all of that and it was only about half of what we drank that night, the list seems to just go on and on. Tim brought the Rocky’s Revenge Bourbon Brown from Tyranena Brewing, which I was rather impressed by. Brad Stark being new to the craft beer world picked up a Lost Abbey Inferno, which was reviewed on episode 22 of the Hop Cast.

We started off with the two Three Floyds Dark Lords so we could enjoy them before the alcohol took hold. From there we tried to work backwards but ended up jumping around. Beside the Dark Lord, stand outs included the aged Abt 12 and Hair Of The Dog Fred. The Victory At Sea was good, but had a bit too much chocolate for my liking.

Overall it was a fantastic night with some hard to find beers. If anyone in Chicago is looking to join us, you are more then welcome. Either contact me here, leave a message on The Fellowship Of Gentlemanly Gentlemen website or get a hold of any of us on twitter.

This years Three Floyds Dark Lord day was much better then last year. I’m not just saying that because Ken & I ended up leaving with some bottles of Dark Lord this year. The line to buy Dark Lord moved so much quicker. We ended up getting there at about 12:00, Don and Mitchell Radlund had gotten there before us and already had a place in line. Ken and I dropped off the beer we brought to trade and share and ran off to get a sample of the Dark Lord 09. The golden ticket allowed a free Dark Lord sample of the 09 version. The line for this took about 30 minutes to make it through and that was around 12:30 pm. At that time they hadn’t tapped any of the guest beers so the choices were Dark Lord or the standard Three Floyds line. So I could understand why everyone was in that line. Once we finally had our Dark Lord we got back in the main line to share the samples. The beer was great! Much more drinkable and more balanced then last years. While drinking the sample we traded a few beers and bought some tamales from a lady selling them. If you didn’t get tamales from this lady you should feel lucky, some of the worst I have ever had. But it was food and I didn’t want to wait in the food line until after I had bottles of Dark Lord in my hands. The line was moving pretty quickly. Maeve and Mitchell said they would hold our spot in line while Ken, Don and myself went to buy some Popskull. Having a separate place to buy the other beers was a great idea. There was no line for this so it was very easy to walk up and get a few other beers you wanted to pick up that day. At this point our spot in line was only about 100 people away from the Dark Lord bottles… I quickly ran back to the car to drop off some of our stuff and then as soon as I got back they were walking in to buy Dark Lord. All of us got out Golden Ticket limit of four bottles. They had a lot more people taking cash and giving out beer this year which I think was helping the line move faster. Dark Lord was now in hand and it was time to drop it off at the car and enjoy some more of the festival.

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The beer continued to flow all day. Along with the Dark Lord 09 sample we were able to sample the oak-aged and Vanilla Bean 2009 Dark Lord. These were on tap at the same place as the guest beers. The guest beer area was in a terrible location and was just a crowed mess. Some of the guest beers we were able to try were the Vintage Harvest Ale, Canadian Breakfast Stout and Oak-Aged with cherries Behemoth. I didn’t get to try any of the Stone beers which was a bummer, but there was so much other stuff I don’t think I missed it. One of the worst lines we stood in was the line to get into the brewpub but the payoff was huge. Inside the Three Floyds brewpub they had the 2008 Dark Lord and the Vanilla Bean and oak-aged version of that. Unfortunately the Vanilla Bean 2008 was gone by the time we got in. But the oak-aged 2008 was fabulous. They also had a ton of other beers inside to try… I could see why this line was so long and moved so slow. Around 4:00 / 5:00 pm they started selling more Golden Tickets to buy more Dark Lord. I still had some cash so figured I would grab another four to trade and share with people. In the end I walked away with a good amount of Dark Lord. Very happy with this years event. Three Floyds stepped it up big time after the disappointment of last year.

Something Three FloydsThree Floyds should think about is moving the food tent and line away from the brew pub line. All the lines got very confusing at points, something to separate things might of helped. Next year I might hang out and drink and then just grab my beer before I leave. No real need to wait in the line when you have a golden ticket.

Saturday March 7th marked the annual Night of the Living Ales festival at the Goose Island Wrigleyville location in conjunction with the Chicago Beer Society .  The festival involves cask/real ales from many local breweries as well as others from around the country.  This is one of my favorite events of the year.  There were quite a few standouts this year including last years’ winner, Surly Tea-Bagged Furious.

Much hype surrounded the premier of Popskull , a collaboration between Three Floyds and Dogfish Head.  This brown ale was aged on the famous Palo Santo Wood and will also be available at Dark Lord Day according to rumors.  Goose Island also had quite a showing with their Madam Rose(Kriek), Bourbon Sherry Beer, and Saison Le Chance. 

There were some great IPA’s tapped that night and the Hop Cast wouldn’t have it any other way!  Rock Bottom Chicago impressed with their Neil Diamond IPA and Flossmoor Station’s Ore Gone IPA was wonderful as well.

Rock Bottom Orland Park brought their experimental ShamRock Stout.  Looking at the name, I was hoping it was a take on the delicious Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s.  They didn’t disappoint!!  This mint stout was delicious and would probably make a damn fine beer float.

Overall this was a fantastic event, especially since this was the first year that they split into two sessions.  I would certainly say this was a success because the crowd was much more maneuverable than years past.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to experience so many great craft beers.  Don’t miss it next year!!