The perfect soundtrack to setting your 2017 calendars ablaze over your electric stove, this episode features five beers that are, like, sooooo 2017. We kiss off this s***ty year with a combination of hazy IPAs and sweet/pastry stouts before the World Premiere of our brand new parody song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire (2017 Beer Edition)”. Other topics include Trader Joe’s mysterious Island calligraphy, desecration of a sacred Ullgump, “Pimp My Vape Rig”, and how CBS is Independence Day.  Van Damme Milkshake!

Anchor Brewing/Trader Joe’s - Joe Joe’s Cookie Stout  (Milk Stout)

Trinity Brewing - Hype Forager (East Coast Super Juicy Turbid IPA)

Sierra Nevada Brewing - Hazy Little Thing IPA

Marz Community Brewing - Pastry Boy (Double Milk Stout w/ graham crackers, lactose, cinnamon, and vanilla)

Founders Brewing - Canadian Breakfast Stout (2017) (Imperial coffee stout with chocolate aged in maple syrup bourbon barrels)

A shining star led many wise men and women to our place of recording, with each bearing wondrous homages of beer as we give audio birth to this blessed baby podcast. Actually, it’s just our holiday party with a bunch of great guests and stellar beer. Between handfuls of snacks, we manage to record ourselves drinking five beers (with so, so many more off-mic) and persuade a few brewers and loyal listeners to join in the fun. It’s a grab bag of topics featuring waffles with Santana, international brewpubs, exquisite hop rubbings, the new Maplewood Lounge, Craig’s lubricant secret, dank Chicago food, Three Penis Wine, and the Rapsittie Street Kids. Happy holidays to everyone listening!

Segment #1: Jon Naghski (Goose Island Brewhouse) and listener Ross O’Neill drink Goose Island Clybourn’s Night Fights, a “ghost whale” version of their barrel-aged Impervious Stout, with raspberries added.

Segment #2: Jude La Rose (Hop Butcher for the World) and listener Neal taste two collaborations with Colorado’s WeldWerks Brewing: Mikerphone’s Juicy Hits, a double IPA with pink guava and blood orange, and Hop Butcher’s Render the Phat, a double IPA with passionfruit.

Segment #3: Listeners Beck (@a.girl.rates.beer) and Josh try this year’s Coffee Abraxas from Perennial (courtesy of Don Kasak) and Saint Errant Brewing’s newest IPA, Chapter 1: Citra.

Few things pair with falling temperatures, snow flurries, and holiday stress as well as big roasty and nutty stouts, so we get cracking on five beers that feature unique nut additions. We learn about the awfulness of black walnuts, give credit to the brewery that started pastry stouts, talk strategy for TMNT II: The Arcade Game, and discover some fascinating facts about nuts through the magic of listicles. There’s also a long bit at the beginning about miniature horses, and we end it with Craig trying to get Ryan to understand fecundity. Love this ugly baby.

Hop Butcher for the World/DryHop Brewers - Milkstachio (Milk Stout w/ cacao nibs and natural pistachio flavor)

Pollyanna Brewing - Fun Size (Milk Stout w/ peanut, cacao nib, vanilla beans and sea salt)

Jackie O’s Pub & Brewery - Oil of Aphrodite (Imperial Stout w/ black walnuts and dark Belgian candi sugar)

Prairie Artisan Ales - Pe-Kan (Imperial Stout w/ vanilla and pecans)

Odd Side Ales - Hazel’s Nuts (Imperial Stout aged in bourbon barrels w/ coffee and natural hazelnut flavor)

Recorded after our return from this year’s GABF in October, we add to our State Show Series by sampling five beers from five Denver-area breweries, completely neglecting the rest of this beer-rich state. We recap our visits to four of the breweries and take our riffing to new above sea-level heights by talking about cask ales, dubstep pedicabs, a bathroom clown, terrible houseguests, Weird Sal, and your grandma’s unsettling Twitter handle. There’s also a little game of “Weed Strain or Colorado Beer Name?” for which Craig is woefully unprepared. (And don’t forget to look out for Schwimmer Vintage Ales in 2019!)

Beers Reviewed

Little Machine Beer - Razz Against the Machine (Tart Raspberry Beer)

Hogshead Brewery - Lake Lightning (English Pale Ale)

Amalgam Brewing - Ascension (Golden Sour Ale)

4 Noses Brewing - ‘Bout Damn Time (American IPA)

Cerebral Brewing - Cheat Code (Double IPA)

Did you strike out on BCBS this year? Is your Black Friday haul picture too pitiful to boastpost to that one Facebook group? Be not dismayed weary barrel-aged beer seekers - we have a whole show of beers that required waiting in no lines to obtain! We found five barrel-aged beers that were both more affordable and available than any Bourbon County variant - and guess what - some of them might be better than that beer that launched a thousand pitched tents. We start this one by reviewing the grisly details of this year’s Black Friday chaos while desperately searching for our roommate Derek. Last we saw him was by the port-o-potties with a paper Dixie cup full of some guy’s warm pour of Bramble, so if you’ve seen him please hit us up. He sometimes answers to DerBear.

Beers Reviewed 

Oskar Blues Brewery - Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy

Revolution Brewing - Deth by Cherries

Nickel Brook Brewing - Cafe Del Bastardo

Moody Tongue - Bourbon Barrel-Aged 12 Layer Cake

Dogfish Head Brewery - Oak-aged Vanilla World Wide Stout

To commemorate our big 200, we ditched all of our high concept ideas to bring it back to the podcast’s origins by having a bottle share of random beers that interested us. But we couldn’t stop there, as this star-studded episode also features a ridiculous number of brewers and industry folks as we shout trivia questions at them during FoBAB. Some of the beers we drink are stellar, one is downright terrible, and the episode-long 90’s trivia game of us versus the brewers is a belligerent cabaret of fun and follies. We also talk about our new podcast project, rolled ice cream, the bomber curse, a little show history, and getting extreme. Whether you’ve been there for 2 episodes or 200, we sincerely thank you for tuning in to our show and hope we can continue to delight your beer-loving ears. And thanks to all of the brewers and industry friends for embarrassing themselves for our twisted pleasure on this show. #CARSTAB

Beers Reviewed

August Schell Brewing - North Star Collection: Tidal Disruption (Berliner Weisse w/ blackberries)
Hubbard’s Cave - Fresh IIPA V8 (w/ Citra & Simcoe)
Middle Brow Beer Co. - The Milk-Eyed Mender Oat Whiskey Aged (Imperial spiced milk stout with peppers, orange zest, vanilla beans, and cacao nibs, aged in Koval oat whiskey barrels)
Casey Brewing & Blending/Side Project Brewing - Jammy (Barrel-aged saison w/ blackberries)
Epic Brewing - Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist (Imperial stout aged in whiskey and rum barrels with cacao nibs, barrel-aged coffee, and barrel-aged coconut)

90’s Trivia Game Subjects (in order of appearance)

Jacob Sembrano (Cruz Blanca Brewery & Taqueria)
Dave Dahl (Lo Rez Brewing)
Brian Krajack (Forbidden Root Brewing)
Chris Betts (Transient Artisan Ales)
Matt Johnsen (Horse Thief Hollow)
Matt LaFleur (@DoodleMatt)
Claudia Jendron (Pipeworks Brewing) & Karina Shimkos (Blue Island Beer Co.)
Chris Kingston (Metropolis Coffee) Peter Anderson & Doug Hurst (Metropolitan Brewing)
Roger Cuzelis & Brent Banks (Corridor Brewery & Provisions)
Neil Fisher (WeldWerks Brewing)
Mike Pallen (Mikerphone Brewing)
Shaun Berns (More Brewing)
Josh Noel (Chicago Tribune)
Brad Pulver (Smylie Brothers Brewing)
Ryan Jacobs & Brent Banks (Saint Errant Brewing)

As Metal Monkey Brewing in Romeoville gears up for the largest release in their almost two-year history, they decided that we should spread the word on the four barrel-aged versions of their huge Asmodeus stout. Was it a wise idea? For us, it certainly was as the beers are damn enjoyable and lead us to the worst game we’ve ever played on this show. There’s also a 15-minute chat with brewers Dan Camp and Jason Janes about the history of Metal Monkey and how the base stout for this beer was almost deemed completely cursed. Within the rest of this audio word cuvée, you’ll hear some talk of kids shows, Ray Romano, lip smacking, coffee roasting, IHOP, and the wall of Mexican chocolate. Also, screw Bon Jovi.

Beers Reviewed

Barrel Aged Asmodeus (2017)

Barrel Aged Asmodeus - Coffee

Barrel Aged Asmodeus - Maple

Barrel Aged Asmodeus - Mexican Chocolate

Each fall, Chicago holds one of the best beer fests in the country, so don’t blame us for getting all giddy about it. We talk a lot about what we’re excited for at the 15th Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers and review beers from some of the better breweries set to pour. Yes, a lot of the FoBAB talk has a bit of a relevancy expiration date, but there’s a lot more general beer and festival discussion as we sip five impressive barrel-aged beers. But also, we answer humanity’s best question, take sides on two late 90s teen movies, reveal Craig’s jelly aversion, and get ready for some hot Jeff-on-Jeff action.

Beers Reviewed // FoBABlin’ Segments

pFriem Family Brewers - Pruim (Lambic-inspired ale w/ plums aged in French Oak) // Festival Tips

Atom Brewing Company - Raspberry Harvest (Oak barrel-aged raspberry ale) // Little known breweries to try

Fremont Brewing - Bourbon Barrel Dark Star Coffee Edition (Imperial oatmeal stout) // Known breweries not to miss

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery - Wooden Hell 2017 (Bourbon barrel-aged barleywine) // Locals & potpourri

Off Color Brewing - Papillon (Gin barrel-aged wild ale) // Festiquette

Be cautious beer audio traveler, there’s a dense fog advisory covering this episode as we blindly taste through six New England-style hoppy beers. We pit murky IPAs and DIPAs from Illinois against the opaque juice bombs from other states in a blind faceoff-matchup-tasting thing, because we’ve run out of original ideas. Despite our presumptuous hazy expertise, we are still shocked by a few of the results. Beyond that, we talk about around-the-house jeans, beard tips, prospective beer names, Rummikub, and papayneapples. Now I just kind of want some Jamba Juice.

Beers Tasted Blindly (in order tasted) 

1. Old Nation Brewing - M-43 (IPA)
2. Forbidden Root - Night Moth (IPA w/ oak spirals)
3. Mikerphone Brewing - Super Special Sauce (DIPA)
4. Weldwerks Brewing - Extra Extra Juicy Bits (DIPA)
5. Tree House Brewing - Doppelgänger (DIPA)
6. Corridor Brewery & Provisions - SqueezIt (DIPA)

In what will surely become a Hellish yearly tradition, we get gruesome on this show by trying to break each other by pouring the worst beers we could find. It’s a contest of depravity as we each selected three beers for the other to experience blind, and the results are horrifying. There’s a game aspect to the whole show, wherein punishment points are gathered for a final rankings drinking of The Punishment Cuvée™ (aka The Cuvée of Doom™). If you don’t like two guys being disgusted by a diverse range of terrible beers, then proceed with caution. But if you want to hear us suffer at each other’s hands (kinky!), this will be your favorite episode of this show. Either way, I’m pretty sure we have violated the Geneva Conventions and will be going to forever prison.

The Tortuous Collection

Craig’s Choices

Half Acre Beer Co. - Beer Hates Astronauts (IPA - 2013)

Pipeworks Brewing - A Couple Two Tree (Scotch Ale w/ spruce tips and oak spirals)

Bell’s Brewery - Eccentric Ale (Herb/Spice Beer - 2011)

Ryan’s Choices

Founder Brewing Co. - Mango Magnifico (Fruit Beer - 2013)

Camo Beer Co. - Camo Black Extra (Malt Liquor)

Rinkuškiai - Hell on High (Quad Bock)