Our new best friends at Cypress Grove make some of the finest goat’s milk cheeses in the country, and they sent us some to pair with local beers. Win your New Year’s party by learning from our pairing experiments, or find out which cheeses to make a staple of all your future bottle shares. We learn a bit about rennet, apply a few brewing ideas to cheesemaking, and once again fail to break the curse that eternally binds us together. Live deliciously!

Beer and Cheese Pairings

Two Brothers Twenty-Plus Pilsner and Purple Haze

Suller’s Past Maiden Berliner Weisse and Humboldt Fog

Off Color Sibling Rivalry Tripel and Truffle Tremor

Hop Butcher Hoppy Days Are Here Again IPA and Bermuda Triangle

Arcade Brewing Mega Milk II* and Midnight Moon

*Note: This episode was recorded back in November before we - or anyone - could anticipate Arcade Brewery’s sudden and unfortunate closing. We had many of their beers on the show over the years, and we will miss their contributions to the ever-changing Chicago beer landscape. We sincerely wish Chris, Jay, and Lance the best in all of their future endeavors.

Our new best friends at Cypress Grove make some of the finest goat’s milk cheeses in the country, and they sent us some to pair with local beers. Win your New Year’s party by learning from our pairing experiments, or find out which cheeses to make a staple of all your future bottle shares. We learn a bit about rennet, apply a few brewing ideas to cheesemaking, and once again fail to break the curse that eternally binds us together. Live deliciously!

Beer and Cheese Pairings

Two Brothers Twenty-Plus Pilsner and Purple Haze

Suller’s Past Maiden Berliner Weisse and Humboldt Fog

Off Color Sibling Rivalry Tripel and Truffle Tremor

Hop Butcher Hoppy Days Are Here Again IPA and Bermuda Triangle

Arcade Brewing Mega Milk II* and Midnight Moon

*Note: This episode was recorded back in November before we - or anyone - could anticipate Arcade Brewery’s sudden and unfortunate closing. We had many of their beers on the show over the years, and we will miss their contributions to the ever-changing Chicago beer landscape. We sincerely wish Chris, Jay, and Lance the best in all of their future endeavors.

We manage to throw a holiday party with no eggnog, ugly sweaters, or inappropriate mistletoe placement - just great friends and great beers. Actually, Craig does wear an insane gaudy suit, but it only enhances our talks with four guests over five beers. We are joined by our good friends MC Johnson (Worth 1000 Beers), Marie Cummins, Matt Johnsen (Horse Thief Hollow), and Doug Veliky (Revolution Brewing & @beeraficiando) to sample some tasty treats and review our favorite events and stories of 2016 - and what gets us excited for 2017. Then we talk about the year in beer trends, the excellence that is Dovetail Brewing, the Gary Busey woods, chipmunk tickling, winning big time beer medals, Schwimmer Vintage Ales, and how to become an Instagram star by taking pictures of beer. Listen, or I’m telling Santa.

Beers Shared

Une Année - Le Grand Monde I

Dovetail Brewing - Holiday Bock

Horse Thief Hollow - Bad Mama Jama (Imperial stout with chocolate aged in Buffalo Trace barrels)

Horse Thief Hollow - Barrel-aged Cinnamon Girl (Bad Mama Jama with cinnamon and vanilla)

The Lost Abbey - Veritas 017 (Oak-aged wild ale with blackberry)

Need a stocking stuffer or an effective mood-lifter for a family gathering? We try six different Christmas beers to help you better lubricate your holiday train. Our top beer is a huge surprise, but the whole lineup proves to be a Christmas miracle. And like two slightly tipsy yet overly productive elves, we play two games on this one, talk fruitcakes, explore the Hintonverse, make our ideal gingerbread man together, transcribe the Ying Yang Twins, share some Color Me Badd fan fiction, make a case for The Wallflowers, get banned from pillow fights, plan our pop-up shop, and implore you to stop doing that to our snowman. It’s our gift to you, listeners. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Beers Unwrapped

Revolution - Fistmas Ale

Anchor - Christmas Ale 2016

Great Lakes - Christmas Ale

Three Floyds - Alpha Klaus Porter

Prairie Artisan Ales - Christmas Bomb

Brouwerij Huyghe - Delirium Noël

We celebrate the big one-five-oh with the most valuable lineup of beers we’ve ever put to our lips - and the bottles practically pop themselves in revelry. Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen made these four special gueuzes to save itself after a terrible mishap and released them in very limited quantities back in 2011, and we’re lucky to have them all here. We also commemorate the occasion by resurrecting everyone’s favorite beer podcast reviewing game: Beers Against Humanity. So while we try to wrap our brains around the deliciousness of these world-class beers, we talk about what Billy Corgan smells like and other matters of equal import. Craig introduces a successful new segment, and we duck for cover from flying corks. (It says corks, just to be clear.) Cheers to another 150!

Beers Sipped Upon, Luxuriously

Armand’4 Oude Geuze Herfst (Autumn)

Armand’4 Oude Geuze Winter

Armand’4 Oude Geuze Lente (Spring)

Armand’4 Oude Geuze Zomer (Summer)