I'm heading to Terrapin/Sweetwater/one other tbd tmrw. Best pictures and writeup wins!

RDH does your brewery distribute to GA?

Nope.

Anyone had a samichlaus helles? Had my 2nd last night and for a 14% beer its just too good. Brewed 1 day a year and then lagered for 18 months. 5$ for a 12oz but so worth trying

TR on brewery visits yesterday:

First stop was SweetWater Brewery. Pulled up on the street that the brewery was located and was waved down by an employee to park on a different street. Didn't think too much of it at the time but after we parked and walked up to the brewery it was clear why they had us parking on a different street. There was a line that was probably 200 people deep that we got to stand behind waiting for entrance to the brewery. I was pretty shocked as I had just figured it would be 50 tops. Fast forward 30 minutes we are finally inside the standing room only and very crowded brewery and they are starting a new tour.

I filled up my tasting glass with their IPA and then we packed into a room with about 75 other people and listen to a brewer give a speech on the history of SweetWater. The IPA was pretty good, strong pine and a great malt backbone from what I remember. After the history lesson we walked through the warehouse which was much more massive than I had anticipated. We walked in between a keg washer and a bottling line to an outside area where we were given a lecture on how the beer is made. We then preceded to the walk-in cooler and our speaker talked about the future of SweetWater. That concluded the tour and we were free to hang out and drink some more. The tour cost $10 and included 6 or 8 tickets which were good for a 4oz pour each. The pours were much closer to 8oz than 4oz so that was cool. The outside area was the only place that wasn't uncomfortably crowded so we headed out there to refill our glass. I was interested in trying the Exodus Porter but they didn't have it tapped outside so I gave their Extra Pale Ale a try. It was pretty lackluster compared to their IPA and had a weird chalky taste to it. I wasn't a big fan and the only other beer they had tapped outside was the Blue which is a wheat beer with blueberries. We had spent a lot of time waiting in line and then on the tour so we decided to head out to the next stop instead of waiting in another line and trying the wheat.

We had to skip the second planned stop of the day to get to Terrapin Brewery in time for the 5:30 tour. We were originally planning to stop at Red Hare Brewing. We got to Terrapin around 5:15 and we were the only car in the parking lot. A bit confused I checked their website again to make sure they were giving tours that day and they were indeed scheduled to do so starting at 5:30 and running to 7:00. The tour was described as a 2 hour tour and you could sample beer at its freshest. I was pretty excited since I am a big fan on their one-offs and their flagship Rye Pale Ale.

By the time 5:30 hit the door had opened and there were around 25 people waiting to walk through. We bought another pint glass for tasting, and that included 8 tickets for 4oz pours as well. I filled up with their Tree Hugger Altbier and stood outside the tour start area excited as hell. The Tree Hugger was pretty good, I got a bunch of chocolate and nuttiness in the taste. Around 6:00 I started to wonder when the tour would start and so I asked a Terrapin employee when I could expect the next tour to start. "There will be a girl holding up a large sign that says tour starting now and she will be loud, you can't miss it." Hrm, weird. Whatever, I filled up my glass again, this time with Easy Rider which is a sessionable pale ale. The aroma was pretty wonderful, floral and citrus hops, which also carried over into the taste. The malt characteristics were a bit muddled and nothing great.

Around 15 minutes later the tour girl held up the sign and started to gather people over for the tour. We headed over that way and 30 seconds later the tour started. "The brewery is under renovation right now so unfortunately I will not be able to physically walk you around it, but I can point out a couple things as I talk about it." Those words cut deeper than a knife. In the background I could see their new fermenters they just got in, a ****-ton of kegs and boxes, and pallets of bottles. She started to talk about the history of Terrapin which was interesting, and then about the process of making beer. I finished my Easy Rider and decided I didn't want to listen anymore so we went outside to check out the live band and fill up. This time we got the Belgian Golden Ale which I think they said was their anniversary ale. It was delicious. Super malty with bubblegum and cotton candy notes. The band was pretty cool and they had corn hole and disc frisbee courses setup. A pretty cool vibe overall and it was easy to sit in the grass and enjoy some beers and music. Before we left we also tried the year round Golden Ale, the Phlux Capacitor, Road Warrior Kolsch, and the Rye Pale. The Golden Ale was cloyingly sweet and I wasn't a huge fan but the Phlux Capacitor was amazing. Super oaky throughout and a really big yet not boozy beer. The Kolsch was pretty plain and kolschy but well done, and the Rye Pale was fabulous as always.

Overall a pretty disappointing day in general. Didn't get to see either of the actual breweries brewing equipment or fermenters. I understand the history lesson and speeches on the process of making beer from a business standpoint, but it would have been cooler if they talked about more in-depth technical stuff as well. A few pictures below:

SweetWater Walk-in:




Terrapin Inventory:

you'll win on the pics, I only took two and they weren't great. I was having too much fun and too much drinking to take pics (or great notes)

Revolution Brewery trip

I know I've posted about rev here before, but it was just a brewpub then. Not, with a full 35k sq ft space they will fully be a commercial brewery. They opened in feb of 2010 and have become insanely popular in Chicago. I've been going there almost since opening and have had a chance to track their progress. Rev has been the bar that I've easily gone to the most of in chicago since they opened.

I read somewhere that there were 3k people there. While there were a lot of people, I never felt crushed. Granted, hearing that doesn't surprise me given some of the lines. It started at 5, but if you had a VIP pass (which was doing a lot of different places for craft beer week) you could be there at 3. There weren't that many VIP passes, but those people certainly got the big jump on tasting all of the barrel aged brews. They also sold out for this in about a day. I got the tickets right when they went on sale, but originally I thought it was only 1500 tickets that were sold for this (completely made up number I know, but I clearly misjudged how many fans are in the city that would go to this).

I only got there 5:30. I took the train in and traffic was a real bitch as well. Naturally there was a line out the door, but it didn't take my friend and I too long to get in. We got in at around 5:45 but decided to hit up one of the food trucks (insert my own rant at chicago's stupid ****ing laws that make truck operation very tough) when we saw the giant line just to get beer tickets.

They had about 10 food trucks set up from what I can recall. They also had a stage for bands and you had to be there at 5 for the special band. I had been guessing beforehand as it was said that the special band would have a real chicago connection. Naturally I start thinking that there is a slight chance at wilco and possibly company of thieves. It wasn't that. It was a new orleans-style 2nd line type marching band. It was perfectly fine for the afternoon/evening, but I had the bar set pretty high.

As I noted, the lines were definitely long. My friend and I were glad we got the food first as the ticket line was very shortened and I grabbed my roll of 10. We did some walking around just to get a lay of the land and see what guest taps were pouring. We wanted to start off with the rev brews though before we moved into the other brews.

Since I mentioned it, the guest breweries were all chicago based with the following being there: goose island, haymarket, metropolitan, half acre, two brothers and the new solemn oath.


I realized pretty fast that taking good notes wasn't happening and there were several different places for beers. So, my initial plan of only having the beers that I haven't had went out the window. Obviously I was going to have a couple of brews that I haven't had or taken notes on yet, but it was just too many people. I also realized fast that double fisting beers was easily the way to go.

We looked at the line for the barrel aged brews, so we made sure we got some beer to wait in the line. I took the opportunity to grab an anti-hero IPA (previous note from september):

pours a nice light golden color with a small and foamy head

fresh and aromatic nose with various citrus tones, papaya, hops, and fresh picked oranges.

medium/full bodied with a good amount of hop tones but they aren't overbearing at all.

a real quality ipa. This isn't an IPA that runs away with the hops and instead is nice and fresh while being slighter bigger. 3.95/5


and a black power oatmeal stout(note from a few weeks ago at rev):

poured from cask at Rev into a pint glass. Pours a nice chocolate color with a well defined and frothy head.

Well balanced with nice depth and really good aromas of chocolate, roasted coffee beans, and malts.

Full bodied with a nice and smooth feel. Very good flavors of oatmeal, roasted malts, chocolate and some coffee beans.

Glad to see this back on tap, and very glad to have had this on cask. One of Rev's best stouts for me and this was as good as I remembered it. 4/5

We then made sure to head into the giant Barrel Aged line. Seriously, this line had several turns in it from people and it took probably a half hour just to get through the line. On top of that, I found out that you could only get 1 pour per person. So, in some ways it was a bit of roulette as to what was available by the time you got to the taps. I've had a decent amount of their barrel aged beers and was lucky that one of them on tap was one I haven't had:

"BA Baracus"

had on tap at the revolution production party. Had in a small plastic cup. Pours a near pitch black color with a small head.

There is a real nice balance of the bourbon aromas along with some sweet malts, dark and milk chocolate, and some bits of vanilla beans too. Very good depth too.

Full bodied and a beautifully smooth feel. Great depth with flavors of dark chocolate, sweet malts, vanilla beans, a touch of bourbon with a real nice coffee finish.

I was glad to get a pour of this. This has real good complexity and the feel really makes it. This is definitely one of their successes of the barrel aged brews. 4.28/5

We decided not to deal with the barrel aged line again and just wandered around drinking more beer. I didn't do as much wandering as I should've, so we then hit up some of the guest taps. While there was a crowd, there weren't really any lines. I missed out on the galactic double daisy from half acre, but I've had it before plenty of times.

We then made our way back outside to hit up another truck and have some more beer. I talked to a few people and it was then out of there at 10pm.

The space is huge and there is a lot of room for them to grow. I think they were always planning on something like this, but not this fast. It will be interesting to see how much they grow and how much bigger they can get. This was a great day for the Chicago beer scene and I'm really glad I was a part of it.

Are we still contemplating a Smash Pale Ale? I'm all for it

Yes, I am in of course. Lets figure out who all is interested and then we will set a date to brew by.

SMaSH Thread Brew Interest
Coff
PlinyTheElder
Wraths Unanimous


Anyone else?

Me. Had fun the last time.

I figured as much.


SMaSH Thread Brew Interest
Coff
PlinyTheElder
Wraths Unanimous
RunDownHouse

I don't know about your guys time schedules but I'm going to need to brew for this within the next three weeks or post five weeks. Work/exams in fourish weeks, and I will be swamped.

I need to have it bottled before July 31, so the sooner the better for me I think.

How about setting a Brew By Date of June 30th, that gives everyone a month to get it in the fermenter then we can work out when the trade go down from there. Hopefully by mid July.

I have a few of my brews lined up but Im thinking of doing a marathon 1bbl brew day so I can squeeze this in. I have to get 15 gallons done for my daughters christening

Someone want to lay out the guidelines?

Brew off guidelines:

American Pale Ale
Single Malt
Single hop
Clean fermenting yeast
IBU 30-45
OG 1.045-1.060
FG 1.010-1.012
ABV 4.5-6.2%

Brew by June 30

That everything?

That's perfect Pliny.

It should probably be single infusion as well.