This Week's Beer News: Under New Glass
Powered by all that skyline
Beer Under Glass gets a new venue this year!
On Friday, the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild announced that this year’s Beer Under Glass, the kickoff event for Illinois Craft Beer Week would be held at “the acclaimed Millennium Park Harris Theater Rooftop Terrace in the heart of Downtown Chicago.”
Other than the odd Oktoberfest gathering, I’m pretty sure the only other true craft beer festival ever held in that space was Half Acre’s Far & Away Invitational in October 2018, which sets a very high bar. This year’s BUG promises 200 beers from about 80 breweries with the “glass” portion being the Chicago skyline.
I didn’t take too many skyline pictures while attending Far & Away, but if the Guild opts to have a completely open-air festival the view should be pretty great:
While we’re stretching the definition of “under glass” nearly to the breaking point, I’m not here to pick nits - a central downtown location with a great view of the skyline and a ton of great beer sounds like a wonderful way to spend an evening in early May celebrating the fest’s 15th birthday.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, and while I didn’t personally attend BUG at Union Station over the last couple of years, this new venue might just get me back downtown for an evening.
While legislators consider restrictions, the ICBG gathered brewers at the Wheeling District Brewyards location for an inaugural Hemp Beverage Brew Day, as documented in this Daily Herald story. It’s paywalled but here’s a CapFax blurb if it helps.
Job alert: Maplewood is looking for a new sales rep for their city accounts.
Want to open a brewery? The City of Joliet put out a RFP to take over the old MyGrain Brewing space.
The Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Malt Row Happy Hour at is/was brewing on Thursday evening.
At
, Dennis Lee takes a spin through the menu at Old Irving Brewing. Put that octopus dish on your short list.
We’ve shared a fair number of Millpond Brewing beer labels in our Wednesday emails and now Sauce Magazine looks at how the brewery became “a pandemic success story.”
Fox2Now helps celebrate Old Bakery Beer Co.’s tenth birthday.
The South Bend Tribune also covered the announcement that Blockhead Beerworks would be opening a second location in LaPorte.
The founders of Founders are gone. Mahou San Miguel announced last week that they’d acquired the final 10% of the company a decade after taking their first stake in them back in 2015. MSM took a full 90% share in 2019, with Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers each hanging onto 5% each.
We mentioned it on Friday, but MLive also covered the 90’s-themed 15th Anniversary Party at Odd Side, who had to cancel their 10th Anniversary party in 2020 because … you know.
After announcing their closure last week, Loaded Dice Brewing opened for a few final hours this weekend. Their closure also shuttered the brewery the recently acquired called Rebuy Brewing.
Now open in Manchester: A brewery and taqueria appropriately named Manchester Brewing.
A Beatles-themed riverfront beer bar that partially sits on a boat? Sign me up, Octopus’ Beer Garden.
The owners of the Nordic Brewpub in Monticello announced that they’d brewed their last batch of beer … but they’re not closing. Instead they’re simply converting to the Nordic Taphouse in a few months and focusing on beer, bourbon and food.
The big new draw at Omni Brewery & Taproom? Coffee flights.
Apparently Anheuser-Busch filed a trademark dispute against that Ultra Right beer company over the use of the word “Ultra,” and I’ve got one guess as to who’s gonna win this one in the courts and who’s gonna “win” in the court of online public opinion outrage.
Now open in North Collinwood: Two Friends Brewing. Again, how was that name not already taken?
Columbus Underground recommended seven stupendous stouts to sample this month, including Zaftig Brewing’s BamBaLam and DankHouse Brewing Company’s Intergalactic Planetary.
Along the same lines, Cleveland.com recommended some local stouts including Brick & Barrel’s The Sweeney and Forest City Brewery’s Furbelly Leann Dubh
After terminating their parking leases because the City Brewery smelled too bad, the city of LaCrosse said “never mind” and reversed that decision after the brewery said that they’d made progress in managing the odor.
In other Very Wisconsin News, the Appleton airport is getting its own beer garden from Fox River Brewing Co.
The recent closure of Norfolk’s Armed Forces Brewing Co. has a long reach - this Wisconsin hops provider says that the brewery owes him $3K.
The new owners of St. Francis Brewery announced that their (re) opening date will be April 14th.
At Vinepair, Aaron Goldfarb says you should add hand-pulled Heady Topper to your beer bucket list.
Last week’s most-clicked link: The top-level 10Best Beer Awards page.
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Thank you so much for the mention!!!