Binny's Blog

To celebrate our 70th Anniversary, we headed to Firestone Walker’s Barrelworks facility, home to their award winning wild and sour ales. Our goal - to blend California terroir with a tropical treasure of the Midwest, the paw paw fruit.

If you’ve been to one of Ballast Point’s locations out in San Diego, you know they have always been big on R&D. After a recent visit to their Chicago location, we’re happy to report that research and development is alive and well at this captivating new space in Fulton Market.

In the world of craft beer, IPA is king. At last year’s Great American Beer Festival, the number of American-Style IPA submissions dwarfed all others at 408 entries!

We fell in love with Pollyanna Fun Size at first taste and its ramped up imperial cousin left us speechless. Eager for a glimpse at the magic behind this remarkable beer, we took a trip to Pollyanna to brew a batch.

The relentless wave of IPAs keeps rolling in. Session, Sour, Double, Hazy, New England, Milkshake… we make sense of all the haze and call out our favorites.

Noon Whistle is a remarkably open place. From propped doors and windows, to a wide-open brew house, a visit to their Lombard location is an unobscured look at the laborious world of brewing.

Odd Side Ales Dank Juice series is easy to love. Hugely aromatic, super soft and juicy, with a creamy fruit filled finish - when it comes to New England style IPA, these Midwesterners have it dialed in.

Amidst the sea of choices on the shelf today, you may be asking yourself - what's so special about Cigar City? In a word - proficiency. They can fill a fermenter with one of the most complex imperial stouts you'll ever taste, yet at the same time produce an impeccably balanced and refreshing pale ale. 

With Halloween just around the corner, hopefully candy and costumes are covered, but what about the beer?

This year, we accepted 40+ entries and the top 10 were judged by beer legend and Boston Beer co-founder, Jim Koch. We were blown away by the incredible homebrew entries and had a blast drinking some delicious Sam Adams beers with Jim Koch.