The past week has indeed been interesting. Fortunately, less in the Chinese curse kind of way and more in the howling-fire-from-on-top-a-mountain-of-1-million-giggling-goats kind of way. Color us happy, please.

As of last week, we are officially off and into the world under own license to not only manufacture, but to self-distribute as well.

Self-distribution has been a very conscious choice that we have made. Not only does it allow us complete control over our products and our brand, but it also allows us the most control over quality and keeps our price point down for retailers and, ultimately, you, the consumer.

I'm sure a day will come where we will no longer be able to support both making and distributing our beer, but, for now, and for as long as we can realistically manage it, we will remain in complete control of our product - from concept to delivery.

The 5th Annual Beer Hoptacular was last weekend and, in keeping with it's grand tradition, it was a fantastic time. There's so many beer festivals these days it's often too difficult to know which is worth your time and money and which are just some fly-by night creeps painting by numbers and fishing for some quick money. Well, never fear, Brian Ferber and his crew always out-do themselves to keep the Beer Hoptacular one of the more interesting and generally hillarious festivals going. And we were honored to participate in it again this year.

And participate in it we did. If by participate you mean dominate and by dominate you mean clawed the bloody wall of fire-eyed competitors and black potions to post our inverted flag properly in it's chest. Read all about it here in the Sun-Times.

That's right, not only did we sate the thirsts of many pouring both at our booth as well as in the VIP section along with many, many other great brewers, but Bucky leveraged his beard like the corporate merger of Power AND Glory and won the 1st Annual Beard Hoptacular beating out such fierce faces as BJ from Forbidden Root and Alex from Temperance, among others.

And then after staking claim to that pie-slice of bounty, our derby car - fueled on bad engineering and straight cthonic E-vuhl - won best looking ride at the event. Boom. Just like that victory comes to willed.

You can say a lot of things about the Hoptacular, but the only important thing you can say about it is that it was really fucking fun. We'll see you there next year.

And then, even before the joyous headache from the Hoptacular had faded, the Thrillist named us one of the Top 5 new breweries in Chicago to check out. We are totally stoked about this, humbled and proud when we see the company we're keeping: Forbidden Root, Moody Tongue, Slapshot, Marz Community Brewing. These are all big, nut-swinging hot shots and we are happy to ride by their side.

So our beer is rolling out now, into the clawed fingers of the public mass, that's you. As always, the best way you can support us is to visit any one (or ALL!) of these grand establishments and order our beer. As of today here's where you can find us:

Parachute Resaturant (Brown Reason to Live)
Logan Hardware (Brown Reason to Live)
Beer Bistro (Rowan Morrison)
Dry Hop Brewers (Orange Sunshine & Juggalo Cadillac)
Jak's Tavern (Brown Reason to Live)

We've got more rolling out next week, please stay tuned at http://www.ibw-chicago.com/get-illuminated/ or on our Facebook page to keep plugged in.

The other great way to support us is buy purchasing some of mind control devices that we have available at our store. We've got shirts, glasses and limited edition posters. We would love your money and your bio-energy applied to advertising our product. What could you possibly be waiting for?

Thank you all so much for playing along with us. We are right now more grateful, full of Joy, and full of humility than we can possibly explain. And we have every intention of continuing to turn those dials up more and more and more...