Pareidolia Bottle Release & 3 Events This Week!

We're drowning our sorrows from last week's election by throwing our evil selves into a bunch of great activities this week. After all, the only sane solution to an insane world is to drink.  And organize. But first... let's drink.

First things first... we are incredibly excited to announce the first release of our collaboration series with Parachute Restaurant in 750ml bottles.

"Pareidolia" is a carmel & grain rich buckwheat farmhouse re-fermented on Asian pears for 3 weeks with dehydrated green mangoes used for acidity. The bottles are conditioned on b. lambicus and b. claussennii for one last layer of complexity.  The result is a beer that performs beautifully both on it's own or paired with your favorite food.

This release is extremely limited. We will be delivering these on Wednesday by 5pm and they should be on the shelves at the following locations by Thursday.  You need to act fast as these bottles will not last long. You will find Pareidolia at:

This week we're also releasing our Black Farmhouse "Pazuzu's Pedals". Pazuzu is made with black cardamom and full of bitter chocolate, coffee, dark fruit, smoke & herb. And the labels are bad ass.

Right now, you can find Pazuzu at the following locations with more stores being added this week:

We've also got 3 events this week.  Yes, three events for god's sake.

Tomorrow night we'll be pouring Hasselhopf at Dry Hop Brewers for their Nano IPA night. We'll be pouring along side friends from Marz, Spiteful, 350 & Mad Mouse Brewing.  For more information, please visit the facebook event page for this event at https://www.facebook.com/events/1152945574786874/.

Thursday night we're celebrating the release of "It's Spelt Right" our spelt farmhouse made with wood fired granny smith apples that we made with Old Irving Brewing. The result is a delicious 8% saison draped in smoked apples, a perfect medicine for the harvest season.

To celebrate our collaboration, Old Irving will be hosting a Bags tournament this Thursday, November 17th starting at 6pm. 10 teams of 2 will compete for fabulous prizes including Illuminated beer - including 2 bottles of the very rare collab with Parachute Restaurant, "Pareidolia" - and OIB growlers filled with your favorite beer! We'll also have IBW posters and stickers to give away. The teams will be first come, first serve, so make sure to come and claim your spot! The facebook page for this event is https://www.facebook.com/events/1176545462392751/

And last, but certainly not least, Friday night is the Purling Hiss & Axis:Sova record release show at the Hideout. To celebrate the new Purling Hiss album High Bias released on Drag City Records we assembled our most loving homage to good, old-fashioned, trashy, American macro-beers; just the kind of beer that built the sonic annihilation via heavy six-string freakout of High Bias. "Purling Hiss" is stacked up with Pilsner, Munich, rice adjuncts and noble hops to create a fizzy, yellow sleigh-ride that pairs well with brown meth, NASCAR and Jesus footies.

The facebook page for this show is at https://www.facebook.com/events/1765310903747331/.  This is not to be missed. However, if you do, you'll still be able to get a limited amount of the Purling Hiss beer at Beer Temple.  And, for you Purling Hiss fans that are outside of Chicago - or even out of the state of Illinois - you'll be able to purchase bottles of Purling Hiss at Beer Temples on-line store starting Friday and have it shipped directly to you.

Ok, I'm exhausted from writing all of that. I'm going to crawl into my bomb shelter and drench my wrecked nerves in all of this great beer.  

FOBAB & Pareidolia Bottle Release

We here down in the IBW underground bunker are very excited to announce that 2016 will be our first year participating in the Festival of Wood & Barrel Aged Beers in Chicago.  The festival - the largest of it's kind - is this Friday and Saturday at the UIC Pavillion. All three sessions are sold out already, but, we'd venture to guess that most of you have tickets already.

Here are the beers that we will have at FOBAB this year:

SON OF TOUCAN SAM (collab w/ Haywood Tavern)

The Son of Toucan Sam is a Belgian Bock, for lack of a better style indicator. We used an all Munich grist, boiled for 4 hours to bring out a beatuiful ruby-red color and finished with Executive Chef Rodney Staton's "Fruity Loops" spice blend and the Rochefort yeast. The base beer was a complex and crushable thing of beauty which we then took and put into a red wine french oak barrel for 9 months to transform it into something truly magical. We're very excited about this beer. If you don't have a chance to try it this weekend at FOBAB there will be some opportunity to get it in 750ml bottles later this year.  Stay tuned...

40 ROUNDS

40 Rounds is a Black Farmhouse beer made with black cardamom, black strap mollasses & black prinz malts resulting in a dry, slightly smoky farmhouse beer with hints of black cofee and bitter chocolate. We then took some of that 40 Rounds and aged it in a Buffalo Trace barrel for 9 months to create a whisky barrel aged beer that, in many ways, defies the style by creating a toffee, vanilla and whisky rich beer that is incredibly drinkable at only 5.7%.

ALL COLOR OF THE DARK

All Colors of the Dark takes our Black Maw black licorice stout and aged it for a year and a half in FEW rye barrels letting the Rodenbach blend of yeast and bugs work their magic. We then blend and balance that back with a farmhouse aged on the same bugs to create a rich tapestry of dark and sweet fruits balanced on an inky black base.

Next Wednesday, November 16th, will see the release of our most recent collaboration series with Parachute Restaurant.  The 2016 version of Pareidolia is a buckwheat farmhouse aged on Asian pears with Amchur used to accentuate the fruit. The bottled version that will be released next week is naturally conditioned on a mix of brettanomyces lambicus and brettanomyces claussenii. This is a very limited release and you will need to move very quickly to snatch this up.  We will release a list of stores carrying this beer next Wednesday.

* * *

Last week saw the release of Brainwash, a 7% tart farmhouse. Brainwash glows a hazy, post-hypnotic yellow and smells of mellon, passionfruit, white pepper & grain. The taste is juicy and tart, very much like a wild ale, but it achieves it’s flavor profile simply with water, hops, grain and sachromyces (non-wild) yeast.  At 7%, Brainwash is efficient at bending the mind, yet drinks like a beverage half it's weight in booze. You can get Brainwash at any of the stores that carry IBW. You can search locations at http://www.ibw-chicago.com/get-illuminated

Finally, please don't be an idiot, go out and vote tomorrow if you haven't already.

Publican Burger Night Tonight & More....

So yeah, we know, the Cubs lost last night and that's a GIANT freaking bummer.

But the good news is it means another Cubs game... tonight!

And still more good news... our Publican Quality Meats Burger Night is tonight from 6-8pm!

So, you can come to the Publican Quality Meats Burger Night tonight from 6-8pm get jacked up on IBW beer and burgers from competing chefs from Giant & Dixie and still be home in time for the 7:40pm game start.

We'll be pouring our Farmhouse Porter, Pazuzu's Pedals, made with delicious black cardamom. No kidding, this porter is perfect for a fall evening and earns every ounce of it's Babylonian's namesake.  

We're also pouring our warm fermented lager, King Mob, full of delicious esthers evoking banana & apricot. This brings together two oppositional worlds, the flamboyant Belgian pale ale with the clean, dry finish of a German lager.

Enjoy both of these beers in Publican Quality Meats beer garden while we prep for the game tonight. That game which we will win. Trust me. We have arranged for your future and have secured the Cubs a victory. 

In Other News...

Next Tuesday we'll have a new batch of Pareidolia released at Parachute Restaurant. It's the same basic beer as the previous batch - a Buckwheat farmhouse with Asian pears & Amchur added for acidity - but we've increased the amount of pears and Amchur to create a version of Pareidolia that is perfect for the Harvest season. We're all very excited about this batch.

In other Pareidolia news, we will be releasing a very limited amount of bottles of this years batch that have been conditioned on b. clausenii. This will be released to a few bottle shops around town towards the middle of November.  Stay tuned for more info on that.

We've also got REDRUM, our barrel aged dark farmhouse aged on cranberries and cherries, that will be released on October 26th at a select number of bottle shops.  We'll release more info on that as we get closer to that date.

On October 23rd you would be a villainous creep to miss THE 39TH ANNUAL ILLINOIS CRAFT BEER AWARDS brought to you by the good freaks behind Lumpen Radio & Marz brewing. It takes place at the Chop Shop on Sunday, October 23 from 4pm–7pm and will award a series of “Foamie” trophies to a group of beer industry professionals. Attendees will receive complimentary beer and Malört while enjoying live music and entertainment. There will be paparazzi, a red carpet and swag bags to make a beer-focused version of the Academy Awards. Tickets are $35 and proceeds go to Doctors without Borders.