JR Astro Juice, Fruit Creep Hats & Gift Cards Now Available

Greetings Earth Beings,

Keep your eyes on social media for as long as you can stand it, we should have an announcement about the IBW Lodge #1 by the end of this week (we really really hope). We really appreciate everybody from the neighborhood and beyond who have stopped by or reached out asking about when we're opening. The support means a ton to us.

I have to tell you, there are few feelings worse than turning customers away from your business because the wheels of bureaucracy are spinning on your throat. But, much like last night's dinner, this too shall pass.

While we play this lovely game of Wait and listen to the Band's classic "The Weight" while singing Tom Wait's "Hold On" and carving the lyrics of Tom Petty's "The Waiting" into our arms, Zac is doing an interpretative dance to Dave reading PKD's "Now Wait for Last Year", we also are happy to announce that we have a fresh batch of Junior Astronaut Juice as well as Gift Cards for purchase that even come with some free gifts. Read on for details...

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That's right, we have IBW Gift Cards for sale at our TERRIBLY DESIGNED web store.

To say "Thank You" to those of you who purchase the $50 Gift Card we are offering a free 13oz Tulip Glass (a $15 value for you!). For those of you purchasing the $100 Gift Cards, we have a free Trust t-shirt for you as well as a Tulip Glass (that's a $40 value PLUS the value of the card!). And for those decadent sickos out there who want to purchase a $500 Gift Card we not only have a free Trust t-shirt and 13oz Tulip Glass, but we'll be hosting a private party for you and your brothers and sisters in squanderous spending (I'm not sure just how much of a value that is for you, but let's say it's somewhere around $150?? Plus that warm rush of inclusivity to be a part of an exclusive and private club of BIG SPENDERS!).

These gift cards are a great way to show your friends and enemies how much you love them. They're also a tidy way to manage your IBW Lodge #1 tabs in a discreet way by burying the cost of just how much you are spending on our lovely and intoxicating beverages from your SO (or PO for that matter). But also, these IBW Gift Cards are a really great way to help US here at IBW squeeze past these final lean days while we wait to get this Tap Room open. It's been A LOT more expensive and took about a whole year longer to get this place open than we budgeted for (Thanks Obama!) so you purchasing a Gift Card really helps us out. It's kind of a win-win for everybody. And who doesn't like winning?

So, head on over to the Cult Propaganda section of our crummy-ass website and buy some gift cards for all of your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. And, while you're there, why not pick up a BRAND NEW and BEAUTIFUL Fruit Creep GOAT Baseball Hat? These things are fantastic, the GOAT patch on the front and the IBW logo embroidered on that back. We didn't make a ton of these, so you best act mildly quickly.

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There's a whole new world of on-line shopping out there at www.IBW-Chicago.com and we promise, if you don't feel satisfied with your purchases in this life, you will definitely be happy with them in the next.

Oh yeah! There's SUPER FRESH Junior Astronaut Juice that is hitting the streets next Tuesday in Chicago and the suburbs. And, yes, yes, yes, all you lovely and recovering Mormons in Utah will be getting your Junior freshies in about 2 weeks. Just try to keep it together in the meantime.

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Junior Astronaut Juice, a 6% Double Dry Hopped India Pale Ale, has slowly evolved to becoming our best seller and generally a favorite amongst IBW drinkers. Go on out and grab some of this LIFE CHANGING BEVERAGE while it lasts!

Ok, everybody. That's all I've got for today. Enjoy the rain and keep your eyes on the social media. Big News should be coming any day now. Any... Day...Now.....?

IBW's Beer Here Now is Here... Now!

Some day this fine city of ours will let us open the doors of our tap room to you lovely members of the public. Right now, it looks like that day is gonna be around the end of July or early August. You know what? We'll keep you plugged in as that time comes to be. In the meantime, do your kegels and shine your tap dancing shoes. We'll be open before you know it.

In the meantime, we've got some new beers for you... and an old favorite.

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In honor of the incredible Baba Ram Dass, we made BEER HERE NOW. This 7.5% double dry hopped double IPA is loaded up with Idaho 7, Citra & Mosaic hops and is a down right lovely homage to a downright lovely human.

SLUSHY THING #2 is like SLUSHY THING #1 but even less like beer than that one! This time we used Sweet Cherry, Blood Orange and Meyers Lemon juice in addition to some lactose and left all the damn fruit in the beer so now you can tell your friends your drinking another Jamba Juice while covertly getting properly pie-eyed on carcinogen-rich booze! At no other time in history has your liver been at such odds with your tongue!

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And then, for you old-school IPA drinking demons out there, we've got a new batch of DAGGER FLUTE hitting the mean streets again. This 6% delight is all citra, top to bottom.

All these beers are coming at you this week and next. So, hop on your Luck Dragon, get down to your favorite bottle shop and fill your Tauntaun skinned satchel full of these delightful poisons.

To celebrate the Dog Days of summer, we've got a crazy good sale going on at our TERRIBLY DESIGNED web store. From now until August 1st, anytime you spend $49 or more and put in the code SIRIUSISIMPORTANT, you get 30% off your order of anything in our store. So, you should do that.

Fruit Creep & Trust for Your Boom-Boom Party

Hiya!

We had our city inspection last week! There were a couple days of frantic, last-minute adjustments and not a ton of sleep, but we made it.

Everybody from the city was incredibly nice and supportive and seemed as excited about us getting this place open as all of you have been. Let's hope these are all good omens and tidings. It's been a very looooong slog to get this place up on line, so, some fresh, encouraging winds were very welcome.

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We've been getting a lot of questions - in fact, a nice lady just popped her head in as I was writing this - about when we'll be open. Believe me, we want to be open as bad as you want us to be. It seems plausibly realistic that we could be open by mid-July if all goes modestly OK, which, you know, is all we can really hope for these days. Facebook or Instagram are your best options for immediate news on when we're opening. And, of course, this lovely newsletter as well.

I hear tell that we've got some kind of holiday this weekend. The one where every damn person in my neighborhood extends every inch of their will to give my dog a nervous breakdown. Well, I'm here to report: she remains steadfast. Alice has not yet given up all hope, though she just spends a lot more time following us around the house, shaking, drooling and panting like Nixon in front of the press. She'll be ok, though, I think, we just keep front-loading her with beer. So have at your dumb fireworks and, please, enjoy your weekend.

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To assist in your incendiary indulgences, we've dropped a fresh batch of FRUIT CREEP and TRUSTlager out to our accounts. The city got theirs on Tuesday and, as always, we're doing western burbs today, north tomorrow and south burbs & Rockford on Friday. Utah is getting some Fruit Creep, too. You should see that towards the end of July.

Don't forget to go to our TERRIBLY DESIGNED web store and buy one of the sexy new shirts we had made recently. These are real nice looking shirts. Real nice. We'll also have these available at our tap room when it's open along with some other fun, limited swag. But, if you buy a shirt now, you can wear it to the opening and then everybody will know, beyond any shadow, that you are serious about your love of IBW. And what could be a more important way to express your individuality than that?

Tony's Humble Pie & Slushy Thing #1 Are In The World

Greetings, Freaks!

It's June and we're half-way through the double-booked 2020/2021 mega-year of brain-twisting highs, lows and WTFs. Can you believe it?

Don't worry, you don't have to believe it. In fact, we mostly recommend you don't believe it. Or, really anything for that matter. The only thing belief is good for is to sell you stuff and why in the world would we want to do that?

Oh wait. Scratch that. You should totally believe It. And by "It", we mean everything we're about to tell you right now. Because somehow we ended up in a position where we're supposed to convince you to buy stuff from us. Specifically, beer. And shirts. And lifestyle. And these little dioramas Jason has been making where he recreates great moments in baseball with taxidermied frogs in wigs. They're amazing and you can get them RIGHT NOW at our poorly designed web store for the low, low, LOW price of $156.99. While life on earth lasts.

At long last, we've got our City of Chicago Liquor Task Force appointment!! Next Thursday, the fine folks of the City of Chicago are going to stop by and cause us stress, anxiety and, more than likely, more money. But we've never been happier to have any of those unpleasant emotions and experiences thrown into our laps because it means we're dangerously close to opening our Mind Control Super Store and Tap Room Extraordinaire!!! Eat your vitamins, say your prayers and throw a little love and good luck our direction as we do this thing. Please.

It seems plausibly realistic that we could be open by mid-July if all goes modestly OK, which, you know, is all we can really hope for these days. Facebook or Instagram are your best options for immediate news on when we're opening. And, of course, this lovely newsletter as well. SO CLOSE!

The best way to bide your time while we make our brothers & sisters at City Hall happy is to stay a little bit drunk. Not black out, gross out your friends and family kind of drunk, but just a little swervy. It makes work better and your kids more tolerable. It whitens the teeth and makes for much stronger bones and thicker hair. And, no matter what any one tells you, it does make you funnier. And it makes our emails a lot more coherent.

We're biased here at the International IBW Space Station and Cult Member Only Hair Salon, but, we think the best way to stay that proper amount of gentlemanly drunk (or gentlewomanly (or gentle-whateverly)) is on our two most recent releases: Tony's Humble Pie and Slushy Thing #1.

You know Tony's Humble Pie, it's the same, delightful 8% blueberry pie beer you've been using to get through Thanksgiving for the past couple of years. But now you can get it in 16oz cans and, BELIEVE US, it's the best way to celebrate all the stuff you never got done while the world burned down around us.

Slushy Thing #1 is our first pass at the newest and dumbest fad in beers, slushy beers. Full of sweet cherry, key lime, cranberry, vanilla and lactose, this 6% sour ale tastes prettay similar to a Slurpee and will set your records straight if you ask it nicely. It pairs well with Andy Kapp Hot Fries and is the perfect foil for your next trip to the DMV. We've got two more variations on this style coming at you this summer, one with a seltzer base and like twice as much fruit as this one and another that... well, we'll wait to tell you when we get there.

What's most important about these Slushy Thing beers is that our wizard designer has made them in the image and likeness of the limited edition cups you used to get your slurpees in back in the 1970s. Now, we know that nobody born in the 1970s would even think about drinking a freaking beer that tastes like a slurpee, so settle down, we don't expect you to get the joke.

Oh! OH! We got more shirts in. Go to our TERRIBLY DESIGNED web store and buy all of them. It is the only way to clear your conscience. I swear.

One last bit of exciting AF news: THERE'S A BEER FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND! I know, I know. Shhhhhh. We're all pretty excited. Come to the Morton Arboretum on June 19th, embarrass yourself and say hi to our newest employee Zac Rodgers. He's a real nice guy and new to Chicago. Please take some time to explain to him that nobody in Chicago actually eats Chicago-style pizza. He'll understand eventually.

Ok, everybody. Go buy some beer! And shirts! And dioramas!