MOCTOBERFEST THIS SATURDAY @ IBW Lodge #1!

Greetings Earth Worms!

We are officially into those deeper throws of autumn here in our lovely yet complicated opt-in prison complex some still call Chicago. Leaves are taking forms of ember and our winds are doing their damn skipppiest to chill down to a reasonable approximation of sweater weather. Neighborhoods are slowly transforming into ghoul-speckled graveyards and some folks are even putting up Halloween decorations.

We here at IBW Lodge #1 are playing our roles to character as well, careening across time loops like little stuffed piggies with spiral tails on roller skates. And, in service of that salty pretzel of aphorism and image, we will be hosting our FIRST EVER IBW MOCTOBERFEST EXTRAVAGANZA THING this Satyrday here in our humble beer hovel, IBW Lodge #1.

Here's a link to our event page on that digital cesspool Facebook. You can also find details on our LOW-RENT WEBSITE in what is called an 'events' section.

This will be what anthropologists call "fun". We'll have liters of our marzen, "MOCK-TURTLENECKS", to pour into your mouths in exchange for USD. We'll also have FREE! FREE! FREE! brats and pretzels. That's right! No bio-survival tokens will be required for food! Holy shit! We will also have VOCODER KARAOKE so you can become that kraut-rock star you've always daydreamed of. Oh, and if you wear a mock-turtleneck, I'll buy your first liter.

So, long story short, get your fargin iceholes over to IBW Lodge #1 THIS SATURDAY and squeeze a little Joy out of your weekend.

But, hey, we honor all types over here at IBW. We love all you party people who show up to our events dressed like over-stuffed 1990's boy band rejects, but we also hold space for you anti-social shut-ins who fear our plague-infested planet with a kind of common sense not really found in this here our modem world. And for you, our hermetic friends, we make CANNED BEVERAGES chock full of hops and booze. And, this week, we dropped a couple newbies just for you.

Back for no good reason other than we LOVE drinking this beauty, we've got STUPID FOR JUPITER. This 6% IPA is loaded up with Mosaic and Hallertau Blanc hops making a perfect crusher that is easy on your nose, friendly to your mouth, and adversarial to your sobriety. Get this baby, baby. Get it at our IBW Lodge #1 OR get it at any self-respecting bottle shop. You can be stupid - god knows plenty of people are - but, if you're going to be stupid, please, be STUPID FOR JUPITER.

And because there is no light without shadow, no yahweh without Lucifer, no yucky without cookie and no Penn without Teller, we need to balance our Jupiterian joy with some good old Sumerian demon doom (lest our compliance team will get up our craw). In service of balance and delicious beers we are, once again, offering you PAZUZU'S PEDALS our 6% porter made just in time for you to enjoy this black beauty next to fire whilst our most wonderful time of year creeps in all about you. Get possessed by this chocolate and coffee lovely and get yourself loose, loose, loose so you can properly throw back your head and howl at our moon.

We still have some limited edition prints by Jason Pritchett (the talented and crispy angel who descended from Southern Illinois to paint our Lodge mural) from our lovely evening with Desert Oracle last week. Screwball Press screened these beauties and you can buy one at our poor excuse for a website while supplies last. And, if you haven't listened to the show yet, Ken posted "Harvest of Souls" last Friday and it sounds fantastic. Check out the most recent episode of Desert Oracle, "Harvest of Souls", recorded right here at IBW Lodge #1, by following this link.

Desert Oracle @ IBW & Happy Lobster Food Truck!

Greetings Space Family!

Who said Apocalypse can't be fun? I mean even good old St. John of Patmos made these wild and wooly End Times sound like John Carptenter's once and final masterpiece. You know that one where he teams up with effects legend Ray Harryhausen and casts a digitally reconstructed Rowdy Roddy Piper as a sword-spitting, flying-horse riding Jesus?

(You know - as an aside - a trick to riding roller coasters is knowing when to let go. Artful timing on when to wave your fingers airside and let your tongue slap against your skull's back like a lovable Labrador out for a Sunday spin in a green family truckster can be a difference between a harrowing barf bus and an extended glimpse into life and sublimity.)

And, as far as Apocalypse weekends go, have we got a doozy in store for you here at everyone's favorite IBW Lodge #1!!!

Saturday, we open at 4:30pm. That gives you 30 minutes to order a beer and secure a seat before HAPPY LOBSTER FOOD TRUCK rolls up to deliver that delicious, hot & buttered lobster roll you were smart enough to PRE-ORDER at this here link. That's right, HAPPY LOBSTER FOOD TRUCK will be here Saturday, September 25th from 5-8pm. We're doing this, once again, with our friends at WineStyles Norwood Park. There will be outdoor seating and we'll have some plastic cups for you if you want to enjoy your lobster outside. Or, if you want to bring your wine glasses inside IBW Lodge #1 that's fine, too. We're just happy to have you all here forgetting about life for a minute, being funny and fun and letting your tongue slap at ye olde backside of your skulls. Lord knows, we all need it. Pre-order here.

Sunday, we're closing to public at 5pm because this SINGLE GREATEST THING IN ALL OF HISTORY is happening here at IBW Lodge #1. Your esteemed and gregarious host of DESERT ORACLE RADIO, Brother Kenneth Layne Esq., will be here at our humble IBW LODGE #1 to spread the Good News about these Bad, Bad Times... LIVE and in person. Tickets are very limited and almost gone, so, act NOW and FAST as they say.

If you aren't familiar with Desert Oracle Radio, it's about time you edumacate thyself! Desert Oracle Radio is a weekly 30-minute radio show broadcast every Friday night at midnight from Joshua Tree's 107.7 KCDZ Radio. I've described it as if William S. Burroughs and Joe Frank had a baby and that baby made a radio show about all that odd and wonderful flotsam & jetsam in our Mojave Desert. I've also heard him described as Garrison Keillor at World's End. You pick your analogy at will.

A lot of people come to IBW and think, for some reason, that we're running a Cult of some kind here. Maybe it's all these smiling faces floating about unbouyed from earthly fears. Maybe it's our general aire of Devil-May-Care as we wash our bodies and brains in lovingly crafted and delicious poisons. Or maybe it's that our website describes us as a Cult. I don't know, your guess is as good as mind.

But, I'll tell you. That whole intellectual sheep mutilation that is this 'Q' phenomenon, happening to some otherwise nice folks in our country as of late, has really given "cults" a bad name. Which is, you know, really saying something! I mean, for a population whose only real knowledge of cults includes Charlie Manson's Family, Heaven's Gate & Nexium, for somebody to come along and make that word "Cult" sound even more dubious... now that takes something. So congratulations for that. I guess?

So yeah, we're definitely not a Cult. Not like that. And definitely not like THAT.

BUT.... if we were a Cult, we'd certainly need some kind of prophet to steer our listless masses. You know, a door-to-door salesman of hard-won wisdom, gilt with solid one-liners and a general sense of purposelessness and malaise that is somehow embodied with SPIRIT and loosely knit across a bed of found sounds and etheric, atmospheric music. And he'd probably come from a desert of some kind. Most likely from our country's Wild West.

But, we're not a Cult. So we don't have anything like that. Instead, we've got Ken Layne of DESERT ORACLE RADIO and, by all my estimations, this young fella will do. Just fine.

So, why don't you JOIN US? This Sunday. Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble.

We'll have limited edition prints by Jason Pritchett (the talented and crispy angel who descended from Southern Illinois to paint our Lodge mural) of that image at the top fo this email, too. Screwball Press is screening them as I write this. You can buy one at our IBW LODGE #1 on Sunday and, who knows, if you're a gentleperson and polite about it, Brother Ken may even sign it for you. Maybe.

If you're into maps, here's a map that shows you where the IBW Lodge #1 is. I would recommend you use this in conjunction with a bike or feet. If you must drive to come see us, please don't park in WineStyle's parking lot. There's a ton of street parking all around us. Indulge in our glut of street parking at will.

6186 N Northwest Hwy, Chicago, IL 60631

Saturday, 4:30 - 11pm
Sunday, Noon - 5pm
Monday, 6pm - 9pm
Tuesday, 4pm - 10pm
Wednesday, 4pm - 10pm
Thursday, 4pm- 10pm
Friday, 4pm - 11pm

Inner Space v Outer Space release & Food Truck TONIGHT!

It's busy, so It keeps the messaging short, It does.

First: TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT! At the IBW Lodge #1 we're releasing INNER SPACE v. OUTER SPACE, a double dry hopped collab we did with Omega Yeast. The 4-pack comes with 2 cans of each beer, same grist, same hopping (Galaxy & Vic's Secret), but 2 different yeasts. The first yeast is BritV, our standard go-to for DDH DIPAs and what we used for INNER SPACE. For OUTER SPACE we used a new yeast from Omega, Cosmic Punchwhich, using the incredible CRISPR technology, turns on specific proteins that activate thiols normally dormant in many hops. Don't take our word for it though, try it out yourself, it's pretty incredible.

We'll have 4-packs for sale at the IBW Lodge #1 tonight and we'll have both INNER SPACE and OUTER SPACE on tap as well so you can do 8 or 9 side-by-sides at the bar and then take a case home and do 6 more. Science is as reliant on rigorous testing as it is on paganism, so you really need to beat that horse dead and deader, son.

Speaking of science: we have been testing the correlation between drinking and hunger for about 46 years here in the IBW Labs and what we've found is that, when a middle aged human drinks intoxicating beverages, those same beverages trigger what we call a "hunger complex" in the left lenticular squeaky fromme, just past the medulla and across the Mason/Dixon line. This causes the subject to eat... a lot. And generally foods that are high in sodium, fat and ranch.

We're moving our study into a broader pool this evening and the nice folks at FLASH TACO TRUCK have offered their snacks to aid in our research. That's from 5-8pm tonight in the parking lot between us and WineStyles Norwood. Here's a link so you can pre-order your food. If you pre-order, you'll then have food. So pre-order. Your food. Ok? Pre-order.

Tomorrow we're going to be out in Rockford at the Screw City Beer Festival. This is one of our favorite events, the wonderful folks from Artale & Co. always put together a hell of an event. Get out there!!

We've got some other very exciting news that is already making its way around the further hinterwebs. We'll do a formal email about it next week wearing a top hat, tie & spats and, in the meantime, ready body, mind and spirit for THE GREATEST SINGLE EVENT THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED. This is not an exaggeration and you won't want to miss the thing I am not telling you about yet. Ok!

Labor Day Weekend 4-Pack Specials @ the IBW Lodge #1

Bon jour, Creeps!

I'm sitting here in a late morning revelry listening to an advanced copy of Ben Chasny's (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire, Rangda, et al) upcoming album, "The Intimate Landscape". If you don't know, Ben is - by my estimations - one of the finer and more interesting finger pickers pulling oxygen these days. His technical skills are only out done by his range and willingness to experiment, push himself and bend the boundaries of listener/creator/artist/inspiration into places that are rarely settled but always sublime.

We're gassing the atmosphere at the IBW Lodge #1 today with this current extrusion of Mr. Chasny's brains as we're making a beer with him celebrating this upcoming release. More info will come as the release date approaches but expect a beverage honoring Ben's inimitable musicianship and curiosity while seeing a long-awaited return to Belgian yeast strains for us, your friendly jerks here at IBW. Ben is truly one of this troubled world's greatest musical treasures and it's a huge Joy to be collaborating with him and the lovely folks at Drag City on this beer. Huzzah!

But, before all that happens, we've got a holiday weekend to tend to! And we want to make sure you have all the IBW beer you need to honor the Labor Movement, Unions, a livable wage and all the fine people who bust their asses for the families, friends and neighbors. So come by and enjoy $9 4-packs of Trust & Orange Sunshine and $12 4-packs of Wiccan Chicken & Beer Here Now available today through to the end of Monday night for to-go purchases only.

There's only about 10 4-packs of Beer Here Now left, so you want to jump on that one pretty quickly. And, for those of you who are a little thick, I'm here to tell you that we have put NO CHICKEN in the Wiccan Chicken (7.5% DDH DIPA w/ Rakau, Sabro, Mosaic & Citra). We put no Wiccans in there either, though we tried. But, god damn, those Wiccans are hard to catch. And the chickens, we just thought that might taste weird in beer.

While you're at the IBW Lodge #1 getting your screaming deal on the above mentioned 4-packs and killing the pain of being alive by sipping some draft beer at the bar, you can still also pick up 4-packs of all the other IBW beer we have for your at-home pleasures. Hits like Yes H&nd (13% Peach Pecan Pie Ale), Slushy #2 (Seltzer w/ Sweet Cherry, Blood Orange, Myers Lemons & Lactose), Slushy #3 (Seltzer w/ Keylime & Vanilla), the Ballad of the Peanut Butter Pony (13% Stout with Cocoa & Peanut Butter), Junior Astronaut Juice (6% DDH IPA w/ Citra, Mosaic & Mandarina Bavaria) & Pleaidian Play Date (Seltzer aged on Cab grapes).

And we've got growlers of everything on draft, too. If you want to see an almost 98% probably accurate listing of our tap list, drag your doom scrolling ass over to https://www.ibw-chicago.com/whats-on-tap.

And, while you're here at the IBW Lodge #1, please make sure to visit the BEST CRAPPERS IN CHICAGO just about 25' west of the bar stools. Be mesmerized by two uniquely themed toilet closets each hand engendered for your ungendered purging of the flotsam and jetsam effluviants of your drinking and eating habits. Stand in awe or sit in splendor, but, please, make it a point to indulge in our lovely bathrooms, you won't regret it.

After you spend most of your Saturday afternoon at the IBW Lodge #1, you should hop on your bike and head over to the Sketchbook tap room in Skokie to drink a couple pops with Bucky, Cesar, Eric, Amy and all the rest of the wonderful humans at Sketchbook as we celebrate the collaboration beer we made together, CESAR'S CIPHER. Fermented with Lunar Crush yeast from the staggeringly wonderful people over at Omega Yeast, this hazy session lager is truly something new and beautiful and deserves your face and tastebuds. That's this Saturday at the Sketchbook tap room from 5pm - 8pm. Cesar has agreed to pay the full bar tab of anyone who can do a 49 second keg stand of CESAR'S CIPHER, so you really have no excuses. (This last part is not true so, please, just don't)

Oh hey! WE ARE OPEN ON LABOR DAY! Monk will be here from 2pm - 9pm this Labor Day. Come drink with him and mostly behave.

And NEXT FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10TH join Illuminated Brew Works & WineStyles Norwood Park as we host the FLASH TACO TRUCK. This is going to be another delicious Food Truck extravaganza and a great way to hang with your neighbors and friends from the hood. And eat and drink, too!

If you're into maps, here's a map that shows you where the IBW Lodge #1 is. I would recommend you use this in conjunction with a bike or feet.

6186 N Northwest Hwy, Chicago, IL 60631

Saturday, Noon - 11pm
Sunday, Noon - 8pm
Monday (Labor Day), 2pm - 9pm
Tuesday, 4pm - 10pm
Wednesday, 4pm - 10pm
Thursday, 4pm- 10pm
Friday, 4pm - 11pm

Official IBW Lodge #1 Grand Opening Party & Ribbon Sacrifice

Howdy Friends!

Join us this Saturday, August 21st for our Official Grand Opening Party & Ribbon Sacrifice at the IBW Lodge #1!!!

The community will gather at 2pm and offer up a ribbon in the name of Joy & Prosperity at 2pm. Following the ceremony, we'll have a long, lovely afternoon of drinking delicious beer, hanging out, free prizes and being decent to one another.

That's right, starting at 3pm, and every hour after that until 8pm, we will be giving away IBW Lodge #1 Gift Cards as well as IBW shirts, glasses and even some Lodge Fez's.

Every beer that you buy gets you one raffle ticket and a chance to win one of these fantastic prizes. And, if you really want to game the system, we will accommodate that by allowing you to buy individual raffle tickets for an additional $3 a piece, 5 tickets for $5 or 20 tickets for $10. Every ticket will be in the hopper for every drawing after it's purchase or issuance and you must be at the IBW Lodge #1 in order to claim your prize!!!

Come on out and help us celebrate your new home, our new burden, and the best damn bathrooms in the city of Chicago! We'll have some great give-aways, delicious beer and other Suitably Odd surprises. Join us!

6186 N Northwest Hwy, Chicago, IL 60631

Saturday, Noon - 11pm
Sunday, Noon - 8pm
Monday, 7pm - 10pm
Tuesday, 4pm - 10pm
Wednesday, 4pm - 10pm
Thursday, 4pm- 10pm
Friday, 4pm - 11pm