Food truck Friday, Great Taste, Barrel Aged Sour Tapping

Oh? High! I didn't even see you there. 

Have a seat. Take your shoes off.

Can I get you a water? Still or sparkling?

We really need to talk.

Tomorrow night, here in the Wine Styles parking lot, we're going to have (probably) our last Food Truck of the season. Chicago Lunchbox is going to be here from 5pm to 8pm. Chicago Lunchbox serves traditional Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino cuisine with a twist! Offering your choice of banh mi, tacos, ricebowls, salads and more.

These food trucks are always a great way to spend your Friday evening. Eat it outside Wine Styles, eat it inside IBW. Eat it inside Wine Styles or eat it out back in the premier luxury back patio at IBW. Just eat it. Here. And drink. And do it all with your friends and neighbors and suspicious strangers.

If you need more info and if you want to pre-order (recommended!), go here. 

To help celebrate eating and Friday, we've got 2 very exciting tappings we'll be doing: THE PROPER GLASSWARE IS AN EMPTY HEAD is back in action. This is one of our favorite DDH DIPAs that we do here at IBW. The Waimea hops and Citra really make this bird sing. This will be tapped at 4pm when we open and will change your life for you, no action required on your part other than drinking an 8% beer on a Friday.

We're also tapping - and, damn, excuse while I weep a little (I'm very excited!) - THE WISDOM OF THE STAIRCASE #1... this is a sour brettanomyces farmhouse aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels from City Winery and dosed with fresh Mango juice. This is super rare and the first in a very strong series that is going to be available only at IBW Lodge #1 (with one exception that we'll get to in a second). Seriously, come get this. This will also change your life. And, let's be honest, your life needs some changing. Ammiright? (I am!)

Now, while I'd love to say that I'll be here to sit in the back office and watch you all eat and drink on our closed circuit cameras, that's just not true. Not this Friday, anyway. Nope. Instead Jason, Rick, me and our new work release sponsorship, Jason Pritchett, will be heading to Madison, WI for the Great Taste of the Midwest. If you know, I don't need to tell you. But, if you don't know, you need to tighten it up a little bit and make sure you get out to Great Taste of the Midwest next year. It's my favorite beer event of the year and for good reason. It's run like a Swiss watch, it's outside on the beautiful lakes in Madison and all the breweries bring their A game. So many festivals you get phoned in beer offerings from breweries, but not the Great Taste of the Midwest. No, ma'am. 

Here's what we're bringing this year:

  • Proper Glassware is an Empty Head (8% DDH DIPA)

  • Prickly Pearadolia (6% Farmhouse w/ Prickly Pear)

  • Extra Thick Slushy 7 (6% Seltzer w/ Pineapple, Sweet Cherry, Lemon, Pistachio, Coconut & Marshmallow)

  • Orange Sunshine (5.4% Citrus Saison)

  • The Wisdom of the Staircase #1 w/ Mango (Sour Brett Farmhouse BA in Sauv Blanc barrels)

  • The Wisdom of the Staircase #2 w/ Passion Fruit (Sour Brett Farmhouse BA in Sauv Blanc barrels)

Please come by and see us, we're in the 200 tent, close enough to Une Aneé to really ruin Jerry's day if we try hard enough (we will!). We've got fresh printed stickers to give to people we like, even these hot new, state-of-the-art bumper stickers.
It's gonna be a great weekend!

Speaking of Slushy Things, we're packaging our newest Slushy Thing #8: The Garden of Dave's Delights on Tuesday. This will be available on Tuesday at the Lodge and out on the mean streets later next week. This one is a real dandy, let me tell you.

HOLY CRAP!!! Did you know that MURDER BINGO is every Wednesday night? If you haven't been yet, you are missing out on a bigly deal. Handsome Rob carries your dark spirit through the trashy maze of troubling films and, if you get 5 horror movie tropes in a row, you win a beer! This is every Wednesday starting at 9pm. MURDER BINGO is STRICTLY 21+.

Also, don't know if you saw, but there's new shirts for sale on our website. They are H4WT as no one says anymore:

Order these now from our ridiculously unmanaged website at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/cult-propoganda for inflation-ready jacked up prices!

You can see all of our event calendar for the month at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/events

You can see what's currently on tap at IBW LODGE #1 at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/whats-on-tap

That's all I've got. Why not go ride your bike today, it's BEAUTIFUL out there!!

IBW Wins! Forrest & Fischer are Back! Kolsch!

Oh, hi.

Big news from this past weekend. IBW won BOTH categories it entered for the Chicago Beer Society Hazy Days competition! How about that?

ASTRONAUT EYE SCREAM won 1st Place for Best Modern Hazy and DOUBLE DIPPED ORANGE SUNSHINE won 1st Place for Best Experimental Hazy. 


We're all pretty stoked about this as we were competing against pretty much every brewery in Chicago here worth its salts. We love our friends and colleagues in Chicago's wild and vibrant beer scene (or a fair majority of them, anyway) and we love beating them in competitions almost as much. I kid (a little), but it does feel good to be recognized now and again. So THANK YOU to everybody who came out and all the well-informed people of exceptional taste who did the voting. We couldn't have done it without you.

You can get ASTRONAUT EYESCREAM at IBW Lodge #1 (in 4-packs and draft) and all the decent bottle shops in Chicago and the burbs (Binny's, Beermiscuous, Beer Temple, Bitter Pops, Capones, Bottles & Cans, Beer Shoppe, Orange & Brew... you get the idea). And you can get DOUBLE DIPPED ORANGE SUNSHINE on tap at IBW Lodge #1 (we are sold out of package) and in 4-packs at some bottle shops (listed above, etc) that still have some. But, fear not! If you didn't get any DDOS this time around, we'll be making more DOUBLE DIPPED ORANGE SUNSHINE in the near future.

You asked (and drank and bought) and we listened for once! DER ZAUBERSTAUB, our take on the perennial Kolsch style ale that has been proven to whiten your teeth, strengthen your bones and educate your children, is back in package and on draft!

You can get Der Zauberstab at the Lodge in package (today) and (tomorrow) draft and it goes out to accounts starting next week. As always, most accounts are getting it, but, if you don't see it, talk to your beer buyer and tell them they will be splayed across flesh hooks for 1,000 lifetimes in a sulphuric-smelling locker room around rural Alabama if they don't pick it up. This is proven science.

TOMORROW NIGHT!! FORREST & FISHER'S OUTLAW BLUEGRASS HAPPY HOUR is back with a loving vengeance. They had to cancel their show on 7/14 due to the plague, but they're coming back this Thursday to bring you all that 6-string love you need. These guys do 2 sets of fan-fucking-tastic bluegrass music and it's completely, entirely, 100% free to you and yours! 

If you haven't been yet, you are truly missing out. The first set starts around 8pm. Don't be a deadbeat, get over here!

HOLY CRAP!!! Did you know that MURDER BINGO is tonight? If you haven't been yet, you are missing out on a bigly deal. Handsome Rob carries your dark spirit through the trashy maze of troubling films and, if you get 5 horror movie tropes in a row, you win a beer! This is every Wednesday starting at 9pm. MURDER BINGO is STRICTLY 21+.

Also, don't know if you saw, but there's new shirts for sale on our website. They are H4WT as no one says anymore:

Order these now from our ridiculously unmanaged website at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/cult-propoganda for inflation-ready jacked up prices!

You can see all of our event calendar for the month at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/events

You can see what's currently on tap at IBW LODGE #1 at https://www.ibw-chicago.com/whats-on-tap

That's all I've got. Why not go ride your bike today, it's BEAUTIFUL out there!!

FREE MUSIC TONIGHT & SATURDAY @ IBW LODGE #1

What's up, sailors?

We've got two great nights of FREE MUSIC at our little sweat shop this week. You shouldn't miss either of these because, well, life is happening and death is coming!

TONIGHT!! FORREST & FISHER'S OUTLAW BLUEGRASS HAPPY HOUR is back with a loving vengeance. These guys do 2 sets of fan-fucking-tastic bluegrass music and it's completely, entirely, 100% free to you and yours!

If you haven't been yet, you are truly missing out. The first set starts around 8pm. Don't be a deadbeat, get over here!

This Saturday, July 16th, to help celebrate America's favorite holiday, Bastille Day (a couple days late... as you do!), the inimitable TIJUANA HERCULES will be riding their fish-flanked Jalopy to our doorstep and knocking you out with their meat-sweaty rock n' roll.

We consulted an AI generated Ouija board about Tijuana Hercules and this is what it said (after minor spelling corrections):

Tijuana Hercules is a long running Chicago based hillbilly trance group. A cross between boundary-busting blues and tangled psychedelic roots music. THIS groove has been known to cure dozens of malaise and a few that have yet to be discovered by modern medicine.

To honor all the Americans who slept through the original Bastille Day, this rock n' roll show will be 100% and completely FREE! What? FREE, I SAID.

The evil will begin around 10:15pm on Saturday. So load up your baguettes and get your dumb selves out here for a fantastic little throw down.

Oh, hey. We packaged a new batch of our 8% Lactose DDH DIPA w/ Galaxy, ASTRONAUT EYE SCREAM, on Tuesday and it's on tap and available in 4-packs at the Lodge. It goes out to stores early next week.