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IBW's Kick-A-Shmoo Coming at You

May 19, 2021 by brian buckman

Hello Earth Friends!

Here's hoping May, with it's lovely showers and April flowers, has been good to you.

Us? We've been keeping it high and tight over here at the Norwood Park compound. Murals are getting painted, floors finished, banisters welded. The place is getting all around gussied up and she looks lovely!

A realistic open date seems to be around the middle of June at this point and we will certainly keep you plugged in. Facebook or Instagram are your best options for immediate news. And, of course, this lovely newsletter as well.

In the meantime, we've been doing what we do: making beer! This week sees the release of KICK-A-SHMOO JOY JUICE. This 8% Double Dry Hopped Double IPA is made with Galaxy, Rakau and Mandarina Bavarian hops and is our loving tribute to America's original State bird, the Shmoo.

As the wikipedia entry on the Shmoo states:

  • They reproduce asexually and are incredibly prolific, multiplying faster than rabbits. They require no sustenance other than air.

  • Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself—either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.

  • They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect bootleather or house timbers, depending on how thick one slices them.

  • They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.

  • Naturally gentle, they require minimal care and are ideal playmates for young children. The frolicking of shmoos is so entertaining (such as their staged "shmoosical comedies") that people no longer feel the need to watch television or go to the movies.

  • Some of the more tasty varieties of shmoo are more difficult to catch, however. Usually shmoo hunters, now a sport in some parts of the country, use a paper bag, flashlight, and stick to capture their shmoos. At night the light stuns them, then they may be whacked in the head with the stick and put in the bag for frying up later on.

Now, everybody knows you can't believe everything you read on WikiPedia. That said, I think the Citizen Journalist who curated this data did a fine job of maintaining information integrity.

Next week sees this year's release of some people's favorite beer: GAY AGENDA. This 8% Double Dry Hopped Double IPA with Peaches was Chicago's first beer to honor all of friends and neighbors who identify as LGTQ+ and is the first and only beer in the torrid history of humanity to feature local Living Legend and crochet artist Jeff Fox and his laser-shooting dogs Winston & Bennie flying across the sky. Troof.

And, if that isn't enough, 10% of all the profits from GAY AGENDA go to support the fantastic folks over at Howard Brown Health who have been eliminating the disparities in healthcare experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people through research, education and services since 1974. They're doing amazing work and you can support them and their great work with this beer.

I've been slowly but surely updating the website after many moons of neglect. Be patient, it's getting better. I swear. I'm adding current offerings on the home page and building out more detailed (and up-to-date) beer info. Amongst other goodies. Have a look when you can. If you have suggestions, send them to info@ibw-chicago.com.

Ok, everybody. Go buy some beer!

May 19, 2021 /brian buckman
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IBW's Brony Is On the Town!

May 06, 2021 by brian buckman

It's time once again for IBW's BRONY to hit the mean streets of the western world!

This 8% Double Dry Hopped Double IPA is a creamy delight made extra purty with Rakau & Motuekahops. If you haven't sunk your face into BRONY yet, you should. If you already have, then you know. Go on now, get it!

Now - WOW! - what a world we live in! It's such a wild, wooly, seething, bubbling and beautiful mess! We even have grown adults who get their kicks out of dressing up in furry outfits and celebrating their Joy & Madness through the fluffy and funny paradigm of "My Little Pony". I don't want to live in a world without these people or the freedom to dig into whatever nuttiness I might find to express Love in whatever way I feel it. Long Live the Brony! Long Live Light, Life & Liberty!

We've got so much great beer out in the world right now:

  • Brony, 8% DDH DIPA

  • Orange Sunshine, 5.4% Citrus Saison

  • The Ballad of the Peanut Butter Pony, 13% Stout w/ Cocoa & Non-Allergenic Peanut Butter

  • Amber Tamblyn's Dad, 6% Sour Ale with Passion Fruit

  • Raimboberry Pie, 8% White Stout with Raspberries, Blueberries & Boysenberry

  • If You're Not Into Yoga, 11% White Stout with Coconut & Pineapple

This is truly a Golden Age for IBW beer! Get it while you can.

I've been slowly but surely updating the website after many moons of neglect. Be patient, it's getting better. I swear. I'm adding current offerings on the home page and building out more detailed (and up-to-date) beer info. Amongst other goodies. Have a look when you can. If you have suggestions, send them to info@ibw-chicago.com.

New swag is coming soon! The tap room is almost open! Life is complicated as HELL... but good!

This summer is gonna be bonkers, folks. Start doing your drinking exercises now. Ok, everybody. Go buy some beer!

May 06, 2021 /brian buckman
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Amber Tamblyn's Dad Drops Today

April 28, 2021 by brian buckman

We here at Illuminated Brew Works are heavy into inside jokes and obtuse cultural references. It's kind of the sweet, sweet horse meat we like to dine on. In fact, we work in a reverse currency - the less people that get our references, the more we enjoy them.

Which is why it was so disappointing to wake up this past Sunday morning and turn on that bleeding edge of radical journalism that is "Sunday Morning" and see a piece on, well, Amber Tamblyn's dad. And he didn't even have anything to promote!

From one perspective, you can view this as a sentient universe with a personal grudge taking an active interest in popping a very singular and joy-filled balloon. Though, you know, that might be a little paranoid to think that way. Instead, I choose to view it as a mean-spirited mountain god with a very specific axe to grind. Or, perhaps, She's just got a celebratory instinct completely tone-deaf to my wildly important ego's clandestine demands. You decide.

Any way you slice it, we've got a new beer out. AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD is a 6% sour ale made with passion fruit and it's delightful! Now it's not one of these stupid, trendy Slushee beers that all the cool kids are making mind you. We aren't going to stoop to that level of pandering until mid-May (stay tuned!).

No, this a bit more of a traditional American sour ale with passion fruit all up in it. The caramel and honey malts wrap their hairy arms around the passion fruit giving you a delightful face sensation that's a lot like a candied apple if the confectioner ran out of apples and just started candificating passion fruit instead and assuming you'd never know the difference.

Well, jokes on you. You CAN taste the difference and it's fang-tastic! AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD is better than all those old Roger Corman exploitation motorcycle films AND "West Side Story" wrapped together, covered in petrol fuel and set to fire with one of David Lynch's cigarettes. Truly.

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BEWARE: With all these batches coming out of our new Norwood Park location (you can spot them because they are labeled and not sleeve wrapped), allocations are super slim. So, you need to buy these up early and quick or you will miss out. Chicago gets it's share of AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD this week. Ohio gets theirs today or tomorrow. And Oregon and Colorado's shares go out next week. But, seriously, I'm not lying about this, these are small batches of 20 or 30 barrels so they really won't stick around long at all.

Oh, and hey! We've got great news, by the way. We hired a new, strange and talented brewer to help Bucky at the shop. Dave Gibbons came to us from Temperance Brewing Co. in Evanston bringing with him some big ideas and a very chill attitude. Now, you probably won't care too much about the attitude, but we do. But what is important to you is that Dave is coming on board to not only add his recipe skills to our portfolio, but also to develop a focused barrel-aging program that will see a regular scheduled program of Tap Room only releases in the coming months. We're over our ski's excited about this and you should be, too.

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Speaking of the Tap Room, we're dangerously close to opening. We're shooting for a Memorial Day open, but there's still a couple pieces to this regulatory puzzle that we have to place. Stay tuned on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter (or this here email list) and you'll be one of the first to hear about us opening.

While you wait, feast your eyes on Jason Pritchett's mural that he is making for us:

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Add this to the killer mural John Forbes already did for us and the other sculptural pieces that we're working on and you've got yourself one seriously screwed up Tap Room to enjoy your IBW beer in. You asked and we delivered. Why? Because we love you! (That, and we want to make that sweet, sweet Tap Room cheddar and retire early to our cult's space commune on Sirius B.).

Did you know that the GENIUSES at PorchDrinking.com named IF YOU'RE NOT INTO YOGA (our 13% white stout with pineapple and coconut) the best beer made in Illinois in March? They did and you can read all about it here.

Ok! That's all for now. This summer is gonna be bonkers, folks. Start doing your drinking exercises now.

XOXOXOXOXO!

April 28, 2021 /brian buckman
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It's Orange Sunshine Season Again!!!

April 18, 2021 by brian buckman

It's the little victories that we've come to enjoy & appreciate these waning days of the long, strange winter that was last year.

Our Little Victory for today: It's ORANGE SUNSHINE season once again!! And boy does it taste good.

As always, Orange Sunshine is made with hand-zested oranges & lemons as well as our house yeast, Tim, providing a dusting of peppery aroma to the citric radiance. As people get vaxxed-up and restrictions get eased, it's gonna be a hot and nutty summer. Orange Sunshine should prove the perfect co-conspirator for whatever you have in mind.

Hitting the streets along with this year's ORANGE SUNSHINE is a fresh batch of THE BALLAD OF THE PEANUT BUTTER PONY, our 12% stout made with cocoa and a non-allergenic peanut butter extract. In case you're curious, the extract tastes great. By our peanut butter obsessed standards here, it tastes better than the real thing in this beer. It would have to or we wouldn't have put it in there!

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We're packaging our first release out of our new production space and tap room tomorrow!! ASTRONAUT JUICE is an 8% Double Dry Hopped Double IPA made with over 4lbs per barrel of hops including Citra, Mandarina Bavaria & Mosaic.

To celebrate our new home and new neighborhood, we've made it available to our newest neighbor first, WineStyles! You’ll be able to pick up a 4-pack of Astronaut Juice from WineStyles in Norwood Park starting at noon on Tuesday, April 20th. Deliveries will go out to all other stores on Wednesday.

Very soon, you’ll be able to pick up these releases directly from the IBW Lodge at 6186 N Northwest Hwy, but, while we finish gussying up our new place up, we are stoked to have WineStyles be your IBW neighborhood outlet.

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To reserve your 4-pack of Astronaut Juice, just fill out this form. An associate will reach out to you via phone or you can call WineStyles after submitting this form with your credit card information to complete the sale and coordinate in-store or curbside pickup. Any questions, just contact WineStyles at 847-518-9463.

We do have one more exciting announcement to make, but I think we'll give it just a couple more days to stew in the radosphere before we release the proverbial kraken. Please do stay tuned...

April 18, 2021 /brian buckman
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Raimboberry Pie Will Solve Almost Everything for You

March 23, 2021 by brian buckman

I'm sitting here on hold with Walgreens trying to get my vaccine scheduled. I'm the last creep at IBW to get stuck. I've decided to turn this into a drinking game. Every time I want to throw my phone against the wall, I drink a RAIMBOBERRY PIE.

This flipping CIA torture technique of a hold message is not helping anything...

....ALL OF OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE STILL HELPING OTHER CALLERS, WE'LL BE WITH YOU AS SOON AS WE CAN. WE APPRECIATE YOU PATIENCE. ALL OF OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE STILL HELPING OTHER CALLERS, WE'LL BE WITH YOU AS SOON AS WE CAN. WE APPRECIATE YOU PATIENCE. ALL OF OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE STILL HELPING OTHERS...

I'm on my 4th RAIMBO now. It's getting dark. I hope the Walgreens rep that finally answers my call - and ends this demonic mantra! - is chatty. I'm ready for a good talk, a cigarette and a shot... of whisky.

Thank all of the Old Ones (especially you AZOTHOTH!) that this RAIMBOBERRY PIE is a delicious curative and an effective numbing agent for my aging and easily agitated mind. And that it's finally out of glass an into easily crushed 16oz aluminum cans!

At 8%, RAIMBO is sessionable... as long as you've had a large enough meal. My daily lunch routine of a pound and half of Alaskan King crab legs, 8oz filet mignon & a pint of that dairy-free Ben & Jerry's "PB Cookie" is holding up it's end of the bargain, so far. So, I've got that going for me.

And RAIMBO's a delightful dessert beer to capstone my new diet routine. Tastes just like Brambleberry Pie with all that raspberry, blackberry & boysenberry stacked on top of Madagascar vanilla and Vietnamese cassia. Oh, yeah, and there's even beer in there! But you'll have to take my word on that.

RAIMBOBERRY PIE goes out to the city today, West burbs, tomorrow, North Thursday and South Friday. Ohio got it today and Colorado gets it next week.

Speaking of Colorado, we're sending our love to our friends at our Boulder-based distributor today, Brewer's Star, as they pick up the pieces from another awful shooting in their small community. It seems so far away right now, but I'm going to keep dreaming as hard as post-humanly possible for a day where us dumb monkeys can stop shooting each other.

That dream might begin when we all start seeing ourselves in everyone else - no matter what bad ideas the OTHER might have - and start taking mental health seriously.

Alright folks, we love you, we believe in you and we believe in the future.

XOXOXOXOXO!

March 23, 2021 /brian buckman
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Illuminated Brew Works LLC ™, 6186 N Northwest Hwy, Chicago, IL