Casks & Camaraderie | Oak & Steel

In an unintended continuation from the last installment, Casks & Camaraderie is again headed to Missouri. Previously exploring Cape Girardeau’s Cask Craft Spirits and Beer Lounge, we focused on their elevation of barrel picks to expand exclusively from whiskey distillers into the realm of private picks with local brewery barrel stocks. This iteration picks up in the same barrel room it left off in, with Cory King and Side Project Brewing. His newest collaboration in the Silent Barrel series was with Kyle Howard, owner of Oak & Steel craft drinkery out of Kansas City. We took a deeper dive into his experience, the barrel, and the impact it’s had on the ever-changing beer scene in northwestern MO.

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Casks & Camaraderie | Cask Craft Spirits and Beer Lounge

Breweries are always looking for new and unique ways to share their beers. Recently, one way that many have looked to showcase their barrel room in particular has been through barrel picks.

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Community Across The Bar | Cheboygan Brewing Co.

Cheboygan, Michigan had a brewery as early as 1872 when the town was an important part of the state’s logging industry. In 2011, that history was rebooted with Cheboygan Brewing Company. A decade later, the brewery is still sharing the past and shaping the future of the community from behind the bar.

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Brew Your Story | A National Beer Collaboration

Oak Park Brewing Co. wants to help to tell the stories of black-owned breweries. On September 21, they announced a national beer collaboration to celebrate the 51st anniversary of Peoples Beer, one of the nation’s first Black-owned breweries.

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Community Rallies Behind Skeleton Key Brewery After Major Tornado Damage

On Sunday night many in the Chicagoland area took shelter in their basements as vicious storms and a tornado ripped through the suburbs. Over 130 homes and businesses were damaged including Skeleton Key Brewery in Woodridge, Ill. which was completely destroyed.

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North Carolina Beer Scene’s Biggest Stories from 2020

2020 was a bad year for the craft beverage industry. A global pandemic, civil unrest, an economic recession and inadequate government aid set the stage for declining sales and desperation. Nonetheless, breweries and cideries from across the nation found creative ways to survive and to adapt, and to recommit to supporting and sustaining the communities in which they exist.

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Koval Distillery Finds Solution for Unused Beer: Hand Sanitizer

Current social distancing and shelter-in-place orders across the country have left bar stools empty and taps dry. On-premises sales of draft beer have all but halted, leaving millions of gallons of beer undrank. Even worse, the lack of demand for future kegged beer has left thousands of breweries with untapped kegs, which will slowly go bad. This unfortunate consequence has led breweries across the nation to dump their beer. However, creative thinking has presented an alternative use: turn the unused beer into hand sanitizer. This was the case for Chicago’s Koval Distillery, which partnered with local breweries to create and donate 500 gallons of beer-made hand sanitizer to community organizations in need.

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Craft Breweries Donated More Than An Estimated $73 Million in 2016

The communities we live in are very special to us. Your neighborhood contains fun intricacies that you only know because you walk these blocks every day. Somehow, breweries in our communities represent many of the unique aspects you have grown in love with. Since breweries are embedded in our neighborhoods, they know how important their role as connectors and supporters are to giving back.
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Ultimate 6er | Texas Charity Brews

Beer collaborations happen frequently and usually with other breweries; however, over the past few years, I have noticed a different type of collaboration throughout Texas.  Breweries all over the state are partnering with various charities in their communities by creating a beer, in many cases inspired by the charity, and donating a portion of their sales to the organization. For this piece, I have chosen six examples from Texas, but these are just a few examples of the many collaborations that occur all over the state. For each of the brews, I reached out to the brewery to find out what inspired the beer and why they partnered with a particular charity.
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Tribes Beer Company to Honor First Responders All September

Craft brewing and community are synonymous, but no community can exist without its first responders, the brave souls who serve and protect the town. Both Tribes Beer Company and Tribes Alehouse (suburban Chicago) will honor Police, Fire and EMTs/Paramedics, as well as their spouses and children, throughout September. First responders can enjoy 25% off their food bill as a gesture of appreciation for the hard work for which they bravely perform each day.

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Event Recap | The Inaugural Funk Collective: A Gathering of Independent Breweries

Craft beer as a whole has gone through a shit storm over the last few months. Literally and figuratively. And the in-fighting hasn’t stopped. But at the Funk Collective: A Gathering of Independent Breweries, no amount of storminess could keep the masses away.  Read More

Creature Comforts Brewing Co. Selects Historic Site for Expansion

REJOICE! At long last, Creature Comforts Brewing Co. is making its move to expand into an additional facility in 2017 with the purpose of raising production (and possibly its footprint) in 2018. This news follows two years of steady growth as one of America’s fastest growing breweries and a zealous commitment to raise $100,000 for local community organizations. Creature Comfort’s future location of choice, the Southern Manufacturing Co. Mill, is no surprise to those who have followed the brewery over its short but influential career in Athens, Georgia. Read More

Ultimate 6er | Holiday Cheer-ity

The Craft Beer industry is emblematic of the Holiday Season maxim — community, caring and sharing. The examples of this community-focused philosophy that bind craft brewers together can be witness almost any day throughout the year. Here are six recent examples of craft breweries bringing good tidings of joy to thy neighbor by donating time, money, and resources during this Holiday Season.

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Creature Comforts Brewing Co. Kicks Off “Get Comfortable” Campaign

Athens, Georgia – Creature Comforts Brewing Co. will launch their highly successful Get Comfortable campaign on November 16, 2016. The five month-long Get Comfortable campaign is led by the small brewery to help fight hunger, homelessness and poverty in our community of Athens, Georgia, where the poverty rate ranks fifth throughout the United States. This is a laborious and incredibly rewarding effort centered around one of the craft brewery’s founding core pillars – community – first organized back in 2014. Read More

5 Things You Appreciate About Craft Breweries From Homebrewing

Homebrewing isn’t just a hobby; it’s an art form defined by our country’s do-it-yourself spirit through combining dedicated scientific research and passionate culinary engineering. According to the American Homebrewers Association, there are approximately 1.2 million homebrewers in the United States after every state had legalized the act in 2013. Just as craft beer opens you up to whole new world of flavors, there’s infinite number of possibilities when you realize what you can make with your first homebrewing kit. And as you ignite this new exciting hobby, you really start to appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into the industry as a whole. Read More

$10,000 raised for family of well-known beer industry volunteer

Rich Reynolds never earned a dime in the craft beer industry, but when he tragically and suddenly passed away, Chicago’s craft beer community came together to help his family.

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Pop Culture Week in Review 3/14-3/20

It’s another Pop Culture Week in Review and this week does not disappoint.

Robert Durst got arrested …

… but I’m not done with The Jinx. I really can’t look into it until I’m done. So, um … Google it.

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10 Creative Ways Craft Beer Is Giving Back

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge last year raised over $220 million globally. The viral awareness campaign also reached the brewing industry where it inspired several breweries to go out … Read More

What are Craft Breweries Doing for the Community?

Remember when you first opened your brewery… how long it took to get everything in order, setup the equipment, finally get that first sale.

Remember when you were first … Read More

Pop Culture Week In Review | 11/8-11/14

Fox has moved Mulaney to 7:30pm on Sundays

This isn’t a completely arbitrary time- Mulaney will actually just be trading with Bob’s Burgers.  However no one could argue that this … Read More