Prepare yourselves, beer drinkers of Chicago. This is the biggest list of STL and SoIL beers we’ve ever unleashed.
6 breweries. 15 styles. 21 beers, some in Chicago for the first time, some for the first time anywhere.
Join us on Tuesday, May 20th at The Green Lady for a celebration of downstate brewers. This is the South of 80 taplist for 2014, and if we do say so ourselves, it’s kinda crazy:
This year’s South of 80 kicks off at 7 p.m. at The Green Lady on Lincoln Avenue, just blocks south of the Paulina Brown Line stop. Unlike previous years, The Green Lady will not be offering flights this year, though half pours will be available so you don’t have to fully commit to every beer, just partially commit.
Over a dozen of these beers are at 6% ABV or less, so you should be able to safely sample more than a few of these. Attack the barleywines, double IPA’s and imperial stouts at your own peril…but try them anyways.
Some of these beers you have seen before at South of 80, but we liked them so much we wanted to have them back. Others we saw listed and we knew we had to bring them to you. Others, we let the brewers drive — this is what they wanted to introduce themselves to you with.
Come say hello, have a few beers, and see what these folks can do.
Rolling Meadows:
- Blood Orange ( 5.8% ABV): Enjoy this hefeweizen’s fruity aroma, bright mouthfeel and hints of raspberry and grapefruit.
- White IPA (4.8% ABV): They’ve taken a Weiss beer, added some farm grown coriander and combined it with a bunch of delicious hops — including some of their own home-grown.
- Lincoln’s Lager (6.5% ABV): This beer is defined by its crisp, clean flavor, caramel color and refreshing bitter notes.
Little Egypt:
- Hefeweizen (5.4% ABV): A Bavarian Style Hefeweizen; unfiltered, with a turbid appearance and straw yellow color. The aroma features clove and banana esters and a firm wheat presence. The beer has a complex malt flavor with wheat, banana and a lightly spicy, balanced finish.
- American Pale Ale (4.5% ABV): Brewed with Mosaic and Simcoe hops, this APA is dominated by a citrusy hop profile up front and balanced by caramel and honey in the finish.
- Abbot 6 (7% ABV): This beer is a Belgian-style Golden Ale characterized by a crisp pilsner malt character balanced by lightly spicy hops and featuring restrained Belgian esters.
DESTIHL:
- Strawberry Blonde (5% ABV): This fruit beer is made by adding generous quantities of strawberries to a blonde ale base beer, providing harmonious fruit qualities, golden-strawberry blonde color, crisp/dry palate, light body, low hop characters & bitterness and light malt & fruit sweetness.
- Hoperation Overload (9.6% ABV): Our mission for this Imperial or ‘Double’ India Pale Ale is to overload the beer with hops for an intense hop bitterness, flavor and aroma while still being balanced by a big malt profile, resulting in a hoppy beer with more dimension. This beer is light copper in color with some hop haze from overloading with dry hops as well.
- Wild Sour Series: Black Berliner (3% ABV): We like to dare to be different, so we have brewed this Black Berliner–Style Weisse, which is much like the traditional German-style sour wheat beer, but we have brewed it with debittered black malt for a dark sour beer that is acidic and lemony-tart from our unique wild yeast and lactic fermentation. This beer is highly attenuated, very light bodied with high carbonation and low hop rates, which showcases the sourness all the more.
- St. Dekkera Reserve Sour Ale Series – Kriek (5.5% ABV): Barrel #1 – Aging since July 2013. Single barrel aged, spontaneously fermented, wild acidic sour ale.
Urban Chestnut:
- Zwickel (5.2% ABV): Our flagship lager, pronounced ‘zv-ick-el’, is an unfiltered, unpasteurized, German classic that finishes as a smooth-drinking, vitamin rich (from the yeast), naturally cloudy bier.
- Winged Nut (5.4% ABV): We affectionately refer to the first beer in our Revolution series of modern, American craft beer, as our unusual little bird. It’s a little on the flighty side at 5.4% ABV, and it’s a little on the wacky side because we brew it with finely milled chestnuts, Willamette hops and we ferment it with a Bavarian Weissbier yeast strain. All of these nuances contribute to its ‘nutty’ personality
- Hopfen (6.4 % ABV): A beer we are describing as a ‘Bavarian IPA’. Brewed and dry-hopped with a variety of Hallertau ‘hopfen’ hops, instead of the usual and more citric hop varieties of most American IPA’s, gives this beer a decidedly German twist.
- Erlkönig (8.3% ABV): This Maifest special (a dry hopped, pale double wheat bock) is sweet, soothing and a deceptive delight. So much so that it may deceive thy sight. Should you start to see visions of Elf King fame, heed the warnings from where this beer gets its name. Spelled out clearly in the Goethe poem…Hold on tight to a loved one, and head for home.
4 Hands:
- Contact High (5% ABV): Not just another boring wheat ale. We made Contact High, our spring and summer seasonal, exciting by adding copious amounts of pacific northwest hops and dry hopping with fresh orange zest. Contact High pours a bright orange hue with a big citrus aroma. *New to Chicago
- Bona Fide Imperial Stout (9% ABV): Bona Fide is a collaborative effort with Goshen Coffee, a local fair trade coffee roaster. This beer is big, bold, and in your face. Bona Fide pours black as night with a smooth mouth feel. Aromas of espresso, dark chocolate, roasted malt, with nuances of vanilla.
- Single Speed Session (5% ABV): Our American blonde ale is a soft and delicate ale brewed with pilsner malt and jasmine flower. The addition of jasmine adds a floral and slightly fruity layer. Single speed pours a crisp golden hue with floral undertones.
- Passion Fruit Prussia (~ 3.5% ABV): The name Prussia originates from Frederick the Great. Frederick was trained to brew this very delicate style of beer and later became the King of Prussia. Our interpretation of the Berliner Weisse style is very traditional. *New Release
Triptych:
- Dirty Hippy (3.9% ABV): This English brown ale features a complex toasty, malty aroma with hints of toffee and dark fruit. The smooth malt flavor features more of the same and finishes sweet with a touch of roast bitterness for balance. *Won a Silver Medal at the World Beer Cup
- Seven Saints (7.2% ABV): Brewed with seven malts, seven hops, formulated to be 70 IBUs and 7% alcohol in strength, this brown ale was brewed for a draft account’s seventh anniversary. With an aroma dominated with notes of pine and faint impressions of tropical fruit, the flavor is full of toasty, malty notes that are swiftly washed away by a firm mix of resinous bitterness and roasted malt.
- Bourbon-Barrel Barleywine (10.4% ABV): A portion of our English Barleywine spent its winter hibernating in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. This viscous, vinous strong ale combines notes of caramel, toffee, and stone fruit, with barrel provided impressions of vanilla, oak, and bourbon.
There you have it — we’re certain there’s at least one beer in there you haven’t had, want to try or maybe even revisit from last year. It’s much cheaper than a trip downstate, and safer to get home from, too. Don’t forget to add us to your list of favorite events at the Chicago Craft Beer Week page, and use the hashtag #southof80 when you’re checking in with us.
We’ll see you there!