New Chicago Beer Company - Middle Brow - Homebrewers Wanted!!

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nburica

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Another Chicago brewing company… Sorry guys, we're gonna try to clog your already-congested shelves with another new local beer. But this one will be a little bit different, as the head brewer will be your neighbor, friend or possibly your enemy.

We’ve started a beer company called Middle Brow. Each month we'll throw a homebrewing contest, and the winning recipe will be commercially brewed and distributed the beer to local bars and bottleshops, in both bombers and kegs. Each contest will revolve around a particular theme or style, adhering somewhat to the BJCP guidelines, but also straying from them on occasion, because we all know as homebrewers, brewing is about experimenting and being creative. For example, the style for the first contest is a "winter warmer," but Christmas ales, old ales and similar fruit/spice beers will be allowed to enter as well. We’re going to do a best-in-show [type] selection, and then a few weeks later it'll be on tap and shelves throughout Chicago and some neighboring ‘burbs.

So, what's in it for the winner? Well, first of all, prestige. Oh and some cash, to the extent we make any money at all. And they'll even get their picture on the label (better yet, a cartoon drawing of their picture). And, in any event, we kinda started the beer company backwards: we're a couple beer nerds with unfulfilling desk jobs and bleeding hearts who wanted to "give something back to the community," as they say in after-school specials. After lots of brainstorming, we finally linked our two passions and decided to raise money for charities by brewing and selling homebrewed beers. So, we'll be giving half of whatever money we make to local charities. For the first brew, we’ll be donating to CeaseFire.

As you're well aware, we can't have a homebrewing contest without homebrewers. So we're asking for your help. We would be pretty bowled over if you shared our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/MiddleBrow) with your friends, homebrewing pals, and other like-minded beer nerds, where they'll be able to learn more about our company and our contests.

If the community responds favorably to this idea, we hope one day to open our own brewing space, a sort of co-op brewery that will continue the same “you as the brewer” ethos. But that’s a distant dream… In the meantime, let’s hold some cool events, try some delicious homebrews, and talk shop with our fellow beer nerds.

Thanks, and see you guys around!
 
Do you have a document that spells out precisely what becoming a "winner" entails. My ego is not speaking here at all. I just think its an interesting idea and was curious.
Where are you located in Chicago? I'm very near North and Ashland. Best of luck :)
 
Where/how will you be brewing the winning beers? Are you contract brewing or ? If its contract brewing, I'd be curious to know who you are partnering with.
 
Do you have a document that spells out precisely what becoming a "winner" entails. My ego is not speaking here at all. I just think its an interesting idea and was curious.
Where are you located in Chicago? I'm very near North and Ashland. Best of luck :)

A winner entails... well were working on it. There will be a some sort of cash prize (might be smaller for the first few considering the hole were already in) and were hoping the winner can help with the commercial brewing of the beer, test the beer, work on the label, and get their face on the label. We are located in our respective apartments in chicago, since we are contract brewing we have no spot. It will be like gypsy run homebrew contests, at least in the interim. We'll be working with the TTB to try and figure out homebrewing contests because these rules are changing constantly.

Where/how will you be brewing the winning beers? Are you contract brewing or ? If its contract brewing, I'd be curious to know who you are partnering with.

We're contracting brewing with a brewer in Illinois. I'm not positive we can say with whom per contracts. I know sometimes that carries a bad rep. but we will be working with the contract brewer building and test batching the beer to make sure we nail the individual winning recipe, hopefully with the assistance of the winning homebrewer.
 
This sounds exciting. Will you be putting out some of your own beers? What can we expect?
 
This sounds exciting. Will you be putting out some of your own beers? What can we expect?

Well we were gonna try and sneak out some of our own too. I mean we're a little selfish and wanna see how ours will play out against homebrewing elite. Currently were working on a session beer with Brett we're hoping to perfect by the summer.
 
Did you have any trouble finding a brewery prepared to let you use brett in their equipment?
 
Awesome!! Looking forward to more updates. I'm in Schaumburg and my be in Wauconda soon. Needed more space for more brewing!
 
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