*** 2019 Chicago Area Brethren Summer Gathering - ILFO, IAFO, INFO, WIFO, MIFO or anyone :) - Saturday, August 3, 2019

Off in two hours, then sleep for 3 hrs and then get to hang with all you guys!!!

Dang Jon, you're hard core! Will have Ron make you your own personal pot of coffee.

Remember when you was a kid on Christmas morning and you'd wake up early and have to wait for the adults to wake up? Woke up at 0630 and ready to go. Not sure when Bill set his alarm so will try to be patient.

Update: Dad . . . or rather Bill is awake!

Sorry I didn't make it to the bash. This summer has been a bit of a drag....had to go into the shop and get the left hinge rebuilt.

Excuses, excuses... I kid, hope things are OK.

KP. empty some PM space. I sent you well wishes earlier but got the dreaded PM too full message.


Hope you mend well.

Bill-Chicago said:

KP. empty some PM space. I sent you well wishes earlier but got the dreaded PM too full message.


Hope you mend well.

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My subscription ran out. Just renewed. My box is ready for you!:shock:

Hope you have a speedy recovery KP!

chicagokp said:

My subscription ran out. Just renewed. My box is ready for you!:shock:

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Nothing says love like a clean box ready for stuffing

My very loose outline is:

Thursday evening: Portillo's for Chicago hot dogs and Italian Beef sandwiches. Although Mad Hatchet brewery is right there, it's only open Fri-Sun. Will County Brewing is about a mile or two away from there, so that might be an option.

Thursday PM is cutting up pork shoulder and starting the Filipino marinade. Maybe stop and grab some libations for home consumption, some Midwest beers you can't get? Just kind of hang out as it will still be a 4am day for me, maybe travel will knock you out a bit.

Friday is just a couple items, everything else is flexible. I need to soak the bamboo skewers and thread pork sticks. That's probably later in the day to give the marinade as much time as possible.

Right here in little old Plainfield we have the birth of Central Texas BBQ. Not sure you ever had good BBQ. LOL, this is more of a joke, but it is good stuff, we don't have to go there (Station1 in an old fire stations). But the cool thing about Station One, you get it to go and eat next door: Garage Band Brewing.

At some point on Friday, I'd like to show you our favorite brewery, Werkforce. We've watched them grow from a tiny warehouse/tasting room to a great space with around 25 beers on tap any given time.

Stop at the store for supplies and you can make your pie. Then Saturday is picnic, these things seem to break up around 3:30p-4pm

Saturday evening, Jo's work sponsors the local minor league baseball team and she has tickets to that. I had committed to that prior to the picnic, but we'll see how things play out. Even if we only take in a few innings, right across the street from the park is, you guess it, another brewery: MyGrain.

Now if it appears when you read this that there is a lot of drinking involved, there not necessarily will be. Personally I'll just do a few 5oz tasters as I'll be driving. I'm only pointing out that depending on what we do, this town has plenty of local brewery options if we decide to partake.

Church will be Sunday morning and not sure what time you'll want to get to the airport.

And you'll be happy to hear there is no brewery near the church!

The one near the church is Black Dog Distillery, not a brewery!

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I'm going to do a quick recap as I had a few comments on this at the bash and wanted to follow through. I understand Frog was posting pics of some of this to his Facebook this weekend, I'll leave it up to him if he wants to add any here, give his impressions, start a "I went to Chicago" in the Road Trips section, whatever. My point isn't to steal from his experience.

I think I need to comment because, first and foremost, I had a great weekend hosting Charles. I don't get many days off and when I do it is taking care of two houses. This was a "me" weekend and it really solidified in the days prior to the bash, and I wash the benefactor of Charles visit. A Southern Gentlemen through and through.

I'm going to leave the hyperlinks up above and only add more for new additions. Although as mentioned Charles did take some shots of the events, there was plenty of impromptu that didn't have shots.

Charles got to my house Thursday night minutes after I got home from work, I'm glad I left early.

I think our first stop was Binny's Beverage Depot. I'm not sure what Charles thought of this. Binny's is a Chicagoland thing, it's the "big time" of the Chicago liquor market. We have 2 or 3 other "affiliates" of mom and pops that will allign themselves under a advertising brand like "Armanetti Liquors: a Foremost Brands Store" and then a chit ton of independents with no advertising. But Binny's, they take over like old Office Depot locations and such to give you a sense of scale. They are similar, but cater to their locale. For the hard to get bourbon's, scotchs, and foreign items, I have 1 Binny's 10 minutes away and 3 more 25 minutes away. They are spread out a bit.

Anyway, Charles had a list of stuff to try from Midwest Brewers. He is a craft beer guy like me. Had he not, this would have been a looooong weekend. Binny's has a whole Midwest section, and we knocked off around 10 on his list.

Then we went to Portillo's. Around the table was Italian Beef and Hot Dog, Cheeseburger, Chop salad and I had my normal Italian Beef/Italian Sausage combo.

Frog and I went to Will County Brewing mentioned above. Place was packed with people playing Singo, a drunk Shazamm app game. We tried two pretty good beers.

Came back home and had a couple Binny's bought brews. Stayed up late, probably drank too much. Prepped meat for Saturday.

Went to Station 1 mentioned above for late lunch. Friday was the Pork Steak on special which is what I had. Charles had ribs, I think. Beans for me and potato salad for Frog. Can't recall what Jo had.

Rock band brewery wasnt opening for another hour (it was 2pm) so we ate in at Station and headed to Werkforce above. Went to Meijer for supplies. Just like with me, Charles was impressed with the size of Meijer. They have everything there.

Full stomachs, multiple tasters, we slept a bit after that. Woke, made skewers for Sat, all of a sudden it was 9:30. Got Chicago neighborhood pizza, not deep dish. Thin crust tavern style from Fox's Pub, a south side institution. Large sausage well done, plus a medium pepperoni.

After Werkforce, Jo and Charles grabbed a coffee from Ten Drops right next to Werkforce.

Saturday was the bash until around 4pm, but prep and travel started around 7am. We got there after Sweetsmoke Jon, Steve Neotrout, but not many before. Broke camp around 3:30-4pm or so got home after 5. Charles brought a fine selection of beers he picked up locally, to wash down his Malort.

Had ticket to the Joliet Slammers game and got there in the third inning. Stayed for 4 innings or so and headed to MyGrain brewery across the street linked above. I recalled reading about another downtown Joliet brewery, and we saw Elder Brewing was 0.3 miles away. We were obligated to check it out, Jo and I had not been. Most of these breweries by the way had us tasting with the 5oz's. Sounds like a lot of beer, but in total it wasn't.

So we never did get to Garage Band Brewing or Mad Hatchet listed above. Heck, we also could have hit Solemn Oath, Two Brothers Aurora, Hopvine Brewing, and Oswego Brewing Company within the same 20-25 minute radius of the house, but that would have just been showing off. 30 minute radius would have added too many to count. Seriously. I am fortunate to live in the new beer country.

So then we rolled into Sunday. Full. Very full. 2 full days and a night of eating and tasting. Charles attended Sunday Service with us at Springbrook, a contemporary ("seeker") church we belong to. So what comes after church? Brunch!


We took Charles to Sovereign, another Plainfield success story near Station 1, a farm to table tap house specializing in local food and local brews. Charles and I had some great fruit IPA's (you need fruit at Brunch) and Jo had one of the Bloody's but the regular, not the weekly special with 2 pounds of add on's stuck in there. She also had (shared) brussels and pork belly sides and Charles and I had the Brunch menu flat iron steak/rice/bean combo. It hit the spot!

Couple more hours of talking, packing, watching a little TV and it was off to the airport.

Charles, thank you for staying with us. Jo and I said, we went to more breweries in 3 days than the two of us go to in 3 months.

You are welcome in our house any time, sir.


Thanks!

And Ron, I scouted Elder for January, I'll follow up with you

Bill's above itinerary listed everything that we did and it was great but the best part was just hanging out and getting to know each other better. It's awesome to think that a BBQ website can bring people together from all over the world. I had met Bill and Jo once before at a Texas bash and they graciously opened their home to this old farker from Texas. Hopefully we can meet up in the near future.

Bill was the first person to welcome me to the Brethren fifteen years ago and who would have thought that was the start of me traveling around and meeting so many of you other fine folks.

If you're hesitant about going to a bash because you won't know anyone there, please go and I guarantee that you'll have a great time. Brethren are incredible welcoming people and nobody's a stranger at a Brethren Bash!

If you don't believe come on down to Texas in October and I'll show ya!

frognot said:

If you're hesitant about going to a bash because you won't know anyone there, please go and I guarantee that you'll have a great time. Brethren are incredible welcoming people and nobody's a stranger at a Brethren Bash!

If you don't believe come on down to Texas in October and I'll show ya!

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^^^ What he said. Went to the Texas Fall Bash last year. Never met any of these charachters. Had the BEST time ever!!! But I think if I bring Malort down a second time to Texas, ya'll will chase back to R-Kansas. Maybe I'll leave the Malort at home this next trip.

If you haven't been to a Texas Bash, you should! So much fun! If you haven't been to a Chicago Bash, you should show up next year. We won't force you to drink the Malort. We're really not trying to unfriend you in person.

Ron_L said:

I've been swamped at work and am late catching up on a lot of stuff!

Bill, here is this years re-purposing of your pork stick leftovers!

My attempt at Sinangag, Filipino Garlic Cauliflower Fried Rice. It was very good!

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You did good son.


I missed this post, but glad I came back to see it.


My bride might just reach out to you, or have me reach around to you, for the recipe of what you did as this looks like a great keto recipe.


Looks awesome!

frognot said:

If you're hesitant about going to a bash because you won't know anyone there, please go and I guarantee that you'll have a great time. Brethren are incredible welcoming people and nobody's a stranger at a Brethren Bash!

If you don't believe come on down to Texas in October and I'll show ya!

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Well said Charles. Our first Bash was the first Carolina Bash. The wife asked me what were we going to do if we got there and didn't like the people attending? I said we'd just ease to the car, leave and no one would even notice. We'd never try it again.

Well we got there, met Dennis, Joe Sammy and Dave (may he RIP) and a few others and had a BASH! Since then we've traveled to a few Texas Bashes and now the Chicago, California, and SW bashes are on our bucket list.