Down-Home Oshkosh: Homemade Chili & Homebrewed Beer

If you’re weekend plans include the Oshkosh Chili Cook-Off tomorrow, be sure to stop by the Society of Oshkosh Brewers' tent to grab a couple of free samples of homebrewed beer. SOBs Jody Cleveland and myself will be there pouring two of our latest creations.

Here’s Jody to tell you about his beer: “It's a traditional Oktoberfest. It does have a bit of hoppiness, but leans mostly toward the malty side. It's malty but smooth. Easy drinking. 5.4% ABV.”

That sounds good!

Here comes windbag...

The beer I brewed is based upon a type of porter known as running porter that had its heyday in 1840s England. These were dark, fairly strong and somewhat bitter beers that, unlike most porters of the era, were served without being aged. These beers also tended to be brewed with less-than-fresh hops. For my brew, I used hops grown in Oshkosh last year. And like those old beers, this one is young. When it’s served on Saturday, it’ll be just a month after brew day. The beer is a whisper under 7% ABV with 30 calculated IBUs (though that’s really just guesswork when you take the age of the hops into consideration). Is it any good? You tell me. Come down to the Downtown Chili Cook-Off and find out for yourself.