I've been to "first Thursday" before at Goose Island to hang with the Beer Advocate guys but thought they shut it down for some reason. I even remember calling Goose Island a couple of times and having people tell me they are no longer doing the event. Well, I was meeting a friend there last night (the first Thursday of the month) and there were a bunch of BA guys there hanging out in the side room! Long story short, the hostess told me they never cancelled the event.
Anyway, have you guys ever gone? Is this something we want to plan on attending every month? It totally slipped my mind to ask about the first Sunday homebrew gathering but I'll call them up and ask.
Well, I don't mean to offend the BA crowd. Maybe it was just circumstance.
As far as CBS, I believe there are 400+ members. Obviously I can't speak for them all, but I think it's a good crowd. Maybe bring some homebrew by and don't rely on what you've heard.
First Thursday (affectionately known as Thirst Fursday) is a Chicago Beer Society event. (http://chibeer.org/) They have been meeting at GI Clybourn for over 20 years to discuss fine beer and share homebrew. I don't know if anyone remembers, but they almost shut down the clybourn brewpub when the land owner wanted to triple their rent (end of 2010 I think). When they came to an 11th hour agreement to keep it open, GI decided they wanted to bring in more of the beer community, and get the buzz going again. Someone at Goose came up with the beer advocate event. For a couple of months it was held on the same night, in a different room. Then goose decided to just "merge" the events, not really asking CBS if they wanted to. It didn't go over that well. It basically became a circus of self proclaimed beer snobs who had more attitude then beer knowledge. Many of the longtime CBS members stopped coming, many never to return. At one point I think CBS was looking for another venue for First Thursday because of it. I guess at some point GI had enough of beer advocate, and cancelled the event. Now some of the BA people have since joined CBS, so there is some overlap there, but it is a CBS only event now. It's a good group of people. There are some well known homebrew authors like Randy Mosher, and industry people that hang out. Lots of good homebrewers. A couple of people who are a bit out there, but that goes along with the beer geek thing I guess. I've been a CBS member and have attended Thirst Fursday for about 5 years. Check out the webpage. http://chibeer.org/ They hold lots of great events, and there is a ton of good beer knowledge to be gained.
They come off so smug online I always figured it'd be worse in person. Count me out ;)
I agree with the high school party assessment. I felt that way the couple times I went and again last night when I just stepped in to see if I knew anybody. What I loved about it though was that I got to try things from Hair of the Dog, Deschutes, Cigar City, Duck Rabbit and brewery only releases that people brought in growlers. In my book, dealing with dumb "high-schoolers" is worth it if I can have Abyss, Mirror Mirror, Blue Dot, Red Poppy and others. I even had Big John before it was released because John Hall showed up with a few bombers of it. Just my two cents.
I went once, for about 20 minutes. Those BA people are snobby and smug. It was more like a high school party; different groups of 3-8 people standing in different corners in the stuffy room. They "appreciate" beer from a totally different perspective than homebrewers. Goose was telling people it was shut down because it was getting overrun with hipsters with pbr, dumb chicks bringing bud light lime,etc. Fights were happening. People started looking at it like a house party as opposed to a group who really appreciates beer.