We here at Illuminated Brew Works are heavy into inside jokes and obtuse cultural references. It's kind of the sweet, sweet horse meat we like to dine on. In fact, we work in a reverse currency - the less people that get our references, the more we enjoy them.

Which is why it was so disappointing to wake up this past Sunday morning and turn on that bleeding edge of radical journalism that is "Sunday Morning" and see a piece on, well, Amber Tamblyn's dad. And he didn't even have anything to promote!

From one perspective, you can view this as a sentient universe with a personal grudge taking an active interest in popping a very singular and joy-filled balloon. Though, you know, that might be a little paranoid to think that way. Instead, I choose to view it as a mean-spirited mountain god with a very specific axe to grind. Or, perhaps, She's just got a celebratory instinct completely tone-deaf to my wildly important ego's clandestine demands. You decide.

Any way you slice it, we've got a new beer out. AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD is a 6% sour ale made with passion fruit and it's delightful! Now it's not one of these stupid, trendy Slushee beers that all the cool kids are making mind you. We aren't going to stoop to that level of pandering until mid-May (stay tuned!).

No, this a bit more of a traditional American sour ale with passion fruit all up in it. The caramel and honey malts wrap their hairy arms around the passion fruit giving you a delightful face sensation that's a lot like a candied apple if the confectioner ran out of apples and just started candificating passion fruit instead and assuming you'd never know the difference.

Well, jokes on you. You CAN taste the difference and it's fang-tastic! AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD is better than all those old Roger Corman exploitation motorcycle films AND "West Side Story" wrapped together, covered in petrol fuel and set to fire with one of David Lynch's cigarettes. Truly.

BEWARE: With all these batches coming out of our new Norwood Park location (you can spot them because they are labeled and not sleeve wrapped), allocations are super slim. So, you need to buy these up early and quick or you will miss out. Chicago gets it's share of AMBER TAMBLYN'S DAD this week. Ohio gets theirs today or tomorrow. And Oregon and Colorado's shares go out next week. But, seriously, I'm not lying about this, these are small batches of 20 or 30 barrels so they really won't stick around long at all.

Oh, and hey! We've got great news, by the way. We hired a new, strange and talented brewer to help Bucky at the shop. Dave Gibbons came to us from Temperance Brewing Co. in Evanston bringing with him some big ideas and a very chill attitude. Now, you probably won't care too much about the attitude, but we do. But what is important to you is that Dave is coming on board to not only add his recipe skills to our portfolio, but also to develop a focused barrel-aging program that will see a regular scheduled program of Tap Room only releases in the coming months. We're over our ski's excited about this and you should be, too.

Speaking of the Tap Room, we're dangerously close to opening. We're shooting for a Memorial Day open, but there's still a couple pieces to this regulatory puzzle that we have to place. Stay tuned on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter (or this here email list) and you'll be one of the first to hear about us opening.

While you wait, feast your eyes on Jason Pritchett's mural that he is making for us:

Add this to the killer mural John Forbes already did for us and the other sculptural pieces that we're working on and you've got yourself one seriously screwed up Tap Room to enjoy your IBW beer in. You asked and we delivered. Why? Because we love you! (That, and we want to make that sweet, sweet Tap Room cheddar and retire early to our cult's space commune on Sirius B.).

Did you know that the GENIUSES at PorchDrinking.com named IF YOU'RE NOT INTO YOGA (our 13% white stout with pineapple and coconut) the best beer made in Illinois in March? They did and you can read all about it here.

Ok! That's all for now. This summer is gonna be bonkers, folks. Start doing your drinking exercises now.

XOXOXOXOXO!