• Vanilla Bourbon County Stout

Saturday was of course Public Drunkenness and Green Novelty Hats Day in our fair city, but I decided to spend the afternoon indoors at Goose Island‘s Clybourn brewpub, going toe-to-toe with more than a dozen Chicagoland brewers at Stout Fest 2010. The brewers won—I’m amazed I can read my notes, honestly—but it’s easy for me to be a good sport about it, because before I waved the white flag I managed to try 15 different stouts, some of them among the best examples of the style I’ve tasted.

Philip Montoro

Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. Philip has played scrap metal in Lozenge, drummed with the Disasters, the Afflictions, and Brilliant Pebbles, and sung for the White Outs. He wrote the column Beer and Metal from 2012 till 2015, and hopes to do so again one day. You can also follow him on Twitter.