The Beer Culture Center heads to Music Box Theatre for a special screening of everyone’s favorite dive bar epic: Road House. Step into its smoky, beer-soaked, neon-lit world where fists and beer bottles do the talking, the philosophy lands just right, and the line between good and evil is real. It’s the quintessential dive bar movie experience, where every barstool is a front row seat to the chaos.

Meet Dalton. Played by Patrick Swayze at his coolest, the legendary “cooler” arrives in a small Missouri town to clean up the Double Deuce, the seediest and brawl ridden watering hole around. Part hero’s journey, part barroom brawl ballet, part cheesy 80s romance, Road House is the perfect combo for any lover of beer and film.

Before the first punch is thrown, we invite you to join us for a public (21+) tasting inspired by the rowdy spirit of the Double Deuce - drawing from the rituals, characters, and charm of dive bar culture. Our good friends at Bier Omakase will present four tastings rooted in the kinds of places where stories unfold over a beer and spill out onto the big screen.

Be nice. Have a beer. Enjoy the show.

8pm beer tasting is free and happens while supplies last. Movie at 9pm.

Bier Omakase is a Chicago-based, storytelling-driven tasting experience that treats beer and other fermented beverages as a curated journey -- each pour thoughtfully selected and paired with context, history, and stories. It's designed to bring people back into conversation, turning drinking into something more communal and intentional.

Around since 1929, a time before fluorescent lighting, megaplexes, and artificial butter, The Music Box Theatre is Chicago’s beloved venue for independent, foreign, cult, and classic films.

Let’s kick off the 8th Annual Beer Culture Summit!

Join us at the Village Tap for an informal and festive evening to get into the Summit spirit before sessions begin. We’ll be gathering with participants, partners, supporters, and beer enthusiasts at one of Chicago’s great neighborhood taverns.

Expect a few remarks and some giveaways courtesy of our friends at Stiegl!

This gathering is free and open to all. Come grab a beer with us on May 7th!

This event is part of the 8TH ANNUAL Beer Culture Summit which EXPLORES THE THEME OF RethinkING America at 250.

Who brewed the beer that fueled the Revolutionary era?

Beer’s role in the founding of our nation is a story riddled with mystery and passive reference in primary texts and letters from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Although mentions of beer may appear brief or routine, alcohol played a major role in the Revolutionary American War and the diets of those populating the many estates and plantations of the Thirteen Colonies.

This lecture from Travis Rupp of the University of Colorado, Boulder, explores why beer surfaces so quietly in early American records and examines the striking divide between what was purchased and enjoyed by free landowners and what was produced and consumed by enslaved communities before, during, and after the Revolution. Drawing on evidence from George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and James Madison’s Montpelier, this presentation demonstrates that those who wrote about beer were seldom those who brewed it. Moreover, where the Founding Fathers relied on beer styles and imports from England, true brewing creativity and experimentation was in the hands of the enslaved and unvoiced populations of our early nation.

The evening also marks the release of a commemorative beer in partnership with George Washington’s Mount Vernon and crafted for the event by Black-owned breweries Funkytown Brewery (Chicago) and Soul Mega (Virginia). The collaborative brew features ingredients that would have been used by the enslaved beer makers whose labor and ingenuity helped sustain early America.

Travis Rupp is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he has taught for 16 years. His scholarship centers on Roman archaeology, ancient food and alcohol production, sport and spectacle, and Pompeii and the cities of Vesuvius.

In parallel with his academic career, he spent nine years at Avery Brewing Company in research and development, earning the title “Beer Archaeologist” and founding the Ales of Antiquity series (2016–2020). He serves on the National Advisory Board for the Beer Culture Center and is the founder of The Beer Archaeologist, a research brewery dedicated to recreating ancient and historic beverages.

Rupp is currently writing a book on beer production and consumption in the Roman military. He is also actively conducting research on intoxicants from Homeric Greece, brewing in the early monastic tradition, beer production in Revolutionary America, and the beer industry in WWI Belgium. Recently his travels and research abroad have focused on beer production in early monastic Ireland, beer consumption in Roman occupied and Gaul and Britain, and chicha in ancient Peru.

THIS EVENT IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY

This event is part of the 8th Annual Beer Culture Summit which explores the theme of Rethinking America at 250.

Every beer begins with the land and the stories tied to it.

This one-night conversation brings together leading voices in brewing and Indigenous studies to explore how ingredients, place, and heritage shape more than just what’s in your glass. At the center is a powerful question: how do relationships to land and history influence the way beer is made and who and how do we tell those stories?

For Shyla Sheppard and Missy Begay of Bow & Arrow Brewing, the discussion highlights a contemporary Native business perspective rooted in Indigenous ingredients, ancestral foodways, and relationships to land. Their work demonstrates how brewing can reconnect people with regional ingredients and traditional knowledge systems while remaining fully engaged with modern craft brewing. Just as importantly, Bow & Arrow uses beer as a platform for storytelling and myth-busting, often challenging outdated perceptions and demonstrating that Native cultures and Native entrepreneurship are vibrant, innovative, and active today.

Matt Gallagher of Suncatcher Brewing offers a complementary lens grounded in local agriculture and collaboration. His approach reflects a growing movement in craft brewing, one that reconnects beer to farmers, grain, and hops, and rethinks brewing as a relationship to place rather than just a product.

Moderated by Madison Bastress, Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library, the conversation draws on Indigenous history and public scholarship to guide a broader discussion of stewardship, storytelling, and thoughtful, responsible engagement with land and culture.

This event will be the first time Bow & Arrow beer will be available in Chicago or anywhere east of the Mississippi River.

THIS EVENT IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:

ADAM HITCHCOCK & SARAH KAMMERER