09/10/2026
Member Spotlight: Jon Phillips
What do I do at CHAOS? I brew….a lot. HAHA. I’ve been a CHAOS member for over nine years and have been fortunate to be involved in quite a bit during my time. I’ve served as a two-term Vice President and two-term board member. Most of my efforts have been around outreach and growing our CHAOS community. Pouring CHAOS b**rs at events is probably my favorite thing, so I’ve helped establish relationships with organizations like Tacotlan, The Perch, Chicago B**r Society, Chicago Bocce Club, and a few others that provide opportunities to introduce CHAOS to Chicagoans. If there’s an opportunity to serve CHAOS b**rs at an event, I’m usually involved in some capacity. I’ve also been instrumental in creating more engagement with our Friends of CHAOS members and establishing things like the monthly Hoppy Hours and Wet January at local breweries, and improving our email communication tools to keep everyone informed of what we’re up to. I get to see a lot of the brewing members pretty frequently because I practically live at CHAOS, but I love getting to see and hang with our Friends members at events and am always looking for new ways to make that happen more often. I’m really pumped for the new “Learn to Bocce Night” we have coming up for our members so if you’re a Friends of CHAOS member and available that night, be sure to sign up!
My proudest moment at CHAOS was probably when I won a gold medal in the fruit b**r category for my Dragon Fruit and Passion Fruit Catharina Sour at the National Homebrew Competition, which is the homebrewer’s equivalent of GABF of the World B**r Cup. It’s the biggest homebrew competition in the world and it was great to represent CHAOS with that win.
I like to brew fun, creative stuff like the Spicy Dill Pickle Gose I had on tap at BrewBQ, but then also really enjoy the challenge of the pursuit of brewing a flawless l***r and everything in between. I try to make b**rs I think people will really like to drink and that represent CHAOS well.
I guess one of the b**rs I’m most proud of was the first barrel project that I was the lead on. It was an Imperial Stout that went into two different barrels. A Journeyman Bourbon Barrel and a Journeyman Rye barrel. There’s a lot that can go wrong with a barrel project from oxidation and infection to having a base recipe that doesn’t align well with the barrel flavors. There was a lot of pressure and my brew partners for the project (Eric Franklin, Lawrence Behmer, and Jason Whitehouse) put a lot of faith in me. One of the best moments I’ve ever had at CHAOS is when all four of us tried the stouts for the first time together. Anytime I brew or cook anything, I know that if I don’t hear some four letter words, I’ve got work to do on making improvements. In this case, there were plenty of them and I knew we had created something pretty special.
Every partnership we establish is another opportunity to get CHAOS in front of more people and an opportunity to show the quality of the b**rs we’re consistently making. We continue to grow the CHAOS community of craft b**r fans and I think that makes our events more and more fun. The Chicago Bocce Club crew is such an awesome group of people and so fun to hang out with. The owner of the Bucktown Billy Goats is a big time “b**r guy” and this partnership was a no-brainer. Their facility is exactly a mile from CHAOS right off of Hubbard and Paulina. CHAOS makes an Italian Pilsner called Bucktown Billy Goats Italian Pilsner that will be on tap at every home game along with a second b**r that varies every week. Highly encourage everyone to come watch a game and cheer on the Bucktown Billy Goats with us. It’s a ton of fun!
Last year was the first time in a while that we had an Oktoberfest that we opened up to trial members, so I didn’t really know what to expect. I love this time of year and knew I’d be making l***rs and bratwursts either way, but then threw out the idea of hosting an Oktoberfest. It was a tough ask coming right off of BrewBQ and having our members make more b**rs and to volunteer to help run it. They came through as always though in a big way. The party was really smooth and we saw a ton of new faces which is always awesome. The turnout was fantastic and just had such a fun, festive vibe to it. The steinholding competitions were a lot of fun to watch and it was hilarious watching people try to work the b**r puppeteer to drink from that contraption.
This year, we’re going to lean in even harder on creating an authentic German b**r hall atmosphere with more communal tables, authentic music, and some group cheers. To make sure we get it right, my co-host Eric Franklin and I are going to Cincinnati with some friends the weekend before for the biggest Oktoberfest outside of Germany for research purposes. Strictly business.
Traveling is definitely one of my favorite things to do. I’m fortunate to be married to Anne-Marie who is an epic trip planner. I think she likes planning trips more than I like brewing if you could imagine that. A couple years ago we went to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia which probably still ranks at the top for me. Getting to see Angkor Wat was the reason for the trip and it lived up to the hype. Vietnam was insane though. Just absolutely beautiful and ridiculously cheap. Our last trip was to Egypt for our wedding anniversary this last April. That was definitely the most awe inspiring. We got to go inside the freaking Great Pyramid and traveled all over the country. That’s something I’ll never forget.
