For our first IPA, we wanted to compliment the floral hops with citrus. We went with grapefruit for its fresh flavor and bitterness.

In order to get the most from our grapefruits, we peeled four large grapefruits and added the peels to the boil with our Cascade and Chinook hops.

We saved some juice to add to the secondary.

Our first beer is officially bottled, labeled and drinkable!

There’s a lot of spice from the chile de arbol, but a sweet maltiness rounds out this very drinkable beer.

Cheers to our first successful brew, and here’s to many more!

Years ago, Alex and Ben started homebrewing with minimal equipment and with hit-or-miss results. Then, they both married two lovely ladies and decided to start brewing again when both couples settled in Chicago, Illinois.

One day in December 2015, the group decided to brew their first batch: a red ale with chile de arbol. And a brewery was born.

But the fledgling venture needed a name. We decided to play around with the initials of the cities were both Ben and Alex had lived (at the same time): COMO (Columbia, Mo.), STL (St. Louis) and CHI (Chicago) using the tiles from a beloved Bananagram game.

What was the only option? Comic Sloth.

And hey, sloths are pretty cool.