Purposeful Communal Intent: An Afternoon With The Winyl Exchange At Penrose Brewing Co.

Purposeful Communal Intent: An Afternoon With The Winyl Exchange At Penrose Brewing Co.

By: Brian R. Brinkman - @sufferingjuke

The criticisms of our time are such that they’ve become cliché.

We have no time, yet all the clocks. We’re increasingly surrounded by digital technology that’s meant to connect us, and yet we’re all the more isolated as individuals. We value space for its purpose, rather than its potential as an aesthetic plane to share and imagine and be transported from.

For however shortsighted these observations can be, there’s an undeniable truth to the notion that we are sensory beings who need to be stimulated by living and breathing experiences with abstract creations such as art, music, and beer. And we need to share in these experiences with a community that can further stimulate our perceptions of, and reflections on, the purposeful consumption of creative entities that ultimately give color and worth to our existence.

The human condition has been forever documented through our creative expressions, after all. And from this, there has always been a community of likeminded people who share in discussion and deliberation around their chosen source of creative expression.

It was with this in mind – not to mention the brutal hangover I was battling - that I drove westward on I-88 towards the town of Geneva, IL to join Rob Brennan at Penrose Brewing Co. for my first Winyl Exchange.

Penrose Brewing is a relatively new brewery in the burgeoning Chicago craft-brew scene. It opened in March 2014 after a nearly four-year-long process of conception, consideration, blood, sweat, and tears. The result of founder Eric Hobbs & Brewmaster Tom Korder’s intention to craft purposeful beers in the Belgian tradition, Penrose promotes a ‘beer-first culture,’ through ‘session ales, oak barrel-aging, and alternative fermentation’ which represents a delicate balance between art & science.

In homage to their namesake, English Mathemetician, Sir Roger Penrose --  whose non-periodic tiling patterns advanced conceptual tiling from the repetition of a single object to one that was built off of kites and darts -- Penrose Brewing’s logo is, itself, a self-similar pattern. Sir Penrose, colleague of Stephen Hawking, is renowned for his mathematical and geometrical achievements, which are considered quasicrystals, and whose aesthetic value have long been appreciated by geometricists, architects, and pattern-enthusiasts everywhere.

These tiling patterns, much like the beer brewed at Penrose, are a result of the combination of structural intent, and the magic that emerges from purposeful experimentation.

This marriage of art & science, purpose & magic is as ever-present in the communal space of Penrose’s taproom, as it is in the origins of The Winyl Exchange, which hosted one of their monthly gatherings in early-September.

A community of like-minded people who meet monthly at a different location to discuss the music they’ve been listening to, and exchange records based on an ever-changing theme, The Winyl Exchange was born out of the mind of Kevin Brinkman, who simply sought a way to extend the conversations he was having with his friends about music over beers or on Google-Chat while at work.

In many ways, Winyl works like a book club, only instead of focusing on a specific book to read/album to listen to, Kevin challenges members with monthly themes.

It’s up to the members of The Winyl Exchange to pick a record that fits the theme, describe to the group why they chose it, and then trade LP’s with another member.

“I wanted an outlet to discover new music and share with others what I had found,” Kevin said when I recently talked to him about the group’s origins, “I was more interested in talking about music, than growing a collection. My enjoyment comes from meeting with our group, and seeing the way people interpret the themes in their own way.”

It’s a concept that resides in the belief that people need not only art and music to give color to their lives, but that they also need a community to further enhance their understanding of said art.

Talking to Rob, Brewery Ambassador at Penrose, and also a Winyl member, I asked him about this perceived need to communicate to others what it is that is so striking about a record to an individual. “[At Winyl] People respect the person talking,” he said, “you feel heard, and you feel respected. We snap and applaud for each other, and we mean it. It’s made me fall down a deeper rabbit hole of music appreciation because you verbalize it. For me, the magic of going (to) and consuming live music always happens after the concert. The conversation that happens after the music is a really special thing about live music, but the conversation that happens before music is what makes The Winyl Exchange so important.”

This perceived need to talk to people about music is one that can all too-often be brushed aside by less sincere-types as a bygone dream of an idealized age. And yet, in talking with Rob and Kevin about Penrose and Winyl, it becomes clear that not only is this a real need for many in our hyper-connected, digital age, but it’s a movement that’s being put into practice by restaurants, bars, and social clubs such as Winyl. At

Penrose, Rob says, “We structured our taproom without a television. We play music in there, but there’s no TV, because we want people to talk to each other and facilitate human interaction and communication. I think Winyl is that, with the added bonus of music.”

The idea of creating a space that promotes human connection and interaction is one that’s at the root of Winyl’s philosophy. For their tenth meeting, this past June, the group met at the legendary Maria’s Packaged Goods in Pilsen.

A business that has been in the community since the mid-80’s, Maria’s offers a weekly-rotating craft and artisanal beer/spirit menu in a beckoning space that invites the kind of communal interaction at the root of Winyl’s iteration. Supporting a number of local media projects and artists through concerts, showcases, and donations, Maria’s is a Pilsen institution that invites people to offer their interpretation of the human condition, and in turn, allows patrons a space to deliberate on their own.

It’s the kind of back & forth relationship with a community that can’t necessarily be quantified in re-tweets, likes, or quarterly earnings. Rather, it’s an approach that celebrates people, creativity, and communal exchange.

When done right, the sustainability of the business almost works without effort. For their June meeting at Maria’s, Winyl brought their record player and set-up shop on the back patio. The bartenders were so taken by the intricacies of the group that they told Kevin to host every monthly exchange there in the future.

At Penrose, Winyl communed in the barrel cellar where the brewery is currently experimenting with alternative fermentations in effort to craft a new sour beer program and a line of wild ales. The open space that felt like a mix between an elevated warehouse and a barn was an ideal spot for Winyl to congregate.

On the walls were photographs from Eric Holubow, a recent artist in residence, whose stunning shots focused on abandoned theatres and spaces throughout the Midwest. Haunting images of places once filled with so many sharing in a communal exchange, now, physical ghosts of a past no more.

The group convened in a large circle following a detailed tour of the brewery from Rob. Group snaps were offered – per the insider lingo that’s developed within Winyl – for noteworthy observations, inquisitive questions, and sly jokes cracked.

A hundred years of Winyl was toasted to with absolute sincerity, and malted barley grains were passed around for taste testing. The mood was that of a spirited cocktail hour. Friends, who’d seen each other just last night, were lit in measured glee. Conversations ranged from the wide variety of beers offered by Penrose, to the absolute perfection of the early-September weather, to the predictable early-season demise of the Bears, to the themes Kevin had selected for this month’s meeting.

As is tradition in Winyl, there are two themes addressed at each meeting that Kevin sends out via group email a few weeks prior. It’s up to the individual members to select appropriate records based off each theme, and then exchange them with another member that Kevin selects from a complex algorithm he refuses to share with anyone else. This month, the themes were both seasonally and lifestyle appropriate: the Album of Summer 2014, and Your Labor Day Record.

Focusing on the music that defined many people’s period of travel, porch-drinking, and outdoor exploration, choices were as widespread as Spoon’s recent LP, They Want My Soul to Nas’s twenty-year-old Illmatic. Commenting on his selection, Rob said of Illmatic, “It sounds like summer to me. It sounds like hot streets, city living, and awesome hip-hop. It doesn’t get old. It makes sense to me every time. It makes me feel like summer.”

There was a noticeable sense of nostalgia throughout the group during this segment as most couldn’t help but smile when recounting recent live shows, road trips, and late-night parties with their friends.

The second theme forced members to dig a bit deeper and contemplate the records that have served as their saving grace after tough days at the office. Here, the selections were equally dire – The National’s High Violet –willfully uplifting – The Meter’s Cabbage Alley, My Morning Jacket’s It Still Moves – and comically individualistic in their necessity: Madonna’s Like A Virgin.

Complaints over HR emails at 4:15, the need to blow off some steam while waiting for the Blue Line, and the brilliance of that first post-work brew on your couch were shared with the same openness as when they’d waxed nostalgically about summertime highs.

Yet where as the Summer 2014 records were discussed with the kind of floating descriptions that tend to commemorate moments of intangible bliss, here, there was a clear need to communicate the less-remarkable aspects of life through the context of essential music.

Snaps were granted, heads were nodded, quiet laughter was shared, and the group seemed to grow closer in its own acceptance of the sad realities of life, and the isolated moments of unity and pure happiness that act as marking points between that which we must do but rarely want to do.

When it was over the group thanked Kevin and Rob for cultivating the meeting and bringing everyone together on a Sunday afternoon for a few hours of conversation, good beer, and good tunes. There was a noticeable lift in everyone’s spirit, and an ease in their mood. Regardless, the complexities and moments of isolation that define our weeks, for four hours people were able to share their innermost thoughts about the music that narrates their life, and pass it along in effort to connect with friends on a deeper level than simple conversation over lunch on a Wednesday can offer.

In the end, this is the true power of a group like Winyl, and a space like Penrose. For so much of our lives we’re forced through necessity to exist without feelings. We’re judged by our production and our skill sets. And yet, there’s this side of us that constantly needs emotional insight and communal exchange as seen through the music and art and craft beer and food that colors our world.

As Rob said when discussing his desire to work at Penrose, and participate in a group like Winyl: “It’s people working purposefully towards a goal. It’s human manipulation of resources to express ideas. I want a story. I want a concept.”

For Kevin, the origins of Winyl came from this very same place: “I wanted people to have a few things to go home with: new music, new friends, and a new bottle of wine or beer that they could share with their friends while listening to records over dinner.”

This combination of purpose, community, and intent through a craft or gathering makes groups like Winyl, and breweries like Penrose the ideal steps forward in the building of community in the age of digital and social media. Without something tangible to hold onto, without someone to discuss your feelings with, we might as well, as Rob added towards the end of our lengthy conversation, “be living in those gelatinous pods in The Matrix.”

The world, however, as we all know, is far too colored for that.

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If you’re interested in learning more about Winyl, or would like to host an event, contact Kevin at brinkman.kevin@gmail.com.

Follow Winyl on instagram: @winylexchange

Penrose Brewing is located at: 509 Stevens St. Geneva, IL 60134. For Penrose brewery tours, store hours, private events, etc. visit penrosebrewing.com, or shoot them an email at info@penrosebrewing.com.

Follow Penrose on twitter and instagram: @penrosebrewing