Virtue, the new hard cider venture from Gregory Hall, former Brewmaster at Goose Island Beer Co., and co-founder Stephen Schmakel, debuts its first release, RedStreak, today in Chicago. An English session-style cider, aged in American Oak, RedStreak is now available in draft format at a number of restaurants and bars in the Chicago area, including The Publican, Hopleaf and Lula Cafe with more locations coming soon.

Virtue will debut two additional styles of barrel-aged draft cider in the fall of 2012 in Chicago, as well as SW Michigan, New York City and Portland, Oregon.

To recognize the Chicago launch of RedSteak, Virtue hosted an event last night at The Hideout to benefit The Academy of Global Citizenship, a Chicago Public Charter School. It was an awesome night filled with copious cider, delicious food courtesy of Chicago’s top restaurants and live music.

Two bands took the stage. First was The Blisters. Spencer Tweedy, son of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, is the drummer in this awesome teenage Chicago band. They rocked it.  Second up was The Waco Brothers, the alt-country band formed by Jon Langford of the Mekons. Their cult popularity is primarily a response to their live performances. And boy, was it a show!

Congratulations to Greg Hall and the Virtue Team.

A tea party revolt is happening across the pond this week in England and the subject is not taxes or the debt crisis. In fact, it’s a tea party revolt in the most literal sense: Twinings relaunched its classic Earl Grey tea as a new brand, The Earl Grey, and a chorus of sippers are not happy about it

The distinctive flavor of Earl Grey comes from bergamot oil. Bergamot is a kind of orange, and Twinings recently jazzed up the 180-year-old recipe with some extra citrus flavor.

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, comments on the company’s website describe the new tea as foul-tasting dishwater and say it tastes like lemon cleaning product. There’s even a campaign on Facebook urging Twinings to bring back the original Earl Grey.

The whole situation calls to mind the famous phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Twinings certainly isn’t the first company to alter a tried and true recipe to less than favorable results. Remember New Coke?

While Twinings figures it out, I think I will stick to my new favorite Earl Grey tea blend: Lord Bergamot from Steven Smith Teamaker; fragrant Ceylon Dimbulla and Uva are artfully combined with select teas from India’s Assam valley, then scented with the flavor of bergamot from the realm of Reggio Calabria, Italy. In a word: gorgeous.