Home  

  Find a Brewery     On Tap     Calendar     Festival     May News     Education     Links     Contacts

Northern Indiana      Central Indiana      Southern Indiana

 South Bend      Fort Wayne      Terre Haute      Indianapolis      Evansville

A Brief History of Brewing in Indiana

We've endeavored to research the many breweries that have existed in Indiana but we are not professionals at this. There are a lot of gaps. If you can help with any information or If you see any errors or omissions, please let us know.

This information is separated into Northern, Central, and Southern Indiana and also pages for South Bend, Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Indianapolis, and Evansville.

The first commercial brewery in Indiana (Buhl's) seems to have been built before 1807 near Richmond.

By 1863 53,000 bbl of beer were brewed in Indiana (Just 5% of the output of New York state). That more than tripled by 1875 due to the economic growth following the Civil War. By 1902 almost 1 million barrels were brewed in Indiana (almost 10% of New York's volume).

The Indianapolis Star stated the number of breweries in the state in 1904 was 41 and by 1914 this was down to 31 (the number of brewery employees, though, had increased to 2,207).

National Prohibition, of course, shut down all the legitimate breweries in Indiana by 1918. (There was a state prohibition law in the 1850s which was invalidated by the state Supreme Court.)

The state of Indiana issued 11 brewery (and 100 wholesaler) licenses in November, 1935: These went to:

1948: 13. 1954: 6. By 1975 the brewery count in Indiana was a paltry 2.

Major Indiana Breweries of Bygone Days

Modern Era Indiana Microbreweries

The microbrewery revolution hit Indiana in 1989 and since then 38 breweries have opened (although 15 of these have closed).

This entire article as a compilation is copyright 2004, 2007, Bob Ostrander.
Copy and use of the information here is freely allowed.
Some information and pictures are copyrights of other authors
and used here by permission or under fair use provisions.

Many pictures are from Bruce Mobley who is a bottle collector and dealer.
His web site, particularly the Indiana page, is an invaluable reference.