Indiana Brewery News

Also:
Mon, July 7 - Bloomington - Upland Bublebee Saison tapping
Thurs, July 10 - Indianapolis - Rock Bottom Kölsch tapping
Thurs, July 10 - Fishers - Master of Beer Appreciation Class
Sat, July 12 - Indianapolis - State Fair Brewers Cup Judging
Sat, July 12 - Carmel - Crown Liquors Grand Opening
Sat, July 12 - Bloomington - Upland Flood Benefit Dinner and Auction
Sat, July 12 - Elkhart - Chalet Party Shop Summer Charity Event
Sun, July 13 - Michigan City - Shoreline 4th Annual Red, White, and Brews Festival. Beer from Crown Brewery, Back Road, Mishawaka Brewing, Three Floyds, and Upland. Music by Jassy Grazz, Chester Brown, and Midwest Hype. Fireworks about 9pm. 2pm-12:30am. $15/$10 advance at Shoreline.
Wed, July 16 - Greenwood - Oaken Barrel Berliner Weisse tapping
Thurs, July 17 - Ft. Wayne - J.K. O'Donnell's Tasting
Thurs, July 17 - Indianapolis - Downtown 4-pub crawl
Fri, July 18 - Broad Ripple - B.I.G. VIP Brewmaster's Dinner
Thurs, July 25 - Indianapolis - Replicale Face-off. Spencer's Stadium Tavern
Tues, July 29 - Mishawaka - Granite City Opening

Upland's bartender, Kristi Wilson, has had substantial damages to her house in the recent flooding. To help, Upland will have a Beer Dinner on July 12th. They hope to raise a good amount with some auction action. If you would like to offer up any goods or services for the auction or have any questions please contact Dettra Wolf at the Brewery at 812-336-2337 ext. 500 or email ryan@uplandbeer.com.

Jeff Gesser of Bluegrass Brewing is spearheading two busses coming up to the Indiana Microbrewers Festival from Louisvilliana. One from RichO's, one from BBC Brewpub. Includes transportation, lunch, tickets, etc. $85/person. email Jeff

Greg Hardesty's menu for the July 18, B.I.G. VIP Brewmaster's Dinner is just in. The beer pairings will come later after extensive testing in my basement.

Drumroll: Indiana Beer Week. A celebration of Indiana breweries from July 10th through the 19th, 2008. During this "week" there will be 1 beer class, 2 beer dinners, 5 beer price specials, 2 festivals, 2 grand openings, 5 music events, 1 pub crawl, 2 tappings, 18 tastings, and the Brewers Cup. In addition 15 brewpubs will swap beers with each other and 6 other pubs and restaurants will have guest taps of Indiana beers. Whew.

One of the perks of this job is the ability to sometimes get sneak peeks at new goodies. Had a chance to taste one of this year's ReplicAles. As you know, the ReplicAle is made by almost a dozen breweries and tapped at the Indiana Microbrewers Festival. The same wort recipe is used by all with individual touches that can make substantial differences. Omar Castrellón's made his version at Alcatraz pretty straightforward (without candi sugar, brett, extra hopping, etc.) and a not-quite-ready-yet taste shows it to be exactly at the BCJP Guidelines for a Scottish 70/- beer.

There's a new brewery in Indiana and you should check it out. Andrew Lewis's Brass Monkey Brewing is located in the basement of the Sycamore Marketplace in Kokomo and serves his beer through the Brass Monkey Brewpub upstairs in the food court.

Amazingly, Andrew has 7 beers on tap right now. That's down from the 9 on opening day - the Belgian IPA and Imperial Stout went first. The trick is, he brews in 10-gallon batches in cut-down kegs; basically his homebrew system from years back. He also teaches school in Westfield full time and brews two batches a day on his off hours, weekends, and has been at it constantly since school went into summer recess.

Those small batches allow for experimentation. Hand-zested oranges, tea steeping, oatmeal in a sweet stout, fermentation with fruit. He's having fun - and making great, unusual beer.

Crown Brewing opened on Friday, June 13th (no triskaidekaphobia there). A Brown and a Hefe were on tap first. The adjacent Carriage Court Pizza will provide food to the tap house.

Mishawaka Brewing's hop garden out surrounding their patio is filling out nicely. Each year they make a special batch using fresh wet hops.

Warbird had 717 runners at their 10k race last month. Dave and Chris have put out a new beer that is going to catch on. Shanty Irish Ale is a 6% beer, not a shandy. It's named after a P-51 Mustang. Dark mahogany with a small white head. Sturdy. Think of Smithwick's with more malt, more balanced, bigger. A bit of caramel in the start. Finish is long with continuing maltiness. Warbird is now distributing state-wide in both Indiana and Michigan.

Granite City in Ft. Wayne has acquired 4,200 members in their mug club already. It costs a one-time $20 ($10 on Monday). 10% off food, $3.25 for 25oz beers.

Speaking of mug clubs, the Half Moon mug club gets a personal, larger, mug that you can take home at the end of the year. Also a T-shirt, a filled growler, and invitations to tapping parties.

www.gumballheadthecat.com. Fat Freddie's cat meets Fritz. "Four feet of Fur, Fury and Un-Neutered Mayhem"

We at Upland would like to announce our newest crew member, Elysia Poor, who is a Bloomington native and recent graduate of the UC Davis Master Brewers Program. Elysia will be interning at Upland for the next three months, shadowing Eileen and Mike, with the potential of full time staff opportunity in the future. We are happy to continue the Upland tradition of hiring the brightest local folks to insure Midwestern flare and common sense ends up in every bottle of beer (metaphorically of course).

Greg Emig says "A big THANKS! goes out to everyone who participated in our annual Pint for a Pint blood drive at Lafayette Brewing this past Saturday. We had 31 willing donors who gave of themselves (literally) in order to help support the Indiana Blood Center."

Warbird is expanding distribution to Georgia and Kansas. Still near air force bases, Cessna plants, etc. They will be pouring at the Huntington Air Show on July 4th and at the Gary Air Show July 12th and 13th.

The 2008 Upland lambics will be released this fall after more than a year in Oliver Winery wood. They will be taking reservations for up to 1 mixed case starting September 1st. Last year's Blackberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, and Strawberry will return along with Cherry, Kiwi, and Peach.

Three Floyds Dark Lord and other limited release beers get ink in Texas. article

Upland's new Preservation Pilsner is being planned as a regular rather than a seasonal. And donate 10% of it's profits to local charities.

Introducing Preservation Pilsner, a new draft beer by Upland Brewing Company - preserving your land one lager at a time.

Indiana’s largest brewery is proudly donating 10% of the profits from the sales of the Preservation Pilsner to organizations in your local community who work to preserve green spaces, forests, family farms and other features of our natural heritage. We are particularly pleased to support pragmatic organizations who accomplish these goals through hard work, volunteering and private donations. Basically, we like to work with groups that go get dirty on the weekends making Earth a better place for us all. We keep track of sales in all our distribution areas and the 10% goes directly to a designated organization in that region. So drink an Upland Preservation Pilsner to help preserve the land in your area and get a great craft beer at the same time.

Our brewers created the Preservation Pilsner in the traditional Bohemian method, with crisp Pilsner malts, Saaz-style hops and a long fermentation on lager yeast. We have created an all malt Pilsner more closely resembling age-old Eastern European pilsners than today’s lighter-American lager fare made mostly with corn and rice. Clear and crisp, the Preservation Pilsner is aged for one month for clarification and flavor mellowing. Most craft brewers stray from such brewing methods, because of the additional time necessary to create the classic style. Upland believes in patience and a diverse lineup of craft beer, from our award-winning ales to handcrafted lagers.

Facts on the Preservation Pilsner:
·Traditional Bohemian All-Malt Pilsner
·Saaz-Style Hops
·Available on Draught Only
·5.2% ABV
·36 IBUs
·Clear and Crisp
·A Craft Beer Appealing to All Crowds

Preservation Pilsner is now available! Ask your favorite restaurant or bar to carry our new beer and help preserve the local land.

Clay Robinson is leaving the Ram to go hippie in Alaska for the summer (sorry girls, he already has a date.) Last official day is July 10th. But he promises to be back in town to carry out a beer-related project.

Brass Monkey Brewing is instituting a "One and Done" tap. "One batch, one beer, one chance, and then we move on." First is Roughshod Red on July 5th. When it's a 10-gallon batch you'd better be there on time.

Dan and Lani Valas are submitting the forms for their brewery permit in Aurora, IN. The Great Crescent Brewery will join the other 28 Indiana breweries hopefully late this year.

"There's a guy out there who's gastro-pub burned down last night . . ." to paraphrase Wavy Gravy in 1969. This week the guy was Brian Graham and the hamburger stand was Hot Shotz. A kitchen fire at 8am on Saturday, June 28, was kept to the kitchen but the entire place has massive smoke and some water damage. It's a mess and will be closed for quite some time. Sigh. Having your pub destroyed just hours before a beer festival has to be at least 1% more disheartening than just having your pub destroyed.

Outside, across the parking lot, about 200 people at the Hops for Pops festival sipped a quiet toast towards the boarded-up doors of Hot Shotz among the tastes of beers from Barley Island, Broad Ripple, Brugge, Half Moon, Oaken Barrel, New Albanian, Upland, Rock Bottom, Schlafly, Wabash Valley, Warbird, and more. The attendance could have been larger but the small, almost intimate setting allowed for plenty of networking.

In Dyer, Finnegan's Wake has changed it's name to Finnegan's Pub, opened up the interior space, and have installed a very top notch selection of about 80 bottled beers. You'll be impressed.

On shelves in Indiana: Coney Island Lagers - Albino Python White Lager and Sword Swallower. Rejewvenator - half Dopplebock, half Belgian Dubbel, and a touch of figs.

Busy downtown pub with a no-BMC. 12-tap menu that has the normal Irish imports and an excellent bottled selection with 60 choices. The home bar for Warbird's Shanty Irish Ale.

Indiana Breweries, wineries, and other food producers are invited to participate in the Artisan Development Project, part of the Indiana Arts Commission. It's pretty well explained on their web page.

From Jeff Eaton, a link to Plastic Kegs America which he has used and recommends.

About 80 people representing 10 of the 16 Indiana homebrew clubs met at Great Fermentations for the BrewBQ and split about 20 corny kegs, 40 door prizes, lots of food from Frank Petrarca's smoker. GHHC from Kokomo showed off their mini-fridge-powered portable iceless jockey box.

More congratulations: The Foam Blowers of Indiana won the public-voted Best Beer award at Club Night of the AHA National Homebrew Convention in Cinci last week. They served 24 different beers including some "outlawed" styles from the past.

The FBI makes the front page of beertown.org. That all, just a picture this time, but it ends the FBI/AHA Conference trifecta.

Upland's UpCup Homebrew Competition saw Ken Smith of Plainfield, IL winning with an Imperial IPA. 20 barrels will be brewed at Upland and some sent to GABF's Pro-Am competition. Second went to Ron Smith of Zionsville for a Porter; third to Brent Chapman of Indy for an Imperial Stout.

Surprising new beer at the Hops of Pops: Corsedonk Apple White. Cloudy Wit with spices and apples. The fruity, acidic apple comes through strongly and at 3.1% will go nicely with an evening under the stars watching fireflys.

Also new was Oaken Barrel's Redemption Belgian Pale. Restrained and quite drinkable but their new jockey bock has temperature control problems and we don't feel we were able to appreciate it as much as we will next week at the brewpub.

Free Beer - Bob's article in Ale Street News - "The two most attention-getting words in the English language are Free and Beer. Put them together and if you’re reading this magazine you’re already salivating. Free beer is good."

The nearest town to Upland is Arcana, in more ways than one. Find it on an Indiana map.

There was a beer dinner at St. Elmo's Steak House in Indy on June 11th. A Brewmaster's Dinner. Actually an Anheuser-Busch Brewmaster's Dinner. Paired beers include Beach Bum Blond, Bud (paired with lobster!), Michelob Amber Bock, Wild Blue Lager. $75. AAArrrggghhh.

You've heard it by now but in case you've been seriously hungover, InBev made a $46B (that's a B) for Anheuser-Busch. That's $65/share, $7 more than Wednesday's price. If the sale happens (anybody wanna bet it won't?) Sam Adams will be the largest volume American brewing company. You know those rednecks who won't buy a Subaru made in Lafayette because it's owned by a Japanese company - let's see if they switch from BudMillerCoors because they're not American either. SaveAB.com

A Tour of Bitters for the Summer, New York Times edition. Their favorite: Left Hand Sawtooth Ale. article

The ultimate accessory for the 5-Liter mini-kegs. Digital temperature display. Can use CO₂ cartridges or a bottle. They have them now at Chalet in Elkhart and Goshen.

Sapporo sent some barley to the International Space Station in 2006. Now the great grandchildren of those grains is being used to brew 100 bottles of what they call the first space beer. It's not for retail sale, just "part of efforts to prepare for a future in which humans spend extended periods of time in space - and might like a cold beer after a space walk." They have nothing on the South Korean astronaut who took up kimchi to ferment.

They really don't understand the concept. A Tesco supermarket in Bedford, England refused to sell a bottle of Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce to anyone without an ID to prove they are over 18. And this deserves an article? Bonus, they won't sell alcohol to parents who have their children with them at the checkout counter.

A driver in Nashville, TN picks up a load of Coors and later brings the empty truck back to the warehouse. Now they'd like to know where the beer is, all 33,336 cans of it. article

If gravity doesn't power your beer bong fast enough, try the Bierstick. I hope this is a joke but their homepage makes it worth the visit.

Did you know Pittsburgh has a 10% drink tax? Sounds like the politician in charge, Dan Onorato, should be barred from county pubs just like Alistair Darling is barred all over Britain for putting up their tax 8¢ per pint. article

"UK beer sales tumble to the lowest since 1975" Everybody panic. smoking ban article

Headline "Bars around the nation caught short changing patrons with "faulsies’". article "The Hooters chain reportedly serves draft beer in 14-ounce glasses at franchised locations in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, and 16-ounce glasses in other states."

Typical "German Road Turns Into Beer Lake" story. But the photo caption is priceless. article

Dogfish Head has opened their new brewing plant in Milton, DE. Tours are available. Say "hi" to Greg Christmas while you're there.

Headline: "Will microbrews kill the King of Beers?" Seems as if Brooklyn Brewery will take A-B down according to Microsoft Money and a Brooklyn press release. article (Thanks Mat)

Schlitz is back with the "Classic 1960s Formula". Owned by Pabst. Brewed by Miller. In other words, it's pretty much the same as it has been since the sale to Stroh's. article

Indy.com newspaper tests cheap beer. "Rock Bottom Brewery's Liz Laughlin thought Natural Ice had a Fruity Pebbles smell." article Spoiler alert, Hamm's came in first.

The new Hop Cat pub in Grand Rapids has 48 taps, 1 handpull and 150 bottles. They are also installing a nanobrewery to offer beers from guest brewers, including homebrewers. Cool.

The Party-A-CarGo is a kegerator and boombox for your ute's trailer hitch. "If you can’t round up some random poon with this on the back of your vehicle, you will probably remain celibate for the rest of your life."

News compiled by Bob Ostrander, Marketing Director/Webmaster. It's all considered accurate but then Bob has been known to have a drink or two while writing this so-called tome. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Brewers of Indiana Guild, in which case Bob will lose his job. It's illegal in Indiana to offer any alcoholic beverage at discount through coupons, prizes, or the fact that the drinker is female. Sorry. Any resemblance of to any beer, beer goddess, beer geek, beer bitch, or beer head, living or dead, is purely a coincidence.


Home	Breweries Calendar of Events What's On Tap News Articles Links Contacts