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Brewers of Indiana Guild Newsletter - June, 2008

Upcoming Events

More events, tastings, and so on at http://www.brewersofindianaguild.com/events.shtml.

B.I.G. News

Several committees are preparing for B.I.G.'s July doings. July 10th through the 19th will be Indiana Beer Week with many activities, tastings, tappings, classes, etc.

Highlights as we know them now:

We are also working to get as many Indiana beers on tap at good beer bars and restaurants around the state. A complete menu, calendar, and poster will be out by the start of July.

Indiana Brewery News

New Albanian's downtown location is proceeding. It gets paint and electricity next week and the tap room is planned to open in October. The brewery will probably move there next year.

Everyone in Southern Indiana is looking to grow it seems. New Albanian, Bloomington. Turoni's may be looking at a place in Newburgh. There are even rumors about Indiana's biggest brewery. Power House is even looking at building a bigger system. Hey brewers, if you have any chillers, filters, whatever that Jon can buy, please let him know.

Andrew Lewis opened the Brass Monkey Brewing Co with a ribbon cutting on May 23rd. His brewpub in the Kokomo Sycamore Marketplace has a 15 gallon system that will start off with 8 regulars, White, Tripel, IPA, Stout, Pale, and Brown, along with two seasonals. The bar will have 27 taps. Formidable - on a small scale.

The new BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse opened on May 19th in Greenwood. It's a huge place, seats 340. A very large menu is accented with stuffed potatoes, pizza, and the Pizookie dessert - chocolate chip macadamia cookie ala mode. Big, clean, new. It's at the north end of the Greenwood Park Mall, visible from County Line Rd.
 

Now to answer the question about the word "brewhouse". BJ's is not a brewpub. The beer is not produced here. Actually it's coming from the main brewery in Reno with some also from Houston and Lacrosse. But it acts exactly like a brewpub. Big range of beers - usually 8 on tap. And, considering just a few days of training, the wait staff had a good knowledge of the beers. The tanks behind glass are used to make root beer, cream soda, etc.

Michael "Mufasa" Ferguson (below center) is the Director of Brewery Operations for BJ's. He visited Oaken Barrel on Thursday which turned into a 2-pub crawl back to BJ's with myself and some area homebrewers in tow.

Meet Belinda Short, she's Omar Castrellón's new Assistant Brewer at Alcatraz.

Upland has 12 more barrels for use in their Lambic line. Now fruited and fermenting again: tart cherry, kiwi. First tastes indicate they will both work. Caleb Staton tells us "100 lbs. of kiwis have gone into a lambic barrel, might be the best thing ever or possibly the best way to ruin Chilean fruit."

Bloomington Brewing has Floyd's Quarrymen Pale Ale on tap 4 ways. CO2, Nitro, and Cask Conditioned with both Nugget and Cascade hops. The Nugget gives a bunch of bitter finish with a touch of pine forest freshness. The Cascade finish is exactly as you'd expect with about 40 IBU. Some of their beers are available now in Zionsville at Patrick's Kitchen & Drinks.

Look for more of Floyd's beers at even more Bloomington locations and further afield and in bottles next year if Jeff Mease's plans for a brewery of possibly 50bbl on the Farm on Loesch Rd. go through.

Indiana Beer News

Todd Antz's Keg Liquors in Clarksville is expanding this fall to a building twice as big. Parking is limited while construction is going on and destruction of the old building takes place. No interruption in service is expected.

BadaBoomz downtown Indy re-opened as J. Gumbo's Down Home Cajun Cookin' on May 15th. The only menu item staying on the menu is the smoked wings. The bar and beer selection remains the same.

June 2 - 15 is Downtown Restaurant Week in Indy. J. Gumbo's has a 4-course $30 special - all paired with beer of course. Crawfish, Creole, Top Sirloin, Bread Pudding. Yumm. With RedHook Sunrye, Brugge White, Black, and Tripel de Ripple. Yumm.

Rich O's status as one of the very best beer bars anywhere makes it a better bar. Witness three guys who just graduated from Clemson and are doing the traditional road trip - to Wisconsin rather than Tijuana and parachutes aren't involved. Voila, a trip blog.

Esquire's Best Bars of America list has two in Indiana. The Red Key and Nicky Blaine's. Maybe you have to live in Indianapolis to understand this. Or maybe go back and re-read your 30-year collection of Esquire magazines. article
 

Indiana Homebrew News

Indiana homebrewers placed 25 beers into the second round of the National Homebrew Competition from the Great Lakes Regionals. That's 25 of the 84 beers that go on to the national judging. 37%. Congratulations to all.  results (thanks, Ron for the compilation) These are the folks who have beers going on - listed by club.

FBI: Jeff Brungard, John Morrical, Carl Nelson, Frank Petrarca, Mark Schiess, Ron Smith, and 4 beers made it through for Tom Wallbank. Carl, Tom, and Mark swept the Amber Hybrid category.
MECA: Keith Baute/John Showalter and Bill Staashelm put a beer through and there were 3 each for Bill Ballinger and Michael Pearson.
MASH: James Thompson and Jason Claypool
THC: John Blichmann / Doug Granlund
OVHA: Chris Norrick
BOSS: Robert Heinlein
Plus unaffiliated Charles Beaver and William Wilson.

The FBI gets ink in Nuvo on National Homebrew Day.

Butler Winery of Bloomington is going far afield to set up a tasting room in Chesterton in June. They will also have a winemaking and homebrew store just like their Bloomington shop. article

Beer Tasting and Hop Appreciation Kit. press release

Ed Needham is a Fossil. That's a New Albany homebrew club by the way. Ed also roasts coffee. The Louisville Courier Journal has found this out and give him black ink for black caffeine.

Indiana Beer Reviews

• Alcatraz Eagle Creek Rouge - Deep red and big body. Very malty. Seems a bit out of character but will go good with open-flame pizza.
• Alcatraz Saxophone Saison - Beautiful bright copper. Sweet notes up front get matched by Belgianness that comes on quickly.
• Bloomington Brewing Stone Cold Belgian Pale Ale - Mt. Hood hops. Plenty of Candy Sugar. Sweetness comes first, then some citric and bitterness.
• Broad Ripple Brewpub Travelin' John's Best Bitter - Cask conditioned the way a British BB should be. Absolutely spot on. This would sell well in Bristol. Perfect temperature. Perfect low carbonation. If you want to see what Real Ale is all about, get to the BRBP next time it comes on because this batch is sadly gone.
• Broad Ripple Brewpub Maibock is fairly dark colored with a great smoothness and balance. It takes over (so far) the title King of the Session Bocks from Ram.
• Oaken Barrel Bavarian Gold Helles - Named by Mary Duncan. Bright gold. Clean. Noble hops come through nicely. A bit grainy.
• Oaken Barrel Gnaw Bone Pale Ale - Now made with Centennial and Amarillo hops. Rich gold copper color. Big foamy white head. Plenty of bitterness that's fuity rather than citric.
• Oaken Barrel Uberweizen - This year's goes back to the 2006 recipe and is again claiming one the very top spots in the German Hefe-lover's heart. Dull, unfiltered copper. Big yeasty banana esters.
• Power House Workingman Wheat - Mucho hefe cloudiness. Bigger than before. Lots of wheat with minimal esters.
• Power House Brown - Crisp Southern-style brown - and that's hard to accomplish.
• Ram Maibock - Bright orange. Balanced with a bold malt finish and a long finish that isn't overly bitter. Noticeable edge. Some will go into a Buffalo Trace barrel and we'll see it later.
• Rock Bottom Downtown Maibock - Dark, rich, malty.
• Rock Bottom Downtown Alt - Very dark brown. Thick. Rich.
• Rock Bottom, 86th St Maibock - Tawny gold with very low aroma. No aroma hopping at all. A big malty start is quickly overrun by a strong, long-lasting Nobel bitterness. Some diacetyl comes through once the beer warms up.
• Turoni's Helles Bock - Malt mainly but still crisp. One of the top 3 for the season. Some alcohol is noticeable as it should be at 7+%.
• Upland Lightwave Belgian Pale - Red-orange with a foamy white head. Perfect balance with a very nice Belgianness from the yeast. 5.3%
• Upland Maibock. Bright red-orange. Tingly carbonation. Great balance. Good body. I want to try this and Broad Ripple's side by side. 6%

Please see http://www.brewersofindianaguild.com/ontap.html for the current tap lists of Indiana Breweries.

Miscellaneous News (if you didn't read it at IndianaBeer.com already)

The latest plan is to build a new brewery near Dublin and to keep open the St. James' Gate operation to service Britain and Ireland. A few years back Guinness stopped brewing in England and resumed supplying the Isles with beer from the original Dublin brewery. The new brewery will cost more than a billion dollars and will take 5 years to build. article

The price of a one liter mass of beer at this fall's Oktoberfest has been set at €8, about $12.30.

The myths of Jack Daniel. It's not news, it's CNN.

Florida truck driver in critical condition after mixing wild turkey with beer. Well, it was the wild turkey's fault. article Bonus, it happened in Niceville.

The hop shortage gets ink in Wired. $5.50 pints. Watermelon Wheat. The horror, the horror. article

Fans of Meantime can be happy they are expanding their brewery, and not just to any old industrial estate. They are building it in the Naval College in Greenwich - a World Heritage Site. Should be a great tour.

Speaking of tours. . . Coors has streamlined the Golden tour to eliminate real human guides and now they are going to shut down the "Coors Visitor Center" in Burton-on-Trent, until recently known as the Bass Museum.

Here's an ad you don't see everyday.
It's from the current issue of Beer - a CAMRA publication.

"Miller CEO says drinkers are trading down to economy beers". article

Old school: Bacon-flavored beer. Rad: Non-alcoholic beef-flavored beer. Euro-Valley girl component: It's for dogs and $4 a bottle.

A long and long-winded ramble about hangovers as only the New Yorker can publish. "By fairly common consent, a hangover will involve some combination of headache, upset stomach, thirst, food aversion, nausea, diarrhea, tremulousness, fatigue, and a general feeling of wretchedness."

RFID tags on beer kegs. article

"The 10 best beer names ever". column

Got time for a 45-minute NPR Ira Flatow piece on making beer? (Haven't you always wondered how to spell Flatow?)

German beer styles. A quick and opinionated overview. article

Nine minutes of YouTube Pizza Beer.

Labatt Blue De-alcoholized Pilsener. It "tastes like Labatt Blue". No wonder "the non-alcohol beer market is tiny in Canada". article

Lone Star from the 1800s dug up at San Antonio Riverwalk. "It may have aged really well." article

Joe Sixpack picks the beers of summer. No, not Blue Moonish. More Blanche de Bruxelles. Wit is this season's little black dress (not to mention the soul of brevity). article

Mergermania

Magic Hat of Vermont is buying Pyramid Brewing of Seattle for $25M. article Magic Pyramid brewing? Still to come, Flying Great Dane, Boulder Stone, Terre Haute Upland.

News from CAMRA:

Heineken is buying Scottish & Newcastle. So what does S&N do in their last days? They buy Caledonian Brewery including the Tennent's, MacAndrew's, and Golden Promise brands. So what do the old owners of Caledonian do? They buy Harviestoun back from S&N.

Meanwhile Marston's has bought Wychwood, Ringwood, Brakspear, and Jennings.

Buyouts, Mergers, Silly Season. Speculation that InBev may buy SABMiller. Grupo Modelo could buy FEMSA. InBev could save A-B $750M a year. etc. etc. article

R.J. Matson, New York Observer and Roll Call

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 and sometimes he can't read his notes very well. 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, living or dead, is purely a coincidence.