Breweries Come and Go

I’ve been a fan of craft beer most of my adult life, and I’ve been writing about it for the last five years. I have been involved in the brewing process, worked at a brewpub, and in the dining industry, as well as a liquor store. I have traveled all over the United States, as well as Europe, in search of good beer. If untapped had been around in the 1990s I might well have 20,000 check ins! So needless to say I enjoy craft beer.

Last weekend I was traveling back up from Evansville(I promise to cover their beer scene in a later blog) when we stopped in Jasper at Basket Case Brewing located in the Mill House Restaurant . I was very impressed with the Stromboli that I ate, and it paired it very well with the five house beers that were on tap. Most of the beers had rock ‘n’ roll themed names like Ramble On, Nirvana, and Hey Joe. They were all decently excellent, and their Travel the World Scottish Ale was my favorite. So imagine my disappointment when the bartender told me that the brewer, a schoolteacher, had decided he was no longer going to be brewing beer. They had a decent stock in the basement of the restaurant, but when it was all gone, the brewery would go back to being just a restaurant.

In our economy, and given the state of the world right now, a certain number of breweries just don’t make it. It’s been that way for years, but still so many breweries keep opening that there’s always new choices, and new endeavors that seem to step in and take their place. In my town of Plainfield, Indiana, I helped Black Swan close with dignity, and was happy to see that it didn’t take long for Nigh Brewing to step in. And I really loved Flat12 in downtown Indianapolis, and their building is now occupied by Rad Brewing where my long time friend Chris is the brewer. It’s not awesome,but just like the restaurant industry as a whole, not every brewery is going to make it.

The picture above shows some of my collected swag from several breweries Indiana that are no more. It hits home when the brewery that closes happen to be one of your personal favorites. We all drink what we like, and even the writers like myself have our breweries that we favor, and go back to time and time again because we really enjoy the beer. All we can do is help promote those breweries, and hope that our friends will do the same. Believe it or not word-of-mouth in very effective in the craft beer industry which is small enough that one or two regular customers can make a difference on a small level, and if you multiply that by 10, it goes along way. The current situation is no way to gauge how successful breweries are going to be, but believe you me, the breweries that are open and working hard right now will reap the benefits when things get back to normal.

I will write about many subjects in this blog, but know that the success of craft brewing is close to my heart. I want every brewery to be successful, and if that’s not possible I want as many as can be to reap the benefits of a thriving craft beer industry. Whether you like sours, stouts or IPAs, there is plenty of beer being made that is for your palate. I travel around my state visiting as many breweries as possible, and I know not everybody can do this. I hope also to be able to help promote breweries with this blog. As long as I can drink beer I will try to keep this blog current. And if we meet each other out there in the craft beer scene, let’s toast a beer together!