At the beginning of 2020, craft beer was in a very healthy place. I had already worked, and attended a large number of brew fests, and sat down in early March calculating that I already tried beer from about 55 Indiana breweries. I decided I was going to make it my goal to visit and drink beer from every brewery in Indiana in 2020. Covid put a delay on my project, but by December 31, I was able to complete this project. My journeys took me to every niche and corner of Indiana, and I can honestly say that getting there may not of been half the fun, but it certainly added to the experience. And now that a few breweries have opened up in 2021, I had more work to do, and this weekend I finally visited Klooz Brews in Lebanon, and once again I can say with pleasure that every brewery active in Indiana has been seen by these eyes!
Brennan Corder of Crown Liquors once told me you have to drink beer to write about it, and I feel if you want to know what’s really going on in Indiana Brewing, you have to know the breweries. My visits to the 170+ establishments showed me a lot about what their tap rooms do, and what kind of crowd they look to attract. I learned about their beer, and the local flavor that the taprooms added. As I was exploring these breweries, I was exploring Indiana as well. I feel well-traveled, and now that I’ve had some time to process my adventures, I would like to take the time to write about them.
Since I did the majority of my visits to breweries across four months I got a good cross-section of what breweries are doing. I also realize that I was in a later phase of Covid, so I have been spending 2021 going back and visiting some of the places that resonated most with me. I told Barb at Ironwood in Valparaiso that it would be a greatest hits tour. I found some thing I liked at nearly every brewery in the state. Everyone of them, large or small, is doing something that they want to be successful. Whether they are in small towns or large communities, I saw breweries doing things they wanted to do to get their name out and be successful. I don’t want to write an article that’s so long that nobody wants to read it, so I am going to just focus on a few stand outs and also use pictures to tell my story!
Since I mentioned Porter County in the last paragraph, I want to shout out to Chesterton Brewing which is an interesting establishment owned by veterans, and donates a large percentage of their proceeds to veteran affairs such as Wounded Warriors. I first visited them just before Christmas, and the bartender graciously let me try most of their seasonal offerings. They had a Christmas style that had a presentation that included a sugared rim, and it was a nice touch that he presented the sampler glass exactly like it would come if the beer was served in a pint. I like what they are doing, and if you get up to Porter County, you have dozens of breweries you can visit because you are in the region!
The four counties across the northwest tier Of Indiana offer a concentration of breweries not found anywhere outside of Indianapolis. I had to make nearly a dozen trips often across time zones to hit every brewery between Lake and St Joseph Counties. These are great breweries from Studebaker in South Bend to Windmill in Dyer. Bare Hands, Burn ‘Em and so many other excellent breweries fell along my path, and I have made consequent trips this year going back. Off Square is a neat place right off 65, and the work that Viking, Devil’s Trumpet, and so many others are doing just speaks for itself!
I’ve written a lot about breweries and I haven’t even talked about Fort Wayne and it’s surrounding areas. I was thoroughly impressed with everything in Northeast Indiana, and stand outs include Hop Lore, Harry Stuff, and Parlor, and nearly every brewery in Fort Wayne. I was impressed with the intimacy at Fortlandia, and the massive offerings available at Summit City. 2Tom’s, Dot & Line, and all the other breweries located in the city make it one impressive beer scene. I don’t get to Fort Wayne as much as I’d like to, and I’m glad the interstate makes it only a short distance away.
The Indianapolis area has a plethora of breweries, and many of them are very excellent. One paragraph won’t do them justice, so I will feature Indianapolis in a later article. I was able to visit most of Indy’s breweries very early last year, and try to attend events throughout the city as often as I can. I work a lot of beer festivals, so the beer made in Indianapolis is readily available to me. I stay in the loop for special releases, and try to make launch parties! There are a lot of hard-working breweries in the city, and I wish them all success. For now I reside in Plainfield, and I have Brewlink, and Nigh nearby with Black Dog in Mooresville just minutes away as well! These breweries are doing an excellent job as are all the ones I didn’t mention. As I write this article, I am waiting to visit Scarlet Lane’s gastropub. I have written about food at breweries already, and if you haven’t had the cuisine at Scarlet Lane, I highly recommend it!
I have come to love a lot of the breweries in the middle of nowhere in Central Indiana! Backstep in Crawfordsville is a great brewery owned by firemen, and Cedar Creek in Martinsville is doing amazing stuff on their beautiful property including beer flavored ice cream! Far to the east in Centerville, Five Arches is quietly being amazing with good beer and food at the taproom. Bad Dad in Fairmount is making a great name for James Dean’s hometown, and Elm Street and Guardian in Muncie need visiting, as does Creatures of Habit in Anderson. This is probably a good spot to mention Primevil in Noblesville. I only got to try their beer once, and it blew me away!
And then there’s southern Indiana. The half dozen small cities in this region have dozens of breweries. I particularly like the beer scenes in Columbus and Bloomington. They are close to home and whether it’s Hog Molly, or Switchyard, 450 North or the BBC, I am always near a good brewery when I’m in those towns. Farther south I have found gems in Bloomfield, Vincennes, and Madison. Evansville and the Louisville suburbs that are on the Indiana side of the Ohio have a great breweries as well. I spent a lot of time in southern Indiana last fall, and I had fun visiting these breweries regularly. I wrote about the breweries of DuBois County in my last article, and I can’t say enough about them.
That in a nutshell is much of the research I did on my journey across the state of Indiana. There is really good beer being made all over the state, and I was blessed to try a great deal of it. Along the way I got to see over half of the county courthouses, and travel down some really awesome back country roads. I never would’ve made it to so many small patches of the state if I hadn’t been driven to find the breweries. So as I went out and explored the state looking for beer, I now know where some of the best beer in Indiana is, and it makes the trips back that much more worth anticipating! The rest of the year for me sees festivals state wide, and I hope to get back up to Monticello(Kopecetic) and Evansville. And there’s a lot going on in Lafayette that I like to stay aware of!
So I really glossed over 170+ breweries in the effort to keep the article brief. So Terre Haute, Fistful of Hops, Wild Rose, New Oberpfalz, and all the other stellar breweries, keep being excellent. I have failed to mention scores of fine breweries, and I encourage you to go out and find them yourself. I like to offer suggestions when asked because I’ve been to all of them. I took a lot of notes and maybe will create my own database. But I can assure you that the craft beer scene is always changing, and for this reason I probably need to visit every brewery again in the near future!
So as long as I continue to write about beer, I will drink beer from everywhere, but I will have a special goal to always drink locally as much as possible. I’m proud of the beer we make in Indiana. The quality of our beer has only gotten better with scores of new breweries entering the market. We have grown exponentially across the last decade, and who knows what the future will hold? I hope to continue writing about beer, and drinking it when I find it excellent. I hope your beer journey takes you to excellent places as well, and perhaps our paths will cross!
So Much Beer So Little Time 