If you like craft beer, the title of this article is good advice. I have been given growlers so much across the last 20 years that I feel I have quite a collection. I travel a lot and realize I’m never terribly far away from good craft beer. And it was 14 years ago while I was having dinner at the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh that John the bartender instilled in me some very good advice. He said you should always keep a growler in your car because you never know when you’ll need one. I follow this advice, and if you enjoy craft beer, you should too!

As I stated above, I have quite a few growlers. During the dark days of the pandemic, they got quite a bit of use as tap rooms were open for carry out only. I visit a lot of breweries, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been there when a special beer was released. Once while I was at Earnest Brew Works in Toledo, I witnessed a very special tapping of a firkin of a granola brown ale called Hippie Crunch. It was an amazing beer and they said I could have some to go. Out of respect for the amount of beer available, I only purchased a bullets worth(a half growler)!

If you visit breweries like I do, there’s a chance you might have had a similar experience. Some of the best beer I’ve ever had came about from being at the right place at the right time. And sometimes I’ve been sworn to secrecy about some of the things I’ve gotten to taste! If you’re like, me you have friends who also like good beer. There have been many times where I have felt like I would be not a good friend if I didn’t take home a wonderful beer. And sometimes the special releases don’t get bottled. And then there’s just plain planning ahead like I have done for many birthday parties when I wanted to come armed with good beer! I remember a party we threw for my friend Justin about 12 years ago when I returned home from Pennsylvania with beer from several states for us all to drink!

And while I think it’s always a good idea to buy right from the source, I am happy that some beer bars and tap rooms offer growler service as well. Hop Station in Mishawaka offers it, and the Old Towne Beer Hall & Growler Company in Franklin, Indiana is in the business of doing that as well. Growlers certainly are a big subject lately as I saw an article that talked about ways to take your beer home, and drinking outside of the pub. I usually find good fellowship wherever I have craft beer, and the growler is a great way to bring it along.

Growler laws are unique to every state. I had a patron a few years back from North Carolina who told me that his liquor store offered growler sales! Odds are good no matter where you are, you can find a place willing to fill growlers. And should you get to the Chelsea Market in New York City, they have a spot where you can get beer and olive oil fills at the same place! Pic and I will be in New York City in November, so I look forward to revisiting that place!

So hopefully you do have growlers, and have used them. I hope they have brought you great pleasure, and good drinking. If you do any traveling, you truly do never know when you might need one. I have plenty, and should we meet somewhere and you are lacking one, odds are good I’ll have a spare!

With all the talk of farm to table food, it’s not surprising that there’s also been discussion about brewing straight from the farm. It certainly harkens back to our agrarian history when many farms included a brewery. As larger communities teem over with breweries, growth will continue in the smaller towns and hamlets. And far from the maddening crowd, they seem to be popping up on farms, active or refurbished, and sometimes just out in the middle of nowhere! In doing my research, I came across brewing farms in nationwide, and definitely feel this is a phenomenon I want to cover!

I first got to visit the Sprague Farm in the early 2000s when Brian and Minnie were just getting started. They did growler service through an old pipe organ, and I usually would get their Scotch Ale which I found to be phenomenal. Minnie was usually there with her cats, and I enjoyed visiting the barn for the beer as much as the ambience! My travels to Northwestern PA were frequent for a time, and I got quite a few growler fills. I met Brian a few times as he was dashing off to work, and I was quick to complement his beer because I knew back then that they had something.

I didn’t make it back to the Brew Works until 2014. They had got their bar completed, and the whole facility looked beautiful. They were still producing amazing beer, some of it wholly sourced from their land. I will always be partial to the Scotch Ale, and when I get a chance to travel through Pennsylvania later this year, I am looking forward to stopping at Spragues. I watched them brewing on a farm when it wasn’t being done everywhere, and now that it’s a popular trend, they definitely needed mentioned in this article!

Several hours south, outside of Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, Screech Owl Brewing is on a beautiful rustic farm guarded by a turkey! I got to visit on a cold February night, and it was near closing. They sat me down at the bar, and let me try what they had on tap. They had a nice selection that was full of variety, and I went with the blonde ale to fill up the growler I brought. I got a tour of the small facility which they told me fills up regularly. They smoke a lot of meat, and the place felt like a small beer hall high up in the mountains of West Virginia.

I have only been thinking about their hospitality since I came home. They make bread from their spent grains, and the bun that they sent me home with was phenomenal! I definitely want to go back at some point and eat their food. They are temporarily shut down for Covid, but should you be in Northern West Virginia when things are back to normal, As long as you don’t get lost, you will be thankful you stopped in at Screech Owl. It’s a different kind of farm, and the beer is amazing!

Last weekend I made the trek down deep into the countryside east of Martinsville to the Cedar Creek Brewing Company. It is a unique place on a parcel of farmland that features a brewery, distillery, and a winery. It covers a large area complete with a nice parade field in the middle for live music. We tried some of the excellent wine, but it was the beer that I thought was most impressive. I tried some of the lighter fare first. They have an excellent Hefeweizen, and the cream ales were pretty good too. Other stand outs included the Irish red, and hazy IPA. It’s nearby and I will definitely stop by on December 21 when they will release a lot of barrel aged beers!

As I write this article, i’m sitting in the Fenwick Farms brewing company in Rensselaer Indiana. The brewery was named for the farm of one of the owners, and they hope eventually to relocate it possibly to his property. In the meantime they use local grains whenever possible, and their spent grains are donated to the Cupp Farm which provides beef and pork products to the brewery. I find this all to be in the spirit of what I’m going for this article and since I’ve visited them today I’m happy to include them in the article. Their beer was solid, and I especially liked the Speirbhean, an Irish Red.

In addition to the breweries that I’ve included in this article, there are a number of other ones nearby that I want to visit. Harry Stuff in Wawaka, Indiana is a farming brewery that I’ve mentioned before and definitely hope to visit this year. Big Thorn and Rolling Meadows are two brewing farms in Illinois, and there are several in Tennessee and one in Ohio I would like to visit as well. Tyra Sutak wrote article two years ago for craftbeer.com in which she lists eight farm breweries you have to visit. She includes another one from Illinois as well(Scratch), and I’m happy to say that no matter where you live, there is a farm brewery near you!

So I have only been able to visit a few farm breweries so far, but it is a subject to interest me very much. I will try to visit as many farm breweries as I can this year, and perhaps knock a few out next summer. I spent much of my youth on my grandfathers farm in northwestern Pennsylvania, and maybe visiting a farm brewery for me invokes these fine memories. And if you just like adventure, getting out into the country, and drinking good beer sounds like a winner to me. I now have even more breweries to visit, and should we meet out there in the countryside, I promise will have a beer together!

As I write mid week, I’m still elated about the awesome taprooms I experienced last weekend. Lance’s place(5’s) is brand new, and I’d like to visit him again soon! A friend of mine brought me back some awesome beer from Texas including an aptly named Yellow Rose Smash IPA from the Lone Plant Brewery. I have a few tap rooms nearby that I haven’t had a chance to visit, as well as several breweries. And as football season is starting, I am excited to see what craft beer selections will be on at my local football watering hole. And I get to take part in a podcast this weekend discussing Oktoberfest beers. I guess what I’m trying to say is I think I gave my blog the right name!

Despite all that’s going on this year, it truly feels as if craft beer has had a good year so far. While lots of events and festivals were no doubt canceled, and postponed, one only had to go to the grocery store to see how much craft beer was coming from production breweries which no doubt helped many people during turbulent times. And from my experience in Plainfield, Indiana, smaller non-production breweries were readily offering growler sales even while their taproom‘s were closed. Things are certainly getting back to normal, and you only has to visit a taproom or brewpub to see this. I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but when they are available, I feel they will validate what I said!

My own personal journey has taken me to 10 states so far this year, and I have experienced some part of the craft beer culture at every stop. I particularly enjoyed my trek to the Michigan upper peninsula where I was able to try beer from all but two of the breweries way up there. At home I’ve had beer from 70 different Indiana breweries this year, and I’m striving to try beer from all the rest as well. Promoters are trying to jam in as many beer events as possible this fall, and we have many opportunities to choose from. The fall seasonal beers that have been out so far been wonderful, and it bodes well for the winter seasonal beers which are some of my favorites.

The healthiness of the craft beer industry is a subject that is dear to my heart. I have been able to write several articles about it in other publications, and generally look at the bigger picture when considering where we are going as an industry. I think this fall is crucial for the craft beer industry and I’ll be watching it very closely. I think craft beer is nearly everywhere, and in a few upcoming articles I will look at the interesting places where craft beer is available beyond the tap room and brewpub. I am particularly excited by the success of the beer arcades, and their types of establishments.

As I write this article, I am sitting in Mr. B’s Cigar Box in Avon. I’m having a Lost Palate from Goose Island which is a special brew made for a employee of Goose Island who had cancer and lost some of his taste buds. The beer includes cinnamon, oatmeal and some other things that he was able to taste after his recovery. A portion of the proceeds from this beer is going to be given to cancer research. It’s a tasty beer, and I recommend trying it if you like IPAs.

Mr. B’s is a craft beer Mecca. They have excellent rotating tabs which often include barrel aged and beers on nitro given the fact that these beers are paired with cigars. They also generally have 15 to 20 excellent beers in cans and bottles. I have been friends with the manager for several years, and often stop in to have a craft beer among friends. We do our podcast here, and even though I’m not a cigar smoker, this is definitely one of my neighborhood spots to get craft beer! The two go together often and Brooklyn New York, the Craft Beer & Smoke Shop is highly touted for the excellent selection of beer. I’ll be in New York later this year, and I am definitely looking forward to visiting this place.

Back at Mr. B’s, I am enjoying my beer and looking forward to an excellent weekend. Pic Is bring me back growlers from New Albanian, and I’m sure they’re going to be enjoyable. And I plan to be visiting the Guggman Haus on Saturday. I’ve never been there and looking forward to it. So I hope you have a good weekend and if I see you we’ll have a beer together!

Over the last weekend I was able to travel quite a bit and ended up at both ends of the state of Indiana. I visited an amazing taproom at each end, and was blown away by the quality of beer I had access to! It only makes me want to reiterate just how vital tap rooms are to the craft beer industry at large. These places are helping out multiple breweries, and some of them are the top sales people for those respective breweries. All weekend I heard again and again how important it is to help out independent brewers, and this makes me happy. With so many breweries making great beer, it takes a lot of tap rooms and beer bars to help spread the word!

While doing more research, I came across a list of the top craft beer bars in all 50 states on a website called CoolMaterial.Com. It’s a very good list of excellent bars, and three of the craft beer bars I listed in my last article made the list. (A fourth, Monks Cafe in Philadelphia, is another great place I’ve had a chance to visit and forgot to include it in the last article!) I realize I’ve been to craft beer bars and at least 25 states, and I feel a lot of very good bars didn’t make that list. I guess what I’m trying to say is no matter where you live, odds are good there’s an excellent craft beer bar nearby!

Hop Station in Mishawaka is an excellent taproom that was recently voted best beer bar in Indiana on craft beer.com! I have been there twice this year, and I am absolutely impressed with their beer selection. They feature 34 craft beers on tap, and over 125 selections available in cans and bottles. I’m going to focus on the beer, but I want to also mention that they have an excellent food menu that includes breadsticks that feature an out of this world smoked Gouda dipping sauce!

Casey and DJ Stuber own and operate the place, and can be seen tending bar, and taking excellent care of patrons. They do an excellent job of providing great craft beer from Indiana, and beyond. On my last trip, I tried beer from Maplewood and 2nd Shift, from Chicago and St. Louis respectively, two breweries whom I was unfamiliar with, yet impressed! I also got to try beer from Ruhe(Nappenee), Harry Stuff(Wawaka), 2Toms(Fort Wayne), and Studebaker(South Bend), all breweries that I’d heard of but had not yet got to try. There are a lot of good breweries in northern Indiana, including Windmill, and Hop Lore, and Hop Station does a good job of keeping most of them on tap regularly!

Hop Station has an impressive tap list, and they are always trying to get more breweries in. While I was there last Saturday, I saw several kegs blow, and was excited with each new beer that was put on. They do a good job of keeping the tap list diverse, and whether you like sours, IPA’s, dark and/or barrel aged beers, there is something on the list for everyone. They certainly are the place to drink craft beer in Michiana, and I totally see why they were voted best beer bar by craft beer.com I am planning on having a party here next March, and if you’re reading this, you’re invited!

On the complete other end of the state, only blocks north of the Ohio River, is Jeffersonville’s Pearl Street Taphouse. We stumbled upon this place yesterday as we strolled around town looking for a place to find craft beer. What I found inside was 24 taps featuring some of the best craft beer selections around. The first beer I tried was a barrel aged blueberry cheesecake Imperial Stout from Untitled Arts. From the first whiff of blueberry, to the last drop of rich flavor, I was reminded of why I like barrel aged beer. Pearl Street also had a nice selection of Indiana beer, as well as great selections from many other breweries including Toppling Goliath which I’ll get back to in a second. I was also able to have my first pumpkin beer, and I’m happy that fall is truly here!

While was there, I had a chance to speak with Kelly Conn, who owns and runs the place with his wife Teri. He is very proud of what he does for independent craft brewers, and speaks highly of his patrons who drink the craft beer he provides. He’s able to bring in very excellent selections including a rare Toppling Goliath beer. The Mornin’ Delight Imperial Milk Stout is an immense beer which is ordinarily only available through a drawing at their Iowa brewery. Kelly was able to get two kegs when a festival was canceled, and I was able to get a small pour of the last of the first keg. It was amazing and it reminds me exactly why I write about beer!

I’m happy that I got to visit two excellent tap rooms of this caliber within a 24 hour span. One ordinarily wouldn’t be at both ends of the state of Indiana on one weekend, but I love to travel and I love good beer. I find tap rooms wherever I go, and if you like to travel as well, I hope you have a similar experience. Yet as I said at the beginning of the article, you most likely will not have to travel that far to find a good taproom. There is good beer being made everywhere, and no matter where you are, I trust that you can find it!

I love breweries, and I really enjoy visiting the tap rooms associated with them. Breweries do everything they can to sell their beer, and besides retail stores, craft beer bars are the other excellent place to sell their beer, and get discovered. These places are frequented by craft beer aficionados who like having diverse selections of craft beer to choose from. These taprooms usually exist independently from any particular brewery, and I feel they are in essential spoke in the wheel of craft brewing. The bar in the picture above certainly supports a lot of breweries with their 262 taps of craft beer. Whenever I get to Des Moines, Iowa, I definitely plan on checking the place out!

The Heorot in Muncy, Indiana is also a very interesting place. The inside is designed like a Viking longhouse, with taps all along the right hand side of the establishment. When they first opened almost 20 years ago, they were doing something very few places could offer, and I think it partly was successful because of it being in a college town. Their beer selection is immense, with dozens of taps, and even more crazy beer in bottles. And speaking of a little off kilter, should you ever get to Chicago, you need to find The Map Room. This beer bar specializes in all things Belgian!

I have been drinking craft beer for over two decades, and my travels around the country have taken me to a lot of very good tap rooms. One of my favorite was in the Orlando, Florida area, and was called the Oblivion Taproom. It was an eclectic place with several hundred beers available, and sadly is not open anymore. A place that reminds me of that tap room is in Sandusky, Ohio called the Small City Taphouse. It is an Asian fusion/Sushi bar with 80 taps of craft beer. You won’t find a more unique place in northern Ohio, and no trip to Cedar Point would be complete without a visit to the tap room!

I could go on and talk about lots of tap rooms because I’ve been lucky to visit so many of them. There are many of them in almost every city, and odds are good that you’ve been to one. If I tried to mention every awesome place that I’ve visited, this article would be 200 pages long! So I’m going to talk a bit about why I appreciate the work these places do, and then recount my visit today to one such place.

Tap rooms are important because they can feature beer from dozens of different breweries. And what’s neat about this is sometimes there are tap takeover’s by breweries, and often times representatives for the breweries will stop in to talk to customers about their beer. On a visit to the Small City Taphouse several years ago, the owner asked me to stop in the next day so that I could meet the owners/brewers of Willoughby, and JAFB who would be visiting his establishment. I took him up on this, and he made introductions, and I got to sample really great beer with both companies!

Breweries also make small batches of their beer often just for their own taproom, and the beer bars that sell the most of their beer. These are the places that an out-of-state brewery often will select for release parties, and special events. 12 years ago I was a part of a beer bar on the north side of Indianapolis that was cutting edge for the time. The Old Towne Alehouse offered craft beer readily when very few places were offering nearly 2 dozen craft beers on tap. I remember a KBS release that was really fun. That place is sadly gone, but the spirit lives on in so many tap rooms today.

Another reason for independent taprooms is that some people are just into one style of beer. You have a better chance of finding more beers to try from a specific style because taprooms can offer selections from multiple breweries. And if you have that one person in your group who always likes something different, there are many reasons that a taproom can work for any group of beer drinkers. And like the brewpub, taps rotate, and this can make for interesting nights of drinking. And it goes without saying that I found taprooms to have excellent food!

This concept of taprooms is not unique to America. Long before we had a vibrant craft beer scene in the US, I remember visiting beer bars in Belgium, and the UK where dozens, if not hundreds of beers were readily available. I’ll talk about it in another article, but to this 23-year-old in 1999, Belgium was like Disneyland when it came to beer. The bars had very diverse selections, and it was hard for me to know where to begin. I imagine this sense of overwhelmed curiosity overtakes so many novice craft beer drinkers anytime they enter a taproom. If you’re new to all this, I am excited for you!

As I write this article, I am enjoying a beer at the 5’s Tap Room in Anderson Indiana. This place used to be a fire station, and they’ve kept the feel to it. It is a grand reopening for them, and they have a very nice crowd in the back yard behind their building which is featuring live music. They have a nice selection of Indiana beer on tap, and I gravitated towards Pax Verum, a brewery in Lapel, Indiana I have never had beer from. The beer I’m trying is a New England IPA called Clouded Judgement, and it is quite tasty. They have several other beers on tap from Pax Verum, and I hope to try at least one more while I’m here.

I found out about this tap room last weekend while I was working a beer festival here in Anderson. Their staff was going around promoting the place, and I think they did a good job given the crowd here tonight. It takes hard work to make a place successful, and I wish them all the success. They are serving good beer and that’s something I think they should be proud of.

And as I close this article, I want to focus on how beautiful it is that 5’s Tap Room is here on the north side of Anderson, Indiana serving craft beer to a diverse crowd. Beer bars don’t need to have extensive tap lists, and a place like this is doing a good job of letting their craft beer drinking patrons drink locally in many ways. The beauty of craft beer in America is that it’s everywhere, and this taproom attests to that. Our culture is healthy if you can go to small town’s in America and find good beer on tap somewhere.

I have lots more traveling to do this weekend. As I get to northern Indiana I hope to drink some good craft beer with my little brother. It’s the weekend and I toast you all and hope that you’re drinking something excellent somewhere just like me!

I like many styles of beer, but this time of the year affords me many opportunities to drink one of my favorites. The Marzen is a rich malty lager that has been enjoyed in Germany for centuries, and the Oktoberfest beer is the most well-known version of it. It gained prominence in 1810 when a festival was held for the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig, and Queen Theresia in Munich, Bavaria. Since that time, harvest festivals have featured this beer, the most famous being Munich’s Oktoberfest, held for 16 days every late September. Marzens are made and enjoyed throughout the warm months, but late August every year for me means a plethora of Oktoberfest beers on the shelf!

I was able to attend a beer festival last weekend, and had two excellent examples of Oktoberfest beers! One was from Anderson’s Guardian Brewing, and the other was from Westfield’s Field Brewing. You can find one made at many breweries which is a far cry from 20 years ago when I was able to get one from Sam Adams, and Penn Brewing in Pittsburgh. Now there are so many available that it’s almost impossible to try them all in one season!

While many great Oktoberfest beers are produced in the US, I feel it is important to appreciate the German made ones as well. The top picture features two excellent ones including Weihenstephan, which is the worlds oldest brewery dating back to 1040. Paulaner, along with Augustiner, Hofbrau, Hacker Pschorr, Lowenbrau, and Spaten are the only six Oktoberfest beers permitted to be served at the official Oktoberfest in Munich. I particularly like Spaten, and a Taproom I worked at six years ago featured it as a seasonal beer. Normally you can find many of these beers at better liquor stores, but it’s been harder this year because of Covid

There are many good Oktoberfest beers to choose from. Sam Adams has been giving us one for decades, and I’ve been able to try nearly every vintage. Sierra Nevada has been collaborating with German breweries such as Bitberger, and Brauhaus Riegale for their Oktoberfest beer, but it looks like this year they didn’t do a collaboration, and it might be partly due to Covid. And as you can see from the picture above plenty of other top notch breweries offer this beer as well, and given the German heritage of the Midwest, I would expect nothing else!

One of the great things about Marzen is how well it pairs up with food. The festivals in which this Beer comes from were certainly laden with delicacies of all natures, but I firmly believe that it is poultry that tastes the best with Oktoberfest beer. In America we have our own harvest fest, and we call it Thanksgiving. If you can manage this, I suggest you save a few bottles of whatever Oktoberfest beer you like to have with your turkey. There’s plenty of beer right now, so there’s no reason you can’t stock up!

I have been really enjoying the Oktoberfest beers I’ve had so far this year. I have a few more varieties to try, and I’m looking forward to that as well. I’m doing some traveling this weekend, and I look forward to even more options. I’m also excited that a friend of mine just returned from Texas, and brought me back some Oktoberfest from Houston’s excellent Saint Arnold Brewery. I’m not sure yet what my plans are for Thanksgiving, but I should have plenty of my stock pile of Founders Oktoberfest for the day!

I know you like beer,and if your reading this, odds are good that you’ve had a few Oktoberfest beers in your time. I truly hope you enjoy the style, and found this article informative. I am looking forward to drinking some when I get a chance, and as always, I toast you all!

At a recent beerfest, I shared a Lift All Higher from Deviate Brewing with a few friends following the afternoon’s event. It was a perfect way to end a phenomenal day of tasting. I absolutely love beer that’s been barrel aged , but I don’t need large quantities of it at a time. Like the liquor that is used to age, and flavor these beers, it is meant to be shipped and savored. Beer like this should be shared with friends, and it was a phenomenal experience to be enjoying it in such a fashion. I poured enough so that everybody only got a few ounces, and I can assure you that every drop was enjoyable!

While I enjoy many styles of beer, it is the barrel aged beer that I seem to collect. It doesn’t hurt that many of my favorite breweries seem to be making barrel aged beers on a regular basis. For me that’s exciting because it is an excellent sign the craft beer is where it needs to be. I can think back to many years ago when I only had a few options of barrel aged beers to choose from. Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout has been an annual beer that I have sought out along with Founder’s KBS. They are both excellent examples of barrel aged beers, and the beers that helped me to learn to appreciate this style.

So while bourbon barrels are the ones most commonly used, scotch, rye, brandy, and others are also used. In the picture above, Deviate aged one of their Scheming Demon variants in apple and cherry brandy barrels, and the other in Cognac and Bourbon. They aged their Lift All Higher which I mentioned at the beginning of the article in rum barrels. Deviate is becoming quite prolific in their barrel aging, and if you’re in Central Indiana, look for many more excellent releases from them in the near future!

When I think of some of the more interesting barrel aged beers I’ve had over the years, two come to mind. The first was a Hefeweizen aged in apple brandy barrels. It was made by New Albanian, and I got to try it back in 2014. The apple liquor notes paired up well with this wheat beer. The second I tried a year later at the Lancaster Brewing Company in Pennsylvania. The beer was called Underlord Acheron and it was a blend of their winter warmer, and their Russian imperial Stout, aged in both bourbon, and rye barrels. 2015 might’ve been a long time ago, but I assure you I still remember how amazing that beer was. It was robustly flavorful, and boozy!

As fall turns into winter, I expect the prevalence of barrel aged beers to continue to be prominent in what I have access to. I recently was able to take part in a podcast in which we sampled a 3 year vertical of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout. It was fascinating to sample this complex beer from different years across the span of an hour or two. It is a complex beer, and it was interesting to hear my fellow connoisseurs pull apart the significant notes found in this beer. I truly hope we get to delve into more barrel aged beers together in the future.

If you haven’t had a chance to try beer that is barrel aged, I’d like to say you don’t know what you’re missing. Or maybe you don’t like dark beers and that’s OK. Still I feel the majority of craft beer drinkers do like barrel aged beers and that’s why they are becoming so popular. I know I spoke mostly of beers made in Indiana, but I assure you as I get to travel around the country over the next few months, I look forward to trying barrel aged beers wherever I find them. I also have plenty in my collection and you never know when I’m going to bust them out. They make great gifts, and can be cellared for many years. I am sitting on a Founders CBS from last year, and I’m looking forward to drinking it soon!

My friend Chris and love stouts, and together we have got to try a lot of barrel aged dark beers. As fall deepens, I recommend seeking barrel aged pumpkin beers, or anything else seasonal. And then in the winter, the possibilities are endless. I’ll be looking for barrel aged beers, and if we see each other out at the bars, let’s drink one together!

“Better people, better food …..better beer! Why move around the world when Eden was so near!”(Rush)

Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, And have been fortunate enough to get to almost every state, and many places in Europe, and South America. I’ve tried Beer in all those places, and I’ve had fun doing so. I often plan my vacations around visiting breweries, at least here in United States. This is made for some very exciting trips, and not everyone can say that they’ve been to most of the breweries in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan! But home is where the heart is, so I like that where I live currently the beer selection is excellent.

It hasn’t always been this way but in nearly every corner of the state of Indiana, there is a brewery to be enjoyed. Indeed, in the north, the Bare Hands Property in Granger almost touches is the Michigan border, and the Floyd County brewing Company in New Albany is just a mere block from the Ohio River to the south! I have plenty of reasons to go to both ends of the state. I currently reside in the state’s center where the greater Indianapolis area has a plethora of breweries with more popping up by the day. There are dozens of breweries within an hours drive for me, and I think that’s pretty cool. And what’s even cooler is that in my own town of Plainfield, I have two breweries to choose from.

Nigh Brewing and Brew Link share the same ownership, yet they offer slightly different experiences. They both offer a great food menu, and great atmosphere. Indoor and outdoor seating is a unique experience at both places, and excellent beer and other drinks flow in both tap rooms. Best of all, I feel I get phenomenal service no matter which place I’m at!

I’ll start with Brew Link since it has been around longer. I remember when they had a location in downtown Plainfield,and I was lucky enough to attend the grand opening. The beer was great back then, and it had awesome names like Cosmic Jacuzzi, and Nutter Cup. When redevelopment began in downtown Plainfield, they moved out to a spacious building on a the golf course west of town. All of a sudden the name Brew Link fit very well!

I’ve been to their taproom quite regularly, and have really come to enjoy their tater tots, and tofu tacos. They have an excellent tap list that includes amazing sours IPAs, and a whole gambit of great beers. And during Covid, it was great to be able to ride my bike on the trails and pick up growlers of their beer to enjoy. They have worked hard and now that things are starting to get back to normal, It is nice to see their taproom full and lively! I recently got to try a fruited saison(Electric Avenue), and an apricot Berliner Weisen(Big Shot). Both are excellent and I saw there are plenty of other new beers that I need to get out there and drink soon!

Nigh Brewing is in the old Black Swan location on Plainfield’s southside. They remodeled the taproom for a very modern look, and you can see from the picture that the bar is quite beautiful. They offer around 10 of their own house beers, as well as a few Brew Link beers, and some excellent rotating guest taps. I first had a chance to visit several months ago and enjoyed their General Tso’s Cauliflower, and I also really enjoy their pickle fries. I want to try more their menu, but I have not been able to get past these two great items!

I meet friends regularly at Nigh, and have been able to try most of their beers. For me their Cordially Yours is as good as it gets. It is a creamy imperial stout that is full-bodied with lots of roasted flavor. Their sours are amazing, and In The Flesh Is one of the best kettle sours I’ve ever had. It has full on apricot flavor from the first sip to the last. I don’t go many days without visiting Nigh, and I probably will get there this weekend!

So that’s a little bit about the beer scene in my town. I hope that wherever you live there is at least one good taproom nearby. Maybe you have lots of options, and that is always wonderful. Good beer and good people are what this life is about. Home is where the heart is, and hopefully for you as well, it’s where good beer is poured too! It’s Friday and I see a pint in my future, and I toast you all!

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!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton