Indiana Microbrewers Festival

Every summer thousands of beer enthusiasts gather at the grounds of the Indianapolis Art Center to enjoy samples of craft beer from a variety breweries at the summer Indiana Microbrewers Festival. This festival has been going on for many years, but for me (Kevin) it was the first time I've been able to attend.  

 

I met up with Russ when I arrived and he showed me around since he was volunteering.  Our first drinking experience came at the cask tent.  Since we were there early we were able to sample many beers prior to the general admission entry time. 

General Admission entry line

In the cask tent my favorite beer that I tried was the Iechyd Da Revolution IPA with pineapple, mango, and orange.  I'm a big fan of Revolution by itself, but these additions just elevated the beer and its flavor profiles.  Would love to try a higher carbonated version, but that's what you get with cask beer.  It was delicious.  Incredibly pure.  

Cask Tent

My favorite in the cask area.  Iechyd Da Revolution with Mango, Pineapple, and Orange

Russ and Me enjoying our first beer of the day from the cask tent

I was also lucky to speak with one of the owners/brewers of Iechyd Da, Chip.  He and I spent time talking about their raspberry berliner weiss, Tata Rosa.  My complaint about that beer last year was that it wasn't funky enough and was fairly mild.  He shared that this year they had a different experience in the brewing process which resulted in a funkier version.  I sampled it and felt that it was far superior to the version brewed last year.  Interestingly he shared that they have had several complaints about the beer being "too funky" which somewhat confirmed to me that the northern Indiana region isn't quite ready for the funk.  Being from that area originally, I am sure it's only a matter of time before they catch up. Iechyd Da continues to be one of my favorite breweries in the state and might be my favorite brewpub as their food and atmosphere are top notch.  Definitely worth a road trip to Elkhart.

Tom Harvey from Iechyd Da and Kevin

We had a great time talking with breweries across the state.  We were fortunate to talk with the folks from Mashcraft, Scarlet Lane, Quaff On, Three Floyds, Upland, Sun King, Flat 12, Black Acre, and many others.  One of the highlights for me was the Flat 12 tent.  This year they placed a suggestion box in their taproom in order to get beer ideas from customers.  Back in May I suggested they brew a high ABV chocolate peanut butter stout.  They ended up taking my suggestion and using it to create the beer called Shelled.  While I wanted more peanut butter from the beer, it was still quite delicious.
They used their base Big Black Dog rye stout and aged it in whiskey barrels with peanut butter and cocoa nibs.  It was complex with lots of chocolate and barrel characteristics and a subtle peanut butter flavor which rounded out the beer nicely.  Overall Flat 12, with their variety of customer suggested beers, executed their flavors quite impressively.
 

Overall, the festival was a great success.  Mostly because I got an incredibly generous pour of Imperial Breakfast Magpie from New Day Meadery :-) 

mmmmmm....Imperial Magpie

But seriously, the volunteers, staff, and breweries were all incredibly welcoming and helpful  The venue was also fantastic.  Lots of shade, plenty of water stations, and a variety of food options including my favorite, Fat Dan's Deli.  There were a lot of beers that I thought were decent.  For me, the beers that stood out included Bare Hands Citronic Pale Ale which rivals Zombie Dust in my opinion, Iechyd Da Tata Rosa, Flat 12 Shelled, Black Acre Bourbon Vanilla One Ten, Sun King Port Barrel Wee Mac, and Mashcraft Java Deep.
 

The folks from Black Acre were ready to party!!

I am looking forward to attending the festival in the future.  I encourage people to volunteer if you are able.  You get to help out and as a result you get early entry and are able to have a bit of an easier time getting pours from brewers.  Here are some other photos from the day:
 

Everyone has to get a little early afternoon Zombie Dust

Russ and Me getting a share of a Cognac De Muerte Dark Lord from a distributor

Masses of people with beers

The Beer Barons....minus Andrew and Brie.

Beer tasting is serious business.  Here is Russ documenting his tastings.

The folks from Rhinegeist brought their Crowlers to show off the next trend in craft cans.

Russ demonstrating the importance of eating during a craft beer festival.

Scarlet Lane Brewing Co. is Catching Fire!

Yes I did just make a Hunger Games reference... my bad, but it's hard to describe what Scarlet Lane Brewing Company is doing any other way. These guys hit the streets running about three months ago and have already started taking the Indy market by storm with taps in tons of bars and restaurants throughout the marketplace. They've brought innovative and delicious beers right from the start without messing around with a blond, or a cream ale just to be approachable. They are daring Indiana to try craft beers that are more outside the box than what they're use to.

It seems like the creativity and skill have paid off. In their first appearance at the Brewers Cup earlier this month, Scarlet Lane came home with a gold medal for their Vivian Red IPA. Although not traditional in color, it has a big hoppy flavor that demands it be qualified as an IPA, and now we have proof that it's one of the best IPAs in town. They also brought home medals for their Coffee Dorian Stout and Paeonia Farmhouse Ale. I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak at the coffee stout before it the Brewers Cup and it was outstanding; it was like mixing beer with a mocha latte. It's exciting to see a brewery that's so new do so well early on. We were fortunate enough to talk to Eilise about their success and what has made them a standout in the Indianapolis marketplace.

For those of you who haven't gotten to get to know Scarlet Lane yet, I'd like to introduce Eilise: owner, brewer, and Indiana's very own girl on fire!

Q. How did you determine your core lineup of beers for Scarlet Lane?

A. f you’re talking about Scarlet Lane in general, it was fairly simple. A Coconut Stout in Bend, Oregon is the beer that got me excited about brewing. Tonya Cornett, at the time with Bend Brewing Company, brewed a nitro coconut stout that was amazing! This beer was critical to my beer development and HAD to be a part of our launch. The Red IPA comes from both the significance with our name, Scarlet Lane, and the influence the Northwest has had on the brewery. We wanted to bring a nicely balanced IPA to our portfolio, but also wanted it to fit our image, so the Red IPA was born. We had different plans for our third beer, but after hiring and speaking with Chris Knott our Head Brewer, he expressed his passion for Saisons. Similar to my Coconut Stout obsession, Chris was really excited to put a Saison on the map as a flagship beer….that brings us to Silas. Our newest seasonal, Humble Peach started off as a joke when our partner and other owner Doug Sheets brought back a peach beer from the East Coast. We joked with him, made fun of him… and then all of sudden we are making a peach beer AND WE ALL LOVE IT. Doug is owed an apology and a big hug for that one. Our beers we entered for Brewers’ Cup were all along the lines of what makes us excited about beers: IPAs, Stouts, and Saisons. 

Q. You've done some great specialty beers for festivals and tap takeovers. How important are these unique options to you guys?

A. We think it’s important to always have fun with it. People get “flagship fatigue” and don’t want to always see the same line-up, especially at festivals. We think it’s extremely important to keep offering fun and engaging beers…even if it's just at festivals 

Q. Could they ever make it to the standard line up?

A. Yes. Humble Peach is one of them. We did it one time for a Tomlinson Tap event and it was so popular we are now going to do it full time. We gave a little sample of it at Fat Dan’s Deli and had such a great response we went back to the brewery to prepare a large batch of it for our summer seasonal.

Q. Vivian, your gold medal IPA is actually a Red IPA. What are the differences both in the brewing process and the final product that made it stand out from a traditional IPA?

A. We use a different malt bill to create the caramel backbone and color difference that sets it apart from a traditional IPA color. The difference of the final product is more of a balance between the malt and the hop that creates a little bit of a malty and toasty background to the IPA. However, it’s still an IPA so there is a big robust hop presence in the nose and bitterness. 

Q. As the craft beer scene in Indiana continues to evolve, what do you hope to see more of?

A. That’s a two fold answer. 1. We hope to see confidence from local establishments that they don’t always have to keep rotating tap handles. That in itself is not only exhausting at some point, but it detracts from the brand loyalty a local craft beer market can create. Quality is getting better throughout Indiana and there should be no reason why bars and restaurants should be scared to always offer high quality local beers instead of offering it for a week only to remove it for something else. 2. We hope to see a lot more of collaboration and camaraderie among local breweries. 

You have seen their beers at bars and restaurants, now their beers are available for growler fills at their brewery in McCordsville, IN. They just opened the tap room last weekend (on the 20th). If you haven't checked out this exciting new brewery, do so as soon as possible. May the beers be ever in your favor... last one I promise.

Scarlet Lane is getting ready to do a Winning Beers Tap Takeover at Chatham Tap on August 7 where you will be able to try all the awesome beers.

Fistful of Hops Summer Release

So we've officially had all of the seasons of Fistful of Hops by Sun King Brewing Company. As I've pointed out every season, Fistful is an IPA that keeps the same malt bill all year long, but rotates the hops that it showcases every season. You can check out the reviews for the other seasons:

Fistful of Hops Fall (red can)
Fistful of Hops Winter (blue can)
Fistful of Hops Spring (green can)

The summer Fistful of Hops uses azacca and mosaic hops. Now I had no idea what azacca hops were supposed to taste like, so I hit up Great Fermentations, the local homebrew store that I buy my ingredients from. They told me that azacca is a pretty new hop to the market. It has some big citrus flavors mixed with some piney and earthy undertones. It leaves you with a crisp and bitter finish. I think it was well paired with the big flavors of mosaic, one of my personal favorite hops.

This one has such a big aroma. You start smelling it as soon as the can opens. It smells like when you used to get fruit cocktail as a kid, with big tropical sweet aromas right from the start. This is one of the best smelling IPAs I've ever had. The beer pours out the same good looking golden yellow color that all the Fistful of Hops beers pour out. The flavor is light and crisp with some nice citrus fruit flavors up front and a clean bitter finish. The bitter finish is that resiny pine flavor that is probably coming from the azacca hops. Its a really nice easy drinking summer beer.

I'm not trying to be critical but the aroma was so amazing, I was a little disappointed when the flavor of the beer didn't live up to the hype in my nose. It is a great beer, and the flavors were really easy to drink in the summer heat, but its verging on too light for an IPA. I like the beer, its not my favorite Fistful release but it's a damn good beer, and its about as good as it gets for this kind of weather. I give it a 3.5/5

Now that I've reviewed and tasted all four of this year's fistful of hops, I really thought I'd be able to rank them. Keep in mind these have all been really good IPAs and with all the variety Sun King has done a great job of making sure there is something for everyone who likes a good IPA. I couldn't rank these because they were all so perfect for the season. I think Clay nailed it and really made something outstanding for each season they were released!!!

Sometimes I'm Judgy

The Big Guy and I had the opportunity to judge at the Indiana Brewers' Cup held at the state fairgrounds airless over a week ago. It was our first time judging, and I really enjoyed it.

I was actually a little bit nervous going into it. Having seen some of the feedback that The Big Guy has gotten for beers he's entered in previous competitions, I know how important it is to get meaningful feedback. With that in mind, I wanted to be sure that any feedback I had was going to be useful for the brewer. I was incredibly grateful to he more experienced judges I got to sit with for answering all my questions and really making me feel more comfortable with the whole process.

This was a big competition. Hats off to everyone involved in getting things organized and making sure that things ran smoothly during the competition. There were three sessions for the judges: one Friday night, then Saturday morning and afternoon. We only participated in the sessions on Saturday.
 

Of all the beers I tasted that day, most were good, a few were great, but none were bad. With eleven beers in the first session and ten in the afternoon session I think that's pretty impressive. Both flights I judged were homebrews, while The Big Guy got to judge a professional category.

There's a sheet that walks you through the different aspects of the beer that you're judging: aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, appearance, and overall impression. When we took our exam we weren't abel to have the style guidelines out for reference, but in the competition we were. That was a huge help for me, just having something to refer back to and use as a measuring stick for everything I tasted. We were judging based on those guidelines and how close the beer comes to being a perfect example of the desciption provided.

That's where some of the hard part comes in for me. A beer that's slightly off style may be more enjoyable than something brewed perfectly within the guidelines, but may not get as high a score. I tried to capture that in the overall impression section by asking myself if I'd drink a whole pint and possibly order a second.

We definitely learned a lot and both of us are excited to be a part of more competitions. We're both Recognized with the BJCP, but with a few more competitions, we'll be able move up to the Certified rank.  That's where our scores have us. It's interesting that you don't start out at the rank you earn with your scores alone. But having gone through a competition, I think there's a lot you really only learn by doing it so it does make sense. 

 

Congratulations to everyone who placed and won their categories, including The Big Guy who took first place in the homebrew stout category. For a complete list of the winners, click here. If you're interested in learning more about the Brewers' Cup, click here.
 

Indy Beer News: July 17, 2014

Big congrats to Upland Brewing for their awards at the Brewers' Cup last weekend.

There's a new Indy Beer News special episode available which was recorded last Monday at Mass Ave Pub.

Plus a few more events happening for Beer Week leading up to the Indiana Microbrewers Festival.

Honey... you spent how much on that??

Let me start off by saying that this is in no way a statement about brewery prices- this is about you, me, and all the beer geeks out there. Why do we spend so much money on beer??

I don't mean over a period of time, I mean on that $35 750ml bottle. At some point last year I decided I'd had enough and would no longer spend money on beer that was north of $1 an ounce; there are some rare exceptions, but in general I didn't see the point anymore. No more upland sours, no more bruery anniversary beers, no more mikkeller or other high-priced imports (at least some). Why did I stop? Well first and foremost I'm pretty sure I'd be dead where I stood courtesy of my girlfriend if I continued, but I realized some things. Maybe you'll completely disagree with what I have to say below,..but please do. 

Taste

Does that $1 plus an ounce beer really taste that much better than that 20¢ an ounce beer? In some cases sure, there's some really crappy $12 6 packs out there and many phenomenal $25 large format beers. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of $25 stinkers; it gets compounded by the fact that some of these stinkers don't get a lot of reviews because of prohibitive price and those that do may get a psychological ratings boost because of the price; a $25 beer better taste good right? And don't tell me you haven't been influenced by that. Let's compare apples to apples though. Take your favorite $12 6 pack up against your favorite $25 beer. Now would you rather have 25oz of one-time enjoyment or 144oz of prolonged enjoyment? 

Friendship and a Sense of Belonging

At some point or another you might just feel "it's necessary" to buy those expensive beers.... to lubricate friendships of course! A lot of times showing up with those big expensive beers to a bottle share is a great way to ingratiate yourself to a tasting group especially if you're new; don't want to be that guy shows up to a tasting with an Upland Infinte Wisdom (sorry Upland, but your non-sours are well priced) right? Bringing an expensive date the first time around or occasionally isn't a bad idea, but shouldn't be a habit or goal in my opinion; bringing 3 $25+ beers to a monthly share can add up. In my experience bringing something hard to get or obscure (doesn't mean expensive) will be appreciated just as much. Plus who knows when that expensive beer will get consumed- after everyone is drunk? After palates have been wrecked?  If you're group cares about how much you spent, you should probably find a new group. 

Or you may feel swept up in the beer geek frenzy to buy expensive beers, because everyone else is doing it and it makes you feel apart of the community in some way. You may feel left out if you didn't pick up that latest expensive beer. Again there's better ways to become a part of the community, like volunteering at festivals (bonus- the festival becomes free for you!).  

Collectibility & Rarity

I think everyone who gets "serious" about the craft beer hobby goes through the phase of wanting to buy anything that's perceived as rare or desirable and a lot of times this means expensive; I went through this big time. Nowadays there's so many of these expensive "rare" beers that you'd have to take a loan out to even attempt to pick up everything you want. I tend to pick my spots nowadays and try to grab only things from proven breweries or favorite styles that might have a unique twist (these are the exceptions I mentioned above). Otherwise the normal budget breakers, barrel aged beers and sours, are becoming a dime a dozen... well $300 a dozen. Luckily the "gotta catch'em all" fever is easier (and cheaper) to satiate now that more and more of these beers find their way to bars, festivals, and probably your friends' bottle shares.

Expensive beers remind me of the SUV fad that swept the US in the 2000's: big, sexy, everyone wanted one, but largely too expensive, impractical, and inefficient for most. I don't think expensive beers will go away by any means. While some craft beer veterans grow out of the expensive beer phase and try to find a happy place with reasonably priced "go-to" 6 packs, the constant (and growing) influx of new beer hobbyists keep that expensive boat afloat. 

Well I should stop telling you what to do with your money and go polish all 300 pieces in my glassware collection. 

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for me

First off, a big congratulations to Upland Brewing Company for their win at the Indiana Brewers Cup. They won pro brewer best in show for VynoSynth Red and they also won pro brewer of the year and the Grand Champion Brewer! Great job! Keep the sours coming!

According to the Presidents of the United States of America, peaches come from a can, but Upland Brewing Company in Bloomington, Indiana is proving that peaches can come in a bottle too. Upland makes a base lambic, and then age it in barrels. They have barrels that are more than a decade old sitting in their cellars. Each bottle of lambic that you drink is a blend of different aged barrels and fresh lambic to get the right level of sour determined by their head brewer, Caleb. That blend is then aged in a barrel with a whole lot of all natural fresh fruit. Upland is big on sustainability and sourcing locally for everything they can, so the fruit they use is important to them. Often though their sour lambics are so tart that its hard to find the fruit. I was pleased with the peach, not because it was a heavy peach flavor necessarily but because it did a good job of adding to the big sourness of the beer.

The Peach Lambic pours out a very light orange color with just a bit of haze and sediment and almost no head. All the lambic style beers by Upland are bottle conditioned with wild yeasts, so they have some floaties in the bottles. When pouring a beer like this, make sure you don’t pour the last inch or so out of your bottle. That lets you leave most the yeast and some of the heavier sediment in the bottom of the bottle instead of your glass. The beer has big, acidic-sour aromas with just a little bit of peach in there. The flavor follows it nicely. Huge tartness, and I mean huge. Upland makes these guys sour enough to take the enamel off your teeth, but in a good way. The fruit mellows the sour out just enough to make it incredibly enjoyable.

At this point I’ve had just about all the lambics that Upland makes and the Peach is by far my favorite. The hints of sweet peach fruit flavor compliment the sourness of the lambic so well. I encourage you to get your hands on any of these sours— this one most of all— but sour newbies beware.

I give it a 5 out of 5

Recently, Upland formed the Secret Barrel Society (SBS), a reserve club that gives members better access to these amazing beers. Members are helping the brewery ramp up their sour program and add more barrels of this amazing beer to their warehouse, so in the future bottles can be on shelves throughout Indiana. If you’re interested check out their website to learn more about the SBS.

Indy Beer News: July 9, 2014

Big congrats to Oaken Barrel for celebrating 20 years of making great beer! Also to Daredevil Brewing, Four Father's and Hunter's Brewing for being selected to pour at this year's GABF.

Win a trip to London with Fullers and Upland Brewing Co. Check out their Facebook page for more info.

Lots of events this week from Mass Ave Pub, Girls' Pint Out, Broad Ripple Tavern, 18th Street Brewing, Tin Man, Scarlet Lane and many more!


 

May I see your ID?

Over the 4th of July weekend I was in Michigan and visited a few breweries with a friend: Jolly Pumpkin, Blue Tractor, and The Wolverine State. While the middle of the 3 was memorable because it had some of the worst beer I've had in a long time, Jolly Pumpkin (JP) and The Wolverine State (TWS) were memorable because they had good beer and something that many breweries in Indy lack: an identity.

Jolly Pumpkin and it's fans know that JP is about funky beers; TWS is on the other end of the spectrum, as they're all about lagers. They had a dozen plus styles on tap all stemming from a lager base and many of them were quite good.

This got me thinking- do any Indianapolis based breweries have a true identity that is based on their beer? Sure many breweries have established themselves quite well with their branding and marketing, but do we have anything like a JP or TWS? Not really. Brugge with their Belgian style beers and Upland with their sour program (but that's in Bloomington) come closest.

Usually it takes time to establish a beer identity, but some breweries don't waste any time. There are a lot of newer breweries across the country that are hanging their hat on one particular style group: Jester King, Crooked Stave, Almanac, The Rare Barrel, and Jack's Abby to name a few. To be fair this would be a difficult model to do in a craft beer environment such as Indianapolis, especially for newer breweries. Why? Because Indianapolis is still in elementary school when it comes to craft beer education and appreciation. A single-style brewery might be too much of a niche idea for this town at the moment.

So instead breweries hedge their bets and cater to more people by offering several styles in their initial or house lineup. The problem? It's hard to set yourself apart when there's a lot of overlap between breweries' offerings, especially when they're picked from the same narrow list of IPA, amber, brown, porter, wheat, lager/pilsner, stout, and pale ale. At least some baby breweries are adding saisons, double IPAs, and ryes to their starting mix to shake it up.

I'm not necessarily knocking this model, as many of the most well known and highly rated breweries started this way, but as the craft beer environment gets more crowded (and we're not there yet), it's going to be even more important to set yourself apart.

There has to be a compromise. Why not have a house lineup that spans the gamut to keep the masses happy, but then explore 1-2 or styles in depth and knock out a few of these? Many breweries do this, and do this well, giving them some identity. Unfortunately I'm hard pressed to give a satisfying answer when someone asks "who in town brews good [insert beer style] or a lot of [insert beer style]?" I could certainly suggest a lot of great local examples of a style, but not necessarily a brewery as a whole that's the master of that domain.

Fortunately it does appears that at least a few local brewereries are picking up on this model. Sun King has some IPA choices with the Fistful of Hops Series, and some other nice tap offerings time to time. Bier Brewery has their stable of IPAs as well, but I still wouldn't call either an IPA brewery... for now. The crew at Scarlett Lane are big fans of stouts and plan on churning out some interesting variations. Andrew and co. at Mashcraft have already started down that road with their "Into the Deep" stout series that debuted last week with "The Deep" oatmeal stout; blackberry, coffee, and pepper variants are coming soon.

Ultimately it would be nice to have a "go to" brewery depending on your favorite style. For example it would be nice if I could walk into a brewery and be able to select from 2-3 IPAs and take home the one that suits my mood. Count this more as a wish than a critique, but it would be nice to see some identities emerge from all the foam.

Sun King Grapefruit Jungle

Being fairly new to this collection of bloggers I decided that I would take a stab at writing up a review on Sun King Grapefruit Jungle.  This beer has previously been written about on this site here and here. This is one of my favorite beers from this brewery, a brewery I am often quite critical of.  The previous write-ups are an enjoyable read, and I think my sentiments are somewhat a blend of the other reviewers.  But here is my take on this annual Sun King release.

Pour:  Poured from a can into the Sun King can glass.  I know that IPA's should go in a tulip, but I can't let the can glass go unused here.  As you can see from the picture, there was a little spillage due to the can glass not providing ample space for the entire pour.  The only way I've found to get a Sun King beer into the can glass is to try and pour the beer so that there is no head...which is a shame.  *Note to Sun King...make this glass just a little bigger.  Anyway, the beer pours a nice copper/orange color and it so badly wants to have head, but the glass didn't really support that very well.

Aroma:  I can smell the beer from about 2-3 feet away.  The aroma is that pungent.  Loads of citrus.  I get mostly tangerine and grapefruit on the nose.  

Mouthfeel:  It's an IPA so I expect it to be right where it is.  It is a medium bodied beer.  It's not light or watery and it's not nearly full bodied.  The mouthfeel also provides quite a bit of sticky resin which does take its toll on the palate.

Taste:  This is where the beer gets wild.  Get it?  Wild? Jungle?  Ok, so I'm not a comedian.  Anyway. The flavor profile is very citrus forward.  Grapefruit, tangerine, and maybe a touch of that sweet and tropical passion fruit which keeps this beer from being a total bitter bomb.  The malt bill also prevents it from being out of control.  That being said, it's definitely not a balanced beer.  The hops very much overpower everything...and I love that.  There are enough sweet flavors to temper the harshness of those bittering hops.  It leaves each sip with a subtle dryness which creates the need for the next sip.  It's a hop bomb in every way.  

Overall:  This is probably my favorite Sun King beer.  It's overpriced, as are all Sun King beers, but it's still probably the best IPA in the local market.  I do wish that they would make it a year round beer, but for a variety of reasons they haven't.  Additionally, I'm not of the opinion that the beer changes from year to year.  This year's cans taste exactly how I remember the cans from 2011.  I've also had it on draft and there is no discernable difference to me draft 2014 vs. draft 2011 vs. draft 2013 (etc.).  Maybe my palate isn't as sophisticated...or maybe beer geeks just allow things to get in their heads to question consistency.  One thing Sun King does extremely well is that they produce consistent product.  This is no exception to that.  

I would give this a 4.5/5.  It's a great beer.

SKB5: Who was the party really for?

Happy Birthday, Sun King. You really have been a huge force in getting national recognition for craft beer in Indy.

Last year, the Sun King anniversary party was one of my favorite events of the summer. The beer was excellent and there were tons of special release tapings. The music by St. Paul and the Broken Bones was insanely good. And of course the always loved Grapefruit Jungle IPA was released at the event. There wasn't really much room for improvement on such an awesome party.

The party was huge this year. They sold out at least a week before the event, so obviously their good reputation and whatever they did to promote the event worked great! As a beer geek and overall craft fan I thought the party fell short in a couple of areas compared to last year.

Last year was all about the beer, this year felt more like a concert that also had beer. We all know that Sun King is one of the most popular and well recognized breweries located in Indianapolis. They have beer in bars all over the place and at most of the stadiums for sporting events. They've started to become the beer of the people here in Indianapolis. Sadly (for us at least), that means they may not want to be the beer of the beer geeks around here. At some point a brewery has to decide on a strategy, sell to the hard core fans or sell to the masses, maybe some breweries can do both.

First and probably foremost for me as a standout from last year's event that was missing this year was the tappings. Sun King's Kings Reserve beers have been coming out almost every other month this year. Last year we got an awesome preview at the party of what was to come, this year we got Mellow Johnny, a raddler. For those of you who are not familiar, a raddler is a beer mixed with a juice or fruit soda. Although the raddler was well done, and perfect for the summer heat, it's probably the most approachable "beer" around and isn't nearly as exciting as some of Sun King's sours or barrel-aged offerings. Not only did we not have any King's Reserve releases, we didn't have any uniquely timed releases.  They had their standard canned line up, plus Popcorn Pilsner, Lavern, Shirley (which had been in the tap room), and Grapefruit Jungle.

The second thing that disappointed me was that Grapefruit Jungle wasn't available for takeout at the party. This is an awesome beer. This is one of those beers that I can drink a case of in a weekend. If you haven't had it lately, try and grab a four pack while you can.

Really minor things that could have been better were bringing back the picnic tables that they had last year. Yes the internet and invite all said to bring a chair if you want to sit, but this looked a lot more like a concert at White River than it did a beer event. I prefered the music last year, but that's totally a matter of taste, and the food trucks started running out of stuff pretty early this year (obviously not the breweries fault at all).

The final thing that set me off a little was the overall cost. The event is totally reasonable at a $10 entry fee, but once you're in you have to get $5 tickets for beer. Please note this is the exact same set up as last year, but last year they had some amazing beers being tapped and I would gladly pay five bucks to have a taste. This year we were limited to their house beers and some pretty basic releases. If I came in the day before I could have gotten any of the house beers in a growler for $5. A day later, after paying to come in, I have to give you five dollars for a can... this is higher mark up than a liquor store by a lot. It was even a mark up for GFJ, which I gladly pay my $18 per four pack for. If you're going to charge like I'm going to Deer Creek... Verizon... Klipsch... whatever, I should be coming for the concert not the brewery's anniversary.

All in, I still love Sun King and I think GFJ is an excellent beer that I will keep drinking as long as I can get it. Tons of people were rocking out to the bands and having a great time all around. Every beer was easy drinking for people that aren't really fans of craft beer which can bring a whole new crowd in. The party only disappointed me because I had such high hopes after last year. I know last year the tappings were limited and a lot of people got shut out, but at least the beers were there and people had a chance to try everything. As a beer geek, I felt like I spent fifty bucks just to try Grapefruit Jungle a couple days early. It all just begs the question, who was the party really for?

Indy Beer News- July 2

I've got lots of events this week including a bunch for Beer Week. Find details from Scarlet Lane, Triton Brewing, Flat 12 Bierwerks, Indiana City, Four Father's, Burn 'Em Brewing and many more!