Daredevil Anniversary

The first of a few tap takeover / anniversary parties for Daredevil took place last week at 20 tap. Since the brewery is still being built they are doing what they did last year and hosting multiple parties celebrating 2 years here in Indiana. Hosting multiple parties allows their fans from all over Indiana to celebrate with them and try some great brews. This month of parting comes to a close with a beer dinner at Black Market. If you didn't go last year, you need to check it out. The food was just as awesome as the beers were.

Last year Daredevil released a few limited release beers that they called Rare Devil beers. These were their standard brews aged on different fruits and other tasty flavors. This year they've taken a little more classic approach and aged 2 of my favorite beers, JWP stout and Muse Belgian, in Rye whiskey barrels.




I talked with Shane from the Daredevil team at the release and he said that they chose rye barrels because they didn't want as much sweetness as the bourbon barrels are known for. It's also a great mix because the standard JWP stout has rye in the malt bill already. The spicy whiskey flavor blended great with both beers.




Here is a quick rundown of both beers:

Barrel Aged JWP was aged for 13 months. Normally JWP is a pretty hopped up American stout. The hops compliment the roastiness of the malts and the spicy rye flavor well. The barrel aged version has been aged long enough that a lot of the hop character had fallen off. I was worried this would make the beer unbalanced. It's hard to know what a barrel will do before you put the beer on, so it can be a bit of crapshoot. This gamble paid off. Although the hops were significantly lighter the barrel characteristics made up for it and balanced everything out nicely.  The roast of the malt was still right there but the barrel added a little bit of sweet vanilla and oak flavor that was balanced out with a bit of spicy rye whiskey. The rye accentuated the rye in the malt bill and made it significantly more forward. This beer packs a ton of flavor for a beer under 10% ABV. The balance is absolutely fantastic.

Barrel Aged Muse might have been the most impressive part of the evening. Muse is a great Belgian beer. It is a big golden beer with some delicious fruit flavors. Thick white head released all sorts of delicious fruity aromas. The head followed all the way to the bottom of the glass with stick lacing hugging the sides. It has great traditional flavor with a rich golden color. The barrel did a good job of balancing out the sweetness of the beer. It added a bit of vanilla and oak that came off like a coconut. The yeast flavors turned into an almost pineapple tropical fruit flavor that added a great direction to the standard Muse.

These two beers will be at all of the Daredevil parties except the Pizzology events. If you like the standard versions you need to make your way out to one of these tap takeovers. The BA versions won't disappoint.

If I haven't sold you on the Black Market event yet, there will be a couple Rare Devil beers that will only be at the dinner and maybe Winterfest if I don't drink them all.

Congratulations again to Daredevil on your anniversary. The beers were awesome, and I can't wait to see what you bring to town when the brewery is up for real. 

Lets Give a Warm Welcome to HopCat!

Where can you find unique beers on tap in Indy? Right now you can count the great spots we have on two hands. With the huge boom in craft breweries here in central Indiana, it only makes sense that we're going to need a lot more places to drink that beer.

Our growing craft community has caught the eye of the big guy up north. HopCat, a titan in Michigan's craft beer scene, is opening their third location right here in Broad Ripple. HopCat, Grand Rapids, was rated as the number 3 Beer Bar on Planet earth by Beer Advocate and number 1 Brewpub in the US by Ratebeer.com. They have one hell of a reputation. Here they will have 130 taps available which will be the largest draft system in the state.

There are a lot of bars here in Indy that do a good job with craft beer, but not many that specialize in it. We have such great breweries that have been around for a while and that are brand new, it's awesome to see more bars that specialize in craft beer popping up. This will mean more unique beers on tap on a regular basis and more servers trained to talk about beer. It will help the overall education of the community. If we are going to keep the revolution moving we need more places pouring our beer all the time, where geeks like us can go in and try new things and talk to someone who really knows what's going on.

To bring a little more Indianapolis excitement HopCat had a hops planting instead of a formal ground breaking ceremony last week. Local news outlets came out to see the skeleton of the space that will hold the bar and restaurant. Clay from Sun King, and President of the Brewers of Indiana Guild came to talk about the new bar and what it would really mean for Indiana beer.

The official launch is August 16th and they are hosting a huge tap takeover with all 130 taps pouring delicious Indiana beer. That's more local beer than you see at some Indiana festivals! With HopCat already being engaged with the guild, I'm sure there will be some rare treats and crazy brews tapped at the take over.

"HopCat Founder Mark Sellers said the Hoosier tap takeover event will provide patrons with a chance to experience the incredible variety, artistry and creativity within Indiana's craft brewing community."

The first 200 customers in line before 11am will all get a magic card that gives them an order of deliciously addictive Crack Fries every week for the next year. For those of you who hate lines, everyone will get a free order of Crack Fries on opening day.

I'm really exited for another great craft beer bar. Hell, I'd be excited if we got ten more true craft beer bars. I'm excited for more great beers on tap regularly. I'm excited for a better platform to show off the great beer made here in Indiana. I'm excited for a menu that's all made to pair with beer. I'm excited to wait in line at HopCat Indy's grand opening!

Right now HopCat is hiring to fill more than 100 jobs at the Indy location. If you want to be part of the beer community here in Indy email them at indy.jobs@hopcat.com

Check out HopCat on Social Media.

Facebook: HopCat - Broad Ripple
Twitter: hopcatbr
Instagram: hopcatbr

All Tied Up With Figure 8 Brewing

Recently, Figure Eight Brewing had a tap takeover at Tomlinson Tap room and the Barrons were invited to come enjoy their beers and hang with their head brewer, Mike Lahti.  I tried to remember where I had consumed their brews before, as they have had only a peppering of taps in Indy.  Then I remembered that somehow, through the gossamer daze that was the Microbrewers Fest this summer in Broad Ripple, I had liked their beers enough to drink two of them... out of the 55 I had that day.

The best part about writing about beer is that most people in the industry are exceptionally charismatic, or contain that "I'll do what I want" cowboy attitude that usually comes off as genuine, not asinine.  Figure 8 and Lahti are a wonderful example of when those two attitudes of passion and fuck all come together and express them perfectly in the brews they make, and the culture they create.

"Everyone squat low so that Lahti looks tall!"

I started with the usual brewer first pitch.  What did you do before you became a brewer and how did you get started?  Lahti's answer was surprisingly interesting.  He began his career as a Wildlife Biologist specializing in wolves.  Epic.  Home brewing was not the usual gateway for him as it is a lot of guys these days.  "I've probably home brewed maybe three times?  It's just not something that interests me." he explained.  A true brewing professional, he cut his teeth at breweries around the US and locally at Upland before heading up Figure 8.  Lahti brings a clean professionalism made obvious in his beers.

This naturally led into a discussion of where he felt F8 fit into the brewery belt buckle that wraps around Lake Michigan and that Northern Indiana is lucky to be apart of.  He elaborated on about how awesome it is to be in that path and how with new and exciting breweries popping up in Michigan as well and NW Indiana, a "Beer Trail" similar to the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky has formed.  "Just from Chicago to Grand Rapids, you can hit twelve solid breweries." Lahti explained.  Despite this regional coagulation of craft breweries, Lahti is looking elsewhere for future collaborations.  Lahti explained it well,  "I'm looking to collaborate with breweries out of state.  Bring new, awesome beer here and bring our name into another state."

Given the Midwest's German brewing heritage, to follow, or not to follow style is always the question.   "I make beer that I want to drink.  I haven't won any awards, or medals, but my sales numbers and production numbers are telling me that I am making good beer." Lahti told me with his index finger emphasizing the well made point his excited eyes were making.  "I'll look at the style guides and I'll follow them... and then I deviate."  This fiery, Grateful Dead lovin' brewer won me over with his "no fucks given" attitude.  It exuded from him as more of a confidence in his craft and a pride in his artistry and business, which was totally backed up by the beers I was drinking between Lahti's smiled filled answers.

The crew at F8 are a warm and welcoming bunch

With cans becoming more prevalent in the brewing world, the question of "Cans or Bottles?" has become the brewers equivalent of "Boxers or Briefs?"  Lahti was very eloquent about his reasoning.  Right now they're bottling, but they want to switch to cans because he likes the light-fastness and because of their proximity to Dunes State Park, where glass is not allowed, it would mean people could take F8 beer with them to their beach excursion.  Working with that same fact, Lahti is trying to get Nalgene growlers at the brew pub so that people could even bring growlers, not just bullets, to the park.  Great to see the Wildlife Biologist has never left his heart.

The future is bright for F8.  New production ideas, and creating out of state connections to make more awareness of other low flying breweries are all adding up to what looks like a great few years for F8.  Lahti, who confesses that Belgians are his favorite to drink and brew, bolsters his passion and genuine pride by spending a majority of the conversation praising other brewers and breweries in the state and abroad.  When asked who his personal favorite brewer in Indiana is: "Liz (Laughlin) at (Rock Bottom) College Park.  Hands down best brewer in Indiana."

The crew at F8 are a warm and welcoming bunch.  Bolstered by their great beers, the conversation was easy and jovial.  I don't know how many times, in the midst of laughing, the phrase, "That's off the record." was uttered.  Figure 8 has definitely left an impression.  Those from the North I'm sure already know this, but I cannot wait until F8 beers like Ro Shampo or Raven Tor start to penetrate the already saturated and competitive Indianapolis market... and succeed.

Goose Island's Evolution of a Stout

You don't just start out with a great barrel aged stout. Truly great stouts have layers, like onions...and Shrek. They're recipes that are built on one component at a time. Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCBS) series is a shinning example of this.

The Barons just sat down at the Goose Island Migration party hosted by Twenty Tap. Goose Island brought four different stouts to the event, but after talking with their people we realized the stouts really weren't very different at all.

Goose Island brought Night Stalker, Big John, Coffee BCBS, and Cherry Rye BCBS.

To make these big impressively tasty stouts, the brewery has to start with a solid base. For Goose Island, Night Stalker is the base for these beers. Big John is just Night Stalker with cocoa nibs added to the recipe. Then we take Big John and Barrel age it to get normal Bourbon County Brand Stout. In 2012 they aged their BCBS with coffee as well creating the Coffee BCBS. They went one step further and aged the Rye Cherry BCBS in rye whiskey barrels on top of fresh Michigan cherries. You may notice that all these beers have different ABV, but that's because most barrel aged brews actually start to gain  more alcohol as the water content of the beer evaporates from the barrel. In the whiskey world they call the lose the "angels' share".

There is one more even bigger and badder stout and that's the Rare BCBS. This was a bad motha' in all the right ways. Its the same brew but it has an additional 2 years aging in Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels. If you've never had the pleasure of drinking Pappy Van Winkle, you are missing out. Its outstanding bourbon. Unfortunately we only got a couple ounces. It was an amazing beer, but I really didn't have enough to give it a huge review. If you ever see it... buy it and send it to me. Seriously.

Because these beers all start from the same place, it is next to impossible to tell them apart by sight (top right is the Coffee BCBS and the bottom left is the Rye Cherry BCBS). There was a bit of confusion around the table as we were all passing the beers around, but each one had its own unique aroma. Just by smell you could tell which one had coffee, which had cocoa and which had the cherries.

Of all of these wonderfully big boozy stouts my favorite was the Rye Cherry version. The Rye Cherry Bourbon County Brand Stout is a huge dark stout with great spicy rye whiskey character and some awesome bitter cherries. It comes in at 13.7% abv. It smelled like whiskey, chocolate and booze but most of all you smelt cherries. When it came to the table the head had dissipated a bit but it was oily black with just a slight ring of tan head running around the glass. My first sip was big rich almost decadent chocolate flavors mixed with very tart cherries and then melded together with the nice spicy oak flavor of a rye whiskey. Rye whiskey was a great choice because I feel like the the spiciness and the oak really helped to temper some of the overall sweetness of the beer. The cherries were probably my favorite addition because they were so tart and dark that they mixed perfectly with the dark fruit flavors from the original stout and gave the beer a bit of acidity to brighten it all up. Really I could have drank this all night. I would have been hammered drunk and probably had a belly ache for days but it would have been worth it. This beer was incredibly good and the only beer I had twice. Now I need to get a bomber to sit on and cellar, if you have one to spare let me know!

I give Rye Cherry BCBS a 5 (wish I could give it a six)

I give Nightstalker a 3.5

(Too sweet to be a 5 for El Duque)

I give Big John a solid 4

 I give Coffee BCBS a 5

#MigrationWeek Goose Island Twenty Tap Takeover

I think the picture sums up the article nicely!  The Baron's headed out to Twenty Tap this past Wednesday Sept. 4th @ 4pm, or 3:30 for those who were on time... :-) to try out one of the most coveted/bottle traded brands in #craftbeer.   

 

I got there early enough to watch them put the
 taps on and waited on the lines to be flushed.

Sarah Rohner with Goose Island contacted us in the weeks previous to invite us out.  I am glad that she did, otherwise I would have still been under the impression that all Goose Island beer is sub par.  I blame the Budweiser buy out for that prevalent stigma in the beer community.  I am happy to report that out of the beers that were on tap, all were top notch!  Thank our beer drinking stars that Anheuser-Busch InBev has not tried to mess with Goose Islands production Chi.  Note: 312 was not on tap for updated comparison from previous articles observations.

Bourbon County Cherry Rye

Bourbon County Coffee 

Madame Rose

Big John

Night Stalker

Matilda Lambicus

Pere Jacques

Pepe Nero

Sofie

Oktoberfest

**Rare Bourbon County 

**King Henry

**Limited small shot servings throughout the night

Twenty Tap was rocking till the wee hours with all these great beers on tap.  As you can see from the picture to the right it was packed!  

All in all a great night for everyone involved!  The only observation out of it all would have been a little more structure in the beginning and a word from the head brewer floating in the sea of humanity around the bar on the beers offered every so often.

  

O-Dawg's Top 3 MUST Haves:

1) Rare Bourbon County Stout

2) Bourbon County Coffee Stout

3) Madame Rose

Stay Tuned for weigh-in's on specific Goose Island beers at #MigrationWeek Twenty Tap Takeover...

Goose Island Tap Takeover

I love Bourbon County Brand Stout. Hell, I love just about every RIS, but Goose Island does an outstanding job with theirs. I also love Twenty Tap, I mean who doesn't.

Come join the Barons and Goose Island for the Goose Island Migration Week tap takeover VIP event at Twenty Tap (5406 North College Ave Indianapolis, IN 46220) on Wednesday, Sept. 4, from 4 p. m. – 8 p.m. The brewers will be there to let us know whats going on with Goose Island and give us a sneak peak at what they having coming out.

I know there has been some hate thrown their way after they were purchased by one of the big boys, but Goose Island has always put together an incredible brew. They are in the midst of a national launch, bringing one of the Windy City’s most acclaimed brews to beer geeks across the country. Come see how much heart they still put into their craft.

So, come chat it up with us and Goose Island brewer Mark Weiner, and get to know what Goose Island Migration Week is all about.

Drum roll please. And now for what you really care about... below are the beers that will be on tap:

• Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Coffee Stout
• Cherry Rye Bourbon County (I can't wait to try this one!)
• Big John
• Madame Rose
• Night Stalker (tasty big imperial stout)
• 312
• Matilda (wonderful Belgian pale)
• Sofie (an outstanding Saison)
• Pere Jacques
• Pepe Nero (new brew I am totally pumped about)

Goose Island was good enough to provide us pictures of some of the awesome brews that will be at the event. Please try not to drool all over your keyboard or smart device. 

Cheers!

Sun King Tap Takeover

Sun King came up from downtown and took over the taps at Chatham Tap in Fishers. They brought eight beers with them and dominated the bar. 

I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was mostly the normal bar at Chatham with some taps changed out (when I went to a Bells take over they had stickers, raffles etc.). The cool thing was, Sun King brought some of their rare and hard to find beers. If you like something different this was a great event.

I had three of their beers, the Bourbon Barrel Aged Maibock, Stupid Sexy Flanders (sour), and Timmie Imperial Stout.

These are all beers that I was excited to try. I missed the Sourfest, but I heard good things about Stupid Sexy Flanders.

The Bourbon Barrel Aged Maibock was my favorite. It was 8.4% abv and 24 IBU Bavarian Spring Lager that was nine months barrel aged. It reminded me of an Oktoberfest, but lighter. The nose was basically honey and bourbon. The beer showed up with a great looking light brown or dark yellow color and a light white head. It tasted like caramel, toffee and natural honey. The bourbon mingled well with all the different sweet flavors without the usual vanilla flavor that you get from a bourbon barrel aged beer. It helped balance the whole thing out. It had a heavy alcohol finish.

I give it a 4.5

I had the Stupid Sexy Flanders next. This sour or wild ale had 5.4% abv and 23 IBUs. I have not done a lot of sours, so the review is going to be brief. I liked it a lot. The beer was a dark red to mahogany in color with no head.  It had a nice sweet and sour flavor to it that took some getting used to. It reminded me of bitter berries and red wine vinegar, but it was not very fruity. The flavor was complex and very very unique. I recommend you get your hands on it when you can.

I give it a 3.5

Lastly I tried Timmie Imperial Stout. Timmie has 10% abv and 70 IBUs. It came out in a tulip glass. It was a dark brown to black oil colored beer. It smells like heavily roasted malts and boozy alcohol. The beer started off with a very nice dark roasted flavor, not super smokey but it was nicely balanced. The malts tasted like baking chocolate and coffee. There was a nice sharp bitterness with the sweetness. I am not sure that the hops came out heavily but the beer's flavors were so well balanced it was not needed.

I give it a 4