News from Scarlet Lane

Chris Knott will be parting ways with Scarlet Lane Brewing Company. Scarlet Lane has quickly become one of our favorite breweries around and Chris has done a lot of work to make sure they got off to the right start. Chris has been a great brewer with SLB as well as with the Ram befor that. We wish him luck in whatever brewery be works for next. We are also excited for SLB's continued success. 

Official release below.

McCordsville, Indiana – Scarlet Lane Brewing Company and Head Brewer Chris Knott have decided to part ways. Chris joined Scarlet Lane Brewing Company in January as Head Brewer. During his time at Scarlet Lane Brewing, Chris oversaw production of Dorian Stout, Vivian Red IPA and developed Saison de Silas. Chris was a significant part of Scarlet Lane’s achievement of three medals at the 2014 Indiana Brewers’ Cup after only being in operation for 2-months. 

“We launched this brewery with a clear set of goals on where we what to go as a business and what our overall vision is for the market. Starting a brewery is extremely stressful and requires a high level of teamwork at every turn.” Eilise Lane, CEO & Brewer says.  “It’s extremely important that we share an overall vision of the business strategy”. 

“Chris is an amazingly talented brewer and we wish him success in his future endeavors..” said Nick Servies, Founder and CBO.

In the meantime, Eilise Lane and Doug Sheets will continue production and brewery operations and development. “Chris contributed a lot to the brewery. However, we had different mindsets on where we wanted to take the business and how we wanted to do it. I look forward to seeing Chris’s achievements as he moves to something better suited for him personally.” Doug Sheets, Owner & COO.

Hops and Flip Flops, Speedway's first beer festival

There have been so many festivals popping up this year that trying to get to them all can be tough, even for a true beer geek. We've missed a few, but I'm excited that we made sure to go to this one.

Hops & Flip Flops, or Hopsfest as it appeared in a few places, was a hoppy beer festival in Speedway. For those of you who don't know, Daredevil took the lead on setting this one up and Daredevil is a brewery that knows how to make a hoppy beer.

The festival was on Main Street in Speedway right next to the spot where Daredevil will be opening up next year. The breweries were set up in the Dallara Indycar Factory and there were food trucks and bands all along the street.

 

It had a neighborhood block party meets beer festival sort of a vibe, which I really liked and thought went over well with the crowd. Brie and I got VIP tickets, and I will say the VIP glassware was probably the coolest festival taster I've ever gotten. It really had a high end appearance. VIP entrance also got you a couple food and beer pairings where we discussed what flavors match with what beers. It was all reasonably priced, so I'd say do VIP at this one if you can. The overall fest was well put together and would've been really informative to someone just getting into beer.

  

So, I'm not sure why it was called Hops and Flip Flops, no one even mentioned the flip flops. I understood the hops part. There were plenty of people not wearing flip flops. Footwear aside, it was a pretty good new festival. There were about twenty breweries there including some appearances from Flat 12, Triton, Against the Grain and of course Daredevil. There were some great IPA's but not a lot of people brought things outside of the norm.

My favorite beers were:
Triton O' Rye N  Galaxy - rye malt and galaxy hops, soooo tasty!
Bell's Hopsolution - just a well built IPA all around
Sierra Nevada Harvest Equinox Hop #366 - cool single hop IPA with a unique hop flavor

It was obvious this was the first year of the festival. They did a lot of things right, but for next time I think it would be great if they encouraged more local breweries to attend. There were about five Indiana breweries and the rest were national breweries that brought in their basic lineup. There were a lot of people bringing basic lineups to this festival, and that's not necessarily a problem, but a lot of what was there could be picked up at the store down the street. Lastly, I would love to see something done with flip flops. Maybe some flip flops handed out at the door. Maybe door prizes for people in flip flops. Just something to tie the flip flop idea into the festival other than hosting it in the summer. I think a second go around will give Daredevil a chance to iron out some of the bugs.

Even  though there were issues, a hop festival seems like such a great idea. Speedway and Daredevil were both so welcoming to the beer community. I personally can't wait until they open the doors of their Main Street facility.

Stay Classy Fountain Square!

Fountain Square Brewing Company has delivered a heck of a beer with Stay Classy Scotch Ale, a Ron Burgundy inspired scotch ale. Before I even started drinking the beer, all I could think of was "I love scotch, sotchy scotch scotch, here it goes down, down into my belly." Fountain Square really brought the scotch for this one. It was a great wee heavy scotch ale with a ton of barrel aged flavor. The combination just made you think of the good stuff from the aroma all the way into the flavor and a hot boozy finish.

It pours out like a "rich mahogany" with a dark brown with beautiful maroon highlights. There is a nice fluffy tan head that turns into really nice lacing along the glass. The aroma has a ton of whiskey barrel oak and vanilla tones followed up by big malty sweetness. Some dark fruits and bread crust smells mix nicely with the barrel smells. The flavor follows suit. There are a ton of toffee and caramel flavors from the malt. Some rich roasty character with the barrel flavors complimenting the whole brew. My only really complaint is that this beer is pretty sweet, but luckily Fountain Square kept a big punch of boozy heat on the back end. It cuts through the heat like a trident through a rival news anchor. There are a few herbaceous hop flavors, but the hops really take a back seat to the traditional UK flavors in this brew.

This is the first time that Fountain Square has released a bottled beer that wasn't part of their main lineup. It was a great beer, but the fact that they're bottling none standard beers is incredible! From what I can see on the four pack box, it looks like their non standard offerings are going to be part of something called the Finite series. This could mean 1221 in bottles or even Hop Your Face in bottles. Stay Classy was a great beer, but FSB makes so many awesome brews its exciting to see that they may start making local shelves soon.

I give this an a 4/5, I wish I had picked up more than a four pack.

If you weren't able to grab a four pack of this, you missed out, but keep an eye on the shelves. Fountain Square is going to be bringing out more great things.

Indy Beer News, August 20th, 2014

Info on Sun King’s expansion plus a new brewery coming to Indy. Enough festivals for their own show and tons of events, as usual from MashCraft, Girls' Pint Out, Flat 12 Bierwerks, Daredevil Brewing, Upland Brewing, Indy Eleven and more!

130 Indiana Beers! HopCat's grand opening

HopCat Broad Ripple has come a long way since we checked out the building progress in June. This Saturday marked their grand opening, and what better way to join Indy's craft beer scene than by putting 130 different Indiana beers on tap?

 For anyone who may have missed the announcement, HopCat is the newest beer bar in Broad Ripple. Indy is the first location outside of their home state of Michigan and we couldn't be prouder to have them.

HopCat also had a deal where the first 200 people who showed up got free "crack fries" for a year. That's 52 orders of their delicious seasoned french fries over the next year. As a big fan of french fries, and an even bigger fan of Indiana beer, I dragged Brie to get in line at nine in the morning. I've waited in line for beer releases and I've waited in line for events. I have never waited in line for a bar opening.

We arrived two hours early and we were more than one hundred people back in line. When we got there we found out two guys go to the entrance at 3:30 in the morning and literally rolled out sleeping bags and slept in line. The two hours we sat in the rain sharing beers with line goers was nothing. In the end it was all worth while when I got my card for free crack fries for a year! It says a lot about a bar that people get so excited to form a line as long as HopCat had.

 

When we got through the door, it was like when Charlie first got into the chocolate factory. HopCat was bigger than I expected, with two bars, tons of seating and an awesome patio. Sadly, it was raining, so no one was using the patio. Even with the rain they opened the doors and we got a table with a view. The rock star decor and the insane beer geek atmosphere made it kind of like sitting in on a Rolling Stones party. There is custom artwork on the walls and the bar has a great mash up of modern and traditional decor, while still being warm and inviting.

 

Four of us made it through about sixteen beers, passing them around and trying a little bit of everything. Sun King and Upland brought the mother load with thirty beers each. Sun King dominated with its Kings Reserve and barrel aged brews. My favorite from them was the Cuvee de Sun King, a lightly sour dark cuvee and the Isle Barrel Aged Wee Muckle, their Wee Muckle aged in scotch whiskey barrels. Other awesome brews, were Triton's French Toast Saison, and Three Floyd's Big Tiddy Assassin and the Upland Pineapple IPA.

There were so many beers that I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I would have loved to drink the entire list. I'm excited to see how long some of these great Indiana beers last on draft, and I know I will be stopping in this week to get whatever left overs they have. If you weren't able to go to the release, go soon! This is probably more Indiana beer options than we have at most festivals and I would be sad if anyone missed it.

Now, all these great Indiana beers won't be there all the time, but the food will and the food was outstanding. I got a pretzel breaded pork tenderloin. That's not a tenderloin on a pretzel bun, that's a tenderloin breaded with pretzel crumbs. The pretel crumbs gave it a really dark color, that almost looked burnt, but it was not even close. The pork was juicy inside and the pretzel really gave it a unique flavor and a crispy outside. The beer cheese soup was insanely good. It was so rich, that it was probably more like a cheese dip then a soup.

On top of all that, the crack fries were pretty outstanding. Their crack fries are a lightly spicy seasoned french fry. They are awesome standard but can be loaded and topped with some great options. Brie got her go to, mac and cheese, and was happy about the gooey cheese and noodles. Everyone at our table really liked the food and for as busy as they were the service wasn't bad. You'd think with a horde of beer geeks banging down your doors nothing would get done, but we were seated, fed and on our way home in less than three hours.

This is quickly going to be one of my favorite spots to do some drinking and some eating.