Indianapolis Welcomes Tow Yard Brewing

TowyardBrewingTow Yard Brewing opens it’s doors for the first time this weekend for their soft launch! Located near my favorite Colts tailgating spot, the brewery is housed in the old Chateau Thomas Winery Building at at 501 S. Madison Ave. Here’s a slideshow I created from their image posts on Twitter. Make sure and drop by to try their Emerald Circle IPA, Goldie Hops American Style Golden Ale, Hook Up Shandler, and Horse Power Double Pale Ale.

Cigar and Beer Tasting Revisited

Our first Cigar and Beer Pairing was one of our smoothest tastings to date. Many thanks to Ryan and Jenny Kraner for taking this idea and running with it. I’m sure there were countless hours of research going into this :). I’d also like to thank Eric Cole for hosting the event. Such a great time! CAO Gold Corona Gordo cigars were paired with Saison Dupont, Franziskaner Weissbier Dunkel, Triton Magnificent Amber, and John Henry Colonial Cream & Brown Ale (one of my favorites). Some homebrew also made an appearance including BIMP’s Wheat Wine, Super Duper Cuker (Wheat Wine w/ Cucumber), and FIC Bier (Dunkel Weisse). Each beer was sampled before lighting the cigar, and then again while smoking it. You’d be amazed at how the flavor characteristics of each beer morphed throughout the process. Lighter beers were sampled first, and moved towards darker/heavier/stronger beers towards the end. All around great event!

UpCup 2013 Revisited

UpCup 2013 was a blast this year. Beer Is My Passion had four entries including an American Barleywine (Kyle Alder), an English IPA Spruce Beer (Michael Mustin), a Wood Aged Old Ale (Erik Howell), and a Southern English Brown (Jenn Myers). Upland really knows how to host an awesome homebrewing event. This is by far my favorite competition of the year. We all enjoyed Upland beer on tap, good conversation with  brewers from around the state, and awesome food catered by Upland. This year’s UpCup winner was homebrewer and beer judge Thomas Wallbank of the Indianapolis Foam Blowers with a Berliner Weisse. He’ll have his name added on the UpCup trophy with the other winners, and he’ll get to keep it until next year’s competition. Second place went to Ron Smith’s Saison, also a Foam Blower and beer judge. I’m very happy to announce that our own Jenn Myers ended up taking third place with her 221b Baker St. Southern English Brown this year 🙂 If you happen to bump into her make sure to congratulate her. We’re all super proud of her!

IMG_0620Here’s Jenn just after they announced she had taken third place.

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Jenn received a free case of any Upland beer of her choice out of Upland’s massive beer cave. Rad Red? Don’t mind if I do 🙂

We all had an awesome time, and as you can see from some of the pictures there may have even been some kung fu fighting in the parking lot 🙂 BIMP later took the party to The Tap for some celebratory brews.

Stout Bout Homebrew Competition Revisited

Thanks to all that made the Stout Bout Homebrew Competition at Great Fermentations such an awesome time! There were 10 great beers served, several of which beat out Hoppin’ Frog’s BORIS The Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout (a 2-time gold medalist at the Great American Beer Festival that I snuck in for kicks) in our blind tasting. Our top three homebrews selected this go-round were Josh and Ashley Jenkins’ Milk Stout, Doug Dixon’s American Stout, and Michael Catlin’s Breakfast Russian Imperial Stout. Great work guys! The entries were pretty spread out (we had entries for 5 of the 6 recognized BJCP stout categories), with two Russian Imperial Stouts (one was aged for 2 years), 3 Oatmeal Stouts, 2 Milk/Sweet Stouts, a Dry Stout, and an American Stout. Thanks again to Great Fermentations for lending us their classroom, and also to cosIT Photography for the outstanding camerawork. More photos can be found in a set on cosIT’s Flicker Photostream. Cheers!

Scottish Fest Revisited

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Thanks again to all that made Scottish Fest a success. I’d like to also thank our new tasters Hanna Gross and Bob Reynolds. We had some great entries this round, and the competition was steep with plenty of samples to go around. Some of my favorite brews were entered into this category and it was good to see they were validated by the scores of this blind tasting. Congratulations to Michael Mustin aka Mikey aka Swamp Foot for taking home the pot with Tyranena Sheep Shagger Scotch Ale. If you happen to bump into him in the near future, make sure to ask him about his childhood in the hills of Anderson. Make sure to “Like” CosIT Photography on Facebook or drop by his webpage . Great photos as always. Cheers!

War of the Wheats Revisited

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Thanks again for making War of the Wheats one of our best tastings to date. 16 brews, 3 of which were homebrew entries, walked home with our winner Malina Sandman (O’Fallon’s Wheach Peach Wheat). That’s two times in a row the Sandman’s have sweeped our tastings. We’ve streamlined the process and didn’t have a problem keeping everyone’s glasses full. I’d like to give a shout out to our wonderful hosts Matt and Natalie for welcoming us into their new home. I’d also like to acknowledge BIMP’s new faces Brian, Gary, and Lance. Chris Wiggins (CosIT Photography) took some fantastic photos which can be found here. I’ll be posting next month’s event information soon.

Bock-Fest Revisited

Bock-Fest was AWESOME! There were homemade pretzels (thanks Krista), Crocodile Dundee Soundracks, didgeridoos, and of course some of the best Bock beers available in Indianapolis. We even had a sudden death match between brews that were tied for first. It’s going to be hard to trump this one, but we will definitely try at the next bout. Here’s a link to the score breakdown. As always, thanks to cosITphotography for the visual documentation.