Indiana Beer Week - Happenings Update

Monday, July 11  

- Upland Tasting Room - Special tappings, including a firkin, rare beers, and lambic tasting 

- All taps are Indiana brewed at MacNiven's

 - Bee Creek Hoosier Honey Wheat is the spotlight bottle at Goose the Market.  Check out the Goose's facebook (http://www.facebook.com/goosethemarket) and twitter feeds http://twitter.com/#!/GoosetheMarket) for daily updates.

- Bier Brewery's Belgian Blonde at Tomlinson Tap Room, 5pm.  (Now open M-Th, 2-9pm, F-Sat, 12-9pm)

Tuesday, July 12  

- Upland Beer Paired Dinner at Tavern on South  

- 6:30 Tapping at Flatwater with Upland 

- Sun King / Three Floyds Night, 6pm at MacNiven's.

- 6pm Tapping at Thr3e Wise Men, Indiana Replicale - Single Hopped Pale with Glacier Hops

Wednesday, July 13  

-Indiana Beer Dinner at Binkley's 

- Upland tapping at Ball & Biscuit

Thursday, July 14  

- Sours Tasting at Brugge Brasserie 

- Flat12 Tap takeover at the Sinking Ship

- 3 Floyds Dreadnaught Tapping at Tomlinson Tap Room, 5pm 

Friday, July 15  

- Make it Local dinner at Chef JJ's featuring Six IN Breweries and Chefs (Sold Out) 

- Chumley's Special Beer Tappings (all night) 

- IN Beer Tasting at Kahn's, 4-6 pm 

- Beer Tasting at Crown Liquors (Downtown), 4-7 pm 

- Flat12 Tap Takeover at Binkley's  

Saturday, July 16 

 - 16th Annual Microbrewers Festival at Opti Park, Broad Ripple 

- The Draft Kings album release listening party at Pizzology, 10pm

Random Beer Roundup Special Edition - Indiana Beer Week - Happenings

Indiana Beer Week is just days away! Here is a list of things that are happening. Updates will happen as we learn of other events.

Saturday, July 9 - IN Brewer's Cup

Sunday, July 10 - Hoods and Hops Car Show, Opti Park - Noon - 5pm

Monday, July 11 - Upland Tasting Room Special tappings, including a firkin, rare beers, and lambic tasting

Tuesday, July 12 - Upland Beer Paired Dinner at Tavern on South - 6:30 Tapping at Flatwater with Upland

Wednesday, July 13 -Indiana Beer Dinner at Binkley's
Upland tapping at Ball & Biscuit

Thursday, July 14 - Sours Tasting at Brugge Brasserie
Flat12 Tap takeover at the Sinking Ship

Friday, July 15 - Make it Local dinner at Chef JJ's featuring Six IN Breweries and Chefs (Sold Out)
Chumley's Special Beer Tappings (all night)
IN Beer Tasting at Kahn's, 4-6 pm
Beer Tasting at Crown Liquors (Downtown), 4-7 pm

Saturday, July 16 - 16th Annual Microbrewer's Festival at Opti Park, Broad Ripple - General Admission Tickets still available

Indiana Beer Week Recap - Make It Local: Craft Beer and Food

I moved here in January 2001 and for a long time, I felt like an outsider. People called themselves "Hoosiers" proudly. Indianapolis felt awkward. I referred to the city as "Naptown" and "Indianoplace" and did not consider them terms of endearment.
Lately, though, when I talk about the city, and specifically about local breweries and restaurants, I find myself rooting for a place that has become home. We are lucky to have access to so many talented people and opportunities. I want people to like it here and enjoy the great things that Indianapolis has to offer. When guests visit from out of town, there is a long list of places to show them - many of which are great places to eat and drink. When someone is quick to dismiss the city, I find myself listing 10 things that are great about it.
This whole notion of taking pride in the city was only made stronger at the Make it Local: Craft Beer and Food dinner held at Chef JJ's Backyard on Friday, July 16th. Many thanks to Sun King Brewery and Brugge Brasserie for leading the effort to make this dinner happen, and equally many thanks to Staraya at Chef JJ's for putting this event together.

Beer and Social hour:
The opening hour of the event was a chance for guests to mingle and sample beer from Brugge, Sun King, and Lafayette Brewing Co. Also available for sampling were three different kinds of flatbread prepared by Tyler Hareld from Napolese.

The flatbread and beer pairings:

• Caramelized Onions with Sottocenere, paired with Lafayette Brewing Co. Star City Lager
• Braised Pork Belly, paired with LBC Tippecanoe Common
• Braised Short Ribs with White Cheddar, paired with LBC Black Angus Oatmeal Stout

The flatbreads were a delicious start to the evening, but I didn't get to try them as pairings because I was up and around being, well, social.

Appetizer course:

As we settled into our seats, Ted Miller from Brugge and Chris Eley from Goose the Market spoke a little bit about their offerings. I've had terrine before (pig instead of duck) and liked it. I've tried Brugge Spider before (and REALLY liked it). This pairing had to be pretty good, right?

Appetizer course:

Torchon with macerated Spider Figs, Duck Terrine, Chocolate, Sea Salt, Blackberry Moustarda paired with Brugge Spider

Awesome doesn't even BEGIN to describe this pairing. I swear, the moment I washed down a bite of that torchon with the Spider, the sun shone a little brighter. I am fairly certain I heard birds singing a little bit louder. I think I may have looked at Ted at some point and said "holy shit". The torchon had the consistency of custard which played really nicely with the sourness of the Spider, as did the sweetness of the figs. The terrine was perfectly delicious. As I ate and drank this course, I couldn't (and still can't) find the proper words to describe how much I thought this pairing was perfectly complementary. It occurred to me that I was going to be in trouble if this was a theme for the evening. This pairing alone is worth the price of admission in my opinion.

I was sad to see the last pairing go, but was intrigued by what was coming next. a trio of salads prepared by Tyler Herald from Napolese and New Albanian Oaktimus. The beer is Hoptimus, a favorite of mine, aged with oak chips.

Salad:

Sun King Naptown Brown marinated Shitake Mushrooms, Summer Sweet Corn and Barley Salad

Grilled Potato Salad with a Roasted Garlic and Sun King XX Rye IPA Aioli

Roasted Beet Salad with a Honey Orange Grapefruit Jungle Vinaigrette

All of the salads were truly wonderful and paired with the beer in their own unique way. The beer's oak flavor was subdued by the beets, leaving a sweet vanilla flavor. The oak flavor played up the candied walnuts, making them extremely flavorful.

The potatoes were great. If I was blindfolded, I might have said that the potatoes could have been a really nice piece of tender steak. The aioli and the rye from the IPA played really well with the oak in the Oaktimus.

My favorite salad pairing was the corn and barley salad. The peppery flavor in the salad really accentuated the hops and oak. It balanced the salad so well you couldn't tell where it ended and the beer began.

Next up was the always entertaining Eli Anderson from H2O and Kevin Mattalucci from Broad Ripple Brewpub.

Seafood:

Halibut sous vide in BRBP ESB served along side Duel Citizenship chips paired with BRBP Kolsch

Fish and beer may seem like an easy pairing, but if the beer doesn't match the delicateness of the fish, the pairing may end up off balance or worse, causing the flavors to cancel each other out and disappear.

The Kolsch that was paired with Eli's fish and chips worked great, I'm happy to say. Both the fish and the beer had a sweet elements that played off each other, allowing for the enjoyment of both. The Kolsch was really bright, the flavors crawled right up the back of my throat into my nose, like a really refreshing soda.

Mike and I must have really been enjoying the food and talking about it because about this time in the evening we were finding that I was falling behind on the courses. I'm a slow eater to begin with, and especially slow when I am enjoying my food. It is good they don't move at my pace or we'd be there all night!

Clay Robinson from Sun King and Chef JJ stepped up to provide the penultimate course of the evening.

It's no secret, I am a huge fan of Chef JJ's food, especially when it is paired with Sun King. Clay and JJ have gotten really good at pairing food and beer, finding creative ways to please the palates of those lucky enough to get to try it.

Pork:

Das Buffalo Pork Tenderloin with Westy Glaze and Summer Veggies paired with Cream Dream III: The Search for Hops

The CDIII really fills in where the pork ends. Like icing on a cake, it elevates the flavors and provides an extra zing to the food. CDIII contains a blend of Simcoe, Centennial, and my new favorite hop variety, Citra. Citra and Centennial impart citrus and tropical flavors, which work nicely with the grapefruit flavors in Simcoe. The combination of all of these flavors in the beer work with the spicy veggies. Another home run from Chef JJ and Clay.

As the sun started to fade, it was time for dessert. The wonderful Chef Jenna Gatchell from Chef JJ's and Andrew Mason from 3 Floyds worked together to come up with something pretty wonderful.

Dessert:

Dark Lord Tiramisu paired with 3 Floyds Schwarzbier

The description of the dessert is this: Layers of lady fingers, soaked in Three Floyds Dark Lord, surrounding a bourbon, vanilla, and mascarpone filling, topped with a goose fat ganache.
Do I really have to go on?
I hope there are more opportunities like this in the future for people to explore the talents of these and other breweries and chefs in the state. I hope everyone who was there enjoyed it as much as I did and I hope those that were not able to go are interested in checking out some of these breweries and restaurants if they've never been. Thanks Indiana; it has never felt so good to be home.
Restaurants:
Tyler Herald - NapoleseChristopher Eley - Goose the MarketEli Anderson - H2O SushiJJ Boston - Chef JJ's Back YardJenna Gatchell - Chef JJ's Back Yard
Breweries:
Lafayette Brewing Co.Brugge BrasserieNew Albanian Brewing Co.Broad Ripple Brew PubSun King BreweryThree Floyds Brewery

Indiana Brewers' Cup 2010

Saturday, July 10th marked the reception for the 13th Annual Brewers' Cup.

Judges worked Friday and Saturday afternoon deciding which beers, both professional and homebrew, fit best into the categories assigned by the Beer Judge Certification Program. These beer judges work hard to earn their rank and they take the job of judging seriously. We had the pleasure of sitting in on the Best of Show judging and thoroughly enjoyed the proceedings. It seems that a judging session relies on individual scoring and collaboration between the table of judges.

These guys know their stuff and it was a really great experience to see how it is really done. It's like a KOTBR roundtable, except they all know what they are talking about!

The ceremony started with the homebrew awards and a wonderful presentation of food. There was no doubt that MECA Homebrewers were going to walk away with a few awards, as they submitted almost twice as many entries (148) than the next highest homebrew club, Foam Blowers of Indiana (FBI) (77). Entries were placed in one of 24 categories including the Woodford Reserve Challenge. At Winterfest back in January, Woodford Reserve offered barrels to interested Indiana homebrew clubs. The homebrew clubs worked together to come up with a beer to age in the barrels until the Brewers' Cup competition where a winner would be selected. The winner of this challenge was the Duneland Homebrew Club from Northwest Indiana.
In the other 23 categories, MECA ended up going home with 34 of the 72 medals awarded. Not to mention Homebrew Club of the year. There were a lot of familiar faces being called up for awards and we congratulate all of them!

As the professional awards were being presented, you could easily see how supportive many of the brewers were for each other. Congratulations to the 13 Indiana brewers who took awards home to their breweries. Special congratulations to Mark at Oaken Barrel for taking Brewery of the Year for the third straight year and Liz Laughlin from Rock Bottom College Park for winning the Best of Show award for her Simcoe IPA. A full list of awards can be found at the Brewers' Cup website.

Mark Havens, brewer - Oaken Barrel Brewing Co.

Liz Laughlin, brewer - Rock Bottom College Park

Visit Indiana Beer for more information on the homebrew clubs in the state.

Scenes for Indiana Beer Week 2010

Indiana Beer Week has come and gone, but the beer will never be forgotten. Stay tuned to Hoosier Beer Geek this week for further in-depth coverage of the week that was, including features on the Indiana Brewer's Cup, the Make It Local: Craft Beer & Food dinner, and of course the 2010 Indiana Microbrewers Festival.

Here are some recap snapshots of the week's events.

Indiana Beer Week - Pub Crawl Day 4 - Broad Ripple

Day 3 of the Pub Crawl was great! Will you be at Day 4?

Tonight's crawl will be in Broad Ripple - You can find us on twitter #hbgpc

Barley Island - 5ish (Upland will the the Guest Brewery for the Month and the taps go on around 6)

Chumley's - around 7

Brugge Brasserie - about 8

Broad Ripple Brewpub - 9

Other events:

There are a bunch of awesome events today besides our pub crawl! If you can't make it to hang out with us, check out these other events.

Founders, Mad Anthony tasting at Crown Liquors Downtown

Founders KBS, Devil Dancer, and Black Biscuit at Scotty's Brewhouse Downtown

3 Floyds event at MacNivens - Tapping at 6:30 Alpha King, Robert the Bruce, Dreadnaught, Blackheart, Apocolypse Cow, Devil's Handshake.

White Rabbit Cabaret Burlesque Bingo - 9PM

Lafayette Brewing Co - $2 Pint / $6 Half Gallon growler fill of Pipers' Pride Scottish Ale

Pints and Pedis - Girls Pint Out - Carmel

Indiana Beer Week - Pub Crawl Day 3 - Southside

Thanks to everyone who came out for pub crawl days 1 and 2. It's been great so far!

Thank you to all of the locations that hosted us for the past two days, we really appreciate it!

Special thanks to Jerry at Rock Bottom and Andrew at Ram!

Day 3 continues on to Oaken Barrel and Shallos. We'll be arriving at Oaken Barrel probably around 5:30, then heading over to Shallos about 7.

We hope to see you there!

ALSO:

Other events going on today:

- Indiana Beer Tasting at 21st Amendment Broad Ripple

- Barley Island Tasting at Crown Liquors

- 6pm - Omar's Secret Brew at Alcatraz

Indiana Beer Week - Pub Crawl Day 2 - Downtown

Pub Crawl Day 2 schedule:

Sun King - book signing with Rita Kohn - 5 - 6

MacNiven's - Sun King Johan the Barleywine - 6:30

Scotty's

Ram

Rock Bottom

Alcatraz

We don't have a set order for the last 4, we'll play it by ear. If you would like to meet up with us (and we hope you do), you can follow our location on twitter with the hashtag #hbgpc.

We'll have some cool prizes, thanks to our friends at World Class Beverages. Also starting tonight, we'll have a few pairs of tickets to the Microbrewers Festival.

Come and join us!

(Be sure to check the calendar of events for other events going on!)

Indiana Beer Week - Pub Crawl Day 1

Hi and Welcome to Indiana Beer Week!

We'll start our pub crawl up north at Barley Island - Noblesville, at 6:00. From there we'll move to Rock Bottom - College Park about 8:00.

We'll be tweeting with the #HBGPC hastag all week if you would like to meet up.

Indiana Beer Week Closing Ceremonies - Replicale Faceoff

What's the story behind the Indiana Replicale Faceoff? Scientists may never know. Legend has it that brewers Dave Colt and Clay Robinson from Ram provided a common recipe for 70 Shilling Scottish that the contestants then prepared in their own special way in a contest of brewing brawn and brainpower. Are there prizes? Who's judging? Who knows? At Hoosier Beer Geek, we don't sweat the small stuff. We just drink.

In case you missed it, there's ten of us now. Nine of us showed up at Spencer's Stadium Tavern (802 South West St. Indianapolis 317-916-8888) last Wednesday and sampled selections from five breweries. We had an added bonus - a flight of five samples only cost $2. Or you could have a full pint of any for that same $2 - and I suspect they'll remain that way until the beer runs out. Perhaps it's run out already? If you've stopped in to Spencer's lately, let us know.

Here's what we thought, complete with beer rankings:

Gina

1. RAM - sweet
2. Oaken Barrel - creamy
3. Alcatraz - hot
4. Rock Bottom - smoky
5. Broad Ripple Brewpub - feet

Jim

Gina's going with one word reviews. I'm going with two. My rankings and notes, with the clarification that all of these were good beers.

1. Broad Ripple Brewpub. Berries, herbs.
2. Oaken Barrel. Hops, caramel.
3. Rock Bottom. Sweet, drinkable.
4. (tie) Ram and Alcatraz. Balanced, mellow.

New Chris

Agreed that all were definitely drinkable.

4 words (mostly)

1. BRBP - hoppier, chocolate, lightly bitter
2. 'Traz - bitter, creamy (lactose?), balanced
3. Oak B - chocolate nose, marshmallow taste (s'mores!)
4. Ram - toasty malt, whitewash sweet
5. Rock B - passable dirty stinky feet

Matt

...and with a personal record turnaround time, I'm submitting my two word reviews.

1. Broad Ripple Brew Pub - pleasant lavender
2. Oaken Barrel - cloudy malt
3. Rock Bottom - pruny nose
4. Alcatraz - yay hops
5. Ram - malt light

Other Matt

1. Ram: Exactly what I wanted.
2. Rock Bottom: toffee and caramel
3. Oaken Barrel: Down in Fuggle hops?
4. Alcatraz - Orville Redenbacher Butter
5. BRBP - Fruity Esters

I was doing some more research on the style as well, and I found that the butter flavor I was tasting in the Alcatraz could have some from malt and might not be diacetyl. I am now really curious if it was from the malt or actually diacetyl.

Rod

1. Alcatraz: Dark Chocolate Baby Powder
2. Rock Bottom: Malty Brown Greek Cheese
3. Broad Ripple: Watery Roasted Hazelnut Bitter
4. Oaken Barrel: Blackberry Caramel Light Beer
5. Ram: Nutty Slight Malt Liquor

Jess

1. Alcatraz: chocolate
2. Oaken Barrel: berry
3. Rock Bottom: feta
4. Broad Ripple: dishsoap
5. Ram: blah.

Mike

1. Broad Ripple: Raspberry, Vanilla.
2. Ram: Grape bubblegum, A hint footy.
3. Rock Bottom: Bitter, Peppery.
4. Alcatraz: Caramel, Soap.
5. Oaken Barrel: Sulfury, Cardboard.

And so by combining all rankings and haphazardly doing some of that math stuff, we come up with final combined rankings that looks like this:

First Place: Broad Ripple Brew Pub
Second Place: Oaken Barrel
Third Place: Alcatraz
Fourth Place: Rock Bottom
Fifth Place: Ram

Of course, we're not judges. But if anyone's asking, that's how our legend of Indiana Beer Week 2008 ends.

Indiana Beer Week - Day Six - Indiana Microbrewers Festival - Kelly's Best-Of List

Note: as I was only able to hang around this year's Indiana Microbrewers Festival for a couple of hours, I decided to recap the best way I know how: lazily.

Best Indiana beer: the Green Tea Pale Ale from Brass Monkey. Slightly citrusy, really refreshing on such an ungodly hot day. I went back, um, a lot for this one.

Best regional beer: the Hoppin’ Frog porter poured through coffee beans. Perfect balance of smooth and bitter with a fantastic nose.

Best beer I didn’t get to try: I had to duck out before the Dark Lord and Kentucky Breakfast Stout tappings. Sigh.

Best recommendation: Mat Gerdenich’s recommendation to try the firkin of Clipper City Hang Ten. A walloping weizenbock with a sweet, yeasty cling. Yum.

Best t-shirt sighting: this festival is like Pitchfork, except instead of ironic band tees, you get ironic brewing tees. I especially appreciated the Natural Ice baseball jersey, but the best one was our friend Erik’s Miskatonic Brewing shirt.

Best smiling face behind the tap: Tony at Warbird, who kept chugging along good-naturedly even as lines got 50-60 deep.

Best overheard question: “so what do you have that tastes like Miller Lite?” (in the firkin tent)

Best girl power moment: Gina, randomly recruiting someone for our roller derby team as we were waiting in line at Hoppin’ Frog

Best boy power moment: Mike, relaying the story of the Diamond Kings of Heaven Great Keg Blowing of ’08… with hand gestures.

Best merch: the “Show Me Your Growlers” shirts. Sadly, I can’t remember where they were from.

Best ‘gotcha’: the empty bottles lined up at the Brugge table. Torturous, Charlie!

Best idea for next year: Hoosier Beer Geek tank tops. In white.

Indiana Beer Week - Day Six - Indiana Microbrewers Festival (Introducing Rodney)

I'm new to this extreme blogging action, so I didn't carry a camera with me on Saturday. What I did bring is a decent memory and a high tolerance for alcohol. Here are my highlights and commentary on the festival:


The pre-event crowd line
Get there early!
We've been showing up an hour early for a couple years now and always end up at the front of the line. If you're not as insane as we are, it appears that 30 minutes early is a pretty good compromise. You'll end up just outside of the parking lot and easily one of the first few hundred in. Don't show up 5 minutes after it starts or you'll end up waiting in line for half an hour anyway. That's quality drinking time you're losing!

Cheap food is awesome.
To be honest, I didn't eat anything at the festival on Saturday. I did have friends who did, and through them I observed that King David Dogs is offering up superb drunk food at a great price for a festival. They also have great food when you're not drunk, but their stupid restaurant isn't open on the weekends and closes at 4PM. Jerks. I think it goes without saying that cajun food is also awesome festival food. I love Yats as much as the next guy, but I've heard they're kind of inconsistent to deal with for festivals, so kudos to J. Gumbos for filling the void this year.


Not much light gets through Dark Lord
Dark Lord is not a 90 degree heat beer.
Also I don't know what happened, but there was a crazy amount of yeast suspended in it. More than last year and definitely more than the bottle. Still delicious, but I think the Kentucky Breakfast Stout made for a better festival beer this year. If only Founders brought more than a couple bottles of it (or at least it ran out so fast I assume that's what they did). I would fully support a Winter Microbrewer's Festival held indoors and featuring Imperial Stouts, Barrel aged beers and Belgian Strong Ales. Hang on, I'm emailing Bob O.

Hooray beer!
I had a lot of really good things this year. Here are some highlights:

• Backwoods Bastard was probably my favorite of the day. Bourbon aging the Dirty Bastard balanced it out a lot better than most things that get barrel aged. I would love a bottle of this in our cellar. There was a ton of bourbon and vanilla flavor in this, but not an overpowering alcohol taste.


• New Albanian performed well as usual. I loved the sour notes in their Phoenix Saison and their firkin of the Kentucky Komon. That said, I really wish more sour ales came to the party considering how hot it was. I was sad to see the Saison was out when I returned later in the day.


• Brass Monkey's Green Tea Pale Ale is great. I've had some West Coast green tea pales that were awesome so it's nice to see the trend making its way here.


• Stone Russian Imperial Stout was very nice, as usual. Lots of dark chocolate, coffee, roasted malts and hidden hops in here.


• Schlafly's Biere de Garde was very good. I had not tried this one, which is the first in their bottle conditioned series. Starts out a little fruity but ends a little malty. The alcohol sticks out a tad, but they recommend aging it so that will probably help.


• Notable Firkins included Founders Double Dry Hopped Pale, New Albanian's Kentucky Komon and Clipper City's Hang Ten. Rock Bottom's American Dream and the Bell's Porter weren't too bad either. A lot of the others felt like they just recently pulled it from the keg and dropped in some live yeast, without giving it time to develop.


• Hoppin' Frog's Porter through the coffee beans was an interesting and tasty experiment, though the end result did have an insanely overpowering coffee taste.


• Sam Adams was doing a little voting experiment for their next beer, which was cool. Unfortunately the options were a way unbalanced super fruity Blackberry Wit and a generic Coffee Stout. I voted Coffee Stout by default. It wasn't bad, it just didn't stand out.

And a few regrets...

• When I first arrived, Dark Horse didn't have anyone pouring for them. When I came back later, they were out of beer.


• I completely missed Left Hand and Two Brothers. I took a break just before we got to them and then never came back.


• Brugge didn't have this year's Diamond Kings at the festival. It was so good on Friday night I was itching to come back for more. Unfortunately, there was no more.


• I also missed Founders Dumbo Head. I was there early enough to try some but it didn't even click with me that it would be a limited quantity beer. Oops.

Indiana Beer Week - Day Six - Indiana Microbrewers Festival (Introducing Chris2)

It's all over?

That’s how I felt Sunday afternoon, after a week of beer drinking events, concerts and weekend visitors in my apartment. I don’t think I’ve been this active since college! Mrs. Chris2 and I decided to rest and recover with a very lazy Sunday evening of eating pizza while watching movies (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Shaun of the Dead) and TV shows (Mad Men – second season starts July 27th!). This is likely to continue tonight.

You've already read about the Hoosier Beer Geek escapades earlier in the week, but Friday night found me at The Lawn to see a double-bill of Umphrey's McGee and Sound Tribe Sector 9. This probably sounds crazy but I actually consider myself lucky that the beer selection there was less than stellar. After four straight days of drinking craft brew, including an especially hearty night on Thursday, I was feeling a little bit beer fatigued. Sucking down $6 Coors Light tall boys really put me back in the mood for something with more flavor on Saturday!

If you’ve been to the Indiana Microbrewer's Festival in recent years, just plug in your memory of the forecast: HOT AND SUNNY (with choice flowery words for fun). There were decidedly more people than previous years -- estimates are around 4000, about 25% more than last year. Just an hour in, hardly any tables had fewer than 10 people in line, with many more at the most popular breweries. Luckily, most lines moved fairly quickly and forced waiting between samples isn’t necessarily a bad thing!

Some favorite beers of the day:

• Favorite 'hit the spot' beer: Founders Dumbo Head (a tribute to Three Floyds Gumballhead)
• Favorite 'special for the fest' beer: New Albanian Porter aged in a special cask (anybody out there remember the cask type?) UPDATE: from Roger Baylor at New Albanian: "It was a pin that originally poured JW Lees Vintage Harvest Ale (Port Barrel Conditioned), into which we racked Bob's Old 15-B Porter from NABC."
  
• Favorite 'they did WHAT?' beer: Hoppin Frog Porter 'dry beaned' through coffee beans
• Favorite 'tapped and kicked while I was waiting to piss' beer: Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (fun fact: 5 gallons divided 4000 ways is 0.16 oz/person)
• Favorite 'new' beer: Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout (previously reviewed here)
  
• Favorite 'caveat' beer: New Albanian Phoenix ("but you better like sour...")
• Favorite 'perfect timing' beer: Three Floyds Alpha King (served by a 3F staff member from a pitcher while waiting in the HUGE line for Dark Lord)
  

Most disappointing moment of the day (you know, besides missing out on Founders KBS): realizing that I had missed an entire side of one tent, including Indiana new-comers Brass Monkey and Half Moon. Better luck next year.

Some photos of the day:

The Electric Boogaloo crew and friends recover
from various Friday night activities and pre-load
at Qdoba for the Microbrewer’s Festival.

Chris2 (right) with bro Brian, enjoying an Alpha King (or two).

For once, Rod (right) is the one looking normal in a picture.

Charlie@Brugge with the “Coming soon....coming
soon....coming soon....” Tripel de Ripple bottle.

Leaving the fest....yes, that guy is wearing a box on his head.

Indiana Beer Week - Day Six - Indiana Microbrewers Festival

Can we take a break from drinking now?

If you've been reading all week, you know we spent Monday evening at Broad Ripple Brewpub and Bruuge, Tuesday at Spencer's Stadium Tavern, Wednesday at Oaken Barrel, Thursday at J. Gumbos, Rock Bottom, Alcatraz, and Ram on the downtown pub crawl, and Friday at the VIP Brewmaster's Dinner at Opti Park. So to reach Saturday with a still present desire for more beer says a lot about the quality of both the company and beer we've spent the week with.

Very shortly you'll be reading posts from our newest Knights of the Beer Roundtable - the KOTBR2 Electric Boogaloo Crew: Matt2 (previously known for his work at Matt's Beer Blog), Rodney (gold medal chili beer brewer), Jessica (frequent commenter, contributor, and blogger), and Chris2 (well known for his work at DIG-B). But in the meantime, here's some crowd photos from Saturday's big event.