Downtown Indianapolis' Newest Brewery: Two Deep

There's no such thing as too much good beer.

2011 has already seen licenses issued to five new Indiana breweries¹, with ten more currently in the permitting process², and rumors and/or websites for at least five more efforts in the works³. ⁴

That's pretty fucking crazy.

The Brewers Association recently reported that 2010 saw a 11% increase in craft breweries in America. If all the efforts in the works actually happen, Indiana is about to see a 51% increase in 2011/12.

From the outside, that looks like an unsustainable number. But comparing against breweries per capita numbers from 2010, it would only move Indiana to 17th on the list, just behind Iowa. Iowa.

So there is room for growth. Two Deep Brewing Company believes so. We believe that good beer will (in most cases) survive. We contacted the gentlemen behind the effort to see how they plan to make their mark.

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Who’s involved with this effort? What's your background? Why are you opening a brewery?

Myself, Andy Meyer, along with my step-brother, Chris Hoyt as official partners in the business. I got into homebrewing while living in Chicago (relocated back to Indy about a year and a half ago) about 6 to 7 years ago and simply fell in love with craft beer. I would read any every book I could get my hands on regarding brewing and beer, and had a few of them finished long before I ever boiled my first pot of wort. The interesting thing to note is that I don’t think I ever finished a full novel while I was in school…haha. I was simply on a quest (subconsciously) to soak up as much knowledge as I could about anything that related to brewing. I enjoy the brewing process - even though the majority of the time is spent cleaning – and love the methods and procedures behind it. For me, I get the greatest satisfaction when I am able to take these raw ingredients that really share no commonality (outside of being in beer) and am able to manage them in a strict set of processes which then produces (what I hope to be) some great tasting beer. It’s a very humbling experience when you are able to create something from scratch and people actually enjoy it.

I kind of pulled Chris into this whole adventure a few years ago on when I was progressing through my brewing experience. It seemed like every other month I was wanting to somehow take this art form to the next level, whether coming up with crazy recipes, trying different styles or building out bigger and better equipment. When I decided to move up to a Brutus system, I convinced him to come up to Chicago and help me build it. From that point on, he was really hooked and has been an integral part ever since. Professionally, I come from a media company as a regional account director. Chris is in management within the telecommunications industry.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to have a career in brewing, some way, somehow. I enrolled in coursework at Seibel and did whatever I could to further my knowledge of the craft while maintaining a family and full time job. Once we moved back to Indy, the bug really bit hard and I started working on this endeavor at any free moment I had. I started hitting the business plan hard right in the midst of when People’s Brewing started up and when Sun King was really taking off. Those two alone kept fueling the passion to keep my dream alive. We are really starting the brewery because of the passion that we have for the craft. We honestly love making beer and having the ability to share our passion with others one pint at a time. Having traveled throughout the upper Northwest, Colorado, San Diego, etc. there are so many cities out there with a thriving craft brewing culture. If we can even take a fraction of what is being done elsewhere and combine it with Indy’s Midwest hospitality, I really think we can put Indianapolis on the proverbial craft beer map and create a unique and desirable community for the craft beer industry. This industry segment is unlike any other out there. Craft brewers are collaborative, have a strong camaraderie, sincere passion and high level of ethics for the business.
In an effort to share our passion with Indianapolis, in and out of the glass, we want to create a destination for craft beer drinkers of all levels and would-be craft beer drinkers. Not only will we be a production facility but our tap room will be a place for people to come and experience craft beer as it was meant to be…straight from the tap. We want to do our part in helping educate the people of Indiana that they do have choices, that there are flavorful beers out there and help grow the industry here in the state and throughout. As I had last seen, craft beer sales only account for 1.25% of the total beer sales in the state. As a group, we have a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover.

Where will Two Deep be located?

We will be moving into the 1st floor space at 501 Madison Ave (the old Chateau Thomas Winery building). We fell in love with the historical ambiance of the building and felt that it was a great place to help continue the growth of the craft beer community within Indianapolis. We are convenient to downtown and within walking distance of attractions, parking, etc.


When are you hoping to open?

Our go-live date for operations is mid December and public open date within the first week of January 2012.

What's different about Two Deep from other Indiana brewery efforts? Do you have any concerns about opening in what's becoming a very competitive market?

I think one of the biggest things that makes us different is our location and the proximity to so many different things within the city. We are right next to Lilly, minutes by foot from the circle and office buildings and very close to sporting outlets (Lucas Oil, Conseco, etc.). Inside the building though, we are focusing much of our efforts on designing a destination for people, not just a grab & go. We love what a lot of the other breweries throughout Indy have been doing and we want to continue on the path while we create an establishment We want people to come and hang out at the brewery, enjoy a pint or two after work, on the weekend or before you are heading into a Colts game. We want people to see, smell and experience a brewery in production. We want people to make this a place where they can come to socialize with fellow craft beer fans without having 30+ TV’s blaring in the background. Some evenings, we will highlight local Indy artists on an acoustical set to help set the mood and give people a relaxing environment to hangout in. We also have plans to phase in a Brew On Premise section for people to really get their hands dirty. If you are a homebrewer wanting to not deal with the mess or someone who has never done it before, you can make your very own in an actual working brewery. This all stems from our passion of brewing and our desire to share it with everyone.
As for competition, we think the more craft breweries the better. As mentioned, Indiana craft beer sales account for just over 1% which means we can only go up from here. The more there is to offer, the more we can accomplish in educating consumers about craft beer and steer them away from the “yellow fizzy beer”. We understand that at the end of the day it is about our beer being sold vs. another but the overall goal is to grow the segment within the beer industry as a group.

What's your plan for the beer (styles, packaging, that sort of thing)?

Our beer roster as of right now consists of four year round styles with additional semi-year round styles:

19 Days Maibock - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints
Brickhouse Amercian Amber - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints
Fun with Pils Dortmunder/Munich Helles - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints
Kunkelweizen Dunkelweizen - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints
In Your Jeans Cream Ale - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints, 6-pack to-go
Jolly Old Stout Milk/Sweet Stout - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints, 6-pack to-go
(Un-named) IPA - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints, 6-pack to-go
Jenny Wheat Belgian Wit - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints, 6-pack to-go
(Un-named) American Pale Ale - Draft, Growlers, tap room pints, 6-pack to-go

Initially, our wholesale distribution will only consist of draft kegs (1/2 and 1/6 bbl) with the phasing in of bottling/canning over years 2 to 3. At the brewery, you will be able to get our beers for consumption on-site via pints as well as to-go packaging (growlers, kegs, 6-packs)

What are your short and long term goals?

Short term – to get our name out there. Haha We would like to be upwards of 640 bbl production for the first year and continue a steady growth of about 15% to 20% year over year. If we can have a little magic dust sprinkled on us from Sun King and Flat 12 to foster even bigger growth, we’re all game! Long term, one thing outside of personal brewery growth and name recognition throughout Indiana (2 to 5 year mark), is that we would like to help establish a beer district and work with other breweries in the city/region for incoming tourism. People go to other states/cities to visit breweries, why not do the same here. Indy is a great city for attracting tourism via different outlets (sports, conventions, etc) therefore we would like to create an arm within the tourism bureau by working with the Brewers Guild and organizations such as yourself to highlight Indiana breweries for visitors both inside and outside of the state.

Can you tell me about the kickstarter thing? How's that work and why did you decide to go that route?

We wanted to utilize an outlet for part of our funding needs in an effort to let anyone and everyone “be a part of” our startup. We researched many different social media outlets and felt kickstarter was the safest and most reasonable place to do it.

The way Kickstarter works is that we upload a “project” to the site (starting TwoDeep Brewing Co) and then provide a video, pics and narrative about what we are doing as well as a proposed amount of money we want to raise. It is then open to anyone and everyone for donating, as Kickstarter calls it, “backers.” We developed a list of various “backer” levels – everything from $1 to $2,000 – which then the backer is rewarded certain things based on the level (i.e. $500 level gets you a Growler gift set – growler with 4 pint glasses – a TwoDeep brewers work shirt, growler fills twice a month for a year and the Brewmasters size taster). The catch to it all and driving force behind the concept is that if we don’t hit our pledged goal by the end date, we do not get any of the money and our current backers do not get any of the rewards. Its up to both sides to keep the project going so that it can be successful for everyone.

Kickstarter creates a safe environment for all parties involved and we don’t have to worry about physically transacting any donated money as it is run through Amazon.com. At the same time, we wanted to use this outlet as a means of spreading our brand message and allowing the public to see who we are – just regular people who love craft beer! It also allows us to get some swag and other branded material into people’s hands in hopes that it helps foster conversations about TwoDeep and continues the word-of-mouth effect. We felt like this was a great way to let people connect with the starting of a brewery. While we could sit here and sell shares of stock one by one to every other person, that’s not what we are about and neither are the people who are seeking great craft beer. We truly want the community to a part of what we are doing and this avenue provided a win-win for everyone (as long as we hit our goal).

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¹ Black Swan, Cutters, Thr3e Wise Men, Three Pints, and Just Brew It

² Bare Hands, Fountain Square, Four Horsemen, Triton, Twisted Crew, Black Acre, Danny Boy, Das Big Dawg , Helvetia, and a Fort Wayne location of Granite City

³ Blue Republic, Heorot, Mobrecki, Bull Dog, and Traders Point

⁴ The sound you just heard was 16 new brewers realizing the market is about to be a lot more saturated than they thought it was.

Building Irvington's Own Nanobrewery: Black Acre

As more and more participants enter the market for your craft beer dollars, finding a niche may be the difference between survival and disaster. The five folks behind Black Acre Brewing - homebrewers Justin Miller, Holly Miller, Jordan Gleason, Matt Johnson, and Stephen Ruby - hope that providing a welcoming tasting room and constantly rotating lineup of seasonal and specialty beers to Indianapolis' Irvington neighborhood will be their ticket to long-term success. We stopped in a little over a week ago (6/25/11) to see what's in store for Irvington's first nanobrewery.


Located in the heart of Irvington, Black Acre will open in a space formerly occupied by a children's clothing store. Converting the space from store to brewery has been a lot of hard work, as evident by the piles of demolished building materials found on the floor, waiting for a dumpster. There are special challenges in building a brewery in Irvington - the building, built in 1926, has historic designation, so different rules must be followed.

"For the interior they don't care," said Black Acre partner Justin Miller. "IHPC (Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission) took control of zoning a few years ago, so they do all the zoning issues, and their interpretation is that we're an industrial use, not a commercial use, and this is zoned a C4 so we have to get a variance of use to brew. We tried to argue that there's a bakery and a coffee shop and they're pretty much the same as what I'm doing, but it didn't go by. In downtown (Indianapolis) proper (a brewery) is not an industrial use, because they want to promote growth downtown - that was their explanation. So we have the hearing on the 6th."

He continued, "We have three variances - one is the variance of use from the C4 to industrial, which seems ridiculous - we're pretty much selling everything in-house, but it's better to just ask for the variance, I suppose. Another one is the parking variance, because this other space didn't generate that much business, so they averaged two parking spots at any one time. They average us as doing forty, which I think is probably a little high, but they do a square foot formula. And then the third one is (we step out the back door) - there's a playground there owned by the Methodist church, so it's a D5 protected zone. It wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have to apply for a zoning variance, but once you do it triggers that you shouldn't have alcohol within 100 feet of a D5 protected zone. We're 96 feet from that fence at this back door. So we're got to get our four foot variance for that. It sounds like everything should go through."

(In fact, we found the document that shows that IHPC recommend that the variances be allowed).


Click to enlarge
Although the space has historic designation, the things found once demolition started were far from anything worth putting in a time capsule. "We found a rainbow under the wood paneling so that was exciting," said Miller. "(The rainbow) has to be historic."

The brewery's back room (where the actual brewing will take place) was added on at some point in the building's history. A mill room will be added into that space, and the building's furnace will be moved to its cellar. "We're looking to put the three vessel (brew house) here in the window and have it lit up as a display thing to the parking lot," said Miller.


As for the tasting room, the layout was still a work in progress when I visited.

"We've gone through a couple designs with (One 10 Studio), who are the architecture firm working with us - this is the current one we're working with (he shows me a marker drawn rendition of the space). We're getting nice ones on Monday."

The layout is taped on the floor - at the time, dropped ceilings and raised platforms were planned for the the front window spaces. Lounge seating was planned on one side of the room, with floating 2 and 4 top tables on the other. "The idea is that if you have floating tables you could take them off and then have like a small jazz band or music," said Miller.


Miller said they hope that the space will be one in which people will be happy to congregate, with comfortable seating, and food that isn't just an afterthought.

"High quality but small menu," he said. "So we're doing like three to five panini at a time. We're trying to do all locally sourced ingredients. We talked to Goose the Market with their new Smoking Goose and meats from there, you've got Trader's Point Creamery - we looking at doing cheeses from them. A couple of premium sandwiches, we're looking at doing sweet potato fries - we're looking at an auto-fryer thing that does the suppression so you don't need the hood and everything, and then kinda small plates - meat and cheese plates, some roasted nuts, pretzels with beer mustard, but that's gonna be it."

So bare minimum to meet requirements but not bad food?

"Right. Because if you're serving a premium beer, there's a dichotomy where you don't want to serve someone hot dogs. $5 for a beer and then having it paired with hot dogs didn't seem adequate."

"We're getting a two-way license as well, and I think your food requirements go down if you have a two-way license as well but I'm not sure exactly how that works. Some bars don't serve food at all."

Of course no brewery tour would be complete without discussion of the equipment. Black Acre will be using an all-electric 3 barrel brew house. "The engineers looked and said the roof is great for solar (heated water) but it's an extra 35 thousand dollars so... But with the electric system the possibility is there. One of the big expenses because of the electric system is that there's only 100 amp service in here so we had to upgrade to the three-phase 400 amp which is $10,000 just by itself."

Miller continued, "We're starting off with plastic fermenters because it's so much cheaper with the idea to upgrade to stainless over time - probably within six months we'll just get four seven-barrels. This will be set at a low 60-degrees and then to crash them - we'll roll it through the kitchen into the cold room, set it there for a day and then transfer it into the bright tank. We could just transfer right to the bright but then we're going to have yeast issues in the bright that you really don't want. So we're making sure the kitchen is big enough and that we have enough turning radius to make sure these three barrel fermenters around."

Plastic is an unusual choice for a professional brewery, but they've talked to quite a few places that are using them currently, and think that they'll be able to put out a good quality product despite the difference.


"The nice thing about the plastic is that we can buy ten fermenters for the price of one stainless steel, so it give us so much more flexibility to do lots of things. We've talked to a lot of people that are using them and they've got a timed obsolescence of about four years with scratches and stuff but people make good beer with them, and other than the durability there's no big issue with them."

Once that beer is finished it will be available in growlers, pints, half pints, and flight.

"You go somewhere and you want to try four things and you want to drive home - our idea is that we'll probably have ten of our beers on tap at a time - probably tee them off so we have a dedicated growler and standard tap. Since we have 30 taps - it's flexibility. The idea is ten fill lines, ten growler lines, and then we'll probably try to do two to four local guests - kind of (RIP) Barley Island style, just your guest taps," he said.

"We haven't nailed down if we're going to do house beer. We've got a lot of beers that we've made that we really like but we're going to start like Bier (Brewery) style, where you just have ten and if something really sells. We like doing lots of different - it's obviously a lot more fun if you're doing different things."

Although the plans are in place and work is happening at a steady rate, it will be a while before the space opens. Black Acre has set a target opening date to coincide with the Irvington Halloween Festival.

"Federal Permits were 100 days, but I've been hearing 6 months, which is kind of scary," said Miller. "That's the pain with this is that you've got to start paying rent and that kind of stuff just to get them filed, and then you're sitting around paying money and not being able to make anything."

We'll be following up on the Black Acre efforts in a few weeks, and hope to follow the story through the brewery's opening. Stay tuned.

Triton Is Still Opening

The initial buzz accompanying Triton Brewing Company may have been lost in the excitement and continuing new brewery news, but David, Mike, and Jon aren't going away. They've just been tied up in the permitting process.

Does that worry them?

"Not at all," said David Waldman. "We're excited to see everyone opening up, and there's plenty of room."


The photos here were taken roughly a month ago. With the exception of some demolition work, not much has changed since then. But construction of the brewery is ready to begin as Triton received their final permit on Wednesday.

The ownership group has ambitious plans for the building. The painted brick on the exterior will be striped. New storefront windows and doors will grace the main entrance. A patio will be located on the north side of the building. Inside, metal and wood materials will finish the spaces that will eventually be a tap room with dining space and a catering kitchen to allow pint sales.


The space, a former horse barn, shows a ton of potential, and may prove to be one of the more unique brewery spaces you'll come across. The front of the building will house the tasting room, while brewing operations will take place near the rear. The clerestory windows that run the length of the building will provide ample natural lighting. And there's more than ample space for the brewery to grow with demand.


Click to view larger image


Click to view larger image
We look forward to following up with more details as the project nears completion.

Opening Monday: Thr3e Wise Men Brewing Company

Brewer Omar Castrellon and his team have been working very hard in their new space at 1021 Broad Ripple Avenue, and as a result you'll be able to visit and drink beer from Thr3e Wise Men Brewing Company on Monday, January 17th.

Inside you'll find a very welcoming space, with many familiar Scotty's touches, but a completely new vibe. Here is my Metromix piece on what you can expect at Thr3e Wise Men. Read the story and let us know what your thoughts - Do you think Scotty has another hit on his hands? What are you expectations for the brewery?

Share your thoughts below.

Special Request Updates: Bier Brewery and Tomlinson Tap Room Grand Openings

Just got a direct twitter message demanding that I post the tap list for Tomlinson's opening this evening. You only get one, Ms. Crook...

Tonight it one of the biggest drinking nights on the calendar, so it's only fitting that today marks the grand openings of Indianapolis' newest brewery and Indianapolis' newest craft beer bar. Get out there, people! Celebrate our growing beer culture!

Bier Brewery and Taproom
5133 East 65th Street
Between Allisonville Rd and Binford Blvd. on the south side of 65th Street
From their website, twitter, and various other sources):


Bier will be open Wednesday before Turkeyday from 3-7pm.
We will have 7 different biers on tap:
Pale, Belgian Blonde, German Wheat, Kolsch, Brown, Porter, Oatmeal Stout

More about Bier Brewery at BrewIndy.com

Tomlinson Tap Room
Indianapolis City Market Main Hall Upstairs (Southwest Corner)
Wednesday-Friday: Noon - 8:00pm-ish
Saturday: 11:00am - 5:00pm-ish
Closed Sunday - Tuesday (available for private events)



BEER ON TAP – NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Name of Beer, Location

Ram S’no angel Weizenbock, Indianapolis
Mad Anthony Gabby Blonde, Fort Wayne
Three Floyds Aeotearoa, Munster
Lafayette Brewing Tippecanoe Common, Lafayette
Big Woods Brewing Busted Knuckle, Nashville
Sun King/Broad Ripple Brewpub Sun Ripple ESB, Indianapolis
Brugge Triple de Ripple, Indianapolis
Upland Komodo Dragonfly Black IPA, Bloomington
Oaken Barrel Indiana Amber, Greenwood
Barley Island Dirty Helen, Noblesville
Broad Ripple Brewpub ESB, Indianapolis
New Albanian Hoptimus, New Albany
Crown Brewing Brown, Crown Point
Rock Bottom College Park Blitzen Black IPA, Indianapolis
Power House Diesel Oil Stout, Columbus
People's Pilsner, West Lafayette