Hoosier Beer Geek in Indianapolis Monthly

Back in February, four the the Knights of the Beer Roundtable met with the folks at Indianapolis Monthly to run through our choices as some of Indy's better representatives of beers in seven styles. The results of that tasting can be found in the April "Local Beer" edition of the magazine, on store shelves now.

We'd like to thank the folks at Indianapolis Monthly for the attention, and for a fun afternoon of drinking great Indiana beer.

Hoosier Beer Geek in the Indy Star

If you happened to check out the Indy Star's dining section today, you might have stumbled across the following:

Draft a winning Super Bowl party with Indiana beers
By Jolene Ketzenberger

As the Colts take on the New Orleans Saints in this weekend's Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, fans who want to toast their team with a true-blue beverage have plenty of local options.

But we're not talking blue drinks. We're talking beer.

Indiana is home to more than 30 craft breweries that produce a wide range of beers, the perfect homegrown addition to a game-day menu. With such names as Rad Red, Sheet Metal Blonde and Snake Pit Porter, Indiana beers are gaining attention and fans.

"The first thing people need to know is that Indiana's craft breweries are as good as they'll find anywhere in the world," said Mike Atwood, who, along with several other craft beer fans, writes the Hoosier Beer Geek blog (hoosierbeergeek.blogspot.com).

Click here for the rest of the article.

HBG in NUVO

Hoosier Beer Geek has been lucky in the coverage we have received from the press. First, Indianapolis Monthly listed us as a top Indy blog. Then, INTake Weekly wrote about us...twice! And now Rita Kohn from NUVO has written a nice article titled "Blogs, beer & philanthropy: Hoosier Beer Geeks turn 1".

We as a group first met Rita at the Indiana Microbrewer's Festival where she was really interested in talking to us. Not just for NUVO but also for a definitive Indiana beer book that she is writing.

I first met her a couple of years back when she was directing "Asylum", a production by the Beckman Theater. She's a wonderful lady with a fascinating background and very diverse interests.

Again, I'm glad that she and so many others made it out to our first anniversary party.

We're Experts*

Our thanks go out to Jim Walker and the folks at INtake, who have given Hoosier Beer Geek another healthy dose of publicity thanks to the many articles in their June 21st beer issue.

Advice from our Knights of the Beer Roundtable were featured in three seperate articles in the issue: Beer Me, Learning to Sip, and Booze Clues.

There's a little something to learn for everyone in the INtake issue; for example, at least three Hoosier Beer Geeks were not aware of Party Pak Liquors, which is just a couple miles from my beautiful and expansive southside estate. From the looks of their beer selection in the article, an awareness of Party Pak is going to be pretty rewarding.

Pick up the new issue of INtake at your local grocery store, liquor store, bar, church, temple or synagogue, or adult bookstore.

*We are not experts.

Hop Shop Publicity Stop

Last evening, the beer geeks met up at The Hop Shop for a beer conversation with owner Courtney and Jim Walker from INtake. Knowing that this had the possibilities of being my new five minutes of fame (replacing the time I made it onto the field at a St. Louis Steamers indoor soccer game at the age of 10), I made sure to wear a nice shirt.

Jim asked us to behave as we normally do at a meetup, and this proved to be a little difficult; We don't have a very specific formula. We all decided to chose a warm-up beer and go from there.

If you haven't been to the Hop Shop, then you're in for a treat - shelves upon shelves of brews from all over the place, with individual samples available for each beer. Want to try six different beers? Make your own six pack and receive a 7% discount on the price of the six individual bottles.

The very expansive selection made choosing a warm up beer quite a task, but eventually I settled on Spaten's Optimator, a highly regarded beer that I had yet to try. Into the cooler it went, along with the following:

Brooklyn Summer Ale
Dogfish Head Burton Baton
Fraoch Heather Ale
Clipper City Red Sky at Night
Dogfish Head Aprihop
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat
Unibroue 16
Black Dog Ale

As it turns out, I didn't make it to my warm-up beer until the end of the night; Courtney took the lead and led us on a beer tour de force, with lessons in history and chemistry along the way. It was quite the learning experience.

Normally, we try to at least pretend we're accomplishing something. But last night we were basically just drinking. Once we had reached the end of our samples, we decided to write what stuck with us. HBG Jim (I think...) suggested four word reviews. I'll give that a shot.

Brooklyn Summer Ale: I've certainly had better.
Dogfish Head Burton Baton: See also Conquest Ale.
Fraoch Heather Ale: This one? Mashed Potatoes.
Clipper City Red Sky at Night: So.. was this red?
Dogfish Head Aprihop: I'd try this again.
Warbird Thunderbolt Wheat: Airplanes! Indiana! Sheet-Metal Blonde!
Unibroue 16: Nice work, Uni Dudes.
Black Dog Ale: I now remember nothing.

So there you have it. 4 word reviews (almost). Hopefully you can make out which beers I liked.

Thanks to Courtney at the Hop Shop for the beer lessons, and to Jim at INtake for the exposure.

Read All About It!!

Not sure if we're supposed to make this public (shhh!!), but the Knights of the Beer Roundtable are going to be a big part of the cover story on the Jan. 18th edition of INtake, which is about Indy-based bloggers. Be sure to pick up a copy. Jason even brought us some special "props" for the occasion, and you'll only be able to see those in the magazine.

We did a kick-ass photo shoot for the story today at Deano's (whose service appears to have recovered from their lull last week, and they are now back to their good old selves), and I'll be damned if we didn't have to drink two pints of Delirium Tremens and/or Delirium Nocturnum before we could get through the shoot. When the photographer arrived, we poured our first pint. While he was getting his equipment ready, we launched into an internal review of the beer amongst ourselves. By the time he was ready to shoot, most of our pints were gone, so we had to refill. 2 pints of Delirium Tremens/Nocturnum (8.5% ABV each) + 5 empty stomachs = 5 very happy & slightly buzzed beer geeks.

We were intending to actually do a real review of the beer, but I think we all got caught up in our new-found fame to take any notes on the beer to post. You know, it's tough being a big, famous, superstar these days, what with our regular media darling status and all :) (And speaking of media darling status, if you get the chance, check out the WTHR-13 Community Focus segment next Tuesday the 9th at 12:45pm to see me in action for my real job)

And today also marked the very first time that all 5 KOTBR were together. We had had 4 of us together on a few rare occasions, but never all 5.

Anyway, we think this is a good time to let our loyal readers know that we're going to be making some changes to the HBG site. First, Jason is working on a rockin' new banner and redesign of the site. Second, I'm going to turn this into a "group" blog, whereas all five of us can post directly to the site, without the other 4 having to send things to me. Third, (and this is mostly to accomodate our schedules) we are going to set regularly-scheduled days for Roundtable Reviews, beginning this month. Once we have those dates determined, we will post them on the site, as well. Our fourth change is to make a big push for our readers to join us on Roundtable nights - we want to meet you! Don't be intimidated because you don't think you can talk beer - we couldn't either when we began - but we have fun learning. And remember - we're beer "geeks", not beer "snobs". A fifth change is to get back to the basics of "Hoosier" Beer Geekdom. We're still gonna frequent Deano's, but we're also going to be doing quite a few reviews from local brewpubs, and rating more Indiana beers. So let us know if you like the changes - we know you're reading because we can tell from our SiteMeter log - so feel free to make some comments! We'll try to roll the changes out in the next couple of weeks, so bare with us.

So Many Publications, So Little Beer

When it rains, it pours! Hoosier Beer Geek grabs a mention in yet another Indy publication in this week's InTake. The article is about how sometimes good taste and passion for a subject matter (ie, beer) is sometimes confused as snobbery. A part of the article focuses on Courtney Hall, owner of my favorite beer store - The Hop Shop, and his passion for good beer. In a sidebar to the article, Courtney lists his suggested resources for reading about good beer, and HBG rounds out his top three (following beeradvocate.com & indianabeer.com). Thanks, Courtney - we love you, too!

HBG: As Featured in Indianapolis Monthly

If you haven't already heard, Hoosier Beer Geek was featured in the newest issue of Indianapolis Monthly as one of six "intelligent" blogs on the local scene. We had no advance notice, and only found out today through gossip in the Indy-centric blogosphere. I think I speak for everyone associated with HBG in saying that we're surprised, flattered, and honored by the feature. There are seriously a lot of really good "intelligent" blogs covering the Indy scene, so how we were chosen over them, I don't know, but we're certainly appreciative of the coverage.

If you happen to be checking us out for the first time after seeing the feature, welcome. Just so you know, our schtik is to head out to different locations around the city that have a reputation for a good beer selection, down a few, have a good bull session, and try to impart our humble opinions on the location itself and the beer we've just consumed to you, the masses. We're all fellow Indy bloggers who share a passion for good beer. We're also welcoming of other beer geeks and wannabe beer geeks who want to join in our "Knights of the Beer Roundtable" reviews. So, if you're interested, just leave us a comment with a way to reach you, and we'll include you in on the next Roundtable night.