Knowing next to nothing about Indianapolis, I came to the city from a tiny town in southern Illinois in November of 2000 for an IT job at a family owned food distributor. I was able to convince Gina came with me, and we lived a tiny life on the south side for five years before we had any friends here. The city seemed boring, and we drove back to our hometown in Illinois most weekends for lack of better options.Because I was bored at work, I wrote a little blog. I was also reading a few other blogs, leaving comments here and there, and was eventually invited to join a few of those blogging folks for a beer. I was nervous about meeting strangers from the internet, but was thrilled when they invited me to join them. And then they invited me again. It wasn't long before they asked me to join them in writing at Hoosier Beer Geek.
And then weird things started happening. We didn't know anything about beer, but we were willing to learn, and people seemed to be reading. We put in a lot of work, got to know folks, got our name out, and the people we wanted to impress paid attention.
Hoosier Beer Geek has been my entire Indiana identity. I'm incredibly proud of what we've done with this site. It hasn't come without growing pains: disappointment over events and audience enthusiasm, struggles with generating content, the occasional angry hippie, and more arguments with Gina than I can count. But this has also been by and away the most rewarding thing I've ever done. It's led to countless friendships, the fulfilled pipedream of writing for a major newspaper, visits and insider access to breweries all over the country, and the sort of attention that we never could have expected. Despite any headaches, Hoosier Beer Geek continues to reward in ways I would have never expected.
I owe a lot of thanks to you, the reader. I'd also like to thank Chris Maples for creating Hoosier Beer Geek, and Jason Larrison, Jim Dimitri, Renee Wilmeth, Kelly Jordan, Matt Edison, Chris Corr, Rodney Weaver, Jess Weaver, Matt Robinson, and Gina Rakers for everything they've put into the effort.
This will be my last post for Hoosier Beer Geek. The community has grown up around us, and while my enthusiasm for the beer hasn't changed, my desire to document everything has waned, and I can no longer give it the attention it deserves.
I'm not walking away from the beer community - in fact I'm getting deeper in. In a week I'll be leaving the IT job that brought me to Indianapolis to join the team behind the new Ted Miller/Greg Hardesty brewery/restaurant at Park and North. I hope that you'll continue to seek me out there.
Thank you. I hope to see you soon.
Mike Atwood
