Opening Today: Thr3e Wise Men

The latest installment in the Scotty's Brewhouse restaurant empire opens today.  Since Scott Wise has developed a borderline stalker obsession with Mike, we felt obligated to check the pizzeria brewpub out.  Thr3e Wise Men is not quite your typical brewery startup.  With 6 other restaurants in his portfolio, you could say Scott Wise knows how to run a business.  Much like Scotty's Lakehouse was a burger departure from the standard Scotty's Brewhouse formula, Thr3e Wise Men fully embraces pizza.  If you've been to Piece in Chicago, you know the formula.  A simple, build your own pizza menu with a few appetizers and a selection of brewed-on-premises beers.  That's not to say Thr3e Wise Men doesn't take a few risks as well.

The first thing you'll notice when you enter the brewpub is the dominance of communal picnic tables.  Traditional Scotty's Brewhouse towel napkins line each one and an iPad-based menu system is available for an enhanced ordering experience.  If you don't feel like meeting a few new beer fans, there are also two seat tables, a large U-shaped bar and cocktail tables made from barrels.  Personally, I think the solid wood decor gives the entire place a more welcoming feel than the other Scotty's restaurants.

The pizza is thin crust and based on a recipe that includes their Golden Zoe IPA.  Cheese pizzas start at $7/11/13 and toppings are an additional $1.50 or $2.50.  Appetizers include pepperoni stuffed breadsticks, goat cheese marinara dipping sauce, hummus pizza and Brewhouse standbys such as dill chips and buffalo wings.  Perhaps most notably impressive is that the style of pizza they're offering has not already been done to death by other Indianapolis pizzerias.

But enough about the food; let's move on to the beer.  Omar Castrellon previously held a long tenure as brewmaster at Alcatraz downtown, so chances are you've had his beer before.  The late Alcatraz wasn't Omar's first brewing gig, so to say he's experienced is an understatement, and it shows in the initial offerings at Thr3e Wise Men.  The beer concepts are the product of Scott Wise's brewery dreams and Omar has produced recipes to fulfill those dreams.  Now that's an awkward statement.

On the lighter side of things are a well-balanced Blonde with a lemon twist and a Blackberry Wheat that carries a heavy wheat body and a simultaneously sweet and tart blackberry overtone.  Moving over to the hoppy side of things, the flagship beer of Thr3e Wise Men is a Double IPA that masks its 8% ABV incredibly well and is actually a great intro to hoppy beers thanks to a hefty malt sweetness.  The IPA, on the other hand, is full forward with hops and was my favorite beer of the initial lineup.  A Brown Ale, similar to an English Mild, is currently on their hand pull.  The Amber Ale combines the ubiquitous brewpub Amber with fruity Belgian yeast.  Stout and porter offerings include a Coffee Porter that is light in mouthfeel with a heavy coffee presence and an Imperial Stout, which carries all the chocolate and coffee notes but has the mouthfeel of a regular stout.  In total, all the beers are quite impressive for just opening and should be incredibly solid with a year of refinement and experimentation under Omar's direction.  Within the next 2-3 months we should be seeing these Thr3e Wise Men offerings available at all of Scotty's Brewhouse and Lakehouse locations.

I'm saving the best for last.  $20 gets you a carry-out large cheese pizza and a growler fill.  Other specials include $1 off pints on Mondays and Thursdays, $2.50 pints on Wednesdays and $6 growler fills on Tuesdays.  Behind the bar, it's hard to miss a row of coolers filled with six packs.  Thr3e Wise Men also offers carry-out beers from other craft breweries, just in case you'd like to compare notes.

Opening Today: Scotty's Lakehouse

Continuing our streak of deceiving Scott Wise into thinking we're a reputable news source, we were invited to check out his latest venture over the weekend. This event was fairly packed thanks to Scott's Twitter army receiving passes for spending $50 at one of the Brewhouse locations in the past week. That's okay, we still feel special.


Scotty's Lakehouse is a joint venture between the brains behind Scotty's Brewhouse and the Patachou restaurants. The two concepts are fused by offering Patachou breakfast items in the morning and a selection of organic burgers, a few Brewhouse favorites and a few new items for lunch and dinner. Although the Lakehouse features a lower number of taps than the Brewhouse locations, Indiana beer is the predominant theme. Located in Geist, Scotty's Lakehouse is the second Scott Wise location on the north side of town. Despite my general disappointment with things north of 86th Street, I am glad that they are seeing more good beer locations and local food options open up.


Upon arrival, the immediate impression is that the Lakehouse seems to be located in a hard to reach strip mall. Maybe someone in Geist can correct me and inform us in the comments that there was an easier way to arrive than we did. Nonetheless, if the crowd at the opening event on Saturday could be used as a reference point, the Lakehouse is already a destination worth seeking out. The interior decor matches that of other Brewhouse locations, which I would consider a positive thing. Lots of exposed brick and duct work, a prominent and well kept bar and of course those bar towel napkins.


The initial beer lineup

Three Floyds Pride and Joy (soon to be Gumballhead)

Mad Anthony IPA

Peoples Pale Ale

New Albanian Beaks Best

Oaken Barrel Indiana Amber

Barley Island Dirty Helen

Sun King Wee Mac

Granite City Broad Axe Stout

Upland Bad Elmer's Porter

A decent selection of wine, spirits and Coors Light are also available for people who would prefer not to drink beer. The focus of the menu is on burgers, including not only organic beef burgers, but also turkey, elk, bison and vegetarian burgers. All of the burgers we tried were very well put together with a creative combination of well designed toppings. Fried dill chips and 7 tidals dip are carry-overs from the traditional Brewhouse menu.


Burgers all run at $8 with sides of fries, coleslaw and mac and cheese (among other things) available from $3 and up. The fries were a bit too dense for my tastes, but the blue cheese coleslaw, sweet potato fries and mac and cheese were all big hits at our table. The burgers were excellent. For reference - Boogie Burger is my favorite burger joint in town. Lakehouse didn't top Boogie Burger, but it certainly rides up near the top of the list. I would love to see the Lakehouse burgers find their way onto the Brewhouse menus in the future. Another menu highlight turned out to be the condiments, especially the Beer Mustard made with Sun King Wee Mac.


Now back to something we do actually claim some knowledge on - beer. Available serving sizes are 16oz glasses, 24oz mugs and 101oz table taps. The 16oz glasses are pub glass style (think Broad Ripple Brewpub or the country of England) and the 24oz mugs are the traditional Brewhouse mugs. The 101oz table taps are these comically large glass tubes filled with beer with a tap at the bottom to dispense into individual glasses or funnels and hoses for you to lay under the table and drink out of until your server catches you and kicks you out. If you try doing that, don't tell them you got the idea from us. 16oz glasses ride between 4.50 and 5.00. On Mondays, Indiana beer, both bottled and draft, is $1 off.


The Lakehouse is definitely a welcome addition to the north side of town and their dedication to Indiana beers is quite admirable. They open up today at 4PM. Cheers to Indiana beer and great burgers!

Coming Soon to Broad Ripple: Another Hoosier Brewery

As the home of Broad Ripple Brewpub, Brugge Brasserie, and Barley Island Broad Ripple, Broad Ripple has become Indiana craft beer headquarters. As further proof to that claim, You'll soon be able to add the Scotty Wise/Mike DeWeese/Jon Lang/David Waldman brewery project to that list.

With the help of this article from IBJ.com and the details DeWeese has dropped here at HBG (here and here), we can now lay out the basics. The brewery is a joint effort between Wise (owner of the Scotty's Brewhouse chain of restaurants), and a group calling themselves Beer Baron LLC, featuring DeWeese (former owner of the previous incarnation of the downtown BW3's/Badaboomz/J. Gumbo's), Jon Lang (former head brewery at Barley Island/GABF Gold Medal Winner), and David Waldman.


In a recent conversation with Wise we were able to discover the location for the brewery - 1021 Broad Ripple Avenue, in the space that previously housed the Broad Ripple location of Sunflower Market. Conveniently located at the crossroads of the Monon Trail and Broad Ripple Avenue, the location's ample parking, extensive floorspace, and already built-in wall coolers seem like a promising start.


The brewery's bones come from a previous Indiana brewery effort - the group only had to go as far as Fort Wayne to acquire equipment for the recently closed Warbird Brewing Company. No mention has been made of the brewery's plans to bottle or can their offerings.


What remains to be seen is how the group plan to manage their brewing efforts - Wise expects the brewery to produce four or five styles for his restaurants (under the Thr3e Wise Men Brewing Co. label) in addition to the beers being produced for the Beer Baron LLC Group. Wise admitted that it's a question that has yet to be answered.

The combined experience of the group should be its strong suit. Wise's business acumen combined with DeWeese's extensive beer background and Lang's award winning brewing experience make sense on paper. "This is a new thing for me," said Wise. "We're still figuring it out."

KOTBR #77 - The Socratic Beer Method

For the latest roundtable, the KOTBR convened at the downtown location of Scotty's Brewhouse on a busy Thursday evening to enjoy a few pints, recession-buster style (pints on Thursdays go for $2.50). Our objective: to review a few beers well-suited to the warm weather months.

Those of you who are regular readers may know that I'm an educator by trade. Upon our arrival at Scotty's, we discovered that a number of my students were blowing off steam on Scotty's outdoor patio. A few of them even stopped by our table to say hello, while my fine colleagues did their best to embarrass me in front of them (to no avail, of course).

My students have worked very hard this past school year. Therefore, I've decided to dedicate my review to them by putting it into a format with which they're very familiar: the Socratic method, with a Paper Chase twist (imagine Professor Kingsfield's in-the-classroom style and you get the idea). So fasten your seat belts--it's required under Indiana law--and enjoy.


The students settle in their seats in a classroom, opening laptops, poised to take notes. The professor imperiously enters and strides to the lectern. He places a worn portfolio on the lectern, opens it, and locates the page he's looking for: a seating chart of the classroom. He then reaches behind the lectern and places a bottle of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier on top of the lectern for the class to see.

PROFESSOR: Okay, class. Let's begin today's beer discussion. Rodney?
RODNEY: Yes?
Q: What can you tell us about this beer?
A: Well, it's a refreshing--
Q: No, no, no! Have you already forgotten where you're supposed to begin? Tell us what style it is.
A: Oh, um, sorry. You see, I don't like putting labels on things or placing them in categories because that's arbitrary, and the world isn't an arbitrary place, so--
Q: My word, you're as useless as usual. Have you ever met a tangent that you didn't like? Christopher, what style of beer are we looking at here?
CHRISTOPHER: A hefeweizen.
Q: Correct. Brewer?
A: Weihenstephan.
Q: Nice pronunciation.
A: Thanks. You know, I spent a semester abroad in Germany.
Q: Good lord, there's no need to be such a suck up. Just engage me in a dialogue. Understand?
A: Sure. Sorry.
Q: Apology not accepted, but we'll move on anyway. Since you're such an expert on Deustchland, tell me why the brewer is significant.
A: I think it's the oldest brewery in the world.
Q: WRONG! Michael, why is he wrong?
MICHAEL: Technically, Weihenstephan is the oldest operating brewery in the world.
Q: Precisely. Since when?
A: Historians think that the brewery dates back to the late Eighth Century, but the brewery actually obtained its license in 1040, so that is the date that is typically referred to when discussing the founding date.
Q: Excellent. Rodney, you see what happens when you stay focused? You actually give answers germane to the subject under discussion. In other words, you'd actually know that this beer has been around since before the Norman Conquest.
RODNEY: Whatever.
Q: Insolence will get you nowhere, which is where you seem to be during each class meeting. Jessica, tell us about this beer's characteristics.
JESSICA: As the benchmark beer for the style, it pours cloudy because it's unfiltered. The color is golden and the head is cream-colored with a lot of staying power.
Q: Correct. Nose?
A: Again, true to style--clove, banana, and bread notes.
Q: Precisely. Gina, what's the taste and mouthfeel?
GINA: Mouthfeel is crisp and refreshing. Taste follows suit with the nose, with emphasis on the banana and clove characteristics.
Q: Excellent. Anyone else have anything to contribute?
RODNEY: Can I say something?
PROFESSOR: If you must.
RODNEY: You know, I really don't understand vegans. I mean, what's the deal? If you're really that upset about chickens being mistreated, why not just get free-range eggs?
PROFESSOR: What in God's name does this have to do with our discussion about this beer?
RODNEY: Jess and Gina started talking about bananas, and that made me think about apes, which made me think about Jane Goodall--you know, that lady from Gorillas in the Mist--who I heard was a vegan, and so--
PROFESSOR: And so remind me never to allow you to register for any elective course that I teach in your two remaining years of school. Class dismissed.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
Rodney 4.25 Mugs | Jess 4.2 Mugs | Gina 4.1 Mugs | Jim 4.3 Mugs | Chris 4.3 Mugs | Mike 3.0 Mugs
KOTBR Score - 4.02 Mugs



I'm not going to pretend to really understand what happened in the review above. In fact, I'm still decifering many of the lessons I learned so many years ago when I was spending my 5.5 years at SIUE. But regardless of all that, the main lesson I hope I've passed on to my students (I don't have any students) is that there's more to life and knowledge than what your professors may teach you.

That's not to say that academia is a waste - in fact, I'll pass along this bit of Socratic knowledge that many of my students (I still don't have any students) are familiar with:


Click here for a YouTube video, email readers
To be honest, I don't even have any notes on this beer. I was taking pictures, and my thoughts... well, if dust in the wind was good enough for Socrates, it's good enough for me.

The other sites will tell you that Mad Anthony IPA is a slightly better than average IPA. I'll tell you that some might say it's a syrupy looking beer with a nice foamy head. Others say it's rich and finishes smooth. I'll tell you that many of the Knights are fans, and that this beer is another example of why drinking locally makes sense.

As for Scotty's - if you were been paying attention to comments on earlier posts, we'll admit that sometimes the beer prices there can be a little high. But take it from a group of people who buy a lot of beer in a lot of bars - the Thursday $2.50 pint special is worth taking advantage of. Or even abusing. We did.

Mad Anthony IPA
Chris 4.6 Mugs | Rodney 3.75 Mugs | Jim 4.0 Mugs | Jess 3.8 Mugs | Gina 3.7 Mugs | Mike 4.0 Mugs
KOTBR Score - 3.97 Mugs

Coming soon: Scotty's Brewhouse Downtown

When you're a member of the elite blogging community you get all kinds of cool opportunities and free promotional stuff.  Or at least that's what other bloggers tell us.  We did, however, get to check out the Scotty's Brewhouse downtown location a few days prior to their opening on Monday, January 5.

Press photo of Scotty's, currently way under construction outdoors.
If you've been to a Scotty's before, you probably know the drill.  Plentiful beer selection, polished sports bar feel and slightly upscale bar food.  The plaza out front is currently under construction to allow for outdoor seating and a stage area with weekly live music during the summer.  Everyone agreed that this place is going to do great business later this year as the only downtown nightlife venue with a large outdoor seating capacity besides the Rathskeller. Downtown needs more restaurants and bars that make you actually feel like things are going on late at night.  Plus I'm crossing my fingers that this provokes the Dunkin' Donuts to be open 24-hours.




The decor was welcoming, with a classy sports bar feel.  TVs in each of the booths were a nice touch in case you want to watch professional curling, dancing with the stars or something else that everyone at the bar is going to yell at you for changing the channel to.  We also hear there are TVs in the restrooms.  Nice.  By far my favorite piece of decor was the antler chandelier. 

Nice.
So now that I've covered the general restaurant info, let's get to the beer.  The tap list sits at 30 beers with a few Guinness combinations rounding out the draft menu.  The bottle list has about the same number of options, but unlike the draft list, is mostly dominated with yellow fizzy beers.  We were happy to see crowd favorites like Brugge Tripel, Rogue Dead Guy, Barley Island Barfly, Three Floyds Gumballhead, Dogfish Head 60 Minute and Bell's Two Hearted on the menu.  The words "bud" "miller" and "coors" only occur once each on the draft list and that's a pretty big step forward by itself.





Neat hats.
I'm going to go ahead and broach the subject of beer prices as well.  I don't like that it is common bar practice to hide the prices of beer and liquor.  When a waiter hands you a wine list, it has prices.  Why do I have to guess at how much beer is?  I rant about this here only because Scotty's is doing exactly what I like to see.  They have prices clearly printed for 16oz, 23oz and pitchers.  The prices are fairly average, even a touch cheaper than many other downtown locations. If you're curious what that means, here's the draft list and here's the bottle list.

They have a mug club program available for an entry fee of $10 which allows you to drink out of a 24oz clay stein. I can't remember what all the perks are, but I do remember they fill it with any micro for $5 on Thursdays.  They also have a Wednesday pitcher special for $7 which I believe is unrelated to the mug club.  This place is going to sell more Tripel de Ripple than the Brasserie.


Scotty's opens on Monday with 50 cent wings. We recommend the mini corndogs and Kelly would kill me if I didn't push the school tray lunch thing. She has a weird obsession with elementary school lunches.

8th Annual Foresters FESTIV-ALE at Scotty's Brewhouse this Saturday

In news I've lifted from another site*....

Come on down and join us at the 8th Annual Foresters FESTIV-ALE, A Celebration in Beer Tasting to benefit the Indiana Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Hang out with 1,200 of your closest friends at Scotty's Brewhouse, where you'll find a big city blues atmosphere in a small town setting. It's this atmosphere, combined with fresh food, the finest ingredients, friendly service and a premium line of brews that have been the secret success of Scotty's Brewhouse.

The event supports the fight of cystic fibrosis (CF), the most prevalent genetic disease among young Americans today. Foresters FESTIV-ALE is expected to raise over $50,000 by recruiting approximately forty beer vendors and more than 1,200 participants. For the past two years, Foresters FESTIV-ALE event has been recognized by NUVO's Readers' Poll as one of the top three Indianapolis Summer Festivals and as one of Indy's Best Charity Events.

More info on the event can be found at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website. Tickets are $40. I know it's for charity, but ouch.

*Scotty, we need to talk. The site is just sitting here, waiting to advertise for you FOR FREE, and you don't call or write. Hell, you don't even advertise the event on your own web site. Scotty, you can do better than this.