true brew (excerpt)

TrueBrew

Photographs by Kris Arnold

A Guide to CrAft Beer in indiAnA

riTA T. Kohn

Bloomington & Indianapoliswww.iupress.indiana.edu1-800-842-6796

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INDIANAUniversity Press

$19.95

Beer & Wine

Cover photos by Kris Arnold

During the seventy-fifth anniversary year of the repeal of Prohibition, an emerging generation of Indiana craft beer brewers sat down with their friend and fellow beer aficionado Rita T. Kohn for in-depth interviews on the trials and tribulations of pursuing their passion. The result is a fascinating social history of the growth of handcrafted beer within the state. True Brew vibrantly details the brewers’ journeys in the creation and sharing of their brews. Continuity, interconnectedness, and civic concern are themes that permeate their sto-ries, but readers may be surprised by the brewers’ strong advocacy for restoring buildings, invigorat-ing neighborhoods, and practicing sustainability. Join Kohn, Indiana’s leading brew masters, and a burgeoning crop of homebrewers as they reflect on the historical, cultural, social, and economic con-tributions made to Indiana by one of the world’s oldest beverages.

Rita T. Kohn is a senior writer for NUVO News-weekly where her weekly “Beer Buzz” column appears along with her reviews of the arts. She is senior editor of Always a People: Oral Histories of Contemporary Woodland Indians and editor (with James W. Brown) of Long Journey Home: Oral Histories of Contemporary Delaware Indians (both Indiana University Press).

“Breweries have always reflected the tastes and culture of society. In no place is that more true than Indiana. Our ever-evolving appetite for Hoosier beers has changed for the better and Rita Kohn has captured the process as it happens.”

Bob Mack, World Class Beverages

“The stories in this book . . . illuminate constant change grounded in a love of tradition [and] involve us in all aspects of the craft beer industry.”

Kevin McKinney, editor and publisher, NUVO Newsweekly

Kris Arnold is a profes-sional photographer and a web developer for the Indianapolis Museum of Art. His work has appeared in NUVO Newsweekly, Gambit Weekly, and Terrorizer magazine.

Indiana

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xi List of Photographs

xiii Foreword by Johnny Fincioen and Claudine Van Massenhove

xv Preface: Learning Our Story Is a Journey

xix Acknowledgments

Part 1. The Background

5 A History of Brewing: From Iraq to Indiana in 120 Centuries: Bob Ostrander

13 Brew Heads: Local Brewers Gather for First-Ever Roundtable

24 Beer Judging: Paul Edwards

28 Homebrew Supply: Joan Easley

32 Homebrew Supply: Anita Johnson

Part 2. The Brewers

41 Central Indiana

42 Lafayett e Brewing Company

53 Half Moon Restaurant & Brewery

61 Brass Monkey Brewing Company

64 Barley Island Brewing Company

74 Rock Bott om Restaurant & Brewery Downtown

78 Rock Bott om Restaurant & Brewery College Park

83 Ram Restaurant & Brewery

88 Sun King Brewery

90 Alcatraz Brewing Company

93 Broad Ripple Brewpub

97 Brugge Brasserie

108 Oaken Barrel Brewing Company

123 Upland Brewing Company

133 Bloomington Brewing Company

147 Northwest Indiana

148 Mishawaka Brewing Company

158 Shoreline Brewery & Restaurant

169 Crown Brewing Company

176 Back Road Brewery

179 Th ree Floyds Brewing Company

181 Brickworks Brewing Company

Contents

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Easley Winery

205 North College AvenueIndianapolis, IN 46202317-636-4516www.easleywine.com

Joan Easley, founding owner, winemaker/homebrewer

I think there is a resurgence of homebrewing. They are young fellows who like the real good beers and the brewpubs, but we’re into hard times, and they now prefer to commit them-selves to making beer as good as that. Now then, if they come in and tell me they drink Miller Lite or something like that, I tell them they’re wasting their time homebrewing and to just go buy a six-pack because they’re not saving money homebrewing. But if they are into the Guinnesses or good ales, then they should start brewing because they will save a lot of money.

It just seems like a whole new generation is coming along. We are still carrying kits, only now they are professionally made kits. Back when I started in 1974, they were not. We would just get a good recipe and put a kit together. What started me on all this is that I went to a meeting, I believe, in Akron, Ohio, and Char-

lie Papazian sat next to me at this conference for people who sold beer and wine. I got all excited by meeting him and reading his book, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, and seeing how he got going at it, and I started making beer myself. What’s so funny is at that time there were these little tiny bottles that Miller’s had put out, and I started making homebrew and bottling some of those. When people would come in, I’d say, “Here’s the recipe, and this is what it tastes like.” And I’d make up a kit, and they’d go home with it. But now the kits are fabulous. They don’t go as far as whole grain; they are concentrate [malt extracts]. A lot of people don’t want to go to all-grain, and I had to get out of the all-grain business be-cause it attracts too many little critters. But I have all the other grains that are flavor grains. The brewers who are into whole grain are get-ting their big sacks and other things at Great Fermentations. Anita Johnson is wonderful. She takes care of those guys. When I get whole grain people, I send them to her. We’re very, very happy competitors.

In the early days I’d brew a batch almost every week from some recipe Charlie had in his book so I could get people to try them and buy the kits I put together and homebrew.

Homebrew SupplyJoan Easley


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The Background30

Back then there weren’t many homebrewers. John Hill was one of the first ones, and Paul Edwards, who was president of Foam Blow-ers for many years. And I remember Greg Christmas. They encouraged me to start car-rying a lot of hops, so I planted hops. In the fall when the hops were ready, I’d give them a bag and say, “Go over there right in front of our garage building on the next street and pick your hops.” So they had fresh hops to throw in, and they were just so excited. When I planted those hops, I bought three different kinds, but what happened was I had a little boy help me plant that day, and he mixed them all up, so I never really knew which were the Hallertauer [German “Noble”] and which were the others. We just knew they were good hops in mixture. Mystery hops started growing up around the telephone pole, and the telephone people don’t like that, so they would send someone out to cut them down. Of course, cutting them down didn’t do the job. They’re still growing. They come up no matter what. That’s neat. A lot of the guys are growing their own hops now. I used to sell hop plants, but I don’t now.

From the beginning I thought there had to be a club because they needed to get in contact with one another. In the very beginning it was just individuals. It was Paul Edwards, I believe, who called a meeting. Paul was the big guru then. [Laughter] I don’t think I formally joined the Foam Blowers. They had meetings here in the early days. We learned so much from each other. Charlie Papazian came to town, and we learned you had to keep your hops refriger-ated. I didn’t at first, and I noticed they were changing colors. You had to figure it out for yourself. Some of the guys were always talking about going to Seibel in Chicago, so I’m glad to know some did go.

My husband and I were home winemakers. He was a lawyer, but he always wanted to go into some business. He came home one day and said, “What do you think if we started a vineyard? Some land is available in southern Indiana.” So we went down there, and we started planting in Crawford County. It all started because some newspaper editor from the East brought some hybrid grapes over from France and found out that they did re-ally well in the Midwest. Until then, the only grapes around here were Concord, Delaware, Catawba, the sweet grapes. His article in a wine publication got my husband really in-terested. So after that it was back and forth, back and forth every weekend when the kids were little, taking care of these grapes. And then after about four years we had grapes, so what were we going to do with them? He knew we were going to start a winery; he just didn’t warn me about it. [Laughter] We could have gone down there and done a farm type thing, but his law practice was here and the children were in school, so we looked at three places in Indianapolis. This place was for sale, there was a house out on 16th Street with land to plant grapes around it, and the Water Company pumping station that’s now in White River State Park. It’s a little building that would never have been right for us. We bought this building and put his law office over here in the front of the building and made wine back here, with a little tiny tasting room. He died in 1997, and Mark, my son, took over. Jack wouldn’t have been happy about that, because he felt there was no money in the wine business. He had talked with people in California who said it took them three generations before they made any money because you keep putting back into it and back into it. Mark married Meredith,


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31Homebrew Supply

and she’s the best thing that ever happened. She just loves this place, loves putting on the parties, loves buying for the gift shop. I feel so good about handing the whole thing over to them because they have connected tremen-dously with the community.

We were selling the winemaking things, so I said, “Let’s sell beer making things, too. I’ll learn how to make beer.” I started reading the books. At the very first wine competition at the Indiana State Fair, I got a medal for my Concord wine. We were home winemak-ers then. I look back and think, if only I had known where it was going to reach. Concord was what we were growing then, so it was from our own grapes. We didn’t yet have our good hybrid grapes. But now we get grapes from everywhere. We don’t grow all of our grapes anymore. We buy from farmers in the busi-ness, so we have Indiana hybrid grapes, and we bring in some from California and some from Michigan. We got a gold medal last week at the competition in Story, Indiana, for our Cayuga White. I just love this kind of work, whether it’s wine or beer.

It’s so much fun to read Charlie’s book. He’s a fun person and so well recognized in Colorado. He was the guru. There’s no doubt about it, and that book of his made more brew-ers than anything or anyone else. I say to peo-ple who come in and want to make beer or are thinking of making beer, “Don’t buy the kit now. Just buy this book, and if you decide you want to make beer after you read this book, come back and I’ll give you the money back when you buy the kit because there is a book as part of the kit.” Once they read Charlie’s book, if they are at all interested, they become sold

100 percent. Charlie is the funniest, happiest brewer I ever knew in my life. All of these early guys were all of his fans.

We had our picture taken together when Charlie came to the Ram for a new edition of his book several years ago. He went around to the brewpubs across the country. The one we sell now is an even newer edition.

Most of the new homebrewers who come in here start out independent. If they get really interested and go to all-grain, I ship them to Great Fermentations, and then I think many join a club. But I’ve got customers who have been homebrewing for years and years, and they are still using kits. They don’t want to be bothered with all that other stuff. But some of those fellows actually have little breweries at their home. I have found they are usually in the technical type professions, and through the years I’ve noticed a lot of them have facial hair. They are computer people and engineers. I don’t think I’ve ever sold a beer kit to a sales-man! I always ask them what they do, so that’s just a personal observation.

Right now we’re going back to homebrew-ing. I’m selling lots of kits to first-time brew-ers. They don’t know a thing about it, but they’ve heard you can make it much cheaper than you can buy it. The complete kits are just fabulous—for example, this kit for Bold Rus-sian Imperial Stout. These kits are what gets them going. In the early days, everything was just basic. Now there are so many options for homebrewing. We’re expanding our storage space to accommodate it all.

Interview April 30, 2009, at Easley Winery


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Great Fermentations

5127 East 65th StreetIndianapolis, IN 46220317-257-9463anita@greatfermentations.comwww.greatfermentations.com

Anita Johnson, owner

I have loved beer most of my adult life. When I worked in Chicago during the summers—I worked for my brother and we worked all of the time—one of our favorite things when we came home at night was to have Augsburger Dark, which was my favorite, with a salad, go to bed, get up, and do it the next day. So in 1980–81 I was drinking Augsburger Dark, and I loved it, and then we always tried to drink dif-ferent beers when we traveled, and we enjoyed that. I can remember hosting a huge Brazil-ian Carnivale here in Indianapolis, as part of Partners in the Americas, which partners In-diana with Rio Grande de Sud. We imported beer from Brazil. There was a lot left over, so we went through that, and it started us on a craft beer journey. I remember being in Wash-ington, D.C., and going to a pub and saying, “Are there any local beers?” We got Sam Ad-ams, and we loved it. Just taken by it. We came

back here and couldn’t find it for a couple of years. We’d ask for Sam, Sam something. And they’d offer us Sam Smith, and it was always a disappointment.

I love food; I love beer pairing; I love to cook. Then a friend said, “I make beer; I make beer; I make beer.” I kept trying to get my hus-band to make beer, and he would never take the bait. So my friend invited us over to his house to try his homebrew, and I remember going down to his basement to pour a pint from his Keg-o-liter, and my eyes opened as I tried it. It was the best beer I’d ever had in my life. I asked him to come over and teach us how to do it. He said, “Sure, as long as you make me dinner.” I asked, “What do you want?” He said, “Fish sticks and macaroni and cheese from a box.” He took me to another homebrew shop here in town. We looked at equipment, then came to Great Fermentations and bought our equipment and started on this journey. Then the store was going out of business, and my husband said, “How would you like to own your own homebrew shop?” The roles were re-versed. I was badgering him to start brewing. Now he was badgering me to quit my job and open a homebrew shop. With very little fore-thought and business plan, we did it, and I’m

Homebrew SupplyAnita Johnson


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The Background34

glad we did it. That was in 1985, at 86th Street across from North Central High School, then Broad Ripple, and now here. We’ve gone from 1,000 square feet to 4,000 square feet, and we’re starting to burst at the seams.

It’s exciting. There are a lot of changes. It’s growing, and it’s growing a lot. I see that peo-ple are more interested in the food and bever-ages that they consume; a “buy local” kind of movement, slow-food and the craft beer side of things talking about beer/food pairings, not just consumption. I see interest in the qual-ity of food and beverage. The quality of the collective brewing and beer knowledge is so much better than even thirteen years ago when I started. You have the internet. You have the people who come in who have watched videos of brewing on YouTube, which is for learn-ing as well. You have podcasts that talk about very technical, geeky parts of brewing which are available to anybody at no cost. You have shows that are brewing to style. You have the brewing network, which talks about technical brewing subjects weekly. The collective brew-ing knowledge is so much greater. On a local level you have a couple of homebrew clubs that have inner competitions. There’s so much more knowledge; it can be knowledge of tech-nical or scientific parts, or it can be creative. We’ve seen an interest in wood-aged beers, and that came from the craft industry. We’ve seen a greater interest in Belgian beers, which Brugge in Broad Ripple started. It goes both ways because homebrewers influence com-mercial and craft beer brewers. We have the Pro-Am Competition at the Great American Beer Festival, where a homebrew recipe that has won an award is brewed by a home and professional brewer in a brewery and submit-ted for competition. You have styles like clas-sic American pilsner that were reintroduced

by homebrewers. There is a nice transfer of knowledge.

There is a rhythm to life. In your late 20s you still don’t have a lot of disposable income. When you are closer to 30, you have a little bit more income, you have a little bit more time; then you get a girlfriend, so you brew a little bit less—or a little bit more. And then when children come, it trails off quite a bit, and then when the children are a little bit older, you pick it back up. Probably 35–55 is where we see most of our brewers, and most of them are men; very few women. There is a study going on in Colo-rado to find out why there aren’t more women brewers. I don’t know why that is, since I’m active in the community, yet we just don’t see a lot of women brewing. Professionally in In-diana we have two female head brewers and one assistant.

Our store is a lot more technical than most stores. We probably have a larger percentage of all-grain brewers than most, but the vast majority are still in extract and green brewers. I think the reason is we are all so pressed for time that you can’t always dedicate six or eight hours to a batch of beer on a Saturday. There is too much negotiating with your spouse. You’ve got to negotiate with your job to find that block of time.

We still get the occasional customer who hasn’t heard there’s a hops shortage, but as soon as they see the price of hops, it is driven home that there is a hops shortage. I think it’s going to make us better brewers. There is go-ing to be something good to come out of this. I think we wasted a whole lot of hops for the wrong reasons. I think we can’t hide behind hops; we can’t hide behind malt anymore. We’re going to be making more delicate beers that are harder to make. It’s going to make us better brewers. We all go through a time when


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we want to make higher alcohol beers, more hoppy beers, and then we try to go back and figure out, “Hey, am I really a good brewer? Can I make a light beer that’s good?” So I think we’ll come out of this.

A lot of brewing to style has to do with hav-ing a very good competition here in Indiana where you have to brew to style to get a medal. With the local judge class where more of us are aware of it, there is more talk about brewing to style, but I also want to caution people to step back a little and enjoy it for the taste and not just that it matches a style. There’s good beer that doesn’t fit in a style. I would caution that it can’t be so rigid.

I hope there will be a growth in small com-petitions statewide. There is a porter compe-tition in New Albany. There is the Upland competition in Bloomington. It’s more of an informal competition; you get feedback on your brews. It creates a sense of community and increases your knowledge.

By state law you can’t serve beer at the In-diana State Fairgrounds during the Fair. You can serve beer during the rest of the year, but you can’t during the Fair. It really has to do with the state of religion and how people per-ceive beer. I think it’s possible now because we are looking at beer more as flavor than as alcohol, as enjoyment and savoring rather than just consuming. The way we look at beer as a complement to food or as something to savor rather than just to get the effect of the alcohol has something to do with that. But I also think because we have so many brewers in Indiana and they are becoming more organized at promoting their product—they are more pas-sionate about promoting their product—we have the ability to change the state law and make local beer available at the State Fair. I’m excited about that openness because so many

venues are purchased by a major brewery. They have the marketing budget to buy the exclusive right, but they can’t do that at the State Fair be-cause it promotes local agricultural products, and so I’m excited about that for small brew-ers’ sake because small businesses don’t have a lot of money. They have to band together to get it done. There are a lot of people who have no idea there is a new brewery in Crown Point, that Mishawaka Brewing even exists, that Mad Anthony in Fort Wayne exists. And if you ask, “How many breweries are there in Indianapolis?” they don’t know. It’s an oppor-tunity for Indiana breweries to get their name out. I know that changing this law is going to be hard. When they tried to change for Sunday sales of growlers, one of the quotes was, “We are going to keep the Lord’s Day” [an inequity with wine sales].

I think it’s important to get people to look at beer as a savory thing, to appreciate the nuances of flavor, the explosions of flavor, because if you don’t, it is just a beverage. The many layers of a barley wine—when you can lead a group through a tasting and say, “I’m serving this barley wine at a warmer tempera-ture so that you can taste all the flavors.” And then I teach by analogy, talking about vanilla ice cream with the vanilla beans. It doesn’t taste as vanilla-y when it is really frozen. So I have them take a taste of the barley wine. “Do you taste that caramel in there? Do you taste the chocolate and the coffee?” And then we go through the layers of everything. I’m always willing to lead people through a discussion. When people tell me, “I don’t like beer,” I tell them, “I am going to look at that as a challenge. I bet I can find a beer that you love.” And a lot of times I do. That is gratifying to me. So I make beer and serve it at beer festivals. I talk to groups whenever they want me. I hope people


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The Background36

here see the possibilities. I don’t do as much outside work as I used to, but ask me and I’ll do it.

The best way to describe Bill Friday is like a humming bird. He was nowhere, and he was everywhere. He would show up. He would be a fixture at Chalkies, a Greek beer bar on the Northside; he would be at homebrew club meetings all over the state. He would show up at beer tastings; he would show up at your house. He was like a humming bird in that he would pollinate and carry things all over and spread it all around. One Christmas he showed up at my house with a gift for my husband. We didn’t have a gift-giving relationship. Bill had seen or he had heard; he gathered information that my husband needed some way to hold a tube. Bill had been at Purdue one day, and he found a lab stand and snagged it out of the trash and brought it over one Christmas morning. Jim didn’t ask for it. It was just in passing that Bill found out about it and thought of my husband and brought it over. Everywhere he went, he promoted good beer and good beer with food. He loved to start with Bet Noir, a chocolate flourless cake. His card read: “Will talk beer, baseball, music—and something else.” I said,

“I’m looking for a book about Indiana historic breweries,” and he went to great lengths to find that out on the internet. He went far and away, above and beyond, to promote good beer. He really loved it.

At the National Homebrewers convention in Cincinnati, I happened to see one of his best friends, Ed Bronson, who helped found Tippecanoe Homebrewers Circle. I said, “Ed, it’s Anita Johnson.” And he recognized me. And I said, “I have a button on for Bill. Bill is here.” And he kind of cheered up.

Before Bill died, I had never seen a funeral where they had a toast. But they brought a homebrew in, and they had a toast for every-one around to join in—the essence of Bill Fri-day. He didn’t have a lot of family. His beer went to a lot of people in the homebrew com-munity. Occasionally someone shows up with a Bill Friday beer. One of them had sludge about two inches thick from the chocolate he had in it. He loved chocolate.

He was a librarian at the public library in West Lafayette.

Interview August 5, 2008, at Great Fermentations


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true brew (excerpt)

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