Thursday, June 26, 2008

Beer: Indiana Beer Week

Just noticed over at the Brewers of Indiana Guild webpage that they've announced details for Indiana Beer Week. This is the first time that they're having a full week of celebration for Indiana breweries, brew pubs and beer bars. The events culminate with the annual Indiana Microbrewers Festival in Broad Ripple on Saturday July 19th.

There's way too much information to fully summarize, so I suggest you go check out the calendar yourself and see what looks interesting to you. A couple highlights:
  • Brugge will be kicking off Indiana Beer Week with the official opening of their upstairs expansion on Saturday, July 12th.
  • Brew pubs and beer bars around the state will be doing a "tap swap" with beers on tap in locations where they aren't normally available. Of note, a couple New Albanian beers will be in Indy -- St. Rategund's English Pale Ale at Brugge and Community Dark at Spencers -- and a Three Floyds beer called Alpha Naught will be available at Brugge. On Beer Advocate, Alpha Naught is listed as a "retired" American Barleywine.
  • A "VIP Brewmaster's Dinner" will be held the night before the beer festival. Chef Greg Hardesty -- until very recently the chef at Elements in downtown -- will be doing the food. No word on the menu yet. It costs $75 and reservations are available by stopping at Brugge Brasserie or Broad Ripple Brewpub.

2 comments:

Matt said...

I was thinking 'cool a different Three Floyds beer' Then I read Barleywine. Bleggghhhh.

Erik Huntoon said...

Well I finally got a chance to look over that calendar and I am utterly blown away with what the Indiana beer scene is doing these days. It's funny to me that Indiana ranks way down at the bottom in terms of craft beer sales, yet we have some of the most organized brewers in terms of coordinating things. I have talked to the brewmaster of Mickey Finn's in Chicago and he was astonished when he saw what was going on in this state and flatly stated that Illinois was well behind us in terms of brewing.

Anyway, looking forward to checking some of these events out. Maybe all of us Naptown bloggers can coordinate some informal get togethers?