Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Beer: Goose The Market

Goose The Market is exactly what the neighborhoods of downtown Indy need: a walking-distance store to buy quality local meat, cheese, veggies, bread and yes, maybe even some beer and wine. To say the least, I'm jealous of Fall Creek Place. But I'm also hopeful that this store will be a raging success and we'll see these kind of stores pop up in other neighborhoods (like maybe in 901 N East St.?)

If you're interested in the food angle, I'd recommend checking out Feed Me/Drink Me's review of the Saturday night open house. As for the beer selection, I was surprised to find even more beer than wine in the cellar. The best part is that the selection is almost entirely different than what Alabama Liquor stocks, meaning the beer choices close to downtown just got a whole lot better.

For example, Alabama stocks zero bombers but has the full range of Bell's beers and even gets many of their seasonal, hard-to-find beers (they recently had Special Double Cream Stout). Goose has zero Bell's offerings, but instead they've got an interesting selection of bombers, from Stone and Rogue to Samuel Smith and even some Brouwerij Lindemans lambics. They also have some great 6- and 4-packs, such as Three Floyd's Gumballhead and Bluegrass Brewing's Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout. They have quite a few beers I've seen but never tried, so I'll be back to try them out over time.

As for the wine, honestly, there wasn't a whole lot that I recognized. Not that that's a bad thing -- variety is good! -- but I'd be shooting blind if I bought anything there.

Quick note: all beer is cellar temperature, not chilled.

5 comments:

Kevin said...

I visited The Goose last night. It's awesome. I believe that the live-work condos at 25th and Delaware are my favorite new buildings in Indy, and I'm glad there's now actually a destination worthy of revisiting. I really wanted to try some of that gelato, that will have to wait for another time.

If there's a miracle and something like this was allowed in Chatham Arch, you could bet they'd change their tune about that project and embrace it. They have an irrational fear of the unknown; there's no way any place that gets a large amount of car traffic would go into that small space.

Matt said...

I would like to make it over there this week. What did you think about the prices?

I was at the Sunflower market and they had Stone bombers for 3.99. I was a little pissed it was on Sunday.

CorrND said...

Kevin -- ugh, Chatham Arch irritates me. Wouldn't you love to go door-to-door asking the residents the top couple reasons they live downtown and the top couple things that bug them about downtown? I don't understand the mentality of that neighborhood and I'd love to figure it out.

Matt -- I'd say the prices were decent. Maybe a touch high, but that's probably to be expected for a shop of this kind. Goose is a bit higher than the Sunflower prices. They had Stone IPA for $4.75 and Ruination for $5.75 (I actually got a bottle of this). I've mentioned before that I don't buy bombers too much, so you can probably tell me better if their prices are decent.

I should say before you go that it's by no means a large selection. But given its focus as a relatively small neighborhood shop, it's very respectable.

Matt said...

I tend to buy in bombers. The really big beers tend to come in bombers so that is why I buy them.

Party Pak is pretty much 4.99 across the board for all of their Stone bombers except for the Vertical series.

The 3.99 at the Sunflower market was is a great price. They had Ruination, IPA, and Arrogant Bastard. Double Bastard should be coming shortly. They actually have a respectable beer selection there as well.

I will check them out. I think it's great something like this is popping up though.

thefens said...

I'm very interested in checking out the food. As of late, I've been obsessing over autumn menus and I'd like to see what kind of local, seasonal produce they offer. I also want to check out their meat selection. I'm a huge fan of O'Mailia's meat counter. I'm interested in seeing if The Goose can give the big O a run for their money.