Brewers of Indiana Guild Winterfest - Saturday, January 24th

You may have heard the rumors, or seen the posters. Or maybe not. In any case..

The Brewers of Indiana Guild is having their first Winterfest on Saturday, January 24th from 3-7pm. This indoor tasting at the Indiana State Fairgrounds will have beer from all 27 Indiana breweries as well as from many out of state. Tickets are $15 advance and $20 at the door.

Highlights include the Cask Conditioned Firkin table which will serve 16 rotating beers served by gravity instead of CO2. Six breweries will bring their ReplicAle - a Scottish Ale that has been aged in Jack Daniels barrels.

This Winterfest will use a token system. Your entry includes 10 tokens for 4oz pours. Extras will be available ($5 for 5 tokens). Designated Driver entry is $5.

See http://www.brewersofindianaguild.com/festival.html for more information and to buy online tickets.

In addition to this info, we at Hoosier Beer Geek are attempting to help out with the organization of volunteers to work at the festival. We'll have more details shortly, but if you're interested already, drop us a line at hoosierbeergeek@gmail.com and let us know. Your help is greatly appreciated.

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.

New Years Party at Deano's Vino - Recap

Thanks to everyone who came out to our New Year's party at Deano's Vino. We hope you had a good time, and we'd love to hear your thoughts.

We'd also like to thank Bob Ostrander from IndianaBeer.com, and the folks at Brugge Beer, who once again came through for us in a big way with the gift of THUNDERMONKEY. You're better to us than we deserve.

Belgian Champagne you say?

On New Year's Eve many millions of Americans will be popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, sparkling wine most likely, but how about popping the cork on what some call Belgian champagne, (I think this is an American term) better known as gueuze (say Ger-ser while clearing your throat and you've got it). Gueuze is a blend of old and young lambic beers, and it will usually range between 4% and 6% ABV. The young and old lambic beers are usually blended, bottled, and then aged anywhere from 18 months to 36 months depending on the flavors that the brew-master or blender is looking for in their product. An aging time of at least six months is mandated by law in Belgium. The beer provides the complex flavors of young lambic like tartness and spiciness, but then the more mature features of the old lambic round out the beer. The mixing of young and old lambic is a pure art form that will change greatly from cask to cask. It could vary from 30/70 young-to-old or 70/30 young-to-old, or it could end up anywhere in-between.

The beer is also spontaneously fermented. This means that the wild air of Belgium inoculates the wort to create the beer. This beer is not like any other beer you have ever had. The normal hop presence that most beers have is gone, and it is replaced by a myriad of complex flavors ranging from sour, acidic, horse blanket funk, cider, dry fruit, and is carbonated much like a dry champagne would be. If you want authentic gueuze make sure to look for "refermented in this bottle" on anything that you are buying for the real traditional taste. This beer isn't for everyone by any means, but instead of buying that third of fourth bottle of Korbel, try a wonderful traditional gueze instead.

Commerical Examples of Gueuze: Gueuze Giradin 1882 (pictured above), Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze, Cantillion Gueuze 100% Lambic, and Lindemans Gueuze Cuvee Rene. I've personally seen all of these beers at Party Pak, but hopefully others can chime in on where they have any of these around town.

Have a safe and happy New Year

Cheers!
Matt

Reminder: HBG New Year's Party at Deano's Vino tomorrow

Hopefully you're already planning on attending, but just in case you're not - don't forget our New Year's Party at Deano's Vino (1112 Shelby St, Indianapolis (317) 423-3154) tomorrow night! Even if you're on your way somewhere else, no cover means it's easy to stop on in and have a pint or two.

We'll be kicking things at off at 9PM in our special way with limited pours of Dogfish 120 Minute IPA and Delirium Tremens ($10/pour), an all you can eat buffet ($15), and DJ Phil.

Hope to see you there.

Follow up post: What was your favorite beer of 2008?

You've seen our choice for 2008 Beer of the Year - now it's time to tell us about your favorite beer from the past year. It could be the PBR you had after you got a raise at work, the Sam Adams Utopias you bought with your Christmas bonus, or the Three Floyds Alpha King served by a waitress or waiter you ended up sleeping with. Or maybe you just had a really great beer that knocked your socks off. Let us know! Leave a comment!

The 2008 Knights of the Beer Roundtable Beer of the Year

To arrive at our candidates for the 2008 Knights of the Beer Roundtable Beer of the Year, we took a look back at all the beers reviewed during our our Roundtable sessions in 2008. In some cases, not all the Knights attended, but their familiarity with a reviewed beer allowed them to place it in their rankings.

This isn't science - far from it, actually - as it's possible that we may have decided that we like a beer more or less since the roundtable has happened. In any case, looking back, we've decided that these beers left us with the fondest of memories.

And our fondest memory of them all?

You might be saying to yourself "Go figure, they picked something bottled in 2007. How am I going to get any of that?" Well, there still might be some around if you know where to look. This is a $15+ bottle of beer, which means it usually doesn't fly of store shelves. If you're fortunate, your local beer retailer just might have a bottle. We picked up a bottle in Illinois just last month.

Can't find the 2007? Don't fret - this beer is a yearly release, and the 2008 edition (which we'll be reviewing is on store shelves right now. Is it the exact same beer? Probably not. But Mikkeller hasn't let us down yet - so it's well worth investigating.

We contacted Mikkel with the news:

I'm happy to hear you have voted Santas 07 the best beer of 2008.
From the early start I have created beers for people like you guys - the ones that really care a lot about what they are drinking and I always try and go all the way to give new beer experiences.
Santas is a dark strong belgian ale which is a rather new style to me so being able to brew your favorite beer of 2008 with this style is truly amazing!

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,
Mikkel

Thank you, Mikkel.

Our reviews of Santa's Little Helper 2007 came from our 80's Mikkeller Marathon post, which will explain the references below (posted May 16, 2008):

Jim:
Santa's Little Helper 2007. Dark brown color. Nose reminiscent of bourbon and coffee. Superb dark fruit flavor, with notes of apple, cherry, and bourbon. An exquisite beer, which was well-liked by the group. One of the best beers we've reviewed, in my opinion. Musical analog: The Clash. The Only Band That Mattered was love at first listen for me. This beer was love at first sip. 4.95 mugs.

Mike:


Gina:
Santa's Little Helper 2007 - Dark brown with a tan light head. Tastes sweet, but not alcoholic, which could lead to some trouble at 11% ABV. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - "EXCELLENT!" 4.50 Mugs

Jason:
Santa’s Little Helper: While sampling this, I imagined that I was drinking a Cherry Coke (which made its national debut in 1985) and scotch. It was spicy with whiskey flavors but sweet with cherry and caramel flavors. It is sure to brighten any dysfunctional family holiday gathering. I’m sure that Nicole Bradford wished she had a stash of this syrupy beer hidden in her room from 1987 through 1990. It certainly would have made tolerating her “Two Dads” more bearable year round. What was Judge Margaret Wilbur thinking?!? 4.67 Mugs

Matt E:
Santa’s Little Helper – This had an interesting combination of flavors and, surprisingly given the slate so far, none of them was hops. Cherries, apple cider, and whiskey abound, but there was nary a mote of hops to be found. Generally, I like hops in my beers. This time their absence made me appreciate everything else all the more. You don’t have to see or hear Vern to realize that he’s the perfect foil for Ernest P. Worrell. The fact that he’s invisible and mute allows us to appreciate the physical and character driven comedy of Jim Varney. I should know, I’ve seen every Ernest movie ever made. Betcha didn’t know that Ernest went to Africa or joined the Army…Didja?! 4.30 mugs


Individual lists:

Matt R.
1. Three Floyds Dark Lord
2. Deschutes The Dissident
3. Troegs Troegenator Doublebock
Honorable Mention: Allagash Four

Jim
1. Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper '07
2. Three Floyds Dark Lord
3. Struise Pannepot
Honorable mention: Rodenbach Grand Cru

Jason
1. Oskar Blues Gordon
2. Santa's Little Helper
3. Darklord
Honorable mention: Pannepot, Beer Geek Breakfast

Rodney
1. Mikkeller To: From:
2. Rodenbach Grand Cru
3. Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron
Honorable mention to Struise Pannepot
Not-just-your-average-beer-blog award to Upland Six-way Lambic

Jess
1. Mikkeller To: From:
2. Troegs Troegenator Dopplebock
3. Brookyln Black Chocolate Stout

Gina
1. Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper '07
2. Struise Pannepot
3. Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast
Honorable mention: Oskar Blues Old Chub

Mike
1. Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper '07
2. Three Floyds Alpha Kong
3. Struise Pannepot


Chris
1. Brugge Tripel de Ripple
2. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot 2000
3. Deschutes The Dissident

Kelly
1. Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper
2. Oskar Blues Old Chub
3. Three Floyds Dark Lord
most honorable mention indeed: Brugge Tripel de Ripple

Matt E.
1. Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper
2. Brewer's Art Green Peppercorn Trippel
3. Aecht Schlenkerla Fastenbier