And so, finally, we've got concrete Hops for Pops info

As it turns out, planning a beer festival sort of thing isn't all that easy. So after a venue change, an unending rotation of sponsors*, and a date change, Hops for Pops is a go.

The details:

The inaugural Hops for Pops charitable beer festival is being held on Saturday, June 28th from 4:00-8:00pm on Indianapolis Northside in the outlots of Hot Shotz (4705 E. 96th Street). Hops for Pops is a charitable beer event along the lines of AleFest - but benefiting Dad's Inc., the Indianapolis-based and Chris Maples founded organization with the following mission statement:

The mission of Dads Inc. is to provide support and education for fathers in order to develop healthy relationships and involvement in their children's lives.

So much like Wu Tang*, Hops for Pops is for the children! You like children, don't you?

In all seriousness, we're hoping to put on a nice event, and we'd love to have you out. Tickets are available here, at Deano's Vino, or at Hot Shotz. And maybe some other places too.

* * * * *

This note fresh from the comments - as left by Chris Maples himself:

Actually, tickets aren't at Deano's yet. They are at Hot Shotz, Barley Island, The Hop Shop and Rock Bottom - Downtown. I'm hoping to have them at Deano's & J. Gumbo's, and at least one place on the southside, too. We should know all of that by Wednesday.

The easiest way to purchase, though, is online at www.dadsinc.org. With gas prices they way the are, save the special trip and use that money on beer or the kick-ass raffle of a roundtrip for two to the 2008 GABF!!

* * * * *

*Wee! Sponsors!

*Not like Wu Tang at all, actually. Well, maybe a little bit. Chris Maples is our original ODB.

Hops for Pops Brewery List and Your Weekend Recap - Open Post

Last week I mentioned posting a brewery list for Hops for Pops. I'm pretty sure Chris Maples did ALL the legwork on this, and he's done a pretty nice job of putting together a list of Indiana's heavy hitters with a special St. Louis guest:

Upland
Schlafly
New Albanian
Rock Bottom - Downtown
Half Moon
Brugge
Barley Island
Warbird
Oaken Barrel
Wabash Valley
Mad Anthony
Broad Ripple Brew Pub

Tentative:
Bluegrass Brewing Company

It's fantastic to see such great support from the Indiana Beer community. Salute!

Chris left this in the comments for those of you reading via email:

"I'm not sure that we're going to be able to get a complete beer list prior to the event, but Cavalier is pouring Mad Anthony, plus some other stuff yet to be determined. Boston Beer will be represented with Sam Adams (not sure of styles, yet) and Twisted Tea. World Class will be pouring Victory's Golden Monkey, Prima Pils, and Hop Devil, plus Wyder's Cider. We have a limited supply of New Albanian's Elector, and when it's gone, it's gone. We still have a couple of breweries to confirm, but I'm guessing we're going to have at least 20 different breweries represented with 40-50 different styles."

In addition, we'll have raffles for a few items including a bottle of 2008 DarkLord (and if the winner sells it on Ebay I'll personally guarantee that I'll have his/her whole family killed). If I'm not mistaken, there will also be some sort of raffle for a package of airline + event tickets for the Great American Beer Fest in Denver in October.

* * * *

Although we ran listings for Friday's Indy Wine and Brew Fest at The Rathskeller and Saturday's Brew-Ha-Ha, there wasn't a large Knight of the Beer Roundtable presence at either event.

Kelly (and Matt?) did volunteer at Brew Ha Ha - but we're wondering if any readers attended either event. Judging from these pictures at Indiana Beer, there were plenty of folks at the Rathskeller event. If so, how'd it go? Any suggestion or comments that might give us ideas or tips for this weekend's Hops for Pops? Did you drink anything spectacular? Anything horrible? Drop us a comment.

The Story Behind The Story Behind Hops For Pops

This is long-winded, but please stay with me...

If somehow you weren't aware already, in just a couple weeks the people behind Hoosier Beer Geek will also be among the people behind Hops For Pops. As we've put this together, we've learned that throwing a beer festival isn't as easy as we might have suspected.

Being that this is a first time event, we're sure that there's still some surprises in store. But we're going to do our best to put on a quality event, and we're hoping that people show up. Having said all that, we at Hoosier Beer Geek don't have nearly as much riding on this event as (HBG and Dads Inc. founder) Chris Maples does.

In an effort to gain a little empathy from the general public (and to sell tickets), I sent Chris an email:

If you could do a little storytelling about how the dads inc thing started at whatnot - whatever you're comfortable sharing - a lot less formal than the official statement on the website, I think that'd be nice to include. When we were attempting to distribute posters, most folks wanted to know what Dads Inc is first.

I'm gonna do my best appeal to the sensitivities sort of post and and anything you can add in your story will help. Say something about puppies, too. Girls are really into puppies.

Also if you can have some really old people be in love and then have one of them die and then the other one die like two days later, that gets people really involved emotionally.

Ok i gotta go back to writing my screenplay for On Golden Pond 2.

Mike

Chris' response:

Mike asked me to talk about the real and personal reasons behind founding Dads Inc. – and not the vanilla stuff that’s on our website. He also asked me to talk about babies, puppies, butterflies, and old people so that you feel all mushy inside and want to buy a ticket to Hops for Pops to support such a wonderful organization. I’ll try to do that, too.

It all started about 5 years or so ago. I had just gotten married to the wonderful women who I want to grow into old people with. We were talking about having babies and all that fun stuff that, and while I wanted babies, I was scared to death of the thought of becoming a father myself. Why, you ask? I mean, such a classy, confident guy as me shouldn’t have cute little butterflies in his stomach or be afraid of a little thing like fatherhood, right?

But yet I was, and for the same reason that so many other guys are – we didn’t have the best role models on how to be good dads because our dads (while we love them) weren’t the most loving or involved in our lives, and so we didn’t really know how to do it for our kids. Hell, I wasn’t even a good father to the two puppies I had adopted, and eventually gave them away to good homes with people that could take better care of them and be better fathers to them than I knew how to. I knew, however, that my friends and I wanted desperately to be better fathers than those that we had. We just needed the skills and support to get it done. And never wanted to appear inept at a chore as simple as child-rearing, I knew men would jump at the chance to get these skills without looking like a wussy.

I figured that there was surely an organization out there that would have some classes for me to take to get my daddy skills on. I looked far and wide. The only organization I could find (while a very good & worthwhile organization) was one that only catered to a more “traditional” non-profit client – young, uneducated, unemployed, poor, and irresponsible dads. While I was young, the other four didn’t really fit (ok, well, I could be irresponsible at times, but not like to the point of just cutting out of my family’s life). I couldn’t find a single class for a guy like me.

At the same time, I was becoming more aware of and tuned into the negative portrayal of men, and fathers specifically, in mass media. For example, other than Cliff Huxtable, name me one television father of our generation that is portrayed as something other than moronic and completely and utterly inept at parenting. If you can actually name me one, I will name you 15 others that aren’t.

And what about the Robitussin commercials where mom is sick and the whole house goes into chaos because dad doesn’t know how to cook, clean up after himself, dress his kids, or provide for them in any way other than doing his job outside of the house (you know, like what it means to be a grown up)? Approved by Dr. Mom, huh? When was the last time you saw a laundry or house cleaning detergent or grocery store commercial that didn’t have a woman starring in it? I don’t know about you all, but the last time I checked my house, I do a significant amount of laundry, almost all of the grocery shopping, and even a good bit of cleaning the house. Now with a son and another child on the way, I change his diapers and get him ready for day care every morning, and I know how to get him ready for bed every night, and how to calm him when he’s upset. Hell, my wife even makes a lot more money than I do (thank God for that!).

What I’m trying to say is that the traditional gender roles have been shot all to hell, but media hasn’t caught up with that. How is this line of thinking helping to provide young boys with any sense of what it means to be a good man in today’s society? So I also wanted to see an outlet that would set the record straight on modern gender roles and the abilities of fathers and men, and to provide an accurate and balanced picture of today’s man. But again, there was nothing out there.

One of my better traits, I must admit, is that when I see something I don’t like, instead of just bitching about it, I try to change it (note, I’m not saying I don’t bitch about it, too, though). It helped that I was already working in non-profits, so I was used to being poor and living with the pressure that relying on other people’s donations for your salary so wonderfully provides. But I still hadn’t found my calling. Does that make sense? I was passionate about many things, and very socially aware of the problems the less-fortunate face. But I hadn’t found the one thing that I wanted to dedicate the rest of the productive years of my life to. It finally dawned on me one day in late April of 2005 what I needed and wanted to do – start my own non-profit that would help any man, regardless of his income level or his zip code, to be a good dad. I wanted an organization that my friends and I could go to and be welcomed at. After all, the bad stuff about not having an active and involved father in one’s life is the same regardless if you’re rich or poor, black or white. There are drugs, pregnant teenagers, and high school dropouts in Carmel just like there is in Haughville. The environment is different, but the end results are the same – generations of broken lives. And that has to change now.

And that’s exactly what Dads Inc. does. We take fathers who want to provide more for their children than just a rough over their heads, and give them the skills, support, and opportunities they need to be active and positively engaged in the lives of their children. Last year, in our very first year of offering our services, 196 dads took advantage of the opportunities we presented to get better at parenting. That’s double the amount of dads that the experts we consulted with while planning said we could expect in our wildest dreams for our first year. And we’re on track this year to blow that number out of the water. Men want and need this service we provide, and they’re proving it by showing up in herds to things we offer.

Over the last three years, I think Dads Inc. has been able to raise awareness of and promote a good civic conversation on the importance of fathers and the state of fatherhood in our community. Through our Fatherhood Hall of Fame, we highlight and celebrate men who dedicate themselves to being the ideal father – or at least coming as close as possible. We want to raise these men and offer them as examples of what is right and good about dads to our boys and girls so that they have a high standard to strive to meet when becoming adults. This work that Dads Inc. does is not just about changing today, but also about preventing bad tomorrows. We see the work we do today as having a positive impact on generations of families. After all, boys get their example of fathering from their own fathers and girls get their example of what to look for in a man from their fathers. If we make sure they have the right example, then they will model the right example for their kids, who will model the right example for their kids, etc.

As an aside, through my work and study in the field of the fatherhood movement, I started to work much harder at understanding and changing my relationship with my own father. He lives in Kentucky, and so we only see each other a couple of times a year. He’s 65 now, and certainly isn’t getting any younger. I didn’t want to regret not getting to know and understand him better after he passed away when I had the chance to before that horrible day comes. So I decided that during the few times we do get to spend together, I was going to make a very serious effort to learn about his childhood (something he rarely, if ever, spoke to me about), what he was like before I was born, what he was afraid of as a father, what his regrets were, etc. What I’ve learned so far over the last couple of years has dramatically changed the way I view him as a father and our relationship – for the better.

Again highlighting the generational impact of fathering, I discovered that his father, who I only met a handful of times, had untreated and very serious psychological problems and ferociously beat his wife and children regularly. At one point, when my dad was still very young, his father (who was in one of his bouts with his problems) lined very one of his children up outside of their house and threatened to shoot them all with his shotgun. Thankfully, a neighbor came along and stopped it, but I can’t even imagine the scars something like that leaves behind on a little boy’s mind. His father was institutionalized when he was 14, and he left home at 16 to try to better himself, never returning home.

So after coming to understand the example of fathering my dad had, I began to think he actually did a pretty damn good job of being my dad. I’m not saying he was all of a sudden a perfect dad and I’m not making excuses for some of the shortcoming he did have as a father, but I came to see that he probably did the best he could with what he had. It helped me to see how much he did actually love me, even though he didn’t really put it into words so well. Now on every trip to Kentucky, I uncover and learn something new about my dad. We talk more frequently on the phone, and I think we’ve come to understand each other better. I see the affection he shows my son, and how much he enjoys doing it. I have to admit that the little boy in me gets jealous when I see that, not really ever getting a whole lot of it myself when I was that age, but really I’m so happy that he has learned how to show that affection and is getting the chance to now as a grandfather that he didn’t take advantage of as a father.

Now, go buy lots of tickets for Hops for Pops!!

If that doesn't work, we'll have a list of brewers shortly.

More Hops for Pops Details

If you've had enough of the constant Hops for Pops news feel free to drop us a line - I promise none of us will be offended. But in the meantime, he's some more details:

Chris,

Here is the list of what we will be pouring at the event this Saturday.

Hops for Pops tasting:

Jocky Box 1
Weihenstephaner Dunkel
Gaffel Kolsch

Jocky Box 2
Founders Red’s Rye
Stone Ruination IPA

Jocky Box 3
Mad Anthony Old Woody Pale Ale
Boulder Beer Mojo IPA

Jocky Box 4
Sea Dog Blue Paw Berry
Berghoff Dark Ale

Bottles:
Pizza Beer
Original Sin Cider
Celis White
Mad River Steel Head Porter
Fort Collins Pomegranate Wheat
Achouffe Houblon
Clipper City Organic Raspberry Wheat
Butte Creek Organic Pale Ale
Lake Front Fuel Café Stout
Coney Island Albino Python
Breckenridge Summerbright
Corsendonk Apple White

Greg Blackman
Sales Manager
Cavalier Distributing, IN

and...

Chris,

Here are the beers I’d like to pour on Saturday. I’ll try to scrape up a surprise or two by Saturday also.

WABASH TABLE –
Cannonball Porter, Hazy Days Wheat, Gangster Pale, Harvest Amber

WORLD CLASS TABLE 1 –
Bell’s Oberon, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, Flying Dog Woody White, Avery Collaboration Not Litigation

WORLD CLASS TABLE 2 –
Victory Prima Pils, Victory Hop Devil, Victory Golden Monkey, Atwater Vanilla Java Porter

WORLD CLASS TABLE 3 –
Dinkelacker Pils, Wyder’s Pear Cider, Franziskaner Hefe-weisse, Buffalo Bills Orange Blossom Cream Ale

Bob Mack
World Class Beverages
2007 GABF "Craft Distributor of the Year"

I think of particular interest to the veterans of the craft beer game may be the inclusion of 90 Minute (always a favorite) and a nice lineup of Victory's beers, which are new to Indiana.

We really are doing our best to put on a heck of an event, so we hope to see you there.

Hops for Pops

As I mentioned last week, The Hop Shop and Dads Inc. were planning to team up to offer a large charity beer festival in the spring, with all proceeds going to Dads Inc. Courtney and I met on Monday to finalize some ideas and start some others.

Hops for Pops (only the working name - please, please suggest some others!) will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, April 19, 2008, most likely in the outlots of where The Hop Shop is located. We know this is the same day as the Race for the Cure, but their thing is in the morning, so we're hoping that after all the walking and running, those people will want to come up and drink some good beer! We're going to try for all the in-state breweries, and some of our favorites from the midwest, the nation, and one or two foreigners.

We want to do a few things differently than most beer fests - we really want to use this event for good beer education, too. One idea we're kicking around is having a Brewers Roundtable, and some other events that highlight the craft beer industry.

Tickets for the event will probably be $25 in advance, $30 at the door, with a special low price for DDs. We will also probably do I VIP ticket that will get you into the Roundtable and few other things. Just put it on your calendars, and as I get more info, I'll pass it on.

New Date for Hops for Pops

Since Three Floyds just had to go and schedule Dark Lord Day for April 19th, the date for the Hops for Pops beer festival has been changed to to coincide with Father's Day. The new date is Saturday, June 14th (day before Father's Day). So now you have an excuse to drag your dad out drinking with you! Location is still the same - the outlots in front of The Hop Shop. More info to come at a later date.

Final Hops for Pops Beer List

If I don't post this, Maples has me killed.

Well, Hops for Pops is tomorrow, 4-8pm, on the outlots of Hot Shotz (96th and Gray Road, Indianapolis). Will it be an overwhelming success? An underattended money pit? Somewhere in the middle? Might I be sporting a mustache? SHOW UP AND FIND OUT.

Today's the last day to get discounted tickets, so if that's something you're interested in, click here. They're $30 today, $40 tomorrow.

And here's the as close as we're gonna get to final beer list - lots of interesting and new stuff in there, so I think there's definitely something for everyone.

CAVALIER
Weihenstephaner Dunkel
Gaffel Kolsch
Founders Red’s Rye
Stone Ruination IPA
Mad Anthony Old Woody Pale Ale
Boulder Beer Mojo IPA
Sea Dog Blue Paw Berry
Berghoff Dark Ale
Pizza Beer
Original Sin Cider
Celis White
Mad River Steel Head Porter
Fort Collins Pomegranate Wheat
Achouffe Houblon
Clipper City Organic Raspberry Wheat
Butte Creek Organic Pale Ale
Lake Front Fuel Café Stout
Coney Island Albino Python
Breckenridge Summerbright
Corsendonk Apple White

WABASH VALLEY
Cannonball Porter
Hazy Days Wheat
Gangster Pale
Harvest Amber

WORLD CLASS
Bell’s Oberon
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Flying Dog Woody White
Avery Collaboration Not Litigation
Victory Prima Pils
Victory Hop Devil
Victory Golden Monkey
Atwater Vanilla Java Porter
Dinkelacker Pils
Wyder’s Pear Cider
Franziskaner Hefe-weisse
Buffalo Bills Orange Blossom Cream Ale

BARLEY ISLAND
Sheet Metal Blonde
Dirty Helen Brown
Barfly IPA
Count Hopula Double IPA

UPLAND
Preservation Pilsner
Wheat

BRUGGE
White
Black
Tripel de Ripple

SCHLAFLY
Pale Ale
Hefeweizen
Dry-Hopped APA
Number 15
Export IPA
Raspberry Hefeweizen

WARBIRD
T-6 Red Ale
Mustang Gold Ale
Thunderbolt Wheat
Warhawk Pale Ale

HALF MOON
Old Ben Brown
Elwood’s IPA
Seasonal

OAKEN BARREL
Razz Wheat
Gnaw Bone Pale Ale
Alabaster Belgian Witbier
Indiana Amber

NEW ALBANIAN
Elector Imperial Red Ale

BROAD RIPPLE
India Pale Ale
Lawn Mower Pale Ale

ROCK BOTTOM - DOWNTOWN
Hefe
Sugar Creek Pale Ale
Maibock
Saison

HOP SHOP
Hoppin’ Frog Mean Manalishi Double IPA
Dark Horse Crooked Tree IPA
Dogfish Head Aprihop
Coney Island Lager
Jever Pilsener

Hope to see everyone tomorrow.

Random Beer Roundup - The Winterfest 2011 Edition

Are you all ready for Winterfest?  If you are still looking for tickets we have a pair to give away, so be sure to check that out.

If there is something coming up that is not listed, we would love to hear about it. News, reviews, info, etc., to share for our next Random Beer Roundup can be submitted to hoosierbeergeek@gmail.com. Don't see your favorite craft beer establishment? Let them know you'd like to see them here! Work for an establishment that serves craft beer? We want to hear from you too!

Hoosier Beer Calendar

Events are subject to change

From the Brewers:

From Andrew at Ram Brewery in Indianapolis/Fishers:

Be sure to stop by the RAM booth at Winterfest. We are going to be unveiling a Winterfest-exclusive secret release at 4 p.m.! If I told you what it was, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

2 new beers coming! On Thursday, February 3rd, both locations will be releasing Ole St. Mick’s Irish Red at 5 p.m. Ole St. Mick’s pops with caramel and toffee malt flavor finished by a slight roast undertone. If that wasn’t enough, the 999th batch in the history of the Indianapolis RAM, In Hops We Trust, is ready for its grand release! Brewed with heavy doses of American hops, this Imperial IPA at 8.6% ABV and 147 IBUs is going to scream with citrus and herbal hop flavor. To commemorate this momentous occasion, we are going to host two tappings starting with Wednesday, February 9th at 7 p.m. at our Downtown Indy location. As a food pairing, Chef Steven Anderson will be featuring an Indian specialty, Chicken Tikka Masala, for one night only. We will also be celebrating with our Northside friends on February 10th at 6:30 p.m. at our Fishers location. Fishers Chef David Blair has a couple tricks up his sleeve for that night as well. Come out to help us celebrate 999 brews of RAM goodness!

Also, homebrewers - don't forget to sign up for the Ram Small Ale competition.

From Jerry at Rock Bottom Brewery - Downtown in Indianapolis:

Well Hop Bomb is back this weekend, and if you haven't tried the Trouble, I feel like it turned out perfect for a Tripel (if you can say that for a Belgian style?).

At the Bar

From Corrie at Goose the Market in Indianapolis:

Now on the shelves at the Goose...

If I said I didn't like Boulevard's Dark Truth Stout (now in handy 12oz bottles!), it'd be a white lie.

It's part of a well balanced breakfast...for dragons: New Holland's Dragon's Milk, a stout that woke up in an oak barrel.

Do you know the color of Upland's Schwarz?

A Very Special Random Beer Roundup

Adding "A Very Special" to anything automatically increases interest 100%. Be sure to check out A Very Special Hops for Pops this weekend.


If only there were some sort of prize for something like this..
It's not drinking, it's celebrating Indiana - The Brewers of Indiana Guild* has posted a calendar up for Indiana Beer Week (July 10-19, 2008). Of special interest might be the cross-tapping of beers throughout Indianapolis (starting Monday, July 14th):

Alcatraz Brewing will have Half Moon Honey Rye
Barley Island Brewing will have Three Floyds Gumballhead and Warbird Shanty Irish
Broad Ripple Brewpub will have Lafayette Brewing Tippecanoe Common
Brugge Brasserie will have Half Moon Honey Rye, Mad Anthony Cream Stout, New Albanian St. Radegund's English Pale Ale and Three Floyds Alpha Naught (in the upstairs addition, opening Saturday July 12 (you guys are absolutely sure, right?))
Ram Restaurant and Brewery will have Turoni's Main Street Helles Bock (anyone got any idea on this beer?)
Spencer's Stadium Tavern will have Shoreline Beltaine Scottish Ale and New Albanian Community Dark

For those of you in Columbus, Power House Brewing will have Brass Monkey Green Tea Pale Ale on tap starting Monday July 14th - this is a tasty and interesting beer, so get it while it lasts.

Also of note is a post beer week (Thursday, July 24th) Indiana Replicale Face-off at Spencer's Stadium Tavern Indy. We're going to make a concerted effort to attend.

For all the Indiana Beer Week details, click here to visit their overwhelmingly eventful calendar.

* * * * *

If somehow you missed the INBEV/Budweiser takeover news, don't worry about Budweiser.. Schlafly is attempting to buy INBEV. (Hat tip, StlHops.)

Of note is that if the INBEV thing goes through, and with MillerCoors actually owned by a South African company, Sam Adams will become the largest American brewery. So I guess that makes Boston Lager "The Great American Lager". Next time someone gives you crap about your choice of craft beer over the Big Two, ask them what they have against George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Glenn Danzig, Hacksaw Jim Dugan, (vintage) Jenna Jameson and Big Bird (all great Americans).

* * * * *

*Not to be confused with the Brewers Guild of Indiana or the Indiana Guild of Brewers or the Guilded Brewers of Indiana

The final harrassment of this type on this day

The responses to our readers survey have been impressive - as of this very second 48 fine readers have chimed in with their thoughts on all things HBG. We are now nearing the time in which we'll tally the results, finding out just what it is we're doing right and wrong.

But first we'd like to poke those of you who haven't answered yet with a stick.

So if you haven't responded yet, please do so here. As a reward for your participation, those of us who do not worship Satan (Jim, Jason, and sometimes Kelly) promise to say a prayer for you. We can't promise it'll be a good prayer, but it'll be a prayer nevertheless.

The link to the survey is right here. Thanks again.


* * * * *

And in case you missed it (shame on you), DIG-B reports that Badaboomz features $1.75 pints this evening (Monday 4/7/08). For cheap beer prices, that's as good as it's ever gonna get. The Hops for Pops planning committee (featuring more than one Knight of the Beer Roundtable) will be in attendance - will you?

Scenes from the 2nd Annual Bloomington Craft Beer Festival

Starting a beer event from scratch is always a tricky proposition. (Anyone remember Hops for Pops?) While the math seems easy enough (Beer = People), the summer months provide plenty in the way of entertainment options, and weather is always a wildcard. Last year's Bloomington Craft Beer Festival, an outdoor event held at the beautiful Woolery Mill, had most of the right ingredients. But as most first time beer events go, attendance was not as strong as the organizers might have hoped.


At Saturday's 2nd Annual Bloomington Craft Beer Festival, a few things fell into place. The now-finished venue allowed for covered Mill building space, the weather was hot but not unbearably so, and the ever-expanding Indiana brewery scene meant there was plenty of opportunity to not just drink, but to converse with the folks behind the beer.


We spent the day behind the Brugge table, pouring samples of Black, Tripel de Ripple, and Peony - a new chardonnay-barrel-aged Brugge sour. Attendees looked to be enjoying themselves, with an almost full showing of Indiana breweries on display, along with out-of-state tables from festival sponsor World Class Beverages. We also saw new breweries such as Columbus' Zwangzigs and Whiting's Bulldog Brewing Company.


I suspect that this year's event has proven that there's enough momentum to keep this event going. We look forward to its continuing growth, and our continued attendance.

Hops for Pops Needs Help

As you may have noticed before, Dads Inc. (with the help of Hoosier Beer Geek) is throwing a beer festival! Except none of us know how to throw a beer festival.

We're looking for a few great men and women to help us along the way. If you've got any experience with how these things work, we want your input. Please send an email to (Dads Inc. main dude and HBG founder) Chris Maples (maples@dadsinc.org) if you're willing to help. And if you know what you're doing, that's even better.

Chef JJ's Hell Night IV

Chef JJ's Back Yard hosts a number of beer related events throughout the year, ranging from the recent Sun King GABF preview dinner to the yearly Make It Local dinner associated with the Microbrewers Festival.  Each one pairs craft beer with food prepared exclusively on the Big Green Egg.  While the Back Yard only hosts events, the Big Green Bistro takes food trucks to a whole new level with a tour bus sized mobile grilling facility.  One of the most unique events, and my favorite, is the annual Hell Night.

Hell Night wouldn't be possible without the chile growing prowess of Jim Campbell.  Jim is a firefighter on the northwest side who has a respectable side business of running a chile farm.  The chiles produced on Jim's farm are used by many hot sauce producers, including such big names as CaJohn's, Dave's and Blair's.  While the opportunity to sample the world's hottest peppers is worth the price of admission, Chef JJ's takes the event even further by donating half of the ticket price to Jim's charity - Step Up for Charity.  Step Up for Charity is an umbrella organization that benefits charities such as Lt. General Timothy J Maude Foundation, Jason M Baker Scholarship, Lt. Jim Cleek Scholarship, American Lung Association's "Fight for Air Climb" and Pike Fire Just Cause.

Now Jim's crop was not spared by this year's intense drought.  His harvest was weak and he wasn't able to bring the large spread he normally does.  Luckily, the chilehead community is strong, much like the brewing community.  CaJohn's stepped up and donated a variety of the world's hottest peppers for the event.  The most mild pepper on the table that night was the Red Scotch Bonnet Pepper.  Climbing up the scale, multiple variants of the Bhut Jolokia (ghost pepper), Trinidad Scorpion, Trinidad Maruga Scorpion, 7-Pot and a new pepper hybrid, the Reaper.  The Trinidad Maruga Scorpion currently holds the world record at 2 million scovilles and the Reaper might take the title at the next judging.  These are serious peppers.

Rest assured that Hell Night is not simply 5 courses of meals that are unbearably hot and unenjoyable.  Chef JJ's crew does an excellent job of using these insanely hot peppers to create fantastic dishes.  In addition to the 5 courses, Triton and Sun King provided their own chile beers.  Triton's chile beer was an IPA named Hatchblower IPA.  The base was their Railsplitter IPA, which had green peppers (for aroma) and jalapeños added to create a flavor that complimented the hops and added a warming heat in the throat.  Sun King has done a chile beer each year for Hell Night, and this year was no exception.  Their offering was simply titled Hell Night and was based off of the Cream Ale with a blend of chiles created by Chef JJ's added.  The end result was a very spicy beer that brought out lots of fruity notes from the chiles.

The first course was a Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Dip over Chef JJ's traditional grilled bread starter. Underneath the bacon-infused artichoke dip was a house-made hot sauce named Blow Your Face Off, which provided a nice but subdued spicy kick.

The second course was a complex and involved Posole, which featured blood sausage from Claus's and pickled black radishes from Goose the Market.  A variety of spicy peppers were used in this one, and a side of house-made TED hot sauce could be added to adjust the heat level.  A couple teaspoons of the TED sauce brought the Posole up to a tongue spiking heat.

The third course was a large bowl of Shrimp Vindaloo Curry, thickened with tomato and pumpkin and spiced with Trinidad Scorpion peppers.  Depending on your tolerance of the type of capsaicin in the Trinidad Scorpion, this one may have brought tears to your eyes, but it was so good that no one could stop eating it.

The fourth course was a Grilled Tenderloin, which was rubbed with a house-made spice blend and placed on top of chipotle mashed sweet potatoes.  Compared to the previous dish, this one wouldn't even be considered spicy, which was probably a good thing.

To finish things off with a bang, Chef Jenna created Avocado Pops in push-pop molds that were filled with minced chocolate and green ghost peppers.  Just for clarification, chocolate ghost peppers are named for their color and do not have a sweet chocolately flavor.  If I had not just consumed a piece of Reaper, this would have been the spiciest dish by far.

Throughout the meal, Jim brought by chopped up samples of peppers that adequately filled the heat spectrum of peppers ranging from 200K scovilles to 2M scovilles.  Being the bull-headed individual that I am, I tried each one without the assistance of milk.  I shed many tears on Hell Night, and consumed much water, but it was worth it.  I consumed the Reaper and lived to tell the tale.  Until next year,  Hell Night.

Oh and as a footnote, Hell Night sells out very early, so start checking Chef JJ's website (chefjjs.com) in August for tickets to go on sale.  Or just attend one of their other events to experience some of their less spicy foods.

KOTBR #74: Tacos and Chelada at Adobo Grill

How do $1.00 tacos and $2.50 pints of beer sound to you? Yeah, me too -- they've sounded pretty good, oh, basically every Monday since I discovered the convergence of Adobo Grill's (110 E. Washington St., 317-882-9990, non-smoking) $1.00 happy hour taco special (M-F 4-6pm) and their Monday $2.50 draft special. It only made sense to drag along my fellow Knights for a trek to Adobo Grill on a recent Monday afternoon.


The classy, brightly-colored bar at Adobo Grill.
Attentive and classy bartender--check.
Guacamole and tortilla chips--check.
A crisp, refreshing pilsner--check.
A weird lime juice/tomato juice/hot sauce/beer cocktail--check.

This was the recipe for our roundtable at Adobo Grill. The bartender, whose name I did not catch, was attentive to our every need. The guacamole, which is made fresh and by-the-batch for each customer who orders it, was fantastic. It was the perfect blend of avocado, onion, lime juice, cilantro, tomato, and all the other goodies that go into a second-to-none guacamole. The pilsner was Upland's Preservation Pilsner, which this lager aficionado quite liked, and which paired quite well with the guacamole. Preservation Pilsner had the classic golden lager hue, biscuity nose, and sweet and grassy finish. It carried a nice hop bite as well, which lent it a good heft that kept it from coming across as watery. All in all, an impressive pilsner, and one that I wouldn't hesitate to stock my fridge with for hot summer days. 3.80 Mugs.

The weird beer cocktail was a Michelada, which I chose to cap off my visit. Because the KOTBR groove on beer/tomato juice cocktails, Jason and I decided to try Adobo Grill's contribution to the beer cocktail world. Jason chose Sol for his beer mixer; I chose Pacifico. The result for me was a bizarre, fizzy drink that was kind of like tonic water hopped up on hot sauce and lime juice. Not my bag, but I'd encourage adventurous souls to give it a try. Maybe you'll like it better than I.


Michelada Pacifico
I love sitting at a bar. Sitting at a bar is a communal exercise. You are rarely alone at a bar, even if you arrived by yourself. You always have the bartender to talk to. And even if you choose not to talk to the other bar patrons, you always have great people watching fodder. Sitting at a bar is a great experience.

When sitting at a bar at a nice restaurant, the experience is even greater. You get all the ambiance but often at a cheaper price. $2.50 pints on Mondays. $1.00 tacos from 4pm to 6pm weekdays. That makes for a cheap meal!

I will recommend splurging on the guacamole (but not the Michelada…more on that later).

There are several taps at Adobo. Three of them had craft beer: Bell’s Two Hearted, Bell’s Oberon, and Upland’s Preservation Pilsner. We opted to review the pilsner.

It is a clear, golden beer with a foamy, white head. The lacing really sticks to the side of the glass. The mouthfeel is crisp and it has a subtle lemon flavor to it. The beer is refreshing; it really pops. This is a beer that would help macro drinkers cross over, yet it is so well crafted that most craft beer drinkers should really enjoy this. And it matches well with the battered fish tacos. I happily give this beer 3.70 mugs. It is a simple beer done really well.

Now the Michelada, that’s another story.

Sol plus sangrita (tomato, grapefruit, orange, and lime juices) plus seasonings (worchestire, ancho peppers, purple onions, and other stuff).

It is beyond the Chelada that Brugge’s Ted Miller frequently makes. The tomato doesn’t take the lead with this; the citrus juices, peppers, and onions pop out. It’s like a drinkable fruity salsa. Refreshing up front, but burns in the back. This isn’t bad, but a big 16 ounce glass is too much. Buy one and share it with four friends. That would be about right.

The evening's featured beer, Upland's Preservation Pilsner, nicely complemented the food at Adobo's Happy Hour. The beer's lightly citrus aroma led to a bready flavor and finished crisp and dry. This is a fine beer worth revisiting again, preferably outside when it's hot...maybe with some barbecue. 3.75 Mugs

The michelada? Um, it came in a cool glass.

Upland Preservation Pilsner

Count me among those who generally aren't too keen on beers made with lager yeast. I'll admit that's a broad stroke, but I find the wide range of flavors produced by ale yeasts much more interesting. Given my prejudice, Upland Preservation Pilsner had a hill to climb. I have to say, though, this is one mighty fine pilsner. Crystal clear, bready and crisp with a dose of grassy hops, this is a beer that can really quench your thirst -- perfect for spicy cuisine such as Mexican. Nothing fancy, just a great lawnmower beer. 3.60 Mugs.

Upland Preservation Pilsner
Jim 3.8 mugs Jason 3.7 mugs Gina 3.75 mugs Chris 3.6 mugs
KOTBR Score - 3.71 Mugs

Commentary/Conversation: Ruminations of the Potable Curmudgeon

For a very long time, some of the best Hoosier Beer Geek content never made its way to the public. We regularly have very lengthy email conversations about any number of topics going on in the world of beer. Here is one such example.

Did anybody read (New Albanian Publican) Roger Baylor's latest musings?





I just did. We're in that same boat. We all know there's bad beer being served, and we're saying nothing.




This isn't a new problem. This is a problem that has been there as long as I've been drinking craft beer - which, admittedly, is only a fraction of the time Roger has been drinking craft beer. I cannot name a single brewery that I've never tasted a flawed beer from. And I mean a "the recipe is off and/or the end product has an issue" flaw, not "I don't like this beer" which happens sometimes too. I'm serious about this. If I've had a decent sampling of the brewery's catalog, I've had at least one beer that I can tell they shipped because they can't afford to dump it.

Much like Roger, I don't choose to write about it. Honestly it's because I don't think it does anyone any good. I certainly won't encourage you to drink that beer, but I'm also not going to rain on your parade and tell you why it's bad if you actually like it. If you approach me and point out that the beer is bad, sure, I'll offer constructive input and commiserate with you. Where it gets difficult is that I truly believe no one is intentionally brewing bad beer. Everyone is creating a product that they're proud of. Maybe you can't afford a Quality Control team. Maybe you can't afford to flush 10 barrels of beer. Maybe by the time you've attempted to save the beer through additional hops and malt you've just created a beer 3x more expensive that you can't afford to dump even more than you couldn't afford to dump the original product. Brewers know that serving bad product results in consumers having a bad opinion of your product and therefore not buying it in the future.

So why waive the red flag and say "Brewery X is selling you bad beer"? Unless you have some sort of personal vendetta against Brewery X, why would you want them to fail? Wouldn't it be more constructive to talk to a brewer with Brewery X and let them know your findings? And even if you do, remember that you're talking about their baby. Just as you probably wouldn't walk up to someone and tell them that their baby looks messed up, you shouldn't walk up to a brewer and tell them that their beer tastes messed up. It's a delicate matter and it needs to be addressed as such. And posting on the internet that Brewery X's baby looks messed up isn't going to fix Brewery X's baby.

I think I see two axes to Roger's post.

When we started writing this blog, we didn't know any brewers or industry people, and we reviewed from strictly the standpoint of "Do I like this beer?", and some beers got less favorable reviews. If folks have been paying attention, they can probably see that it's been a very long time since we torched a beer, and that it only happens in cases where the beer is undeniably bad.

Instead, like Roger, we're guilty of self-censorship, or maybe even sins of omission. But it depends on your definition of omit. If your definition is as straight forward as to leave out, then we're all guilty. If your definition has more to do with something left out, not done, or neglected - have we neglected to insult someone's baby? Is that really a sin?

But at what point do you look at that baby and finally say to the parent, "You know, you should probably have had that rash looked at months ago"?

On the other hand Roger writes "I find myself dreading those occasions when I must stand up in front of people and preach the gospel of craft beer. Why am I being bothered?"

You might think he got there by not believing in the gospel anymore. But I think "Why am I being bothered?" points somewhere else. It's like when we started the website - we were out there waving a flag as hard as we could. And then one day we looked down and realized that someone built a castle under us.

"A castle! They've built us a castle!"

And then we take a tour of the castle and realize that it's not the way we would have built it. Maybe we'll skip a few rooms when we're giving the tour. And the castle has multiple flagpoles already, so why bother climbing a turret to wave ours? And come to think of it, how much of this castle is really ours anyway?

Maybe it's better to just go home and plant your flag there?

Does it do anyone any good to call someone out for making bad beer? What are the repercussions of a place making bad beer? A place can hide behind the moniker of "support local" for only so long, but ultimately it is about the beer in the long run.

I certainly don't want to put words in Roger's mouth, but his musings to me represent something I've been thinking about for quite some time. Craft beer really isn't all that much fun for me anymore. I really want it to come back around, but it just hasn't. The more I put myself on the fringe and then come back into the fold the more that things piss me off. I've only been in the craft beer scene for about 10 years, and so many people have been drinking and making beer for decades longer than me, but I feel we (an entire craft beer collective) are ruining the chance to truly create an amazing beer culture right now. I was one of the worst offenders. I let a brewery get bigger than beer, and I let it stay that way for a very long time, but I've come to the point where I resent much of the beer culture we are building. Places tried to run with the Us vs. Them mentality for so long, but now that we have nearly 2000 breweries online it has become an Us vs. Us issue. I'm a firm believer in a rising tide lifts as ships, and protectionism is a proven way to kill your brand, your market share, and your product. I'm bothered by things like tap takeovers, breweries twitter feeds, RateBeer, BeerAdvocate, Ebay and the constant flow of marketing B.S. that flows from places. So many breweries and craft beer fans rip on BMC's marketing practices, but I don't see much difference than what they are doing than many craft breweries are doing. I don't fault anyone for making a buck and trying to grow their business, but ultimately it must come down to making great beer. That means not pushing shitty beer to the market in the first place. I understand the economics behind that doesn't make sense, but if a new consumer to your brand is behind that sip the economic damage over the life of that consumer is much more painful than dumping a batch of beer. It means not adding ingredients to a terrible batch of beer and then try and pull the wool over your consumers heads by claiming you brewed a new beer. Consumers are more intelligent than that.

I look at a place like Three Floyds. They don't have a marketing budget, and they knock it out of the park on just about every single beer they make. They have built a reputation with me that would take something quite awful to sway. But if they did stop making great beer I wouldn't support them anymore (That had better not happen, but I'm just using that as an example). I've had way too much bad beer in this town from places pushing beer to market. Does that hurt craft brewing or help it? When the numbers come out people all like to point out that craft beer is growing, but they neglect to point out that overall beer consumption is down. What does that mean? BMC people are coming over to craft, but are new drinkers coming into the fold? The numbers for the faux alcho-pops would say no. Is craft still rising, but just setting the stage for its collapse? I don't know, but I do know what we are building as a culture is not the reason I got into great beer. I do indeed lament the days of people just bonding over some great beer. It isn't enough now to just be drinking a beer, but now it matters who you are drinking.

Perhaps I've just got sand in my cheeks lately, but I do know I resent the culture I was part of building. I just want to get back to drinking good beer with my friends. I plan to do just that.