THE BEER BEAT: Taco Steve back at BSB, and a year's hiatus for the Bloomington Craft Beer Festival.

Since Tuesday morning, my visits back to the old NABC stomping grounds will forever more be in the guise of a civilian, or perhaps a journalist.

Maybe just as a beer drinker, the way this whole business started before it became ... well, a business.

It will be hard to completely separate almost 30 years of my adult life from habits developed over the preceding years, but it feels good to finally have complete closure, and we all move forward.

On Saturday, Taco Steve debuted at the freshly painted and recently redubbed Bank Street Brewhouse; the word "cafe" never really sounded right, did it? About a dozen customers were eating and drinking on site when I stopped by around 3:30 p.m. to chat with Heather Morris, who runs the front of the house.

According to Heather, the month of March is being dedicated to integrating Taco Steve and putting things back into place, and there'll probably be a grand opening celebration of sorts come April. Guest beers are going away, with the exception of cider and mead, and the focus will be on BSB as a brewery taproom.

For any independent business, the devil always resides in the details. That said, Taco Steve's arrival seems to have energized the crew, and this is pleasing. Several times during our talk, Heather mentioned the word "focus," in the sense of identifying core values, improving them, and making these basics the thrust of BSB's interface with the beer community.

(edit) March will be a time of evolution. Taco Steve has updated his hours of operation at BSB, and so to avoid confusion, I'll await an updating of the business hours for BSB. If there is any doubt, call ahead.

Taco Steve hours at BSB:
Tuesday and Thursday 11am-9pm
Friday and Saturday 11am-10pm
Sunday 12-4pm

While we're on the topic of Indiana, this notice from the Brewers of Indiana Guild.

Bloomington Craft Beer Festival on hiatus for 2018

February 26, 2018 | Tristan Schmid, Posted in News | Be the first to comment.

As mentioned in our recent Winterfest wrap-up, Bloomington Craft Beer Festival is on hiatus for 2018 as the Woolery Mill is being developed and we look for suitable locations and opportunities in 2019.

Stay tuned for more info on other confirmed events (like IN Beer Brigade releases), which we always post ASAP at drinkIN.beer and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And be sure to sign up for the IN Brew News email for monthly updates on everything related to Indiana beer.

Finally, don’t forget to mark your calendar for the 23rd Annual Indiana Microbrewers Festival on Saturday, July 28 at Historic Military Park in Indianapolis.

The Bloomington fest had a rough beginning, but over time it grew into a fine event. The location at Woolery Mill was a big part of the fest's identity, and so I wish all the best to my former colleagues on the guild's board as they plot the future site.

THE BEER BEAT: A late August compendium of links about local and regional beer.

There was a time when the general rule of thumb was to wait a bit before reviewing a restaurant or brewery, this representing a tacit understanding that while no one excuses bad food, beer or service, it usually takes a while to put things into place. Curve balls are common at the start, and even boomerangs.

Of course, at the same time, we all want to patronize the new joint on the block, because if we don't, it might not be there when we finally get around to dropping by. That said, LEO's Syd Bishop offers a "review of Gravely Brewing Co.’s first 7 beers" and finds them excellent.

Congratulations to Louisville's newest brewery, which opened a week ago, and as a side note (maybe a coda), if you like Gravely's musically-themed vibe and offerings visit Chilly Water Brewing Company the next time you're in Indianapolis. As an example, two current Chilly Water ales are Barley O'Riley Barley Wine and Blood on the Tracks Blood Orange IPA.

Some observers suggest that we've entered an era of beer festival fatigue. Speaking only for myself, once a year works just dandy in my world, but other regional fests seem to be persisting in my absence amid a few mixed signals.

The Brewers of Indiana Guild's festival slate is thriving, and now it is expanding.

BIG's biggest annual event (and the primary fundraiser for guild operations) remains the Indiana Microbrewers Festival in July, held for two decades at Opti Park in Broad Ripple.

While I was still serving on the board, we made a difficult decision to move this event to Military Park in downtown Indianapolis, where logistics could be better managed, accommodating ever greater numbers of breweries and attendees, and linking them more efficiently to hotels and non-driving transport options.

It was the right thing to do, but we didn't like vacating Broad Ripple, which had proven so loyal for so long. At the time, the board bandied returning to Opti Park for a smaller, more customized autumn festival, which will come to fruition on Saturday, October 28.

Broad Ripple Beer Fest: The intimate event will feature 45 Hoosier breweries and guests, cask beers, and 10 small-batch specialty beers featuring unique ingredients like local hops, seasonal fruit, and candy.

Note also that the 2018 BIG festival in Bloomington is shifting locations to the center of town. More on this another time.

There's another festival change closer to home, with the Louisville Independent Business Alliance ("Keep Louisville Weird") announcing the demise of the popular Louisville Brewfest, which became best known during its residency at Slugger Field.

LIBA bids farewell to the Louisville Brewfest

LIBA has been honored to be part of the amazing growth of Louisville’s craft beer industry since we hosted our first Louisville Brewfest in 2009. It featured all the local breweries at the time, which totaled a whopping 5! The industry has been so successful that there’s now a plethora of breweries and beer festivals to choose from in our fair city, and craft beer is widely available – from gas stations to church picnics. LIBA has also experienced incredible growth and change, and it’s time for us to close the book on the Louisville Brewfest. We’ve had some amazing times at the Brewfest, and we give a great, great big thank you to all the folks who have supported and enjoyed the event over the years. We’ll miss it, but we’re glad all of us have so many new and good local choices for beer festivals. We are in the early planning stages for another public event (in addition to our Buy Local Fairs) that will give folks another chance to come together to support local businesses and connect with fellow Louisvillians, which is so important to strengthening our community. In the meantime, cheers to keeping the craft beer flowing, and keeping those dollars local!

Many Louisville area beer fans will miss Brewfest, but I believe the explanation makes very good sense.

An hour west on I-64 in Ferdinand, there'll be a new September weekend festival at St. Benedict's Brew Works, which is located on the grounds of Monastery Immaculate Conception, home of the Sisters of St. Benedict.

St. Benedict’s Brew Works opened on October 15, 2015, and has carved out a niche for itself in the year and a half since Vince Luecke and Andy Hedinger leased the building and opened the brewery.

Note that Jasper, Indiana is just a few miles down the road from Ferdinand, and is the home of the legendary Schnitzelbank Restaurant and its house brewery, Schnitz Brewery & Pub. You can make a weekend out of it, folks.

Finally, regular readers are aware of my fondness for linking local beer with local issues. It long has been apparent that the growth of craft beer is a positive factor for urban areas, and as the years pass, data becomes more voluminous, and research yields new insights. In short: good beer is good for your burg, as one of the big names explains.

Can Craft Breweries Transform America's Post-Industrial Neighborhoods?, by Richard Florida (CityLab)

A new study tells the story of craft beer’s astonishing rise and geographic clustering.

... The study takes a deep dive into the locations of craft breweries or micro-breweries and brew pubs in ten cities: Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Of these ten cities, seven can be said to have distinct brewery districts. Using a Ripley’s K analysis, which is an equation for measuring the clustering of point data, the researchers found, “the strongest predictor of whether a craft brewery opened in a neighborhood was the presence of an already existing brewery in that neighborhood.”

I've also used the example of John Hickenlooper, who I'm fortunate to have met back when he was "just" a brewery owner.

Of course, in many places, microbreweries and brew pubs are seen as harbingers of gentrification. But microbreweries tend to be located in old industrial areas where few residents actually live. “Many of the brewery districts that are emerging in U.S. cities tend to be located in parts of the city that were once bustling with manufacturing and warehouse activity,” the study reports. These are the types of districts that have been hit hardest by de-industrialization, and brewing can fill some of that vacant manufacturing space.

Perhaps the craft beer revolution will transform more than just neighborhoods. Stretching back into American history, taverns and beer halls have helped mobilize many political movements. Wynkoop Brewing Company, a brewpub that catalyzed the branding and revitalization of Denver’s LoDo neighborhood, was founded by former Denver Mayor and current Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, who is said to be a leading Democratic candidate for President in 2020. Maybe a catalyst of the craft beer movement will steer the next political revolution.

THE BEER BEAT: An assortment of headlines for beer and dissection.

Original headline: "Piss on Bud Light -- I work for Mel Famy. 

The photo at left shows me drinking a yummy smoked amber ale at Bloomington's Function Brewing. It was the culmination of an instructive day spent wandering the town and sampling a great many beers along the way:

About an excellent brewery crawl in Bloomington, Indiana (March 30, 2016).

Every year it's the same, and we feel it again.

Abdul: Fix the insanity of Indiana's alcohol laws, by Abdul-Hakim Shabazz (Indy Star)

 ... Lawmakers can do quite a few things to introduce sobriety to the state’s alcohol scheme. Repeal the liquor store commodity restriction and let them sell whatever they want, just as in grocery and big box stores. Let minors enter a liquor store as long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian. Require anyone working in grocery or big box store who handles liquor to be trained and licensed to ring up alcohol. Allow all retailers to sell cold beer. And get rid of the prohibition on Sunday sales.

Every year is the same, and I repeat once again: SUNDAY SALES ALREADY EXIST. Each year without fail, someone writes a column like this one lamenting Indiana's undisputed legal weirdness, and it always ends with the broad claim that there is a prohibition on Sunday sales.

But beer, wine and spirits are available for carry-out on Sunday from small Indiana's brewers, vintners and distillers -- and there are virtually no restrictions pertaining to on-premise consumption.

Editors of the world, do you exist? Are you there? Can you take an interest in getting these things right?

The six-percent, the one-percent ...

Study: 94 percent of world’s breweries are craft, by Kevin Gibson (LEO)

A new study released last week by Lexington’s Alltech, which brews Kentucky Ale beers, and the Brewers Journal shows that of the 19,000-and-change breweries across the blue-green orb we call Earth, 94 percent of them are making “craft” beer.

Concurrently, I heard local food writer Steve Coomes remark that the nationwide percentage of chain restaurant versus independent restaurant preference holds at around 70-30. I'm sure "craft" beer hasn't yet reached 30%. Apparently lots of you like multinationals and chains.

I like saying: Death to multinationals and chains.

A current topic in "craft" beer is diversity, and whether having taps that constantly rotate IPAs of various hues can be characterized as diverse. I don't believe it is, and according to Stan, I need to visit St. Louis.

I'm for it, by the way -- diversity and road trips.

Diversity, St. Louis style, by Stan Hieronymus (Appellation Beer)

Yesterday Jeff Alworth filed a dispatch from Bend, Oregon, headlined “American Palates: 82% IPA.” He reported a definite lack of diversity at the brewery taprooms he visited, leading him to write, “The point of all this? Hoppy ales have taken over American brewing, and we’re never going back.” And, “When a country develops its own beer culture, diversity declines.”

Perhaps this means Oregon is more advanced than we are here in the Midwest, because we have not yet developed a similar beer monoculture.

Speaking of diversity, the Brewers of Indiana Guild board is changing.

Brewers Guild Adds to Board, by Andy Ober (Inside Indiana Business)

The Brewers of Indiana Guild has elected five new members to its board of directors. The guild announced the additions over the weekend at the 3rd Annual Indiana Craft Brewers Conference in Indianapolis.

The new members are:

Centerpoint Brewing Company Director of Field Quality and Marketing Meagen Anderson
18th Street Brewery Owner Drew Fox
TwoDEEP Brewing Co. Owner Andy Meyer
Scarlet Lane Brewing Company Chief Branding Officer Nick Servies
Sun King Brewing President Co. Bob Whitt

Those who have chosen to leave the board are:

Barley Island Brewing Co./Deer Creek Brewery Owner Jeff Eaton
Outliers Brewing/Brugge Brasserie Brewer Ted Miller
Sun King Brewing Co. Co-Founder Clay Robinson
Mad Anthony Brewing Co. President Blaine Stuckey

The conference took place over the weekend at the Indianapolis Marriott East.

These comings and goings may seem like small beer to the uninitiated, but if Indiana beer were a sport, you'd see the four departing board members as hall of famers. They've stepped aside to make way for new blood, and this is key to invigorating any board of directors, not just BIG's. I congratulate Jeff, Ted, Clay and Blaine for their service and their selflessness.

Finally, on the topic of epochal beer presences, there has been a long overdue tribute to Rita.

A Tribute To Rita-What Rita Kohn has meant to the Indiana beer community (Indy Beer Sleuth)

You’ve seen her around, I know you have. And if you didn’t know who she was, you probably wondered what someone who looks like your cute little grandmother is doing at a beer festival.

I love the lady and laud this write-up.

Remember:

THE BEER BEAT: I've decided to skip this year's Session Beer Day observance. See you in 2018.

I didn't get arrested, but I've got a new title.

Conference weekend has concluded, and as of Sunday morning, I'm now an ex-director on the board of the Brewers of Indiana Guild.

ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going.

When I joined the board in 2009, there were approximately 35 breweries in Indiana. Now there are 124.

I'll always be proud of what the Guild has accomplished, especially during the past three years. There is much to be done, because that's the way it works. I'm pleased to have done my part, albeit small, in furthering the industry. That I've resolved to leave the biz does not mean I love it any less.

I humbly appreciate Guild president Greg Emig's words today, when he told the brewers in attendance that the board has awarded me an honorary title: Agitator Emeritus.

That one's going on the business cards, folks -- except, of course, that I have plenty of agitation left in me.

In closing: Cheers to all of you in Indiana who are making beer, drinking beer, and selling what's left. You've created something out of nothing, and if I'm quoting the statistic correctly, we're now 18th in the nation in per capita breweries.

Keep on rocking. I'll still be supporting the effort any way I can.

ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going.

ON THE AVENUES: Hello, I must be going. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Almost every other month for the past seven years, I’ve attended a Wednesday meeting of the directors of the Brewers of Indiana Guild.

For a long time, these meetings were held at Broad Ripple Brewing Company, Indiana’s first brewpub in the contemporary era. Later they shifted to Sun King Brewing Company (downtown on College Avenue), the state’s second largest production brewery behind Three Floyds.

More recently, the guild has rented an office suite in the basement of an apartment building, formerly a warehouse, just north of Massachusetts Avenue. The new location is a 20-minute walk from Sun King, and I’ve taken to parking there and enjoying the stroll.

Yesterday I was in town by 10:30 a.m. for a 1:00 p.m. meeting, so there was time for a longer walk, south and west past Bankers Life Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium, followed by a lunch of delicious stuffed grape leaves at Grecian Garden in the City Market, ground floor, right by the front door.

Marina Mavrikis’s pastitsio is to die for, too.

There’s a place called Henry’s Coffee Bistro on East Street, a block off Massachusetts Avenue on the way to the guild’s office suite. My habit is to stop there on the way for an espresso. At meeting’s end, the path back to Sun King leads past St. Joseph Brewery, operating in a church sanctuary by Lockerbie Square.

Yesterday I bought a growler of Popemeal Oat Stout there and brought it home to accompany a dinner of leftover Finnish-style Cod Bake and seasoned rice. Baltic Porter might have been a better choice geographically, but I wanted a beer around 5% abv, not 7%.

---

Wednesday was my second visit to Indianapolis in less than a week. On Saturday, Diana and I drove up to the capital for the guild’s annual Winterfest at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, and although I’d expressed eagerness to sample beers with 7,000 of my closest friends, we never actually made it.

Therein lies a story.

We departed New Albany for Indianapolis on Saturday morning immediately following restorative Honey Creme doughnuts, wasting no time because we wanted to explore the Fountain Square district, which is southeast of the city’s epicenter via Virginia Avenue and the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an urban walking and biking path running alongside the street.

Had the date not been January 30, it would have been a gorgeous spring day in early April. After coffee at Funkyard Art, we browsed a few shops, then enjoyed a beer at Fountain Square Brewing Company. Our choice for lunch was the End of the Line Public House, which reminds us that Indianapolis’s long defunct street cars used to turn around right across the street.

Seated close enough for inadvertent eavesdropping were two couples talking about Winterfest, which at this point was about two hours from starting. One couple had tickets, and the other did not.

The ones who didn't had come from out of state for the occasion, and apparently the Indianapolis residents were supposed to have purchased four tickets, but somehow dropped the ball. The festival was sold out, and they were debating creative ways to gain entry.

Ironically, I’d started the day with four Winterfest tickets. Two were my director comps, and two were given to me by a friend in Louisville. He couldn’t go, and asked me to give them away, which I did – at Fountain Square Brewing Company, where the bartender was maintaining a waiting list.

Had I known … at any rate, the out-of-towners at End of the Line were growing desperate, and it was an easy fix to make. I gave them our last two tickets with only one small caveat. They were to find Salt Creek Brewery's booth, say hello to my friend Brad Hawkins, and have a sample or three for me.

I hope they had a good time. All’s well that ends well, and we spent the next few hours enjoying the great outdoors, walking Virginia Avenue into the heart of downtown, looping past Monument Circle and the City Market, and stopping at Chilly Water Brewing on the way back for another round of beers.

The urban changes along this corridor between downtown and Fountain Square are utterly fascinating, but in fact, most of downtown Indianapolis is a construction zone. Dozens of buildings are being erected, many of them residential.

These days, I know too much about social justice issues, like America’s worsening affordable housing shortage, to accept all of what we saw at face value as “progress” absent qualifiers. Just the same, the scale of investment and activity is staggering.

More importantly, there is a brewery every half mile or so, enough to suggest that maybe we’re winning at least one revolutionary battle.

---

The weather was much cooler on Wednesday, and the long walk through downtown Indianapolis was bracing. Fortunately, sweet and tart Avgolemono (lemon and egg) sauce and intensely roasted coffee can take the chill off any overcast day, and the exercise felt good.

In due course I tendered my resignation from the board, effective on Sunday, March 6 -- the date of the guild’s annual meeting, which caps its second annual Indiana Craft Brewers Conference weekend in Ft. Wayne. Accordingly, it will be my final hurrah as a director. I’m eager to see who is chosen to occupy my seat.

In general terms, a director serving on the guild’s board must be a brewery owner. Technically, seeing as there has yet to be a final disposition of my ownership shares in NABC, I might choose to continue as a guild director until the buyout is resolved.

However, with the number of breweries in Indiana now topping 120, it’s a good time for me to say goodbye. New (and hopefully younger) blood can come aboard and begin learning how things work, because there’s much work to be done.

Whether guild, business or career, stepping aside is the right thing for me to do. It isn’t easy. Reinvention is necessary, and it’s also a bear, especially the methodical process of stripping away these comfortable layers of self-identity. It’s natural to swaddle yourself with layers of familiarity. Without their protection, suddenly you feel naked and vulnerable.

Does one even have value without them? Do I?

Yet, in some ways, it’s also like shedding scar tissue or waking from a coma. Gradually, interests and inclinations buried for a quarter-century beneath the rote daily checklist of business as usual are re-emerging, stumbling dazed from exile, blinking at the revealing light.

I’ll miss the Wednesdays in Indianapolis, except at some point I won’t. There’ll always be the option of driving up and wandering the city – or spending time in Columbus, Evansville or Needmore (home of Salt Creek). Plenty of quality time remains. Life is good.

It was a hell of a guild ride, boys and girls.

Someone keep throwing punches on my behalf, will you?

---

Recent columns:

January 28: ON THE AVENUES: They're surely not ROLL models.

January 21: ON THE AVENUES: When I grow up, I'd like to be alive.

January 14: ON THE AVENUES: Should the Queen fail to rescue us, there's always H. L. Mencken.

January 7: ON THE AVENUES: You know, that time when Roger interviewed himself.

December 31: ON THE AVENUES: My 2015 in books and reading.

ON THE AVENUES: On brewing economic development.

ON THE AVENUES: On brewing economic development.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yesterday the board of directors of the Brewers of Indiana Guild met in regular session, and new business items included a discussion of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its economic (and cultural) consequences for Indiana brewers.

In fact, as we were meeting, the Indiana legislature’s intricate timetable of committee meetings was being thrown into upheaval by the governor’s directive to amend SB/HB 101.

To paraphrase the guild’s simple and eloquent public stance, which will be released soon, “Indiana brewers make lots of different beers for lots of different people.”

Verily, this says it all, and it got me thinking about the many ways that America’s evolving better beer revolution is all about “new” and “future” economic thinking, as opposed to old.

Unfortunately, the old ways hold sway in a place like New Albany. If they did not, there’d be two-way traffic on my street. The shift toward “next” is long overdue.

It needs to start right now.

---

Occasionally I’m accused of having an insufficient social conscience, in the sense of preaching about better beer when more important issues beg to be addressed.

Simultaneously, the world of better (formerly “craft”) beer wants to know why I insist on addressing social and political topics to the exclusion, mostly imagined, of those seeking fermentable knowledge alone.

But to me, vacuums don’t exist, and human knowledge rewards connectivity. About the only certainty to be gleaned from all this is that folks pay at least some degree of attention to my canon, which after all, is a writer’s prime and selfish motivation.

As it pertains to my habitat and workplace in downtown New Albany, naysayers have been known to question the growth of dining and drinking establishments over the past decade: How can gluttony and drunkenness alone revitalize a moribund area?

My answer: Unless we discover vast oil reserves beneath our decaying pavements, or find a way to mimic the manufacturing practices of Asian sweat shops and transplant them into our many remaining deteriorated historic structures, then yes, beefsteak and porter are fairly good starter options for regeneration, at least when they’re correctly prepared – the meat served rare, and the beer in a large, clean glass.

I can hear it now: “Roger, you’re just a self-centered drunkest,” and of course this a prime example of purely diversionary, yawn-inducing hokum, predictably emanating from the usual reactive alliance of disaffected troglodytes, fundamentalist nut jobs and elderly white political party members. Rather, I’d venture to say that in its purest form, better beer eloquently personifies a clear and pro-active vision of localist-style economic development.

After all, the better beer business generally reflects an ethos of localism summarized by a 1960’s-era social activist mantra, one refashioned to suit our specific brewing circumstances: “Think globally, drink locally.”

Obviously, I’ve always enjoyed using beer as a metaphor for other aspects of our shared experience, and whenever a clear connection is lacking, it’s advisable to drink beer while discussing the possibilities. The pub is every man’s university, beer is life, and vice-versa … but you already knew that.

---

As an adult beverage brewed locally, a new iteration of American brewing is not to be confused with mass-produced, conceptually derivative carbonated urine from multinational industrial manufacturing corporations like AB-InBev, which has taken to foisting the word “craft” on undiscerning drinkers by means of misleading marketing tactics increasingly likely to make Herr Goebbels do a dervish goosestep in the depths of Hell.

Genuine American-made “craft” beer is best consumed locally, where we live and love and work and play, with folks who share the vision and dream the dream. I certainly do my share of sampling, even if far less than when younger, and to my delight and edification, the ongoing revival of downtown New Albany allows me to drink local beer quite locally – when merited, even copiously – and to walk home afterward in a physically beneficial and socially responsible manner.

In fact, our decision to buy the Midtown house we currently occupy, and my company’s 2009 downtown brewery expansion, both were calibrated with walking (and bicycling) in mind. It isn’t “luck” that enables my strolling and biking. It’s planning, as logically rewarding solid, traditional, locally-based principles of life and living within an urban area originally built for precisely those purposes. At one time these notions were the accepted norm. Now they’re being rediscovered by residents and business communities around the country.

Local brewing and drinking fit wonderfully within this paradigm of greater localism, as expressed here by New Albany First:

New Albany First works to create a community culture that values local independents by raising public awareness of the benefits of local buying. We promote independent businesses to help them better compete with national and transnational chains and preserve our community’s character. Through our education and outreach programs, we increase awareness and support for local independent businesses.

Locally brewed beer fully embraces these precepts. Louisville’s own excellent and long-standing locally-minded group, the Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA), hosts an annual beer festival at Slugger Field, offering a stellar example of the linkages. Most Louisville breweries are members of LIBA, and LIBA’s goal of keeping Louisville “weird” (unique and independent) is shared by NA1st, as applicable to beer businesses on the Indiana side of the river.

Why does any of this matter? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (www.ilsr.org) offers these ten vital commandments in a civic context. They have been embraced by the better beer movement, but they’re applicable to us all.

1. Protect Local Character and Prosperity
Your city is unlike any other city in the world. By choosing to support locally owned businesses, you help maintain your city’s diversity and distinctive flavor.

2. Community Well-Being
Locally owned businesses build strong neighborhoods by sustaining communities, linking neighbors, and by contributing more to local causes.

3. Local Decision Making
Local ownership means that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.

4. Keeping Dollars in the Local Economy
Your dollars spent in locally-owned businesses have three times the impact on your community as dollars spent at national chains. When shopping locally, you simultaneously create jobs, fund more city services through sales tax, invest in neighborhood improvement and promote community development.

5. Job and Wages
Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.

6. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship fuels America’s economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.

7. Public Benefits and Costs
Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.

8. Environmental Sustainability
Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town centers-which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.

9. Competition
A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

10. Product Diversity
A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

Come to think of it, these Ten Commandments form precisely the sort of economic development action plan that our municipal government might encourage with more than words alone. Unfortunately, the old ways hold sway in a place like New Albany. If they did not, there’d be two-way traffic on my street, and yet, in point of fact, the “craft” beer economic development ethos has far more to do with the future of New Albany’s economy than dump trucks, slag heaps and political kickbacks.

In New Albany, the shift toward “next” is long overdue

It needs to start now.

---

Recent ON THE AVENUES columns:

ON THE AVENUES: If we're waiving sewer tap-ins, nothing less than gold faucets will do.

ON THE AVENUES FLASHBACK: Regaining consciousness in a city “coming” to?

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Full Frontal Goebbels erupts as Padgett looks at New Albany as a hole.

ON THE AVENUES: Die Hard the Hunter, or the political impossibility of rental property registration on New Albany.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: Adam's rib tips.

This week's beer column: "Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session."

To be perfectly honest, given the juncture of RFRA and the NCAA Final Four, the prospect of an April Fool's Day spent in the state capital of Indianapolis sounds a bit too much like the plot of a bizarre, parallel-world sequel to Groundhog Day.

But there I'll be, leaving shortly, presumably to pop into a legislative session about HB 1311 (this year's "beer bill"), and then to attend a regular meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild's board, upon which I sit as a director.

Yay -- no passenger rail transport to Indy! It sounds almost like an issue of interest to legislators, if they can be bothered to refrain from damaging Indiana business.

In case you have not seen it, here's the link to my weekly beer column, as published on Monday. It's what I expect to be doing today.

The PC: Our bedfellows are becoming stranger with each passing legislative session.

You won’t need to look far amid my scribblings to locate frequent praise for the Indiana “craft” brewing scene. I’m proud of my state when it comes to better beer.

In five years since 2010, we’ve come close to tripling the number of Hoosier breweries, and while it seems a new establishment opens in Indianapolis every week, smaller communities from Aurora to Martinsville to Needmore are being represented, too. It’s overdue, and welcomed.

This Wednesday, I’ll make the drive up I-65 to Indianapolis for a regular board meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG). It isn’t an ordinary week in the state capital. For one, college basketball’s Final Four will be staged there beginning on Saturday, with all attendant sports-driven hoopla. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that just last week, my state made international headlines with a controversial new law, overwhelmingly approved by both legislative bodies and promptly signed by Governor Mike Pence. Because of SB/HB 101, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), there are mounting calls to boycott Indiana.

Some, including Keith Olbermann, Charles Barkley and Dave Zirin, have gone so far as to urge the NCAA, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, to move the Final Four elsewhere in protest. This is unlikely, but the NCAA has indicated its displeasure, meaning Indiana might be denied future athletic spectacles. That’s bad for all our bottom lines, beer or not.

The PC: Ripped straight from the pages of an Onion satire: “13 white males not really so eager to discuss issues like racism and sexism.”

I don't always use space at NAC to tout my beer writing at Potable Curmudgeon, but today is an exception. The column appears on Mondays. You may or may not agree, but in any event, thanks for reading.

The PC: Ripped straight from the pages of an Onion satire: “13 white males not really so eager to discuss issues like racism and sexism.”

 ... I’ve changed my mind many times when presented with persuasive evidence contrary to my previous assumptions. I used to be satisfied drinking Stroh’s – then I wasn’t. My mind and my tastes evolved, and an immensely enjoyable 30-year journey through the world has followed. Changes in latitude could not have occurred without changes in attitude.

Good times and Kurtas at the Indiana Microbrewers Festival yesterday.

Yesterday was the the occasion of the 19th annual Indiana Microbrewers Festival, which as always took place in Broad Ripple, on the north side of Indianapolis. Pictured above are fellow Brewers of Indiana board members Clay Robinson (BIG president) of Sun King to the left, and Rob Caputo of Flat12 on the right. Rob did much of the heavy lifting to get this year's IMF off the ground, and deserves plenty of kudos for doing so.

I've been assigned to Rob's committee, and am about to receive a crash course in festival management. That suits me, and I'm looking forward to it. While it is my usual habit to refrain from emotional displays, I'm very proud to know Clay, Rob and the other Indiana brewers I've met during the course of my time in the business, and I'm excited and bullish about the state's prospects when it comes to better beer.

To be perfectly honest, I wore what I did for the express purpose of being photographed, and it worked as planned. The blue and purple top is called a Kurta, and the white pants a Churidar. These are customary male garments in and near the Indian subcontinent, and were purchased from Dolls of India in 2010 for my 50th birthday. I weighed 255 then, and could barely squeeze into them. Now, at 235, they fit perfectly. The plastic leis were procured at Horner's in Jeffersonville, and intended to mimic flower garlands.

I posed for several pictures, and there were two requests: "Can I touch it?" I was asked whether the Kurta was hot. It wasn't, although it was a pleasingly cool day in Indianapolis yesterday. The best comment came from a man wearing a Miller High Life t-shirt, who I later observed walking in circles, talking to himself: "So, who's the fucking wizard?"

I hope he enjoyed his vomit.

Former NABC brewer Jared Williamson displays the wares of his current employer, Schlafly of St. Louis. I'm proud of him, too, and also these guys:

From left to right, it's Ben, Eric and Tony; Josh, Peter and Blake are not shown. Combined, they did a bang-up job, and it was a smooth festival overall. We ran out of beer roughly a half hour before the end, and there were no Port-A-Let riots as in 2013.

It has been said that 80% or more of the earth's oxygen is used to complain, and I'm guilty of hoarding my share of air. When things go right, we need to celebrate. The IMF fest surely had problems, but we didn't notice many, and the vibe was pleasing and rejuvenating.

Cheers to all the participating breweries and their staffs, and to the Guild's coordinators and volunteers. Special thanks go to the 5,000 (or more) ticket buyers. Our fans keep us growing.

(Photo credits: Valerie, Dump Buckets, Stephen Hale and Alliee Bliss)

Brewers of Indiana Guild legislation, today in Indianapolis.

President Clay Robinson of the Brewers of Indiana Guild provides this overview of legislative action this morning. I plan on being there, after which we'll have a regular Guild meeting. At 4:30 p.m., there'll be the Guild's annual legislative reception. Unfortunately, it would appear that the previously golden farmers market provision may be targeted for removal from the bill by lobbyists from a hostile industry, which would be a real shame. Let's hope it doesn't happen. If artisanal wineries can do it ... well, you know.

I'll be back later to report.

Two of our BIG bills are being heard in the House Public Policy Committee. The hearing is at 9:00 a.m., in House Committee Room 156B (in the State House basement). Please join us if you can. These are Senate bills that passed through the Senate and now must pass through the House in order to become law.
 
The committee will hear testimony and consider the bills but will hold the vote until next week. The two bills are SB 16which has several provisions that will be helpful to craft breweries, including the ability to sell carryout (cans, bottles or pre-filled growlers) at farmers markets. 
 
Our second bill being heard in committee tomorrow is “beer at the state fair” SB 339. There is broad support for this bill, most notably by the State Fair Commission.

More on Mayor Fischer's beer-less task force.

It's a tempest in a teapot, but on an otherwise slow weekend, I'll play the hand I'm dealt.

The topic is Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, his task force on top-shelf dining and bourbon, and the absence of other food scene elements (including brewing) from the plan.

Greg Fischer: Bourbon and local craft beer don't mix.

This morning at Insider Louisville, Steve Coomes goes deeper in support of the mayor's aims.

Steve Coomes: Some complain mayor’s restaurant-bourbon tourism team neglects beer, coffee, food trucks

There have been good points all around during this discussion, and given that it's always a good idea to consider your own side's strong and weak points before jumping into the fray, one thing stands out to me: If there was to be a cogent rebuttal from Louisville's brewers, it should stem from a position of unity. Unity requires organization, and this is a great and enduring challenge for craft brewers in general.

As a director on the board of the Brewers of Indiana Guild, I feel qualified to admit to such. BIG has made considerable progress in bringing itself to a point where a political personage such as Louisville's mayor (and his staffers) wouldn't think of a task force without consulting the craft brewing bloc first. It takes time, though. It requires commitment and engagement.

Otherwise, we're merely lobbing barbs from a barstool.

Egalitarianism and the art of taking a leak.

Yesterday was the occasion of the 18th Annual Indiana Microbrewers Festival in Indianapolis. It was a Brewers of Indiana Guild production, and apart from some light rain at the beginning, probably good enough overall for rock and roll and food and beer on a Saturday afternoon.

Speaking personally, I’m always grateful that so many folks enthusiastically tolerate the discomfort, crowds and expense to come celebrate better beer with us. Without these fans, it is obvious that there could be no “us” in any meaningful conceptual (or commercial) sense. At least the weather yesterday was cooler than usual for July, and the sun mostly muted.

Recuperating on Sunday morning, I began catching up on missed reading, having just returned from England on a transatlantic flight that seemed even more uncomfortable than previous trips.

Class Struggle in the Sky, by James Atlas (New York Times)

During an intercontinental flight, I notice that “on the other side of the curtain” — as the first-class and business cabins are referred to — dinners are being served on white linen tablecloths, with actual bone china. Everyone’s got their “amenities kit” — one of those little nylon bags containing slippers, an eyeshade and a toothbrush. And legroom? Tons. While our seat width contracts — on some airlines by nearly eight inches in recent years — the space up front continues to expand …

… This stark class division should come as no surprise: what’s happening in the clouds mirrors what’s happening on the ground. Statusization — to coin a useful term — is ubiquitous, no matter what your altitude. While you’re in your hospital bed spooning up red Jell-O, a patient in a private suite is enjoying strawberries and cream. On your way to a Chase A.T.M., you notice a silver plaque declaring the existence within of Private Client Services. This man has a box seat at a Yankees game; that man has a skybox …

And so on. Back in June, in a column at LouisvilleBeer.com, I offered what (perhaps) is a heretical viewpoint with reference to beer festivals like the one yesterday. Actually, it was about the one yesterday.

A VIP and an IBU walk into a beer fest

… I’ll cite as a convenient example ticket packages available for the Brewers of Indiana Guild festival in Indianapolis on July 20, while hastening to add that this doesn’t constitute my singling out the Guild for scrutiny; after all, it’s my own trade group. In fact, I imagine BIG is coming to such strategies of ticket pricing rather late in the game.

VIP Experience: $100 (very limited, online only)
Includes early admission (2:00) and access to exclusive VIP Experience Tent (special tappings and food pairings), tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

Early Bird: $55 (limited, online only)
Includes early admission (2:00), tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

General Admission: $40 (advance purchase)
Includes tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

Yesterday I stuck religiously to the Indiana brewer side of the Opti Park fest grounds and didn’t once venture into the “guest brewer” compound, the latter financed primarily by World Class Beer, and accordingly devoted to featuring non-Indiana beers (a topic previously covered here and here).

Consequently, all I know about the VIP Experience Tent is what is noted in the above passage. I can’t tell you whether VIPs had their own port-a-lets (luxury grade or otherwise), although I was told there were plenty of portable toilets lined up on the “guest beer” side of the park, presumably owing to there being more physical space for them.

But I do know this: NABC was positioned at the very end of the misspelled and quite crowded “allee” between the museum and the river, and directly to our right were five (5) port-a-lets. The line to use them was 50 (75? 100?) deep or more for most of the afternoon, until the very end of the festival.

In my June column, I wrote this:

Back out on the pitch, those $40 beer festival ducats still comprise the bread and butter on the fest’s bottom line, and we need to see to it that these attendees are not subjected only to the mud and the blood and the (leftover) beer, while the VIPs strut the corduroyed catwalk, pinkies extended, constantly checking their iPhones to make sure the beer they’re drinking is the truly rare Rye Barrel release, and not that commoner’s Boubon Barrel version that just ANYONE can buy – and subsequently hoard.

Egalitarianism should be a craft/real/better beer ideal, but if egalitarianism even remotely was my guild’s aim yesterday, then toilet lines like the one near us obviously signify a failure that’s rather glaring. Granted, attendees who largely confined themselves to the Indiana brewery area might not have been aware of port-a-lets on the “guest” end, and yet there was ample room for more at “Allee’s” end.

By the end of the afternoon, the ATC-mandated orange fencing defining our salient was being trampled in all directions by men and women looking for secluded tree trunks and underbrush. It was disappointing, to say the least.

Note that as a director serving on the guild’s board, I’m not passing the buck. It is “our” and “we,” not “someone else,” and all of us must be honest and introspective when it comes to planning improvements for a better performance next time out.

I’m saying only this: If I’m ever asked to weigh in, I’ll be voting against a renewal of the VIP Experience. For it to exist alongside hundred-yard lines to use the port-a-let just strikes me as unconscionable.

"Just about every activity the Brewers of Indiana Guild undertakes is Indiana-centric."

My columns at LouisvilleBeer.com appear on the 1st and 15th of each month. Recently I've written a two-part essay on the what might seem to some as a narrow, limited "shop talk" topic of what it means to be a brewer in Indiana, and how Indiana brewers might choose to organize their three annual signature festivals.

Indiana Statecraft, Part One

 ... As American craft brewing in the contemporary era has expanded, it has become common for craft breweries to align in professional trade groupings precisely like BIG, as delineated by state boundaries. The reason is simple: In the United States, individual states retain the bulk of the responsibility for regulating beer, brewing and breweries. While the entity known as the Brewers Association exists to coordinate the interests of craft breweries nationwide, in the state of Indiana it’s all about BIG, as described at the guild’s website.

And:

Indiana Statecraft, Part Two

 ... My solution has the merit of gently nudging Indiana wholesalers sponsoring an Indiana guild-administered festival to better support those Indiana brewers already on their sales rosters. It also provides a compelling reason for other state Guilds to become better organized, and to refine their message.

My column at LouisvilleBeer.com is about Indiana craft brewing.

A quick note: Those tracking progress of this year's "artisan distilling" legislation in Indiana will be pleased to know that it passed and has been signed by the governor. I'm told there are a few stray wording clean-ups to occur in 2014, but the main hurdle has been cleared. Rep. Ed Clere was the prime mover of this legislation, and deserves credit accordingly.

Tomorrow I'll be attending a meeting in West Lafayette aimed at coordinating the Brewers of Indiana Guild, Purdue University and state government toward the aim of establishing agricultural research in areas pertaining to beer and brewing (it's been done for a long time with grapes and winemaking).

Maybe some hops and barley growing, and a micro-malting business in Indiana? It might happen if we can manage row in the same direction.

Indiana Statecraft (Part One)

What was that?

How many breweries are located in the state of Indiana?

Only your friendly statewide trade organization knows for sure, although with the situation changing so quickly from week to week, the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG) probably isn’t capable of a completely accurate count, either.

The best guesstimate bandied about during BIG’s annual meeting in April was about 63 operating breweries, with as many as a dozen more in the planning stages.

The Derby Grinch says: In or out of town today, just drink better beer.

If you're a fan of pyrotechnics and craft beer, just get over to Buckhead today for the craft extravaganza and ignore me: Thunder, craft beer, river.

As for me ... my yearly disclaimer.

I get no kick from juleps, and mere horse pimps don’t thrill me at all, but I get a kick out of being a contrarian Grinch each year during Derby Festival.

The orgasmic fireworks display this evening during Flatulence Over Louisville always provides grist for this cynic’s willful disobedience, providing an excellent pretext to skip town for somewhere quiet and civilized by comparison … a place where there is craft beer readily available to wash away the bad taste of this yearly glorification of pure, old-fashioned American garishness ... and since Birdseye didn’t fit the bill, I'm going to Indianapolis, instead. It's the Brewers of Indiana Guild's annual meeting.

Let me know when the smoke clears, okay?

More on artisan distilling legislation in Indiana.

Hoosier artisan distilling legislation was featured on Sunday morning at "Inside Indiana Business" (WTTS 13, Indianapolis).

Omar and Clay Robinson of Sun King Brewing Company were interviewed, and the segment can be viewed here. There's also a poll at the Inside Indiana Business website, asking yes or no to artisan distilling in Indiana. Scroll down to the middle of the page and look for a blue bar that says VIEWPOINT.

I voted yes.

Obviously, the Brewers of Indiana Guild -- of which I'm a board member -- supports this legislation. Rep. Ed Clere has shepherded it through the House, and Sen. Ron Grooms is in favor, too. The guild's executive director provides the following bullet list to member breweries; while reading it, note that mashing grains and fermenting it is a fundamental step both for beer making and distillation (sans hops). Distillation serves to concentrate the alcohol. Whiskies, and most vodkas and gins, are grain-based. Conversely, brandies derive from grapes or fruit, and our friends at Huber already distill from this portal.

• Brewers may not currently hold a distiller's permit under Indiana law.
• Many of your colleagues (and not just the larger breweries) seek the option of distilling to keep them competitive and profitable.
• You may not want to distill right now, but the new law will give your brewery the option to distill in the future.
• This bill would allow brewers to not only produce spirits, but sell them directly to the public onsite (up to 10,000 gallons a year).
• Indiana lags way behind other states in this regard. Your YES vote will help modernize Indiana's bizarre and sometimes archaic alcoholic beverage laws.

The legislation expands economic development opportunities in a fashion consistent with historical precedent, while not making distillation available to any stray carpetbagger with a wad of cash. Participating breweries would have to show a track record before distillation is approved. NABC has no plans to distill any time soon, although the production of beer schnapps might occur some day. This is a good law, and deserves your support.

ON THE AVENUES: Hoosiers have the ideal brew waiting.

ON THE AVENUES: Hoosiers have the ideal brew waiting.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

In the book “Indiana Breweries,” published in 2010, John Holl and Nate Schweber describe craft breweries in our Hoosier homeland. It’s a worthy effort and a fine read, and yet only two years later, their comprehensive work has very nearly become obsolete. Breweries in the state have proliferated from 37 in 2010 to 53 or more today, with at least 18 on the way and others in the planning stages.

But John’s and Nate’s book has something that promises to stand the test of time: A foreward penned by yours truly. Obviously it is self-serving and egotistical to point to reprint it here, so I believe I'll do just that.

---

In a world driven by cutting edge technologies, I’ve managed to retain certain Luddite proclivities even while conceding ground to my iPhone and laptop.

When I get home after a long day of professional beer drinking, I empty my pockets of small change, smudged Sharpie and trusty cigar cutter. Customarily there are various scrawlings on little paper scraps, magazine subscription cards, package store sales receipts and crusty, beer-soaked coasters.

On a groggy, grumpy weekday morning some months back, a cursory examination of one of these reminders revealed this unintelligibility: “Jahnenollbeerbk.”

After a two espressos and some appropriate reflection, the translation finally took shape amid the haze. Yes, of course; that pleasant fellow from New Jersey, at the pub, asking me questions about the brewery as the empty pints snaked down the bar’s surface like so many glass dominoes waiting to fall and break my liver.

John Holl … right, and the book he was writing – with some guy named Nate. Check.

Wait: A book about Indiana beer. Imagine that!

Hailing from Indiana, otherwise known as the Hoosier State, means living as a stereotype. We’re supposed to be basketball-loving, soybean-growing, corn-shucking, devotees of the Indianapolis 500, inhabiting flat ground somewhere in the vicinity of Illinois, drinking oceans of ice-cold, low-calorie, light golden lager after putting up hay, or downing boilermakers before shifts at doomed rust belt factories, all of which are both true and false, just like all stereotypes.

Hoosiers may not fully understand the meaning of the word “Hoosier,” but one element of our Indiana experience appears to be stealth, at least as it pertains to beer and brewing. Almost unnoticed, three dozen breweries (and more on the way) have settled into their joyous daily routines in Indiana communities large and small, from Indianapolis to Nashville, and from Ft. Wayne to Aurora.

It didn’t seem possible two decades ago, when we’d lash steamer trunks to our hand-cranked, Indiana-made Studebaker and make the long muddy drive from New Albany, through waist-deep potholes and past extensive herds of free-range bison, all the way to Indianapolis, the state capital, eager to experience real beer at Broad Ripple Brewing Company.

It was the state’s very first brewpub, and members of the Brewers of Indiana Guild annually honor John Hill’s birthday by thanking him for his admirable prescience, not to mention patience.

We didn’t call it craft beer in those ancient times. We simply called it good beer, and I believe I knew the name, rank and serial number of every person in the state who shared my preference for it.

At times it was a lonely existence, just me and a few of my closest friends, like Fidel and Che camped in the Sierra Maestra mountains, sifting through the flotsam and jetsam of mass-produced, carbonated alco-pop in search of the stray hop, all the while watching the yokels flee in terror at the mere sight of “the dark stuff.”

Twenty years later, we’re still a minority, but good beer – craft beer – is accepted and available in Indiana as never before. In this book, John and Nate tell you where to find the Hoosier breweries and to drink the beer they brew, and also other prime locations to find craft and just plain good beer from America and all over the world. Never again will you be obliged to grudgingly accept the paltry selections at that familiar chain restaurant’s bar.

Instead, like the authors themselves, you’ll be meeting the regulars at the Heorot in Muncie, or drinking world-renowned ale at the Three Floyds taproom (Munster), or while in Evansville, choosing the perfect beer to accompany pizza at Turoni’s. John and Nate cannot magically render you into the most interesting man (or woman) in the world. However, they provide complete instructions on how to drink the most interesting beer in Indiana, thus lessening America’s dependence on foreign Dos Equis, and immeasurably enhancing the pleasure when the Colts once again defeat the Patriots.

This Hoosier journey in pursuit of better beer is noteworthy because it simultaneously validates Indiana’s historic and cultural 19th-century virtues – think of John Wooden, the late, iconic basketball legend who grew up in Martinsville – while pointing the way forward to 21st-century goals like artisanal integrity, local sourcing and environmental sustainability. Most small brewers were going back to the future, green and local, before the buzzwords started trending.

Just ask Clay Robinson, Sun King’s advocate of recyclable cans, or Jeff Mease, organic farmer, water buffalo rancher and owner of Bloomington Brewing Company, or the pioneering Abstons, who are building trellises and growing hops in the hilly Knobs that rise above the Ohio River in Floyd County.

My favorite single aspect of being in the brewing business in Indiana, and by extension, the reason why the brewing business is the best business in America, is that all of us are like family.

Greg Emig brewed for John Hill at Broad Ripple Brewing, and then moved on to found Lafayette Brewing Company. Chris Johnson brewed for Greg, and now is the owner/brewer at People’s Brewing. Ted Miller also brewed for John before leaving to sell and install brewing systems worldwide. Ted returned to Indianapolis to open Brugge Brasserie, and today Kevin Matalucci, Ted’s high school classmate, is two blocks away from Brugge up the Monon Trail, brewing beer for John at Broad Ripple Brewing, as he has done since Ted left.

Indiana craft brewing is community, not competitive. We cooperate, not connive. It’s family. On those mercifully rare occasions when a brewery goes out of business, we lament and console the survivors, while advising and assisting the next wave. It’s a tall order, but we’re working together to put Indiana-brewed beer in the hands of the many Hoosiers who’ve yet to experience it.

In this book, John Holl and Nate Schweber do more than document the Indiana beer and brewing scene. They convey an overall sense of our brewing community and its ethos. John and Nate came to our places, drank our pints (samples just don’t tell the tale), walked the walk, stumbled the stumble, and deciphered the cryptic notes next morning while searching for Advil in a hotel room on the wrong side of the Interstate.

Read, enjoy and start planning your trip to Indiana. We Hoosiers have the ideal brew waiting, whatever your taste.

Indiana craft brewing by the numbers.

I'm in Indianapolis today to protest the Hoosier GOP one-party state. Nah, not really. I'm attending a Brewers of Indiana Guild quarterly meeting. Here's a snapshot of NABC's brethren, as of mid-October, courtesy of the Guild. If we can maintain growth like this, perhaps Indiana can be a monolithic one-beer party state.

53
There are 53 breweries properly permitted, actively brewing and open for business.

18
There are 18 breweries on the way (that we know of). All have applied for permits and some have been granted but for a variety of reasons these breweries are not yet open.

2
Two breweries have active permits (not placed in escrow) but have ceased operations.

1
One permit is active but does not appear to be actively brewing beer (Chateau de Pique in Seymour, an active winery)

Of the 53 active/open breweries:

33
33 are pubs

15
15 are production breweries with on-site tasting rooms

5
5 are production-only breweries (whether or not they have other locations, e.g., Upland, BBC and Power House)

And…

12
12 breweries are located in Indianapolis

4
4 are located in Bloomington; and 4 in Columbus (total: 8)

2
2 are located in each: Lafayette, Nashville, New Albany, Plainfield and Richmond (total: 10)

1
The following cities have one brewery: Aurora, Avon, Batesville, Bedford, Carmel, Crown Point, Culver, Elkhart, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Granger, Greenwood, Jasper,Kokomo, LaPorte, Madison, Michigan City, Munster, Noblesville, Seymour, South Bend, Valparaiso and Whiting (total: 23)

Of the 18 “breweries in planning”:

4 plan to be in Indianapolis; 2 in Evansville, and 1 each for Bloomington, Carmel, Chesterton, Columbus, Goshen, Greenwood, Hope, Merrillville, Muncie, Rochester, Shelbyville and Tell City.

If all these breweries open, that would be 71 Indiana craft breweries in 39 cities.