Bee Creek Brewery

The extended Forster family and friends have, for quite some while been mixing up the three "b"s; beef, bees, and beer; on the banks of beautiful Bee Creek near Brazil, Indiana.

Bee Creek: Bee Creek Brewery is actually not on Bee Creek, but it runs between the farms of Dr. Frank and Julie Forster and Julie's brother and 25-year homebrewer Mark Snelling.

Beef: A pole barn on the Forster's cattle ranch housed the brewery and the cows crowd toward the fence as soon as the mash odors hit the air. The goal is to brew enough beer to feed their 30 head of cattle on just spent grain, grass, and their home-grown hay.

Bees: Yeah, why not. They use 90 pounds of honey from Hunter's Honey Farm in Martinsville in every 6bbl batch of their flagship

Beer: Mark has been brewing since his days in the Navy where submariners in SF Bay wanted more than torpedo juice. Presumably he wasn't actually brewing on a submarine.

That's them over to the right. Mark and Frank up top. 2nd row has quality control inspector Tycha Donathan, Julie, and Mike Godsey, a friend and the brewery's mechanical/plumbing guru.

They are sitting on a 6 BBL system recently installed from a defunct brewpub in Sacramento. The original 15-gallon Sabco is now going to be used for a pilot brewery.

The flagship beer has been settled on. Hoosier Honey Wheat – a German Hefeweizen brewed with copious honey to give a bold 7.0% ABV. Lots of banana and honey sweetness takes out some of the traditional clove notes and leaves a long, sweet finish.

It is waiting for has label approval and might just show up in the World Class Indiana 12-pack this fall.

Look for them at the Microbrewers Festival in July and welcome them to the family.

One of these is named Molson because it was born on Canada Day.