Indiana Beer News – Feb 5

Great Crescent Brewery will start canning in about a week.

Sun King, er Clayton Robinson, gets ink in the Indianapolis Business Journal. article Bonus video talking about business plans and stuff.

Ron Smith sends lots of AHA news. Contact him for more info about any of these items.

BJCP Study Group and Exam in Indy - For those of you interested in the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program),  there will once again be a study group and an exam in the Indy area. The study group will meet on Saturdays at the Payless Liquors in Carmel.  he dates are Apr 9, Apr 23, Apr 30, May 7, and May 12 (a Thursday).  Study group sessions run from around 12:30 - 6:00 (final times TBD).  The exam will be held at the same location on Saturday, May 14 at 1:00.  The cost for the study group is approx $150, plus $50 for the exam (assuming a first time taker). The exam is limited to only 12 test takers, and the study group members will be placed first.

National Homebrew Competition First Round in Indy - The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) hosts the largest homebrew competition in the world, with thousands of entries. To handle this number of entries, there are various First Round Competition sites that a beer must place first, second or third in, in order to advance to the finals. The finals this year will be at the AHA National Conference in San Diego in mid June.  One of the first round competition sites is here in Indy and myself and Brian Steuerwald are the coordinators, along with the help of many other volunteers. This competition will be held at Sun King Brewery on April 15, 16, 17. It is not an open event, but we do need BJCP judges, stewards and other volunteers.

Beer MBA Classes Start This Week - Be sure to sign up right away as I expect this series to sell out. The Friday night series is a great way to end the work week and start the weekend!  See the website, www.BeerMBA.com/classes.php for all the details and to sign up.  Note the new location at the Payless Liquors in Carmel, near the Meijer.  Dates are Feb 11, 18, and 25, each from 6-9pm. Cost is $135 for all 3 classes (or $50 per class).

The classes are designed to be taken in sequence and to take all 3 of them and get your Beer MBA Certificate.  Class 1 is a prerequisite for the other 2 classes, so once you have taken it, you can take the other classes in a future series if you have date conflicts.

Belgium Beer Trip - Summer 2011 - July 24 - Aug 2 - With the way the economy has been, I had somewhat decided to hold off on these trips until things improved, but there seems to be a lot of interest now, so this Belgium trip could be on for this summer. If you have an interest, let me know as soon as possible.  If I can get at least a small group together, we can make it happen.  See  http://www.beermba.com/belgium-beer-vacations.php for details. The dates will soon be changed to Sunday, July 24 to Tuesday August 2, and all the other details are the same. This is an incredible trip that is certainly beer focused, but there is much more to it than beer. Great food, culture, historical sites and of course great beer await.

IUPUI Beer Class - 3 Credit Hour Course - If any of you attend IUPUI or know someone who does, be sure to check out TCEM 328, Introduction to Microbrewing, which is a class I teach.  It is a much more in-depth version of my Beer MBA classes, and includes field trips to breweries and distributors, more information about food and beer pairing, etc.

Falls City Beer gets ink in the Louisville Courier Journal. article “Falls City is sold at some 100 places. Easterling, who lives in Anchorage, said production could triple — to 240 barrels per month — by Kentucky Derby time.”

Odors were rated as more pleasant when sniffed through the right nostril and were more accurately named when sniffed through the left nostril. - Herz, R. S., McCall, C., & Cahill, L. (1999). Hemispheric lateralization in the processing of odor pleasantness versus odor names. Chemical Senses, 24, 691–695.

Misc News – Feb 11

Greg Emig spent yesterday introducing his bottled Lafayette Brewing beers to Indy. A few folk at Kahns and a bigger mob at Barley Island Broad Ripple. The Hoosier Beer Geeks were there with a camera and a notepad. You can find the Oatmeal Stout and Tippecanoe Common in 6-packs now in Indy.

Saturday is Lafayette Brewing's Winter Warmer. Sold out of course. They will also be unleashing this year's Marley's VSOP downstairs that day. If you have ticket, though, you can go upstairs for some tastes of past year's Boris.

Ram's Irish Red is Adrian's recipe and he's hit a good one. Nice rocky ivory head. Bright dark red. Initial malt meets a bitter attack then smoothes to a dying balanced taste leaving a clean mouth asking for another sip.

Liz at Rock Bottom, 86th St, Indy, has some new hoppy beers on tap.

• Dominator IPA is cloudy dark yellow with no red tint at all.  It's Summit and Cascade (?) with malt to balance. 7.9% and about 70 IBU.
• Sub Zero is described as "Malt and Hoppy" on the board and that's an adequate statement of style. With Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade hops it goes perfectly with potstickers. 7%. Your author thinks it could be possibly described as a Dunkel Saison.
• Liz also bottled up a couple of cases of Old Curmudgeon Imperial IPA and Trippel Trouble last December and they are now available at the bar (only). 22oz. $9.

John Holl tells us there's a keg of Warbird T-6 Red Ale on tap at the Melody Inn (Illinois & 38th in Indy). We've confirmed it's still in good shape. $4.75. Anyone for a wake? Yes, the place does smell like urinal cakes, there's cover charge, and the lead singer chick only has 2 notes in her tone-deaf repertoire but it is, after all, a wake.

Bell's Batch 9000 will hit the stores next week. Find out where at the Beer Spy.

For those of you interested in the Beer Judge Certification Program and taking the exam to become a ranked beer judge, Ron Smith will be leading a study group starting in a couple weeks and the exam will be on Saturday, March 27th. The people that usually participate in this have been brewing for a while and want to take their brewing and evaluation skills to the next level. There are 4 long (6 hour) Saturday sessions on Feb 27, Mar 6, Mar 13 and Mar 20, plus an optional practice judging session on Thursday night, Mar 25.

New Albany votes itself wet. Finally you can buy a beer in New Albany. NY Times - Roger Baylor's take. Come on, you know there's a trick to this. Go ahead and click anyway.

Sierra Nevada's 30th Anniversary Series release schedule:

Mid-March – Fritz and Ken’s Ale – Imperial Stout
Mid-May – Charlie, Fred and Ken’s Ale – Imperial Helles Ale
Mid-July – Jack and Ken’s Ale – American Barleywine
Mid-October – Our Brewer’s Reserve – Oak Aged Ale (a blend of Oak-Aged Bigfoot, Celebration Ale and fresh Pale Ale)