Great American Beer Festival Winners

Along with one heck of a big party, the Great American Beer Festival also boasts the largest commercial beer competition in the world. With another record level of participation in 2013, a few Indiana breweries can boast some impressive wins:

Medal	Brewery	Brand	Category
Gold (out of 117 entries)	Sun King Brewing (Indianapolis)	Afternoon Delight	Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer
Gold (out of 89 entries)	Three Floyds (Munster)	Blot Out the Sun	Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout
Silver (out of 91 entries)	Ram Restaurant and Brewery (Indianapolis)	Anaheim IPA	Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer
Silver (out of 149 entries)	Three Floyds (Munster)	Permanent Funeral	Imperial IPA

In addition, here is a list of winning beers from out-of-state breweries that distribute to our market. Forgive me if I skip Natural Ice and Old Style:

Medal	Brewery	Brand	Category
Gold	Boulevard Brewing (Missouri)	Love Child No. 3	Wood and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer
Gold	Fat Heads (Ohio)	Hop JuJu	Imperial IPA
Gold	Great Divide (Colorado)	Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti	Chocolate Beer
Gold	Jacob Leinenkugel (Wisconsin)	Canoe Paddler	German-Style Kolsch
Gold	Left Hand (Colorado)	Fade to Black Vol. 1	Foreign-Style Stout
Gold	Left Hand (Colorado)	Milk Stout	Sweet Stout or Cream Stout
Gold	Left Hand (Colorado)	Sawtooth Ale	Ordinary or Special Bitter
Gold	New Holland (Michigan)	Pilgrim’s Dole	Old Ale or Strong Ale
Gold	Sam Adams Cincinnati (Ohio)	Double Bock	German-Style Doppelbock or Eisbock
Silver	Fat Heads (Ohio)	Black Knight	German-Style Schwarzbier
Silver	Fat Heads (Ohio)	Trail Head	Fresh Hop Ale
Silver	Hoppin’ Frog (Ohio)	Barrel Aged BORIS The Crusher	Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout
Silver	Jacob Leinenkugel (Wisconsin)	Leinenkugel’s Creamy Dark	American-Style Dark Lager
Silver	Mad River Brewing (California)	Steelhead Extra Pale Ale	Golden or Blonde Ale
Silver	New Holland (Michigan)	Dragon’s Milk Reserve – Smaug’s Breath	Experimental Beer
Silver	Sierra Nevada (California)	Barrel-Aged Narwhal	Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout
Silver	Two Brothers (Illinois)	Ebel’s Weiss	South German-Style Hefeweizen
Bronze	Bell’s Brewery (Michigan)	Sparkleberry Ale	Fruit Beer
Bronze	Boulevard Brewing (Missouri)	ZON	Belgian-Style Witbier
Bronze	Brewery Ommegang (New York)	Three Philosophers	Belgian-Style Abbey Ale
Bronze	Brooklyn Brewery (New York)	Brooklyner Weisse	South German-Style Hefeweizen
Bronze	Flying Dog (Maryland)	Dogtoberfest	German-Style Marzen
Bronze	Moylan’s Brewing (California)	Dragoon’s Dry Irish Stout	Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout

Note that some of these beers were probably subject to a very limited release, while others are routinely found around the state. Happy hunting!

Beers, Cheers, and Sneers – October 18

Congrats again to Bier, Mad Anthony, RAM, Sun King, Three Floyds, and Upland for bringing home medals from the Great American Beer Festival competition. Upland is celebrating their gold medal by releasing a limited number of the winning Sour Reserve Blend #2 at both the Bloomington Brew Pub and Indy Tasting Room this Saturday when they open for business (11am in Bloomington and noon in Indy). Each bottle is $25 with a limit of one per person. There are about 48 bottles available in Bloomington and about 36 in Indy so get there early!

Other GABF winners worth noting (i.e. there is a chance you’ll find them in Indiana): Boulevard Brewing Reverb Imperial Pilsner and ZON, The Bruery Papier and Sans Pagaie, Goose Island IPA, Left Hand Sawtooth Ale, Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy (seriously), Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Sam Adams Double Bock, Sierra Nevada Estate Homegrown Ale and Imperial Stout, and Two Brothers Domaine DuPage (highly recommended) and Ebel’s Weiss. Then there is the triple crown that represents the American-style lager category: PBR, Miller Lite, and Keystone Light. The big win prompted a little trash talk from Pabst which was met with this response from New Albanian.

Happy anniversary to a couple of prominent Indiana breweries. Shoreline Brewery is celebrating their 7th anniversary with live music Friday and Saturday night, an Oktoberfest menu, and $2 pints all weekend! Triton Brewing in Indianapolis rings in their first anniversary of brewing on Saturday with live music, food, special brews, and the official dedication of their new Beer Garden.

Further details have emerged on Sun King’s second collaboration with Oskar Blues. The Deuce is a Hopped Up Brown Ale with 100% Galaxy hops weighing in at 69 IBU and 7% ABV. The collaboration again made a point of using a special ingredient from each brewery’s region. The Indiana contribution is Riehle’s Select Gourmet Popcorn, also featured in Sun King’s Popcorn Pilsner, which was used in the mash with Colorado Malting Company’s Belgian Pale Malt. The Deuce will be packaged in Ball Corp. Alumi-Tek re-sealable aluminum pint bottles and should make an appearance in our market soon.

Hardcore fans of sour beers have found a new holiday in Zwanze Day, which offers an opportunity at various global locations to try Cantillon’s recent vintage of specialty Zwanze lambic. This year’s event was delayed until December 1st after Cantillon determined this year’s batch would not be ready and decided to revive the original rhubarb lambic recipe that generated the first Zwanze in 2008. There are no Zwanze Day participating locations in Indiana, but events at West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago and Holy Grale in Louisville offer chances to join the celebration within an easy drive.

While it’s not an Indiana brewery, I qualify as an obnoxiously unabashed enthusiast of Founders Brewing Company. If you’re not familiar with their story, this article gives a great background on how the brewery nearly filed bankruptcy turning out uninspired pale, amber, and wheat ales and dumped their old lineup in favor of a new strategy that pushed the envelope of what consumers had experienced in the craft beer world. The rest of the story is history that is still being written. Founders celebrates their 15th anniversary this year with a 15% ABV “Bolt Cutter” barleywine and an appearance in Food Republic’s top 10 craft beer power rankings.

One perk for reporters covering the presidential debates is access to free food and beer courtesy of Anheuser-Busch. Yes, your favorite Belgian-owned brewery has decided to continue their tradition of sponsoring American political theater since 1996. And should you grow tired of the partisan bickering, you can switch over to the hospitality tent’s own propaganda Twitter Feed and glean such nuggets as “nothing more American than great debates and great beer” and “AB products seem to be clear winners on this debate night”. Those are about as original as the political talking points we can all recite in our sleep by now. So in the spirit of true debate, I’d like to offer this slightly alternative evaluation of such products.

For a detour into the absurd this week, a Scottish brewery claims to have produced a “beer” that somehow finished with a whopping 65% ABV through a special freeze fermentation method. Now, this was a little bit fun back when Sam Adams and Dogfish Head were pursuing the title of world’s strongest beer towards the 25% level. Since then, European breweries have pushed the threshold past the 30 and 40 percent barrier leading to this point where you have to wonder when enough is enough. If you feel the need to consume a beer at this level and can’t get your hands on any Aberdeenshire Armageddon, here is one possible alternative. Take your favorite barleywine and rig up about a 50/50 blend with Everclear. Hold your nose, take a drink, and be secure in the knowledge that any onset of blindness is likely just a short-term inconvenience.

Cheers, Nathan

Cheers to Indiana GABF Winners!

The Great American Beer Festival competition awarded gold, sliver, and bronze medals in 84 categories with a record 4,338 competition entries from 666 (could it be…….Satan?) breweries from 48 states, Washington D.C., and Guam. Unfortunately, Guam was shutout. But Indiana was not! Congrats to six Indiana breweries for winning seven total medals! Sun King continued their strong run of GABF showing and Upland furthered their quest towards world dominance in sour ales. All of the winners are listed below………

Bier Brewery (Indianapolis)	Silver Medal: Belgian-Style Abbey Ale	Sanitarium
Mad Anthony Brewing (Fort Wayne)	Gold Medal: Fruit Wheat Beer	Ruby Raspberry Wheat
RAM Restaurant and Brewery (Indianapolis)	Silver Medal: Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer	Anaheim IPA
Sun King Brewing (Indianapolis)	Gold Medal: Barley Wine-Style Ale	Johan the Barleywine
	Silver Medal: Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer	Pappy Van Muckle
Three Floyds Brewing (Munster)	Bronze Medal: American-Style Pale Ale	Zombie Dust
Upland Brewing (Bloomington)	Gold Medal: Belgian-Style Lambic or Sour Ale	Sour Reserve

Indiana Beer News - October 2 - and GABF Winners

Indiana did good at the GABF.. Well, specifically Sun King did real good, winning 8 medals, half of them Gold.Repeat, Sun King won more medals and more Golds than any other brewery, period.

Brugge, Rock Bottom 86th St and Three Floyds each won 1 medal.

Gold:
Coffee Beer - 60 Entries - Java Mac, Sun King
Belgian-Style Strong Specialty Ale - 59 Entries - Buffalo Slumber, Sun King
Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout - 24 Entries - Ring of Dingle, Sun King
Scotch Ale - 39 Entries - Wee Muckle, Sun King

Silver:
Scottish-Style Ale - 27 Entries - Naughty Scot, Rock Bottom Brewery, 86th St. Indy
Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer - 40 Entries - Wee Pogue, Sun King
Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer - 118 Entries - Bourbon Barrel Johan, Sun King
American-Style or International-Style Pilsener - 31 Entries - Popcorn Pilsner, Sun King
German-Style Märzen - 58 Entries - Munster Fest, Three Floyds

Bronze:
American-Style Brett Ale - 31 Entries - Grimalkin - Super Kitty Fantastico, Brugge Brasserie
Barley Wine-Style Ale - 42 Entries - Johan the Barleywine, Sun King

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Apple Buzz comes back to Oaken Barrel on October 10th.
 

Sun King will be sending Grapefruit Jungle IPA out in cans to the masses next week.
 

NABC replaces Bud at Tucker's American Favorites. - Photos

Three Floyds is now available in Ohio.
 

Ft. Wayne's Germania Park gets ink related to Prohibition.
 

Cool. Hop Varieties Cheat Sheet

Beers that were available (in 1-oz samples) at the GABF.

Here's a 44 minute video history of the GABF.

GABF winners available in Indiana

80 categories times 3 medals each (full list). That's a bunch 'o beer. But which ones can you actually try here? Most aren't distributed in Indiana. Many, like Founders Endurance IPA were seasonals or specials that were never sent past the brewery's home town. Some have come and gone like New Belgium's Eric's Ale. Sigh. But store shelves do have these:

Indiana:

• Three Floyd's Munsterfest is available in 22oz bottles at many stores.
• Sun King's Dominator Dopplebock was a seasonal last February. It'll no doubt be back before the snow disappears (do you remember snow?).
• Sun King's Golden Slumber is listed as "retired" but may just show up again in a Silver edition.
• Rock Bottom 86th St.'s Naked Oatmeal Stout was a seasonal last July. We'll bet Liz will brew it again as it got raves at the bar and the Denver bravos were right on.

Small Brewer of the Year: Mad River – They are handled in Indiana by Cavalier and the Steelhead series, Double Dread Imperial Red, and Mad Belgian Golden Strong are on shelves. Last year's GABF Gold John Barleycorn Barley Wine will be back this fall (ahhh, autumn) but the medal went to the '06 version.

Similarly, Bell's Expedition Stout took Bronze in Aged Beer with the 1995 version.

Now available (links are to World Class Beverages' Beer Finder):

• Clipper City Heavy Seas Gold Ale
• Clipper City Heavy Seas Marzen
• Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat
• Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
• Mad River Steelhead Extra Pale
• Ommegang Three Philosophers
• Pyramid Audacious Apricot
• Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar
• Rogue Shakespeare Stout
• Sam Adams Honey Porter
• Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA
• Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Jack and Kens Ale (Barleywine)
• Sierra Nevada Estate Homegrown Ale (Organic IPA)
• Shmaltz He'Brew Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. Double Rye IPA
• Two Brothers Domaine DuPage French Country Ale

Great Divide's Colette Saison will be back in March, 2011.

Left Hand Fade to Black will be back in November.

Oh, and there's Miller Lite, Old Milwaukee, and Miller Genuine Draft that took the medals in American Lager/Light Lager. Plus Michelob Amberbock. You might also find Hamm's and Old Style in places, they won medals.

Happy hunting.

Misc News – Sept 19

Jerry's Rock Bottom Oktoberfest (Downtown Indy) – Bright orange copper. Malt with plenty of hoppy balance and initial kick. 6%.

Out of 516 breweries that sent 3,523 beers to the GABF, two three in Indiana brought back medals. Congratulations to them. Full results

• Sun King Golden Slumber - Belgian-Style Abbey Ale – Silver
• Sun King Dominator Dopplebock – German-Style Doppelbock or Eisbock – Bronze
• Three Floyds Munsterfest – German-Style Märzen – Bronze
• Rock Bottom, 86th St, Indy – Naked Oatmeal Stout - Silver

Sun King is getting 3 more 60bbl fermenters and bright tanks. Also an outdoor silo so the building will finally look like a brewery.

Coming to Alcatraz – Oatmeal Stout.

Coming to the Ram – Pie'd Piper Pumpkin Ale.

Anita at Great Fermentations over-ordered and still has 40 or so gallons of Early Blend Cider for your fermentation passion. It's a blend of Gala, Honey Crisp, Jonathon, Empire, and Jonagold apples and has a sweeter brightness than last year. She'll be ordering a Late Blend in a month so there's still time to do two batches this winter.

You needed to be at New Albanian's Bank Street Brewhouse's Sandkerwa NA anstich tapping right on time. (5pm). The Ahornberger Landbrauerei Strößner-Bräu's Ahornberger Landbier lasted 51 minutes. Zehendner Mönchsambacher Unfiltered Lager didn't make an hour either. and Zum Grunen Baum Landbier didn't last a half hour on Saturday. Roger is ecstatic. blog Next Thurs, Fri, Sat, more of the similar.

Mark Schiess brews with Jim Kirk's 16-year old malt extract. story so far

So a guy flies from New Mexico to Harrisburg PA to get one of 400 bottles of Troegs' Splinter Blue beers. He's 401st in line. Brewery finds one more bottle to make his trip worthwhile. article

Misc News – Sept 29

2009 GABF winners from Indiana are

• Barley Island Dirty Helen Brown – Gold – American Brown Ale
• Brugge Diamond Kings of Heaven – Bronze – American Sour Ale
• Brugge Bad Kitty Gose – Bronze – German Sour Ale

Almost 10% of the GABF entries (307) were in the Sour or Barrel Aged categories.

Medal winners available bottled in Indiana:

Avery Kaiser, Brabant
Barley Island Dirty Helen
Bell's Lager
Boulevard ZON
Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse
Clipper City Marzhon
Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu, Palo Santo Marron, Midas Touch
Flying Dog Horn Dog 2007, Dogtoberfest, Gonzo, Barrel Aged Gonzo
Great Divide Hoss, Yeti, Old Ruffian
Harpoon UFO
Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere
Left Hand Smokejumper
Rogue Imperial Chocolate Stout, Mocha Porter
Southampton Publick House Berliner Weisse

The Old Town Ale House in Fishers is closing this coming Sunday. Sigh. In its short existence the Morses made it one of the top 5 beer bars in the state. $2 bottle specials (on everything) until then.

The Old Town Ale House in Fishers is closing this coming Sunday. Sigh. In its short existence the Morses made it one of the top 5 beer bars in the state. $2 bottle specials (on everything) until then.

Keg Liquors in Clarksville is bringing down the Southern Tier Imperial Series in bombers from North Coast Distributors up north. At prices of $8 and $10. Thanks Todd.

There are liquor store tastings, then there are liquor store stastings. Keg Liquors lined up 30 Oktoberfest and Pumpkin beers for about 80 people through the evening.

New Albanian's Public House is doing the Monday Night Football thing. Pitchers $10. Pitchers of Pilner Urquell that is.

Their Strathpeffer heather honey beer (without hops) is surprisingly balanced. Sweet malt vs. grassy fresh heather and a hint of peat. Lovely.

At New Albanian's Bank Street Brewery we can highly recommend the Croque Madame. Hame and Ementaller on toasted sourdough with a perfectly fried egg, fries, and a proper cream sauce. Add a cigarette for a Pushkin Breakfast.

The preliminary NABC All-American lineup for Lupulin Land hop festival is up. Starts Oct 16th.

Kennywood Brewing Supply in Crown Point gets good ink in the NWI Times.

Oktoberfest at Rocky's Italian Grill and neighboring Buckhead Mountain Grill - Jeffersonville. Oct 3. $5. Music, beers, etc.

The President of the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers writes a letter to the Indy Star. They print it with the headline "Don't believe retailers".

Making a batch of cider this fall? Great Fermentations has a special blend arriving Oct 10th at $6/gallon. You must pre-order.

BrewDog of Scotland was yelled at by the government for its 18.2% ABV Tokyo Stout. So what to do? Make a 1.1% ABV hop bomb and name it Nanny State. article

Turn your cans into bottles for just $10/12. Why?

Two words: Widmer Brothers Cherry Oak Dopelbock. Limited release in bombers in October.

Molson retirees in Newfoundland and Labrador are getting a cutback in their pension. Instead of 2 cases of beer each month they'll only get 12 cans. article

For the G20 conference in Pittsburgh, the Church Brew Works made a English Brown Ale with ingredients from all 14 participating countries. Indonesian Jackfruit, Russian Buckwheat, Turkish cherry pits. article