Alcatraz – A fond farewell

Alcatraz is closed. Paper on the windows. According to the Indiana Business Journal, they are changing it to a California Pizza Kitchen.  article  That’s a different company than Tavistock Restaurants who owned Alcatraz. CPK doesn’t do brewpubs. The phone is disconnected and the Indianapolis location has been taken off the Alcatraz web site. Head Brewer Skip Duvall is out of a job (as is everyone else). The vats are still in place but should be removed next week according to an informant.

Alcatraz opened in 1996, one of a chain of restaurants including a few brewpubs based in San Francisco. By about 2007 Indy was the last location brewing.

Panamanian immigrant Omar Castrellón was been the brewer there almost since the opening until August, 2010 when he left to build a new brewery in Indianapolis – Thr3e Wise Men (which just opened yesterday). Omar and the cramped system have won many awards over the years:

Great American Beer Festival 2000 - Gold - Sausalito Summer Ale 2000 - Silver - Weiss Guy Wheat 1999 - Gold - Birdman Brown World Beer Cup 2000 - Gold - Weiss Guy Wheat Indianapolis Monthly 1999 - Best Brewpub - Critic's Choice

Indiana State Fair 2007 - Silver - Chibuku 2005 - Silver - Pelican Pale Ale 2005 - Silver - Birdman Brown 2004 - Gold - Birdman Brown 2004 - Gold - Searchlight Golden Ale 2004 - Silver - Weissguy Wheat 2003 - Silver - Penitention Porter 2003 - Silver - Pelican Pale Ale 2002 - Silver - Bitch's Bock 2002 - Silver - Searchlight Golden Ale 2001 - Gold - Karen's Kölsch 2001 - Silver - Pelican Pale Ale 2001 - Silver - Searchlight Golden Ale 2000 - First - Kölsch 2000 - First - Wheat 2000 - Second - American Light Lager

Keely Thomlinson, a part-time Assistant for a while at Alcatraz who followed Omar to Thr3e Wise Men full time. Skip Duvall, a former Assistant for Omar took over head brewer duties just last August.

Misc News – Dec 17

Skip Duval made his Alcatraz public debut with a tapping party for Penitentiary Pilsner. Oh, and he has an assistant now – Dan Krzywicki of Great Fermentations comes in once a week to help out.

• Penitentiary Pilsner - Creamy and clean. Not Czech hoppy but more Cream Ale-y.
• Rock Bock – Light tawny brown. Medium to strong malt gives good mouthfeel. Caramel comes through the low IBU. 6% ABV. Pretty good stuff.
• Conjugal Visit Hefeweizen – Skip’s first stuck mash was recovered to produce a very cloudy hefe with sweet bready banana esters. A+ Bought a growler (half price ($4) on Thursdays).

More Tastes:

• Upland 2010 Strawberry Lambic – Brewed in 2009. Strong, bright lambeek to a tart balance. Crisp and refreshing – a summer beer. Not a lot of strawberry left.
• Sun King Walking on the Sun – Sunlight Cream Ale with about 18 Scoville units of heat from roasted peppers. Nice slow bite. Less hot that cinnamon gum. Very little pepper taste, just a bit of heat. Lets make it a regular. Go Cold Sweat. Unfortunately the keg it lasted 3 days in the tap room with no immediate plans to return.

Upland has a “Local’s Twelver” variety pack on the shelves with the slogan “Nature’s idea of beer”. 2-each of Wheat, Dragonfly, Bad Elmer’s Porter, Pale, Am Brown, and a Seasonal. A peek inside turned up Oktoberfest at my local Krogers. $15. Good price.

Keeping up with Girls Pint Out, The Mans Town is starting a sorta-similar social organization in Indy. First meeting in mid January.

Two words: Brandy Barrel-aged Poppa Skull. and a new tank at FFF.

Headlines: Is change in alcohol I.D. law in the cards? and Change needed in alcohol laws

The Muncie Star-Press editorializes for Sunday Sales.

The Hoosier Beer Geeks and Goose the Market in Indy are proud to announce a new club to feed your curds-and-whey craving and appetite for artisanal ales. Register in the Beer and Cheese Club before Dec. 31st and get a 1 year subscription to Beer Advocate Magazine! $99 per 4 monthly allotments of farmstead cheese paired with craft beer plus tasting notes and HBG reviews. Call the Goose to register: 317.924.4944

The HBG seems to be done posting their Metromix collaboration detailing the breweries of Central Indiana – augmenting their Where To Drink in Indianapolis from a year ago.

• Alcatraz Brewing Company
• Broad Ripple Brewpub
• Barley Island Brewing Company
• Brugge Brasserie
• Oaken Barrel Brewing Company
• Ram Restaurant and Brewery
• Rock Bottom – Downtown
• Rock Bottom - College Park
• Sun King Brewing Company
• Upland Brewing Company
• Wilbur Brewing Company
• Breweries with Indy outposts (Upland, Granite City, BJ’s)
• Other Breweries in the Greater Indy Area (Big Woods, Bloomington, Half Moon, Lafayette, People’s, Power House, Upland)
New and Proposed Breweries in the Indy Area (Bier, Flat 12, Thr3e Wise Men, Triton, Black Swan, 3 Pints, Brownfield, Blue Republic)

Sun King. Coconut Wee Mac. Just sayin.

Brewpublic sorts out the Rock Bottom/Gordon Biersch merger. “A source associated with Rock Bottom’s brewing department, who asked to remain confidential, tells us that it now looks like things with the RB-GB merger “aren’t going the way (the most of brewers) had hoped” telling Brewpublic ‘We’re less than a month into this thing and the new CEO has decided to start making changes to our beer program. He wants us to standardize at least four, and possibly up to six of our beers across the entire company.’ ” article

Martyn Cornell has sorted out what ales really were called back in the Victorian era. article

It’s always winter in your refrigerator.

Misc News – Sept 3

September starts with Omar's new job at the Thr3e Wise Men. A loyal group helped him reduce some of the inventory of Devil's Ale, Bourbon American Stout, and other specials sitting in the back room.

Skip Duvall is taking over at Alcatraz and says the Search Light, Rock Bock, Weiss Guy Wheat, and Pelican Pale Ale will remain mostly unchanged while he puts his stamp on all the seasonals.

Power House and Great Crescent breweries are joining the collaboration frenzy. Jon and Dan will be co-brewing a Belgian Abbey Dark Strong at the Aurora facility.

At Power House, the Columbus Bar will be serving Dilligaf, a Rye Ale, any day now and an Oktoberfest is fermenting.

Half Moon has a Rasperry Rye Beer and Skull Splitter IIPA on tap.

Lafayette Brewing has just tapped their Star City Dark, a Schwarzbier with Styrian Goldings. "If you're looking for a lighter beer with depth of colour and taste, then don't be afraid to go dark with our darker version of our popular Star City Lager."

People's Brewing was at the Beer Sellar in Castleton this week. Sandwiched between Texas Hold'em and a pool league, Chris and Fred passed out samples, glasses, and other goodies. Cavalier is distributing People's and their IPA, Amber, ESB, and Pilsner are available to pubs over the state, not just in the Lafayette area.

• People's Pilsner – Plenty of Santium hops – a Tettnanger, Hallertauer, Mittelfruh hybrid. Noble with a touch of Saaz spicy.
• ESB – Dark red-tinged brown. Smooth. Balanced. All EKG. A+
• IPA – Dark, which means malty, but hit with 77 IBU of Columbus, Centennial, and Amarillo hops.
• Aberrant Amber – Has an up-front 48 IBU attack of citrusy Amarillo and Centennial.

Another brewpub is coming to Central Indiana. The Black Swan Brewpub at 2067 E. Hadley Rd. (the ex-Hog Heaven just north of I-70 at the Ind 267 exit) has received zoning approval from the Plainfield authorities. D J McCalister is the guy behind it and has worked with Lafayette Brewing, Oaken Barrel, Barley Island and Alcatraz. He said to zoning commission "Brewpubs in general especially in the Midwest have a long history of combining very good food, very good beer and providing excellent service to their customers." They'll be opening as an English Public House while they source brewing equipment and do all those other little details necessary to brew beer.

Black Swan Brewpub from Fork in The Road on Vimeo.
(Neil, Thanks for the tip, as always)

Indiana was represented at Beer And Sweat a week ago. Jim Matt got a Gold with his American Pale Ale and credits the filtering as being very important in a keg-based competition. Eric King and Clayton Cummings of Indy were second with a Saison and Steve Llewellyn of Bloomington got a silver with a Belgian Specialty Ale.

Quality Wine and Ale Supply has more homebrewing articles:

• How Temperature Affects Wine And Beer During Fermentation
• Get Better Results From Your Beer Brewing Kit With Recipes
• How Seasonal Beers Are Made
• An Introduction To Seasonal Beers
• Why Is Light Beer Light?
• What Makes Dark Beer Dark?
• What The Beer Lover In Your Life REALLY Wants

The Beer Sellar has raised the quality of their craft selection a lot in the past year (above). Right now it's all Monarch/WCB plus a couple of Sun King but Cavalier may make inroads with taps for People's, Mad Anthony, Crown, and New Albanian as the lineup gets more and more Indiana offerings. But please, take down this misleading sign. ==>

Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland made 80,000 bbls in 2009 and has expanded to a 150,000 bbl capacity.

There are about 20 new breweries in the planning in the state of Washington. article

Divers in the Baltic Sea have found a shipwreck and bottles of beer from the early 1800s. sketchy article – better article

Misc News – Aug 25

The Hoosier Beer Geeks went to Madison's Great Taste of the Midwest and report about it with pictures of the Indiana breweries that were there.

Broad Ripple Brewpub 20th Anniversary beer right now is Limping Mallard. A 7.7% Scotch Ale that is like sucking on a caramel. This one last saw the light of day 15 years ago.

From: Omar Castrellón To: The World All friends and enemies invited. Alcatraz Aug 31 6:30 pm. Omar's goodbye (from Alcatraz). A couple of beers we need to empty. Good stuff.

On Monday a 60,000 crane with a 90-foot boom being operated in the beer garden of the Indianapolis Athenaeum/Rathskeller tipped over. The Indy Star has the article and a net-worthy FAIL picture.

Excruciatingly detailed Beer Paintings.

If you think the map on our home page is cluttered, you should see the Cask Beer Finder for America map (scroll down).

Thank Heaven For Beer has a grin-inducing story about the in-store beer snob. article

More grin-inducement as Weights and Measures visits the Public House. articleRumor has it SABMiller may offer $10.9 billion for Foster's. article

Misc News – Aug 22

Add to your calendar: KokoFest Micro Brew Festival in conjunction with AllKokomo.com. October 9th. Behind the Half Moon. Local beer freak Blake Montgomery is setting this up to benefit the Carver Community Center. The CCC provides youth activities, lunches, mentoring, day care, and generally makes life better for kids in Kokomo. Two CCC fundraisers earlier this year were strongly impacted by bad weather and this Festival hopes to make up some of their shortfall.

Breweries, etc.: Blake's one of the good guys and he has just over a month to pull this together. He's recruited the local VFW post to provide workers. When he calls you, give him the nod – or call him at 765-438-9591 (blake@profitws.com) right now. It's a good chance to make inroads into the Kokomo market and help a worthwhile cause.

Bloomington Brewing's equipment for the new production brewery is in and pretty muchly installed. They have a new Premiere system with 20 bbl capacity on the hot side and 40 bbl fermenters and bright tanks. Eileen Martin will brew the first batch in September.

Aleen tells us Bloomington beers can now be found at the three Indy-area Scotty's Brewhouse locations. (Wilbur Brewing's Country Mellow Amber is on tap in Scotty's in Bloomington).

Bee Creek Brewery has grown a bunch. No longer just brewing on Saturdays, they have 2 full-time and 1 part-time person. Huzzah.

Crispin Ciders is making inroads here. Distributed by World Class Beverages, they have a variety of natural no-sugar-ciders and a perry (pear cider for you heathens) made in California and supported by Chad Lushin here in Indiana. Bottles and kegs are available and Chad is getting more and more taps replacing Woodchuck and that ilk of fuzzy flavored water. They do want their cider to be served over ice, "European style" but won't monitor it in your own home.

They also make the cider for Original Sin's line (distributed by Cavalier).

Crispin's lineup:

• Honey Crisp Artisanal Reserve – Slightly cloudy and moderately carbonated cider that has a sweet meady quality from addition of organic honey. 6.5% ABV. Not using the sweet desert Honeycrisp apples, instead a blend of west coast pomes.
• The Saint – Slightly cloudy and slightly carbonated fermented with a Belgian Trappist beer yeast. Again, sweetish, this time from some organic maple syrup. 6.9%
• A "Blue" line of Crisp, Bright, and Extra-Dry ciders. at 5%, 3.2%, and 5.5%, respectively.
• Fox Barrel Perry that we haven't tried yet but will ASAP. 4.5%

 

It's now official and we have permission to tell you Omar Castrellón will be leaving Alcatraz in 2 weeks to be the head brewer at the Thr3e Wise Men brewery in Broad Ripple. Skip Duvall will move back across the street from the Ram to Alcatraz at that time. TWM has a new system very similar to Bloomington's (see above).

 

New to Indiana next month – We'll be seeing Napa Smith beers via Pelican Brands and WCB. Made in Napa, CA, by Don Barkley. He's been in craft beer since it started in 1978 at the New Albion Brewery who started it all - article. Oh, and Mendocino Brewing of course. NS is only two years old but it has chops. The first offerings are a Wheat Beer (4.6%), an Organic IPA (7.1%, 70 IBU), and Lost Dog Red Ale (7.2%) which has a boldness befitting its strength.

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If the statistics Mark Kleiman quoted in the The Atlantic  are even close to accurate, his point also leads to the obvious conclusion that good craft beer can never be more than 20% of the market:

"Divide the population into deciles by annual drinking volume. The top decile starts at four drinks a day, averaged year-round. That group consumes half of all the alcohol sold. The next decile does from two to four drinks a day. Those folks sop up the next thirty percent. Casual drinkers - people who have two drinks a day or less - take up only 20% of the total volume. The booze companies cannot afford to have their customers 'drink in moderation'."

Misc News – Sept 16

• Alcatraz India Brown Lager – Smooth porter. Drink it, you'll like it.
• Ram Golden Dome Irish Stout – An unexpected bur pleasing brightness overrules the roasty background notes. Seems like the session beer Guinness claims to be.

Skip Duvall (left at right) is the new assistant brewer at Alcatraz. He's from a homebrewer and hop head from Griffith taking the Siebel course online.

During the football season, Ram is enticing patrons to watch on their Color TVs with $3 24oz mug of their base line of beers.

New Holland and Southern Tier are brought into Indiana by North Coast distributors in Valpo. These beers can be found only in the northern reaches of the state. Up until now that is. Joe Quinn of Kahn's in Indy is going to get both of these breweries' beers on an occasional basis. ST's Pumpkin, Big Red IPA, and Unearthly Imperial IPA, for instance, will be among the first to make the trip south.

Avalanche Amber in cans. It's in Indiana now.

Boulder Beer is 30. Yep, started in a goat shed in 1979. article

Flying Dog's 20th Anniversary beer won't be out until Oct or Nov. Raging Bitch Belgian-style IPA.

"In an ideal world, beer prices at the ballpark would be based solely on the quality of the team", Wall Street Journal

The Great British Beer Festival had 64,000 attendees over the 5 days; up from 59,500 last year. There were 55 Cask Conditioned beers from America. There was a separate prize for them won by Cambridge Brewing Co.'s YouEnjoyMyStout aged in bourbon barrels for two years. 2nd was Brooklyn's East Indian Pale Ale. 3rd went to Stone Levitation. article

Tastes

Lots of quick tastes, including this year's Maibock survey:

• Alcatraz Rock Bock - Brownish copper. Quite malty styled bock. Mt Hood hops for balance. Dries out in the finish.
• Alcatraz Bighouse Red - Crisp and clean. Munich, chocolate, and roasted malts. Wilamette and Cascade hops.
• Alcatraz Weiss Guy Wheat - Bold copper color. Thickish. Plenty of wheat and plenty of bitterness combine to give a full mouth experience and a balanced finish.
• Broad Ripple Brewpub Maibock - Fairly dark. Great smoothness and balance. Same as last year. Right to BJCP style guidline.
• Oaken Barrel Munich Helles - Crystal clear gold. Quality thoughout with the drinkability of an American lager but makes BMC seem like artificially flavored pap. 5.2%. 27.9 IBU (what's up with the .9?)
• Oaken Barrel Uberweizen - As always uber cloudy. Bready clove nose. Wheat hits tongue first and stays predominant. Less banana and clove than last year. Heavier carbonation as well. Same great thick mouthfeel.
• Ram -Maibock - Nicely matured. Crisp-looking copper. Crisp in the mouth also. Balanced a bit to the sweet side. Full bodied but not creamy.
• Ram Wit - Golden and hazy. Spicey of stongly citric orange and clove. Stays in the middle of the tongue. Uses the famous Ram 777 yeast. A+
• Ram 90 Shilling Scottish. Nice bitter background. Smooth. Very swiggable at a nice 5.7%. A+
• Ram Dry Hopped IPA - Served from a firkin at their open house. Sarachi hops give plenty of IPA bitterness that comes in late.
• Rock Bottom, Downtown Indy Goat Toppler Maibock - Rich gold color. Good malt aroma. Pleasant sharpness leads to quite a bit of bitter that is joined by some spiciness at the end. Jerry has used a livin-on-the-edge amount of hops.
• RB Downtown Cezanne Saison - Golden color. Small mixed-fruit nose. White winey tartness hits hard and dries fast. Refreshing summer drink. Fermented for 31 days with two yeasts. 6.3%
• RB Downtown Naughty Pappy - This batch of the Naughty Scot 90 Shilling has been aged one full year in a Pappy Van Winkle barrel. Like the Naughty Woody the whiskey is the focal point. Aroma of fruity vanilla. Whiskey hits the tongue first. Finish is sweet.
• Rock Bottom, 86th St, Indy Maibock - Light golden color but at 7.1% it isn't light. Malt start, balanced finish just like it should be. Quite a kick. Robust.
• RB 86th St Naughty Scot on the handpull - Perfect. Smooth. Candy sweetness at start dries by the middle. Begs for a bigger glass.
• Upland Maibock - Darker copper. Pleasant malty aroma. Malt attack slowly translates to bitterness. Slight spice at end. All quite rounded and married. Available in bottles.
  
  This year's King of the Maibocks may very well belong to Upland, Ram, or Broad Ripple. They're all smooth, married, and quaffable. We'll have to set up a direct comparison tasting.

Dixie Brewing is sending 1,000 cases to Fargo, ND to fulfil mayor Dennis Walaker's promise to buy everyone a beer who helped with their recent flood. Dixie is still being brewed in Wisconsin due to Katrina.

AB/InBev is selling the last of their stake in Tsingtao to a Chinese investor. That should bring about $235M to toward paying off the AB purchase.