Last Saturday Hoppy visited the horror themed Scarlet Lane Gastropub on Bellefontaine St. in Indy. This was just after the Dorian Days and Dorian Stout Variants were still available. Hoppy partook of the following:
Dorian Millionaire Stout – w/ Sea Salt & Caramel 6% ABV 35 IBU
Double Dorian Stout – 10% ABV 20 IBU
Olga Imperial Stout – Strong Stout w/ Toffee & Chocolate Notes 11% ABV 25 IBU
He enjoyed them all, with his fave being the Olga!
Having also eaten here previously, Hoppy has a question for Executive Chef Erin Kem. When and where will you be bringing back your delicious Thai Mussels?
Photos of the pub are below:
Exterior Front EntranceMural & PatronsSeatins AreaLighting DecorBarBack of Bar – Notice Indy’s Sammy TerryMural & SeatingHoppy – Slow Down On the Olga It’s 11%!Draft List March 26, 2022Not Your Normal Pub FoodCan’t Have Horror Without B & W
In visits over the past several months to Deviate Brewing, on the border of Indy & Carmel, Hoppy quaffed a number of enjoyable beers, many of which deviate from the norm. These included the following:
Hop Supremacy – DDH New England IPA (Citra & Simcoe Hops) 7.7% ABV 70 IBU
Drop The Deuce – DDH New England DIPA (Simcoe & Citra Hops) 9.4% ABV
Organic Overlord – DDH New England DIPA (Simcoe & Citre Hops) 8.8% ABV
Sleeping Monkey – Imperial Stout aged in Apple Brandy Barrel with flavors of Chocolate Milk Bubbles & Irish Cream 12.7% ABV (Available to Deviate Drinking Club Members only & I would highly recommend that they try it!)
On Wednesday, March 2nd, Ale Emporium had what I am calling their Dark Lord Day. During this event they offered the Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout and five of its variants, from Three Floyds Brewing, on draft: They were as follows:
2019 Dark Lord – A Demonic Russian-Style Imperial Stout Brewed with Coffee, Mexican Vanilla and Indian Sugar.
2021 Marshmallow Handjee – Dark Lord Aged in Bourbon Barrels with Vanilla Beans.
2021 Chemtrailmix – Dark Lord Aged in Rye Barrels with Mekong Cinnamon + Pink Peppercorn.
2020 ‘Rrari Crochet – Dark Lord Aged in Cognac Barrels with Toasted Coconut, Freeze-Dried Strawberries, Cocoa Nibs, and Vanilla Beans.
2020 Keyrock – Dark Lord Aged in Rye Barrels.
2019 Loadstar – Dark Lord Aged in Bourbon and Maple Syrup Boarrels with Toasted Coconut.
For this very special Dark Lord tapping, Hoppy stopped at a phone booth and changed into “Malty” for one day. He found the Stouts to not only be exceptionally flavorful, but unbelievably smooth for brews that were all 15% ABV!
Malty sipped the Dark Lord, Marshmallow Handjee, Chemtrailmix, and Keyrock, avoiding both the ‘Rrari Crochet and Loadstar due to his aversion to coconut. If he was forced to rank them it would probably be Marshmallow Handjee followed by Keyrock, Chemtrailmix and Dark Lord, but all are worthy of their exceptional ratings
Three Floyds Dark Lord Tap Takeover at Ale Emporium – Castleton
Three Floyds is unleashing their Dark Lord Russian Style Imperial Stout in Indy on Wednesday, March 2nd. This is happening at Ale Emporium in Castleton beginning at 2pm and includes five Dark Lord variants, as well. Take advantage of your chance to taste the iconic brews from up north, here in central Indiana!
Yes, Hoppy made it to the Brewers of Indiana Guild Winterfest. He enjoyed sampling many of the brews available at the fest including the cask conditioned ales, the Sun King Reserve Barrel-Aged and Sours and Metazoa’s GABF gold award winning Trash Panda Blonde Ale made with coffee from Blue Mind Roasting.
As usual, it was good to see a large number of breweries from all areas of the state, as well as a large number of beer lovers. It was disappointing that Three Floyds did not attend the event this year.
The waiting lines seemed longer than ever. Mayber it’s time for the organizers to think of moving the VIP session to Friday evening or splitting Saturday into two separate sessions.
There are only a few pictures of the attendees below. This is because the purpose of a beer festival is to sample the beers and engage in revelry with others, not picture taking. However, if you took a picture of, or with, Hoppy and email it to gary@beerblogIN.com with your mailing address, he will send you a “Hoppy” sticker for your collection, or to ward off evil spirits!
You bet it is! Don’t just take my word for it, others think so, as well. Let’s take a look at how four different organizations rated Indianapolis as a beer city during the past year. In March, the USA Today Reader’s Choice Poll rated Indianapolis the 5th best beer city in the country. The methodology that they utilized to make this determination included forming a panel of experts to partner with their 10Best editors to pick the initial nominees, and then the top 10 winners were determined by popular vote among the readers of the newspaper. The complete rating of the top ten winners can be viewed here.
In May, the Real Estate Witch website ranked the Fifty Best Beer Cities in America. They analyzed publicly available data to rank 50 of America’s most populous metropolitan areas from best to worst. Their weighted rankings evaluated the number of breweries within each metro area, the density of breweries per 100 square miles, the number of beers brewed per brewery and the number of beer styles per brewery. In this case Indy ranked 2nd, behind only San Francisco! Check out the results here.
Move.org looked at the 100 largest cities in the U.S. and ranked them for beer lovers based on how many breweries they have per 100,000 residents. In this instance, Indianapolis had 3.76 breweries per 100,000 residents, ranking it 34th out of 100.
smartasset published their Best Cities for Beer Drinkers – 2021 Edition in December. To find the best cities for beer drinkers, they considered all the cities included in the 2020 Census with a population of 60,000, at least one brewery and available Numbeo data. This resulted in a total of 366 cities, which they compared across the following metrics:
Total number of breweries. Data comes from ratebeer.com and was pulled in November 2021.
Number of breweries per 100,000 residents. Data on microbreweries and brewpubs comes from ratebeer.com and was pulled in November 2021. Population data comes from the 2020 Census.
Average number of beers per brewery. Data comes from ratebeer.com and was pulled in November 2021.
Number of bars per 100,000 residents. Data on bars comes from the 2019 County Business Patterns Survey while population data comes from the 2020 Census. This metric is at the county level.
Average price for a pint of domestic draught beer. Data comes from Numbeo.com and was pulled in January 2021.
In this instance, Indianapolis ranked 43rd out of the 366 cities. (Fort Wayne ranked 23rd and Bloomington 50th.)
As you’ve probably noticed by now, not one of these ranking entities included the popularity or quality of the beers in their rankings. The closest would be the USA Today rankings that at least included a panel of experts and voting by the beer loving public. It would seem to me that cities with a large number of breweries per 100,000 residents, whose beers only rated average or below, by beer lovers, should receive a much lower rating than a city with fewer breweries that are rated above average to outstanding. Just because a city has a large number of breweries doesn’t make it a great beer city. Why doesn’t someone do rankings by metro area that includes the average ratings, of the beers brewed in each area, by such apps as Untappd or RateBeer. Until that occurs, we can look at various rewards received by breweries in a city. Looking at recent awards received by Indy breweries, I think that I can safely say that Indianapolis belongs near the top of the rankings!
In 2020 Sun King won four medals at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), more than any other individual brewery. They also rank in the top five for the most combined awards worldwide from GABF and the World Beer Cup (WBC), since their opening in 2009. Metazoa Brewing won two medals in 2020 and followed up last year with three medals as well as receiving Brewery of the Year and Brewer of the Year awards. Moontown Brewing in Whitestown also won five medals over the past two years. 18th Street Brewing won Best Brewpub in the Country from USA Today in 2020, for their brewpub in Hammond. They have since added a taproom in Indianapolis.
