Once again it came to my attention that I had been ignoring this blog. Well, maybe not ignoring it as much as finding the time in a busy schedule to make some entries.
The brewery has expanded! All of our new fermenters are in place and as of today currently filled! What a rough 2 weeks that was. A lot of extra brews on top of our standard processes sprinkled with a few collaboration brews and beer festivals! The result? Lots of beer!
We have some great seasonal beer coming your way in the next few weeks. One that I’m most excited about is the first in our series of beers celebrating Indiana’s bicentennial. Throughout the year we will release four different beers that have a historical significance to Indiana or a famous person, trade, or craft that came from this state.
This weekend we will release the first in our series: Ice Melter.
Ice Melter is a Gose style ale.
AKA:
Leipziger Gose
Pronunciation guide for English-speakers:
“Gose-uh” as in “rose” plus “uh”
Definition:
Gose is an ancient, sour and saline tasting ale, made from more than half malted wheat and the rest malted barley. The brew is fermented with both yeast and lactic bacteria and is spiced with both coriander and hops. It is brewed with slightly salted water. This peculiar beer style is now most closely associated with Leipzig, the capital of the German State of Saxony.
Last spring I attended the Maple Syrup Festival in Nashville, IN and learned of Indiana’s maple and salt production. These two products were turned to in hopes to recover from an economical struggle after logging had wiped out much of the forests and left the land difficult to farm. Southern Indiana, in particular Salt Creek and many of the areas named “Lick” were capable of producing salt either through desalinization of water from Salt Creek or mining.
After searching high and low for local “culinary salt” from Indiana I had to resort to using plain sea salt. Most of the salt produced in Indiana today goes to the stuff they put on our roads so we don’t slide around in the winter. Hence the name of the beer: Ice Melter!
What else makes this beer special? Rather than a traditional Gose base we took it a step further and used a traditional Witbier or white ale base. While keeping the coriander as per tradition with both styles, we added healthy additions of orange peel and rose hips to give a little extra citrus and fruity kick. We soured overnight and finished the brew the following morning fermenting the finished product with Belgian Wit yeast. Choosing a witbier as the base beer allowed us to pay some homage to our friends at Upland and their drive for helping to bring craft beer to Indiana! Upland Wheat, a witbier, is one of their flagship beers!
We are super stoked to bring this beer to you this week. It’s an awesome spring beer and has some great historical ties to it!
Summer will bring a brand new bicentennial beer as well. I won’t say too much as I enjoy leading up to surprises, but it will be another blend of German styles that I really enjoy. All of malts are being sourced from Sugar Creek Malts right here in Indiana!
Fall brings us harvest season for many hop farms. With the harvest season in full swing we chose to put out a new IPA involving our friends at Eight One Two Farms in Columbus, IN. Indiana has a strong hop growing history dating back to pre-prohibition, plus these guys are local and love great beer!
Winter will bring us to the state’s actual birthday and the release of our final beer. A good ‘ol fashioned winter warmer style featuring maple syrup from a local maple producer!
Festivals!!!
Indiana has a ton of beer festivals in the summer. We’re looking forward to attending many of these and hop to see you there!
Bloomington Craft Beerfest was fantastic as always and our next one will be in May. We’ll be pouring at Downtown Indy Brewfest on May 21st. Others can be found on the Indiana Brewer’s Guild site! So keep a look out and don’t miss out on some of these awesome festivals!
Cheers!