My wife and I had an opportunity to go to Indianapolis this past Friday and Saturday. We arrived in Indianapolis Friday night and decided to go to the Ram Brewery and Restaurant http://www.theram.com/ . This is a chain brewpub with over fifteen locations in five states. My wife and I had previously eaten at one and knew that we would find good food and decent beer, which was necessary since we had our eldest daughter with us. They delivered on that thought. My wife and I split a sampler of their six core beers; it comes in a holder the shape of a ram's horn. The six beers were Big Horn Blonde, Big Horn Hefeweizen, Big Red Ale (an IPA), 71 Pale Ale, Buttface Amber Ale and Total Disorder Porter. These are all at least decent beers and some in our opinion are better than others. Both my wife and I thought that the beers overall were a bit thin in body. We did not care for the blonde and the Hefeweizen became more complex as it warmed. My favorite was the porter and my wife liked the amber best. After we finished the sampler my ever sharp wife noticed that they had four seasonals as well. The four were a weizenbock, which I had a pint of, a Black IPA, an American Wheat and a java porter. The weizenbock was good, but not exceptional; they call it S'no Angel Winter Weizenbock. It did have a bit of roast and was malty but just did not go the extra bit to be a great beer. We all had our fill of good food as well. Ram is a good brewpub chain, but there are better chains and better independent brewpubs.
Saturday afternoon we dropped off our daughter at her interview and decided to do a bit of exploring of Indy. (I hope the nickname is allowable because typing Indianapolis takes too long.) First stop was to suppose to be Sun King Brewing after we read that they had won eight medals this year at the GABF (Great American Beer Fest), but the driver was not paying attention and missed the turn, so instead I pulled into the winery across the street. We had thought about visiting Easley Winery since it was located close to our intended stop and afterwards we were very happy we did.
Easley Winery http://www.easleywinery.com/ is not your normal Midwest fruit based winery. They truly make only grape based wines, no fruits added. To accomplish this feat they use grapes from California, New York and Indiana, which they press on site to make their thirteen wines. My wife and I were greeted quickly and asked if we wanted to go on the tour for $3. The benefit was the tour ending with a tasting of eight wines. The tour was lead by Larry whom had good information to pass along and kept the tour fast paced. The tasting part is well thought out, the first six samples a person could chose between a pair of wines, so if you are there with someone else you can share and try them all. The seventh sample was the same for everyone and the eight was a bonus of mulled wine, they included for the season. We enjoyed the wine sampling very much. A couple of the standouts were the Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2008 Chardonnay. I forgot we actually had nine samples because they added the 2008 Chardonnay during the tasting. We purchased a bottle of the 2008 Chardonnay to bring home, for $8 it was a steal. We bid our adieu to the winery and walked across the street to Sun King Brewing Company http://sunkingbrewing.com/.
As I mentioned this brewery did something basically unheard of by winning eight medals at GABF! Just do the math; it is a huge accomplishment. Eighty-three categories and three medals in each category means that they won eight out of two hundred forty nine medals. Not even breweries such as Firestone Walker or Dogfish Head can match that. Unfortunately for my wife and me currently none of the medal winning beers were on tap, but we did bring home a four pack of Wee Muckle which won a gold medal at GABF. We also brought home a four pack of Osiris Pale Ale and Wee Mac, a Scottish Ale.
When you walk in the door you are quickly greeted and provided four tickets and two can tops, once they verify that you are over 21. Yes they card everyone, even old people like me! We walked into the tap room and are introduced to the process of sampling the beers. The tickets are good for their house beers and the can lids are for the seasonal/specialty beers. While we were there they had three house beers and three seasonal/ specialty beers, so again we shared the seasonals and tried all three. All of the beers were delicious. The house beers were Sunlight Cream Ale, Wee Mac and Osiris Pale Ale. The seasonals were Sink the Clipper, an Imperial ESB, Cowbell, a milk porter and a Vienna Lager. Sink the Clipper was both of our favorites. Plus it has a great back story. To be quick, they named the beer and was served with a cease and desist order by Clipper City Brewery, thus the name Sink the Clipper.
Besides the beers there is an opportunity to tour the brewery, so needless to say my wife and I jumped at the opportunity. The tour was lead by Chris or better known as Moose and Mark, the cellar-man, was along as well. Right away Chris asked if there were any homebrewers in the group so besides my wife and I there was one other gentleman. We were then admonished to be good and let other people in the group answer and ask questions. Which we did. They have a thirty barrel brewhouse and this year are scheduled to double what they produced last year and much more than what they produced in the initial brewing year of 2009. This brewery is growing at a great rate and unfortunately they do not distribute outside the state of Indiana.
My wife and I greatly enjoyed the tour and had a chance after the tour to talk more with our guide and the cellar-man. It was interesting to see the passion these people have for beer and their company. I would highly recommend making it to Sun King for the beer and to see the brewery.
Watch for part 2 as I finish our day in Indianapolis.
QC Beerguy
No comments:
Post a Comment