Going to Indianapolis

I will be in Indianapolis on Wed night for business. Any suggestions for Brew pubs/micro breweries to visit?

Depends what area of town you're going to be in during your trip. If you are going to be mainly downtown there are a few breweries but they are all chains. Ram, Rock Bottom and Alcatraz. I haven't been to any of them, but I have heard atleast Rock bottom has some tasty but expensive food and decent beer.

As for cooler places: if you are in the Broad Ripple area you can hit two brewpubs that are about 2 blocks from eachother. One is called the Brugge which does only Belgian style beers and has a small tap list of about 3 brews right now. Then, the much more pub style brewery is the Broad Ripple brew pub. This is a nice place with a large selection of brews and two cask ales most of the time. The atmosphere is great and the food is tastey and reasonable (especially if you get their pizza). They have a double IPA called Serenity now on tap that is really tasty. Their other beers I tried didn't blow me away like their Imperial IPA did, but that might also have been because they were fighting against my pallet that was hit up by the tasty IPA.

Also, if you go to www.indianabeer.com they have a list of breweries with some descriptions so that might give you more detailed information.

Enjoy!

The Oaken Barrel in Greenwood, IN

http://www.oakenbarrel.com/home.php

skinfiddler said:

The Oaken Barrel in Greenwood, IN

http://www.oakenbarrel.com/home.php

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I've been to most of the breweries in the Indianapolis area, Oaken Barrel included. I was not impressed with the Oaken Barrel in any respect. Their atmosphere and service was IMO poor. It felt more like an Appelbee's with a brewpub than an actual brewery. The place was full of screaming kids and it just wasn't chill.

As for the beer, my friends and I went and ordered a sampler. After trying the entire line we decided none of those beers were worth ordering a pint of and instead ordered some of the random seasonal they had on tap. (the random chance of getting something good was more appealing) Their IPA, which wasn't on the sampler and they would not let us swap into the sampler, was the only decent brew in the whole bunch. Unluckily my brothered ordered that brew and I got stuck drinking something that I honestly forget but wasn't impressed with. Also, their food was not that impressive.

IMO if you're going to hit up a few breweries don't take the trip out to Greenwood when you could stay in town and hit up a couple much cooler places.

Oaken Barrel is decent, they made a good nitro porter when I was there. I'd suggest Upland Brewery, but that is probably out of the way. Further South in Bloomington. Believe it or not, IN has some great vineyards. Oliver, Butler, French Lick, to name a few. I like the Ram, great food and atmosphere, but they kinda have 4 "standard" beers on tap, like BJ's, C.B. & Pott's, etc. Alcatraz and Rock Bottom are great too. I say got to all 3; they're within stumbling distance OH!!!!! AND....you gotta go to a place called Nicky Blaine's! It's an AWESOME martini bar right on the circle, with huge couches, cigars, etc. REALLY worth going to....I had my Bachelor Party there, then went to the nudy bar

ScubaSteve said:

Oaken Barrel is decent, they made a good nitro porter when I was there. I'd suggest Upland Brewery, but that is probably out of the way. Further South in Bloomington. Believe it or not, IN has some great vineyards. Oliver, Butler, French Lick, to name a few. I like the Ram, great food and atmosphere, but they kinda have 4 "standard" beers on tap, like BJ's, C.B. & Pott's, etc. Alcatraz and Rock Bottom are great too. I say got to all 3; they're within stumbling distance OH!!!!! AND....you gotta go to a place called Nicky Blaine's! It's an AWESOME martini bar right on the circle, with huge couches, cigars, etc. REALLY worth going to....I had my Bachelor Party there, then went to the nudy bar

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I agree that Upland is a good place. It's actually in my home town and has tastey brews, fantastic service, a yummy food. Also, Nickey Blaine's is another awesome place to visit if you like enjoying a good cigar and Martini. I had a Manhattan there and was shocked when they made it out of Jim Beam :cross: To my shock though it was the best Manhattan I've ever had. I don't know what they did to that sucker but it was tastey.

Thanks All for the info. I have been to Nicky Blaines before and agree it is not to be missed. I am going to try to make it up to the Belgium place, that sounds interesting.