What Happens When Mad Science Meets Beer? Wabash Brewing Company is Born.

What happens when you put together two PhDs in chemistry, around twenty combined years of homebrewing experience, and mad scientist-levels of creativity and ingenuity? Indianapolis will soon find out on January 2nd when Wabash Brewing Company opens its doors on the northwest side of town.

A new brewery opening in the state is always cause for celebration. For one – there’s going to be even more beer for us to buy and drink! If you’ve got a complaint about that, then you might be reading the wrong website (but thanks for the pageviews! Also, have you given us a like/follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram?). With that, there will be a new set of brewers in the community doing things a little differently than what’s been done before. And after visiting Wabash Brewing Company with fellow – Indiana On Tapper Joel Bozman last week, we both found that they’re doing things a bit differently than some of those before them.

Co-founders Damon Carl and Matt Kriech both met at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN, but it wasn’t until Kriech recruited Carl to the PhD program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City that the two built a friendship that brought them back to the Hoosier State. After years of homebrewing and honing their craft, the two met up with their third co-founder and high school friend, Nic Stauch, and began to make plans to take their beer to the next level.

It all sounds like a normal “coming together” story, except that it’s not. Along with their 1.5 barrel system in the back of their West 79th Street location, Wabash Brewing has two GC MS machines, or, as Wikipedia calls them, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry machines. What these machines do is basically break a substance down and give you a report on the substance’s chemical structure. These two machines will help the brewers understand and tweak their beers on a molecular level most breweries can’t get to.

Oh, and one more thing – have you ever hosted a party and made commemorative t-shirts for it, or maybe a goody bag with some swag in it that your guests can’t get anywhere else? Wabash Brewing Company will be doing that with beer. Having an annual backyard barbeque, wedding, or watch party for a big game? Come to Wabash Brewing Company in advance and they’ll help design and brew a custom beer for your gathering. 

That will show the neighbors who top dog on the block is, won’t it?

Right now the team has four core beers: Cannonball Pale Ale, 503 Amber, the Portage Porter, and a blonde ale named for a river near Crawfordsville.  As they’ve hammered out those recipes, they’ve also worked out what they’re calling their Research & Development beers, which Joel and I shared a few of during our visit. Black IPAs are gaining popularity right now, and Wabash Brewing Company makes as good of one as I’ve had anywhere else. 

The location of their brewery and storefront may make some drinkers scratch their heads: the corridor of 79th street between Michigan and I-465 doesn’t have a lot going on, and it can be a bit of a pain to get to. But the team doesn’t see that as a problem. In fact, Wabash Brewing thinks that they have an ace in the hole with the 10,000+ workers in the surrounding two miles. That’s a potential customer base that not many other breweries have at their disposal, and Carl and the crew are ready to wet every last whistle. Carl and Kriech both see those area workers as a huge resource for building their reputation in the Indiana brewing community and for testing out new brews on regular customers. 

You can visit Wabash Brewing Company at 5328 W 79th Street starting January 2nd, when they’ll be pouring pints and filling growlers from 1:00 – 8:00 PM. I highly suggest it.