Quaff On! Drink Local Night A Reminder Of All That Makes Bloomington Hoppy

Caleb Staton, Upland’s sour brewmaster, had several familiar bottles arrayed near the bar. I immediately zeroed in on Way Down Yonder, a new collaboration with Great Raft Brewing of Shreveport, Louisiana that I hadn’t yet tasted. It’s a refreshingly tart blend of persimmons and pawpaws aged on Upland’s Sour Reserve. I have a couple of bottles waiting for me at the Upland brewpub as part of my final Secret Barrel Society purchase for 2015, so I’ve got that going for me. Caleb also had bottles of Bruxellensis and Lambicus, sours that are part of Upland’s experimental Fresh Oak Brett Project that also included Claussenii and Unison. Beer cognoscenti will recognize Bretts B, L, and C (as they are familiarly known) as strains of Brettanomyces, the wild yeast that creates the tartness, funkiness, and sometimes even horse-blanketiness in sour beers. Secret Barrel Society members were able to participate in a blind tasting of all four (Unison used all three strains) at the Sour+Wild+Funk Fest this past summer. Caleb confided that their next experiment involves wild yeast collected from four locations around Monroe County. Now that’s what I call local! I’m taking a tour of Upland’s sour brewery this weekend, so I’m planning to get more information about the construction of their new sour facility and their plans for the near future.

We ended the evening by sampling ales from Switchyard Brewing, a Bloomington brewery and restaurant slated to open late next year on South Rogers Street near the planned Switchyard Park. Switchyard recently raised over $40K through a successful Kickstarter campaign. According to co-founder Michael Korus, they are busy trying to coordinate construction of the brewery with purchase and delivery of their brewhouse. Meanwhile, they are perfecting their recipes and popping up at various venues (like GnawBrew this past summer) to serve their beers and spread the word about their brewery. The three beers they were serving for Drink Local Night were all solid. The Lemongrass Wheat was perhaps my favorite; the lemongrass, purchased at the Bloomington Farmers’ Market, was prominent and made for a refreshing beer that I’m sure would be even better on a hot summer day. The Porter had a medium body and featured lots of dark malt flavor. The Session IPA had a nice hop flavor and aroma (Citra and Amarillo) but was lacking bitterness, which was just fine with my wife. The brewers told us they’d had some problems with this batch and that it wasn’t representative of the kind of IPA they usually make.
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Drink Local Night is a great idea, and I hope to see more nights like this celebrating the breweries around Bloomington. As I said, I was a bit disappointed that most of the brewers sent beers from their standard rotations, but it just makes me look forward even more to Bloomington Craft Beer Week, those magical seven days in April leading up to the Bloomington Craft Beer Festival, which will be on April 9, 2016, so mark your calendars now. I’m already anticipating a week of date nights!