Breweries are doing a great thing for Indiana. Okay, they’re doing a lot of great things, like making great beer for us to drink, pumping money into the state’s economy, and providing jobs for thousands of Hoosiers from Evansville to Angola. One thing I think that is overlooked by some of us though is their revitalizing of the neighborhood bar.
As towns grow and develop, amenities move in. With amenities come chains. Chains may serve their purposes to some, but ultimately they’re stifling in their similarities and cease an area’s ability to grow into itself in its own unique and diverse way. Soon enough the same strip center you buy your new headphones in becomes the same place you get your Stuffed Crust Pizza and your Margarita Presidentes.
Where does the neighborhood bar fit into that? Sure, there’s plenty around that have weathered the storm of gentrification, but many are seen by new inhabitants as “dives” or “old folks bars,” places that have lost their novelty to many. Where is the local watering hole where you can gather after a day at work and have a beer with the same people you grabbed a beer with the day before, rest your arms on a bar and let the weight of your day slide off you, “where everybody knows your name?”
See, breweries in Indiana are doing their fair share of helping revitalize the neighborhood bar. Wabash Brewing and Upland’s new west side location have become favorite stops for the thousands of factory and plant workers around them. Grand Junction is (in my opinion) Westfield’s finest watering hole. The Heorot/Wolves’ Head Brewing location is filled with locals even at noon on a snowy Valentine’s Day (I know from experience). The team at MashCraft know their customers by name and their orders by heart.
The brainchild of Indianapolis native Eddie Sahm (of the Sahm’s Restaurant family) and head brewer Scott Ellis, Big Lug aims to bring that neighborhood bar feel to a strip surrounded by Taco Bells, Jimmy Johns, and shopping super centers.
“People who live and work up here don’t have the time to run downtown or to other neighborhoods to get that brewery feel or growler fills,” Sahm tells me. “We want to solve that problem for the people up here, be a place where they know they’ll get a great beer, some good food, get a growler filled, and relax.”
That’s actually a really good point. Indy can’t always be the easiest town to get around, and folks north of 82nd street don’t have the time to make it down to Sun King, TwoDEEP, Black Acre etc. That’s not a complaint against those breweries at all – it’s just the reality of the situation. The upside of that reality is the northern neighborhoods and suburbs are ripe for the picking, and Sahm was ready.
What people can come to expect from Big Lug Canteen is a diverse yet familiar menu (“You’re going to be able to get a great sandwich here, as well as a delicious steak”), a beer menu with enough selections to keep anyone happy (Ellis: “We’ll have your standard IPA, but we’ll also push the beer a bit with an English beer and a beer were working on now made with pawpaws”), as well as a cocktail menu featuring Indiana-based distilleries.
Big Lug also has the virtue of being prime real estate: the brewery is located in the old Snoody Fox restaurant at 86th and the Monon Trail and will feature plentiful bike parking and an outdoor beer garden that comes with full menu service as well a “concession stand” where patrons can get bottles of Gatorade, walking tacos made with homemade chili, and many other childhood favorites from your local ballpark.
That may sound odd, but it’ll be part of what makes Big Lug Canteen feel so comfortable: you’ll be eating and drinking things that Sahm and Ellis love to eat and drink themselves.
“We’ll have a good lineup of house beers, and we won’t push boundaries much,” said Ellis, who started brewing on a professional level under Omar Castrellon before becoming the head brewer at the Ram in 2014. Added Ellis, “But at the end of the day I’m going to brew what I like to drink and is exciting to me.”
Big Lug will feature separate dining and bar areas, each with their own feel and seating, so patrons can come to expect the food and drink they love in a new setting with each visit, should they choose. And for those with little ones, a new Rockstone Pizza will be opening next door that will feature Ellis’ beers alongside their popular pizza and guest taps.
Eddie Sahm and Scott Ellis set out to give the neighborhood of Nora an exciting local option among a sea of bland chains. When Big Lug Canteen opens its doors October 12th, the people of Nora will be happy to find just that.
Big Lug Canteen is located at 1435 E 86th St, Indianapolis, IN 46240.
