20 Jul It’s Called Urban Vines, But They’re Brewing Up Some Good Times
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
Urban Vines in Westfield started out as a winery, but owner Noah Herron always intended to brew and sell beer. They’ve now been serving up beers for about nine months, and it has been a very successful addition to the winery, but we need to get the word out better that the “Vines” part of their name doesn’t limit them to wine. The beer sales have been so successful in fact, that Noah and Marc Rupenthal have started to expand the brewhouse and plan for a beer festival. This is very good news on both counts.
The 1.5 bbl kettle at Urban Vines has been getting a work out. Moving toward four brew days a week now, Noah and Marc are double batching into their five bbl fermenters, and will soon start triple batching their very popular Dead Man’s Stout (rated at over 3.8 on Untappd). To free up their system for brewing more beer, Urban Vines recently purchased a 5 bbl brite tank, allowing for faster rotations through the fermenters Why the need for making more beer? Well, because they are selling alot, so much so that they want to expand the number of beers they offer.
image credit: Urban Vines
To meet this need, they have also replace their initial six tap draft system with a brand spankin’ new 16 line set up. They did most of the work themselves, by want to acknowledge the help they received from Blind Owl head brewer and Proper Pour IN owner, Alex Petersen. But the brite tank and the tap lines aren’t the only additions to the beer making madness of these chemists. A new brewer has been hired, Derek Kunzman, to push even harder to get enough beer made for their patrons, also allowing Marc and Noah to spend more time with the winery end of the business.
Urban Vines will be installing a Napoli pizza oven in the next few weeks, so the beer and wine will have a full food menu to complement the drinks. Putting in a full kitchen is an important part in the growth of a brewery, especially one that is pulling in as many people as Urban Vines is for their Thursday night summer concert series and their regular music shows on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. Beer or wine, good music four nights a week and good food – that sounds like an unbeatable combination.
The only thing you might to the expansion of Urban Vines is a one day festival celebrating their most popular beer. Well, they’ve got you covered. Look for a Dead Man’s Day coming in October. Four or more variants of the Dead Man’s stout will be available, perhaps in packaged form as well. A Grateful Dead cover band and a Halloween theme are other possibilities, so keep your eyes on the Urban Vines Facebook page. The pizza oven will be up and running by then, so it will have all the hallmarks of the great beer release parties for which Indiana breweries are known.
Congratulations for the success and growth of Urban Vines over their first year of making beer. Bigger things are to come, with Westfield and north Carmel turning into quite the destination for craft beverages, including the recent news that Bier Brewery will be opening a taproom at 13720 N. Meridian (see this article). There’s lots of great beer on the far northside – go find it.
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