New Regional Brewers, Same Great Time Highlights 5th Annual Crown Beer Fest

Approaching the Industrial Building at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Crown Point on Saturday, we quickly caught a visual glimpse of how rapidly craft beer in Indiana’s northwest corner has evolved. The fifth annual Crown Beer Fest, hosted by Crown Brewery, has now outgrown its host building. With more than 35 breweries pouring to a sold-out crowd, the festival features three large outdoor tents to accommodate the additional breweries and the record 2,000-plus craft beer lovers.

As the gates opened to the 1 pm VIP session, we zeroed in on Northwest Indiana’s three newest breweries, including one that has not even opened its doors. Conveniently, the festival organizers placed all three together in the south end of the hall. First up was Valparaiso’s Four Fathers Brewing, a small production brewery that opened its doors just four weeks earlier in Figure Eight Brewing’s original location on the west side of town. For the VIP session, Four Fathers opened up a few howlers of their barrel-aged Wheelhouse Russian Imperial Stout – a delicious, well-balanced stout with a strong coffee note. Another highlight was Four Fathers’ Square In the Kiwis SMaSH Pale Ale. With limited brewing capacity at the point, Four Fathers is focused on pint and growler sales directly to consumers, with plans for limited draft sales to a few select bars and restaurants in the coming months.

Next up was Michigan City’s Burn ’Em Brewing, the elder statesmen of the group at barely two months old. A production brewery that already has begun bottling, Burn ’Em’s dreadlocked brewers poured four beers from the brewery’s skull-inspired tap handles: Black Beer’d, a vanilla-hazelnut dark ale; Krankenwagen, a “heavy hefe” weighing in at 7.2% abv; ZZ Hop, a double red IPA; and ESP, an ESB fermented on pineapple brewed in collaboration with Crown Brewing. The ESP was a tasty, refreshing ale, nice with temperatures rising as the VIP session ended and the hall quickly swelled with patrons. While Burn ’Em’s beers are on tap at a number of breweries in the Michigan City and South Bend areas, the brewery is not yet open to the public. A tap room is in the works, keep an eye on Burn ’Em’s Facebook page for details.