The Beer Run (Part 3): Sun King Brewing and the Little Guy Getting Big

An Indiana On Tap Original by Donovan Wheeler

This is the third of a multi-part entry detailing my journey around Indianapolis with my son, a few weeks after his 21st birthday.  See below for a list/links to all stops on our two day craft beer odyssey.

Not too long ago I watched a Boston Brewing Company television spot (the makers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager) that implicitly said: “Hey, even though we’ve gotten really huge, and we’re in every liquor store and almost every restaurant in the country…we’re still just a micro-brew, like all those cool ones next door that you love.”
–
The ad is, of course, total nonsense. On the one hand, Sam Adams is a great beer, and I feel no shame either ordering it or buying any of the other side-brews under the Boston Brewing moniker, but saying that Sam Adams is the same as the stuff brewed at the mom-and-pop micro-brews around Indianapolis, the suds made in a handful of vats only forty feet away from the taproom bar that sells it…? Rrrrrrrrright.

Sun King Brewery

Sun King isn’t as big as Boston Brewing Company, but compared to virtually every other micro-brewery in Indiana (in probably the Midwest to boot) it’s huge. That single reality leaves me feeling a tad conflicted because there are always those irritating little signs that suggest a company has gotten big. Most recently, I called ahead a few days before Jim and I hit the road for our brew trip making sure that the Thursday evening brew tours were still on.

“Oh, yes,” a very polite lady told me, “we will be having a tour.” When we arrived? No tour. I don’t know if it’s a case of the left hand not talking to the right one, or that a large party paid the $100+ for a premium tour, thus bumping out all of us freeloaders. Given that I saw a large group finishing up what was clearly a brewery tour, I assume tours for the common man were shut down in lieu of those ponying up the cashola. And in all fairness, that’s all well-and-good. Sun King’s running a business, and they have the right to make all the profit-centered decisions they want. Furthermore, the lady who told me the tours were cancelled was amazingly cordial and polite, as are almost all the people who work there.

Things like that just make the place feel big, corporate big. That’s all.

So what am I to make of that? Well…nothing, really. At the risk of sounding horribly clichéd, “it is what it is.” Sun King runs a different sort of operation than the other breweries and brew-pubs, but it still makes magnificent beer. One of their house beers, Osiris, personally ranks dead-even with Upland’s Dragonfly as the best pale-ale/IPA I’ve ever had. And their Scottish ale, Wee Mac? That brew has seen its way to our kegorator for almost a solid year running. Even better? Sun King’s specialty and seasonal beers are some of the most creative, adventurous concoctions I’ve tasted. In the last four months alone they’ve swooned me with Cowbell milk porter (one of the smoothest, most delicious porters I’ve ever sampled), Chocolate Cake (an even richer, sweeter porter than Cow Bell), Ring of Dingle (a mildly hoppy Irish ale that leaves a fresh aftertaste), and Timmie (a Russian imperial stout that’s flat-out superb). But their newest seasonal, a creation they’re calling Dopplebock, is an outstandingly smooth and delicious brew that drinks well in this crossover weather in the spring.

Of all the stops on our two-day, personal brew pub tour, Sun King was the one spot where no surprises awaited me. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been traveling from Greencastle to the east side of Indy many times swapping out empty Wee Mac kegs for fresh batches. It’s located on College Avenue only a couple blocks north of Washington, and other than a very precarious maneuver from the South Split to Exit 111 (the crossing four lanes in about 1/8 of a mile type of precarious), it’s easy to get to, even from two counties to the west.

Even though I know what I’m about to see when Jim and I enter the brewery, I’m still amazed when I soak in the layout. Sun King’s taproom, a massive array of tap-handles running along the nearly the entire north wall of the public area, isn’t really a taproom in the academic sense. The “tap area” transitions smoothly to the brewing and canning facilities taking up the eastern half of the building. As Jim and I walked in, a crew was hard at work canning a batch of what looked like Osiris, and watching the elegant simplicity of the canning operation fascinated me. In the physical span of no more than fifty feet, empty topless cans descended from a suspended conveyor (looking something like cable-cars coming down a mountain slope), to a high-pressure faucet/nozzle system filling several containers in seconds. Another device casually “dropped” the lids on top of the cans, and we both watched entranced as yet another mechanism spun each can rapidly on an axis while another device sealed the lids shut. Moments later, they were strapped into four-packs and loaded onto a growing pallet sitting at the south edge of the “open to the public” area.

The remaining wall, the west side of the building, shifted seamlessly from production to sales. The surprisingly small cooler (given the massive number of people who fill up the place when it’s open) housed cold four-packs, and five steps from that: the “gift shop,” an arrangement of shelves and display cases that sells anything you can imagine with the ancient North American sun god iconography. Besides the standard fare of pint glasses, coasters, and t-shirts; you can get coozies for your growlers, posters, ink pens, and key-chains. No doubt, one day they will be selling head-covers for your Taylor Made and maybe even the golf bag as well. As well as Sun King markets, that’s only a matter of time.

Of all of Sun King’s wild success, its mastermind marketing operation is probably what is most impressive. Not only have they successfully shipped their products to several hundred bars and restaurants throughout Central Indiana, they’ve landed deals with the Indianapolis Indians and the Colts, they are a premiere vendor at night-life events such a Vogue concerts, and they prominently sell their goods at major cultural events such as last summer’s Warm Fest music festival. And when J.J. Grey, front man for J.J. Grey and MOFRO gives an on-stage shout-out to Sun King…? Your brewery has pretty much arrived at that point.

Leaving Sun King, Jim and I mused over the enormity of the operation. The brewery was founded by two fellows who were tired of taking orders from other people and wanted to live their lives on their terms. It’s a respectable, admirable motive, and it’s that ethereal bond, that need to be free and independent, that links it to its smaller, city-wide competitors. And it’s that last word: “competitive,” that makes me wonder about Sun King’s role the craft beer explosion Jim and I witnessed on our journey. Does Sun King see itself as a steward of the craft beer experience? Does the company want to use its clout to promote beer diversity and the overall anti-corporate, anti-impersonal feeling we grew used to under the Bud/Coors/Miller days? Or does Sun King see themselves as front-runner in a competitive new beer market with its sights set on knocking out the competition and becoming the single craft beer option in middle Indiana? For my part, my sense is the former. They’re big, yes. They market well, no question. But they strike me as a company that understands the popularity of craft beer comes from many options and multiple production outlets. My further sense is that, while they want to profit and compete with the big three (big two actually, since the Miller-Coors merger) they also know that they will profit well from customers who like other micro-breweries as well.
–
I hope I’m right.

Previous Stop: Indiana City Brewing
Next Stop: Fountain Square Brewing