Like the title says I'm moving there in a few weeks. I've researched and it looks like there is almost nothing in the area. No bottle shops and hardly any places that pour craft beer. Muncie looks to be about my closest best option. I saw the town of Upland and got excited for Upland Brewing but quickly remembered that it's in Bloomington. Anyways, if there's something there that I don't know about I'd love to know about it or if there's any BAs in the area it be cool to meet up. Thanks!
You'll find better options by looking NE to Fort Wayne, I suspect. Having attended Ball State and returned periodically, you'll find a few gems in the rough in Muncie, but Fort Wayne is Indiana's second city, and has some decent food. If you like chocolate, do yourself the favor of finding and trying DeBrand, the best chocolatier I've found in the U.S. I've not much of a read on the beer scene there, since I only lived there a short time in the 1990s and was not a big fan of most beers at that time (Guinness, mostly), but I do know there are a couple brew-pubs. Marion is also about a bit more than an hour north of Indianapolis via I-69, and so you should expect to make periodic trips there for your bigger stocking efforts. Plenty of options down here.
Muncie has The Heorot (which now has a nano called Wolves Head Brewing of its own), Fickle Peach, and Savage's Ale House, all of which I kinda prefer to anything in Indy for price, selection, and lack of pretension, along with a couple solid bottle shops in Muncie Liquors on Wheeling and Friendly Package on Jackson. There's also Barn Brasserie which has been making great locally-sourced food and has a few handles and bottles/cans of excellent beer. Indy has a lot of great stuff but it's been talked about here ad nauseum and can easily be searched. There seem to be some decent options cropping up in the Fort Wayne area but I'll let someone from there speak more to that. Marion isn't going to have a lot that will be of interest to you, I'm afraid.
You aren't going to be too far from 3 Floyds https://www.google.com/maps/place/3...704,8z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xa1414bc9159922a8 Might find some serendipitously... you know, get lucky!
Living in Grand Rapids right now and I'm actually closer to 3F than I would be in Marion. I've only gone once in the past year though. Having 2 kids makes beer trips very few.
My ex's grandparents live in Marion, so I've made many trips there from Indy and I'm sorry to report that as you suspected, there just isn't much to be had. I second the recommendation for Muncie though, there's some good stuff there, and the town recently began taking steps toward approving a new brewery there. So all hope is not lost!
Scott Wise is considering the old Cintas property as a potential production brewery for 3 Wise Men, no? I know he's already got a 3 Wise Men going in to the new hotel being built. I wish he was more interested in pushing the beer envelope with his brewery (he has the wherewithal but not the desire it seems, like he'd rather have a decent, conservative/stereotypical example of styles...makes sense given his restaurants), but to his credit he's never forgotten where he came from and really seems like he wants to keep pumping money into Muncie's economy. As another born and raised Muncie-ite ex-pat to Indy that loves his hometown and feels some guilt for leaving instead of staying and making it better, he has my respect for his continued concern and investment in the city.
Muncie should have it's 3rd brewery (behind Wolves Head and New Corner) opening this summer, with 2 more (3 Wise Men being one) still rumored. Everything stated about Muncie is right on about beer availability. I have no complaints about the selection around here... we do pretty well. Ft. Wayne (i'm up there quite a bit) gets different distribution, so sometimes they'll see a few different rarities a little quicker than Muncie... but generally the two bottle shops in Muncie are going to be your best bet. They'll be about a 30 minute drive from Marion. Ft. Wayne should be a little farther to some of the better shops. Ft. Wayne has a couple breweries. Nothing mind-blowing. Trion Tavern in New Haven (east side of Ft. Wayne) is a pretty good bourbon/craft beer bar with a decent size beer fest every year (Brew Haven -- in August).
Marion local for most of my life here. There aren't any good bottle shops in town but there are a few local restaurants that get done decent craft beers in. I just moved to Muncie about half an hour away and we have some fantastic beer bars and a great little bottle shop in Friendly package liquors (the Jackson store is by far the finest) Feel free to PM me with any questions. in in marion all the time visiting friends and family. If you need to meet people hit me up and come to a bonfire or something and we can pop a bottle of something good.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Went to Muncie a few days ago and stopped by The Heorot and loved it. Fantastic beer list and those prices are so low. Also stopped by Friendly Package on Jackson. Nice to see new beer distro and love seeing 3F beers on the shelf among other Shelton Bros beers. Was also in Ft. Wayne and went to Belmont Beverage but was a little overwhelmed with so many new beers. So, what Indiana breweries and beers should I not miss? I like pretty much any style besides ambers and reds. Thanks!
Sadly, the best breweries in Indianapolis aren't packaging yet - Scarlet Lane and Black Acre are both moving that direction, but neither are yet doing so. If you see stuff from Tin Man, their stuff is solid. Indiana City also just started doing bombers, and it's good, though a bit overpriced IMO. Daredevil's Lift Off IPA is solid if you can find it on sale. And of course, the shelf beers from Upland and Flat 12 are inexpensive and decent, if not anything mindblowing. (And of course FFF and 18th Street, can't forget them!)
