Visiting Indianapolis 4/19-4/23

Breweries:
-Deviate
-New Day (Mead & Cider)
-Black Acre
-Taxman (probably too far)
-etc.

Bars:
-The Koelschip (for food, Goose the Market is right next door and you can bring it into this place)
-La Margarita
-Kuma's
-etc.

 

^
What he said. If you need a tour guide, let me know. I'm always happy to catch up with visiting BA members and show them around town if able.

 

Not much within quick walking distance if you are across from Lucas Oil. Downtown you have some options: in the City Market there is a bar called Tomlinson Tap Room. They are an Indiana only beer bar with 16 taps. Sometimes you will have food service from the vendors below if it's after 5pm.

Downtown your options for an actual brewery are spotty. Tow Yard is the closest to you. I really love the space, but I drink the guest taps if I'm there. I wish that place would get better.

Ram and Rock Bottom both brew technically great beer, but not always exciting, but they both do good one offs.

Sun King and Flat 12 are both close to each other. Flat 12 is the wild card. You can get a home run beer and your next beer will taste like bandaids.

I spend the vast majority of my time and beer/eating out dollars on Mass Ave or in Fountain Square.

Mass Ave: MacNivens - Scottish themed bar with 20ish or more taps. This is my main watering hole. Really nice if they have the windows up.
Bru Burger makes a great beer with a respectable beer list.
Old Point Tavern: this place gets overlooked by most beer geeks, but they have a very respectable beer list, great patio, and some of the best nachos in the city.
If the weather is nice I'm at Rathskeller in the beer garden. Giant cups of real hefe in the beer garden is hard to beat.
Pizzology/the Libertine - awesome 90 second wood oven pizza with a small, but good beer tap list and bottle list. The Libetine is a high end cocktail bar in the basement of the same building. Great Old Fashions or any other drink is found here.
Chatham Tap is a soccer bar with a good tap list and phenomenal wings
Mass Ave Pub - as close to cheers as you are going to find. Small tap list, but a great place to drink
St. Joseph's Brewey isn't on Mass Ave, but very close. Neat brewery in a 100 year old church with above average food and good beer.

Fountain Square/Fletcher Morton
La Margarita is an awesome Mexican restaurant with one of the most impressive beer programs you will find
Thunderbird - southern comfort food with a tremendous bar, but known for mixed drinks
New Day Meadery is a real gem and make incredible mead
Chilly Water Brewery makes very proficient beer. I've niece been blown away by anything, but I've never had a bad beer there
Hotel Tango is spirits only, but I love it there

Food near here: Rook is doing some of the best food in the city right now. For breakfast/brunch a place called Milktooth is very good, but very busy. Bluebeard also does really fanatic food.

Enjoy your trip. Happy to help if you have any specific questions.

 

Won't repeat anything previously stated....but one place to check out is The Koelschip bar on 25th and Delaware. Lots of unique beers there. You also can carry-in food and I recommend the Batali from Goose the Market which is right next door.

 

The district tap would be cool a place for you to check out, 60 beers on tap.

 

Deviate is a must if you can make it up to the North Side

 

I pretty much agree with all of the places mentioned above, with one addition - if you want to visit the most chill neighborhood place around and are already gonna be in Broad Ripple for Twenty Tap, Hopcat, Brugges and/or Kahns, you should pop down to the Upland Tap Room at 49th and College. It's tiny, cozy, and awesome. Don't plan to find anything crazy on tap (usually 4 of their shelfies and 1 or 2 seasonals), but it's the most relaxed and welcoming atmosphere you can imagine, plus they still have plenty of bottles of their sours from the last release for carryout. I was there just a couple days ago and they had Vinosynth Red and White, Blackberry and Cauldron all still available. It would be a great pre-gaming spot before going to some of the heavier hitters, and if you need a drinking buddy for a pint or two, it's right down the street from my place.

 

If you do go to the Broad Ripple area make sure to check out Fat Dan's Chicago Style Deli. Their wings and smoked meats are phenomenal.

If you go shopping the best local breweries to checkout that you probably aren't familiar with are Black Acre, 18th Street, and Bare Hands.

 

I would think taking an Uber up to either Gary or Granger, IN would cost quite a bit.

 

Hence the "if you go shopping"

 

This guy is from New York so why hasn't anyone mentioned Indy's number one beer? Horse Power from Tow Yard.

http://www.indystar.com/story/life/food/2016/04/04/2016-winner-malt-madness/82609456/

 

Silly clickbait run to try and increase the cost of advertising. Most Brewers I know are fairly pissed about how Indy Star runs that. They don't mind putting their beers up for judgement, but what IndyStar does is terrible and marketing clickbait.

 

Just putting this info in for the rare event that someone actually uses the search button.

I was really underwhelmed with Black Acre. We visited on Sunday and the draft board was pretty empty. Looked to me like a lot of empty taps.

The options were all really light, bitter, or funky. They had one malty beer (an 80 Schilling Ale) and nothing dark at all, which was really disappointing. They also had a beer on the board apparently all day, even though they couldn't operate the forklift to change the keg, which is kind of lazy in my mind to not erase it from the board.

Either way, I thought the beers I tried (Central State Maple Brett, Tears of Ra Honey IPA, Saucy Intruder Rye IPA, and Natural Liberty Hoppy Lager) to all be very mediocre at best.

Maybe I just came on an off day, but my friend and I left very disappointed that we chose this as our last stop on our way home.

Deviate, though, is a must visit.

 

Daredevil in speedway has a cool tap room with a large outdoor space. only daredevil beer on tap but they make good stuff. limited food selection but you can order food in.

 

and since you are downtown, i would go to the tomlinson taproom in the city market. great selection of indiana beers and there are food stands on the first floor.

https://twitter.com/TomTapRoom?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

 

I know they recently had an issue with their license where the state told them they had to temporarily stop serving guest beers. I think they could continue serving Central State beers since they're brewed at Black Acre's facility. I was there a few weeks ago and the board was full, but maybe they're struggling to keep up with demand without the array of guest taps they've always maintained.

I've noticed some consistency issues in my past couple of visits. I really loved their English Coffee IPA, "Screaming for Vengence". But I wasn't getting much coffee at all the last time I had it. On the other hand, one of their coffee stouts had a ton more coffee flavor than in the past.