Great Lakes Brewing News Archive

Indiana Beer News

Originally Published: 12/97

By Tom Schmidt

As reported in the last issue of Great Lakes Brewing News, Brick Road Brewing Company in LaPorte, agreed to change the name of their brewery due to a conflict in names and trademarks registered in the U.S. by Ontario's Brick Brewing Company. Brick Road Brewing Company will henceforth be named Back Road Brewing Company. Chuck Krcilek, owner of Back Road Brewing, has been busy making all the necessary changes in tap handles, labels and table tents to reflect the name and logo change. In order to devote all of his time to the sales and marketing effort, Chuck hired Matt Peterson to do most of the brewing. Matt attended Siebel Institute and brewed briefly at Duneland Brewhouse in Michigan City. So while Chuck is out convincing customers and potential customers to "Take a Back Road Home" Matt will be brewing and bottling.

The next specialty beer to be bottled is Back Road Christmas Ale, a strong ale steeped with nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander and ginger. It will be available for a limited time in 22 ounce bottles. Back Road's beers in 12 ounce bottles are now available on the pavilion at the new Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City.

Downtown Lafayette's "Dickens of a Christmas" Festival is an annual event that features aspects of a 19th century Christmas celebration complete with period costumes, food and a town hall tree lighting ceremony. Lafayette Brewing Company will tap their '97 Wassail Ale (Christmas Ale) at the festival on December 6th. The next night (December 7th), Lafayette Brewing will feature live music with former Sun Session artist, Paul Burlison. On New Year's Eve , a local favorite--Dr. Fine and D'Gleet‹will provide live music and provide the setting for the much anticipated release of this year's Big Boris Barleywine. A portion of this year's Big Boris has been aged for six months in an oak cask from the Oliver Winery near Bloomington, IN. The cask was previously used to age a wine called Frankenblau. Lafayette's version of barleywine from the cask will be known as Franken-Boris and will be served cask-conditioned.

Three specialty beers will be tapped during December at the Mishawaka Brewing Company. In early December Russian Imperial Stout will be on tap. The Russian Imperial Stout was brewed using seven malts including black and chocolate malts, a touch of roasted barley and black strap molasses with a relatively high alcohol content (8.0%). The Russian Imperial Stout will be followed on the specialty tap by a Christmas Ale which is a lager beer aged with orange peel, five spices and vanilla beans. After Christmas, Resolution Ale will be tapped to help bring in the New Year and to help patrons break their New Year's resolutions. It is a barleywine with an alcohol content of 8.8%. This will be the sixth year for the annual tapping of Resolution Ale. The barleywine will be followed in January by Grumpy's Oatmeal Stout.