Avery Imperial Oktoberfest - 9.3% Yike.

Both are available at Payless Liquors in Fishers.

• Rock Bottom Vagrant's Choice Malt Liquor is 9.5% ABV. The Rocktoberfest is 5.3%. There's also Tim's Schwarzhacker that's been aged 9 months. Cask conditioned offerings are the Cherry Stout and their Brickway Brown dry hopped with Hallertauer for a spicy, grassy finish. Coming October 20th at 6pm: Demon Sweat ESB. Later Miracle Ale (Indiana Brown), Oatmeal Stout, and a Dunkel Weizen.
• Ram's seasonals are "American Ale", renamed from Replicale, and an Oktoberfest - nice copper color, smooth almost to creamy, light yet full bodied, a perfect beer. Last night you could have also watched Dave Colt sanitizing a shop vac.
• At Alcatraz, Monday NFL games will be watched with $2 pints. Or get a pizza and a pitcher for $15.
• BW3 has an October 15th Woodchuck tasting planned. 10pm. $3.25/pint. Now on tap: Rogue Dead Guy, Dogfish Head 90-Minute, Stone Old Guardian, CV Pils, Three Floyds Gumballhead and Robert the Bruce, Red Hook Hoptoberfest, and Ringwood Old Thumper. The Adnams Broadside on the handpull is getting quite long in the tooth and is not recommended. It should be replaced Friday by some Three Floyds Dreadnaughtand there's 2 more casks of JW Lees Harvest Ale downstairs.
• MacNiven's has Rogue Dead Guy on tap. When the couple of kegs in back are empty it will be replaced by Spaten Optimator. New bottles include Belhaven Wee Heavy and Harviestoun Old Engine Oil. Smithwicks and Robert the Bruce are regulars.

Beer of the night: Ringwood Old Thumper - small condensed head and deep copper color. Served cool enough to let it mature a bit in the glass while the long-lasting head protects the liquid. Great, bready, English Bitter. Runner up: Ram's Oktoberfest.

The Coors/Molson merger looks to be in trouble. Fund managers who own large blocks of Molson shares don't like the idea. Molson is trying to allow owners of options (mainly the current management) to have a vote but this plan looks doomed. Shenanigans like this have made fund managers look twice - such as the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance who hold 25%+ of the shares.

Munich's Oktoberfest has been the scene of what the Police are calling (in German) Boob Bandits. "The gang single out drunken festival guests, and while one of the women flashes her assets, the other girl together with a male accomplice relieves drunken onlookers of their wallets. Police have now warned male visitors to beware of women flashing their breasts at the festival - which organizers have admitted is the raunchiest ever."

Have you noticed Jack Daniels has lowered Black from 86 proof to 80? 15 years ago it was lowered to 86 from 90 and sometime recently bottles of 80 proof hit the market according to Modern Drunkard magazine.

If any IU or Purdue fans find themselves making the road trip to Iowa City for a game against the Hawkeyes, they should definitely check out John's Grocery. They have a great beer selection, both International and Domestic craft brews. I was especially impressed by the selection of beers from the UK. I saw several that I have not seen around here, i.e. Adnams, Abbot Ale, Black Sheep, and a bunch of JW Lees vintage barley wine, some dated 1988! They even have a Wit beer made for them by Millstream. - Doug Osburn

Purdue football plays at Ames on November 6th. Basketball on Jan 22nd and IU Basketball on Jan 29th.

Beer Goggles.

Manager Brian Snider plans to hold their first Beer Tasting on Tues, Oct 5th from 6-8pm. Oktoberfest beers. He plans to hold tastings in their store every other Tuesday.

• New Albanian Brewing plans to replace the Sportstime Pizza game room with serving tanks to better service the RichO's side of the business.
• Mishawaka Brewing's upcoming offerings will include Anniversary Porter, Russian Imperial Stout, Resolution Ale, a Pumpking (in time for Halloween and should be on through Thanksgiving), and a spiced ale for Christmas time.
• Main Street Brewery's Oktoberfest - will come online in two weeks after Eric and Jack get back from the GABF.
• Rock Bottom will unleash Demon Sweat ESB next month.

Tastings at the festivals, etc.

• Mad Anthony's Oktoberfest - nicely balanced.
• Broad Ripple Brewpub's Oktoberfest - lighter colored and equally balanced. Very much to style.
• A blend of New Albanian Brewing's Turbo Hog and Main Street's Blue Eyed Moose gives a bracing beer with plenty of bite. It's a MooseHog that sings.
• Bells Winter White - quite cloudy and surprisingly crisp. A Belgian White, not a Wit. Just a touch of Belgian yeast character. Not spiced at all.
• Helmar Babe Ruth Big League Brew - hoppy pre-prohibition lager. 4.4% ABV.

Their Oktoberfest beer is a dark, malty, and rich. The 7.7% ABV really comes through.

Thursday - Mishawaka: Scotch and Food tasting at The Vine Downstairs, next to Morris Civic Auditorium. $35. 7-9pm. Reserve your seat at Vine Liquors (574-273-9463).

Pairings:
1. Oysters with Lemon - Talisker 10 yr. old Isle of Skye
2. Salmon with Dill Sauce - Craggenmore 12 yr. old Speyside
3. Beef Medallions with Scotch Gravy - Highland Park 12 yr. old Orkney Islands
4. Butterscotch Pudding - Glenmorangie Madeira Wood 12 yr. old Highlands

Thursday through October 10th - Denver: Great American Beer Festival

Had a red snapper po boy and a glass of Kostrizer Black Lager - big tan head, smooth and to style.

"We will be tapping our 2004 Upland Oktoberfest (after over two months lagering) and there will be live music starting at 3:30 until...well, until sometime much later that night. The musical line up includes: No Beverages Allowed (from NY) around 3:30, singer/songwriter Aaron Persinger going on between 5:30 and 6:00 and Bernie Gorak and the Old Chicago Polka Band (featuring the regionally famous B9 on drums) going on around 8:00 pm and ending when the beer runs out.

"As always, we will be open at 11am and give the last remaining customers the boot around 1 am.  As at all of our German style festivals, there will be a special German Menu offering many items with German-sounding names. 

"Also, just to keep you updated, no one has left the Upland Brewery in the recent past. In fact, the Brew Crew Page has been updated with pictures of our dedicated, good looking, and dynamically intelligent crew.

"Also, in honor of the GABF next week, our three beers that have received national awards (Wheat winning a Gold at the 2002 GABF, Pale winning a silver medal at the 2003 GABF, and Porter winning a bronze medal at the 2004 World Beer Cup) we will be offering these beers at our pint of the day price ($2.75 per pint) on Monday through Thursday. Great beer (as if you didn't know) at a great price.

"Stop by and say hello (and have your share of Upland Oktoberfest) on Saturday." - Ed Herrmann.

The Corner Wine Bar and neighboring Wellington Pub have a pretty good sized beer menu including Arrogant Bastard, Old Speckled Hen, McEwan's Scotch, Robert the Bruce, Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner, La Fin du Monde, La Chouffe, Maudite, Trois Pistoles, DT, Chimay, Orval, Lindeman's, Duvel, and Samiclaus,

Upland's Bad Elmer's Porter and Dogfish Head Aprihop are both on tap right now.

Jo Vickery introduced a chocolate raspberry blend made with Old Rasputin and a splash of Lindeman's Frambroise. Charlie Watts served the very last of Uplands Chocolate Stout from last winter.

"This course provides a broad overview of the craftbrewing industry, with a highlighted emphasis on Indiana manufactured products, featuring samples provided courtesy of brewery and industry members from the Brewers of Indiana Guild.  Topics will include: history of the art of craftbrewing; discussion of agricultural products used by the worldwide brewing industry; description of world classic beer styles and recognized style parameters; seasonality of beer styles; responsible alcohol service; food and beer pairing; proper glassware presentation according to beer style; cooking with beer as an ingredient; demographic trends in the microbrewery industry; legislative and social issues affecting the microbrewery industry; and sales, marketing, and distribution strategies.  Course will include offsite visit / tour at local brewery manufacturing facility in addition to regular class meetings.  Course requires composition essay offering an in depth description and analysis of an issue affecting the microbrewing industry, specific topic student choice, which communicates student’s understanding of classroom topics and required readings."

World Class Beverages, Main Street Brewery, Bells, The Ohio Valley Homebrewer's Association, The Gerst Haus (brats, kraut, and German potato salad), and Frito Lay all contributed to the goodies for the public.

Here's some pictures.

Additionally each month has a featured style. On thursdays in September, all Trappist beers are $1 off (Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle). During October it will be German Lagers.

Tuesday - Broad Ripple: Corner Wine Bar tasting of cold weather beers. 6:30-8:30pm. $15. 20 beers and appetizers including scheduled appearances by Upland Oktoberfest Chocolate Stout and Winter Warmer. This should also see the very first of this year's Bell's Winter White.

Wednesday - Indy: Cheese & Gourmet Gallery, Beer Tasting Party at Pauly's Restaurant. 2130 W. Southport Rd., Indianapolis, 6:30-8:30pm, $35.00 per person includes beers and a meal. More Info

Friday and Saturday - Fort Wayne: Brewers of Indiana Guild Oktobeerfest.

BIG Golf Outing on the 24th at Colonial Oaks GC. $60/player incl gf, cart, prizes, and kegs on the course. 10am.

Outdoor fest at Mad Anthony on the 25th, 1-5pm. $25 advance, $30 at the door. T-shiirt and glass. Beer from 11 Indiana breweries.

Friday and Saturday - Terre Haute: Terre Haute Brewing's Bleemel Days. Family street party hosted by the brewery. Brewery tours, carriage rides, artists, music, museum antiques, herbs, pottery, food, fun, and CV beer. Also pony rides, rock climbing, Mustang Club car show. etc.

Friday through Sunday - Indy: Rathskeller Oktoberfest. $5 cover charge each day. You may get to tap a Spaten Oktoberfest keg.

Saturday - Carmel: 5th annual Festive-Ale featuring Indiana brewpubs, bottled beers, and local food and bands. At the Claddagh Irish Pub, 96th St east of Keystone. 4-8pm. $30 advance, $35 at door. Benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Info: Liz Fraim - 317-202-9210 or indiana@cff.org

Beer from Rock Bottom, Bells, Bloomington Brewing, Barley Island, New Albanian, Upland, Oaken Barrel, Ram, Terre Haute, Bluegrass, Alcatraz, Main Street, & Leinenkugel. Food from Mellow Mushroom, Dick's Bodacious BarBQ & the Claddagh.

Saturday - LaPorte: Back Road open house. German band and release of their Autumn Ale. $5.

Next Sunday - Indy: Rock Bottom Rocktoberfest Biergarten. "We will be pouring four German Style handcrafted beers: German Light Lager, Hefeweizen, Marzen Lager, Schwarz Hacker Black Lager. All served by Helga, Olga, Frau Mikeh, and Liesl, their Biergarten Service Staff.

The Tap Room has been sold to Mogger's next door and a passage has been opened between the two. Most of the antiques have been put into storage until Mike Rowe has time to display them in the brewery.

Speaking of the brewery, the bar is open on Thursdays from 4-7pm. At other times it serves as a function room and banquet hall.

They have put a 40bbl fermenter on line and have another to pipe in as the bottled product grows in popularity.

The CV Bock (our choice) is at Chumley's in Lafayette and will be on tap at BW3 and the Melody Inn in Indy. Chalkies also has a keg to put on sometime.

• Wit - Came online last Tuesday. Cloudy, dark yellow. Spicey but not clovey or coriander like many wits. Quenching. Lots of taste and lots of carbonation. Tasty belch.
• Chocolate Rye Brown - Malty by comparison. Plenty of bittersweet chocolate and maybe a bit of the rye comes through as a drying note. Well balanced. Worth the wait to let it warm up.

There's also a plastic-coated translation pocket guide being sold for €3 specifically for beer drinkers. It includes words such as "bsuffa" (drunk), "biesln" (to urinate), "schbeim" (to vomit).

Enough beer to fill 6 olympic-sized swimming pools, 500,000 roast chickens, 400,000 sausages, 25 tons of fish. What is the consumption at Oktoberfest during it's 10-day run, Alex? article

Three Floyds will have their Alpha Khan Mongolian Pale Ale available at the tasting room in the brewery during October. It comes in at 150 IBU. The tasting room is open Friday and Saturday afternoons.

Mad Anthony's bottled lineup is in for a small change. Their IPA will replace the Big Daddy Brown Ale. Gabby Blond will also be packaged in new-look 6-pack carriers.

Lafayette Brewing's Copper Top Rauch Bier will be back around the end of September. Last May we said "Copper to exactly match their bar top. Nice gray head. A nice smoke aroma but the smoke really hits the roof of the mouth then dies away when a balanced malt flavor sets in. Excellent stuff."

Also, Hunter's Moon Pale Ale will make an appearance in time to be served at the Feast of the Hunters' Moon on Oct 2nd and 3rd. It's a British Bitter with Challenger hops.

Back Road's No. 9 Barleywine will be out on Thanksgiving Day. Charles is also going to bottle the India APA in 22oz bottles.

Baltika #8, a wheat beer from Russia are also findable and we're told the Parti-Pak in Greenwood and Kwik Liquors in Evansville have it.

Add Shipyard Pumpkin Head to your list of pumpkin beers to try along with MacTarnahan's, Blue Moon, and Buffalo Bill's.

Double Bastard will be back in November.

Thanks Matt.

Some tastings of Founders beers.

• Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale - Crisp and refreshing. A bit of sediment. Grapefruit but restrained Cascade essence. Some caramel malt.
• Founders Centennial IPA - Hoppier and bitterer, but not bigger. Out of balance. Darker color and a nice head.
• Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Style Ale - Malty sweet porterish with chocolate and raspberry notes. Nice. How long until Stone complains about the name?
• Founders Limited Edition Imperial Stout - Black thickness but not really viscous. Small dark brown head. Intense toasty. Fairly smooth for style and not overly exciting.

• Now there's an Oktoberfest Barbie dressed in a dirndl with a tiny metal stein on a tiny chain around here neck.
• FX Matt now makes a caffeinated beer - a pilsner with about a half-cup of coffee per 12oz serving.
• The Red cross offered a pint for a pint in Cleveland last week. If you donated a pint of blood, you got a coupon for a pint of beer redeemable at any bar in the Warehouse District.

And in Oslo, Norway, two boys, 14 and 15, took a supermarket up on its offer to pay a reward for finding out-of-date beer on the shelves. They spotted 280 cans of Carlsberg past the sell-by date and got about $1,030 for their enterprise. article

Wednesday through Sunday - Bardstown, KY: Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

Thursday - Indy: Rock Bottom Rocktoberfest Marzen Bier gets tapped.

Thursday through Saturday - Highland: Anthony's Cafe Oktoberfest featuring Bitburger beer.

Saturday - Evansville: Evansville Museum beer tasting at the Museum. 70+beers. 500 attendees. 6 - 10pm. $25 in advance, $30 at door. Presented by Main Street Brewery, Ohio Valley Homebrewer's Association, and World Class Beverages.

Saturday - Racine, WI: Great Lakes BrewFest. 3-8pm. Festival park. $25 at the gate.

"By New Year's Day, Three Floyds is scheduled to open a brewpub next to the brewery at 9750 Indiana Parkway"

"new fermentation tanks plus the brewpub will enable the company to produce 5,000 barrels in 2005."

"Three Floyds dry hops its beer, resulting in a distinctive citrus, piney and pungent flavor. At $8 for a 22-ounce bottle, 'it's getting more and more like wine,' Mish said. 'It costs a lot to do what we do, and the more special we make it and the less volumes of it you have, the more premium the price has to be.' "

Sunday followup: We haven't been there yet but we're told the Tripel is now drier and more winy than last winter with more barleywine characteristics.

9520 Uptown Dr.
137-570-9851
In front of Home Depot.

We at IndianaBeer cite a 14% drop in taste for the 14% drop in sales. Boddies used to be a great British Bitter but the last reformulation by Whitbread left it a bland, very pale ale that used the nitro-scheme can that works OK on stouts but just gassifies lighter beers.

Coming up Rockies Brewing Mojo IPA, Three Floyds Alpha King, and both the Pale and IPA from Mad Anthony.

Wednesday - Castleton: Chalkies German Beer Fest. 6:30pm. 10-12 biers and German food. $15. Call 578-2221 for a reservation

Friday - New Albany: Carnegie Center for Art & History Tasting. NABC and BBC beers, wine, food, cheese. $50. Info: 812-941-1350.

Saturday - Dyer: Finnegan's Wake car show. 4pm - 8pm

Next Sunday - Noblesville: 2nd annual Barley Island Scramble at Forest Park GC. 11:30am shotgun. $240/team incl 18 hole gf, cart, on-course beverages, raffle, buffet lunch at the pub afterward.

Some tastings of beers not (yet) available in Indiana:

• Lion Stout - Sri Lanka - Some coffee, more chickory. 8% ABV. The bottle states "...the stout was soft, fresh and quite delicious. This was the top fermenting Lion Stout ... It was bottle-conditioned and had an extraordinary chocolaty, mocha ... character. Michael Jackson".
• Harveys Tom Paine Original Old Porter 16.9oz bottle. Proper porter translucent brownness. Small head. Creamy body. Decent amount of burnt malty roastiness but a little disappointing in intensity. Stronger aroma and taste once warmed up.
• Gino's Premium Blend FiestaRita Margarita Agave Especial - "ready to drink". "Premium malt beverage with natural agave flavor, caramel color, blue #1 and contains FD&C Yellow #5". Clear plastic screw-top. Neon green liquid. Sweet., very sweet. Still - that is, no carbonation at all. We were sent this by the distributor with promotional material. "Serve cocktails legally with only a beer & wine license. It's 5% ABV. Might sell for as $2.75.
  Note that this is, by law, a beer - not a "malternative". That means it can be sold by bars with 2-way licenses.
  
  *** We're informed that FiestaRita should be consumed on the rocks, in your favorite glass with a lime wedge. Of course that's right. We're so beer-centric we neglected to use common sense. We'll try again, of course. ***
  
• Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat  - bottle conditioned with lots of sediment. We poured it clear and left the last 1/2". Very effervescent. Small bubbles. Lip-tickling. Dark yellow. Hefty character with some American wheat notes. A very nice transition beer for Budmillercoors drinkers.

HofBrau Oktoberfest will be on tap at Shallos (and RichO's in New Albany) this week. This is the German version rather than from Newport, KY. It's the same kegs as at the big party in Munich later this month.

First the inflatable church, now the inflatable pub. A Tudor pub no less; complete with windows, fireplace, bar, sound system, and room for 100. 40ft X 19ft. article but no picture

Beer in the U.S. is a $144,000,000,000 industry. article