Terre Haute Brewing

Basics

Moggers
904-908 Poplar St.
Terre Haute
812-234-9202

6 blocks east of US 41 and 4 blocks south of US 40.

Opened 2000
Ownder: Mike Rowe
Brewer: Tim Robson.
20 bbl system was previously used in Rockefeller Center. A total of 16 vessels include hot and cold liquor tanks and there are even two 40-bbl fermenters.

Casual dress.

Reservations not required.
Carry out.

Banquet and conference rooms available including large, open 2nd floor space and plenty of room in the brewery itself (with a 2-way license).

Representative Beer Menu

Champagne Velvet	Full bodied, lightly hopped German lager. A touch sweet from the use of corn flakes.
Velvet	Amber lager based on a 1901 recipe using roasted barley. Fermented for 21 days. Less edges - actually very smooth. A bit sweet. Good transition for Budmillercoors drinkers.
CV Gold Label	Bock with caramel and chocolate malt. Fermented for 28 days. 7.5% ABV
CVar	Mildly hopped pilsner using a turn of the century original recipe from Budvar. Golden with a small white head. Crisp hoppy pilsner and the hop presence grows if you let it warm.

$3.25 per pint.

Monday: $1.50 CV
Tuesday: $2 bock
Wednesday: $2 amber
Thursday: $2 pilsner, $8 pitchers.

Also 70 bottled beers - Moggers has the largest beer selection in town.

Representative Food Menu

CV History
(reprinted from Mississippi Valley Brewing News)

The story starts more than 165 years ago in a sleepy town on the banks of the Wabash. The Terre Haute Brewery was making beer at 904 Poplar Street near the canal on the east side of town as far back as 1837. Mathias Mogger bought the business in 1848 and ten years later built a second brewery across the street. Soon they were shipping it by barge to other towns. So life went on during the 19^th century - Civil War, death of the canals, coming of the railroads, removal of the Hoosier forests for agriculture. And beer. In 1904 they introduced Champagne Velvet Pilsner. At the turn of the century there were scores of breweries in Indiana and THBC was the 7^th largest brewery in the US. Stables were a block away with 50 Clydesdales and Belgians delivering beer to the immediate area.

THBC made it until prohibition and died in 1918. Fear not, in 1934 Oscar Baur reorganized the THBC, bought all new equipment and 1.5 million barrels of CV hit the streets annually by the ‘40s and ‘50s. Why not, with over 900 employees, a large advertising budget, and slogans like Sparkling as Champagne and Smooth as Velvet, The Nation’s Flavor-rite Drink, and The Beer with the Million Dollar Flavor, (the secret recipe was insured for $1M.

By 1958 there were only a dozen breweries in the state and THBC closed. The Champagne Velvet trademark went to Heilman, Strohs, Schlitz, and Pabst during the next 42 years but CV beer wasn’t made after the 1960s.

That antebellum Italianate building is brewing Champagne Velvet again thanks to Mike Rowe. Mike opened a new Terre Haute Brewing Co. back at 904 Poplar Street in 2000 and brought the CV trademark back to town. They have only 9 employees but they are trying to help us remember what it used to be like way back when. In fact, they’ve grown enough to necessitate opening a larger 20 bbl brewery across the street just like 150 years ago.

There are only three choices at the THBC but each is special. CV is made from a 1901 recipe that uses flaked corn (much as Bud uses rice) and 3 weeks of lagering to marry the tastes. It is light bodied, effervescent, and very mildly hopped. Velvet is Mike’s concoction based on CV but with roasted barley to create an amber beer. Their third is Gold Label bock – a thicker, sweeter all-grain beer with caramel and chocolate malts and 7.5% ABV from 4 weeks of fermentation.

© 2003 - Bob Ostrander

Also see their web site's history page