This Week's Beer News: WGOINWI?
And WTFIUWFFF?
What’s going on in Northwest Indiana?
With 2024 already seeing the closures of Windmill Brewing in Dyer, Four Fathers in Valparaiso and Malt Bros. in St. John, we thought we’d take a few minutes to poke around on the status of a few things in Northwest Indiana’s once-thriving craft beer scene.
We’ve been keeping an eye on the 33,684 sq ft building owned by 18th Street Brewing in downtown Hammond. It’s been on the market for an asking price of $975,000 since last year, but is now “under contract” according to brokers. Of note, the sale is for the building only, not the brand itself, which asked for an option to continue in rented space there or be given time to move brewing equipment elsewhere, per the listing.
18th Street has not announced any other plans, but it comes on the heels of their divesting themselves of former locations in Indianapolis and Gary, as well as a separate, rented brewing space in Hammond. On 18th Street’s distilling side, we still haven’t seen any evidence of a release for any spirits under the Hammond Distilling Co. label, as mentioned in this Chicago Reader story last year.
And since we’re already about halfway through 2024, you might be wondering, WTF is up with Three Floyds’ long-discussed plan for a new taproom and all-season enclosed beergarden space? Well, not much, so far as we can tell, even though that development (with a restaurant helmed by Chicago’s Fifty/50 group) was supposed to open this year. We’re definitely keeping our ears to the ground on this, but no news yet.
More encouragingly, Gnosis Brewing in Merrillville just celebrated their 2nd anniversary with a weekend of festivities, while also announcing their plans to expand into select Illinois shops, thanks to A.J. Maka Distributing. Their IL distro kick-off event is Wednesday at Crafted 1979 in Mokena.
In other anticipatory news, we’re also looking forward to our first visit to the new Sea of Monsters brewery at the new Journeyman Distillery facility in Valpraiso. The first beer from them just hit taplines a few days ago, in the form of this Whitechapel Kolsch, and that’s another welcome bit of mid-summer good news for the region’s brewing scene.
Most-clicked link in last week’s email: Who Killed Craft Beer from Time Out London. Kinda glad to see y’all making it through our entire email to find that.
Shorewood’s Mad Hatchet Brewing announced that they were up for sale and its future is uncertain, says Patch.com. The owners described their business on Facebook as their “#1 full-time side hobby for the past 5 years.”
Chicago Food Magazine posted about the return of Ravenswood On Tap later this month and the launch of Flight Club’s Beer for Darts collab with Off Color.
ABC-7 covered Maplewood’s 10th birthday party.
After 40 years, happy hour pricing is once again legal in Indiana.
The opening of North Peak’s Bay City location has been delayed…again.
Muskegon Brewing Company is now in soft open mode.
In advance of the upcoming Hiawatha Annual Traditional Music Festival, Blackrocks Brewery has released a Hiawatha Ale: a sour wheat with pineapple.
Three Minneapolis breweries with three flagship IPAs have three new variants being packaged into variety packs this summer.
Fox21 covered the two new collaborative beers from Bent Paddle, which allows me to say thanks to FoGDB Ricky who let me know that last week we erroneously said the women’s-sports focused bar A Bar Of Their Own was actually in Minneapolis, not in Duluth like we said it was. Whoops. My bad.
Minnesota breweries are now legally allowed to sell THC beverages on draft.
La Doña Cervecerîa announced plans to reopen their soccer field and host a three-on-three futbol league next month.
Sauce Magazine takes a look at the two STL breweries (4 Hands and Urban Chestnut) who have recently released light versions of a couple of their flagship beers.
Sauce also checked out Mead Hall and Swarm Brewing, which opened a couple of weeks ago in St. Charles.
Cleveland.com covered the changes to the board of directors at the Ohio State Brewers Guild.
Here’s a happy story: The owner of Bay View’s Brewtown Collectibles had a 250-lb antique Schlitz sign stolen off their porch last week. The immediate news coverage resulted in the return of the sign a few days later. What’s more, the thieves even called to say “We apologize. We were drunk and being stupid" before arranging to get the sign back to the rightful owners.
Lone Girl Brewing Company’s new taproom on Madison’s east side is now open.
Vintage Brewing Company announced plans to open their fourth location in September; this one in Cross Plains.
Isthmus reports on the growing popularity of Duluth’s Ursa Minor Brewing across Madison.
In the spirit of the recent holiday, I feel obligated to share with you the story that followed this headline: “Florida man uses alligator to open can of beer”.
It’s not just Lagunitas Chicago that was chopped by Heineken: They also shuttered a huge brewery in Vietnam.
Thanks for reading! If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this email and you’ve learned something beer-y from this, you should share this with a friend!
Want more? Our Premium Subscribers receive a whole bunch of exclusive label previews from around the Midwest on Wednesdays, Premium-only posts and the occasional piece of exclusive news, plus the satisfaction of knowing they’re helping to keep this newsletter going into the future. If you want to upgrade to Premium, it’s just a little more than $1 per week:
Thank you all for being here!