Sun King Sunlight Cream Ale

For those of you who are not familiar with Sun King Brewery in Indianapolis, you should become familiar. They make some great beers. In only a few years of existence, they have expanded rapidly to become the second largest brewery in Indiana (after Three Floyds Brewing Company in Muncie), and for good reason—their beers are really, really good.

Sun King's Sunlight Cream Ale is a great example of the Cream Ale style of beer: it is a light, smooth beer with a crisp finish that is easily drinkable, and a fantastic introduction to craft beers for any of your friends who are used to drinking what we call the "American Light Lager" (but all too often do not call "beer"). It has a good flavor for a lighter beer (again, for those who know me, you know I mostly drink darker beers)—good, but not as good as the company's Wee Mac Scottish Ale (more on this beer in another post).

If you have a friend who drinks swill—excuse me, American Light Lagers—do them a favor and introduce them to a Sunlight Cream Ale. They'll eventually thank you for it.

Beer Friday

I used to work at a startup company that was truly the embodiment of "Work hard, play hard". The hours were long, off-hours work was the norm, and the pace was intense. For the most part, I considered it a good experience. The pace and the expectations forced me to focus on prioritizing needs and making good decisions quickly. However, there was one amazing perk that helped make it worthwhile.

Beer Friday.

It didn't happen every Friday. In fact, one of the underlying reasons to my departure might very well have been the decline of Beer Friday. But at least once a month, plus anytime there was a company meeting, plus whenever we did a major release, plus the night before a major release, there was Beer Friday. The owners would bring in several brands of beer- swill for those who insisted on calling Miller Light "beer", an import- usually Heineken- for those who considered themselves having more discerning taste, an Sun King brand for those of us who insist on a microbrew.  If we had a meeting, we'd all pull our chairs together and have our meeting, drinking our beer. If it was just a Beer Friday, we kept working. There wasn't an issue with people getting trashed on the job- we were all professionals and acted that way. It was just a nice little perk to end our day.

I have a lot of fond memories about that place, although I don't miss the pace. I do miss the idea of, at least for a little bit, breaking the "Manager/Employee" relationship and turning work into a more casual experience.

It's interesting how beer, even if it's swill, can bring about a casual tone to something. I don't mean frat-style beer pounding, but rather how just cracking open a couple of cold ones can turn anything into a more casual affair. Even if you're still working, still in a meeting, or whatever.

So, here's to beer, and here's to Beer Friday.

A Nice Evening at Upland Brewing Company

As Matt Osbun has already mentioned, we spent a very nice evening this week at Upland Brewing's original location in Bloomington, IN, which was much more enjoyable than sitting in heavier than normal traffic trying to get out of downtown. For those not familiar, Upland is one of Indiana's larger breweries, although you wouldn't know it from the quaint little tasting room that is attached to the front of the original brewery in Bloomington.

Doug Dayhoff and his staff do a great job of providing consistently tasty brews in a variety of styles, and they complement the beer with some outstanding food options. But let's face it... Matt and I were not there for the food.

For my first beer, I opted for Upland's most popular style: Upland Wheat. Upland's wheat beer is an American-style wheat beer with citrus. It even came served with an orange slice on the glass. And while I don't normally like fruity beers, I do like Upland's wheat. It's a great, refreshing summer beer and it goes down easily.

My next beer was Upland's Rad Red. This beer is everything I look for in a red ale: rich and full-flavored. I wish that when I brewed my red, it came out this good. Maybe someday, but I'm not there yet. If you like red ales, this beer deserves your attention.

I finished with a pint of the Champagne Velvet pilsner. Now, if you know me, you know I'm not a pilsner drinker, but I like to try things I've never had before. The CV, as they call it, has a delicate flavor, like other pilsners, but it's very smooth and easy to drink. If more pilsners were like this, I might like the style better. Still not one of my favorites, but much better than average.

One thing to note about this visit is that the beers on tap at this brewery are not kegged—they are served from taps whose lines are drawn straight from the pressurized tanks in the brewery visible through the glass behind the bar. It doesn't get much fresher than that.

If you've never heard of Upland Brewing Company, you will. This brewery's distribution is growing throughout the Midwest, and with the kind of quality they are known for they should expand to more of the nation in time. If you live in the Indianapolis area, the company has three tap- or tasting-rooms for you to choose from: the original location in Bloomington, a tasting room south of Broad Ripple in Indianapolis, and their newest tasting room in Carmel.

Working.... and beer.

As an independent contractor I have a pretty mobile office. Living and working in the Central PA area affords some great opportunities to mix mobile office-ing with beer drinking. Today as an example, with my meetings of the morning and afternoon finished a tad early, and still needing to get some correspondence done, I checked into the incredible Al's of Hampden aka "Pizza Boy Brewing."

Al's of Hampden / Pizza Boy Brewing

MMMmmmmm beer!

A great microbrewery combined with some of the great pizza and pub food around.  I'm enjoying a late lunch of cheese-steak stuffed pizza and a basket of fries.  The restaurant is still known as Al's of Hampden here in Enola, PA, but the attached microbrewery goes under the excellent name of "Pizza Boy Brewing." He has a total of 99 taps with several of them nitro. A large LED sign lists each brew by its brewery, name, style, ABV and of course, prices. Please note, this is all craft brewed beer of the finest qualities. About 10-12 are brewed right here on location and I haven't tried one yet that disappointed. (and I know beer disappointment)

My first beer of choice is departing from my usual tastes of BIG tasting beers, but I thought I'd try one of Al's own "Freefall" a Grisette beer.  Very light, but very flavorful with a refreshing mouth-feel and a nice "pear" finish. It was very refreshing on a hot Summer day, and actually paired well with the heavier tasting pizza. A nice change of pace!

...now what will my second beer be?   A quad, imperial stout, or an over-the-top IPA?