Bringing Brewing Back
Three brewing companies have laid the foundation for local craft beer within the last two years in Terre Haute, Indiana. While they currently all are still in operation, they are not without issues and obstacles as they try to expand and perfect their craft.
Dustin Strole, brewer at Big Leaf Brewing Company located just off U.S. Highway 63 at the Sycamore Winery, was able to brew and talk at the same time about their operation and the current brewing climate in Terre Haute.
“Beer as a whole, much like Terre Haute, seems to be going through a transition where people are focused more and more on local offerings. In terms of Big Leaf, and what we bring to the community, it isn’t a lot at this time. We are still small scale and one of our challenges has been having to buy raw materials in such small quantities,”Strole said.
Since speaking to Strole earlier this spring, they have upgraded from their original, single barrel brewing system to a beefier, 5 barrel setup.
“We’re buying more in bulk now, and so far we’ve been able to get what we’ve wanted. Our new equipment is great and for the most part running smoothly, though there are still a few things to work out yet. Being able to keep up with demand finally will free us up to look into other areas.”
Big Leaf shares their building with The Sycamore Winery, with all of their wine being available in bottles to take home. Big Leaf is looking to get to that point as well.
“As we expand, we plan on finally offering carry-out. We plan on investing in a Crowler machine, which is a 32 oz. can that we will fill and seal on-site. We also like the idea of doing special releases where we may have a canning company come in, and can a batch of beer.”
While this bodes well for craft enthusiasts who prefer to drink at home or anywhere but the tap room, Big Leaf does not plan on stopping there with carry-out releases.
“Finally, we plan on barrel aged beers being available. At the moment we have a Russian Imperial Stout aging in a bourbon barrel, after that we plan on an English Barleywine. As we grow, hopefully this program will too. These will be bottles offerings that are special releases to come out once a year. Upon achieving this next step, we will be the only local brewery offering cans or bottles of local beer.”
These barrel aged beers will be heavy and complex, but Big Leaf intends to include everyone, including college students, when it comes to offering a variety of products and events.
“The college demographic is a little more difficult for us, being that we are not located in town. We have been pretty packed every weekend though. We have some live music quite a bit throughout the year, food trucks come out, and we’ve also wanted to have trivia on a regular basis,” Strole said. “As far as affordability, with our larger more efficient system, and ordering larger quantities of ingredients at a time, we’re able to drive the price of our lower ABV beers down. While they still won’t be as cheap as the macro-breweries, we can certainly compete more at that point.”
Old 41 Brewing Company, located inside 7th & Elm Bar & Grill just south of Indiana State University’s campus, has also been trying to address the price point issues that may plague some college students. Max Bedrava, who’s been with 7th & Elm since 2013 when he was still in college, is now one of the two brewers at Old 41.
“I brewed my first beer from a Mr. Beer Kit in ’07 that I got for Christmas. I brewed up the beer and was like ‘that was fun’. I got more kits over the next few years and tried to brew when I could. After graduating college in 2014 I was able to buy all the equipment I wanted. One time I just knocked it out of the park with this stout. I brought it in and we were like ‘we could sell this’. We started talking and that was it. After a few investors, it came down to the four owners, only two were gung ho about it but after two years, everyone’s on the same page with the numbers and margins,” Bedrava said.
Bedrava’s successful stout is what sparked the whole creation of Old 41, but they knew it was not going to be the only thing to keep them going and relevant in the growing market in Terre Haute.
“We all have good beers, brewers and solid systems. Where we come out on top is having the food, which has benefitted us already having it in place. As far as our our already established crowd, the craft beer college students are going to drink it and pay for it. Mentioning that it’s cheaper by alcohol content has been something we have started to do,” Bedrava said. “One of the big cool things that we started is that every student that signed a lease in the U.V’s (nearby apartments) got a 100 dollar gift certificate for 7th & elm. It’s good for anything sold here. We’ve rolled out a five dollar appetizer menu with the purchase of a drink as well.”
Being in town and beginning inside an already successful bar and grill has been a big asset to Old 41 so far, but they are dealing with quite the disadvantage in comparison to the other breweries here.
“Were brewing with a half barrel system and each beer is almost a whole day of work, at least six hours. We have to brew twice a week; you won’t find anyone else doing that, sometimes three times a week. The biggest obstacle that we are dealing with and have been is keeping up with demand. In order to keep up with demand it costs us a lot on labor, the most cost intensive aspect, because we are brewing more often.”
Though currently working hard to maintain a supply of Old 41’s exclusive beers, Bedrava and the rest of the crew already mapped these things out from the very beginning and hope to move forward soon.
“We have a three year plan from January 2017 when we started. Part of that plan is to be out of this building within three years. We decided to start off by making our beer good and getting a reputation. We figured after that, expanding would be much easier. By our estimates we believe we are well on pace to stick to this three year plan. In our new location a 7.5 to 10 barrel system is what we’re hoping to have.”
Just as the case with Big Leaf, utilizing a larger system cuts costs across the board.
The third big player in the local brewery scene, Terre Haute Brewing Company, is in a much different stage of development from its two smaller counterparts. Nathaniel Gill, Vice President of operations at THBC, helped develop the culinary setup for all of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s tap rooms across California prior to coming to Terre Haute. He was able to lay out what has happened since the reopening and rebranding this past January.
“I hired an engineer for here as opposed to a brewer, by trade David Porter is a process engineer. We ripped everything apart, the glycol system, the plumbing, everything was redone. David had never brewed on a commercial system. He’s doing the right thing now though. We know what should be done, we know how to investigate and read up on things, and most importantly learn,” Gill said.
While the brewing company was reopened in 2017 originally from having sat for years, a change in ownership and direction was made this year and now it’s moving in a new direction in terms of being a community brewery.
““I think depending on the brewery and depending on who’s running it, it can do a lot for the community. One thing we have is the history. We’re the second oldest brewery in America, starting in 1837. Terre Haute Brewing Company was on the forefront of technological advances in brewing. We were one of the only ones before the turn of the century still acquiring patents and new tech. Everybody that you see and know in this town over 60, their family worked here at THBC. Farrington Grove was built by a lot of the employees. To be able to bring back the historical pride to the community would be amazing. Also in January we went from three employees to 60. We hope to provide 500 to 1000 jobs for the community.”
THBC is not just hoping to employ their own workers but also support other local businesses and artists.
“All of our grains we buy local, any adjuncts as well: Rex Coffee, Sugar Creek Malt, and also local honey. We do a number of fundraisers, participating in marathons and fun runs as a sponsor. We have live music, comedy shows, trivia, and a theater group that puts on shows. All of these things appeal to the college crowd as well. We would love when this place is really rolling to have interns in for sales, marketing, branding, even hospitality. 80% of my staff, servers and bartenders, is Indiana State, Rose Hulman and St. Mary’s students.”
Aside from bringing the whole community to the top with them, THBC has huge ambitions in terms of seizing a chunk of the domestic beer market as well. Their challenge is the rebranding and efficient use of their 20 barrel system.
“We were domestic before it was even a thing, but still had quality craft brews. 16 out of every 100 beers drank in this country are Bud Light. 25 percent is Bud Light and Coors combined. How do we get a piece of that? You see Bells and other guys rolling out golden lagers. We need to have it at the same price point and provide a lager and a pilsner. Watching what those other breweries are doing and focusing on that blue collar market share of beer is on our mind constantly. We want to say were craft and have this history, but we also are at the beginning point of rebranding and reimaging ourselves to go that domestic route.”
Assessing how this goal will be achieved is not the only obstacle Gill is set to tackle this year.
“We are doing everything internally right now. We’re handling orders, distribution, brewing and packaging. Start to finish it’s a homegrown process. Developing a sales team that uses our language and tactics, to push our products is something I plan to get going. Another obstacle is do we self-distribute or use a distributor? Anything we can do within a 60 and 70 miles radius we’d like to distribute.”
All of the local breweries have high hopes to find their niche in this new Terre Haute market, but it will not be without its unique challenges for each of them. From what they have said thus far about moving forward, 2018 is going to be a crucial year for each of the three big players. One way to keep up with their progress is to follow them on social media, but another way is to simply go down to one and have an ice-cold, locally brewed beer.
PREFERRED CONTACT: FACEBOOK MESSENGER
