New Paradigm Brewing, Elkhart, IN

New Paradigm is an excellent testament to the importance of a solid location to the success of any establishment. It sits in downtown Elkhart, which isn't exactly a tourist mecca. In fact, let me list some reasons why you might find yourself on that particular sidewalk that is adjacent to the post office and train station:

1. You are going to a show at the Lerner--This seems like the best reason. I know they have David Allan Coe coming up, and I love me some shitty old school Country, so I will most likely be hitting up New Paradigm to pre-funk.
2. Your level of alcoholism is so ridiculously high that a trip to the post office cannot be made without a pre or post libation.
3. While waiting for a train at the rail crossing, your car stalls, and you decide to walk away from it and pretend like it is someone else's car.
4. While waiting to catch a train at the depot, you decide to have a beer.
5. While waiting for your dope dealer at the depot, you decide to have a beer.

That's really about it.

The joint itself, is actually pretty good. I swung in on purpose on a Friday after work. I had to go out of my way to do it, which unless I worked for the post office or Amtrak, I would have to do regardless. I stopped because it says "New Paradigm Brewing" in the window and I like craft beer. I hope this place survives.

I entered and sat at the bar. There were three people sitting at the bar dead smack in the middle, no stools between them. They were eating burgers that looked good and not conversing with each other. They didn't look mad at each other, and they obviously weren't strangers. The person in the middle was the wife to one of the fellas on either side. I'm not sure which one.

Maybe it was both. It wasn't my business.

The bartender brought me a beer list, and was pleasant about it. By the way he carried himself, I feel as though "proprietor" might have been a better word than "bartender". They had four of their own beers on tap, then a bunch of other local beers from the Michiana neighborhood.

And Miller Lite.

I ordered one of theirs. The Big Hopbowski they called it. It was fine. Not special, not offensive. I generally get uncomfortable when I go into a place and they are carrying other people's beers. It seems to me like having a supermodel girl friend and spanking it to fat girl porn. Mill Creek Brewing in Walla Walla really pissed me off for that reason. They had a wide variety of their own, but always had Coor's Light on special. The difference in this case, was that the Mill Creek was right downtown in a perfect location that adjoined the trendy Walla Walla shops and downtown scene to Whitman College. The Mill Creek was the place to go.

The New Paradigm was in a situation where they just needed to get people in the door. I could not begrudge them.

I was disappointed that there were not more people in there. It was four o'clock on a Friday, and the Cubs and White Sox were only five minutes away from a first pitch in an interleague game. The game was on, but there was a lot of atmospheric potential that never materialized.

They had hard liquor and a pool table for fuck's sake!

And then just as I was thinking about it, three hipster girls came walking in. They sat at the other end of the bar. I couldn't tell what was ordered, but two of them had beers, and the other one had white wine. At least they talked to each other, which was far ahead of the odd little ménage-a-trois to my immediate left.

I found myself not feeling it as I sat there and drank. We have all been there. That moment when you are in a spot, and for whatever reason, you just don't feel like being there.

The final straw came when a fat-bellied hipster dude with dandruff and a tie came and sat down next to me. He was greeted by the proprietor and ordered a beer by some other brewery. I was offered the opportunity to keep drinking from with a light finger point and a "Doin' awright?"

"Nah, I'm good, but thanks," I said. Then I left.

I felt guilty for not buying three more beers and a case to go, just so they could keep their doors open, but fuck. Unlike those hipsters, I can't go around saving the world.

Rant and Rave Volume 1

Today marks the about-a-month-or-so anniversary of my move to the Midwest. I shouldn't complain too much because you guys have all been real nice to me, but I might anyway. Maybe this is all shit that should go in the "Biographical Information" section, but I don't really care. This is more of a rant or a musing about what I have learned so far.

Sorry if I piss you off.

The thing is I am an ass hole. I say sharp and abrupt things with very little concern for people's feelings. I do not do this for the sake of shock value or to make me feel better about myself, I do this because the things that I say are a real time commentary of the way that I view the world at that particular moment. With that being said, let me provide a little commentary on the beer I have drank, the shit I have seen, and whatever else tickles my pickle over the past month or so.

Early on in my Michiana experience, I picked up some Sunspot by Greenbush Brewing. It tasted like shit. I could give you some snobbery break down of it, but that isn't how I roll. You won't hear me speak of IBUs and aromas on this blog. I don't believe in either of those terms. Ratings, awards, honors, honours with a u, and other such subjective bull shit do not appeal to me--and this is my blog, not yours. There are two ways that something can taste. Good and bad. That is it.

Fortunately, I was able to plug my nose and suck it down and then go buy some other stuff. Robert the Bruce by Three Floyds was a solid choice. It's a Scottish ale, and there is not much that beats a good Scottish ale. I could drink that shit all day--but I didn't because I only had six and they were expensive. I stretched them out for a week, which was very difficult. We had a 19-pack of Miller Lite, so my routine was to drink one of the good beers, then follow it with three of the piss-waters.

Before you purists start bitching at me for drinking something as common as a Miller Lite, go fuck yourselves. Piss-water beer has its niche. I mean, shit, McDonald's isn't fine dining, but when the kids are in the car, or you are on a long haul, sometimes you have to do it. And when you do it, you are going to supersize that shit because go big or go home. Fuck no, I don't want McDonald's for dinner every night, but unlike some of you snobs, I can't afford to drink four craft brews a night.

The other nice thing about shit beer is that it lacks substance and creates less of a hangover. If I want to drink six Miller Lites I will still function and not get a big ass headache. It doesn't work that way with a craft beer. Craft beer is not meant to be pounded. Same thing with one of those fancy restaurants that you need reservations for. Good expensive food, but with small portions.

And while I am thinking about it, Michiana is a stupid fucking name. I lived on the Washington-Idaho border for four years, and the Oregon-Washington border for eight. We didn't start combining names to make our own bullshit region. No. We despised the ass holes across the border, agreed on nothing except that all those fucking Californians need to go back home. Fuck Michiana.

However I will concede that Washingho would have been a cool name for everyone in Spokane Valley-Post Falls and Pullman-Moscow.

I think it is also a waste to be drinking a good craft beer when you are already drunk. Anybody who has ever drank beer has drank themselves to the point where they can't taste it anymore. What the fuck is the point in that? If you are going to get drunk, do it right.

Busch 30-packs fit perfectly under a college dorm bed for a good reason. That should be any 19 year-old's go to. The hipsters are ruining PBR for me. Why do they like that shit?

I went through South Bend yesterday and had sometime to kill. I had been to Evil Czech and loved the shit out of it last year, but I wanted to find a place that I had never been before. I used MapQuest to search craft breweries and it took me to three different places that had either been shut down or never existed. I stopped and walked around at Notre Dame a little and remembered that the only thing more irritating than college kids is rich college kids. It made me miss sitting at the Ram next to Husky Stadium in Seattle before UW games. I ended up leaving town without having a beer, which was a damn shame.

A goddamn shame.

You fuckers go on and have yourselves a good week this week. Later.

Bell's Brewing, Kalamazoo

So here it begins, my first new post from the Midwest. Since I visited last summer, I have gotten married, moved to Indiana, and listened to everyone tell me about how shitty the winter is going to be.
 

Don't worry, I'm sure it will be awful.

I have also heard relayed with the same passion how great the beer is out here. Again, this is not anything that I doubt, but have you been to Portland, Seattle, and Bend? We did pretty well out west with our beer.

Sometimes it snows there too.

I admit that people in the Northwest have a tendency to talk about the local beer scene like they are the only ones in the country, but shit, I think we can claim some expertise.

Now with all that being said, Kalamazoo, Michigan is a damn good beer town. I have no complaints, but it isn't Portland yet. It isn't even Bend. It is about even with Spokane--and that's okay--there is good drinking in Spokane. It's way better than Boise.

Way better.

Fortunately I have people in Kalamazoo, so if I have too much of their better-than-Boise beer, I can call someone for a ride.

On this particular trip, my parents from Washington state were visiting so we took them to Bell's. I had been to Bell's a couple years before and had enjoyed it. Midwest Beer 101 at the University of Beer Drinking starts with a lesson at Bell's.

The time I had been before, we took the kids (because Michigan lets you take kids to a tavern) and sat outside. The young man who is now my stepson was four years old and took his wiener out and pissed on a tree. It startled me when he did because I was pretty sure he wasn't drunk.

This time, he was six years old, and was one of five cousins his age in a one table party of eleven. We sat inside and the place packed. Since my previous experience, they had built an addition to the indoor seating area, and hired a bunch of waitresses so you didn't have to order at the bar.

I don't mind ordering at the bar--especially when I can send a kid up to get me another pitcher. You can't always count on a waitress to come by or get your shit right.

When our waitress finally came by, she didn't get our shit right.

My wife didn't drink on this adventure and ordered some sort of tea because, well, who the fuck knows. They never brought it.

I inquired about buying a growler to add to my collection. I couldn't get one in the restaurant. I had to leave through the bar, out the front door, through the parking lot, go around to where their store was. Then when I got there, they only had four beers on tap and I couldn't sample at the store, I had to sample at the bar.
 

Well fuck that. I would rather call my cable provider.

The growlers were pretty bad ass though. They were the big beer stein style and only cost $18, but since I couldn't sample, I had to settle for some of their Two Hearted Ale that I could just as easily get at the store. It wasn't worth taking a risk and winding up with a growler full of something shitty.

I have to give Bell's credit though. The shitty service and the run around to get a growler added to the Seattle ambiance that this place has. They are a very good joint to sit and drink at, and they keep hipster waiters and waitresses on hand to really send home the authenticity. There was even a butchy with a blue mohawk. The 65 degree July day made may really feel at home as well.

This is the brewery that the rest will be compared to.

Sun King Brewery, Indianapolis (from July 2014)

I was completely ignorant to the existence of Sun King in Indianapolis. If it wasn’t for my girlfriend’s cousin living down there, I would still be in the dark. We had posted up on the patio of some nice place in some hip neighborhood. There were a handful of breweries around but we had the kids so we went to a restaurant that served a good selection. I quickly came to realize that Indianapolis has a rather underrated craft brew scene.

We were seated outside by the canal that ran through town. The cousin that the kids call “Uncle Josh” suggested some Midwest beers, but I was happy to say that I had already tried the ones he had mentioned. The waiter came out and immediately suggested the dark IPA by Sun King. He told me that they only brew a limited amount, and that this was the only restaurant that carried it on tap. Uncle Josh also spoke highly of it, so there it was. That is what I drank.

My girlfriend had their golden ale, which impressed me. She drank it and liked it. I liked it too. When she gets to beer drinking, it is all about the Michelob Ultra. I drank one of those one time. It tasted better than the tap water in the basement, but wasn’t as substantial.

Mr. Waiter and Uncle Josh were correct, the dark IPA was so solid that I had to swing into the brewery on the way out of town.

I have been to Chicago. I have been to St. Louis. I have seen their slums and ghettos. I know that much of Detroit is worse. My expectations of Midwestern cities is very low. Indianapolis is a breath of fresh air. I am sure that it has its spots, but it was a very impressively clean and pleasant city. Traffic was reasonable, streets were marked, and I don’t remember seeing any homeless. The brewery was off the freeway and easy to find. I parked, left the family in the car, and went in.

It is clearly a brewery. It is not built to be a shiny cornerstone of the community, but a solid functional brewery. There is a door to the office of the warehouse through which you enter. Once inside, a lady checks your ID. She sits in a booth in front of the entrance. You cannot enter through the exit so don’t get any crazy ideas. The door to the warehouse is completely transparent, but you can’t see everything—only enough to create excitement. You can see that some people are drinking around tables. You can see that pallets of beer are stacked to the ceiling—nay, stacked to Heaven.

Do you remember when you were a kid in the admission line at Disney Land?

It’s like that.

For some reason they did not charge a cover. They fucking could have. I would have paid it. I stepped up to the bar. I don’t know how many taps there were, but there were a lot, and I know that they were all good. There were two fellas pouring beer. You could tell that wasn’t their primary job—shit, they might not have even been on the clock—they did not pour beer out of necessity, they poured beer out of love.

Love beer is the best beer.

I bull shat with them for a little while. We discussed beer in the Northwest. They were not from there but looked the part.

It was very apparent that Sun King was the big boy in town, but they had also not lost their small time personality. If I am to ever see Sun King beer out west I will certainly drink it in front of people, and explain that even though it is not Northwest beer, it is still respectable and worth a taste.

Iechyd Da’s, Elkhart, IN (from July 2014)

If you know how to pronounce this name, you have obviously been there. I hear the locals say “Yachk-EE-Daws”. That is how I will pronounce it. It sits down by the river and McDonald’s in Elkhart, Indiana, which is actually a pretty large small town that hasn’t decided yet if it wants to be nice or a ghetto. This brewery, however, is very nice. A fair metaphor would be that Iechyd Da’s is the prettiest girl in the trailer park, and she doesn’t have any brothers, so she is as pure as the snow that has been in the yard overnight. It isn’t 100 percent pure, and it has been walked on a little, but the dogs haven’t pissed on it yet.

A great place when you would have happily settled for a shittier spot. So good in fact, you will intentionally go there again.

This was my second visit.

I posted up because I was waiting for my girlfriend and her mom and aunt to go shopping. Looking back, I can’t really remember how I ended up going in the first place, but I did. I drank a lot of beer. I started at some fancy bar and worked myself down. The first joint was so fancy that when I went in, I caught a waitress eyeballing the old Adidas sandals I was wearing. I ordered a beer, sat and drank, and then politely moved on.

When I got to the end of the strip, I was a Wise Man in Bethlehem—the star had guided me to the manger. I was saved.

But they didn’t open until three, and it was 2:54.

There lies an ethical question. What do I do? Do I just creep at the door for six minutes? Do I just say fuck it and leave? There really wasn’t any place to go play it off except McDonald’s, but fuck, I still had my dignity.

My first thought was, “Maybe one of their employees was so excited that they decided to unlock the door six minutes early.”

That did not happen.

Then I thought, “I will nonchalantly walk down that way for a block or so, then inconspicuously walk back.”

That was a solid plan, but then it was only 2:57.

So then I went the other way and back. That had to be good, but at 3:02 it was still locked. I couldn’t be mad at them, beer drinker’s time is always is little later than what the clock says.

Then I thought, “Fuck, I will just walk over there, make a phone call—or at least feign a phone call—and give them a chance to open.” And so I did. Right on cue, because she was shopping, my girlfriend did not answer her phone. I left a voice mail and then slowly walked back to the bar.

Success! It was open. As soon as I broke the plane the barmaid gave me a very cheerful, “Hi, come on in.” There is a certain perkiness that only exists at the beginning of a shift. I’m sure that five hours in the future would have been met with not so much as a nod in my general direction.

I posted up at the bar. Somehow there was some dude in there ahead of me. I have good beer drinking instincts, but I had been casing that joint since ten minutes before it opened and that fucker still beat me.

Whatever.

I sat down. The barmaid introduced herself. She told me her name but I don’t remember because I didn’t really give a shit. I told her mine because that is what I am used to doing when someone is all like, “Hi, I’m So-and-So.” She remembered it the whole time too.

I ordered a beer and drank it. Some other dude came in and sat at the bar. She remembered his name too. Some people are really good at that sort of shit. I never have been. I think it is because I really don’t give a shit for strangers. Hell, I don’t even give a shit for a lot of people I know.

I ordered another beer and drank it. Some young couple came in. They asked a lot of questions about how things worked and made me wonder if they had ever been out in a tavern before, let alone a brewery. They were really thrilled that the barmaid gave a shit to know their names, and she was thrilled that she could explain shit she knew to them?

Some examples of stupid shit I heard:
                “So you guys make the beer here?”
                “Do you ever have Budweiser on tap?”
                “Is the food made here too?”

Fuckin retards, but the barmaid loved them.

Eventually my girlfriend found me, along with her mom and her aunt, so we sat outside on the patio and drank more. They had a cornhole game set up out there. We didn’t play, but someone else did.
As it turns out, cornhole seems to be the state game of Indiana. I don’t know if that is really true—but they sure love their cornhole back there. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that they just love them some corn, but out west, we always associated the word cornhole with something else.

But it is a fun game.

Evil Czech Brewery, Mishawaka, IN (from July 2014)

What a great name for a brewery. Especially when everything in the area is all about being Irish. But why shouldn’t the place of the North America’s premier Catholic university also be a good drinking town? And it is a good drinking town—if you are 22 and don’t know any better.

There are plenty of nice places to go around campus. The chain restaurants are well represented, and I can only imagine the Hooters down the road is one of the busiest in the country.

Fuck Hooters. It was Taco Tuesday at the ECB.

South Bend, from everything I can tell, is relatively void of good places to drink. It is really just the town Pullman and Corvallis are desperately trying to become. Basically it is the bizzaro Eugene. Where hippy culture spills out into the community around the University of Oregon; the South Bend the upper-class Catholic culture is what gets you here.

ECB is a breath of fresh air. It sits in Mishawaka, which is to South Bend what Springfield is to Eugene. The building is very unassuming on the outside. It could just as well be an attorney’s office or an orthodontist. Inside, it is a full functioning restaurant/bar with character good enough to be a joint in the Northwest. It is one of the few drinking holes in town that seem to function independently of the university—but not in spite of it.

If Notre Dame were to shut its doors tomorrow, Hooters would be gone; Buffalo Wild Wings would be gone; fucking McDonald’s might even be gone; but the Evil Czech would still be there.
When I got there, I sat down, and was advised to drink a pint of the porter. I did and it was good enough. None of the beer I tried was bad, and most of it had an above average alcohol content. I was so happy to not see any sort of Irish stout that was whoring itself off of the university that it took me two beers before I asked the waitress what they had for a Pilsner.

For those of you who don’t have a fucking clue, a Pilsner is the style of beer associated with the city of Plzn in Czech Republic. Someone from Plzn would be a Plzner—thus Pilsner.

There was no Pilsner on tap—and not that I am the biggest Pilsner fan—if I am in a Czech bar, I better fucking try a Pilsner. I don’t think the girl serving understood why I asked, but she did say that the brewmaster only makes one batch of Pilsner a year, and that is on the anniversary of when the
Allies liberated Czechoslovakia in World War II.

That’s pretty fucking cool.

Ironically enough, I was sitting there watching Germany destroy Brazil in a World Cup game, and the whole place was behind them. There had to be some sort of off colored remark to make there, but I felt it was better to keep it to myself.