LaOtto Brewing Company, LaOtto, IN

So apparently LaOtto, Indiana is a place. I had not heard of it before, which made me question its status as a place. The Untappd app jumped up and down and told me this place was there, so I closed my eyes and let it drive me.

It was dark and my eyes were closed, so I don’t know how the fuck I got there, but I got there.

Turns out that I was only about ten minutes out of Fort Wayne, but it felt like I was in Montana. They had an old muzzle loader on the wall above the bar, and beer names like Deer Funeral Brown and Death Perception Stout. This place might be the best kept secret in the Midwest.

When the app told me I could open my eyes, I climbed out of the car and discovered that I was in a little po-dunk place. The Shot & Bull tavern down the street was busy. So was the bar in the other direction. But this place had more cars out front than the other two put together.

As I entered, three drunk girls came stumbling out. They looked like they had never tried meth before, and it was only 8:30—too early to be drunk unless you were at a good bar. There were two dudes with them, but they weren’t very imposing looking. Upon first inspection, it appeared to be an upscale restaurant with nice people eating dinner. I pulled up to the bar and looked around. Groups of people were sitting at poorly lit tables eating bowls of popcorn and drinking beer—they weren’t eating dinner; they were drinking it!

I was directed to try the dark IPA by the barkeep, who just so happened to be the proprietor, brewmaster, and significant other of the good looking barmaid. Neither one of them could have been 30 years old. I doubt that they were both 27. Everyone else working looked young, and I could tell that it was a pretty tight knit group. The drunk hype-man on the other stool also suggested the dark IPA. He made it clear that he was independently wealthy, had traveled all over North America, and that this was the best spot to sit and drink.

Then he told me about a Mexican restaurant in another town that was the greatest spot in the world to sit and eat. He couldn’t remember the name of it, so he looked it up on his phone, then couldn’t find it on his phone.

I humored him and tried to look on mine but had no service. Barkeep pointed out that this bar happened to sit in a dead spot. He had even looked into getting a pay phone but Ma Bell doesn’t do that anymore.

The idea that this place was outside of the range of cell phones added to the charm. It baffles me though, that anyplace in Indiana can be out of cell phone range. I understand how the mountains of the West fuck up cell reception, but there are no mountains in Indiana. In fact, after being here for seven months, I am a lot more impressed with the cell service back home. How the fuck can I get service in John Day, Oregon or Forks, Washington, but not LaOtta, Indiana?

LaOtta is ten minutes from Fort Wayne. Ten minutes from John Day, they’ve got bears and cougars. Ten minutes from Forks, you will end up in some sort of shit-ass love triangle with a wearwolf and a vampire.

After the hype-man called it a night, Barkeep and I talked about bears, and cougars, and moose. He had spent time hiking in the Idaho panhandle and the Selkirk Mountains. He had also spent time learning the trade in Portland. We bull shat about the places to hike in Michigan and Ontario, and also Washington and British Colombia.

I was disappointed to have still an hour and a half to drive because it limited me to only two beers. I nursed them so that I could hang out a little longer. As the place thinned out, Barkeeps old lady pulled up at the bar and helped us bull shit. I asked him about the flintlock muzzle loader that hung above the bar. It was donated by a buddy of his and he knew little about it. He asked if I knew guns, but I admitted that I didn’t know enough to know anything special. He said that all he knew was that was from the 1860s and the barrel was made of Damascus steel.

This is the point of the story where he could have pulled it down from the bar and handed it to me, and I could have put it up to my shoulder just to feel its bulk and history. But I will say on the record that that did not happen because I don’t know what the laws are in Indiana about that sort of thing, and the way the world works now, I would hate for the only person that reads this to be some sort of left-wing, anti-gun toad-licker.

Goshen Brewing, Goshen, IN

I had heard lore of this place, but had not been able to venture in. Fortunately I had a an hour or two to kill in Goshen, Indiana so I decided to roll up and drink. The place was packed, but I found the only open place at the bar.

I don't know what the building was originally, but it looked like it must have been some sort of hydroelectric pump house. The fuck if matters, it had character. It wasn't a strip mall.

I sat down at the bar. There were two girls next to me getting drunk and discussing hot guys that they work with. There was a couple next to me that looked like they were on a date. Two girls were tending bar, and one dude with a big ol' hipster beard kept coming out of the back, looking around, stroking it--the beard, I mean--and going back into the back. The one barmaid was really cute, and the other one looked like she was Anderson Cooper with an extra 75 pounds of muscle--she was surprisingly pleasant though. I am not trying to stereotype anyone, but I have run into a few militant-butch barmaids in places.

I sat there and drank to myself for a while. Not a lot was going on, even though there were so many people in there. The girls next to me were getting more annoying as they got drunker. I even overheard one of them refer to something as being "Totes shitty." And then the other one said, "Yeah, that was totes shitty."

What the fuck does that even mean? I guess I am getting old.

I even thought for a moment about engaging the girls in conversation, just to see what sort of ignorance I could exploit, but I chose not to. I wasn't in the spirit. They would have thought that I was hitting on them and I wasn't willing to do that. I think on another day, I would have had a great time at this place, but on this day it was too busy.

Summit City Brewerks, Fort Wayne

This being my fist trip to Fort Wayne, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It reminds me a lot of Spokane—small broke and cold. It was February, and it is always February in Spokane, so maybe that was it. I used Apple Maps to figure out where I was going. I fucking hate Apple Maps, but I have an iPhone, and that’s what you use when you have an iPhone.[1]

I entered Fort Wayne through the back door, which I hear is a great way to enter any place for the first time. I don’t know if that is true or not, but that’s what my doctor said when he was giving me my last colonoscopy.

Much like Spokane, the arterials all seem to run diagonally through town, and the timered stoplights are all set in time with the stoplights in some other city. The first joint I tried was called Trouble Brewing. I am not sure if that is the greatest name ever for a bikini espresso stand, or a semi-shitty name for a brewery. I never found out because they were closed during the middle of the day on a Saturday.

I could have gone to Mad Anthony’s but they are a chain. I have mixed feelings about chain microbrew.

My best option from there seemed to be to drive diagonally across town in a parallelish direction from which I entered and post up at Summit City—if they were open.

My journey took me through the heart of downtown—which actually didn’t look like a horrible place. Maybe if I would have flown into Fort Wayne I would have gotten a better impression of the place. I think driving into Fort Wayne is like watching a stripper take a poop. She could be the hottest stripper ever, but you watched her take a poop, you don’t want her sitting on your lap.

Summit City sits in an industrial area between the St. Joseph River and Indiana Tech in an old warehouse. The first thing I thought of on the way in was the Full Sail in Hood River, Oregon.

This place would love to be Full Sail, but it just isn’t. To its credit, it sits close enough to a college, and there were a lot of young bald guys, but engineering students don’t make for a great atmosphere.

The old farts that came in didn’t help much either. I don’t know why they weren’t at one of the many dives that live on every corner within walking distance of everywhere in Fort Wayne, but they were not. They were here, and the place just felt like that was the Saturday norm.

When I came in, I was hoping to watch the Butler-Xavier game that I knew was coming on. Rather than having cable or satellite, they were showing Mississippi-Arkansas on their Roku.[2] I was appreciative of the “Fuck the Man” militant television watching of the Roku box, but I have one too, so I know that they could have gotten the Butler game if they tried. It wasn’t like I asked anyway. They were showing sports for the sake of showing sports, which I guess at least they tried.

As frustrating as this place was, they had a lot going for it. It was big and dark, there was a pool table and a dart board, and an area where a band could play. The barmaid was cougar-style hot but she tried too hard. I sat at the end of the bar and she walked by and lightly bumped me.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed falsely, really overselling it as she gave me a side hug.

I figured I would take the free one when I could, so I hugged back wrapping my arm low around her hips. She didn’t complain. The old farts to my left got jealous and demanded their hug. She played them off and told them to earn it. Later, she bumped into me again and brushed her hand down my arm. I don’t remember what she said, but it was inauthentically flirty.

I took it, but I didn’t play into it. She was obviously used to engineering students that couldn’t seal the deal if they were at a whore house.

The old farts to my left became jealous. When she left, one said, “I think she likes you,” like I was going to be the guy or something. I reassured them that I was the poon-pulling master, and that would save this one for them. They thanked me half—no—three-quarter heartedly, and I was happy to help them out. Truth be told, I was on to her game and I was not biting.

Unfortunately, she was on to mine too, and that was my last interaction with anyone that worked at that tavern until I paid my tab 30 minutes after I finished my beer.

The old farts got drunker and louder, and I watched the world pass by. I thought about actively flagging someone down, but fuck ‘em there were other places to drink. I waited patiently for my tab and watched one of the old guys ask her if he could spank her. She declined, and got visibly uncomfortable, but poured him another beer anyway.

I paid for my one and left.

---

[1] Dear Apple, I just threw you a free plug. Pay me money fuckers or I will tell these people how much I hate my iPhone.

[2] Roku, you fuckers can give me money too.

Figure Eight Brewing, Valparaiso, IN

From the outside looking in, Valparaiso looks the town college town that Corvallis, Oregon, or Pullman, Washington would love to be. Downtown looks like it has a little bit of life to it when you pop through during the day. Chipotle, Five Guys, and Buffalo Wild Wings announce to everyone coming through, that there will soon be college kids on the street looking for a trendy way to be anti-establishment. And since Valpo really is a college town--whether it wants to be or not--it is bound to have some of the best-kept-secrets in the whole Midwest brew scene. After all, craft brewing is the anti-establishment establishment.

After a basketball game, I cruised on up to the Figure Eight, pleased that I had beat the after-crowd. The joint was slow, but the area around the bar was busy. A lot of solos and pairs were holding spots for their friends by placing a jacket on the chair next to them.

Traveling by myself, I would have been happier to sit at the bar, but oh well. I approached anyway so that I could order a beer and start drinking. I wasn't sure how long I was going to stay if I had to ride the rail. As I waited, my Mariners hat caught the attention of some hipster that was reading a book at the bar.

"How is it working for you being a Mariners fan?" he asked.

"A hell of a lot better than it is being a Cubs fan," I came back with. I had no reason to think that he was a Cubs fan other than he was in a bar, about an hour and a half from Chicago.

His feelings looked hurt when I said that, and he began to back pedal.

"Are you from the Northwest?" he asked.

We ended up in a conversation about the Mariners and Seahawks, and it came out that he was originally from Seattle. His old man was a philosophy professor at Seattle Pacific--and in fact, after a little more bullshitting--I discovered that he was a philosophy professor at Valpo.

When my beer arrived, he went back to reading and I got on to drinking at the rail. The rest of the place was doing its own thing. There was a group of people in one corner playing Cards Against Humanity quietly, at another end two couples were playing a board game. An NFL playoff game was on TV but I was the only one watching.

As I sat and nursed my beer, it occurred to me that the crowd was getting thinner, rather than picking up. That should not have been the case after a basketball game at a joint right off campus. That place should have been packed and celebrating a win.

I also noticed that the people that had been saving seats at the bar were beginning to leave. They hadn't been saving seats, they were creating a buffer so they didn't have to sit by people.

What a bunch of dicks. I understand being anti-social, but sitting at the bar is not where to be anti-social! Fuck those people.

I grabbed an empty seat at the bar and made a grand announcement that I was joining the varsity team. Nobody cared though. I looked around, every person in this whole place was in their own little world. The guy to my right was trying to flirt with the bar maid. Somehow he had figured out that her name was Sarah, and made it a point to call her by name like they were old friends to the point where I could tell that they weren't old friends because he called her by name so much.

I turned to my left and looked at the philosophy professor. He was still reading, and was underlining things in his book. This made him look interesting to anybody who might have been looking for someone that looked interesting. I decided to amuse myself.

"Hey, Philosophy," I said. The philosophy professor answered to it, so that meant that Philosophy must have been his name. "Do you think God is a sports fan?"

He methodically marked his book and presented the body language of someone who was pondering the question with deep regard.

"That's a theology question. I am a philosophy guy," he said.

"This is true," I said. "But we are drinking beer, so that makes it philosophy."

"Well I can't argue with that," he said as he took a sip of his beer to gather his thoughts. Then like a true professor of bullshit, he had to answer the question. He got into some long winded stuff about how God would likely value whatever we value, so wouldn't necessarily interfere, but blah, blah, blah...

"I think God is a sports fan," I couldn't stand it anymore so I cut him off. "I think he roots for the underdogs and that is why they are the underdog. I think God is a Cubs fan and a Cleveland Browns fan. The teams that win all the time--those are Satan's teams--like the New England Patriots."

Philosophy liked my position and got spirited.

"Yes," he said, as he swallowed his beer with enthusiasm. "Satan is a Patriots fan. And a fan of the New York Fucking Yankees!"

There was nothing else to talk about after that. We eased into our seats and relaxed for having solved one of the world's problems. He went back to reading and I paid my tab. We lifted our glasses to each other as we parted to signal a mutual respect.

The barmaid gave me my card and receipt to sign. I asked her if her name was Sarah. She blushed and said yes. As I left, I smiled at her and said, "You look like a Sarah."

Crooked Ewe, South Bend, IN

My writing has been limited lately due to the fact that my laptop went tits right around Christmas time. I prayed to Santa Clause for a new one but he did not deliver.

I always liked Jesus better anyway.

Regardless, I decided that February was the time to buy one and get back to what I do. The last couple of posts were either typed at work or on my phone...Unless of course my boss is reading this, then they were all typed on my phone.

I had been eyeballing the Ewe for a while. I had never stopped in, but today I was happy that I did. It wasn't particularly happening, but the beer was better than expected. I admit that I am kind of a hater, when it comes to the Midwest beer, but I liked this joint.

The Crooked Ewe sits cozily along the Saint Joseph River and under a train bridge. If this place wasn't here, it would be an ideal place for a prostitute to turn tricks. Maybe on the right night it could act as both.

For the record, I am not condoning prostitution, but I also don't condone drinking and driving, and it wasn't like I walked home.

When I entered, the place wasn't overly crowded, but like a douchebag, I was carrying my laptop in my man-purse looking computer bag and I was in search of a power outlet. One of the waitresses helped me find one. Turns out there are a ton at the bar, which is great, but I think it also says a lot about the direction of our society.

The bar wasn't crowded but it was busy, and I sat in the vicinity of an Asiany woman who was talking loudly to an Asian man about how bull shit it was that this girl who was sexually assaulted by a janitor sued her company. That was all I understood, but that was enough. Then her white guy husband showed up and she got quiet. When they left, some dude sat down and asked the bar maid how good her dishwasher was at washing. She responded by informing him that it was a dishwasher, and that it performed as expected.

Other than that, this place was not special.