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.