Johnstown Brewing Closed

The story can be found here.

It's That Time Again - Oktoberfest!

Keep an eye out at our locals - time again for the Oktoberfest beers to start showing up. Those wonderful malty, subtle lagers that can showcase the talents of the brewer.

In our own backyard, I know that the Coney has just tapped Penn Oktoberfest ('cause I had the first pint of it!). They'll not be running Sam Adams' version this year, in favor of the Boston Lager. You'll find Victory's Festbier in bottles at Sudsy's, too, and many others should start popping up.

Prost!

That Voodoo That You Do

A decent little article about Voodoo Brewery from the Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07256/816952-34.stm

Goodbye Mr. Jackson

As reported in tons of other beer-related places, beer guru Michael Jackson, author of the first beer book I ever owned, passed away this morning. If ever there was someone for whom to raise a glass, it'd be Mr. Jackson.

Rivertowne Pour House

For those who get to Monroeville or want an excuse to get to Monroeville, the Rivertowne Pour House is now open. With two great brewers (formerly of John Harvard's and Johnstown Brewery) working together to keep 14-18 taps flowing, there's good news pouring just an hour from Indiana.

Nice menu, great service. Check it out!

Is Voodoo Open?

If we're to read Lew Bryson's Seen Through A Glass" correctly, it looks as though Voodoo Brewery in Meadville is open?

Sounds like an IBC road trip is in order soon for Voodoo, Sprague Farms, and North Country Brewing.

Coventry Inn To Open

According to last night's Gazette, the Coventry Inn on North 6th Street will open its doors again on April 12. There will be limited but regular hours: Thu.-Sun. 4pm-11pm. Dinner reservations are highly recommended, but the bar area is always available.

I'm hoping that they'll have some interesting English beers!

Coney Craft Beer Sampling?

Just got the Vecenie beer news email - lo and behold, there's a Craft Beer Sampling scheduled at The Coney. Next Thursday, March 1, from 9-11pm. No details available on the Coney website yet.

I'll post more details as they come in. Hopefully, we will see some of you there.

UPDATE: At least two of the 3-4 beers will be Church Brew Works products. I was told the event is free and will be held Upstairs (in the nice bar).

Good Gazette Article This Morning

That was a nice article by Bill this morning in the leisure section. I wish there would have been more homebrewing than wine making ;) but hopefully the plug for this blog and the club will help us grow and raise awareness about craft beer.

If an electronic version of the article ever comes available, we'll post the link.

To those who found us by reading the Gazette article - Welcome!

Ironwood Grill's New Bar Is Open

Visited the Ironwood tonight and checked out their new bar. Full report can be found here, if you're really interested.

I encourage everyone to check it out (the bar, not my review) and give your opinion in the comments below. I think it's good that local bars are taking up the challenge of providing a place for craft beer drinkers to enjoy a pint or two. Whether or not they'll garner a lot of business from our unique niche of customer base remains to be seen - as we tend to be a bit more savvy when it comes to beer purchasing.

The beer tastings at the Ironwood should start in April and run on the first Tuesdays of each month (what a happy coincidence for the club!). Perhaps we can assemble en masse for April's meeting and share our thoughts while sampling some new beers.

Coney to Host a Beer Event!

Yes, you heard me correctly. I spoke with Tim McQuaide tonight, and The Coney will be hosting a beer event with some regional distributors and hopefully some microbrewers on Saturday, April 28 (Upstairs). More details will be posted as they become available.

Also, Tim mentioned that he may get a van together to go to the Seven Springs BrewSki Festival the weekend of March 23-24.

February's microbrewed bottles at The Coney are: Victory Hop Devil and DFH Shelter Pale Ale. St. Nikolaus Bock is still the Penn Brewery draft selection.

Good or Bad?

Today for the first time, a Sheetz in Altoona (the big one on 17th St.) will be allowed to sell beer to the public. The article can be found here. Will this be a good thing for promoting craft beer or not?

I guess it depends on their selection, first of all, then there's going to be the media attention (good/bad), and of course, the outraged handful of citizens in the minority whose 'rights' always seem to supercede the will of the majority. For example, these guys.

WQED's Dave & Dave Visit East End

For those who watch WQED (public channel 13 from Pittsburgh), Dave & Dave's Excellent Adventure show will be airing on Tuesday, January 30 at 7:30pm - during the show they'll visit East End Brewing in Pittsburgh and talk with Scott.

Might be a good show to tape and watch on Wednesday when I'm making a batch of homebrew!

Homebrewing Article in the Gazette

Keep your eyes open! Sometime soon (more details as they become available), the Indiana Gazette is having a Sunday Leisure section article on homebrewers and home winemakers in Indiana Co. We hope this will attract more people to the hobby in our area and raise awareness about good beer and wine.

Indiana Beer Club - Read This First

Welcome to the Indiana Beer Club!

Whether by personal invitation or from reading about us in the Indiana Gazette article, you have found our club blog - the place to get news and share thoughts about beer and the beer scene in western Pennsylvania.

The club was started in January 2007 by Jon, Lacey, Eli, and Nate. All of us have a passion for good beer, and we hope you do, too. The purpose of the club is to gather monthly as a social outlet (clubs should be fun, no?) but with a focus on craft beer in our homes and our communities. We are not a drinking club, per se, although we do enjoy drinking beer at the meetings - but rather, we hope to share our passion and collective knowledge about beer with those who are interested in learning more about this ubiquitous drink. If you are simply interested in drinking copious amounts of pale, fizzy lagers or finding a new place to get sloppy, then our club will most likely not meet your expectations.

Each meeting will strive to have a theme. As our group grows, we will probably have to switch from meeting in members' homes to meeting at local pubs. Starting out, each member brought a beer or two to share with everyone that he/she hoped hadn't been tried before in a particular style: Belgian ales, stouts, or IPAs, for example. As we expand, we'll most likely try to keep this type of theme, or sample several beers from a particular brewer. Depending upon the meeting place, we may or may not be able to bring our own beer - but rather coordinate with the publican to supply us with specific products.

Some members simply wish to try something new, whether a style or brand, and leave it at that. Some members keeps detailed notes on the beers they drink, in order to improve their knowledge and make recommendations to others. Whatever your preference, we can assist!

We encourage homebrewers to join our club. Several members have brewed or wish to learn, and it's usually more fun to have some help and conversation when brewing up a batch! We also like to share our homebrews with other members, and they really enjoy it.

When interest is high, we will try to facilitate organized trips to local beer festivals, such as the State College Microbrewers Festival and the Penn Brewery Festival. Our blog calendar will list several beer-related events in the region, and we hope that people will take advantage of them.

The rest? Well, for the time being there are no dues. When meeting, you'll be expected to BYOB - enough to share a small taste with everyone. Unless it's the theme for the evening, we discourage malt liquors and the macrobrewed lagers such as Bud, Miller, Coors, Yuengling, Molson, Labatt (well, you get the point) and their associated lite/light versions. If we meet at a pub, you're expected to pay your own way - for organized tastings, we'll try to get a list of attendees and figure out the lowest 'fee' for the meeting so that everyone gets their fair share.

Feel free to leave comments in the blog posts or to contact us at indianabeerclub@gmail.com.

We look forward to meeting you and sharing good beer and good conversation. Cheers!

Up And Running

The Indiana Beer Club now has a blog!

If you found this site, it was probably because one of us told you about it.

Started by a few beer geeks in Indiana, PA, the club is a select, hand-picked group of men and women who enjoy craft beer. We get together once a month to share and taste beer from around the block and from around the world. Our ultimate goal is world, er, town domination over all things beer! We hope to have publicans coming to us for suggestions about their tap lists. We hope to have the distributors and bottle shops ask us to run tastings and spread our vast wealth of knowledge about and passion for beer.

We seek not to eradicate the pale fizzy American lager from our local college hangouts, but rather stick them in a small dark corner where they belong - in the shadow of real beers with character. We are malty educators and hops evangelists. We rue the shelf space taken up by 40's of malt liquor and seek to replace them with bombers of impy stouts and magnums of saison. We look forward to the day we can walk into our own brewpub downtown.

So - welcome to our blog. Please join us in the wonderful world of malt and hops, yeasts and spices. Spread the word.

Drink quality, not quantity.