Drinks

One of Indy’s best-kept secrets just got spilled: Draft magazine named The Koelschip one of its Top 100 Beer Bars.

The 12-tap bar opened in early April to serve local brews with a sidecar of nerd-stalgia.

Plenty of food is available to add to your cocktail or munch on, including pepperoni slices, cheese cubes, veggies, and pickles.

From funky to fruity to flowery, the offerings from Central State will stretch your vocabulary, expectations, and understanding of microbiology.

“The can looks like one you might’ve seen at the track back in the day. It might be a conversation starter with some of the old-timers.”

That brew you’ll chug at the 500 this month? It probably made a pit stop at Monarch Beverage Company first. May kicks off the busiest time of the year for the distributor, which handles so many bottles and cans, it had to go robotic.

The beards behind the beer have grown their south-suburban outpost in sleepy Bargersville into a farm-to-table gastropub worth the drive.

The Bloomington brewery plans to open a brand-new production and tasting facility dedicated to an ancient-but-trendy style.

“We’re doing ‘weird stuff’ by local standards, but globally, it’s not that weird.”

Order secret cocktails. Ditch the sports crowd. Find an instant squad. A few insider tips for winning the weekend in downtown Indianapolis.

A few Indy bars are playing the classic tiki drink fairly straight up. Others? Not so much.

Even a D chemistry student who doesn’t know a Schlenk flask from a Straus flask (guilty and guilty) would feel at ease in the school-lab-like tasting room at Broken Beaker.

Sam Sveen of Uel Zing, a Bloomington cold brew, teaches an intro coffee class at Ivy Tech. Could you pass the final?

Iced coffee is for wimps. Meet “cold brew”—coffee steeped slowly in cool water for a less-acidic, highly caffeinated sipper. These local offerings may range in potency, but they’ll all put hair on your chest.

Indy chefs are using locally roasted beans in surprising, often savory ways. But their caffeinated treats—like these recent creations—come and go, so stay on your toes.