The Koelschip Goes Down the Rabbit Hole

In the ever-expanding forest of Indy’s craft beer scene, The Koelschip is its 12-tap rabbit hole. The Fall Creek bar named for a shallow brewing fermenter, opened in late January as the gateway to Central State Brewing’s (literal) funky take on beer. Here the founders of both the bar and brewery—Jake Koeneman, Chris Bly, Josh Hambright—invite customers to take a deep dive into the fairly uncharted world of beers brewed with Brettanomyces (or Brett), a wild yeast that lends complexity and depth to the final product.

The yield? Pucker up. These beers are pretty, smart, and unpredictable. Central State’s House, a 4-percent rustic blonde, fights well above its style in terms of mouth-feel and taste, packing deceptive one-two of fruity pepper and banana. The House Cascara, brewed with the dried skins of coffee beans, shocked like a muted cherry SweeTart, and Bro Culture, a collaboration with Big Lug Canteen, had the bones of a German Riesling.

Four of The Koelschip’s taps are devoted to Central State creations, while the other eight rotate and are meant to highlight that, “we’re doing ‘weird stuff’ by local standards, but globally, it’s not that weird,” said Koeneman. Another delightful oddity is that there are no TVs here. That’s by design. It’s a conversation starter just as much as the quirky non-artwork artwork framed on the bar walls that welcome you to ‘Indy’s Second Wave of Brewing,’ where things have gone from curious to curiouser.

2505 N Delaware St., 414-9539