A Brief and Incomplete History of Brewing in South Bend, Indiana
Over at Indiana Beer. Link posted by Jeff Sutter on the Michiana Brew Google Group. A list of a few breweries in South Bend, especially the Muessel Brewing Company and Manitoba-based Drewrys Brewery. (“Michiana” is the informal name for a region which crosses the Michigan-Indiana border around South Bend, IN.)
In more recent history, there has been a few brewpubs and microbreweries in Northern Indiana. The following ones are currently in operation: Three Floyds Brewing Company in Munster (along with the Three Floyds Brewpub), Backroad Brewery in LaPorte, Mishawaka Brewing Company in Mishawaka, Shoreline Brewing Company in Michigan City, Mad Anthony Brewing Company, in Fort Wayneand most recently, Nine G Brewing Company, in South Bend. A more complete list of Hoosier breweries is available on the Indiana Beer website.
The Times of Northwest Indiana http://nwi.com/ has offered me the position of beer writer for their paper. As some of you know, I’ve been freelancing beer-themed articles for the Chicago Tribune since 1997, but they consider their readers more wanting of a regularly scheduled wine critic. They won’t budge on hiring a beer columnist.
All I can say is “Thank the gods for the Times and their willingness to acknowledge the importance and nurturing of readers who want to read about beer!”
I’m hoping this group will be willing and able to feed me info about beer and brewing activities in the paper’s area of coverage. From going over their print and online statistics, the paper’s actually GROWING (unlike so many MSM papers), so I’d like to make my column as relevant and informative as possible for their expanding readership. It looks like their coverage is the northeast portion of Illinois and northwest Indiana, down to Newton and Jasper counties, and over to the edges of Michigan City or so. It’s the 2nd largest newspaper in Indiana, with a daily circulation of 82,709 and a Sunday one of 89,942.
If you’re from the area and know of any brewpubs, breweries, homebrew clubs, beer bars with good selections, and even progressive beer distributors and liquor stores that I can use for local info, I’d appreciate the help.
This is a chance for Illinois/Michiana beer lovers to finally have a local media outlet, with a paper willing to back the effort. I’m excited about this opportunity.
Thanks,
Bob Skilnik
Bob,
Saw your message on the almost-extinct Michiana Beer group. Visited your blog and pages. Sounds like you do have a lot to offer the mainstream press in terms of beer knowledge. I’m still grateful for the comments you left on my previous blog about the Chicago Beer Riots. I even think it was my first comment.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t live in Michiana anymore and I don’t really get to hear much about beer from Northern Indiana.
I kind of envy you. I still think I should do a beer podcast.
Thanks for the note!
I really like the Muessel Brewing Company – I actually have a very nice indoor pre-prohibition embosed bottle with lighning stopper. Quite a nice piece from my bottle collecion.
Thanks! Wrote this a while ago, when I was at IUSB. You make me miss South Bend, all of a sudden!