As I made the walk from our South and Delaware Street tailgate headquarters towards the N.K. Hurst parking lot, I quickly realized that it wasn't going to be as easy as I had expect. Miller Light? There's a LOT of Miller Light out there. Bud Light? Same thing. The occasional Coors product? Sure. Anything else? Not until I got to the Barley Island sampling tent.
Are you out there, Colt-loving craft beer fans? What are you drinking on? Where are you hiding? I'd like to try this again soon - hopefully with better results.
How we roll: At least one opposing team inspired beer choice - Three Floyds (Gumballhead) is a lot closer to Chicago than Indianapolis - then a bottle of BBC Jefferson Reserve, Schlafly Coffee Stout, North Coast Brother Thelonius, and Founder's Breakfast Stout. I expected colder weather.
Rodney represents Chicago with a bottle of Goose Island Honker's Ale
Primo Tailgate Dining
Beats walkin'
Jason's pre-game face
Jason's long lost brother
Not everyone in our party is on the Hoosier Beer Geek program... Yet.
Leiny is closer to the right track
An entrepreneur near our tailgate has started a business of issuing day-passes to porta-potties. $3 covers you for all day. And this is the stamp that proves you've purchased a pass. When I asked to take a picture, the gal asked "you know what this is for, right?"
While we're on the subject, this is pretty much what you can expect for beer choice near the stadium. Unless..
What's this? Four yellow taps in the shadow of Lucas Oil Stadium?
Barley Island and World Class Beverages brought out four kegs of their finest for free samples of true Indiana beer. They set up shop just south of the stadium in the N.K. Hurst parking lot. The Indiana beer theme will continue all season long, so you can look forward to free samples from other great Indiana breweries at all Colts home games.
"We match!" "We DO NOT match." "We do too match!" "Shut up and help me with the cooler."
I decided to start with the IPA. This one had a nice color on the pour, golden and bright like an IPA should. The aroma was nice and hoppy, slightly floral, leading me to think there’s a nice beer waiting for me. Unfortunately, the color and aroma aren’t indicative of the brew. This IPA was rather thin and mild. I’ve had many better IPA. While there was nothing unpleasant about the beer, it ended up being too thin to be something I would buy again.
Next I moved on to the pale ale. The aroma was of vegetables and kind of funky. I couldn’t tell where the funky came from, the hops or the malt, but it was odd. Dark golden color almost amber, it was a little darker than I expected. This brew was a little sweet and full of that vegetable flavor. Not a whole lot of of hops, some light noble hops flavor in the end, but very mild. It does get better as you drink it, but not my favorite pale ale by a long shot. In the end, the taste is a little stale, but I’m still well within date on bottle.
To finish it up, I went with the old reliable Full Sail Amber. The amber, like the pale, seemed a little dark for the style, coming close to being a brown. In aroma and flavor, almost indistinguishable from the pale. A little more of a caramel, dark sugar sweetness than the pale, but everything else was more of the same. Again, I question the age of the bottle, but the date printed says I have months until it should “expire.”
