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November Brewing update: New Taproom menu, New beers + 6th Anniversary on 12/8

Lots happening at the brewery as we approach the holiday season. Let’s get right to the upcoming events and beer releases we have coming before the end of the year. 

Speedway Taproom updates

We just made updates to our daily kitchen hours and we have a new menu too. Our kitchen is now open daily with a weekday menu on Tuesday and Wednesday and a weekend menu available Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In addition we have made our home made tacos a part of the weekend menu and we will continue to offer Taco Thursday specials every Thursday. Our craft beer inspired menu provides great comfort options and of course pairs well with any of our beers you might enjoy. 

 

6th Anniversary + Customer Appreciation Day, Saturday, 12/8

Save the date for our Brewery 6th Anniversary and annual customer appreciation day on Saturday, December 8th. Always a fun event we will once again open up our warehouse to add room for more people and a great time. There will be special beer tappings and once again we will have $1 pours of Lift Off IPA & Vacation Kolsch. 

 

Recent Beer Releases

*NEX IPA: Experiment #7. If you missed this one when it came out a couple weeks ago you are in luck. We have a few cases of cans left while they last and it is on draft at the taproom too. This one is drinking great. Our annual wet hop release features Mosaic wet hops & Vic Secret hops. When it is gone, it is gone.

* J.W.P. American Stout. Released on Saturday, 11/17, J.W.P. is one of our most anticipated special releases each year. It is now available at the taproom on draft, on Nitro and we have 4-pk/16 oz cans available for carry out. 

 

Special Releases Coming in December – stay tuned for release dates

*Vic Secret Double Dry Hopped Lift Of IPA. We have a new DDH version of Lift Off IPA coming on draft and in cans. This is an amplified version of our flagship Lift Off IPA with an extra round of dry hopping using Vic Secret hops.

*Slip Stream American Pale Ale. Returning once again on draft and in cans is our APA with a blend of Amarillo and Simcoe hops to provide a blast of flavor and break away aromas. 

*English Harvest Ale. Another annual special release with a hard core following. Our English Harvest Ale is coming back and will be on draft and for the first time in cans. This is a substantial malty, rich British style ale with nutty, toffee, and caramel malt flavors that finishes with a pleasant warmth. 

*First Noel. We have been meaning to make this beer for the last 6 years and it just never happened. Finally, it is here! First Noel is a traditional Christmas season German style smoked bock lager that emphasizes malty, toasty, and rich aromas with complex smoky flavors. It will be available on draft and in stocking stuffer 19.2 oz cans. 

 

 

 

Daredevil Hall update

One of the top questions we get right now is “When is the Hall at Ironworks opening?” We do not have a date to share yet, but we can say construction making progress every week now and we are close to being able to commit to an opening date. Look for more news in the coming weeks as we will not be shy about letting people know when we are ready to open.  


October Brewery Update: 12 pks, new beer releases, NEX IPA #7 is coming & more

It has been a few months since we did a brewery update. That happens when things are busy. We had a great summer both at the brewery taproom and out at events near and far. Now with the weather turning to fall we have a slew of new beers coming and some general updates.

We spent the summer installing a new canning line with many new bells and whistles. The main benefit of the canning line upgrade is to continue to stay focused on our ability to consistently make high quality and shelf stable beer in cans as we continue to grow and make more. While it may sound simple and easy to put beer in cans the truth is actually the opposite. With our new canning line in place we are launching some new packaging options in addition to our 16 oz cans that we will continue to offer.

*12 pack/12 oz cans are now available for both our Lift Off IPA & Vacation Kölsch as the taproom. We also made our first shipment of both beers in 12 packs so you should start seeing them at your favorite store. If you don’t see them just ask for your store to add them.

*19.2 oz stovepipe cans are coming soon at the taproom for our Lift Off IPA. These are a great option for many occasions and because they are in cans they can go anywhere. Stay tuned for a release date.

Planned October Taproom Beer Releases

*Oktoberfest: We tap’d our annual Oktoberfest beer recently and we have some 4-pk/16 oz cans in stock while they last. Our Oktoberfest is authentic German lager true to the classic style that delivers a clean, rich, toasty and bready malt flavor with light bitterness for a refreshing crisp and dry finish.

*Negra Mexican Style Dunkel: Released this week! Returning to the taproom on draft and cans next week is our take on the traditional malt-balanced Munich style Dunkel brewed with a Mexican style yeast for a refreshing dark lager.

*Dark Mild: Coming later in October. One of our most popular traditional session style beers returns each fall. A dark brown, malt focused beer with toasty, nutty, caramel, roast and chocolate flavors.

*NEX IPA: Experiment #7: This will be our annual Wet Hop IPA release. This year made with Mosaic Wet Hops and Vic Secret hops. The official release will be on Saturday, October 27th with NEX #7 being available on draft and cans. We will also have a special logo glass and t-shirt release to commemorate the release this year.

Upcoming Taproom Events

*October 12th: Food Truck Friday. Join us as we host a +15 food truck rally in our parking lot + lawn + patio area. This is an all ages event. Our taproom will be open for normal service and we will have an outdoor beer garden + craft cider + live music + bounce houses. Free to attend. Our taproom is open normal hours all day 11-11.

*October 27th: NEX IPA: Experiment #7 Draft & Can Release. Our taproom is open normal hours all day 11-11. Come enjoy our annual Wet Hop IPA release on draft and pick up 4-pk/16oz cans. The featured hops in the release this year are Mosaic (wet hops) and Vic Secret hops. This is a taproom only release and this beer will not see distribution.

Daredevil Hall update. We know there is a lot of interest in the new location we announced in June. As we said then the plan was an opening later in the year and that is still all we can say at this time. We have spent the summer working through the building permit process, the ATC alcohol permit process and starting to hire key new staff as we add this second location. Stay tuned and we will have more news when we have more news.


Announcing A New Daredevil Location Coming To Ironworks Hotel Indy

We have some big news to share this week from the brewery. First, this week we are celebrating the 3rd Anniversary of our Speedway brewery and taproom on Saturday, June 23rd. Please join us for a very fun taplist, live music and a great time. It has been an amazing three years since relocating and it has been very rewarding and humbling to see people enjoy our beers. We make a lot more Lift Off IPA these days and we continue to add capacity to expand our lager offerings and other year round beers. As we approach our sixth year in business we have decided it is time to grow in another way and that is adding a satellite location. That new location will be known as Daredevil Hall and it will be at the Ironworks Hotel Indy, 2721 E. 86th Street, in the Nora neighborhood of Indianapolis. We will be filling the last space at the hotel building and moving into the west end cap ground floor space this fall.

Daredevil Hall will be a taproom and restaurant where guests can enjoy a rotating selection of Daredevil ales and lagers with craft beer inspired food pairings. While the taproom will be 21+ at all times the restaurant will be family friendly until 8 pm daily. In addition to our beers we will also offer a rotating selection of craft cider and wine.

The menu at Daredevil Hall will feature craft beer inspired foods from different regions of the world including Belgium, England, Germany and North America. Joining Daredevil Brewing as a partner in Daredevil Hall and the Executive Chef is Neal Brown. We have worked with Neal for several years as a supplier of craft beer to his different restaurants and we are very excited to get a chance to work with him directly on Daredevil Hall. Like us, Neal brings a passion for sense of place and takes inspiration from authentic and traditional ingredients and methods. 

A lot of you might wonder what does this announcement mean for the brewery and our Speedway taproom. First, for Daredevil it means we are growing our business in a new way. We are creating more jobs both at Daredevil Hall and at the Speedway brewery, as we will be making more beer and providing another place for guests and fans to visit us. The new Daredevil Hall at Ironworks will be a taproom & restaurant – we will not be doing any brewing at that location. All Daredevil beers will continue to be brewed at our Speedway brewery, where we planned ahead and have plenty of room to continue to grow by expanding our existing building. The taproom at the brewery will continue to offer a large, rotating selection of our beers and locally sourced menu the same as we do today.

Look for more information, as we get closer to opening in the fall. We hope to see many of you this Saturday at the brewery for the celebration and the NEX IPA: Experiment #6 draft & can release.


Indy Lagerfest + Daredevil Die-Cast Car Promotion Update

We wanted to share an update on our original plans to include a 1:64 Daredevil die cast race car with our VIP tickets for our upcoming Indy Lagerfest event on May 19th. 

As some of you may remember we included an initial design of the Daredevil promotional race car with the announcement of Indy Lagerfest. We then actually updated the plans to use a second design. What we did not share at the time was that these changes were due to a company putting pressure on the die cast car manufacturer to not make the Daredevil promotional die cast car. 

Behind the scenes we were served a cease and desist letter on a number of concerns from this company including the Daredevil promotional die cast car design. We are not going to get into more details but we wanted to share this information so people understand the reason behind the change. 

We believe that we are in the right in this discussion and we are in no way infringing on anyone’s trademarks since the final planned Daredevil promotional die cast car design was a generally available product available to anyone to purchase as a promotional custom design and all the logos on the car were Daredevil trademarks and imagery. In fact many companies do promotional die cast cars for special events and our planned use was nothing different than the normal. Unfortunately with deadlines to make for producing the die cast car and our discussions dragging out with this company the promotional car could not be made in time for our event this year.  We hope to be able to work something out for 2019 on the promotional car. And now we move on.

We look forward to a great Indy Lagerfest on May 19th and you can purchase tickets online and at our taproom.

If you purchased a VIP Lagerfest ticket when the description included the Daredevil die cast car we will be offering a $5 refund. We have that list of people for tickets purchased online. If you purchased at the taproom we know what your ticket numbers are and we can also identify those tickets.

And one last time we will share the proposed designs from GreenLight Toys who were great to work with on this project. 

Proposed Daredevil Promotional Die-Cast Car Final Design and Packaging


Daredevil Brewing To Be First Brewery In Space with Proposed SpaceX Partnership

We are excited to announce our intent to be the first brewery in space and be the official craft beer for SpaceX. We are big fans of pushing the limits ourselves and we regularly watch SpaceX launches from the brewery. 

While many details are yet to be worked out we can report that the following items are part of our planned partnership. Lift Off IPA will be the official craft beer of SpaceX and the private spacecraft Dragon which soon will provide manned flights in addition to cargo flights.

With manned flights planned to start soon we know passengers will enjoy having a selection of Daredevil ales and lagers included on their flight. Nothing like enjoying a great craft beer after a long day in space. We also like making history, and with Daredevil beers being a regular option on all flights this means the Dragon spacecraft will be a floating taproom making Daredevil the first brewery to operate in space. Finally, all future flights by SpaceX will now officially launch with the call out of  “3, 2, 1, Ignition, Lift Off IPA”.

We look forward to providing more details soon. Aggressively Fun!

 

 


Can Release & Flash Sale Feedback & Next Time

First, thank you to everyone that stopped in on Tuesday afternoon for the Lift Off IPA can release & flash sale. Second, we are sorry there was not enough for everyone that wanted to take part and that we ran out about 4 pm. Yes, that means we sold out in an hour of the 100-ish cases that were available. 

Being in the retail business we like to make everyone happy but unfortunately that is not always possible. We wanted to respond to some of the questions and also share some thoughts for how we can make improvements for any type of can release in the future. 

*We don’t really ever know what to expect for any can releases. We have releases where there is no rush and the beer lasts a few weeks and we have them where a lot of people show up and we sell out the same day. We literally just decided on Monday to do a flash sale and did not know if anyone would go out of there way to stop in on a Tuesday. We obviously underestimated the interest. 

*While we had no limit on the flash sale the average purchase was 1.5 cases. We understand people suggesting we place limits but again when we don’t have a crystal ball to forecast what is going to happen we rarely set limits. The few times we have set limits it’s 2 cases. If we had done that yesterday it would not have changed the short time to sell out. Only four people bought more than 2 cases. 

Future releases. We will explore a way to allow reservations using our online store that would let people pre-purchase and pick-up their beer in a certain time frame. We actually did this for a limited can release two years ago.  This is how we now do most of our keg purchases through our online store (daredevilbeer.com/store). That would let us better forecast interest and for people that have no way of being here when we open a chance to participate. In the end there is only so much available for any release but we do want to give as many people as possible to take part. 

 

Aggressively Fun!

Team Daredevil 

 


Brewery updates: New Year & New Beers

First up it is 2018. Happy New Year! We are really excited about the new year and many things we have in the works.

On the brewery news there are three bits of information to share.

*We just placed an order for a new and expanded canning line from the good people at Cask Brewing Systems. The new line is a nice upgrade to our existing one (also a Cask) and will be giving us the ability to produce more world-class quality beers in cans as well as introduce some new offerings later in the year.

*Next, we have added a brewery account manager to work specifically with our on premise accounts. Cari Crowe brings years of industry experience and beer knowledge to our team. Welcome Cari!

* And maybe what many people are most excited about is our updated Taproom Growler Fill Special. Every Friday & Saturday Growler Fills are $6 on Lift Off IPA, Vacation Kölsch, Pils German Pilsner & Race Day Lager. 

Now let’s talk about beer. With the calendar turning to January we have once again tried to sit down and plan out many of our beer releases for the year. The calendar being shared here represents the beers we are planning to distribute this year and for us it’s really exciting.

 

First, we are now going to have 5 year round beers with the addition of our very popular Pils German Pilsner to the year round lineup on draft and in cans. While Lift Off IPA drives most of our volume it’s been great to see people embrace beers like Vacation Kölsch and Pils German Pilsner as go to everyday beers to enjoy in our year round lineup.

Second, we have three larger seasonal releases planned around a few fan favorites. J.W.P. American Stout returns to distribution the week of January 15th on draft and for the first time we are distributing cans outside the taproom. (If you can’t wait on distribution, J.W.P. is available now at the taproom on draft & in cans) Our Race Day Lager of course will be back to celebrate the greatest spectacle in racing in May and once again we will distribute the wet-hop release of our NEX IPA series in the fall.

Third, and something we are really excited about is a big expansion of our lager series for distribution. We make a lot of lagers at our taproom and this year we are expanding these releases so we can also distribute many of these lagers on a regular basis — almost monthly — across our Indiana distribution footprint. Most of our lagers are German-styles but we also have inspiration in other areas that will be in the mix. In keeping with our approach to all these beers we source local malts, hops and yeast to make each lager as true to style as possible.  First up in the lager series is our award-winning German-style Bock, which will first be available at our taproom the week of January 15th and in market across Indiana the week of January 22nd. If you are one of our existing accounts talk to your Monarch/World Class representative or reach out to us about getting subscribed to the lager series.

 

Last, we will also have a few one-off Rare Devil series releases again this year which will include a Berliner Weisse and two of our most popular Saisons, Whimsy and Carnival.

We think there is really something for everyone and lots of fun and exciting beers hitting distribution that otherwise people only normally get to enjoy at our taproom. And of course we also will have other taproom only releases that we will let you know about when they happen.

And remember to visit us at our taproom where we generally have close to 20 beer on draft and many options for carry out too.

Aggressively Fun!