Author Archives: Daredevil Brewing Co

May is coming! New beers, taproom update & more

April 19, 2016

We are due for an update as there is much going on at the brewery and the taproom and many events coming in May. 

New Beers. First up, we have a slew of new beers coming at the taproom in May. To celebrate the greatest spectacle in racing we have a new limited beer that we will release for the first time this May. This special new beer is Race Day American Craft Lager. The inspiration for this beer comes from our lager series and we also wanted to brew a beer for race fans that is enjoyable from start to finish of a typical 500 mile race day. One fun part of making this beer was that we were able to use freshly ground masa which we sourced from our friends at The Tamale Place in the recipe. Our Race Day lager will be available on draft at the taproom and we will have a limited number of Crowlers (32 oz cans) complete with the official Race Day label available for Race Weekend. It may make some guest taps around Indy too so stay tuned. Look for this to tap around May 13th. 

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Next up for new taproom beers in May

* Maibock (which literally means “May Bock”) is a new lager release that should tap around May 6th. This traditional German-style beer is a lighter style bock beer that celebrates the return of summer.  

* Slip Stream American Pale Ale will return on draft in mid-May. 

* Dunkel is another new lager release that will tap around May 27th. This dark lager style is a malty and refreshing beer. 

* Whimsy is a new Summer Saison that we will release for the first time in mid-May. Look for more information it the coming weeks as it will be a very refreshing summer beer to enjoy on the patio. 

* And look for the Nitro taps we recently introduced to get tap’d on a regular basis (usually on Fridays) with a rotation of beers including Nitro versions of Pils, Rip Cord, Lift Off & J.W.P. and maybe some other new things that we do just for fun. 

Kitchen update. If you have not been in to the taproom in a few weeks or months you may have missed we expanded the foods we offer in addition to continuing to support our guests bringing in food or ordering delivery from the many local restaurants near us. Our kitchen menu now has a daily soup option and a cheese & meat board on weekdays and on the weekend we add a sandwich special. We are working with great local partners to put together options that pair well with our beers as well are just darn tasty. Nuvo had a really nice write up on our taproom food options a couple weeks ago.We are very excited to be working with great local partners like Smoking Goose, Tulip Tree Creamery, Amelia’s Bread and Piazza Produce.

Taproom events. Bands at the Brewery, our regular live music series starts back up for the summer season on Saturday, April 30th with a fan favorite, Southern Reserve, which brings a mix of country, country rock and classic rock. The live music takes place on our outdoor stage and we have a really fun lineup for the month of May.

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Race Day (aka the 100th Indy 500) Sunday, May 29th. Our taproom will open at 7 am for all the people arriving early or staying in the area who are looking to come out before heading to the track. We also will be airing the radio feed during the race and then be open to 8 pm if you want to have a place to hang out after the race.

Some things to know

* Yes, you can do carry out from our brewery on race day.

* We also will have extra outside beer stations in addition to being able to come inside to grab a beer at the taproom.

* Uber/Taxis: The official drop off for race day is on the corner in front of our brewery at Gilman & Main Street

* Bike to the 500: New this year you can do a group bike ride out to the 500. We are providing parking on our the south side of our lot and very excited to work with IndyCOG, the 500 Festival and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on making this happen. You have to register to participate so do that today.

* We will have B’s Po Boy & King David Dogs at our place providing some great food options. B’s is even making beignets that morning. 

And if you missed that we expanded our hours at the taproom a couple months back we keep all that information at daredevilbeer.com/taproom. Tuesday to Thursday is 3-9pm, Friday/Saturday is 11 am to 10 pm and Sunday is 11 am to 8 pm. 

As always Aggressively Fun!

Fundraising Madness with Brackets for Good

February 3, 2016

For the past three years we have been fortunate to partner with Brackets for Good, which is an Indianapolis based charitable organization. Every March they host online, bracket-style fundraising tournaments in philanthropic communities where participating nonprofit organizations compete for free to out fundraise their opponents, earn increased exposure, and have a chance to win $10,000 from a generous corporate sponsor. 

We first got involved as the craft beer sponsor by just donating some beer for the staff who at the time was running one competition in Indianapolis. Getting involved with Brackets for Good became a way for Daredevil to have a much larger impact with our philanthropy as by working with BFG we were able to immediately help 64 local Indianapolis charities. We were hooked.

Then in 2015 BFG did two cities with Indianapolis and Louisville, so now we were able to help benefit 128 charities. Fast forward to 2016 and BFG is going to run fundraising tournaments this March in 5 cities, which means we can help 320 charities across Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, Ann Arbor and Minneapolis. Wow. 

This year we worked with BFG to do a commemorative version of our flagship Lift Off IPA can to help increase awareness of the annual charitable tournaments they run and they will start hitting our distribution areas across Indiana by mid-February as well as show up at their kick-off events in the participating cities where BFG is able to bring in our beers. So, look for this special can and remember to get involved with Brackets for Good by visiting their website at http://www.bfg.org to help make a difference with Fundraising Madness!

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2016 Plans: More Expansion, Rare Devil Small Batch Beers & Beers in Cans

January 9, 2016

2015 was a great year for us and we hope it was for you. We completed the construction of the new brewery and relocated to our new home on Main Street in Speedway in May and opened the taproom in June.

The new brewery has exceeded our expectations in every way. The much larger facility and our investments in a larger quality lab and additional brewing capacity have allowed us to grow while continuing to make consistently high quality beers. 

What’s on deck for 2016? While the majority of our business will continue to be wholesale distribution of our core seven beers that we make year round (Lift Off, Vacation, Slip Stream, Muse, J.W.P, Rip Cord and Carnival) we also have several very exciting things at the taproom. 

1) We are now distributing our beers to Northern Indiana including all seven of our core beers on draft and Lift Off & Vacation in cans. As always we will try to keep the recent deliveries up to date on our website. At any given time you can find our beers on draft or in cans at hundreds of locations. If you cannot find our beers ask your favorite place to carry them more regularly or drop us an email with requests and we will work with our distributors.  

2) Our Rare Devil Small Batch beer program is going to really grow at the taproom. We still mostly make Lift Off IPA as it was +90% of what we made in 2015 and it will continue to be the majority of what we make. However, besides our core beers we have years of brewing experience and 100s of other beers we also like to make. The Rare Devil program was started in 2014 with the intent to do small batch beers sometimes as little as 5 gallons to 20 gallons. Starting this month we will be planning to put on a new Rare Devil Small Batch beer at least twice a month at the taproom. First up are some of our favorites including Muse with Montmorency Tart Cherries and J.W.P. with Madagascar Vanilla Beans. Both of these have been made once in the last two years and were huge fan favorites. Look for them at the taproom in January.

3) Lift Off IPA Brett Project is going to become a regularly made beer in 2016. We have experimented with this beer for the last two years and we are ready to scale it up. It will go from being made at 5 to 20 gallon size batches to once every few months on our full size production system with the goal of having it on regularly at the taproom and seeing some limited distribution on draft and in cans.

4) More capacity planned. We will be increasing our capacity by another 30% this Spring when some new 80 bbl fermentation tanks arrive. In addition we are making some brewhouse investments to improve efficiencies. These investments will allow us to try and keep up with the demand for Lift Off IPA and give us capacity to still be able to make more of our other core beers like Rip Cord DIPA, Muse Golden Belgian Ale and Vacation Kolsch as well as grow the Rare Devil Small Batch program. We brewed almost 3000 bbls of Lift Off IPA in 2015 and we expect to make at least 5000 bbls of Lift Off IPA in 2016. So, we should be keeping your favorite places in stock with our kegs and cans.

5) More of our beers in cans. Right now Lift Off IPA & Vacation Kolsch cans are available across Indiana. We started canning several of our core beers for sales at the taproom in December. We plan to start distributing some additional core beers at some point in 2016 across Indiana. We have not decided when but the main candidates for distribution are Rip Cord DIPA, Muse Belgian Golden Ale and Slip Stream Pale Ale.  Stay tuned.

As we start the year we also want to thank all of the great people we have the chance to work with in this industry and the people who enjoy our beers. We want to make sure every beer that you enjoy from us is awesome and that is what we focus on every day.

Aggressively Fun!

Shane, Michael & Bill

 

December 12th: Customer Appreciation Day & 3rd Anniversary Celebration Kickoff

December 8, 2015

That last three years went quickly at times and not so in others but during it all we have always just tried to focus on making consistently high quality and enjoyable beers and have fun.
 
On December 8, 2012 we brewed our first batch of Lift Off IPA. That was a great day and it was the result of over a 18 months of planning, sacrifice and hard work. By the end of that month we were shipping our first kegs for distributing across the Indianapolis metro area and shortly after across Central and Southern Indiana.
 
Even today over 90% of what we brew is Lift Off IPA and we are very humbled that it has become a go to beer for so many people in the Indy area and across the state.
 
With our investments in the new brewery this year we are making as much Lift Off IPA as we are able to while also holding ourselves to the very high bar of striving to make world class quality beer with the goal that every beer we make on draft and in cans is brewery fresh and delicious.
 
With our added capacity we are also now able to make all of our core beers (Rip Cord, Muse, J.W.P., Vacation, Carnival & Slip Stream) year round on draft and we have started to can them for sales from the taproom. So far we have canned Muse & J.W.P. and next up we plan Rip Cord DIPA and Slip Stream Pale Ale.
 
Now it is time to celebrate: Saturday, December 12th! With the completion of the new brewery this is the first year we have had a taproom to host guests so on we are holding the first Aggressively Fun Customer Appreciation Day to celebrate and kickoff a month of anniversary events that will run through January with culminate with our annual beer dinner at Black Market (more details on events coming soon). For now, December 12th is the day to focus on 🙂
 
What: Aggressively Fun Customer Appreciation Day
 
When: Saturday, December 12th, 11 am to 10 pm
 
Where: Daredevil Brewing Co, 1151 Main Street, Speedway, IN
 
Specials: We will have many specials that day and we probably will add a few additional ones so plan to attend. We will have $1 beers including Lift Off IPA, Carnival Saison, Marzen & Pils and our other core beers will all be $4 including Rip Cord, Muse, Vacation, Slip Stream and J.W.P.
 
Tappings: We also will be putting our Buffalo Trace Bourbon Barrel Aged Muse on tap and Lift Off IPA, Brett Project. (while they last)
 
Food: As always we have a wide selection of food options available from neighboring restaurants.
 
Aggressively Fun!
Michael, Bill and Shane
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Daredevil Brewing Co Expanding Distribution to Northern Indiana

December 7, 2015

In December 2015 the Daredevil Brewing Co backyard will get a little bigger with the addition of Northern Indiana. Daredevil already distributes across Central and Southern Indiana and has partnered with Indiana Beverage to bring our Lift Off IPA and aggressively fun craft beers to 24 counties across Northern Indiana. Daredevil beers are now available across the entire state of Indiana and all 92 counties.

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“Daredevil Brewing Company has been wildly successful with their beers in Central and Southern Indiana.” Jeff Leetz Vice President Indiana Beverage. “We are thrilled to bring these amazing beers to our area.”

Launch events are planned at BeerGeeks in Highland, Stacks and Martinis in Valparaiso and Bacon Hill in Elkhart.

Daredevil beers will be available in the following additional counties Adams, Allen, Benton, DeKalb, Elkhart, Fulton, Grant, Huntington, Jasper, Kosciusko, LaGrange, LaPorte, Lake, Marshall, Newton, Noble, Porter, Pulaski, St. Joseph, Starke, Steuben, Wabash and Whitley

About Daredevil Brewing Co

Daredevil Brewing Co is an independent, Indianapolis based craft brewery that was founded by two award winning craft brewers, Bill Ballinger and Michael Pearson, and a talented craft beer enthusiast, Shane Pearson.  

Daredevil Brewing Co operates a state of the art production craft brewery built in the heart of the Indianapolis metro area. The brewery is located on a 2.0-acre site at 1151 Main Street in the historic Speedway area just five blocks from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The taproom at Daredevil Brewing Co provides a welcoming atmosphere for guests to visit, take a brewery tour, enjoy a pint or pick up Daredevil beers to go.

For more information and to find Daredevil Brewing Co beers in your area visit www.DaredevilBeer.com. You can also follow Daredevil Brewing Co on Facebook at DaredevilBrewing, Twitter @DaredevilBeer and Instagram @DaredevilBeer

About Indiana Beverage.

Indiana Beverage is an independent family owned wholesale distributor who has been delivering the difference since 1939.  Headquartered in Porter County Indiana with approximately 270 employees, Indiana Beverage provides quality service to its customers by promoting the responsible use of its products.  For over 75 years, Indiana Beverage has been dedicated to its core values of: passion, respect, integrity, commitment, and excelling.  These values and the company’s success are shared by every member of Team Indiana Beverage.  For more information about Indiana Beverage visit www.indianabev.com. You can also follow Indiana Beverage on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at 219Beer or 574Beer.

Cans for the Holidays! & Taproom update

November 6, 2015

Cans for the Holidays!

It’s been a fun year as we grow into our new space. With our recent addition of more fermentation tanks we have +40% capacity. Mostly that means brewing more Lift Off IPA but it also gives us a bit of flexibility to make more or our limited release beers and start canning more beers.

We are very excited to announce that we will be canning our Muse Belgian Golden Ale and J.W.P. American Stout during November and Rip Cord Double IPA in December.  Look for announcements on these being available for purchase at the taproom. 

Rip Cord DIPA CanJ.W.P. American StoutMuse Belgian Golden Ale

Taproom update

If you have not been into the taproom in awhile then you should stop in. We now regularly have 7 to 10 beers on including our taproom only lagers (currently a Märzen & German Pilsner are available). The taplist is kept up to date on our website. For carry out options we have 4 pack/16 oz cans of Lift Off IPA & Vacation Kölsch and usually all the beers on draft are available for Crowlers (32 oz can fill) and Growlers (64 oz fill). 

For people that want to enjoy some food with our beers we have a selection of snacks available and you can order delivery from location restaurants or bring your own as long as it is from a commercial restaurant. By December we will be adding our pocket kitchen that will provide a small menu of items that we prepare ourselves. Items will include a rotating selection of locally sourced foods such as charcuterie, freshly made soups and sandwiches. In addition we will continue to have restaurant takeovers with Fat Dan’s and other restaurants from across the metro area on occasion. 

Aggressively Fun!

Taproom Food Update, Trucking, Fat Dan’s & J.W.P Returns

August 21, 2015

Craft Beer and great food are a match made in heaven. We love to pair our beers with food and are often out and about in Indy visiting our favorite local places especially when we get the opportunity to pair them with our beers or some of our favorite beers from other craft breweries.  

The setup at the Taproom for having our guests order or carry in food has worked great and we will continue this practice. We have great local options in Barbecue and Bourbon, Lino’s, Dawson’s on Main as well as Jimmy John’s and more options are coming in the next few months right on Main Street and nearby. 

However we always planned some type of in house food option and we included a pocket kitchen space just behind the Taproom. Now we are going to start slowing bringing this part of the Taproom to life with an option we think people are really going to like.

We are going to setup and operate a commissary kitchen at the Taproom where we will rotate in some of the best local restaurants on a regular basis. This will start slowly as we figure out what works well and we are excited to start things up. Our first guest restaurant is Saturday (8/22) and we are kicking it off in a big way with Fat Dan’s Chicago Style Deli .We will have their world famous 3 hour, slow-smoked dry rubbed wings and pulled pork sandwiches and brisket sandwiches. 

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Service starts at 5 pm on Saturday and you will just be able to place your order for food with your beer. And if that was not enough to bring you over we also have the release celebration for our limited edition J.W.P. American Stout which is returning on Saturday when we open at 1 pm. 

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And you might see this very nice looking semi-trailer out on the roads making deliveries across Indiana for our distributor partner Monarch Beverage. 

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Lift Off cans return! Rip Cord DIPA returns – 7/17 at taproom, Hopsfest & more

July 13, 2015

We like to keep people up to date on what is going on at the brewery so this update is chocked full. 

Lift Off IPA cans shipping across Indiana again

With the move to the new brewery we went to 100% draft for several weeks and just started canning again recently. We are now going to a schedule where we plan to can Lift Off IPA every week. The benefit will be a) fresh Lift Off b) more Lift Off c) more Lift Off shipping to a place near you

It is sometimes hard for us to explain how crazy it is to manage the growth of demand for Lift Off IPA. Believe us when we say we are doing our best to keep everyone in good supply. Even though we are brewing a ton of it — 100 barrels this week in fact (that is 25,000 pints) — demand for Lift Off on draft and in cans far exceeds what we are making and we are making roughly 2 or 3 times of Lift Off IPA than we did just a few months ago.  

You will be able to get 4 packs of Lift Off at the taproom (open Wed to Sat) and we hope starting this week back at 100s of locations across Indiana. We will be updating the locations page on our website as shipments go out this week from our distributor

Rip Cord Double IPA returns this Friday at the taproom

Yes! We love making this beer and the plan is to continue to make it once a quarter for distribution. This is a draft only release and the beer will first be available at our taproom and then will start to ship out across Indiana the week of July 20th. And sometime soon you will see 16oz cans too but not this release. There will be carry out at the taproom in 32 oz Crowlers or 64 oz Growlers (Daredevil branded Growlers)

Taproom Grand Opening Extravaganza, Friday, 2-10 pm

Along with the Rip Cord DIPA release this Friday we also are extending the variety of Daredevil beers available at the taproom. The beers available on Friday will include Lift Off IPA, Vacation Kölsch, Rip Cord Double IPA and then some limited amounts of J.W.P. American Stout, Lift Off IPA Brett Project #2 and some other Rare Devil small batch pins and beers we are working on and will see what is ready. 

Also, the taproom hours have been extended and are now Wed: 3-8 PM, Thur-Fri: 3-9PM and Sat: 1-9 PM.

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Hops & Flips Flops is bigger & better this year

Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 29th for our Hops & Flip Flops Craft Beer Festival which is going to include a 5K race, craft beer festival and a block party.  We just announced the music lineup today for both the craft beer festival and the block party that follows it that evening. Make a day of it as ticket holders for the Craft Beer Festival also receive admission at the same level for the Block Party — it is 2 events for 1! And for the really energetic you can start the day at 8 AM with the 5K race where all finishers get their choice of a 16oz can of Lift Off IPA or Vacation Kölsch.

Daredevil Brewing Co Hops & Flip Flops 2015

Lift Off Cans return & Vacation Kölsch released in cans, Carry Out & July 4th event!

June 29, 2015

Lots of good news to share today. With our move complete to the new Speedway brewery and access to all this extra space and capacity we are now getting back to canning. It has been almost seven weeks since we made our last shipment of Lift Off IPA cans so we know they are pretty hard to find across Indiana. 

 

Lift Off IPA cans are returning July 1st and will be available for sale in the taproom while they last. We will be moving to a regular weekly canning schedule that should allow us to have sales from the taproom and keep people stocked up across our Indiana distribution footprint.  Come in the taproom and stock up for your July 4th needs!

Lift Off 4 Pack Cans LR

 

We are also excited to announce that Vacation Kölsch is going to be our second beer in cans and will be first available from the taproom on Wednesday, July 1st. It is going to be a great beer to take anywhere for your summer relaxation needs/ 

Vacation 4 Pack Cans LR

 

And we are starting carry out fills of Crowler & Growlers starting July 1st. Fills will be available as long as the taproom is not overly busy which if it is we reserve the decision to not do fills. 

Daredevil July 1st - Taplist

 

 

And last but definitely not least please come join us for our Aggressively Fun July 4th Celebration this Saturday from 3 to 10 pm.  We will have fresh Daredevil beers, live music and food trucks. 

Aggressively Fun July 4th Celebration

Daredevil Brewing Co | The Restoration of our 1964 Divco Tap Truck

June 6, 2015

We posted photos of our newly restored 1964 Divo truck the other day and we promised the before photos so here they are along with the back story on the restoration. She is a beauty now but like a lot of swans she started out more an ugly duckling.

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About a 18 months ago we decided we needed a tap truck. Like most production breweries we looked at what new trucks costs and what we could do with one. Given we do not do any self distribution our needs were mostly for supporting events and also our future taproom when we hosted large events and wanted to drop in an outside service station. Sure we could just buy a new truck with very little hassle but we thought it would be a lot more fun to find something with a bit more character that we could make our own.

The more we thought about it the more we wanted to find an older truck that we could restore so we approached Vintage Step Vans in Chicago to work with us to find and restore a truck. Turns out restoring a truck can be as expensive or even more expensive then buying a brand new truck depending on how you want to customize the truck. Our wish list including finding a step van that had an intact cold box and if possible be a larger model of Metros or Divcos or similar step vans.

 

Searching for a Vintage Step Van

We were told finding a van with a cold box was not going to be very easy but that it was possible and that we should be ready to buy it as-is whenever one showed up because trucks do not last long on the market if they are in decent shape. Over the first few months of the search we had a couple decent trucks hit the market but they sold before we could even get photos to consider making an offer.

Then as luck would have it this 1964 Divco Model 206 shown below hit the market at the beginning of February 2014. The truck was located in Ohio and was owned by a former employee of Divco and Divco-Wayne Corporation who had it and a couple other trucks that he had meant to fix up but had not ever gotten around to those projects. This truck was not in good shape and therefore it was not getting any bidders. After we verified it had a completely intact cold box we decided to make an offer and ended up purchasing the truck.

Figure: Daredevil Brewing Co Tap Truck | 1964 Model 206 Divco before restoration it had been a Pabst Blue Ribbon delivery & tap truck.

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History of our 1964 Divco

Divco step vans were produced from 1926 to 1986. Divco is an acronym which stands for Detroit Industrial Vehicles COmpany. Founded in 1926, Divco was well known for its pioneering delivery vehicles, especially the home delivery milk trucks. Only the VW Beetle stayed in production with the same basic model for a longer period of time.

Our 1964 Divco Model 206 was manufactured in Richmond, Indiana and was used as a Pabst Blue Ribbon delivery and tap truck. (We are uncertain of the exact ownership history as the truck has passed through several owners since it was last used).

Figure: Collection of before photos of our Daredevil Brewing Co Tap Truck | 1964 Model 206 Divco
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A Second Life & Higher Calling for our Divco

There were three main phases for the restoration project of our truck. First we had to have a lot of infrastructure work done so the truck would be safe to operate. This included work on everything from the engine (replaced with a new Ford 240 6-cylinder) to brakes, shocks, and wheels. Next up we had to source a lot of parts that were missing on our Divco. With some lucky bidding on eBay these parts were sourced. In parallel there was a lot of bodywork needed on the truck. The guys that did this work really were miracle workers. The only thing that really needed no work was the cold box with the exception of filling in the original four tap holes in the truck and putting in the holes for the now six taps on the side of the truck.

Finally all that was left was painting and decals to give our truck a classic look. 

Figure: Collection of before photos of our Daredevil Brewing Co Tap Truck | 1964 Model 206 Divco

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Look for our new tap truck at our taproom and local events

The first event for our tap truck will be the Speedway brewery grand opening celebration on June 17th. After that we will plan on taking it to some events around the metro area and using it for events at our taproom where we need outside service. We are also going to look into a trailer that would allow us to take it to events that are outside the Indy metro area.