Just letting you fine folks know that we’re going to be closed today due to the weather conditions. We’ll be back up tomorrow as normal.

Peace out!

While we don’t have our stuff ready yet, we are all still major beer geeks and we couldn’t resist being able to bring a bunch of awesome stuff to the east side, so we are offering a rotating selection of guest taps. We currently have 15 different taps, but more are on the way. The draft selections will be updated on Facebook every Wednesday, so keep your eyes open for our constantly changing selection.

And what is beer without a few noms? We are starting with a small food menu consisting of gourmet meats and cheeses, but it will continue to expand in the coming weeks. If you need a more substantive dinner than that, we are conveniently located between two fantastic places: The Legend and Jockamo Pizza.

Some finer details:

• Parking is available along Washington Street and directly behind the building with an adjacent overflow lot to the west. After 5pm, the Huntington Bank lot to the east is also open.
• We are a non-smoking establishment.
• 21+ only
• Hours:

  Monday: Closed
  Tuesday: Closed
  Wednesday: 4pm-10pm
  Thursday: 4pm-10pm
  Friday: 4pm-12am
  Saturday: 12pm-12am
  Sunday: 11 am-3pm

 
So come on down, grab a brew, and check out the space. We look forward to (finally) seeing you.

Before getting into the specifics of what all happened last week, we first have to thank our wonderful volunteers who came out to make the day go faster and smoother than it ever could have with just the five of us. So, Mike, Ericka, Seth, Jeff, Tod, Shaun, and Naji, thank you for all your help.

The day started with us unloading the disassembled cold room from its former home: Mike’s garage. Being an early part of the day, and most of us lacking caffeine at this point, we forgot to take pictures. Rest assured that it looked exactly like what you would expect taking sections of a broken down cold room out of a garage and putting them onto the truck would look like. After we were all loaded up, we drove off to the space for unloading.

After the cold room was unloaded, half of the team stayed behind to start building the cold room while the other half went to our storage unit to retrieve our brew system! Booyakasha!

After everyone was back together, we all set to work on getting the rest of the cold room set up.

The walls went up so quick, in fact, that we were able to have some lunch from our favorite local pizzeria.

After our lunch break, we brought the brew system into the brew room and put it into place. It isn’t functional yet, but this is what we will get to work with very, very soon.

Exciting isn’t it? The place is really starting to take shape. We hope you are just as excited about being able to come in and get our beer as we are to be able to serve it to you.

Then there’s our electric box, which is very, very pretty. Not to mention Tim the Toolman Taylor approved! In the constant pursuit for more power, an electric box the size of one of our founders certainly has to be a pretty epic milestone for our favorite mid-90′s handyman.

And then there’s our control panel…

No, not our control panel to launch nuclear weapons, although it certainly seems that it could be used that way. Alas, it is only the control panel for our brew system. Still, we’re going to have to put some serious security measures in place to make sure its powers don’t fall into the wrong hands. We’ll highlight those in a future post. Until then, we can only hope you can assuage your anticipation with a delicious fermented-grain beverage. Cheers!

But no more! In keeping with our respect for the historic nature of Irvington, as well as our desire to have a more environmentally-friendly location, we are pleased to bring you the new and improved storefront:

The ledge has been raised to match the framing of the other buildings on the strip, and damaged brick has also been replaced. We also had the top of the frame replaced with new windows, the same you would see on many fine establishments across the strip, like the Legend or Jockamo’s. The new frame also has a better seal, which prevents us from having to use more electricity than before to keep the location at a comfortable temperature. Not only were we motivated by our desire to help the planet, but we knew that if we didn’t, this guy would be out to get us.

While we have been busy making the storefront look awesome and Gore-approved, the back of the store hasn’t been neglected either. Some of the more observant among you may have noticed that there were no loading doors on our location, which would pose some problems for receiving large shipments, such as our brew system or grain. To address this problem, we have had the side door in the back removed and widened to create this:

That isn’t to say that aesthetic concerns were overlooked. Realizing that there are no traditional, garage-door style loading doors, the fine folks over at One 10 suggested utilizing a double-door design. This design will make our location more functional, while still keeping within the style of the strip. Form, I would like you to meet Function.

With so much going on on the outside of the building, don’t forget that there is work being done on the inside as well. According to our highly scientific measurements, a whole bunch of concrete was cut and pulled out to make way for trench drains and plumbing:

It’s not pretty, that’s for sure, but when you realize that the end result is delicious, delicious beer, it becomes becomes quite the sight to behold. Keep your eyes peeled here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter, for more updates. Until then, enjoy a fine craft beer or homebrew and think longingly of our opening.

Not only do we have our space now, but over the past few months, we’ve been purchasing our kitchen and front of house equipment. It’s definitely not as exciting as the brew system, so we aren’t going to outline everything we’ve got, but here is a picture of everyone in front of the storage units filled to the brim.

Here’s Brian Drew. He helps us out a lot.

Not only can you see the updates as we post pictures here, but we also now have an imgur account with a specific gallery that will be updated more frequently, albeit with less description.

Aside from everything on the set up end, we’ve been brewing a lot. Perfecting some older recipes and creating new ones. We’ve been really pleased with all of our new recipes, and the fine-tuning is going along swimmingly.

Finally, we’ll be at the Irvington Farmers Market in two weeks (Sunday, July 10) in Ellenberger Park. Hopefully we’ll be able to avoid the crazy weather we’ve seen the past few weeks. Either way, it’s sure to be a good time, so come by and ask us a few questions and get some updates on what’s been happening.

Richard Lee
Colin Flora
Imanol Suarez-Palma
Bryan Conn
Jason Duarte
Scott Robichaux
Eric Hartz
Ross Graham
Jessica Price
Michael Wilson

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you all for participating! Winners, please e-mail us at info@blackacrebrewing.com to flush out all the details.

At Black Acre, we know that we cannot succeed without your help and input, and this poll is just the start of this trend. In the future, we will continue to consult with you via various methods and hope you continue to contribute your opinion.

Again, congratulations to the winners, and thank you all for participating!

After much hard work, we are pleased to announce that Black Acre Brewing Company is on track to open its doors in the historic Irvington strip in the fall of 2011!

As many of you have seen, craft beer in Indianapolis has grown exponentially in the past few years. It is very exciting to be a part of this growing and thriving culture. Irvington has seen similar changes, making this location perfect for a new craft brewery!

Over the past several years, Irvington’s art, culture, and food scene has seen large growth. To be able to contribute our artisan ales to this community is a great honor.

While we still have much work to do, we couldn’t have come this far without the support of all the beer enthusiasts of Indiana. As fellow beer geeks, we look forward to serving you all our handcrafted artisan ales.

For those of you not familiar with Irvington, you can read about the history of this neighborhood here.

First things first, the heart of our operation: the brew system. In order to do this effectively, we have to break down some units of measurement, so if you are already aware of these, skip ahead. If not, this will be helpful in understanding what we’re talking about.

Our system is a complete custom built 3 barrel stainless steel system. A barrel of beer is 31 gallons, so our system will produce batches of around 93 gallons at a time. This puts us at the high end for nano-breweries, which is not a technical designation, but is usually used in reference to breweries that are 3 BBLs or smaller. Still, we are tiny compared to the average micro-brewery, and absolutely minuscule in comparison to the macros. We believe this will makes us the second smallest brewery in the Indianapolis area, with Bier taking the prize for the smallest system at 1.5 BBLs. We are using ten 3 BBL fermenters which gives us a 30 BBL capacity or 930 gallons. This size of system will allow us plenty of capacity for the time being to keep beer in our tap room while being able to produce new beers continuously.

Our system includes a 120 gal. liquor ton, a 120 gal mash tun, and a 145 gallon brew kettle. Our system will be powered by an all-electric system that uses low density electric elements and a tankless water heater. Electric is a great option because it increases the safety of the brew house and also allows us more access to a variety of environmentally friendly energy options. Just click on the images if you want to see them in greater detail.

The system will also utilize a hop back, which is a small enclosed container with a filter at the bottom in which hops can be contained. This allows aroma hops to impart more flavor in the wort (the beginning liquid of beer) because the hop oils cannot escape. It also functions as a filter, trapping previous hop particles from the boil along with any other sediment that may occur during the brewing process. After then passing through a plate chiller to reduce the temperature of the wort, it will be oxygenated and then transferred to the fermenters where it will be combined with yeast.

So there you have it! Pictures of the actual unit will be put up when we receive it in a few months. Next up, the odyssey that was getting our cold room.

Willi Becher Glass

At first glance, this glass seems no difference than your traditional pint glass. Lacking the intricacy one associates with tulip glasses or traditional Belgian glasses, why would we bother moving beyond the “traditional” pint glass? Well, there are two reasons. First off, the Willi glass complements the attitude of Black Acre Brewing Co. The glass is both traditional and unique, a perfect complement to a brewery that respects tradition but isn’t bound to it.

Second, the Willi glass allows us to meet the honest pint requirements. Unlike England and Germany, the United States has no legal requirements on what constitutes a pint. Although a pint denotes 16 ounces, many bars do not provide this amount in their “pints,” instead pouring 12 or 14 ounces into 14 or 16 ounce shaker glasses. We believe that when customers order a pint, they should get a true 16 ounce pour.

Not only are you not getting a proper pint, but you are also not getting enough head on your beer! Despite what your college friends probably told you, head on a beer is not a bad thing. Brewers work hard to create the proper head retention which allows the beer to open up and share its most subtle aromas with the drinker. However, because of the small size of many establishments glasses, patrons associate head with being cheated on beer volume. By having an etch line at the 16 oz mark with some room at the top of the glass, every pint you get is not only an actual pint but ensures that you get a proper amount of head (about the width of two fingers). As an added bonus, the 21.5 ounce Willy, is perfectly engineered to keep beer cool until the last drop, featuring a large, solid mass of glass that acts a little like a non-melting ice-cube.

Snifter

Although we are strong proponents of the honest pint, we also believe establishment should offer small options, when appropriately marked. Snifters allow us to give you a decent serving of higher gravity beers, which should be enjoyed in moderation.

We will also offer half pints (8 oz pours) of all of our beers.  It is especially important in a place with a large and every changing tap selection to allow customers to try and enjoy beers without having them drink (and pay) for a pint of each one. And sometimes, for whatever reason, you just want a little more beer but you don’t want a full pint. That’s okay, we’re all friends, no judging!

Aside from these very practical considerations, snifter glasses are also superb glasses for experiencing your beer. Given that the bowl is not filled the whole way, a snifter is able to develop a strong head on it. The aroma created by the head are further magnified by the snifter’s structure, allowing the drinker to get a deep nosefull of aroma. The thinner glass of the snifter also allows higher gravity beers to warm to the appropriate level for maximum enjoyment.

Growler

Like most craft breweries, we will also be selling growlers. This eco-friendly 64 ounce reusable glass container has been a method of transporting beer to consumers’ homesteads since before bottling. While our growlers are clearly aesthetically different than your standard screw cap, they do have a practical purpose. The flip top gasket cap creates a proper seal, preventing carbonation from escaping and making your beer go flat. While these growlers cost a little more than their aluminum screw cap brethren, their quality and superior seal more than makes up for it. Besides, we figure most beer geeks already have tons of the standard amber growlers (which we will also gladly fill).