Mark Bennett
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
As a beer connoisseur, Douglas Wissing has been to the mountains.
Real mountains, that is, not those painted on an aluminum can. The Himalayas, to be exact. Wissing has sampled the beers of Katmandu’s two breweries. The taste of the beers produced in Indiana, his lower-altitude home state, towers over that of the Katmandu brews.
Of one Himalayan brewery, Wissing quipped, “I’m convinced it was a front for a formaldehyde factory, and it was the better of the two.”
Hoosier beermakers fare much better.
“Indiana brews world-class beer,” Wissing said.
Wissing, an independent journalist from Bloomington, criss-crossed Indiana, studying the state’s 33 active breweries and its beer history for his new book “Indiana, One Pint at a Time: A Traveler’s Guide to Indiana’s Breweries.” Published by the Indiana Historical Society, “One Pint at a Time” revisits the origins of beer in China 9,000 years ago, then Egypt, Europe, America and, finally, Indiana. Terre Haute occupies a cornerstone of Hoosier brewing history, in 1837. The Terre Haute Brewing Co., home of Champagne Velvet beer, was once the seventh-largest in America before closing in 1958.
Journalism has taken Wissing around the world, following stories from Tibet to Afghanistan for The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and the BBC. He’ll soon return to war-torn Afghanistan to report on its agribusiness climate.
But, as the author of a book on Indiana beer, he emphasized, “I’m about as Hoosier as you get.” The 60-year-old grew up in Vincennes, and his ancestors owned an ice house along the Wabash River. One ancestor helped found Hack & Simon Brewery, which ran from 1875 until 1918 in Vincennes.
“I’m a southern Indiana guy — I like beer,” Wissing said.
He holds a bit of a distinction, though. He enjoys experimenting. Most Hoosier beer drinkers buy mass-market products from Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors. Less than 1 percent of all beer consumed in Indiana comes from its 33 home-state breweries.
That’s well below the national average, where craft beers account for 5 percent of the overall market. In fact, craft beer sales in the U.S. were 12 percent higher in the first six months of 2010 than the same period in 2009, according to national Brewers Association statistics. By contrast, overall beer sales are down 2.7 percent from last year.
In researching his book, Wissing followed the craft-brew trend. He tried and enjoyed the diverse in-state beers, such as the Russian Imperial Stout from Three Floyds Brewing Co. in Munster, and the Belgian-style Tripel de Ripple from Vigo Brewing Group in Terre Haute. He favors dark beers in winter, wheats and lagers in summer, but he keeps an open mind.
“I do experiment a lot,” Wissing said. “I do have favorites I like a lot, but I want to try other things.”
He expected to find a “mixed bag” of beers as he visited the Indiana breweries. The beermakers surprised him.
“In terms of quality of the beer, Indiana brews some world-class beers,” Wissing said. “And that’s not just me talking.”
In fact, the opinions of world beer critics and his path to writing “One Pint at a Time” share some parallels. Wissing’s inspiration for the book came after his son introduced him to a rare beer made by Trappist monks in Belgium. That drink, Westvletern 12 Trappist ale, is available only at the abbey there. Global rankings consistently rated it No. 1. But in a recent poll, the Russian Imperial Stout from Three Floyds bumped Westvletern 12 for the top spot, Wissing said.
The current Indiana breweries — all small microbreweries — emerged within the past 21 years, beginning with the Indianapolis Brewing Co. in 1989. They filled a void left by the closings of the industrial breweries in Terre Haute, Evansville, South Bend and Fort Wayne in the late 1950s through the 1980s as the giants — Budweiser, Miller and Coors — dominated. Craft brewing creates unusual flavors, beyond the prevalent light tastes of Bud, Miller and Coors. Most trace their recipes or roots to bygone hometown breweries or eclectic European beer pioneers.
“It’s really an impassioned group of brewers,” Wissing said. They’re friendly competitors, too. “What really struck me is how they wouldn’t badmouth one another at all,” he added. “That inspired me.”
Together, the 33 microbreweries produce about 30,000 barrels of beer a year. In its brewing heyday, Indiana pumped out 1.5 million barrels a year. The Terre Haute Brewing Co. alone “in 1889 was brewing as much beer as the entire state of Indiana today,” Wissing said.
Times change, slowly in Indiana. Tastes do, too.
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
