Boiler Brews: A Guide to Classy Tailgating – vs. Notre Dame

It’s that time again, Boiler fans.  After a long, boring bye week, we again raise our glasses this weekend for the honor of old Purdue.  This week will be a special one for the beer-loving H&R contingent, as we have been invited to tour Lafayette’s own Peoples Brewing Company on Saturday before the showdown with the fellows from South Bend.  I must confess that have never actually partaken in any Peoples brews, and I’m not even going to try to make up an excuse as to why.  However, that reality will surely change this weekend.  So, my idea for this week was to have you do my homework with me about Peoples, and follow up mid-week with a recap of the brewery tour and some recommendations from their fermenters for future games.

Peoples Brewing Company is located across the Wabash from West LaFiesta in a facility that features a brewery and a tap room, which typically has 6 beers available at any time for tasting/purchase.  The taproom has been open since March of 2010.  The brewery is located at 2006 N. 9^th street, near the Wildcat Winery, if you’re familiar.  Brewing beer in the Lafayette are is not a new enterprise, with 8 breweries operating for various years since 1855.  The quoted belief of the brewery is that "Everyone likes a craft beer…they just don’t know it," which is right in line with the entire purpose of this series of posts.  They seem to have a vast lineup from pilsners to porters and everywhere in between, meaning that there’s a good chance they’ll have a style that will suit even the "manliest" drinkers of mass-produced light lagers. 

One thing that is excellent about Peoples is that they are totally transparent in the sources of their ingredients: water from Lafayette, malted barley from Wisconsin, hops from the Pacific Northwest, etc.  No secrets here.  And before the Wabash River water jokes start pouring in, it should be noted that hard, mineral-y water is actually excellent for brewing.  The local water imparts a region-specific taste to Peoples beers, making them unique and setting them apart from delicious brews from other regions. 

Peoples beer can be found throughout Lafayette and West Lafayette, as well as in select locations in Indianapolis and elsewhere in the state.  Free tasting is available Wednesday through Sunday at the brewery, with tours running every half hour on the weekends from 12-5.  It’s clearly important to this brewery that they educate you on how your beer is made and where it comes from, and encourage the People (get it?) to arm themselves with this knowledge to further the appreciation of craft beer in Indiana.

So, we’ve done our homework, and I feel ready to go on the H&R tour of the brewery on Saturday.  Have any loyal readers imbibed some delicious beer from Peoples in the past?  Any recommendations?

Thanks for reading!  Cheers, Hail Purdue!  And please, for the love of Brees, beat those damn Irish.