FOOD & DRINK

Try 'barnyard' beers at Central State Brewing's tap room, The Koelschip

Amy Haneline
IndyStar

Unless you have tasted a beer from Central State Brewing — or from just a handful of other breweries in the U.S. — you haven't experienced a beer made with "Brett."

Central State beer has been on taps around Indiana for months. But the brewery, which contracts through Irvington’s Black Acre Brewing, now has its own tap room called The Koelschip at 2505 Delaware St., next to Goose the Market.

The grand opening is Saturday, Jan. 30.

Milk Tooth's Nate Atkins, center, and Jonathan Brooks, center right, sample brews during Central State Brewery's  Koelschip Tap Room's soft opening.

And they are making beers you won’t find anywhere else in Indiana. Founders Josh Hambright, Chris Bly and Jake Koeneman are brewing beers using a yeast called Brettanomyces, or “Brett” for short.

Most beers are made with Saccharomyces yeast, Koeneman said. “We decided to look at this other family of yeast. They are cousins, but this kind is under researched.”

The three hope to be on the frontier of experimentation with Brett. They aren’t the first to use the yeast strain, which is normally associated with funky, sour beers. But they are using 100 percent Brett in primary fermentation, which is rare.

You will notice a difference in taste. “Barnyard, horsey characters, sweaty,” Koeneman explains.

It sounds scary, perhaps gross, but by using the yeast in primary fermentation, those characteristics are subtle.

“We get some of those flavors, but usually it’s in the background with some fruitiness, spicy, pepper, clove, earthiness, rustic. It gives us a whole different palate of flavors to play with,” Koeneman said.

A chalkboard shows off Central State Brewery's  Koelschip Tap Room's beer offerings during the soft opening.

For craft beer drinkers, that means something new and unique to try. The brewery’s house beer, for example, is a rustic blonde ale. They describe it as having lots of flavor packed into a low ABV (alcohol by volume). The rustic blonde is only 4 percent.

All the beers align with familiar styles — blonde, pale ale, IPA — and all use Brett yeast. Koeneman says, “People don’t have to know what Brett is to drink this beer.”

But, in a burgeoning craft beer market, it is what makes the brewery different.

There’s a lot more to beer, said brewer Bly. There’s four ingredients in beer (water, grain, hops and yeast), and everybody ignores two of them: water and yeast, he said. Brett “opens up this whole other world that nobody has even touched, or very few people have touched.”

The Koelschip bar has 12 taps with Central State brews and beers from other craft breweries. There is also a small wine list, Dark Matter coffee and meat and cheese boards from its neighbor, Goose the Market.

Central State Brewery Co-Founder and Head Brewer, Josh Hambright, center left, chats with Milktooth's Nate Atkins, far right, and Jonathan Brooks, center right, during the soft opening of CSB's Koelschip Tap Room. The Tap Room is located at 2505 Delaware St. Indianapolis, IN.

You can still find Central State beers on tap at Black Acre, 5632 E. Washington St., and at other bars around the Midwest.

Follow Amy Haneline on Twitter and Instagram @amybhaneline, and Facebook. Call her at (317) 444-6281.​