This past weekend Julie and I headed down to Indianapolis for the BIG Ten Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium between Ohio State and Michigan State. The outcome was not what we had  hoped for. Michigan State took an early 17 point lead in the first quarter and while Ohio State came back and took the lead in the 3rd quarter it wasn’t enough. Michigan State scored the final 17 points to win the game 34-24. It’s really hard to get a feel for everything that is going on during a game when you are in the stadium. I would like to know the crowd breakdown, but from our perspective it seemed about 65% Ohio State, then again we were in the 200 level and couldn’t see anything above us.

Pre Game
Last time we were in Indianapolis for the Championship Game it was almost impossible to get into any place downtown, outside of a hotel bar, and if we got into a bar it was probably one that still allowed smoking.  This time around we decided before heading to the game that we would spend some time at a couple of the breweries in Indianapolis’ growing beer scene.

Flat 12 Bierwerks

Our first stop was Flat 12 Bierwerks which is doing a ’12 Beers of Christmas’ releasing a new specialty beer each day. I tried their Pale Ale, IPA and their Porter, Pogue’s Run Porter which I liked the most. Flat 12 has a simple tap room and a growler fill station but by no means is a bar. Like most of the breweries in Minneapolis there was a food truck stationed out front, the Pierogi L❤ve Indy truck. We tried the pulled pork pierogi which was perfect.  The tap room was in what seemed to be an unheated garage so we really weren’t able to stay more than a couple beers without freezing.  During our time there, we saw a couple of the Beer Bus Tours that operate in Indianapolis making stops at Flat 12.  There was  also a holiday sweater brewery run that was making its way to the brewery.  The place was always busy from the time the doors opened at noon.

Fountain Square Brewing

From Flat 12 we headed over to Fountain Square Brewing which was about a 10 minute ride across town. Fountain Square is more of a bar with people ordering in food and a couple of televisions. Once again I had their Pale Ale, IPA and the porter. The Backyard Porter being my favorite.  The temperature outside could be why I was leaning towards Porters all day.

Side Notes:

* B’s PO BOY is located directly across the street from Fountain Square Brewing so we picked up an order of Beignets.

** A couple months back I had the foresight to make an Open Table reservation for St. Elmo Steak House.  Considering the line out the door it was a good move.

*** The view from my seat.