Indianapolis, IN: Sun King Brewery Tour

No April Fool's here! :)

Another quick thing you can do this weekend while waiting to watch the NCAA Women's Final Four games is to check out Sun King Brewery. On Thursday evenings you can take a free tour at 5:30, which is what we did. They also have free tours on Saturdays at 2, 3, and 4pm, and you can book tours online for $10 that also get you a glass and beer tastings. (The free tours don't have any tastings.)

We stopped by in between going to check out the NCAA Hall of Champions and heading to the Pacers game, which was at 7. We got here a little before 5 and grabbed a drink. Eric had Alrye'd Alrye'd Alrye'd (the pale one on the right) and I had the Hot Rod Lincoln.

We have been on quite a few brewery tours at this point, and some are better than others. This one was pretty good! The brewers were actually brewing while we were there, which is unusual to see while on a tour, and makes for a much more interesting experience.

One of the more interesting aspects of Sun King is that they only can and keg, no glass bottles. We hadn't seen a canning operation (most places bottle) so it was neat to see one up close. It is definitely different from the bottling operation and (to me, at least) seemed more compact.

We got to see the can lids up close, all stacked on top of one another, waiting to get sealed onto cans. Pretty cool.

There is outdoor seating but it was not that warm last Thursday, so no one was outside. They also have a gift shop area, and of course you can buy beer to go in 4 and 6 packs and growlers.

I would be remiss if I didn't show what we called the "poop chute" (our phrase, not Sun King's!). When we walked into the building, this chute had brown gloppy stuff plopping out into the bed of a big truck. I guessed that it was spent grain or mash that was getting sent off to farmers. On the tour our guide confirmed that theory. But it's still the poop chute to us.

Sun King has menus for delivery food, but they don't really have anything to eat (the owners wanted to get away from brewpub and focus solely on beer, actually), so go here knowing that. They have some good beer (my mom got us hooked on their Wee Mac Scottish ale) and it is very close to downtown. Cheers!