10-17-2013 Indiana Wildlife Federation Member Appreciation Celebration

Just a couple of months ago the Indiana Wildlife Federation (IWF) moved their offices from Zionsville to a great location in downtown Indy.  Meals on Wheels now owns the building at 708 E. Michigan St. that used to be a Senior Center.  The IWF rents a nice office space on the first floor, and they have access to some nice common areas that they can use for events.  It made for a fabulous place to enjoy the annual Member Appreciation Celebration.

a glimpse into Indiana Wildlife Federation's new office space

One of the nice common areas available to renters in the Meals on Wheels building

Another view of the downstairs common area

Many thanks to these wonderful musicians for the great live music at the party

Kids enjoyed building bird houses

The upstairs banquet room with kitchenette

The upstairs banquet room

The upstairs banquet room

10-17-2013 Indiana City Brewing Company

There was a meetup of the Indianapolis Vegetarian Society that was held at the Indiana City Brewing Company.  The ICBC is on the corner of Shelby and Southeastern on the SE side of Indy downtown....just east of I-70 I-65.

They have a table for cards and I stuck out some for
www.IndianaOutfitters.com

10-16-2013 - Trivia at The Tin Roof

We had information from a team trivia website that there was trivia at The Tin Roof in downtown Indianapolis.  We had a Restaurant.com gift certificate for the place so we decided to give it a try.

We reviewed the meal and restaurant here.  

The trivia was a bust, but they did have an open mic night which was very cool.  The open mic starts at 10 with a prize of 100 bucks.  Jay Eliot performs 7 songs starting at about 8:30.  He was really good actually.  I thought he started slow and then really warmed up fast.

I shot a video of one of his songs, but it wont load right on this blog.

10-12-2013 Quaff On Brewing Co. Opening Party

A longtime friend invited us to the Saturday opening of Quaff On Brewing Co. in Nashville, Indiana.  We love supporting local, so we were all for it.  The brewery is in a cool old building that has also served as a bowling alley and a skating rink.  They took out the low ceiling and exposed beautiful curved metal roof beams (which they didn't even have to repaint) and amazing cedar wood planks.

Quaff On Brewing Co. opening

Our friend had VIP tickets, which got us each free food and a souvenir glass.  Eric and Cara really enjoyed their Busted Knuckle, a strong dark brown ale that almost tasted like a porter or stout.  Eric and our friend, Danny, also enjoyed the hoppier selections like the IPAs.

Live music at the Quaff On Brewing Co. opening

Some people gathered outside where they were playing cornhole.  Inside the building you could enjoy live music, food, beer (of course), and brewery tours.  We got a full brewery tour, which was very interesting.

Chillers used to help control the temperature of the beer

Boiler and water purification system

Conditioners

Carbon Dioxide bubbling from a tank as a beer ferments

More conditioning tanks

Walk-in cooler for storing the finished product

Barrels for aging some brews

Cara (a vegetarian) was only able to eat cole slaw and chips at Quaff On, so we left to get something more substantial.  We went to Big Woods Brewing Co. and got the Veggie Max pizza, which was yummy!  Then we went back to our friend's place to wait for his girlfriend to get off work.  When she arrived we headed back to Quaff On Brewing Co.  We enjoyed more music, drinks, and another brewery tour before heading back to the apartment.  We talked, drank and snacked even more before finally calling it a (great) night.

One funny thing to note:  We knew our friend Danny had lived in Montana briefly a year or so ago, but weren't sure exactly where.  Turns out he lived very close to Red Lodge!  (See our post from September about our adventures there.)  Plus, he knew the nice couple from Indiana that we had met when we were there!  What a small world!

10-10-2013 walk around Indy downtown

It was a very nice fall evening.   We decided to go on a walk downtown.  We started off by visiting Tomlinson Taproom which is in city market in downtown Indianapolis.  Tomlinson Taproom is a joint venture between the city of Indianapolis and the Indiana Brewers Guild.  They only sell local Indiana Beers and on Thursday they sell pints for 4 bucks.

On this day no sooner did we grab a beer when a flood of lawyers and judges descended upon the place.  It provided an interesting ambiance.

This is a shot across the Indy City Market looking at Tomlinson Taproom

On the way to the restaurant we walked past Scottys Brewpub and scored a 2.50 pint of anything on thursday!  We sat outside and enjoyed the sunset.  They have one of the best patios in downtown.

They had fireworks and they were using them to force the birds to stop roosting in the adjacent trees. Everytime a flock of birds came to roost they were shot at with rockets.   It will be interesting if it stops them from roosting permanently.

We ate at Claddagh Irish Pub in Downtown Indianapolis.  We had a Restaurant.com gift certificate that said 10 off of 20.  click here to see the food log entry

10-8-2013 Green Drinks at the IMA Gardens

On Tuesday we arrived at about 5pm at the Greenhouse on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) for Green Drinks.  About a dozen people came for the event.  The Greenhouse and gift shop stayed open a little later for us to shop, and outside there was free beer from Indiana City Beer and Sun King Brewing Co.  At about 6pm the Director of Horticulture at IMA, Chad Franer, took us all on a tour of the grounds.  He showed us the newest rain garden (IMA's second rain garden), which was just finished this past spring.  It runs along where the old interurban electric rail line went through long ago.

on the bridge overlooking the IMA's new rain garden

The first rain garden filters runoff from one half of the Greenhouse parking lot.
This new rain garden helps filter runoff from the other half of the parking lot and the rest of the grounds.

Chad then led us through the rest of the IMA grounds.  He noted which plants had beautiful foliage for most of the year, which ones had blooms until late in the year, which ones could live in poor soil, which ones didn't need much light, and which ones were annuals (all plants in the rain garden are annuals).  Chad is a wealth of information about plants of all kinds.

Cara loved this plant but forgot to note the name of it.
The red spiky things are softer and springier than they appear.

"Beauty Berry" plants

The front entrance to the IMA.
Beautiful landscaping now surrounds the fountain that you used to be able to drive around.

9-30 to 10-4-2013 Traverse City Ale Trail

We always like to visit Traverse City, MI after the Michigan Paddlers Rendezvous because it's a neat area with lots going on.  We stayed four nights and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  At one microbrewery we discovered that there is now a Traverse City Ale Trail.  If you go to all the breweries listed in the brochure and get stamps from them, then you could take the brochure back to The Filling Station (a nice microbrewery overlooking Boardman Lake) and receive a free silicone pint glass.  That was the first freebie we had seen that seemed bus-worthy and travel-worthy, so we went for it.

We enjoyed visiting the following breweries:
1. Mackinaw Brewing Company
2. The Filling Station Microbrewery
3. Brewery Ferment - cute little place, tried our first sour beer here
4. The Workshop Brewing Company - awesome place with good food and pinball
5. North Peak Brewing Company - a more mainstream restaurant and brewery
6. Right Brain Brewery
7. Jolly Pumpkin - a nice restaurant and brewery way up there on the Old Mission Peninsula, had sour beer here also

We got our silicone pints (you know, the flexible rubbery stuff that they now make potholders and stuff from), and they're really cute and neat:

Cara also had a birthday while we were there, so we did go around and collect any free drinks.  We enjoyed walking around downtown and eating several nice meals.  One funny thing we saw was this plant:

We generally like to camp at Sleeping Bear Dunes after our week in Traverse City, but the government shutdown thwarted our plans.  So, we just headed home early.