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Things Are Looking
UPLAND For Bloomington brewing company, craft beer and local food go hand in hand BY KEITH ROACH PHOTOS BY CHELSEA SANDERS
It’s a perfect day for a cookout. Korean-cut beef short ribs are on the grill and sides are nearby. Blackberry pie warms in the sun and goat cheese sorbet is on ice. And, fittingly, beer is plentiful. Upland Brewing Company’s executive chef, Seth Elgar, is at the helm of this summer picnic, unfolding on the farm of Upland’s president, Doug Dayhoff. Grab a plate and get to know the people behind it all. It’s a rare and delicious thing when a brewery gets its beer and its food right. Upland Brewing Company, the craft brewery and restaurant based in Bloomington, is such a place, where the macaroni and cheese is as revered as the Wheat Ale from which it’s made. There is an ever-widening circle of ways to try Upland’s beer— sampled at Upland’s tasting room in Indy near Broad Ripple, pulled from the taps at Lucas Oil Stadium, offered at bars and stores throughout the state—but there is just one place to taste that union of beer and food: at the brewpub in Bloomington. Upland executive chef Seth Elgar relies on relationships with local growers and farmers to steer the menu when possible. The menu spans pub favorites like breaded pork tenderloins and entrees such as enchiladas with mole sauce, plus specials like Korean-cut short ribs. “Not everything needs to be deep-fried to be beer friendly,” Elgar says. 12
edible indy
INDEPENDENT AND IRREVERENT Founded in 1998, Upland brews seven year-round beers—including the popular wheat and IPA—and more than a dozen seasonal and special beers that are sold, in bottles and on draught, in Indiana, Louisville and southern Wisconsin. It also has a line of Belgian sour ales, whose signature tart flavors come from fermenting with a variety of yeasts and bacteria in oak barrels for a year or more. The company’s name comes from the Norman and Crawford uplands—geologists’ terms for two of the southern Indiana areas that glaciers didn’t flatten. Nestled in Bloomington’s rolling hills are the original brewery and brewpub, on 11th Street just a few blocks off the downtown square. The Upland crew is serious about making exceptional beer and food. Head brewer Caleb Staton is an Indiana Artisan, a designation for the premier food and beverage producers and artists in the state. But they have plenty of fun too. Case in point: the smile-inducing name of their brown ale, Nut Hugger. The label features a squirrel sipping a pint. “We don’t want to lose being independent and irreverent,” says Dayhoff, one of the members of a small partnership group that bought the business in 2006. “We don’t want to lose the part of our character that makes us special. That’s what’s enabling our growth.” Clockwise from top left: Upland president Doug Dayhoff and his wife, DeeDee; Upland's executive chef, Seth Elgar; farmers (from left) Diana and Dave Fischer of Fischer Farms, Deryl Dale of Harvest Moon Flower Farm, Teresa Birtles of Heartland Family Farm, Linda Chapman of Harvest Moon; Upland beers.
Summer 2012
