A Life of Place
Central State Brewing Co. Chris Bly ’06 and Jake Koeneman ’06 Est. 2015, Indianapolis, IN MANY A BEER-LOVING ENTREPRENEUR
has asked himself, How do I start a brewery? But as Chris Bly, Jake Koeneman, and their partner Josh Hambright began formulating their plans while Central Indiana’s craft-beer explosion was in full boom, they asked themselves a more loaded question: How do we start a brewery that’s different from all the other breweries? Brett gave them the answer—“Brett” being not a fellow brewer or business consultant, but rather shorthand for brettanomyces, wild yeast commonly used in Belgian beers that can yield surprising flavors. It’s a trend that’s starting to pick up steam in the United States, but still has relatively few adherents, particularly in the Midwest. “There are more than 100 brewery permits in the state of Indiana, and 99 percent of those places are creating takes on the same five beer styles,” says Bly. “We wanted to do something different. Yeast was a way to differentiate ourselves.” Central State’s first beers starting flowing from Indianapolis taps just this past summer, a milestone in what has been, at times, a difficult journey. Initial plans had the brewery opening in Indy’s redeveloped former Central State mental hospital (thus the name), and when those fell through, the entrepreneurs worked out a deal to lease brewing space in the city’s popular Black Acre Brewing Co. Bly and Koeneman both work full-time jobs—Bly as a technical writer for a pharmaceuticals consulting company and Koeneman as a program manager with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. But it’s this sideline gig that inspires them. “From a business standpoint, some of what goes into producing and selling beer is like making widgets,” says Koeneman. “Ours just happens to be pretty awesome.”
“Brettanomyces research is the new iPhone of brewing.” —Central State Digital Collaborator Cy Wood Watch an interview with Koeneman about “Brett beer” at WM Online.
Koeneman (back left), Hambright (front), and Bly (back right) at their
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space leased from Black Acre Brewing in Irvington: “There are more than 100 brewery permits in the state of Indiana, and 99 percent of those places are creating takes on the same five beer styles. We wanted to do something different.”