In 2025, Indiana was home to 185 breweries, good for 18th in the United States, which works out to 3.7 breweries per capita (defined as “breweries per 100,000 adults over the age of 21”).
That’s a ranking of 28th. Indiana’s population in 2015 was 6,973,333, or 17th in the country.
Meanwhile Maine, with only 1,414,874 residents (42nd) had 157 breweries (21st), or 14.2 per capita (2nd).
That’s right.
Second ― to Vermont nearby, which has 15.4 breweries per capita. It’s stunning. Had I not been inclined to wed a foreigner (well, a powerhouse redhead from Maine) it is likely that my atrophied, corn-fed Hoosier brain would shrug off these brewery statistics.
But Diana has taken me back to her home state twice, and now a third visit is underway. Fine beer has always been readily available there for sampling and refreshment.
Not only that, but it’s far cheaper than lobster rolls.
As an aside, at no point during any of these trips did I petulantly demand my Maine beer be brought to me “ice cold” in a frosted mixer pint, although this has less to do with Maine than my own gritty realism (and stubborn prickliness about adjective dependency).
Hip Hops: Cold beer conversation (a little truth, a little frustration)
Previously I’ve toured the Allagash and Shipyard breweries; enjoyed the Great Lost Bear beer bar and Gritty McDuff’s brewpub in Portland; and lamented the loss of Foulmouthed Brewing (also in Portland) and the relatively short-lived spinoff of Ebenezer’s Brewpub in Brunswick. Sebago Brewing was good, too.
I cannot recall drinking a bad beer anywhere in Maine, in defiance of statistical probability. The beer culture thereabouts? I’d say it is advanced, while we Hoosier lean more toward barbarism.
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Moving right along …
The larger point I’d like to pursue this week, as referencing my cherished seat on the board of advisors at the embryonic but fast-growing American Craft Beer Hall of Fame, is to make the case that Alan Pugsley belongs inside it, along with Peter Austin, who introduced Pugsley to the beer biz.
Amid craft beer’s rich narrative, Pugsley’s and Austin’s contributions are surely under-appreciated. Maybe that’s because they’re British, and their particular area of expertise, British-style ales, haven’t always slotted comfortably...Read more
