Arts & Craft Beer

“I don’t like beer” is something the people at Upland have heard before, and they don’t take offense. They sympathize. If the mainstream labels such as Budweiser, Miller and Coors constitute your entire malt beverage experience, of course you’d prefer liquor or wine.

“If there’s any flavor at all in a beer, there’s a chance someone won’t like it,” said Charles Stanley, marketing operations manager at the Upland Brewing Company on 350 W. 11th St.

Unlike the “macro-lagers,” as Stanley calls the Anheuser-Busch specimens, Upland beers don’t use corn or rice to imbue their brews with sugar; just water, yeast and malt.

“That’s why (macro-lagers) are so much lighter in color and weight and almost tasteless,” Stanley said.

Stanley stands in the back storeroom between pallets stacked high with those flavor-bearing malts. The three base malts, one or more of which is the start of any Upland beer, are wheat, pilsner and pale. From there, a subtle blend of flavors combine to create that unique craft beer taste. For instance, the Bad Elmer’s Porter starts with a pale base and adds chocolate malt and other dark flavors. The famous Upland Wheat starts with half-wheat, half-pale malts and later adds coriander, chamomile and orange peel.

“The Wheat Ale is what we call a crossover beer,” Stanley said. “The taste is fruity, spicy. It’s good for people who haven’t been exposed to the full range that (beer) is capable of.”

Shiny metal cylinders — some hot, some cold — tower over Stanley and the brewers on the brewing floor like something out of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” This is where the intricate process of filtration, fermentation and a host of delicate chemical reactions take place to produce enough Upland beer to satisfy demand from Kentucky to Wisconsin.

Tubes form a network of tirelessly churning machines above Stanley’s head and under his feet. Operators hustle back and forth in knee-high waders, tending to the needs of each machine. Last year, the Upland Brewery produced 8,500 barrels of craft beer. At two kegs to a barrel, that’s more than the intake of any three bars in Bloomington in that time, and these kegs aren’t of Keystone or Natty Ice.

Upland changed management in 2005 when investors led by Doug Dayhoff took charge and enabled brewers such as Caleb Staton, now Upland’s head brewer, to not only increase gross yield but also diversify the offerings of Bloomington’s sweetheart brewery.

When asked about his relationship with Upland beer, Staton let loose a one-note laugh and said, “I drink it.”

A simple claim and maybe the most important for a brewer, perhaps more than any macro-lager brewer can boast.

Staton starts his days at 7 a.m., corralling 10 employees to run a well-oiled machine that maintains the core Upland lineup, but he also experiments to produce one or two new brews every year. Staton’s success stories include the Upland Nut Hugger and Dragonfly IPA.

“This is the only job where you can be covered by 200 gallons of beer before noon,” he said. “We’ve had every kind of disaster. I’ve seen it all.”

Although not all brewers receive advanced training, Staton is a guild-registered Master Brewer, having completed courses of study in the art of brewing at Hanover and University of California Davis.

Not to be overlooked, the well-reviewed Upland Restaurant adjacent to the brewery serves heartland cuisine alongside its famous brews. Not zoned in a commercial district where there might be other restaurants to choose from, customers make the trip to Upland especially for the atmosphere and dining
experience.

“With the restaurant, you won’t see many advertisements,” Stanley said.
In fact, Upland prefers to reach out to people directly through social networking and sponsoring events such as the Upland Independent Film Festival.

“It’s great for a small company,” Stanley said. “It’s a free way to reach people and create a discussion rather than paying all this money for a Superbowl ad that tells them what to do.”