This week’s Craft Beer to Cross the Border For, Fountain Square Hop For Teacher, hails from Indianapolis and is worth grabbing to bide your time til #FBFD arrives — or even afterwards.
2014 marks 30 years since Van Halen rocked us by proclaiming what we all might have thought from time to time.
Thankfully for Indiana beer drinkers, “Hot For Teacher” inspired more than just daydreams – it inspired a tasty, hoppy American Pale Ale, as well.
The three-year-old Fountain Square Brewing Company is cranking out quality stuff from their home base in Indianapolis, including “Hop For Teacher” – a 5.4 ABV and 45 IBU beer that pops with a strong citrus smell and a taste that starts soft and delivers soft bitterness through the end.
The beer is promoted as “aggressively hopped” and there’s no doubt that hops are dominant here. But there’s more grapefruit than pine from the hops, making it an easy-drinking beer to enjoy in the waning days of summer.
And while the beer’s name surely has some inspiration from David Lee Roth’s 1984 screeches, it’s also rooted in the dedicated studies of the owners. With backgrounds in microbiology and chemistry, Fountain Square’s owners dot their bottles with Periodic Table of Elements-style lettering, better known to many as “Breaking Bad”-style lettering.
While their beer is available just across the border on many Northwest Indiana shelves, if you’re in Indy, it’s worth the drive just southeast of downtown to explore the brewery and the neighborhood that gives the brewery its name, touted as a “funky, artsy, retro” district that’s home to live music, art exhibits and a fun vibe.