Karl S Mann

Friday, June 19, 2015

Update on St Joseph Brewery & Public House

So, May 12th 2015 we finally opened St. Joseph. The days before we were still busy cleaning and scraping paint stains off the floor.

The first Saturday evening we served 865 people - wow. Alan is brewing great beers: Koelsch, Belgian Blind, Extra Dry Stout, hoppy IPA, American Pale Ale and a beautiful Brown Ale with a touch of Coffee Flavor.

My days have been long - opening in the morning and many nights closing long after midnight. But...it's been fun. This weekend we will test our Brunch menu and we will initiate it next week.

TV Stations (2 of them) have been here interviewing me, News papers have done their part in giving us good reviews.

I will list a few here:

(Video)

If you come to Indianapolis please stop by and say hello

Me and my partners

Monday, March 9, 2015

The New Project: St. Joseph's Brewery & Public House

After years in the wine business I have decided to return to the Restaurant business and Hospitably Industry. I was invited by a group of friends to become an investor and become the Managing Partner of St.Joseph's Brewery & Public House.

Mid April 2015 come and visit at 540 N College Ave. in Indiapolis

It is located in the old Catholic Church of St. Joseph's. The cornerstone to the building was laid in 1879 and the church, that was designed by D.A.Bohlen was open on July 4th, 1880. Unfortunately, the Parrish was relocated to the south side of Indianapolis in 1949 and the church was closed. It was used for a few years for some Church events before the doors completely shut down.

After taking possession of the building last year we started to renovate the inside. We installed a 15 barrel Micro Brewery and the Restaurant will have a seating capacity of almost 190 people.

Our Head brewer is Mr. Alan Simons formerly of Oaken Barrel in Greenwood and Scott Reifenberger is our Executive Chef who left the Skyline Club after 12 years there.

It was an interesting project and hopefully we will by open in just about 5 weeks.

Here some pictures of the original fresco and the way the church building had looked before and after

The altar area where the brew house will be installed

The old ceilings

The Old Fresco

When the staples and bells were removed

Building the platform for the tanks, approx 16000 lbs of steel and almost 80.000 lbs of concrete

Blue lines outlined where things are going

renovation in progress

The tanks were designed so they could fit through the front door

Precision work done by the guys from the rigging company, amazing

We are getting there, I can almost smell the food already and hear the laughter of the customers.

Seating plan with tables?

Looking towards the entrance

one of our future Vegetarian dishes

News and update

It's been a while since I updated this blog. Much has happened.
Patty and I went to Japan last year and while there visited Hakushia Sake in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture), Japan. We took the Shikansen Bullet Train from Kyto down south.
My friend Derek Gray from Graybull Wines in Indianapolis (the local distributor of their Sake's) was kind enough to arrange a visit to their Sake Museum.
Mr Sato-San was a wonderful host and gave us a great tour of their Museum and invited us to lunch at their restaurant. If you ever visit Japan make sure ti visit this place.
This company was started in 1662. You can taste many different styles of sake at the restaurant. I loved the one with the cedar flavor.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Europe 2013 - Bordeaux Left Bank

We took a day to visit the world famous left bank of Bordeaux - home to such famous wineries as Mouton, Lafite Rothchild, Latour and many others. All the wineries in the original ranking of 1855 are located on the left bank. Here, the world's best Cabernet Sauvignon is grown - most left bank Bordeaux wines are contain a majority of Cabernet Sauvignon. We drove through the City of Bordeaux then up through the suburb of Blanquefort which was much longer than I thought: I expected a beautiful country road but had to be patient until we were almost in Margaux.

We had an appointment at Leoville-Poyferre (2nd growth 1855 designation) up in St.Julien. Leoville-Poyferre was part of the larger Leoville Estate until the the French Revolution and was later divided into Leoville-Casas, Leoville-Barton and Leoville-Poyferre). There is a great history of the Estate on their website.

The Estate is now owned by the Cuvelier Family who were also our hosts when we visited their property Cuvelier Los Andes in Uco Valley south of Mendoza, Argentina - I felt this trip helped us to close the circle. The Cuvelier Family were wine merchants before the bought they bought the property in 1920...they also own the estate of Chateau Moulin Riche (1920) (their second label) as well as Chateau Le Crock (1903) up in St.Estephe. Our host was the charming Mrs Anne Cuvelier who showed us their property - which is interestingly all still built together but owned by the 3 separate estates of Leoville.

The winery recently bought a cutting edge sorting machine that has three built-in cameras that allows them to determine what size, and color of grape will be sorted, additionally they just invested in brand new, conic stainless steel fermentation tanks - the top of the line of, course. Their barrel room was simply gorgeous - and when one counts how many barrels there are (at the cost of about $1000 each) it is understandable why real good wines are simply more expensive than others.Anne explained that investment in the winery is essential to keep producing top quality wines.

After touring the estate and the cellars Anne invited us to their tasting room. There we had the opportunity to taste several vintages of Chateau Le Crock and La Croix then tasted their Chateau Moulin Riche 2007 against their 2004 Chateau Leoville-Poyferre 2004 - well...... age definitely had contributed to the wonderful aroma and taste of the 07.

Chateau Le Crock

After the visit and the tasting we headed further north toward Pauillac and St.Estephe.

The Chateau's are very beautiful and simply too many to visit; I guess we will have to plan another trip there in the future.

We had one of our unfortunate 'tourist' experience in Bordeaux. Around 2:00 we decided to stop for lunch. As is turns out all the restaurants are closed from 2-5. We stopped at an outdoor cafe where some customers were lingering and asked if they had any recommendations. They directed us to MacDonald s! Needless to say we waited.