HERALD TIMES: Collaboration and conservation: 7 Bloomington-area breweries create limited SentinAle
For seven Bloomington-area breweries, beers and conservation go together like hops and yeast. A new collaborative brew called SentinAle has debuted and its goal is to raise awareness about the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape.
Which Bloomington breweries are part of the SentinAle collaboration?
The brewers of Upland Brewing Company, Bloomington Brewing Company, The Tap, Switchyard Brewing Company, Metal Works Brewing Company, Quaff On! Brewing Company and Feed Store Beer Co. worked together to create a grain profile they each used to create the special beer. SentinAle — with a total of about 100 barrels or 3,100 gallons among the seven breweries — will be sold at each of the breweries and events while supplies last.
Why is the beer called SentinAle?
The beer is spreading the word about the Conservation Law Center, which was selected by the federal government last spring to oversee the new Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape. All the breweries involved are within the Sentinel Landscape area, which includes 3.5 million acres in south-central Indiana.
"When they heard about the Sentinel Landscape, the brewers ... got really excited," said Andrea Lutz, deputy director of the Conservation Law Center. "They wanted to help promote it. It was really their idea to do (the collaborative beer)."
SentinAle makes its debut at Bloomington Craft Beer Festival
People who attended the April 15 Bloomington Craft Beer Festival may have stopped by the booth where Conservation Law Center staff were sharing information about who can benefit from the Sentinel Landscape program. The beer festival was the launch for SentinAle, with some of the breweries sharing tastes of their special brew. Upland Brewing Company staff had a small keg in special backpacks so they could mingle with the crowd and serve their version. Other breweries also handed out samples.
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Combining beer and the Sentinel Landscape program is a way to reach more people within the boundaries of the project, according to Lutz and Mike Spaulding, coordinator for the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape.
Thirsty Thursday to showcase BBC's SentinAle
The next event where both SentinAle and information about the program will be available is during Bloomington Brewing Company's Thirsty Thursday. BBC will offer free samples of its SentinAle 5-8 p.m. Thursday. People can meet friends, enjoy a beer, listen to some live music and learn.
The special beer at BBC might taste slightly different from other SentinAles. Each brewer used the same basic grain mix, with locally malted spelt and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye) from Sugar Creek Malt in Lebanon, Indiana. But each brewer then chose between Saison or Farmhouse yeast and tweaked the brew as it formed and fermented in tanks, giving each batch a unique taste.
Spreading the word throughout the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape region
Spaulding said the Conservation Law Center is just beginning to launch the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape program by solidifying the leadership committee of the partner agencies.
"It's a new program. We're building the ship and starting to sail it before it's finished," he explained.
Lutz and Spaulding hope to spread the word about how the federal program with state, regional and local partner agencies can help anyone who owns land within the landscape boundaries. Its goals are to conserve land for agriculture and sustainable forestry, improve water quality, and create and restore wildlife habitat while supporting the economies of rural communities. The Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape is one of 10 in the U.S. and contains four Department of Defense areas: Naval Support Activity Crane, the Lake Glendora Test Facility, Atterbury-Muscatatuck Training Center and the Indiana Air Range Complex.
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Already Lutz, Spaulding and others have conducted about six events to reach landowners in an area from just south of Indianapolis to near Jasper and from the Illinois border to near Madison along the Ohio River. The area encompasses more land than all of Yellowstone National Park and has cities, towns and rural communities interspersed with forest and agricultural fields.
Any landowner is welcome to inquire about the program, but Lutz said it's people who own 10 acres or more who will benefit the most. Both public and private landowners can get assistance obtaining grants, learning how to make their land more resilient to climate change, help with bettering erosion control, aiding conservation efforts and more. Because the 3.5 million acres has a special federal designation, landowners could be given a higher priority for receiving funding.
New GIS system can help landowners research potential programs
The Conservation Law Center is helping landowners determine what they might be eligible to receive through a new GIS system that just launched. The Conservation Discovery Web Application is a GIS website that allows landowners to enter their name or address to locate their property, select programs they're interested in and download a report with details on how to begin the application process.
The web application can be accessed through the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape website at www.sisl.org.
Reach Carol Kugler at ckugler@heraldt.com.