Gnosis Brewing brews craft beer for those in the know in Hobart

Manic Meadery saw an opportunity.

The craft meadery in Crown Point decided to take the space The Devil's Trumpet Brewing Co. vacated when it closed its taproom.

The meadery, founded in 2017 by the passionate wine makers Tony Qualls and Keith Cantwell, originally planned to use the old Devil's Trumpet space at 8250 Utah St. in Hobart for production. But it ended up with enough space in the 7,000-square-foot building that it decided to get into craft brewing itself.

Gnosis Brewing is now brewing and pouring craft beer at its taproom just off U.S. 30, not far from Interstate 65 and the Southlake Mall. It emphasizes quality over quantity.

"We've been slowly getting on our feet," Qualls said. "We came out with our first canned release about a month ago."

Qualls and Cantwell brought in their friends Eric Verbeek, Brandon Pope and Adam Young, launching the new craft brewery as part of the Manic Meadery family. More than two dozen craft breweries have sprung up across Northwest Indiana over the last decade as people have gravitated more toward locally made artisan products like craft beer.

The brewery makes an array of lagers, India Pale Ales and stouts.

"As far as styles go, we run the gamut," Qualls said. "We have what we call fruited wheat. They're not sours but we take some of our knowledge of winemaking to blend wheat with a wine base for a higher ABV fruit beer. We do an upside-down pineapple cake-inspired beer and fruit beers with cherry, strawberry, pineapple and guava. It's a lot of small-batch beers with some flagships."

It makes a light lager known as Region Royalty, an intercontinental lager with cascade hops known as C Pils and the Routleette Dares Hazy Pale Ale with flaked rye and Mosaic hops. Adventurous options include the Petite Lines table saison with Chardonnay skins and black currants, the DEParted - NITRO Double English porter served with nitrogen and the 12% ABV Pistachio Reclamation, an Imperial pastry stout aged on mead-soaked pistachios and Ugandan cacao nibs.

There's a lot of variety, including many dessert-style beers.

"It's ever-changing," he said. "Consumers thirst for new things all the time. We try to keep them on their toes with new flavors and recipes. We're always challenging ourselves to come out with something new every few weeks."

About 10-16 beers are available on tap at any given time, with small experimental batches rotating through. Flights are available to sample different varieties of the craft beer.

Gnosis Brewing also plans to bring in mead, wine and cider from Manic Meadery and eventually supply craft beer there as well. It started distributing its beer to local bars like Standard Taproom in Whiting and the Washington Street taproom in Valparaiso.

It may also supply local restaurants but has no plans to get its products on liquor store or grocery store shelves at this time. 

The brewery will be pouring its beer at a number of upcoming beer festivals such as Shelf Ice Brewfest in Michigan City and the Southern Grist anniversary in Nashville, Tennessee.

It's currently a taproom where people can bring in their own food but Gnosis Brewing hopes to add a kitchen by the end of the year.

Initially, it will serve family-style comfort food. The kitchen will start out making one dish a night like shrimp mushroom risotto with garlic crostini or short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes. It will then offer gastropub fare.

"We will have takes on classics like the Ruben, fish and chips and smashburgers," he said. "We'll emphasize quality over quantity. We'll approach it the same way we do beer, mead, wine and cider. We don't want to rush a kitchen. We want to develop the quality of the ingredients before we do the preparation of any food."

Gnosis Brewing renovated and expanded the taproom, which occupies about 1,600 square feet in the building and seats around 40 people. It's available to be rented out for private parties.

The brewery is also adding outdoor patio seating.

"We want to make the taproom warm and inviting, a place to have a conversion," Qualls said. "Eclectic music plays along with classic movies. It's not a sports bar. It doesn't have a lot of TVs. It's more of an intellectual artsy space for conversation. It's a calming environment."

The brewery is named after the Greek word for knowledge.

"My business partner had that in his back pocket for years," Qualls said. "At first the group of owners worried it was hard to pronounce but it started to grow on us. It had a mysterious allure of not knowing what it meant. Once you know, you get it."

Gnosis Brewing cans its beers to sell to-go on-site. It also offers braggots, a blend of beer and mead.

"It's a style of beer that's not very well known," he said. "It's kind of a floaty style that most places can't make legally since wineries aren't allowed to use grain in anything. But we make mead, wine, cider and beer under one roof so we're able to do it. It started as something that was kind of fun. I don't know of anywhere else making braggots under one roof."

Gnosis Brewing hopes to grow, but sustainably without getting too big.

"We're focused on creating the best product we can and treating our employees as good as possible," he said.

Gnosis Brewing is open 4-10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2-10 p.m. Saturday and 1-7 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, visit gnosisbrewing.com or find the brewery on Instagram or Facebook.