Explore Upland Beer
From everyday flagships to barrel-aged sours that took years to mature — here's the whole lineup.
India Pale Ale originated when the British added excessive amounts of hops to help preserve their ales for long journeys to their citizens overseas, including to India. Our Dragonfly India Pale Ale is true to this tradition, featuring seven hop additions to create a powerful hop profile. A solid malt base, however, tempers the bitter American hops, giving Dragonfly a balance not often found in this style. The end product is a well-balanced, malty beer with the crisp taste of hops and an exceptionally floral nose. Dragonfly is our most popular beer, serving as an introduction to craft beer for many and a longstanding favorite for many more.
In 1902, Walter Bruhn, the son of German immigrants, created a recipe for a new pilsener beer named Champagne Velvet. Over the next 50 years it grew to become one of Indiana's most popular beers, a go-to for many of our grandparents and great-grandparents. It was "The Beer with the Million Dollar Flavor," which wasn't just marketing fluff; it was actually insured with a $1 million policy. Industrial consolidation took down this regional favorite and the recipe went missing for many years until a fan rescued the hand-written recipe from deep in a trademark portfolio. Upland reformulated the recipe using that scrap of paper and proudly brings this Midwestern legend back to life. Champagne Velvet has a refreshingly light pilsener body with some sweet complexities given off by the corn malt used in this recipe, making this the perfect lager. It's smooth and light, but still full of flavor, the perfect everyday beer for craft beer drinkers and a step up for domestic drinkers.
Hoosier Gameday Lager was created as the first ever Indiana University Athletics branded beer. It's a collaboration between Upland and thousands of beer-loving IU sports fans. Over the course of several weeks, we sent out surveys via social media to be answered by any of our followers over the age of 21. After over 10,000 completed surveys, clear preferences were determined for the name, label design and key attributes of the beer itself. This recipe is a reflection of the those preferences: a crisp, drinkable, but still flavorful lager with a moderate, sessionable level of alcohol. Hoosier Gameday Lager can be classified as a Vienna Lager. The easy way to think of this style is that it falls in between a pilsner like Champagne Velvet, and a richer, more malty lager like Oktoberfest. Far from the cheap light lagers consumed by the gallon that are stereotypically associated with sporting events, this recipe incorporates two base malts kilned and toasted to differing levels of richness, three more flavorful specialty malts to create a layering of subtle toasty and slightly caramelly flavor along with two different hop varieties for a light floral, earthy background note. The result is a beer that strikes the perfect balance of delicious malty goodness and refreshing drinkability. The Vienna malt that creates the bulk of the flavor for this brew was malted and toasted to perfection by Indiana's own Sugar Creek Malt in Lebanon Indiana.
Upland Wheat Ale is a clean, balanced, refreshing Belgian-Style Wheat ale that has won countless awards over the years, including a gold medal at the World Beer Cup. With a unique blend of citrus and spice, our Wheat Ale features grains of paradise, coriander and orange peel that pair perfectly with the white wheat. The Wheat is crisp, bready and refreshing with a tartness, slight cloudiness, and traditional citrus and spice qualities that come from the use of orange peel and the unique African spice grains of paradise.
If you love our Dragonfly IPA, you already know we don't cut corners. That same dedication to quality goes into every batch of Hazy Dragonfly, even if it speaks a different language of flavor. Where classic Dragonfly delivers that crisp, hop-forward punch you know and love, its hazy sibling wraps you in waves of tropical fruit – think ripe mango and juicy passionfruit, backed by mouth-watering citrus notes. Our brewing team has taken the time to perfect this recipe, ensuring that Hazy Dragonfly offers the consistent quality you expect from the Dragonfly name. The unfiltered brew features a silky smooth, full-bodied texture and a carefully crafted grain bill that provides a soft, pillowy mouthfeel while avoiding the rough finish that can plague some versions of the style.