Bromanceathon

Leslie had a stretch of bachelorette parties and bridal showers there for awhile, but these past few weekends were my turn for pre-wedding festivities and some guy love. Two weekends, two bachelor parties, and lots of fun. (Warning: this is a pretty long post... feel free to just scroll through and look at the pictures.)

The first one was for my cousin, and, although we're cousins, we're actually more like brothers - he was best man at my wedding and I'll be best man at his. So, as best man, I had the privilege of getting everything planned for his party. The two of us, along with five of his friends, set off on a Saturday afternoon for a celebration around the Indianapolis area.

Our first stop was at Sun King Brewing. While fairly young (opened in 2009), Sun King is the second largest brewery in the state. They place an emphasis on seasonal brews and only distribute locally. We visited the tasting room (a huge draw for locals as you can get growlers refilled and buy four-packs of cans), sampled some of their seasonal and house beers, and went on a very informative tour of the brewery. It was a good way to start off our little excursion.

Stop number two was Flat12 Bierwerks. This brewery had many different types for us to try, a seating area, and sold pints in the store (compared to Sun King, who doesn't allow you to drink past the samples they provide). We spent a little while there enjoying a lot of really good beers. When talking about it later, it seemed that the group generally agreed that the best beer we had that day was found at Flat12. The Circle City Spuds truck, a local food truck, was sitting outside the brewery and provided us with a snack of Southside BBQ Nachos to enjoy with our drinks. Soon, our chips and drinks finished, it was a quick walk across the street to...

The Smoking Goose - one of my favorite places in all of Indianapolis. They buy local, responsibly raised animals and prepare them in all kinds of delicious ways. You can get traditional items (like bacon, Andouille sausages, and sugar cured hams) or something a little more unusual (like elk liver pâté, specialty sausages, and lardo). They've also started doing something in the past few weeks that was a huge hit with our group - bacon flights! It's a sampling of four of their different kinds of bacon - traditional apple wood smoked bacon, jowl bacon, lamb bacon, and chocolate covered bacon. Everything tasted absolutely incredible. It was really interesting to savor the different kinds of bacon together and appreciate the different tastes of each. The lamb bacon was the biggest surprise, in my opinion. I had no idea what to expect it to taste like and was blown away at the first bite. It was awesome. I also bought a few things to bring home - a pound of jowl bacon and a package of their Duck, Pear, & Port Sausages. Can't say I've ever had those things in a sausage before, but I'm sure it'll be excellent.

We were planning on going to another brewery before dinner, but apparently spent too much time eating bacon. So, without enough time to do much else before dinner, we hung out at  The Goose for a little longer before heading to The Rathskeller. They serve traditional German food along with some other classics like steak, pasta, seafood, etc. It's located in the Anthenaeum, one of Indy's historic buildings, just south of Mass. Ave. Most of us got entrees like Jaegerschnitzel or, my order, their Wurst Plate. They give you so much food that all of us ate until we were stuffed and still needed boxes. After enjoying our dinners we rolled out of there (yes, literally rolled) and headed to the previously skipped-over third brewery.

Indiana City Brewing, the newest of the breweries we visited at just less than one year old, was our last stop of the night. We were all very glad that they stay open until 10pm, since we wouldn't have made it there otherwise and it was probably the coolest settings of the breweries we visited. While they didn't have the size and grand tour of Sun King or the variety of Flat12, they had a great interior and the most relaxed vibe of any. We got a few pints, settled into the cozy environment, and just hung out for awhile - something we hadn't been able to do at the other more crowded breweries. After spending some time there we packed it up and headed back to the house for the rest of the evening.

Once safely back in Avon (without stopping at Cold Stone Creamery, as one guy suggested), we started in on some more bachelor party classics like poker and Nintendo 64. After another guy swept in Texas Hold'em and I dominated in Super Smash Bros. for a few hours, guys began drifting off to sleep on couches and the floor around 2am. So the rest of us called it a night (a very successful night, I'd say). The morning saw a quick breakfast and everyone was out the door before noon.

I can't speak for everyone else, but it was probably some of the most fun I've had in awhile. I knew there were some good breweries in Indy, but had never been to them. It was the perfect mix of relaxing and adventurous for our bachelor party. And hopefully it was a good pre-wedding sendoff for my cousin.

The next weekend was another bachelor party for a friend of mine. I roomed with him in college, we hung out all the time together (and still do when he's around), and he was in my wedding as I'm in his. Our bachelor party group was made up of a bunch of other close friends from Purdue, so it was guaranteed to be a good time.

We started off at Flat12. Did I mind going there two weekends in a row? Not one bit. It was still as good as before, but this time it was actually nice enough for us to sit around on their patio for awhile. We had some drinks, enjoyed the sunshine, and left after about an hour.

The next stop was a brewery I had originally planned for us to visit the weekend before with my cousin's bachelor party, but I cut it for time and convenience. This was Fountain Square Brewery in, you guessed it, the Fountain Square district of Indianapolis. They had a good mix of seasonal and house brews, totaling just under ten different varieties. The beer was good, the environment was relaxed, and we managed to get a table - what more could you ask for?

Our next stop was X-Site for some laser tag! There were a lot of little kids in our games, which is both lots of fun and very annoying. On one hand they're really easy targets, but on the other... well, they tend to just get in the way. But little kids aside, our group still managed to win both games we played. I did pretty well myself, getting 6th and 4th overall in our two rounds. Guess I still got it, even after not having played for a long time. (Oh, and I don't have any pictures from this - the quick pace of laser tag isn't exactly conducive to photography - so instead here's a picture of the star of the show asleep in the car during his own party.)

After we shot children with ray-guns for an hour, it was back to the best man's house for the rest of the night. He had prepared a bunch of pizza fixings for us to assemble for dinner. We made five big 'ole pizzas covered in such goodness as bacon, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, more bacon, green peppers, and even avocado. The pizzas were actually delicious. After dinner we hung out, talked about life and marriage, watched a goofy martial arts / soccer movie, and eventually went to bed. It was a great time having close to all of the old group together. These guys are my best friends and I was really glad to see them all again (even if I had seen a few of them pretty recently). Plus, doing a bunch of fun stuff on top of all was great too!

And that does it for my two weekend stretch of bachelor party fun. Now we've just got weddings coming up, which are fun in a different way (a more civilized way?). So in the meantime, a big thanks goes out to all the guys who helped make these weekends so much fun. And congrats to the almost-grooms! Hopefully your bachelor parties didn't set the bar so high that your wedding pales in comparison. And thanks to all you readers who made it to the end of this post (or skipped to it). Have a happy Tuesday and we'll be back with more fun on Friday!