The Kosciusko and Whitley chambers of commerce held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday for E Brewing Company, 8324 E. SR 14, South Whitley. Photo by David Slone.

By David Slone
Times Union

SOUTH WHITLEY – E Brewing Company hopes to offer an experience their customers may not find anywhere else in Indiana.

Jason Esterline, co-owner of E Brewing Company, 8324 E. SR 14, South Whitley, said the business is “a destination farmhouse brewery, the first one in Indiana, that’s actually situated on a operating farm with animals and everything else going on with that.”

They offer craft beer and small menu items.

“We try to do everything that is completely local, as much as possible. Most of our food is all locally sourced. We do brats from folks up there at Sav U Mor in Churubusco. A bread guy down in Roanoke, we get all the buns and everything from him,” Esterline said. “As for the beer, we try to do everything as much as local. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of farms around here locally that do malted grains and things like that, but there are some in Indiana so we try to stick with those.”

He said they offer a “little bit of everything” when it comes to the beer.

“We’ve got several different types of IPAs. We’ve got stout in there, we’ve got seltzer that we did, also. A couple of cream ales and bale ales,” Esterline said.

The grand opening for E Brewing Company was last weekend, but they had the ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Whitley and Kosciusko chambers of Commerce Friday afternoon.

“We’ve been in the process of it for the last year and a half,” he said.

The idea for the business started from Esterline’s love for homebrewing.

“Got a good grasp on it of what it takes, and ended up with a pretty good partner of mine that we do the brewing together and he’s been very knowledgeable — Justin Ebey. It grew from there, from a homebrewing to deciding to try this. I have this farm, nobody else has ever done it on their own farm, so we went through the county and state and jumped through a bunch of hoops and things like that to get everything OK’d,” Esterline said.

E Brewing Company is only open 4-10 p.m. Fridays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays; and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.

“You can bring family out. The state passed a new law where kids can be in the bars as long as they’re not sitting at the bars, so we allow kids to come out and enjoy the farm animals, gardens and things like that,” Esterline stated.

He hopes to draw customers from Fort Wayne, Warsaw, Huntington and Columbia City.

“It’s a destination. It’s something for people to get away from everything they’re dealing with and stuff. They can come out here and relax and just have a good time,” he said.

Currently, they don’t do private events but they plan on doing some.

For more information, visit their website, Facebook and other social media.

“It’s an enjoyable place. It’s a great place to relax, and if you want to get away and just hang out, it’s the place to go,” Esterline said.