The craft era: the brewpub in the pizza palace, Evil Czech, the chain house, and the taproom

1992 — 2026

The first house: the Mishawaka Brewing Company: Brewing returned to Mishawaka forty-one years after Kamm & Schellinger closed, in the craft era's first local form — a brewpub in a converted Chuck E. Cheese at 3703 North Main Street. The Mishawaka Brewing Company is documented in operation by October 1992, when a bartender later its general manager was hired (his own employment record), and it is remembered in the trade as the second microbrewery to open in Indiana, after Broad Ripple's of 1990. Tom Schmidt owned it by 1994, when the beer historian Roger Baylor records him bringing kegs four hours south to a homebrew club's meeting in New Albany; Steven E. Noonan was its president in the 1999–2000 season, on the company's own advertisement in the IUSB basketball program. Its beers are named in the record: Four Horsemen Irish Ale, the flagship — the company's own website of 2004 styles the house "Home of Four Horsemen Irish Ale" — INDIAna Pale Ale, Lake Effect Pale Ale, Founder's Stout, Mishawaka Kolsch, Wall Street Wheat, Raspberry Wheat, Hop Head Ale and Seven Mules Ale. A brewer who watched it as a teenager, Triton Brewing's David Waldman, gives its standing in the era's memory: its makers "were brewing beer better than anyone in northern Indiana could have imagined" — the recollection is printed as the era's testimony, with the company's documented course around it. The course runs from 1992 to October 2013, when George Pesek bought the building; the exact opening date within the era's start is not pinned in the record reached, and the gap is named in this section's note with its settling sources (the Tribune's business coverage and the state permit record).

The second house in the same room: Evil Czech Brewery: The building's next brewer was its buyer. George Pesek, born in the Czech Republic — he defected in 1986, in the trade press's account — earned a master brewer's certification at UC Davis and opened a seven-barrel Evil Czech in Culver as, in his own words, a test run: "This is the real deal," he said of Mishawaka. He and his wife, of the family that runs Corndance Tavern on Grape Road, bought the North Main building in October 2013 on a $3 million project, and Evil Czech Brewery & Public House quietly opened there in March 2014 (Indiana on Tap, 16 March 2014) with a twenty-barrel plant — more than double the Culver system's capacity. The house stands verified current in November 2026 on its own publications and the visitors bureau's listing: 3703 North Main Street, brewing, the same owner from the start. One line of its opening coverage is printed as what it was — a plan, never verified as accomplished: Indiana on Tap reported in 2014 an unfinished back room where Journeyman Distillery of Three Oaks, Michigan, would produce vodka; no record reached shows that still operating in Mishawaka, and the room is not counted among this city's distilleries.

The chain house: Granite City: The era's third form was the national chain's fermenting restaurant. Granite City Food & Brewery stood at 6501 Grape Road, at University Park Mall, documented open by August 2008; its model, in the BeerAdvocate record, trucked wort in from the chain's St. Cloud, Minnesota plant and fermented it on the premises — brewing of a kind, at chain scale, and printed as exactly that. It closed in the last week of October 2019, when the Indianapolis Business Journal reported the Mishawaka location gone in the Minnesota chain's collapse into default — the closure leaving Fort Wayne's as the chain's only Indiana house. Its eleven years make it the second-longest-lived brewing operation of the craft era here, and the only one of the era's houses to have closed without a successor in its room.

The taproom: Sun King at the Ironworks: The era's fourth form makes nothing on the premises and says so. Sun King Brewing of Indianapolis — Indiana's second-largest brewery — announced its Mishawaka taproom in December 2021 and opened it on 22 July 2022 at The Mill at Ironworks Plaza, 235 Ironworks Avenue, in the riverfront development raised on the old Uniroyal ground. The company's own page, read in November 2026, describes the house in its own terms — it "operates as a family-friendly tap room," and as concessions partner to the Ball-Band Biergarten across the way — with current hours posted: operating, verified. The beer is Indianapolis's; the room is Mishawaka's; the file prints it as a taproom, not a brewery, because that is what its maker calls it.

Sources:

1. Jeffrey Crotty, employment record (Bold.pro) — hired at the Mishawaka Brewing Company in October 1992, later its general manager; "MBC was the second microbrewery to open in Indiana." Printed as a participant's record, at that strength.
2. Roger Baylor, "40 Years in Beer" (Book II) — Tom Schmidt, owner of the Mishawaka Brewing Company, at the FOSSILS homebrew club, New Albany, 1994; Wabash College, "Brewing the Good Life" — David Waldman '97 on the Mishawaka Brewing Company of his Elkhart-area youth, an old Chuck E. Cheese's, and its standing in his memory.
3. Indiana University South Bend men's basketball program, 1999–2000 — the company's advertisement: Steven E. Noonan, President, 3703 N. Main St., Mishawaka; the beer list carried in the brewing databases of the era (Four Horsemen Irish Ale, INDIAna Pale Ale, Lake Effect Pale Ale, Founder's Stout, Mishawaka Kolsch, Wall Street Wheat, Raspberry Wheat, Hop Head Ale, Seven Mules Ale); the company's own website, archived February 2004 — "Home of Four Horsemen Irish Ale," 3703 North Main Street, hours posted.
4. Indiana on Tap — "Evil Czech brewery opens in Mishawaka" (16 March 2014): the quiet opening at 3703 N. Main, the $3 million project, the Culver test run and its seven-barrel system, the twenty-barrel Mishawaka plant, and the Journeyman back-room plan, printed as announced; "Evil Czech Brewery's Stalin's Darkside Release Party" (2018) — George Pesek, a native Czech who defected in 1986; Notre Dame Scholastic, "Business Bio: Evil Czech Brewery" — the UC Davis master brewer certification and the October 2013 purchase of the Mishawaka Brewing Company building; Evil Czech's own site and the Visit South Bend Mishawaka listing, read November 2026 — operating, hours current.
5. BeerAdvocate, Granite City Food & Brewery, Mishawaka — 6501 Grape Road, University Park Mall; place added 23 August 2008; wort brought from St. Cloud, Minnesota, and fermented on premises; Indianapolis Business Journal, 31 October 2019 — the Mishawaka location closed that week in the chain's default, Fort Wayne left its only Indiana house.
6. WNDU, 15 July 2022 — Sun King Brewery's Mishawaka taproom grand opening set for Friday 22 July 2022 at The Mill at Ironworks Plaza; Indiana on Tap, 8 December 2021 — the Mishawaka location announced for 2022; Sun King Brewing's own Mishawaka page, read November 2026 — "operates as a family-friendly tap room," 235 Ironworks Drive, hours current, concessions partner to the Ball-Band Biergarten.