People’s Brewing, Lafayette IN

15 September 2025

People’s Brewing Company is one of those places you could probably drive by for years and never notice. They have a small sign at the street, but it’s weathered and not easy to read, so it’s a good thing the GPS knew exactly where I was going and that I knew what the place looked like! The inside is small and comfortable, but unfortunately I chose a table with lighting that messed up all the photos. Here’s the interior, though:

Their prices are nothing to complain about, though — beers are only $6.30 for a pint and $3.50 for a half pint, flights have six beers for $10.50, and if you have cash there’s a discount from the menu prices. Here’s my flight and I apologize for not taking the glasses out of the carrier so you could see them better. I’ll describe them right-to-left in the back row followed by left-to-right in the front row.

Boiler Gold Ale – American Ale, 5% – This is one of their four flagship beers and it was clean and mild. If you have guests who are used to Bud Lite, Coors Lite, etc., this is a good option to wean them off of “fake beer” and into craft options.

Boiler Black Ale – American Porter, 5% – I have to admit being puzzled by this beer, another of their flagships. It was called a porter, and it looked like a porter and tasted somewhat like a porter, but it seemed more like the Boiler Gold Ale with dark color and some porter flavoring added. It there had been more mouthfeel, I think it would have been a winner. As it is, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.

Daylight – Session IPA, 4% – It’s described as “smooth and juicy hop character” but all I got from it was the hoppy part. That said, once my food arrived, this paired with it nicely — all it needs is some strongly flavored food and it shines.

Germanfest – Märzen, 6% – I agree with them that this is a traditional Oktoberfest style lager, but I prefer more of a festbier with less of the malt. There was sweetness with the malt as well; they delivered on the promise they made in the beer list, but it wasn’t what I was looking for today.

People’s IPA – American IPA, 6.5% – This is the third of their flagship beers I tasted (the fourth was the Farmer’s Daughter Wheat but I didn’t have that one). I can see why this is a flagship for them — for my taste, it was easily the best of the six, and it stood up well to the food.

Grapefruit People’s IPA – American IPA, 6.5% – They make this by adding grapefruit to the People’s IPA after fermentation is complete. It might well be very good, but I couldn’t taste the grapefruit; that was most likely due to the food flavors overpowering the beer.

People’s offers a lot of flatbreads and they are all “choose your own toppings” except for this one, which has house-roasted pulled pork, red onion, tomato, cheddar, mozzarella, and BBQ sauce. (I had them hold the jalapeños!) There are a lot of toppings on this relatively small flatbread and it was definitely a full meal! It was also very tasty, although the BBQ sauce was so strong that it conflicted with the flavors of many of the beers. I don’t blame them; this was a great menu option.

I finished my visit with a half pint of People’s IPA but decided not to take cans of anything with me — I enjoyed my visit, but decided the beers didn’t quite cross the line of “have to take some with me.”