Iechyd Da’s, Elkhart, IN
If you know how to pronounce this name, you have obviously been there. I hear the locals say “Yachk-EE-Daws”. That is how I will pronounce it. It sits down by the river and McDonald’s in Elkhart, Indiana, which is actually a pretty large small town that hasn’t decided yet if it wants to be nice or a ghetto. This brewery, however, is very nice. A fair metaphor would be that Iechyd Da’s is the prettiest girl in the trailer park, and she doesn’t have any brothers, so she is as pure as the snow that has been in the yard overnight. It isn’t 100 percent pure, and it has been walked on a little, but the dogs haven’t pissed on it yet.
A great place when you would have happily settled for a shittier spot. So good in fact, you will intentionally go there again.
This was my second visit.
I posted up because I was waiting for my girlfriend and her mom and aunt to go shopping. Looking back, I can’t really remember how I ended up going in the first place, but I did. I drank a lot of beer. I started at some fancy bar and worked myself down. The first joint was so fancy that when I went in, I caught a waitress eyeballing the old Adidas sandals I was wearing. I ordered a beer, sat and drank, and then politely moved on.
When I got to the end of the strip, it was like I was a Wise Man in Bethlehem—the star had guided me to the manger. I was saved.
But they didn’t open until three, and it was 2:54.
There lies an ethical question. What do I do? Do I just creep at the door for six minutes? Do I just say fuck it and leave? There really wasn’t any place to go play it off except McDonald’s, but fuck, I still had my dignity.
My first thought was, “Maybe one of their employees was so excited that they decided to unlock the door six minutes early.”
That did not happen.
Then I thought, “I will nonchalantly walk down that way for a block or so, then inconspicuously walk back.”
That was a solid plan, but then it was only 2:57.
So then I went the other way and back. That had to be good, but at 3:02 it was still locked. I couldn’t be mad at them, beer drinker's time is always is little later than what the clock says.
Then I thought, “Fuck, I will just walk over there, make a phone call—or at least feign a phone call—and give them a chance to open.” And so I did. Right on cue, because she was shopping, my girlfriend did not answer her phone. I left a voice mail and then slowly walked back to the bar.
Success! It was open. As soon as I broke the plane the barmaid gave me a very cheerful, “Hi, come on in.” There is a certain perkiness that only exists at the beginning of a shift. I’m sure that five hours in the future would have been met with not so much as a nod in my general direction.
I posted up at the bar. Somehow there was some dude in there ahead of me. I have good beer drinking instincts, but I had been casing that joint since ten minutes before it opened and that fucker still beat me.
Whatever.
I sat down. The barmaid introduced herself. She told me her name but I don’t remember because I didn’t really give a shit. I told her mine because that is what I am used to doing when someone is all like, “Hi, I’m So-and-So.” She remembered it the whole time too.
I ordered a beer and drank it. Some other dude came in and sat at the bar. She remembered his name too. Some people are really good at that sort of shit. I never have been. I think it is because I really don’t give a shit for strangers. Hell, I don’t even give a shit for a lot of people I know.
I ordered another beer and drank it. Some young couple came in. They asked a lot of questions about how things worked, and made me wonder if they had ever been out in a tavern before, let alone a brewery. They were really thrilled that the barmaid gave a shit to know their names, and she was thrilled that she could explain shit she knew to them?
Some examples of stupid shit I heard:
“So you guys make the beer here?”
“Do you ever have Budweiser on tap?”
“Is the food made here too?”
Fuckin retards, but the barmaid loved them.
Eventually my girlfriend found me, along with her mom and her aunt, so we sat outside on the patio and drank more. They had a cornhole game set up out there. We didn’t play, but someone else did.
As it turns out, cornhole seems to be the state game of Indiana. I don’t know if that is really true—but they sure love their cornhole back there. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that they just love them some corn, but out west, we always associated the word cornhole with something else.
But it is a fun game.