Evansville Brewing Company.

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The Sterling Brewery is open again in Evansville, thanks to the Evansville Brewing Company and attorney Mark Mattingly. This time the city hopes it is open to stay.

Evansville's landmark brewery closed in April after Sterling's owner, La Crosse, Wis.-based G. Heileman Brewing Company, was purchased by Austria's Bonn Brewery. Local businessmen, however, refused to let Sterling leave the city. They quickly banded together to form Evansville Brewing under President John Brzezinski. In August, Evansville Brewing, with Mattingly's help, assembled a $4.6 million financial package to purchase Sterling from Heileman and start the beer pouring again in September.

Mattingly says the battle to keep Sterling operating in Evansville has enjoyed a tremendous amount of popular support. Except for Fort Wayne's Falstaff Brewing Corp. plant, Sterling is the only brewery left in Indiana.

"Sterling's) an institution that's been in the community for 100 years," Mattingly says. "The brewery has a unique identity in the community--everybody would...