Readers, this is the second of several posts that provide sections of my forthcoming Good Beer Guide to Kentuckiana, which will be posted at the Potable Curmudgeon web site.Your help is badly needed. What have I gotten wrong, forgotten, omitted?
----------------------------------
BREWERIES IN METRO LOUISVILLE
Swill may yet reign as Louisville’s beer of choice, but the city still manages to sustain five separate brewing entities.
BBC Brewing Company
636 East Main Street
584-2739
Located on the downtown Louisville site of the now defunct Pipkin Brewing Company, BBC Brewing is a production brewery wholly separate from the original brewpub from which it was spawned. This split came about as a result of what can only be called an “uncivil war” between brewpub and brewery investors, circa 2002.
Eventually a settlement was reached, and now BBC Brewing Company produces kegs and bottles for off-premise sales, with original BBC brewmaster David Pierce crafting versions of his classic styles (Alt, Dark Star Porter) similar to, and in the case of the APA, markedly superior, to those still brewed in St. Matthews.
No food service is offered at the Taproom, but visitors are invited to bring their own snacks and meals or consult a handy guide to local eateries that will deliver.
Bluegrass Brewing Company
3939 Shelbyville Road
899-7070
The original BBC brewpub (1993) is located on Shelbyville Road in the St. Matthews neighborhood on Louisville’s east side. The brewer is Jerry Gnagy, and the beer lineup includes classic BBC styles (American Pale Ale, Dark Star Porter, et al) as formulated by original brewmaster David Pierce, as well as Jerry’s own rotating seasonals (an excellent California Common, for one, and also the headsplitting Ultra) and even a few holdovers (Mephistopheles Metamorphosis) from Tim Rastetter, who served as a consultant for a brief period circa 2002-2003.
Food is served seven days a week, televised sports and live music are constants, and there is an attractive outdoor seating area.
Browning’s Restaurant & Brewery
401 East Main Street (at Louisville Slugger Field)
515-0174
Fine dining (Park Place on Main) and a brewpub (Browning’s Restaurant & Brewery), both under the same management, lie side by side within Louisville Slugger Field, home of the city’s Triple-A Bats. The showpiece tower brewing system that serves as the central design feature of Browning’s has often been mistaken for a spittoon by a series of “no speak beer” owners and decision makers, but the brewpub remains the only hope for a decent pint of beer within the confines of the notoriously beer-unfriendly Slugger Field.
Cumberland Brews
1576 Bardstown Road
458-8727
Matt Gould, the hardest-working brewer in Louisville, squeezes every last drop of quality out of an impossibly tiny 2-barrel system in the very heart of the Highlands, with personal favorites including Nitro Porter and Pale Ale.
Opened by the Allgeier family in 2000, Cumberland Brews has garnered consistently good reviews for the quality of its kitchen and the intimate conviviality of the atmosphere.
New Albanian Brewing Company
3312 Plaza Drive, New Albany
812-949-2804
Established in 2002, NABC is the microbrewing arm of New Albany’s Rich O’s Public House (the area’s finest specialty beer bar since 1992) and Sportstime Pizza, which began operations in 1987.
In April, 2005, the brewing baton was passed from Michael Borchers to Jesse Williams, and it is hoped that an increase in brewing capacity will be achieved later in the year.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment