It’s official: NABC is the “brewery with no beer.”

The last remaining keg of Community Dark has passed into the pre-Christmas night, and we’re at least two weeks away from being able to drink the batch of Elector that’s just been brewed.

It tastes good sampled out of the fermenter, but it’s a bit young.

Happily, there are 28 microbrewed and imported beers still on tap, including the first wave of Saturnalia winter solstice draft selections, so we’ll not be running completely dry.

If you’re just tuning in, the reason for our running out of house-brewed beer is that we’ve spent the past six weeks installing brewery add-ons, including two new fermenters and four serving tanks. It is a process that required more dismantling of existing equipment than we’d expected, and it came during the busy time of the year, when more pints than usual are being consumed.

All that can be said at this late date is “wait ‘til next year.” By January, there should be quite a lot of NABC beer flowing from the taps as we work toward the eventual goal of 6 to 8 house drafts available at all times.

Taken as a whole, the episode reminds me of the hilarious 1950’s-era Australian song that I first heard performed by the Dubliners with heavily bearded and gravelly-voiced Ronnie Drew singing the lead.

The Pub with No Beer

It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night where the wild dingoes call,
But there's nothing so lonesome so morbid or drear
Than to stand in a bar of a pub with no beer.

Now the publican's anxious for the quota to come
There's a far away lock on the face of the bum
The maid's gone all cranky and the cook's acting queer
What a terrible place is a pub with no beer.

Then the stock-man rides up with his dry dusty throat
He breasts up to the bar, pulls a wat from his coat,
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a sneer,
When the bar man said sadly the pub's got no beer.

Ther's a dog on the 'randa-h for his master he waits
But the boss is inside drinking wine with his mates
He hurries for cover and cringes in fear
It's no place for a dog round a pub with no beer.

Old Billy the blacksmith first time in his life
Has gone home cold sober to his darling wife,
He walks in the kitchen, she says you're early me dear,
But he breaks down and tells her the pub's got no beer.

The story is told here: Daily Lush: The Pub with No Beer, or “the worst thing that can happen to a thirsty swagman in the Australian outback.”

The former hotel that lays claim to the distinction of being the dry pub mentioned in the song has reinvented itself accordingly: The Pub with No Beer, which was slated to open its own microbrewery in 2005.

Wonder if they ever run out, just for old times’ sake?