A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.
For those just tuning in, this column used to appear at LouisvilleBeer.com, but henceforth will be published here each Monday. Previous columns at LouisvilleBeer.com are archived there.
Ever wondered where the church pews in the Public House (formerly Rich O's) were procured? Here's the conclusion to the story of an excellent weekend adventure in Wheeling, West Virginia in 2001.
Part One can be read here.
Arts and supposed craft beer.
On Saturday afternoon, driving east on the interstate, we crossed into downtown Wheeling while admiring the city’s graceful, ancient long-span suspension bridge, the world’s oldest, dating from pre-Civil War times.
Stopping briefly to make final arrangements for the truck, I was struck by the surplus of aging and generally derelict red brick warehouses. They’re the sort of building that microbrewery start-ups so eagerly sought in the 1990’s, before that particular industry suffered its first great leveling off.
Downtown, in the vicinity of the approaches to the suspension bridge and the epicenter of attempted tourism, some of the city’s commercial buildings, banks and corporate headquarters of another age had been renovated. One of them, at 1400 Main Street, was the Wheeling Artisan Center.
On the building’s upper floors were housed West Virginia arts and crafts shops, exemplifying the folksy milieu of the south, and obviously a staple attraction for blue hair bus tours and visiting groups, which the local visitor’s bureau in turn routinely directed to River City Ale Works on the first floor, which is where we were seated at the bar, wondering if this was as good as it gets in a place like Wheeling.
Comrade, can I see your ration coupon?
For me to have enjoyed the aforementioned good life, it required a desperate effort to remain upwind from my interrogator. Besides, the conversation seemed to have gone about as far as it could, so I started to turn toward the sanctuary offered by our rental car, but he wasn’t finished with me quite yet.
“Fine, thanks, but Jesus Christ, I don’t want to use the damn coupons – look, I just want to cash these in and get back the money for drinks. Does it say I can do that?”
Pondering the theory and practice of loopholes, I caught the scents of burning leaves and cold river water. Traffic hummed on the adjacent interstate. Elsewhere on Wheeling Island, West Virginia’s state high school football championship game would be starting later in the evening.
Exactly what do people drink at dog tracks, anyway?
Why? Why? Why?
Sitting at the River City Ale Works, it occurred to me that we had been forewarned. Before departing Louisville, I visited Pubcrawler, an ancient Internet database built about the time of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and searched for brewpubs and beer bars in Wheeling. There were none of the latter, and to put it charitably, the reviews for our choice of brewery (the only one in town) were mixed.
I learned that the original occupant of the space was called Nail City, an establishment billed as West Virginia’s largest brewpub. When asked about this, the bartender informed us that the current River City Ale Works was the only brewpub in West Virginia, making it the largest by default.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t true; there proved to be at least one other brewpub operating in the state at the time, but we had no access to floor space measurements, and it seemed that the first of many Brewpub Warning Flags about to be raised: When you spend valuable moments debating ephemera rather than the merits of the beer on offer, you just might be headed for trouble.
Should we stay or should we go?
Alternatives seemed few in number, other than hitting the road for nearby Pittsburgh, a scant hour up the interstate, but which one of us would stay sober enough to drive?
We elected to stay at Wheeling’s largest and only brewpub, the reward for which was an admittedly fine meal, as well as the efforts of an energetic female bartender who tried her best to be helpful. However, for aficionados of brewpubs, even great food and wonderful hired hands are small consolation when the beer is unimpressive.
Here, then, are a few warning signs to consider during a brewpub visit. They are specific to Wheeling’s River City Ale Works as experienced during our visit so long ago, but equally applicable, in varying forms, to similar establishments.
You become worried when:
1. A brewpub’s dining menu lists at least 75 different meals, but only six house beers are described on the table tents.
2. The six everyday beers listed on the table tents aren’t available.
3. The two beers that are available, neither of which are listed on the table tents, are written on a chalkboard half-obscured by Miller Lite point-of-sale materials.
4. The two house beers are competent, if unspectacular, but they’re served ice-cold in frozen glasses.
5. For every glass of house beer the bartender pours, another glass goes cascading down the drains as foam is “poured off.”
6. The bartender explains that the reason for the discrepancy between the six beers listed on the table tents and the chalkboard’s two like this: “Well, we didn’t brew for a while, but now we’re brewing again.”
7. You ask why this is the case, and she replies, “Because the brewery was broke.”
8. The brewpub offers “happy hour” pricing, but a large and readily visible sign reminds customers that the special prices do not apply to the two house-brewed beers that are available.
(The preceding bears repeating: A brewpub offers “happy hour” pricing for mass- market swill, not its own beer)
9. You look around the bar, and no one else is drinking the house beer. You conclude that you must be strange for insisting to do so, speculating that your interest in beer is greater than that of the management, and wondering why such a place even bothers maintaining a brewery when so little is done to nurture and support it.
The overwhelming evidence available to us was that it might be a long time before craft beer became a priority in Wheeling, notwithstanding the freedom once enjoyed by the city’s residents to “extol the merits of John Barleycorn."
Eyes affixed to the plunging neckline of our bartender, we asked for directions to the best package liquor store with the widest selection in the city.
“That’d be Cut Rate over on Wheeling Island. We all go there. Go across the suspension bridge, fourth stop sign, turn right … “
Beer and circus.
Like the set pieces at Madame Tussaud’s, the tableau outside the liquor store was frozen in time. Present were Syd, Tom and me, each with paper sacks of cold beer in hand, and the sun setting to the west, behind our hotel in Ohio. Standing before us was a man with a sheet of paper. His pal’s arm was extended in an almost Biblical offering of refreshment. Just off stage, silently, drearily, there reposed a woman.
In the fading light, the fine print on the coupons was way too small, and my patience far too gone, for me to bother trying to read it.
“It doesn’t say you can’t,” I offered. “So go for it.”
Gratefully reassured, the man thanked me a final time and accepted the bottle of malt liquor. The three forlorn bearers of dog track “drink” tickets shuffled off toward their ultimate redemption, to the greyhounds, to the southernmost extremity of Wheeling Island.
Come to think of it, the woman hadn’t said a word the whole time … and all because I could read.
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Editor’s note.
For abundant historical information on Wheeling, as well as numerous photographs both old and new, go to the Ohio County Public Library’s web site, and don’t forget that the preceding account dates from 2001. The River City Ale Works remains in business, but ceased brewing quite some time ago. There may be better beer hotspots all over the city now … and the same guy may still be redeeming coupons at the dog track.
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