Kevin Gibson in LEO Weekly: "Homebrew: Craft beer before craft beer was cool."

FOSSILS meeting in 1997.

Kudos to Kevin Gibson for this well-researched and entertaining "recent" history of homebrewing in Louisville and Southern Indiana.

Kevin surveys LAGERS and FOSSILS, the latter of which celebrates its 25th birthday in September. I'll have more information on this, but in the meantime, if you were a member back in the day, keep the weekend of September 11, 12 and 13 open.

Homebrew: Craft beer before craft beer was cool, by Kevin Gibson (LEO Weekly)

The mustachioed 20-something sips away at his IPA of the week as he peers around the bar. All around him, people drink beers of all styles, colors and creeds. “Craft beer” is the buzz term of the 2010s thanks to a beer-drinking public that has increasingly demanded more and more from its beer than a 12-ounce, ice-cold bottle of “Corporate Light” can muster.

But good beer has been around for centuries. And it’s been around Louisville since the city was settled in the late 1700s and even after the fall of commercial brewing here in 1978. Home brewers kept the boilers burning in small batches during Prohibition, and they kept them burning even when light beers became the American fancy and the boilers at Falls City were turned off. At that point, the only beer Louisvillians — and most Americans — had available to drink was what many beer enthusiasts now call “corporate swill.”