Headlines from March 2018 on THE BEER BEAT.

The Pints & Union build-out continues to be of interest.

This blog has gone on hiatus, probably permanently, and primarily because these days my thoughts about beer are being posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential. You'll find them there in reverse chronological order via the helpful all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat.

However, at the end of each month I'll collect the links right here. Following are March's (2018) ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some of these posts are more topical than others. On occasion, there'll be references to beer in posts using "The Beer Beat" as a label, though not a title. I hope this isn't overly confusing.

Thanks for reading, if belatedly.

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THE BEER BEAT: Taco Steve back at BSB, and a year's hiatus for the Bloomington Craft Beer Festival.

On Saturday, Taco Steve debuted at the freshly painted and recently redubbed Bank Street Brewhouse; the word "cafe" never really sounded right, did it? About a dozen customers were eating and drinking on site when I stopped by around 3:30 p.m. to chat with Heather Morris, who runs the front of the house.

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THE BEER BEAT: Narrower focus, deeper appreciation -- or, a few words about the Pints & Union beer program.

If you're curious about those five fixed taps, here's the way it looks to me today.

Guinness Stout
Pilsner Urquell
Fuller's London Pride
Anchor Porter
Bell's Two Hearted

Conjecture this lineup augmented by (for example) Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Tripel Karmeliet, as well as Steve's scrumpy; furthermore, imagine it remaining in place for two months, allowing repeated samplings of the sort that fix lasting and affectionate memories, rather than hurried reviews at a crowd-sourced scrum.

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THE BEER BEAT: Sunday sales in Indiana: "Now that we have today out of the way it's just 7 days a week of normalcy."

Todd "Keg Liquors" Antz contributes this list of media coverage centering on Opening (Sun)Day, 2018.

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THE BEER BEAT: Let's review a few headlines, from Louisville KY (and Indy) Lager to Brimstone Big.

I had a lunch meeting on Friday, and the three of us met at the recently re-refashioned Bank Street Brewhouse for some Taco Steve treats and NABC libations.

Now cast irrevocably as a member of the "former owner" camp, it still feels a bit weird for me to return as a civilian. This said, everything was fine. Taco Steve is impeccable, and the four beer samples all were solid.

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THE BEER BEAT: "Belgian bars put the boot into tourists who steal beer glasses."

At out forthcoming pub Pints & Union, the bottle and can selection will include beers that should be served in specialty glasses. I'll try my best to find generic examples of these, and it will work out. After all, it's about the beer, first and foremost.

Meanwhile, get over to Belgium. Once there, enjoy the excellence of the country's many beer-friendly drinking venues -- and get your shoes back when you leave.

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THE BEER BEAT: Paint your sombreros green, and Erin Go Blagh -- a timeless classic for a green-hued holiday.

Yes, tomorrow it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Time once again to endure the tasteless annual outbursts of shamrock-mounted hokum fueled by wretched green-colored lager, not to mention the inability of many revelers to get the holiday’s nickname right.

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THE BEER BEAT: In search of beerways, with side orders of New Albany Social and Thunder is #SoIN.

The point of this digression?

If the Southern Foodways Alliance chose to include documentation about Louisville KY bartenders, certainly the same notions that preface folkways and foodways also apply to beer, whether as a stand-alone idea or as a subset of either (or both), and yet when I google “beerways,” most of the links that come up are about beer-themed pathways in the sense of scenic highways or bike routes.

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THE BEER BEAT: This is why the classic British-style pub CAN and DOES make it in America.

Logically speaking, there cannot be British (or Irish) pubs in America. They can be British-style and Irish-style, which is why so far during the short life of the Pints & Union project, I've taken great pains to clarify that inspiration is being derived from British pubs.

We're building a pub, not a Disney cookie cutter.

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THE BEER BEAT: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast (2013).

I found myself hungry for English comfort food and daydreaming about Real Ale, and with the pantry barren of Marmite, made do instead with kippers and my last bottle of Fuller's ESB.

The words of Inspector Morse, classic British television police crime solver, popped into my head.

“The secret of a happy life is to know when to stop – and then go that bit further.”

I was plunged into a reverie about our last trip to the United Kingdom in 2013.

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THE BEER BEAT: A Pints & Union preview video at New Albany Social... plus the new Falls City taproom and a Michael "Beer Hunter" Jackson birthday greeting.

Joe Phillips did a live Facebook video earlier today at Pints & Union, courtesy of Kelly Winslow and her New Albany Social juggernaut. Embedding seems a challenge, so here's New Albany Social video link -- as well as a couple of interior shots (below) from when I ambled past this morning and chatted for a bit with Resch's crew.

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