Headlines from June 2017 on THE BEER BEAT.

Previously, I've explained several reasons why this blog has gone on hiatus, adding that my thoughts about beer will be posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.

You'll find them there via the helpful all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat.

However, whenever the urge strikes -- probably monthly -- I'll collect a few of these links right here. Following are June's ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some are more topical than others, and I'm past the point of caring about it.

Thanks for reading, if belatedly.

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THE BEER BEAT: "Please stop calling your legal, open-to-the-public bar a "speakeasy," and other adventures in fake news.

Allow me to suggest that far too many lamentations about the scourge of "fake news" are found to emanate from those who routinely and unquestioningly absorb vast mounds of extraneous bilge written and photographed in the service of food and drink promotion.

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THE BEER BEAT: Falls City nixes its previous expansion plan, and now the new brewery is slated for NuLu.

Obviously, it makes little sense for the Neace family to own a brewery and for it not to supply vast amounts of beer for games played by the soccer team, in which they also have an ownership stake. This new projected brewery location is a bare mile from the proposed stadium site.

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THE BEER BEAT: Ted, Shannon, their businesses, and what happens when creative exuberance meets that immovable capitalist object.

Brugge Brasserie is safe and sound, though there have been tumultuous times for Ted and Shannon, owners of the Broad Ripple shrine to the wonders of Belgian steak frites and ale. They've been compelled by reality to make a difficult business decision regarding Outliers Brewing and The Owner's Wife, their newer ventures on Mass Ave. in Indianapolis.

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THE BEER BEAT: Cincinnati area lagers during Reds baseball on Thursday, June 8. I hear they serve Bud Light at Louisville KY Bats games.

How very avant-garde of them. Next thing you know, Bats management will admit to the existence of iPhone selfies and have a special commemorative event -- or maybe it's finally time for a Mike Calise Bobblehead Night. At the same time, periodic visits to major league parks in recent years have convinced me that in the big leagues, they're getting it. In Minneapolis in 2014 and Cleveland last year, local "craft" choices were many and varied, if predictably pricey.

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THE BEER BEAT: The timeless wisdom of Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon.

Finally you took the abundant hints and stepped off the merry-go-round, only to be nickel-and-dimed into oblivion because now you're a quitter. You find it difficult to address all this publicly, because you can see that the behavior currently being directed against you can be explained by the same behavior once directed against them. That's life.

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THE BEER BEAT: Neace Ventures acquires Tin Man Brewing Company.

For now, just the press release. After U2 is finished tonight and there is time to think, maybe I'll offer analysis, but for now, I'm simply delighted for the Davidsons. They're first-rate folks and I hope this is a power move for them. And this: Damn it Neace Ventures, I was really hoping you'd buy my 1/3 share of NABC. Guess I'll keep having to e-mail that guy in Shanghai.

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THE BEER BEAT: 30 years ago today, labels from beer hunting in Red Hungary ... and töltött káposzta at Czarnok Vendéglő.

Sturdy half-liter returnable bottles were the norm. There were a handful of breweries in Hungary, including the once-dominant Dreher plant in the Kobanya district. The beers they brewed were lagers in the broad German and Austrian tradition, with an occasional dark or bock included in the range. "Imported" beer meant brands from Czechoslovakia, East German and Poland.

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THE BEER BEAT: I'm curious about the origins of the smooth, crisp and milky Pilsner Urquell pours.

I've been vaguely aware that the Pilsner Urquell international distribution effort of late has been emphasizing the "three pours" draft approach. I'm all aboard, and want to learn more. If my pub sanctuary project-in-development gets off the ground, this will be my daily classic house lager -- and make no mistake, Asahi as Urquell's new owner ranks nowhere near AB-InBev's level of multinational swinishness.

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THE BEER BEAT: Day drinking porter with the porters at the market pub.

Historically, a porter is a person employed to carry burdens, as at a market. In the UK, what makes a "market pub" noteworthy is its exception with respect to allowable opening hours.

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THE BEER BEAT: Making light switch covers great again, and other examples of stewed cranberries tasting like prunes.

File under: Slow news day. Or maybe "any publicity is good publicity," this coming from the guy who put Lenin (and Che) on the Red Room wall.

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And a non-beat bonus:

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: We only want to get drunk, so send away the tigers and climb into your cups.

It is my belief that frequent drinkers of alcoholic beverages, of whom I am unrepentantly one, have about as many ways of describing our condition as the Inuit have for snow.

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Baseball's craft beer market explodes ... everywhere except Louisville Philistine Field.

On July 27, we attended a Minnesota Twins game at Target Field in downtown Minneapolis. Here I am, enjoying the scene with a can of Summit IPA.

Behind us was a concession stand featuring local and regional beers. Out in right-center field, there was another area with good beers on draft. I bought a Surly. After the game, we walked to Fulton Brewery, which is located roughly two hundred yards from the ballpark.

Meanwhile, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati continues to attract attention for its Reds Brewery District, and at the Slugger Craft Beer page at Facebook, Joel Z. makes an astute observation.

Too bad that the powers that be at the Bats/Slugger Field are still refusing to follow the example set by their parent club.

Joel, that's because they're incurable, unrepentant Philistines, even if certain local "craft" beer luminaries habitually apologize for them.

Have you ever looked for the word Philistine in the dictionary?

Gary Ulmer's photograph is there.

The Best Beer in Baseball, by Kevin Schaul, Kelyn Soong and Dan Steinberg (Washington Post)

Several years ago, craft beer started taking off at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. From 2011-2012, sales went up by 20 percent. From 2012-2013, they were up 47 percent.

So when it came time to create a new hangout in a highly trafficked spot on the third-base concourse, the ballpark went all-in on craft-style beers. The new Reds Brewery District – an 84-foot-long bar with more than 50 taps – included more than 20 craft offerings when it opened this spring. There were local beers from Cincinnati brewers like Christian Moerlein, MadTree, Blank Slate, Fifty West, Rhinegeist, Mt. Carmel, and Rivertown. There were national options from well-regarded breweries like Founders, Bell’s, West Sixth and Great Lakes.

Here's the 2013 craft beer list for Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

The Louisville Bats are the AAA subsidiary of the major league Cincinnati Reds.

In more ways than one, unfortunately.

It's another year, and fairly soon we'll know if it will be another sad campaign of craft beer underachievement for Louisville Slugger Field and Centerplate, its concessionaire. As you contemplate the bare minimum beer options perennially offered by the Bats, read about what's available 90 minutes up the road at Great American Ballpark. Take it away, Ian at his BeerQuestABV blog.

Great American Ball Park Craft Beer List.

Last week I talked about how more craft is coming
to the baseball field in Cincinnati, and what
Sportservice, the people who manage the concessions,
are doing to make it more of a focus. This week,
I'll be giving out a list of what's available at
various sections around the park, and also shedding
a light on what influenced the list.

Take me out to the ballgame: More about sports concessionaires, blatant extortion and non-competition.

A month or so ago, I reported on my experience at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati:

Sports concessionaires, blatant extortion, non-competition … but a good beer, anyway.

I edited the preceding into a "Mug Shots" column for LEO: Mug Shots: A fair price? (May 14, 2008).

The follow-up appeared this week: Mug Shots - Your beer is The Man (June 11, 2008).

In it, my parentage is questioned by an angry Anheuser-Busch representative. He should consider reading the book about the Busch family before impugning my origins, but no matter; he'll soon be taking orders in Flemish and taking his fries with mayo.

On Sunday, we're headed back to the Queen City to see the Red Sox play the homestanding Reds in interleague play. There should be time to visit the Hofbrauhaus in Newport before settling into the right field seats and cradling a few $7.75 IPAs ... assuming they're still there.

Happy Hudy time, anyone?

Night of the living plastic bottled swill Hell … but a good time for the discerning.

Imagine that you’ve paid the very reasonable price of $80 for a chartered bus seat, a ticket in the right field stands to watch the Chicago Cubs vs. the homestanding Cincinnati Reds, a pre-game picnic meal of barbecue and the fixings, and all the craft draft beer you can drink before and after the game.

Imagine that the three craft beers on tap on the bus are BBC APA (Main & Clay), Browning’s She-Devil IPA, and Browning’s Helles, the latter a German-style golden lager perfectly familiar to any person who has ever suckled an ice-cold Bud Light.

Imagine that such an unprecedented deal isn’t quite good enough for you, so you ignore the craft beer you’ve already paid for, pack a cooler with canned and bottled swill, throw back a dozen or more overpriced “waters,” as Sergio would call them, during the ballgame, and at a moment of supreme self-revelation during the journey home, begin belting out an off-key version of the best-forgotten, hoary seventies paean to piddling Parrotland, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” – all the while believing that in your choice of beer, music and life, you’re being somehow clever and the life of the party.

I can’t imagine it, although I experienced it on Saturday, July 28.

However, it is my pleasure to report that entirely apart from redneck contingents originating in my (sighhh) home town of New Albany, there is good beer to be found at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, and even at Great American Ball Park itself. Within 100 yards of our seats at the home field of the Reds, I found Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale, BarrelHouse Red Legg and an unidentified Flying Dog, along with a Red Hook IPA -- all ridiculously priced at $7.25 per plastic cup, but at least bearing tangible sign of hops and hope.

Meanwhile, mainstream America supped predictably at the altar of mainstream plastic bottles as the Reds bowed unconvincingly to the Cubs by an 8-1 score before a sellout “home” crowd of 42,500, of whom at least six of ten were Cubs, not Reds, supporters.

That’s surreal, but not as surreal as the bizarro-world spectacle of swill-hounds eschewing all-inclusive craft beer for the nadir of American brewing. Might I have been able to assist by providing salt, limes and other irrelevancies?

Verily, I should be used to it by now, but there are times when New Albany can really get to a guy ... and follow him back and forth during an otherwise marvelous break.

(Originally published at NA Confidential)