Louisville's Mayor Fischer and "Lou's Brew": Some good, some bad, and some corporate.

Louisville's mayor is Greg Fischer, and following some wobbling and waffling early on, I'm the first to admit that he's taken positive steps with respect to the city being aware of the brewing industry, and promoting it.

Mayor Fischer, CVB introduce “Lou’s Brew” — a guide highlighting local breweries

Mayor Greg Fischer and the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau today introduced “Lou’s Brew” — a guide that highlights local breweries for locals and tourists.

The idea for “Lou’s Brew” resulted from the Beer Work Group created by Fischer in 2014 to grow the brewing industry — and create more jobs as part of the city’s effort to become a global food and spirits capital.

See the on-line guide here.

Following is a sampling of posts, the gist of which is to explain how Fischer's bourbon-centric misstep led to a good recovery, and the formation of a beer and brewing study group on which I served.

Oct. 13, 2014: THE PC: I'd like my world of beer to be special every day.

Oct.12, 2014: "Mayor Fischer to announce initiative to promote Louisville beer at press conference Monday."

Sept. 8, 2014: The PC: The steamy sweetness of watery boats.

Dec. 10, 2013: The PC: Bourbon, bone marrow, Greg Fischer … and Stella Artois?

But ... (there's always a "but," isn't there?)

While Mayor Fischer has done these nice things with beer, for which I'm appreciative, it is my view that he's been on the wrong side of numerous other issues pertaining to economic development, historical preservation and Louisville's social milieu. In short, he's the new model of Democrat, beholden just as solidly to corporate welfare and "trickle down"economics as Reaganites, and consequently, it just isn't possible for me to give him a free pass.

Greg Fischer announces major brewery deal for Louisville and is praised as visionary by Jeff Gahan.

Satire, yes ... but not far-fetched.

More about the city of Louisville's craft beer business report.

WDRB has good video accompaniment to yesterday's mayoral press conference.

Louisville planning to grow its craft beer industry

... Now, the city is getting behind the industry boom, and hoping to help it grow. A new report released today contains recommendations for furthering the growth of the craft beer industry in Louisville. The report was composed by a group of local industry leaders appointed by Mayor Greg Fischer.

THE PC: I'd like my world of beer to be special every day.

THE PC: I'd like my world of beer to be special every day.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

The last time I attended Sandkerwa in Bamberg, Germany was in 2006. It also was the first time. We had come to town to ride bicycles, and were pleasantly surprised to discover this traditionally-styled folk festival joyfully under way. There were the sort of activities one might expect at a civic celebration -- as well as beer and food galore.

Recently Sandkerwa has become increasingly well known for the variety of local and regional Franconian beers, many available at seemingly impromptu street stands. Eight years ago, as we wandered the narrow, winding streets of Bamberg’s Old Town, we’d keep turning corners to discover yet another brewery from a small town 20 kilometers away, proudly serving its beers and maybe a snack or two.

Seemingly, it is easier to be casually spontaneous in Germany than Indiana, where a whole laundry list of temporary serving requirements are there for mandatory compliance, including fences and checkpoints. It seems the Berlin Wall wasn't torn down, after all. It just switched continents.

Conversely, the easygoing ambience of Sandkerwa actually began to threaten our exercise regimen. Why beercycle into the countryside in search of breweries, when they were setting up tables just down the way?

Mind you, Sandkerwa was great fun, but I mention the festival for no other reason than to observe that while it was a welcomed addition to a Bamberg visit, the city’s many year-round pleasures were by no means obscured. In short, every other time I’ve visited Bamberg has been a blast, too. Sandkerwa enhances Bamberg. It does not detract from it, and the only discernible pigheadedness comes to you on a plate, with dumplings.

Daily satisfaction doesn’t strike me as an impossible ideal. For most of us, everyday life occurs in a fixed location, amid relatively repetitive habits. If given a choice, I’d prefer these milieus and aspects of normal existence to be “special” all of the time, not just once in a while.

Yes, an annual event like Sandkerwa is wonderful, but Bamberg’s the kind of city where every day is edifying. Similarly, Munich is worth a visit any day out of the year, and not only when Oktoberfest happens to be running, and you could be at one of fifty beer palaces in Munich during Oktoberfest, enjoying their usual bills of fare, and not even know a festival is running.

My current obsession involves breaking the one-off cycle, or at the very least, offering an alternative to it. There is a daily consistency borne of undertow and tail winds, establishing a salutary pattern of everyday excellence, against which is contrasted the one-offs, specials, events and celebrations. The latter provide diversity and add spice, although to me, the prime objective remains excellence all of the time.

It’s instructive to close a street on a Sunday and let bicyclists and pedestrians use it. It’s better if the street can be shared, and humans without cars can use it every day.

Once upon a time, better beer was an occasional treat, something so rare in a place like New Albany that merely finding required planning and effort. These days, it’s much easier to sate one’s thirst, any day.

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Earlier on Monday at Against the Grain, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer held a press conference to release a report authored by a Local Brewery Work Group, of which I was a member. The mayor did well, and beer before lunch made me yearn for a resumption of vacation.

At Insider Louisville, Kevin Gibson elaborates:

The Local Brewery Work Group, appointed by Fischer earlier this year, developed the recommendations and strategies to maximize the local craft beer industry, increase its impact on jobs, culture and tourism, and renew the strong beer heritage Louisville once boasted.

In keeping with the notion of day-in, day-out, only one of the five key recommendations pertains to the establishment of a “special” event (one to be bourbon barrel-themed). The others address the advancement of “craft” beer consciousness in Louisville throughout the year.

These five recommendations:

1. Develop an official beer trail/beer map/website/video combination to help promote all local breweries and offer both residents and visitors information on what sets the breweries apart, where they are located, and offer virtual and printed maps that can be seen/distributed at the breweries and other places around town. A bike trail would also be developed with local artists and breweries creating bike racks in front of each brewery.

2. Change Alcohol Beverage Control laws to be more beer friendly. Currently, it is a difficult and winding process to open a brewery, and with the brewing community growing in Louisville and around the state, breweries feel the process should be more intuitive and organized. In addition, it remains difficult for breweries to hold special events, conduct tastings and other promotional activities.

3. Represent local breweries and their products in more city events, functions and venues. Since alcoholic beverages must run through distributors as part of the post-Prohibition three-tier system, it can be difficult for smaller, local breweries to be represented at large events. The goal is to bring down the walls that have blocked local breweries so they can be represented, specifically in city-affiliated events and venues.

4. Create a bourbon-barrel event that will be recognized nationally and internationally. Bourbon is a natural draw, which makes bourbon barrel-aged beer a logical and national way to represent Louisville’s brewing community. Growing such an event not only promotes beer hand-in-hand with the state’s signature spirit, it also draws attention from around the U.S. that Louisville is, indeed, a worthy beer destination as well as a bourbon and dining destination.

5. Reconnect Louisville with its brewing heritage. Many in the city are unaware of the rich history of brewing in Louisville, and the rich heritage in beer culture in general. Louisville was once not just a thriving brewing hub, but also filled with lush, German beer gardens and beer celebrations that can and should be revived today to help promote local brewing culture.

Look closely at the third recommendation, because this morning, at Louisville Slugger Field, with neither a Louisville Bats flunky nor Centerplate functionary in attendance, Louisville’s mayor made the public case for greater local brewery representation at city-owned venues … like Louisville Slugger Field.

You get one guess as to who wrote those words for the report.

Implementation may well be elusive, but vindication ... well, it tastes even better than one’s daily session pint.

"Mayor Fischer to announce initiative to promote Louisville beer at press conference Monday."

Kevin Gibson explains how the Mayor's Beer Work Group came to be, and previews the announcement of findings and recommendations, which will be released on Monday morning (October 13) at 10:00 a.m. at Against the Grain.

Exclusive: Mayor Fischer to announce initiative to promote Louisville beer at press conference Monday (Insider Louisville)

Just under a year ago, Mayor Greg Fischer announced an initiative to boost Louisville’s bourbon and dining culture as a major tourist draw.

“They think of Napa Valley for wine,” Fischer said at the time. “We want them to think of Louisville for bourbon.”

The committee charged with driving the initiative was made up of representatives from the bourbon, dining and tourism industry. Even the coffee segment was represented. Brewing was not. And many in the brewing scene took exception.

As Kevin notes, John King and the Kentucky Guild of Brewers grabbed this educational opportunity and wouldn't let go, leading to the establishment of the committee.

I was on the study group. In addition, I was "on it" back in December of 2013, when the bourbon and dining initiative first initiated the brewing business backlash, and the following column was a result. You might find it worth rereading. It seems to me that Mayor Fischer recovered nicely from the faux pas, and tomorrow morning's announcement should be fun.

Now comes the best part. Will anything actually happen?

The PC: Bourbon, bone marrow, Greg Fischer … and Stella Artois?

... Fischer’s advisors neglected to remind him that other elements of the city’s food and drink culture might feel slighted if not mentioned during the photo op, and indeed, nothing whatsoever was said about wine, coffee, food trucks … or craft beer. This is unfortunate, as a mere paragraph surely would have sufficed as appeasement, but someone ineptly dropped the ball … and thinking back to that insular space within the hospitality industry zone, it was inevitable that disaffection would come to be expressed.

See also:

The PC: Now that the Louisville Bats have a new majority owner, are the prospects for local beer in the ball yard any brighter?

The PC: The steamy sweetness of watery boats.

The PC: The steamy sweetness of watery boats.

THE PC: The steamy sweetness of watery boats.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Lately my Twitter feed has been invaded on a daily basis by sponsored tweets touting the city of Louisville’s Centennial Festival of Riverboats in October.

Obviously, the prominent player in this celebration is the birthday girl herself, the 100-year-old Belle of Louisville, a steamboat locally owned and operated by none other than the city of Louisville itself.

Before I return to this historic event, it’s useful to recall that earlier this summer, Mayor Greg Fischer commissioned a study group of local beer industry people, of whom I was one, to meet and discuss ways the city of Louisville might help promote locally brewed “craft” beer.

(As a side note, I was (and remain) genuinely flattered to be included in the group. Owing to the state line, NABC both is and isn’t a part of Louisville, depending on the definition used to determine such judgments. We’re here, and then we aren’t. It’s just the way it’s always been, and I appreciate Fischer’s team being broad-minded about it)

After three substantive meetings, the study group emerged with a document containing five points, with recommendations:

1. Develop an official beer trail/beer map/website/video combination
2. Change ABC laws to be more beer friendly
3. Represent local breweries in more city events, functions and venues
4. Create a bourbon-barrel event that will be recognized nationally or internationally
5. Reconnect Louisville with its brewing heritage

My committee assignment was Number Three, and here is our recommendation. You might even be able to tell who wrote it.

Louisville Metro Breweries in local city owned venues

The mayors work group recommends that more local breweries be included in city-sponsored events and on city owned property. Louisville Metro breweries would like the opportunity to sell beer at such events like Waterfront Wednesday, Slugger Field, Iroquois Park, Yum! Center. Also noted, Louisville Metro breweries like to be included in city sponsored events or festivals such as Hike, Bike, and Paddle, Worldfest, and Blues, Brews, and BBQ.

Details for Recommendations

It is widely understood and accepted that Metro Louisville government is an equal opportunity employer, one that seeks to utilize minority, female and handicapped employees, whether when hired directly, or indirectly through contractors, suppliers and vendors. The importance of these precepts extends far beyond beer and brewing, to government’s fundamental aim of providing conditions for the improvement of daily life.

In like fashion, metro Louisville government understands the critical importance of the local economy in a sustainable future, as well as the key position that locally generated food and drink businesses occupy in the city’s outreach, whether within the community itself, or directed toward visitors from elsewhere. Alongside urban bourbon heritage and an explosion in innovative dining, Louisville’s breweries serve as exemplars of this new economy.

Aspects of pre-existing “older” economic systems sometimes must be modified to fit new and evolving realities. As an example, it has remained the case that customary concessions practices in venues for sports and music have evolved from the three-tier alcoholic beverage distribution system at state and federal levels, and to a certain degree, reflect private commercial matters between concessionaires and wholesalers.

And yet, there is nothing fundamentally ‘Louisville” about concessions choices emanating solely from contractual arrangements that the general public never sees. For native and tourist alike, viewing a baseball game at a venue such as Louisville Slugger Field should present the opportunity to inform and offer choices that pertain to the community which laid for the venue’s construction – that speak to Louisville itself.

Reflecting the reality that private for-profit businesses entities and drinks vendors utilize publicly financed venues and facilities, Metro Louisville government seeks to be a positive force in encouraging these entities and vendors to provide equal opportunities for local brewers, precisely because public financing of these venues implies acceptance of the merits of equal opportunity, as well as providing the ideal forum to educate attendees as to the merits of local, sustainable economies.

Metro Louisville government supports the creation of branded, destination concessions areas unique to the venues its taxpayers have financed. It works to educate concessionaires as to the benefits of a contemporary local economy as it pertains to beer and brewing, safe in the knowledge that profit margins for handcrafted beers can be equal to or greater than those for products supplied by multinational breweries.

In short, Metro Louisville government enthusiastically greets the chance to expand local brewing consciousness by use of the landlord’s bully pulpit in venues/events that include, but are not limited to, Slugger Field; Waterfront Wednesday; Iroquois Amphitheater; YUM! Center and Hike, Bike and Paddle.

It figures, doesn’t it? The one city-owned venue/property/object we forgot the mention was the Belle of Louisville, and this morning’s sponsored tweet reveals the reason why the omission rankles.

That’s right. For a once-in-a-lifetime event purporting to exalt all things metaphorically Louisvillian, there’ll be a special Belle of Louisville cruise featuring beers from … Atlanta, and yes, of course I understand that Sweetwater and River City Distributing are helping to sponsor the shindig by paying for whatever expedient combination of program ads and titles were up for grabs, but you see, it’s just that the idea itself sounds so very much like something emanating from the brain of a small-time marketer (“Georgia, Schmorgia – the beer’s got WATER in the name, and it’s a BOAT!) that my gag factor is heightened another notch or two.

I’ve got nothing against Sweetwater, and in fact, if I were to be marooned in Atlanta any time soon, I’d seek out the beers – you know, localism and all that.

It’s just to me, and I’m probably in the minority like always, there is no substantive difference between AB InBev’s ability to alter the marketplace with cash from very far away, and Sweetwater’s.

Look, I’m sure the sweetsteamwaterboat event was planned long before the advent of the study committee and its recommendations. At the same time, the study committee’s recommendations specifically pertain to a situation like this, even if we didn’t think to refer to it by name. And so, I will, because someone’s got to do it.

Perhaps by the time the Belle of Louisville’s bicentennial hits the Ohio River in 2114, there’ll be firm and abiding localist beer principles in place, although it’s far more likely that by then, we’ll have reverted to the brewery population distribution of 1980, and will require a “craft” brewing revolution all over again.

Too bad I’ll miss it. They’re fun, at least until they aren’t.

The PC: Bourbon, bone marrow, Greg Fischer … and Stella Artois?

(Published at LouisvilleBeer.com on December 8, 2013)

Bourbon, bone marrow, Greg Fischer … and Stella Artois?

My New Year’s resolution was going to be writing this column weekly, rather than twice monthly, in 2014. Might as well get started.  

Whether working as brewers, taco slingers, distillers, baristas, vintners or sous chefs, we customarily inhabit an insular space within the hospitality industry zone.

Of course, the trick is to make insularity more expansive, and to link and project our individual artisanal skills in a big-picture way so that the ripples carry beyond the inner sanctum of true believers, far out into the broader world where the casually interested people live. Get them to look your way, and you’ve got something.

Kentucky’s bourbon makers grasped this point long ago. As a spirit, bourbon is strictly defined, and even if the geographical element is somewhat more porous than before, the fact remains that bourbon makers consciously group themselves as Kentucky Bourbon, and are unified in anchoring a sizeable element of their product’s allure to a particular place – what’s more, to a specific state of mind, and to a story told often and persuasively.

It wouldn’t take a befuddled alien from outer space very long to absorb contemporary bourbon’s savvy place-making expertise. All bourbons come from quaint little towns in the atmospheric backwoods, where the 6th or 7th generation of a family relies on its oldest living member – generally a weather-beaten, impossibly wise male fueled entirely on pork belly and grits – to magically render hand-crafted rarities that city folks will sell their first-born children to possess. It matters less whether any of it is true, and more that the branding is irresistible and awe-inspiring.

The city? It usually gets a cut, one way or another.

When I was growing up, my father’s view of Louisville was a city governed by a coalition of bourbon, tobacco and horse breeders, with politicians finishing a distant fourth in the power hierarchy. Tobacco’s nicotine addiction may have jarred it from the governing elite, although its failure to self-reinvent as a hand-rolled, designer cigar purveyor didn’t help, either. The horse pimps are still very much with us, even if bankrolled from Arab sheikdoms. Right now, the Kentucky Bourbon Kingdom is second only to Big Coal, and the trail of native intoxicants originating in the mountainous hinterlands has become urbanized.

As well it should.

The only odd part about Louisville taking full advantage of its own time-honored position in the Commonwealth’s chain of bourbon legacies is that it took so long to cement. Combining the bourbon renaissance with the city’s astounding culinary reputation is as close to a no-brainer as can be experienced, drunk or dead sober – even when viewed by a New Albany city councilman.

And so it was that last week, Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville breathlessly announced the summoning of a task force filled with corn-whisky conjurers and superstar chefs, with a PR- and tourism-driven mission of assisting an eager planet in viewing Louisville as the end-all when it comes both to bourbon and dining.

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Naturally, it should come as no surprise when a politician expresses enthused, selfless willingness to tether himself to an explosively marketable phenomenon … and this is not to be taken as a criticism of Fischer. The idea is fundamentally sound, and at some point, he’ll need to be re-elected. In the mayor’s circles, it’s pronounced “win-win.”

Of course, there was a small catch.

Fischer’s advisors neglected to remind him that other elements of the city’s food and drink culture might feel slighted if not mentioned during the photo op, and indeed, nothing whatsoever was said about wine, coffee, food trucks … or craft beer. This is unfortunate, as a mere paragraph surely would have sufficed as appeasement, but someone ineptly dropped the ball … and thinking back to that insular space within the hospitality industry zone, it was inevitable that disaffection would come to be expressed.

As well it should have been.

I’ve mostly refrained from the ensuing ruckus. While NABC’s location in a neighboring state is subject to ever-changing conceptual definitions, some inclusive and others not, our connection to politics is inexorably Hoosier, That’s the way it works, and so I’ve been largely content to be a bystander and read as Sam Cruz of Against the Grain voiced annoyance on Twitter, Elizabeth Myers upped the ante at Louisville.com, and a thoughtful piece by Steve Coomes at Insider Louisville (where free-lancer Kevin Gibson originally broke the task force story) providedworthwhile counterpoint.

No one asked me (ahem), but I see all this as a valuable team building exercise. If there is to be a cogent rebuttal from the craft brewing community in Louisville and the state of Kentucky, it needs to stem from a position of principled unity among the breweries, and preferably, be expressed by the Kentucky Guild of Brewers (KGB). The message should be educational, about the craft beer segment as a whole, and addressing KGB’s existence and ultimate aims.

Politicians simply do not regard scattered on-line complaints with the same alacrity as those bearing even the slightest hint of massed, monolithic intent. For all I know, a statement of principle is already on the way to the mayor, better to snap his neck forward and suggest heightened diligence on the part of staff and himself in the future. Information? It makes him a better mayor.

Building blocks of cooperation and unity require time for organization, and this is a great and enduring challenge for craft brewers in the general sense. We’re independent-minded, under-financed, short-staffed and very busy – and what I’m learning more and more with each passing day is that we cannot afford to use these nagging circumstances as excuses.

As a director on the board of the Brewers of Indiana Guild, I can say that BIG has made considerable progress trudging uphill to a point where in Indianapolis, political personages like Louisville’s mayor (and his staffers) are becoming accustomed to consulting the craft brewing bloc, if only to gauge its point of view as an entity representing enhanced numbers and escalating economic clout.

The message might still elude county seats, and that’s why an active alliance between craft brewers and localists is so absolutely essential. For one thing, local brewing and localism are contextually synonymous. More importantly, local brewers telling their stories in local vernacular constitutes the only language any politician absolutely can be relied upon to understand –voting, remember? The story must be told over and over, to the point where you’re feeling like quaffing a nice, cold Miller Lite rather than repeating those same words yet again to a clueless council member or bumbling chamber of commerce propagandist.

That’s the way it works, and we just have to do it. Let’s hope Mayor Fischer gets the craft beer message, because there’s likely to be another seat at the table for those in a position to claim it … if they will.