Light beer? It’s from right here in New Albany.

The greatest New Albany story, seldom told, and one worth remembering.

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LIGHT BEER? IT'S FROM RIGHT HERE ... by Roger A. Baylor.

In 1909, the German-language Louisville Anzeiger newspaper praised Augustus Tusch, a citizen of neighboring New Albany.

“Herr Tusch is a lager brewer of great repute whose cleanliness and quality is of the highest order, with barrels filled and delivered fresh within the astounding radius of ten blocks from his business address.”

It seems that Tusch was about to release a revolutionary new product. Who was this long forgotten New Albanian, and what was his plan to reorder the brewing universe?

Tusch was born in 1861 in Einenwitz, a Bavarian village internationally famous for the pureness of its drinking water. His itinerant father trained him to be a magician, but the young man changed careers in 1884, after a card trick went awry and injured a prelate’s eye. Fleeing town, he became a brewer’s apprentice in Lustigstadt, later eloping with his employer’s youngest daughter, Weitta, and relocating to Northern Germany.

The couple decided to immigrate to America. While working as a waiter in Hamburg to save money for the overseas journey, Tusch became acquainted with the city’s renowned Diät Pils, a low-strength, highly attenuated lager designered specifically for diabetics, consumptives and the chronically ill.

“Those poor, desperate drinkers are told that Diät Pils, which comes at a higher price, has less sugar and can be consumed in small amounts without detriment to their condition,” wrote Tusch, “but they still drink more of it because, they contend, it feels less full in their stomachs. Very interesting, this illusion.”

When the liner Teutonophilia left Hamburg for the United States, the Tusches had little to call their own. Their wooden chest contained earthenware beer mugs, a matrimonial pretzel mold, and – written in code – the secret technique for “triple hopping” that Tusch intended to use at his future brewery.

In 1902, Tusch’s dream finally came true, and a magnificent brewing plant was built in New Albany at the corner of West 8th and Water Streets. He immediately saw that while the older citizens preferred traditional styles, ensuing generations were stirring from ancient ways. Intrigued yet cautious, Tusch began ruminating.

There was German brewing, and then there was American marketing. He recalled his father’s magic tricks, and pondered:

“When the neighborhood men, these glassmakers and carpenters and blacksmiths, send their lovely rosy-cheeked children to me for growlers of beer, how might I convince them to pay for two buckets to hang from the handle bars of their bicycles, and not merely one?”

The answer finally came one late summer day, when Tusch accepted an acquaintance’s lunch invitation. Upon arrival, he was shocked – neither at the salad being prepared with vegetables from a patch by the street-side sewage ditch (in German, “Neuealbaneekanal”), nor the flank steak from the little butcher shop opposite Churchill Downs, but because the soup stock was none other than Tusch’s own Aecht Fett Tuscher Doppelbock.

“Scheisse!,” Tusch exclaimed. “My beer is so heavy that it makes barley soup!”

“The ancient monks were not speaking in riddles. Their beer really was liquid bread. Small wonder that my delivery wagons break down just a day after the thousand mile warranty is passed, and the children can convey only one bucket at a time to their toiling fathers. My Fett Tuscher weighs too much!”

Tusch’s conclusion was elegantly simple: “I must make light beer.”

He soon discovered that brewing light beer would require an entirely different technical approach. Previously, all beer had been dark in color, as stained by the inky residue of coal smoke in rusty kettles seldom cleaned. How to make this blackness into pale?

With the help of tanners at the nearby Moser firm, Tusch found that dark beer could be given a harsh lye bath, rendering it a bleached golden hue, and making it lighter in liquid weight by an impressive average of 25% per hundred barrels.

As for the “secret” triple hopping, Tusch discovered with considerable dismay that it actually was the norm in brewing circles worldwide, but anticipating the deceptive utility of the term for the purposes of salesmanship, he chose instead to keep the phrase and slash the hop presence in his new beer to almost nothing. Another 25% of weight duly vanished.

The result, dubbed Tuscher Leicht, clearly predates the modern light beer phenomenon by as many as fifty years. Ingeniously, Tusch had reduced the cost of production by half, and the beer itself, advertised as healthy in moderation, was so watery that drinkers could be counted on to consume even more of it at precisely the same price, without ever really thinking about the higher final toll on their wallets.

On April 1, 1910, the inaugural batch of Tusch’s new light beer emerged from the lagering cellar after ten days, was racked into massive wooden barrels, and loaded onto a brewery delivery wagon, much to the relief of a team of horses accustomed to far heavier beer. Numerous advance orders were waiting to be filled, and the forecast looked bright.

Alas, at this moment of triumph, the story of Augustus Tusch ends in tragedy.

When that very first wagon filled with Tuscher Leicht left the brewery yard, it struck Tusch, who had stepped outside to light his pipe, tripped when his boot caught a snag in the jagged, unrepaired sidewalk (the “Neuealbaneekranksteig”), and fell straight into the path of the unstoppable vehicle.

Tusch, the only man who knew the exact recipe for Tuscher Leicht, died later that day in St. Edward’s hospital, a doomed victim of the unbeerable erring of lightness.

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Farting on cue: Roland might be the perfect mascot for New Albany's Break Wind Lofts at Duggins Flats.

In New Albany, professional flatulence is alive, well and residing in the very bowels of the economic dishevelment department.

Seriously, the "luxury" apartments at the Coyle site will be called The Breakwater. No, really.

Flaherty and Collins kicks off Break Wind Flats with a boffo map fail.

What's missing is Roland's commitment to craftsmanship. In olden times, they really had to be good at what they did ... or their heads went merrily rolling.

THE TRUE STORY OF ROLAND THE FARTER, AND HOW THE INTERNET KILLED PROFESSIONAL FLATULENCE, by Linda Rodriguez (Atlas Obscura)

Roland, court minstrel to 12th century English king Henry II, probably had many talents.

But history has recorded only one.

Referred to variously Rowland le Sarcere, Roland le Fartere, Roland le Petour, and Roland the Farter, Roland really had one job in the court: Every Christmas, during the court’s riotous pageant, he performed a dance that ended with “one jump, one whistle, and one fart”, executed simultaneously.

For this, Roland was gifted a manor house in Hemingstone, Suffolk, and more than 100 acres of land.

For farting on cue ...

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Dropping in on New Albany's Donum Dei Brewery.

This was the beer board at Donum Dei Brewery on Thursday, December 10.

This is the view of Donum Dei's front-of-house on Friday the 11th, with Christmas tree and 70-degree temps.

For the uninitiated, Donum Dei opened on St. Patrick's Day (2015), and is Rick and Kim Otey's labor of love. It is located a few hundred yards away from NABC's original location. If you can find the Lee's Fried Chicken by the railroad track on Grant Line Road, you're almost there; it's in the strip mall off Rolling Creek Drive, behind the El Nopal.

I've had all the beers listed above, most recently the Enkel and Populo. Rick's Enkel is a "single" in the Abbey style, pale, sessionable and delicious. His Populo is what people say they brew but usually don't: A genuine Brown Porter, not to be confused with Robust, and similar to Mild in being dark, light and refreshing all at once.

In case you're wondering, the 812 Nouveau refers to the wet hops of origin from the Eight One Two Farms near Columbus, Indiana.

Final word: Cheap pours all day Tuesday. Shall we refer to it as  the Northside Brewery Corridor?

Of a few taverns past, and some new ones on the way.

Here in New Albany, the shortest way to drive from the vicinity of my Midtown home to the Charlestown Road corridor north of I-265 is to proceed first to Vincennes Street, than hang a right onto Charlestown Road and follow it all the way out.

Doing so, you'll pass a vacant spot by Silver Street where Steinert's Tavern  used to stand before it burned down a few years back. It eventually restarted downtown, but folded. All told, it was one of New Albany's oldest drinking establishments.

A bit further up Charlestown Road, on the right side at Slate Run Road, there stands a modern strip mall on the site of what was called the Lone Star (I believe in olden times it was a lumberyard), then became a Tumbleweed some time around 1983, when the Tex-Mex chain still was local. It burned about a decade back, and was demolished.

Another mile down Charlestown Road at the Blackiston Mill Road intersection are the foundations of Sam's Food & Spirits, which occupied the spot from about 1985 through 2013; it burned just before Christmas, and was recently torn down. Before it was Sam's, it was Ye Olde Mill Inn, the Gasthaus, and for decades prior, the Fourth Dam Tavern.

I turned 21 in 1981, and from that point through 1987, when I first began hanging out at Sportstime Pizza five years before actually joining the business, probably 95% of my drinking occurred at Steinert's (until I was kicked out in a dispute over a salt shaker), Tumbleweed, Sam's and the K & H Cafe in Lanesville. Only the latter never burned, and although the bar business there never ceased being operational (it's Big Momma's nowadays), I haven't been inside since the Schneiders retired in the early 1990s.

My dwelling on these memories may have something to do with aging, or with the revelation that an old, dilapidated tavern building near my house is slated for the wrecking ball:

Some of the taverns at 922 Culbertson, from 1937-1996.

What happens to the ghosts of drinkers past when the buildings go away? Must they find a new spot to haunt?

Of more a optimistic orientation are these stories of impending debuts. Great Flood has started brewing, with NABC's David Pierce providing some helpful hints.

VIDEO: Louisville’s Newest Brewery – Great Flood Brewing

... and three other food and drink businesses on the way have caught my eye. Big Four Burgers is owned by Matt McMahan, who also owns Irish Exit in New Albany:

Big Four Burgers eyeing more in downtown New Albany

In Louisville, there's another branch of the BBC empire coming:

BBC-run Brewhouse to replace Dark Star on Frankfort

Finally, where the epochal Maido used to be, comes a new Japanese eatery:

Old Maido location to re-open as Bar Code 1758, featuring Japanese fare

Will the beer selection at Bar Code 1758 come close to what Jim used to stock at Maido? We boys (and girls) can dream -- of old and new watering holes, and of wasabi and Hop Slam speedballs.

Scotch de Ainslie: Now on tap at both NABC locations. Here's what it means.

Hew Ainslie, New Albany's first commercial brewer, is the inspiration for NABC's Scotch de Ainslie, currently on tap at both locations.

But who was Ainslie?

The biographical sketch below was written by Louisville goldsmith, writer and homebrewer Conrad Selle, with editing by the author. Originally it was published in the FOSSILS newsletter circa 1994. Later it was a staple on the club's web site, and was republished at Potable Curmudgeon in 2005. Many thanks to Conrad, whose tireless research into Louisville area brewing can be experienced in Louisville Breweries, co-written with Peter Guetig. There was only one printing, but a few copies still may be floating around.  

In 2012, NABC brewed four special "throwback" beers for our 25th anniversary. Three of them (Turbo Hog, Stumble Bus and Bourbondaddy) were revivals of pre-2006 recipes formulated by Michael Borchers. Scotch de Ainslie was the fourth, slated for release in December as a prelude to New Albany's Bicentennial celebration in 2013.

Scotch de Ainslie is a 7.4% Scottish-style ale in Wee Heavy territory, but with a twist, one having nothing whatever to do with Ainslie or the typical Scottish ale-making range: We used Belgian yeast, placing Scotch de Ainslie in the smaller, more esoteric category of Belgian Scotch Ales like Gordon's, Campbell's, and my consistent personal favorite, Scotch de Silly.  

Make no mistake: Scotch de Ainslie is a malt bomb, but not without balance. The Belgian yeast accounts for fruity esters that provide a unique complexity to the flavor. The fact that we brewed it early in the year so as to have a bit for preview at the July anniversary party, then sat on the remainder for four months, makes the finished product quite mellow.

Get some before it goes; there isn't much. Here's the rest of the story.

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Early New Albany brewer and Scottish-American poet Hew Ainslie ... by Conrad Selle.

Many early brewers worked their trade as a sideline or temporary trade before moving on to other occupations. Hew Ainslie is unique for having been principally a poet.
He was born at Bargany in Ayrshire, Scotland on April 5, 1792. Hew was the only son of George Ainslie, an employee on the estate of Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton. He was educated in the parish school at Ballantrae, and later at the academy at Ayr. In 1809 his family moved to Roslin, about six miles from Edinburgh. He married his cousin Janet Ainslie in 1812, whose brother Jock had married Hew's sister Eleanora.

Ainslie studied law in Glasgow, and worked as a clerk in the Register House in Edinburgh. In 1820 he revisited Ayrshire on foot with James Wellstood and John Gibson and in the next two years wrote A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, which was published in London in 1822. The book was an account of their travels and visits with some of Robert Burns's contemporaries, with songs and ballads by Ainslie that were much in the style of Burns, and illustrations by Wellstood.

In July, 1822, Ainslie sailed from Liverpool to New York with his friend Wellstood. Mrs. Ainslie and their three children joined him in the following year. Ainslie and Wellstood purchased Pilgrim's Repose, a farm at Hoosac Falls in Rensselaer County, New York. Ainslie and his family lived there for almost three years before joining Robert Owen's utopian socialist cooperative community at New Harmony, Indiana in 1825.

When Owen's community failed about a year later they moved first to Cincinnati, where Ainslie became a partner with Price and (Thomas) Wood in a brewery, then to Louisville. In Louisville, a town of 7,000, Ainslie opened a brewery in 1829 at 7th Street between Water and Main. Records show that B. Foster, Enoch Wenzell and Robert McKenzie worked there.

In February, 1832 there was a major flood of the Ohio River, with the river's waters rising to 46 feet above the low water level. A contemporary account of the "calamity" reads:

This was an unparalleled flood in the Ohio. It commenced on the 10th of February and continued until the 21st of that month, having risen to (an) extraordinary height ... above low-water mark. The destruction of property by this flood was immense. Nearly all the frame buildings near the river were either floated off or turned over and destroyed. An almost total cessation in business was the necessary consequence; even farmers from the neighborhood were unable to get to the markets, the flood having so affected the smaller streams as to render them impassable. The description of the sufferings by this flood is appalling ...

Ainslie's brewery was swept away with most of the neighborhood, but in the following years he remained in the beer business, working at the Nuttall brewery on the west side of 6th Street between Water and Main.

In 1840 he opened the first brewery in New Albany, the partnership of Bottomley & Ainslie. Soon that business was destroyed by fire. In the 1841 Louisville City Directory, Hew Ainslie is listed as a maltster; it was his last listing in the brewing trade. Discouraged by fire and flood, he gave up the brewing business altogether. Thereafter, his working life became somewhat intertwined with that of his children, particularly George and James Wellstood Ainslie.

Hew and Janet Ainslie had ten children, seven of them surviving to adulthood. George Ainslie, the eldest Ainslie son, had been apprenticed to Lachan McDougall around 1830 to learn the iron foundry and moulding trade, and he had acquired a solid business and technical education. He became a foreman at John Curry's foundry and married Mary Thirlwell, daughter of Charles Thirlwell, who was a brewer at the Nuttall Brewery (Hew Ainslie's one-time employer).
Thirlwell eventually acquired Nuttall and operated it until 1856. In 1842, George Ainslie became a partner in Gowan and McGhee's Boone Foundry. By 1845 Hew Ainslie -- still a poet throughout -- was employed as a finisher there as well as working as a contractor and in the building trades.

George and James Ainslie became highly successful in the foundry and machine business, enabling their father to devote more time to writing in later life. In 1853, Hew Ainslie made a long visit to New Jersey to visit members of the family of James Wellstood, undoubtedly providing the poet with a nostalgic link to the Scotland of his youth.

In 1855 a collection of Ainslie's verse, Scottish Songs, Ballads and Poetry, was published in New York. One latter-day commentator called Ainslie's songs of the sea "the best that Scotland has produced," and perhaps this assessment was borne out by the reception accorded Ainslie in Scottish literary circles in 1863, when he returned to Scotland for a final visit.

Janet Ainslie died in 1863 prior to Hew's last Scottish journey. In 1868 the elderly poet/brewer went to live with his son George in a new home on Chestnut Street (between 9th and 10th) in Louisville, where he spent the last decade of his life and was a familiar sight as he passed time tending the garden there. Ainslie died on March 6, 1878, and was eulogized in the Courier-Journal as "a poet of considerable merit to the people of his native land." Hew and Janet Ainslie are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.

In addition to the many accomplishments noted previously, Ainslie is remembered for his height -- at 6 feet, 4 inches, he referred to himself in his works as "The Lang Linker" -- and for never losing his Scottish accent during almost six decades in America.

There is no specific information to be found as to the products of the breweries with which Hew Ainslie was involved in Louisville and New Albany, but we can surmise from the available evidence that they were typical small breweries of the time, with four or five employees, making ale, porter and stout. As a man who appreciated truth and beauty, it is likely that Hew Ainslie made good malt, and being conscientious with it, good beer as well.

The following poems by Hew Ainslie are copied from the Filson Historical Society's extremely rare copy of A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns and Poetry, Ainslie's 1822 work combined with later efforts and reprinted in 1892, the centenary of his birth.

(Author's note: I have heard a scrap or two of Robert Burns, and expect these are much better read aloud in Scots dialect.)

THE DAFT DAYS.
The midnight hour is clinking, lads,
An' the douce an' the decent are winking, lads;
Sae I tell ye again,
Be't weel or ill ta'en,
It's time ye were quatting your drinking, lads.
Gae ben, 'an mind your gauntry, Kate,
Gi'es mair o' your beer, an' less bantry, Kate,
For we vow, whaur we sit,
That afore we shall flit,
We'se be better acquaint wi' your pantry, Kate.
The "daft days" are but beginning, Kate,
An we're sworn. Would you hae us a sinning, Kate?
By our faith an' our houp,
We will stick by the stoup
As lang as the barrel keeps rinning, Kate.
Thro' hay, an' thro' hairst, sair we toil it, Kate,
Thro' Simmer, an' Winter, we moil it, Kate;
Sae ye ken, whan the wheel
Is beginning to squeal,
It's time for to grease an' to oil it, Kate.
Sae draw us anither drappy, Kate,
An' gie us a cake to our cappy, Kate;
For, by spiggot an' pin!
It's waur than a sin
To flit when we're sitting sae happy, Kate.

LET'S DRINK TO OUR NEXT MEETING.
Let's drink to our next meeting, lads,
Nor think on what's atwixt;
They're fools wha spoil the present hour
By thinking on the next.
Then here's to Meg o' Morningside,
An Kate o' Kittlemark;
The taen she drank her hose and shoon,
The tither pawned her sark.
A load o' wealth, an' wardly pelf,
They say is sair to bear;
Sae he's a gowk would scrape an' howk
To make his burden mair

Then here's , &c.
Gif Care looks black the morn, lads,

As he's come doon the lum,
Let's ease our hearts by swearing, lads,
We never bade him come.
Then here's, &c.
Then here's to our next meeting, lads,
Ne'er think on what's atwixt;
They're fools who spoil the present hour
By thinking on the next.
Then here's, &c.

THE HOOSIER .
We lads that live up in the nobs,
Tho' our manners might yet bear a rubbing,
We're handy at neat little jobs
Such as chopping and hewing and grubbing.
Tho' we roost in a cabin of logs,
And clapboards lie 'twixt us and heaven,
Our mast makes us fine oily hogs,
And from hoop-poles we pick a good living.
Right quiet -- to a decent degree --
it's seldom we guzzle it deep, Sir,
Tho' we don't mind a bit of a spree,
Provided the liquor is cheap, Sir.
Our neighbours, that live 'cross the drink.
May laugh at our fondness for cider,
But so long as we pocket their clink
They may laugh till their mouths they grow wider.
Our gals make our trousers, you see,
From that beautiful stuff called tow linen,
and in coats of the linsey -- dang me,
If we don't look both handsome and winning.
Our wives are our weavers, to boot;
Ourselves are first rate on a shoe, Sir;
We can doctor a tub with a hoop --
And hark ! we're our own niggers too, Sir,
So here's to our Hoosier land,
The sons of its soil and its waters !
May the "nullies" ne'er get it in hand,
Nor demagogues tear it in tatters.
But still may it flourish and push,
Thro' vetos and all such tough cases,
Till railroads are common as brush,
And the nobs are as sleek as your faces.

To provide context to Ainslie's use of the "N" word, "The Hoosier" was intended as an anti-nullification poem -- a direct slap at the slave-owning caste south of the Ohio River, and a self-mocking espousal of the poor but free residents to the north. If any reader can shed further light on the history involved, please do.

Chef Rick Adams joins New Albany Exchange pub + kitchen.

Chef Adams posted clues at Facebook over the weekend, but I was out of town and neglected to follow up, so here's the good news, as provided by owner Ian Hall. Speaking for everyone at NABC: Welcome to the sunny side, Rick.

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I am proud to announce that after 2 months of searching for our new Executive Chef to oversee the kitchen, the New Albany Exchange pub + kitchen is proud to announce that Rick Adams has joined the team. I couldn't be more pleased with the decision and am looking forward to our new Summer menu rolling out in May that will showcase our kitchen's talent.

Chef Rick Adams has developed an unwavering loyal customer base generating succulent dishes using the finest local ingredients. Paying close attention to detail, he is able to constantly produce inventive and artistic cuisine that never fails to please. Most likely because his inspiration comes from the pure enjoyment of the creative process, churning out a menu from scratch has always been his passion.

Continually praised and featured in Louisville Food & Dining Magazine, Chef Rick Adams has received outstanding reviews in several local publication for his work at L&N Wine Bar & Bistro and Captain Quarters Riverside Grille. As one and his many accomplishments, after opening L&N, Chef Rick Adams constructed an innovative menu that established the Wine Bar & Bistro as a four-star restaurant and one of the top five restaurants in Louisville. Chef Rick Adams has also been highlighted on The Secrets of the Louisville Chefs three times, establishing him as an imaginative and inspirational local chef.

For more information on the Exchange please visit us at www.newalbanyexchange.com

At LouisvilleBeer.com: "Light beer? It’s from right here."

Kindly tolerate this reprise of a fondly remembered column from 2010.

Light beer? It’s from right here.

Posted by Roger Baylor in Baylor on Beer | 0 comments

In 1909, the German-language Louisville Anzeigernewspaper praised Augustus Tusch of neighboring New Albany.

“Herr Tusch is a lager brewer of great repute whose cleanliness and quality is of the highest order, with barrels filled and delivered fresh within the astounding radius of ten blocks from his business address.”

It seems that Tusch was about to release a revolutionary new product. Who was this long forgotten New Albanian, and what was his plan to reorder the brewing universe?

Celts on the River is Saturday, June 18th, 4 - 10 p.m.

NABC's Strathpeffer and Haggis Laddie are about to be brewed, and there's more information here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Celts-On-The-River-Festival/186048838098834?sk=wall

"Fresh local food for easy pick up at Bank Street Brewhouse."

My blogging co-editor Jeff Gillenwater authored this piece at NA Confidential. If you know someone who lives within range in Southern Indiana, please tell him or her about this opportunity. We only need a few more sign-ups to keep the drops continuing.

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Many of you may know about community supported agriculture projects (CSAs), local food distribution networks that help provide stable, predictable incomes to farmers in return for a share of their crops and production.

You may also know about Grasshoppers Distribution, a local CSA that distributes out of their warehouse in Louisville's Portland neighborhood.

From their web site:

Grasshoppers has improvised on this (CSA) model, to offer a multi-farm, all-natural and organically grown program that provides beef, chicken, pork, milk, cheese, and eggs as well as produce. Many of our CSA farms also have their own CSAs and sell at Farmers' Markets or other outlets. Our program provides them with a stable market and fair prices for the additional crops they can produce, creating another stream of income on the farm.

The income generated for Grasshoppers helps us pursue the new frontiers of local food opportunity, such as hospitals, schools, and other institutions. Our farmer-owned business is dedicated to building a local food economy on all levels, and we enthusiastically invite you to join us!

What you may not know is that Grasshoppers has been making deliveries to its New Albany customers each week at the New Albanian Bank Street Brewhouse for the past couple of seasons and wants to continue.

That's where you come in. In order to justify continued weekly deliveries for BSB pick up, Grasshoppers needs to increase its New Albany customer base. If enough people sign up for a CSA share of $18 or more per week and specify New Albany as their pick up location, Grasshoppers will deliver a box of fresh, local, organic food for them weekly or bi-weekly direct to the BSB patio for easy pick up every Wednesday from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. The spring/summer season runs from May 4 - November 18.

There's a wide variety of farm-fresh products available including fruits, vegetables, assorted meats, milk (in real glass bottles), cow and goat cheese, eggs, Blue Dog bread, and even locally produced desserts. You can mix and match the above items, choose a share for two or four people and weekly or bi-weekly delivery, and pay for it all with an upfront investment or on a monthly installment plan. Shareholders can also usually add extra, individual items to their regular weekly or bi-weekly deliveries.

CSAs shares work really well in conjunction with local farmers markets, too, potentially helping to supply items that may not be regularly available at the markets. Do both and consider the Downtown New Albany Farmers Market as well.

An updated Grasshoppers web site with added features like community areas for recipe sharing, guest bloggers, and online order add-ons should be launched soon, but for now:

A Grasshoppers brochure that specifies everything available and prices is here.(PDF)

Online registration and payment is available here.

Be sure to specify New Albany as your preferred pick up location. The spring registration deadline is April 18.

Any questions can be directed to April at Grasshoppers, april(AT)grasshoppersdistribution(DOT)com

New Albanian Night at Sam's Food & Spirits: Thursday, Nov. 11, starting at six.

It will be New Albanian Night at Sam's Food & Spirits (3800 Payne Koehler Road, New Albany) on Thursday, Nov. 11.

New Albanian Night
In keeping with our new Thursday Night tradition, Sam's New Albany welcomes the New Albanian Brewing Company Thursday, Nov. 11. Stop by from 6 to 9 p.m. and learn more about New Albanian. Sample products or purchase Abzug on tap and receive a chance for prizes.

But there's more:

Veterans Day at Sam's
Free dessert of choice with your meal for Veterans or active military service personnel. Present proof of military service on Veterans Day, Thursday, Nov. 11. Sam's thanks you for serving your country.

NABC's Southern Indiana Sales Department, otherwise known as the inimitable Richard Atnip, will be on hand, and I'll make an appearance of undetermined length as I fight through the ghosts of drinking evening past at Sam's. There was a time ... and might well be again.

St. Paul's Art on the Parish Green (with NABC beer), this weekend, June 5 & 6.

Did you know that St. Paul's Episcopal Church, located just around the corner from the Publican's household, is the oldest Episcopalian congregation in Indiana? It dates back 175 years.

The coming weekend will be St. Paul's 4th annual Art on the Parish Green. The church's historic grounds are given over to a multitude of arts and crafts, with live music, food and beer from the New Albanian Brewing Company (tentative choices: Abzug, Community Dark and Elector). Don't forget the Sunday hours, enabling you to make Fest of Ale and Art on the Parish Green in one entertaining weekend. For complete information, hit the Internet:

Art on the Parish Green web site

Art on the Parish Green Facebook site

River City Winery now sampling in downtown New Albany.

Yesterday was the monthly "First Tuesday" mixer, co-hosted by Develop New Albany and the River City Winery. The photo above was taken by Ted Fulmore, and to view more, click here. I was busy dodging paparazzi determined to catch me in the act of drinking something other than beer, which turned out to be a dryish Cabernet/Merlot blend.

The River City Winery is located on Pearl Street, just a block away from the Bank Street Brewhouse. I call that "synergy."

The building renovation is nothing short of amazing, and the winery crew was busy bottling and applying labels downstairs as the event took place at ground level. I gleaned that there will be limited evening hours for wine tastings only beginning immediately, with food to follow later this summer (late July or August).

River City Winery website

Beer at the YMCA.

There are times when it amazes even me that we’ve been able to accomplish what we have in a community that places a shockingly low value on the notion of education, achievement and personal growth. In these parts, conservatism is not a doctrine founded on ideas and principles. Rather, it is an anguished primal scream in the general direction of anyone and anything that the adherent can’t or won’t comprehend.

Yes, New Albany has civic issues just like any other municipality, and yet a crazily disproportionate amount of the problems here stem from self-inflicted wounds. It took at least three years longer than it should have to accept a $20 million grant from the neighboring Horseshoe (formerly Caesar’s) casino foundation, match it with less than $150,000 a year from economic development funds, build a gleaming new YMCA facility atop a cleansed downtown brown field, and watch it attract precisely the sort of demographic that will help revitalize the historic core of the city.

Over the entrenched opposition of a minority of self-immolating dunderheads, we somehow pulled it off, albeit belatedly, and the Y opened two weeks ago to universal acclaim and packed crowds. As part of a reception for donors, movers and shakers, including the blatantly hypocritical appearance of two ex-councilmen who were prominent leaders of the campaign against it, the organizing committee asked me to bring NABC beers and pour them. I was happy to oblige.

Predictably, this innocuous scenario prompted a local pseudonymous blogger of decidedly troglodyte disposition to question the scandalous activity of drinking a beer within the building she venomously opposed: YMCA.

I answered them ay my other Internet portal: Freedom to Screech's attack on the YMCA: A sewer runs through her.

What’s sad about all this is the persistent implication that beer isn’t compatible with health, well-being and/or Christianity.

As for the former, numerous studies attest to the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.

As for the latter, the institution of the YMCA seems to have soft-pedaled the traditional religious connotations in favor of making its tent bigger, and that’s something the acrimonious American body politic could learn from. As an example, Trappist ales are as Christian as it gets, but it still seems to baffle some of my neighbors that there could be a connection between a monk and a brew kettle.

Presumably they’re the same ones who maintain a insupportable belief in the supposedly non-alcoholic wine of the Bible. Then again, the interpretation of nature (grapes) and natural processes (fermentation) can be selective on the part of the true believer.

In my world, it’s elegantly simple. You exercise, cleanse the body and mind, and then the beer and food tastes far better. That’s religion enough for me.

Fall Beer & Wine Fest at Bridge Liquors is Saturday, November 1.

I'll post this now and make corrections if necessary. If memory serves, there'll be a few other participants not mentioned below. Perhaps I shouldn't mention that I've been visiting Bridge Liquors since roughly ... never mind.

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Bridge Liquors Presents: Fall Beer & Wine Fest
Saturday, November 1, 3 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Admission - $15

Join us for a fall festival and holiday tastingfeaturing local craft breweries, craft beer distributors and wines. Main breweries featured are New Albanian, BBC, Brownings, Upland, Barley Island, Wabash Valley, Brugge.

Food available from J-train and Market St. Fish House. Boutique bourbons will be available for tasting inside as well as sparkling wines.

New Albany's Speakeasy will close after a final bash on Wednesday, October 29.

The news came Friday that New Albany's Speakeasy restaurant and jazz venue is closing its doors. The final going-away party is Wednesday, October 29.

At NAC: Final "Big Band Dance and Concert" next Wednesday at Speakeasy ... then, lights out.

Post-mortems will include references to the state of the economy, but it really wasn't that simple. Throughout its roughly 15-month run, the Speakeasy was acclaimed for physical ambience and the unique nature of the jazz and dancing concept. Unfortunately, consistency in service, food and drink proved elusive, and the learning curve was slow.

Anyone who has ever worked in the "hospitality" business knows how maddening it can be to translate a great concept into a functional entity on a day-to-day basis. It's never exactly the way you'd like it to be, even after (in my case) 16 years hashing it out. The bottom line revolves around your ability to make customers feel good about paying you for the service, and to make them feel good enough that they'll come back and repeat the process. It's glib, but its true. The marketplace is unforgiving in the best of times, and when money's tighter, the work becomes harder. Speakeasy never really mastered that equation, and speaking only for myself, I wish there'd have been a way for me to be of more assistance to the owners. The plan was great, and the execution wasn't.

What happens now? It has long been rumored that Louisville-area operators have an interest in the location, and the building's owner is committed to doing what he must to fill the space even if it takes time to find the right tenant. It seems unlikely to me that the name and concept will live on, but perhaps we'll all be pleasantly surprised.

It's true that the economy is far from ideal, and yet prospective occupants of the Speakeasy site should note that it lies only half a block from the new YMCA, which will be opening in mid-November, and is expected to attract several thousand members a week to downtown New Albany.

I feel bad for the Tharps. I know that the Speakeasy was their dream, and they're in a rough place now. They tried their best, and things didn't work out, but you have to give them credit for the effort.

At the same time, we must be thinking of what comes next. Prospects for downtown New Albany remain bright. It's all a matter of finding the right combination.

At NAC: Open thread: Speakeasy will close on Wednesday, October 29.

New Albany's Windsor Restaurant and Garden adding full service bar with draft craft brews.

The Windsor Restaurant and Garden shares ownership with the Grand Convention Center, and the two establishments are located adjacent to each other on Market Street in downtown New Albany.

In fact, the Windsor occupies the spot on the corner of Market and Bank where the Bistro New Albany held court until October, 2007, and following a slow and steady start-up during the summer of 2008, the Windsor looks to be hitting its stride.

Chef Justin McMillen has been on board for a few months now, and while I haven’t had time to sample the dinner menu (sorry), I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. The patio’s as nice as it ever was, and the interior is about to undergo a major conceptual makeover, which is even more exciting to me because the retrofit is to include a full service bar and the restoration of the former Bistro’s ten-tap draft system.

That's excellent news.

John Campbell and I spent time earlier this week with Isaac Fox, server and bar manager extraordinaire, who did time with the Bistro and later gravitated down the street to Speakeasy before alighting at the Windsor.

Isaac told us that the plan is to have the space known locally as the “place where the music shop was” (it now has relocated a block west) renovated and a bar installed. There’ll be comfy furniture, a couple of flat screen televisions, and with a full 3-way liquor license, the full gamut of beer, wine and cocktails.

Draft beer highlights are to include two NABC beers, rotating taps for Samuel Adams seasonals and Indiana microbrews, Bell’s, Goose Island, Newcastle, Dogfish Head 90 Minute, and a couple of others that have slipped my mind since. The bottle list will begin short and grow.

The whole thing is supposed to hit the ground by Harvest Homecoming on the 9th of October. Look for beer dinners and tastings later this fall and winter. It’s great to have another venue for craft beer downtown!

Carnegie Center fundraiser tonight, and NABC will be there.

Tonight at 6:30 p.m. is the annual "Taste for Art & History" fundraiser at the Carnegie Center for Art & History, located at 201 E. Spring Street in downtown New Albany. The bill of fare includes wines from all over the place, craft beers from NABC and World Class Beverages, gourmet snacks and a wide-ranging silent auction. Interested? The price is $55 for members and $60 for non-members, and you can call (812) 944-7336 or visit www.carnegiecenter.org for information.

Because NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse eventually will be doing business right across the street, I put together a fact sheet for distribution this evening.

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Craft brewing returns to downtown New Albany for the first time since 1935 when NABC opens its Bank Street Brewhouse later this year. This second NABC location will be located at 415 Bank Street downtown, adjacent to the Carnegie Center for Art and History. Work to renovate the former Bakery Thrift Store is ongoing.

NABC’s goals:

To be leaders in the craft beer segment and the community, not followers.

To be progressive, not regressive.

To challenge and to educate, not to pander.

The New Albanian Brewing Company is:

Sportstime Pizza (founded 1987)
Rich O’s Public House (founded 1992)
NABC (started brewing in 2002)

The new Bank Street Brewhouse at 415 Bank Street will function as NABC’s larger-capacity production brewery, with a 15-barrel mash and kettle and 30-barrel fermentation capacity, with fabrication by industry leader DME. Primary NABC brands like Elector, Community Dark, Hoptimus, Bob’s Old 15-B, Mt. Lee, Beak’s Best, Kaiser and Thunderfoot will be brewed, conditioned, kegged and canned for regional distribution. It will also be possible for consumers to buy kegs and carry-out growlers.

NABC’s existing brewery on the North Side at 3312 Plaza Drive will remain in operation, with small batches, seasonals and specialties being brewed there. NABC’s existing pizzeria and pub, which has garnered nationwide recognition for excellence, will function as it always has.

Why expand to downtown New Albany?

12% craft beer growth rates nationally in each of the past two years

Local and regional potential for distribution of NABC brands in kegs and cans (both environmentally friendly modes of packaging)
Rapid expansion of the “eat and drink locally” movement

The craft beer demographic mirrors that of the “creative class” and “New Urbanism”, all of which combine for downtown transformation

What else besides brewing at the new operation?

NABC’s Bank Street Brewhouse will feature a taproom, with NABC’s beers on tap, and a limited Belgian-style café food menu prepared by a professional chef. NABC wearables, glassware and souvenirs will be sold on site.

What does it all mean?

The Bank Street Brewhouse will be phased into operation, with the taproom opening first in the 4th quarter of 2008 (target: November), and the brewery to be installed during the fall and winter (target: January). Beer will be ready for distribution in the 1st quarter of 2009, and the existing NABC brewery will supply the tap room and selected outside accounts until then.

Significantly, the NABC Bank Street Brewhouse represents an expansion of an established, existing business from a suburb back into a reviving downtown, and as such, NABC firmly believes there is a future both for the brewery’s “progressive pints” and for the cause of progressivism itself in city of New Albany… and Floyd County, metro Louisville and the surrounding region.

Unsurprisingly, the craft brewing revolution has prospered by emphasizing beer’s artisanal, localized roots, and in like fashion New Urbanism urges the progressive reuse of cities. For NABC to return brewing to a downtown, urban setting is to complete the circle initiated by New Albany’s beer-loving founders two centuries ago.

Roger A. Baylor, NABC Beer Director

(For my business partners Amy and Kate, our brew staff and all other employees, and both the New Albanian Brewing Co., Inc., and New Albanian Bank Street Brewery, Inc.)

Questions? Call me at 502-468-9710

New Albany mayor vetoes controversial smoking ordinance.

I'm back from the scene in front of the City County Building, where Mayor Doug England vetoed the smoking ordinance this morning.

Mayor England seeks three exemptions to the smoking ordinance, which if implemented would "garner (his) support":

(1) bars
(2) private clubs
(3) restaurants with bars that serve and employ only persons who are 21 years of age

Here is the mayor's closing statement:

"In conclusion, I am really trying to heal our divided community via compromise. I have heard snokers and non-smokers alike speak in favor of and against the bill. This is not 'black and white' as the activists on either side of the issue would have you believe. I believe that my proposal strikes such a compromise. It is time for the Common Council and the activists to strike this balance, as well."

Let the games begin. I'm anxious to hear whether the definitions for "bar" being bandied about derive from the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission, the city council or the mayor's office. Speaking as a license holder, I believe the ATC's rules reign supreme.

Contact NABC's councilman and weigh in on the smoking ban.

As reported previously, on Thursday, August 21, the Common Council of the City of New Albany will consider 2nd and 3rd readings of an ordinance to prohibit indoor smoking in all workplaces in New Albany.

The proposed ban is comprehensive and would include Sportstime, Rich O's and, in fact, the entire building. As in Louisville, all smoking would have to take place outdoors. As with other such bans, the ordinance is predicated on workplace safety for employees with reference to second hand smoke.

The vote on the first reading two weeks ago was 5-4 in favor. If passed and not vetoed by the mayor, the smoking ordinance would become law in 60 days (circa October 22).

Our business is located in the 6th council district. Our councilman is Jeff Gahan, who is also council president. Mr. Gahan is a ban proponent, has voted in favor of the ordinance, and presumably will do so again.

I am not telling you what to think, only asking that whether you are in favor or opposed, please take the time to convey your thoughts to our councilman:

Jeff Gahan
1122 Eastridge Drive
(812) 949-9314
gahan@insightbb.com

For further reading, go to http://www.cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/. It might take a while to read what I've written to date, so light a nice cigar first.

On the status of the proposed New Albany workplace smoking ban.

On August 4, New Albany’s city council passed the first reading of an indoor smoking ordinance.

The vote was 5-4, and two more readings are required, with the tally on the third being the final determinant. If vetoed, an overturn would require six votes. The council intends to vote for both second and third readings on August 21.

Those are the bare facts, and in terms of legislative politics, this is a topic better considered in depth at my other blog. Accordingly, here are a few links to it (two written by me and one by my blogging partner Jeff) and another piece I wrote at the request of the New Albany Tribune.

Council smoking farce: I'm taking it personally, too.

If you've been a slumlord for more than 100 years, are you exempt? (by Jeff Gillenwater)

Doesn’t New Albany have more important issues?

Hypocrisy meter nudges "tilt” as council’s smoking ordinance is revealed.

As we await the shoddy melodramatics to come, end games must be considered. What do we do at the pizzeria and pub if the ban comes to pass?

At work yesterday, we took a few minutes to pace 20 feet from the public entry doors. On the pizza side, smoking patrons can exit the rear door into the back yard, which we’ve intended for some time to convert into permanent outdoor seating. Short-term, we’d have to put down a hard surface and build a roof. Longer-term, we could dust off the old conversion plan and extend both along the length of the building, but equipment, and be in the business of outdoor seating.

On the pub side, it’s more complicated. The rear fire exit is behind the bar, and Indiana state alcohol law forbids customers from using it except in emergency situations. Cigarette breaks for pub denizens will have to be accessed from the front door, within an area to be constructed in front of the Prost windows. It's imperfect.

Currently, we have smoking and non-smoking areas at the pub. Because of customer demand, the non-smoking area has gotten larger over the years, and in general terms, most customers have at least seemed satisfied by the arrangement. We’ve yet to have an employee complain about being forced to work in smoke, but if so, we'd certainly try to accommodate the request.

The preceding is intended as raw information. My public stance on the matter may seem unusual to some, although to me, it reflects the best possible resolution of a deep personal division, and I’m content with that because life is rarely black and white.

We’ll see what happens next.