Weekend in Review

By John Campbell

If you haven't read Roger's posts about the Madison, Indiana, Ohio River Valley Folk Festival, then go back a week and bring yourself up to speed. Roger did a great job of summarizing our overall theory and ethics and applying them to yet another AB atrocity. In the end, integrity won. Craft beer outsold the multi-national corporate swill by a landslide. The Folk Fest attendees and Madison natives showed their true colors by rising to the occasion to support regionally-brewed, independently-owned, hand-crafted, Indiana beer... American beer. The first keg of beer to blow was a double India Pale Ale (100 ibu, 10% abv) that we dubbed ANTI-CORPORATE IPA.

Banner courtesy of Ted Miller (Brugge Brasserie) and the Indiana Brewer's Guild

What's wrong with this picture:



Steve Thomas (of Thomas Family Winery, pictured below) and I were sharing our disappointment with the festival committee's poor decision making skills, inept ability to communicate, and absence of virtue when it was jointly decided that the weekend would play out much better if we kept our discontent amongst ourselves and our big mouths shut. Right at that moment a female voice called out from behind the Bud Light table,

"Steve, are you almost done with that cigar?"

"Why, yes, I am," Steve replied, "Is it offending you?"

"Yes, it is," she retorted.

"Well, your beer is offending us," I interjected, glancing momentarily at Steve as if to say 'so much for that'.

"It's not my beer," she spat.

"Well, then you should be even more ashamed to be serving it," I replied.

The committee member responsible for the AB presence quickly threw a warning flag. The lovely Bud trailer volunteer that had expressed disdain for good tobacco (and good beer by default) quickly charmed me into an apology and, as she predicted, we were "friends before the end of the weekend". hrmmph.

Steve Thomas of Thomas Family Winery, Madison, Indiana.

Steve's most awesome draft trailer.
Yes, I have draft trailer envy. btw Harvey, where the &%@$ is mine?

The weekend wouldn't have been complete without Jim and Debbie Frasier, homebrewers, FOSSILS members, Rich O's regulars, devote Folk Fest volunteers, and fascist-killing machines:

Louisville's own Bridget Kailin

My good friend Robert (pictured below) almost boycotted the festival after he found out about the AB fiasco. He picked up a keg of Elector prior to the festival and showed up Friday morning with a crate of hand-thrown, NABC/'09 Folk Fest mugs! He sold them all and we filled 'em up all weekend.

As noble as it sounds to say, "Support Your Local Brewery," the only wholesome thought I can muster is "Fuck Budweiser".

Cheers!

Grassroots and the Fabled Garage Brewhouse

By John Campbell

Grassroots seems like an appropriate theme considering that I'm off to Madison, Indiana, to attend the Ohio River Valley Folk Festival this weekend. I would love to brag about the integrity of the event, their support of craft beer, local arts, and grassrooted, folk festivities, but I can't (See Roger's blog posts from last week for an in-depth explanation). Unfortunately, too many people have forgotten their roots in the race for success and supremacy. I can firmly state that we are not of that stock. We will always strive to learn, to improve, to grow, and to expand, but never by turning our backs on those who helped us, believed in us, and carried us along the way.

Today I felt it necessary to acknowledge our roots, the brewery that started it all, and the brewer who has been carrying us for at least a couple of weeks now. While all eyes have been on Bank Street, Jared Williamson has been laboring away at the original location in the fabled Garage Brewhouse where it all began...

3312 Plaza Drive, New Albany, Indiana

While David and Jesse have been preparing for the new brewery and working hard to streamline the delivery and installation, Jared has been working just as hard to keep beer in the tanks and recover from our unforeseen beer drought. The brewing system at this location is a 4 barrel brewhouse with 8 barrel fermenters that require two brews to fill and, even then, will only produce 16 kegs of beer. The bottom line is this: it is labor intensive, requires a long brew day, barely supplies enough beer for both locations, and just when you think you are caught up, it starts over again. Yet, somehow Jared has managed to pull it off. Our beer is back on tap and tasting better than ever thanks to his devotion, David's added know-how, some new equipment, a bit of loyalty, a dab of commitment, and a big-ass, heapin' scoop of integrity.






Despite the long hours, Jared managed to brew enough beer for me to take 8 kegs to the Folk Festival this weekend. Kinda sad that it will be pouring next to an Anheuser-Busch truck this year, ain't it?

Jared inspecting the latest batch of Community Dark

David's newest contribution to our old way of doing things.

Here's some good news for our die-hard New Albanian fans and hopheads: Hoptimus is in the tank and will be back on tap soon! Jared pulled some off the fermenter and we had ourselves a good ol' grassroots nip off the tank.








That is the face of a Craft Brewer and that is the way beer was meant to be.

What’s a curmudgeon to do?

I tend to avoid the wasteland of television, but as a selective pro sports fan, watching the big games means witnessing more inanity than any human should be forced to endure.

This year’s NBA playoffs are being marred by what might be the single most vapid playoff jingle ever (“Right now”) run ad nauseam by ABC, leaving the sole option of muting early and often – 100% of the time when Bill Walton is doing “color” commentary …and, of course, during Miller Lite commercials.

In this year’s nominee for most consistently offensive televised beer ad, we’re shown a totalitarian vision of thousands of mass-produced Miller Lite units rolling through one of the company’s sterile beer factories as the immaculately costumed employees gather to celebrate Miller Lite’s first place finish in the World Beer Championships.

The category? American-style Light Lager.

If you’re new to all this, such a triumph looks impressive at first glance, but be aware that such made-for-mass-market-swill categories are among the more surreal in the beer judging pantheon. In essence, the American-style light lager designation as a standard in any competition calls for the judge to consider all the prime aspects of beer – body, flavor, malt, hops – and then to determine whether the light beer being examined has had each component successfully neutered, if not entirely removed.

(Drum roll please): In the end, the un-beer-iest of the contestants wins … and the banners are hoisted for the approbation of the clueless.

A female acquaintance once noted that drinking light beer is indeed comparable to love on the beach, but with no hope of orgasm – something she said was far too common in her life.

The televised world of swillocracy shilling makes the fast food, monster truck and deodorant ads seem sensible and well meaning – and that’s frightening.

Now for the last word on green beer -- at least until next year, when the campaign against inanity will begin anew.

Say no to green beer: Establishments honor St. Paddy with their own Irish beverages, by Susan Reigler (March 17, Louisville Courier-Journal).

Whoever came up with the idea of putting green food coloring in beer for St. Paddy's should be roundly reviled. (Note to Pope Benedict XVI: You're German. You know from good beer. Can't you issue an edict banning green brew? St. Patrick deserves some respect.)

Speaking of the Pope, and if I’m not mistaken, his favored beer reportedly is Bavarian Hefe-Weizen. Let’s hope there are no lemons, limes or kiwi fruit on the rim of the Holy Chalice.

As a postscript to St. Patrick's Day, and reaching into the mail bag, here’s what regular reader Jay had to say about a recent foray into uncivilized local beer drinking territory:

I stopped at Tumbleweed with some friends and we sat down and were ordering drinks. I pointed at the picture of bottles on the menu and asked if these were the beer list. The waiter said, "pretty much," so I asked about their draft list. He told me they were having a 99 cent special on their domestic drafts! I asked what was on -- Bud Light, Miller Lite and Killian’s. Oh, boy! I asked for a Killian’s. He said - "now you won't get that for 99 cents, that's just for the domestics." I said that is domestic. He said something that he just made up, but by that time I'd stopped listening anyway.

Of course, Killian's Irish Red is made by Coors and is not an import. I’ve never been able to determine why bar managers stand to benefit from ignorance, since providing accurate information is such a large part of all business in this day and age.

Keep truckin’, Jay – just steer clear of the ‘Weed.