Headlines from August 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 -- I seem to have settled on monthly -- I'll collect a few of these links right here. Following are August'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: The Moon Under Water -- so, how does Orwell's perfect pub look today?

A survey in the United Kingdom has undertaken to compare Orwell's angle with the rigors of modernity, and to update it. I think the 1940s ideal remains valid in a number of core objectives, which might be summarized by ambiguity: a "perfect" pub has to be a special one.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Visiting the Carlsberg brewery just prior to the Altercation in Copenhagen.

Kim was at work on Wednesday, and I knew the way to Carlsberg, so there was no doubt that Barrie's limited amount of time on the ground in Copenhagen would include a brewery tour. It wasn't necessary to twist his arm.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Elephant, Mouse, wonderful friends and a Titanic Struggle.

This story has been told, blogged and altogether beaten to death on a dozen occasions at various blog portals, though never before with photographic evidence.

As part and parcel of my ongoing commitment to taste and decency, I'll be sparing readers the more graphic photos, which include bodies slumped in unsuspecting doorways, phallic Lenin busts and other testaments to the oddly redemptive power of Elephant Beer.

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THE BEER BEAT: Read about my "Beer Night" at Mesa next Wednesday (August 23) with Chef Ruben Freibert's appetizers.

For me, this tasting feels like my first solo gig after leaving the band, and as such, it's potentially liberating. NABC tastings eventually became necessarily restricted to our own beers, rather than the world's, and while NABC's house beers were good, it's nice to contemplate events ranging a bit farther afield. If this one goes well, hopefully there'll be more.

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THE BEER BEAT: Scofflaw Brewing flies the bird as AB InBev shareholders watch with preda-masturbatory glee.

Now, Scofflaw's friends and foes alike at last find common cause to unite, rejecting the newborn mockrobrew to find the next greatest Northeastern IPA, and lofting those middle fingers in the precise direction this most honest of all personal salutes always should have been pointed.

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THE BEER BEAT: Schansberg explains Sunday and Indiana's lingering sales restrictions: "Support for restrictions is driven by greenbacks more than blue laws."

I've decided to post this link on Saturday so you'll have time to read it before Sunday, when you can readily purchase cold beer to go at your local brewery, but not at a liquor store or a grocery.

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THE BEER BEAT: Hew Ainslie, an early New Albany brewer and Scottish-American poet.

Hew Ainslie was New Albany's first commercial brewer. This biographical sketch below was written by Louisville KY goldsmith, writer and homebrewer Conrad Selle.

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THE BEER BEAT: Thanks to Mesa (A Collaborative Kitchen) for a great inaugural beer night.

I was a tad rusty, and a few synapses failed to fire, but overall last evening's gingerly dipped toe of a first-time-in-two-years beer sampling went fairly well. Thanks to everyone who turned out; to Chef Ruben Freibert for his nibbles (and our borrowed server Brett); and to the whole crew at Mesa.

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THE BEER BEAT: A late August compendium of links about local and regional beer.

There was a time when the general rule of thumb was to wait a bit before reviewing a restaurant or brewery, this representing a tacit understanding that while no one excuses bad food, beer or service, it usually takes a while to put things into place. Curve balls are common at the start, and even boomerangs.

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THE BEER BEAT: YAY (effing) YAY -- my friend Patti and her pal Cindy get some serious ink, and I'm not talking tattoos.

Here you go, Patti -- your fifteen minutes of beer fame, although honestly, it's fifteen years. You've been a rock star all along.

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Indiana's lingering legislative blue law fetish dooms Sunday off-premise alcohol sales in Indiana ...

... except for small breweries and wineries.

It amazes me that our Indy-centric legislators prattle endlessly about economic development, and at the same time, never seem to understand that drinkers living on state borders travel to where they can spend their money on Sunday, namely surrounding states.

Also, Indiana's legislative contingent continues to endorse the doltish notion that it's better to go to a bar on Sunday to drink, and then drive home, as opposed to taking the alcohol home to drink.

And then there is Rep. Davis's comment to the effect that six days in a week is enough to buy alcoholic beverages. The same might be said for groceries and restaurants; if you plan ahead and buy supplies earlier in the week, do you really need to go anywhere at all on Sunday? Why permit any shop or store to open on Sunday, according to this reasoning? Is it 2012, or 1812?

Of course, Rep. Davis's blue-law-friendly internal rationalization is not how it works in real life -- and increasingly, real life is a place that few of these political dullards seem to inhabit, although Ideologyland is fairly bursting at the seams.

Sunday alcohol sales dead in Legislature, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau)

INDIANAPOLIS — Depending on what happens in the Sunday-dry state of Connecticut, Indiana could soon become the last state in the nation with a Sunday ban on alcohol sales.

Legislative leaders in the Indiana General Assembly have decided against scheduling committee hearings on a bill that would have lifted the decades-old prohibition on the Sunday sale of alcohol for off-premise consumption.

Their decision effectively kills the bill.

“Surely we can buy enough alcohol in this state six days a week that we don’t need a seventh day to do it,” said state Rep. Bill Davis, the Republican chair of House Committee on Public Policy where the bill had been assigned.

No more election day blue law tomfoolery in Indiana.

For as long as I've been blogging, it has been necessary to remind readers prior to an Indiana primary or general election that because of the state's commitment to archaic blue laws, no beer could be served until the polls closed at 6:00 p.m.

No more. The law finally has been scrapped, and next Tuesday (May 4), both NABC locations will observe regular business hours sans beer tapping restrictions.

Rescinding the election day ban on alcohol sales is one part of legislation (the bill is called SB 75 and was described in detail here earlier in the year) that went into effect immediately upon signing. Another is the rationalization of Sunday serving hours (now the same each day of the week). Sunday growler sales for microbreweries and brewpubs start on Sunday, July 4.

More on that later. For now, know that next week, there'll be no waiting for Elector.