Diary: Can there be a singer-songwriter version of the "good beer" bar?

For diary entries, I sling it without thinking too much about minor annoyances like spelling and syntax. 

For many years, I stuck to the desperate notion that the best possible thing I could do in business was promote the notion of a team.

My analogy was a band in the musical sense of the word, and while not discounting potential disagreements and friction, trying to celebrate what can be done in terms of a group, as opposed to an individual.

Often, it really was a team. At other times, it wasn't. At no time did I ever seek to cultivate the idea that there were NOT numerous employees behind the scenes, doing the real work without which no business can survive. I always understood that we couldn't pay them what they're worth, and tried to figure out how to better remunerate them. At one point, it occurred to me that we might be employee-owned.

Give the guys on the shop floor credit -- they were too smart for that.

At some juncture, perhaps the late 1990s or early 2000s, lots of attention became focused on me. It always surprises folks to learn that I was a reluctant front man at the pub. It happened because someone had to do it, and I was the best candidate. There was a time when no one regarded Phil Collins as the replacement for Peter Gabriel in Genesis, and yet he was the ideal choice -- whether or not you like what occurred subsequently (I do).

For various reasons, cults of personality became increasingly jarring to me, even my own. It made running for political office last year extraordinarily difficult, as our system is predicated on the professional wrestling model of self-promotion, and this has come to thoroughly disgust me.

Going back to music as an analogy, one thing musicians can do that bar owners cannot is go back to basics. A singer/songwriter/instrumentalist can occupy a space in the corner and perform, potentially with a minimum of assistance from others. He or she may even be paid, though unfortunately, this seems to be optional nowadays.

But ...

Is there the "good beer bar" equivalent to the solo singer/songwriter/instrumentalist?

After all, in the time I've been patronizing the world classic 't Brugs Beertje in Bruges, I've never seen more than two bartenders at a time, with (perhaps) a kitchen helper. Sergio's in Louisville operates similarly. In 2013, I visited a one-man Real Ale pub in Totnes, Devon UK.

Why couldn't a single person with an occasional helper run such an establishment if the business plan was suitably opportunistic?

The space needs to be relatively small and inexpensive, and weekly hours somewhat limited. The beer selection can be small, and still be good. Why have gadgets like televisions when everyone has a phone? WFPK works fine. Popular wisdom insists that there must be food, but apart from the mandated $10 frozen weenie menu, being located in a dense area with numerous nearby eateries can satisfy state law and the needs of customers.

As for the cult of personality ... yes, the owner/operator of such an establishment would need to be an entertaining sort of curmudgeon. It's all about the personalities, or patron and client alike.

However, there's no need for a cult.

I think it could work. What do you think?

1 Diary: Does a bar serving good beer need draft lines to succeed?
2 Diary: You have three draft spouts. What do you pour?
3 Diary: Can there be a singer-songwriter version of the "good beer" bar?

___

Diary: You have three draft spouts. What do you pour?

For diary entries, I sling it without thinking too much about minor annoyances like spelling and syntax. 

Yesterday, I asked whether a "good beer bar" qualifies as memorable if it does not serve draft beer. I'm still assuming that this hypothetical bar will have 20-30 beers in bottles and cans, and today, let's imagine it possessing a three-keg box, capable of holding three full kegs only.

It would NOT be adapted to house five or six one-sixth barrels, just three regular kegs. What would you pour, and how would your pouring schedule work?

Glancing backward through the mists of time, I can recall when this question mattered to me. We had a three-keg box in 1992 at Rich O's, and our first choice of draft was Guinness. Later we added Carlsberg (then Pilsner Urquell). When we had enough money to get the third tower working, it rotated. The draft system grew and grew.

These days, there are 35 or more taps at my formal business, with house-brewed beers and guests. Draft became the focus, and the bottle list has diminished accordingly.

My current hunch is that in the present age, when one seemingly never knows if a beer will be on tap more often than once every six months, the idea of permanently anchoring two of these towers is sound.

As a contrarian of long standing, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that if I were in the position to pick these three beers, my choices (today) would be Guinness, Pilsner Urquell and a rotation of Fuller's London Pride (or something like it) and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Not "session" per se, but close.

So much for my years advocating American "craft," but hear my defense before passing the verdict: "Craft" is everywhere, and the Old World classics have been overwhelmed. Isn't it time to pick up the string of education where it started? Besides, there'd be ample space on a hypothetical bottle and can list to feature American "craft" styles.

The other factor is size. The establishment I have in mind is small (see tomorrow's post), and given the exponential growth of American "craft" beer, you'd genuinely need a Hop Cat or Mellow Mushroom to do it justice.

BUT NOT TO WORRY. I can imagine an American "craft" only lineup just as easily.

I have other ideas, so keep reading, and let me know what you think.

1 Diary: Does a bar serving good beer need draft lines to succeed?
2 Diary: You have three draft spouts. What do you pour?
3 Diary: Can there be a singer-songwriter version of the "good beer" bar?

___

Diary: Does a bar serving good beer need draft lines to succeed?

For diary entries, I sling it without thinking too much about minor annoyances like spelling and syntax. 

Must a bar specializing in better beer offer draft beer? Or can it be interesting with bottles and cans alone?

It's a question for reflection, but at one time my knee-jerk response would have been that without draft beer, a good beer bar could not truly be great. I may be in the process of changing my mind. It depends, doesn't it?

If one decided to go with Belgians and Belgian-style ales, wouldn't bottles and a semblance of appropriate glassware be enough?

Not all dive bars have draft. Even if the emphasis were not on Belgians -- say, American "craft" beers only -- would it be enough to have popular craft styles in cans or bottles, with glasses (of course) for pouring?

If engaging in such an operation locally (on Indiana soil) there'd be an added incentive to forego draft, because the regional ATC office interprets state law as allowing beer in "original containers" (bottles and cans) to be carried out the door, onto the sidewalk, while draft does not qualify, unless you carry the keg outside.

Instead of investing in draft equipment, one might purchase simpler straight refrigeration, and be absent cleaning obligations. Have a standard dishwasher for glassware ... and good to go.

Is no draft, no deal? If you have thoughts, please share them with me.

1 Diary: Does a bar serving good beer need draft lines to succeed?
2 Diary: You have three draft spouts. What do you pour?
3 Diary: Can there be a singer-songwriter version of the "good beer" bar?

___

The child is grown; the dream is gone.

Long ago, you'd walk into a house filled with children and see hash marks all over the linoleum. These lines measured how fast kids were growing, and all it took to verify the household's accounting was to compare them with little humans dashing back and forth, assuming they'd stand still long enough.

I'm sure there's an app for it these days.

I can't imagine anything better calculated to lift eyebrows than a constantly updated chart on the side of brewery, visible to the public, showing how many barrels of beer actually are being produced inside. Of course, the Feds know. They're collecting taxes on real output, as contrasted with hopeful estimates on a business plan.

Come to think of it, perhaps there needs to be one set of hash marks visible to the general public, and another capable of being seen only by bankers and brewery investors.

But aren't we doing that already?

Diary: Saturday's notes of brown, whiskey infusions, escargot and peanut butter pie.

Saturday was warm and sunny, and we were getting ready to go on a walk in New Albany when our Dayton friends texted and said they'd be at Against the Grain at eleven. We shrugged, jumped in the car and beat them there.

They had other visitors with them, all headed eventually to NABC for Gravity Head. Most of them ordered samplers, and I was struck by the number of small glasses on the table (above). It looked almost like a scene from Gravity Head.

I had a 4:00 p.m. appointment with Stephen Dennison at his place of work, Bistro 1860 on Mellwood Avenue. We parked the car there and went for a walk up Frankfort Avenue, returning in time to meet Stephen. To make a long story short, I'm doing a short piece for Food & Dining Magazine about Ballotin chocolate-flavored whiskey, and Stephen agreed to devise a few cocktails, in addition to allowing me to sample the four types with his commentary as accompaniment.

Priceless.

When conversation turned to a better martini, the evening began slipping away from me. I'm mighty glad Diana was there to be the designerated driver. Serendipity shifted into gear; eventually two couples we hadn't seen in ages arrived, and the relaxed socialization time at the bar embraced appetizers, white wine and conversation. At 7:300 p.m., Diana walked me to Sweet Surrender for fresh air and dessert. I needed the stroll.

Both Friday and Saturday were fantastic. I had resolved not to attend Gravity Head this year, far less so from pique at the slowness of my ongoing negotiation with partners; rather, it struck me as better to stay away from it and let staff do what I know they can. By all accounts they rocked it, as usual. I'm delighted to have had a hand in creating something like Gravity Head, and the hand-off is complete. What happens in the future is up to them. So it goes.

At the same time, two days' worth of distractions were nice, and there were friends, food, drinks and fun. I needed it. There are many miles ahead, with frequent detours for rancor and lawyers. But I'll not be forgetting the finer things in life.

Thanks to everyone who indulged me these past two days.

_

Diary: A lovely Friday morning jaywalking in Louisville, with coffee, a bagel and beers.

For the first time since 1999, there was no Gravity Head for me, but our friends from Dayton OH were coming down for it, as is their habit. It was decided to meet them for lunch, and because my wife works in downtown Louisville just a few blocks from Over the 9, the Falls City/Old 502 gastropub was our choice.

It occurred to me that if I rode with Diana to work, there'd be time for me to walk around downtown, drink coffee and people watch. Once upon a time, I worked for a company called UMI-Data Courier in a building on 5th Street (now demolished, as was the adjacent Standard Gravure). That was 28 years ago, and yes, the area has changed -- often for the better.

In 1988, a brand new retail development called Theater Square was underway where 4th Street meets Broadway. There was a deli there, and it sold inexpensive Carlsberg in bottles. On occasion, a liquid lunch was merited, until management quashed it.

Later, Bluegrass Brewing had a restaurant in the same spot. Now both Theater Square and the BBC are gone as Kindred constructs a building on the site, although I'm told that BBC will reopen after completion. Let's hope so. It was nice to have a few BBCs before walking a block to the Louisville Palace performance venue for shows.

On Friday, I began with coffee, and lots of it. Heine Brothers (above) has a shop on 4th Street. So does Nancy's Bagels (below) on the south side of 4th Street Live opposite the defunct Theater Square.

The garlic bagel with lox spread from Nancy's was heavenly. I had a double espresso at each, and then another at Sunergos down the way on 5th.

At some point during the morning, enjoying a pleasant caffeine buzz, I remembered that recently, Louisville mayor Greg Fischer decided to crack down on jaywalkers as a response to the fact that so many speeding drivers regularly strike (and usually kill) pedestrians.

It gripes my cookies, because jaywalking is an entirely artificial construction meant to buttress autocentrism.

Philosophically, the problem with jaywalking laws is that they treat pedestrians as a menace to cars, instead of vice versa. The laws first emerged in the United States in the early 20th century, when automobiles first began competing for space with pushcart vendors and playing children. As University of Virginia historian Peter Norton has documented, carmakers prevailed by winning legal restrictions on pedestrian movement — and promoting the very term “jaywalking,” which originally meant something like “the clueless wandering of hapless rubes.”

Accordingly, I decided to devote my Friday morning to jaywalking as much as possible. I stopped counting at 13 times, two of them in full view of the police. I was not cited. Wonder why?

Perhaps I'm not black enough, or street-person enough. Either way, Fischer remains an empty suit, and civil disobedience was making me seriously thirsty. It was eleven a.m., and I was waiting outside the door at Gordon Biersch when the key could be heard making its turn.

The drinking day promptly began with a lovely Marzen. It was hard to leave that stool.

By the time I arrived at Over the 9 just before noon, I'd walked five miles. Our friends arrived. We caught up with life and dined on fish and chips. I had a Black IPA and a Smoked Baltic Porter, and thanks to the friendly people there, an advance sample of one of the new bottled releases coming on Tuesday, March 1. But I won't ruin the surprise.

I'll have to make time for more mornings like this one. It was good practice for Session Beer Day.

Come drink beer with me on Session Beer Day, April 7, 2016.

I'm toying with the idea of starting before lunch and traversing downtown Louisville on foot, much like Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses -- walking from brewery to brewery, and having a session beer at each. Most usually have at least once 4.5% choice available on draft.

I'm doing pints, and won't be driving. If I could manage this without a single "Session IPA," it would suit me just fine.

The brewery list, traveling roughly west to east, would be Falls City, Gordon Biersch, BBC 3rd Street, Against the Grain, Goodwood and Akasha. Others might be too far away to walk, but perhaps they could sell kegs to Akasha for duty on the guest taps.

I know: It's a work day, and so is Friday. However, if you're interested in joining me, let me know. I just may see you on Session Beer Day, 2016.

_

Diary: Taking the day off for my birthday.

I'm filling this space after the fact for the sake of posterity.

There was no weekly column on Monday, August 3, 2015, because it was my 55th birthday, and I had a combination party and campaign fundraiser to consider.

It went well. I drank Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen all night, destroyed a medium deep-dish (roundhouse) herbivore pizza all by myself, and raised a few dollars to boot.

For the sake of my Euro '85 narrative, I can jump forward just a few weeks and note that for my 25th birthday on August 3, 1985, I was joined by an Australian named Mark at a restaurant in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

There was vodka, with predictable results.

It seems like a thousand years ago now.

Diary: Accepting serenity where I find it.

I haven't been drinking very much beer lately.

There have been the occasional gin and tonics, and a glass of red wine here and there when the mood strikes. Last summer, I found myself reaching for a dry white wine often, but this year, there has been almost none.

Brown spirits are rare with me, so bourbon hasn't been a factor.

Of course, there have been beer-capades. Lately my sweet spot seems to have returned to fundamentals, as with NABC's classic Action! Pale Ale formulation, or the times that Pilsner Urquell has returned to the taps at the Public House. Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen apparently has returned for the first time in months, so I need to get over there and have a few.

During the period of my leave of absence, during which I'm campaigning for mayor of New Albany, I've dialed back the amount of time spent observing the beer "scene." I've kept up with Indiana tidings as much as possible, because the director position at the Brewers of Indiana Guild is something I highly value.

It seems to me that an absence from narcissism, cheerleading and beer porn has been quite good for my soul. I'm drinking less beer, and enjoying it more.

Irrespective of the outcome of the election in November, I believe a corner has been turned. Maybe while I wasn't paying attention, the unthinkable happened ... and I grew up a bit. The big 55th approaches on August 3, and with it new horizons?

Who knows? It's hard to imagine me in a 100% state of Zen-like serenity, but divesting my back of a few monkeys doesn't hurt. Wish me luck.

Diary: Trying to find a copy of the beer podcast, that time.

As my leave of absence for mayoral games plays out, I haven't been paying very close attention to the beer scene insofar as social media dictates its parameters according to the same usual outline.

And thankfully, at that.

Talk about liberating.

No more endless photos of people erotically fondling the bottles they scored through trades, or listening to labored sophistry in defense of Trojan Goose. It's been like parole. At present, I can enjoy the virtues of good beer without suffering shoe-gazing solipsism.

What I'm looking forward to more than anything else are local brews like Josh Hill's first beers with Floyd County Brewing Company.

But that is not the basis for this diary entry.

After contributing to Rick Redding's podcast last week, it occurred to me to go back and listen to the one I recorded at LouisvilleBeer.com back in late 2013. The date is hazy. I drove to Louisville, and there was snow on the ground.

December of 2013, maybe?

But I couldn't find it at the iTunes page, which begins only at Episode 26 in early 2014. There also wasn't any record of those first 20-odd episodes at the LouisvilleBeer.com web site.

If someone can tell me how I might score a copy of my sole appearance on the podcast, please let me know. I'm a historical record type of guy, even if it won't be played quite as often as the Who's seminal Quadrophenia.

Previously:

Beer, podcasts and Dick Cavett.

Diary: Huh? How many years?

I pay almost no attention to LinkedIn, and yet have more than 500 contacts.

Today, I received three notices of congratulation from LinkedIn contacts. I scratched my head. For what? Well, somewhere on my profile it says that May is my business anniversary, and upon reflection, it is ... and isn't.

June of 1992 is more accurate, but of course it's 23 years any way you cut it. Memorial Day weekend of '92 was the impetus for me to join the business now known as New Albanian Brewing Company, which itself dates to 1987. There it is.

Now more than ever, it all seems a bit mystifying. Still, throwing myself into the spirit of an anniversary that had eluded my gaze, tonight I celebrated with a growler of Beak's Best, a big sloppy plate of homemade nachos, and lots of throwback music from The Jam and Style Council.

Thanks to everyone for supporting my weird journey. How's the reinvention coming, anyway?

Wait -- wrong teleprompter.

Diary: On EFC and leaves of absence.

You win some, you lose some... and then there's that little-known third category.
-- Al Gore

It is a curious limbo I'm occupying at present.

On February 26, my leave of absence from NABC began. As my right knee informs me this morning, I am in fact running for mayor (actually, standing for seven hours yesterday, in campaign mode).

These three months away from the hyperbolic "craft" beer scrum seems to be providing much needed perspective, which can't be usefully applied to anything at work because I'm not working.

Meanwhile, I spend mornings reading about TIF zones and sewer utility edicts. They're where my head is, and where my heart is following. As my musician pal Roz always said, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

As I contemplate what all of this means, it occurs to me that several NABC customers have gone out of their way lately to let me know how much they appreciate the Earth Friends concept as inserted into Bank Street Brewhouse. Thanks for that.

I'm the first to admit that in the very beginning, I didn't grasp it -- but seriously, why not something different when it comes to food and beer? I've enjoyed the food I've had at EFC, and of course David Pierce's beers are exemplary. It's a different crowd, and that's the point. Some day, there'll be money to complete the beer garden and make improvements. Until then, NABC excels at survival, often in spite of ourselves (and this assessment includes me).

That's all.

Insider Louisville's business briefing

Earth Friends Cafe re-emerges in New Albany: The team here at IL HQ had a rough go of things after Earth Friends Cafe closed its super-convenient-to-us East Market location last year. Now, the restaurant has re-emerged as the in-houser at Bank Street Brewhouse in New Albany (formerly the exclusive environs of Taco Punk). EFC, as it’s known, is running a lunch menu and Saturday/Sunday brunch, and is about to launch dinner wares, including black bean burgers, falafel burgers and flatbreads. Nom nom.

Diary: Thinking about philosophizing, good beer and chances to combine them.

Back in April, I told you about my excellent day in Lexington, Kentucky.

Visits to West Sixth and Blue Stallion while philosophizing in Lexington, Kentucky.

Multiple kudos to Peter Fosl, Professor of Philosophy at Transylvania University, who came up with a first-rate idea for me to come to Lexington on a brilliant spring Thursday and speak with philosophy majors over lunch at the school cafeteria. That's because I'm a Bachelor of Arts degree holder with a major in philosophy (IU Southeast, 1982).

It was a valuable opportunity for me to reconnect with my academic background, which always has played more of a role in my day-to-day existence than I cared to acknowledge. In many ways, my chosen method of doing "business" has been compensation for an unrequited desire to be a teacher.

I wrote about it here, at my other blog:

ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings.

... In 1982, I became the first IU Southeast philosophy graduate to amass all the necessary course credits while attending the New Albany campus, compiling a cumulative GPA in the vicinity of 3.0, thus handily proving the Professor McCarthy axiom’s innate wisdom. I promptly set about answering the question, “What does a philosophy degree get you?”

For me, it was the opportunity to be a bartender, work in a package store, substitute teach and work numerous other less enriching part-time jobs in route to my eventual way station in the restaurant and brewing business.

What does it all mean?

Beats me, but as I embark upon a quest for elected office -- one that many will view as quixotic at best -- I suspect there'll be more efforts to connect these dots. It's never too late to start all over again.

Diary: Those slender green bottles.

It was a cool May morning. I'd gone for walk, felt a breeze, and suddenly had an overwhelming sense of deja vu ... in my taste buds.

It's funny how memories work.

Suddenly it felt like another day and time, albeit it autumn, not spring. The first chill in autumn is different; it's heralding coldness, not warmth. It's about impending icy death, not a springtime sense of renewal, but nonetheless, it felt like autumn during my May walk just the other day.

In my fleeting daydream, I recalled walking to a field party, or maybe a bonfire behind someone's house. There would have been burned hot dogs or burgers, youthful college-aged lust, accompanying futility in pursuit, and naturally, beer.

As the futility mounted, so did the beer, and that's the beauty of libation therapy.

What did I taste, the flavor still familiar after all these decades, amid a throwback soundtrack of The Who, Cars and Pretenders?

Little Kings Cream Ale, of course.

Then, like a whiff of smoke from a Hav-A-Tampa ... it was gone.

Diary: The Taylor Swift Theory of RateAdvocate.

Okay, so if Taylor Swift "left" Spotify, could a brewery leave RateAdvocate?

You know, revert to incognito mode? When I posed this question on Twitter, my friend RM replied, "I like that idea. Sort of like the EU Right To Be Forgotten."

Here's the Factsheet on the "Right to Be Forgotten Ruling", as well as an excerpt from an article about it at The Guardian.

The top European court has backed the "right to be forgotten" and said Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it.

Another friend simply answered, "No," but then again, he's a big fan of beer ratings and might be just as jaundiced as me, somewhere across the chasm on the other side of the issue.

Granted, I'm mostly writing smack, so seriously ...

I understand "the right to be forgotten" and RateAdvocate are apples vs. oranges. I suppose the conventional wisdom is that only those breweries (and florists, restaurants, muffler shops and hotels, etc) with "bad" ratings would ever want to disappear from on-line ratings aggregators.

I'm told that NABC has good ratings (I seldom look), so that's not it.

I do know that my own use of non-beer ratings aggregators (florists, et al) generally bears little fruit. One tires of seeing a perfect five-star review posted adjacent to a hideous one-star pan, leading to an existential despair over the unfashionability of objective criteria.

I wouldn't know a Taylor Swift song if it walked up and knocked my pint of session ale onto the floor. Still, when I heard she was leaving Spotify, I mouthed a silent cheer. Maybe the grass is always greener on that ever-elusive "other" side.

Diary: It's the little things that matter, like APA with claypot catfish.

At Bank Street Brewhouse, we do what we can during the annual time of affliction in downtown New Albany, otherwise known as Harvest Homecoming. NABC promotes Fringe Fest, which in essence is our protest at downtown being taken over by a demographic more suited to the state fair in it most elemental form. You can call Harvest Homecoming family-oriented; I'll call it lowest common denominator. Fringe Fest is an alternative to the drollery.

But I digress.

About the only thing Harvest Homecoming and Fringe Fest have in common is the weather. If it's nice outside, everyone does well. If it rains, crowds naturally diminish. The forecast on Friday called for rain all day long, and by about 5:00 p.m., this prediction was being fulfilled. The missus and I made an Irish exit and went out for dinner.

These days, especially since she accepted a new job on the Indiana side of the river in Jeffersonville, we go to Louisville quite seldom. But in this instance, both of us were craving Vietnamese, and while there are a few highly regarded newer Vietnamese eateries, our choice was the tried and true original Indochinese destination, Vietnam Kitchen.

I've written about Vietnam Kitchen in the past. It isn't a good beer place by any stretch, but the food is transcendent (surely K-8 is among the top dishes in town), and lately, there'll be nice surprises on the beer list -- not extreme, but appropriate. On Friday, on the handwritten tab beneath the glass table top, "Sierra Nevada Pale Ale" was written. It had been a while, and so I had one with my meal.

I have no idea where it was brewed; Chico or Asheville or Port au Prince. It tasted as pleasant as I remembered it, and accompanied the sublime K-8 as well as I'd imagined. When everything's an IPA, it's a pleasure to have a beer that's an American Pale Ale in the class sense of a yardstick, one able to complement the food and neither overwhelm it nor be subordinated itself.

That said, I really like what David Pierce and my brewers are doing with NABC's Action! APA. But for one night at Vietnam Kitchen, the quintessential Sierra Nevada worked well for me.

Diary: From platinum to unplugged in a six-pack or less.

My diaries are intended to be extemporaneous utterings of ideas, without gloss or sheen. Sometimes I come back to them and polish, other times not.

In the music business, it used to be that a band toured relentlessly with low remuneration to build a market for its album releases, and if albums and songs hit it big, the returns were huge. Notice how every member of any band that had a 10-million selling album in the 1980s owns one or more castles?

Nowadays, and album is huge if it sells a couple hundred thousand copies in tactile format. Bands give away their music to build interest in touring, or perhaps songs are marketed on television commercials and on-line apps.

The point is that business model has changed completely. I suspect that in coming years, analogous considerations will pertain to the "craft" beer business as it becomes saturated. There'll be the top tier of players -- New Belgium and Bell's and Whomever Else playing the roles of the Stones, Springsteen and other major touring acts. Then there'll be the remainder, finding that the daily production undertow required to get by increasingly resembles those CD sales figures.

There'll have to be other ways of making bank. Probably those on a brewpub/on-premise scale will find it easier. Those on a production scale, with declining outlets, will need to determine how they become the equivalent of touring bands. In short, I think the business model is changing in my world, too.

The question is, how to survive? Not sticking with what are about to become outmoded strategies is an obvious first move.

The analogies aren't exact ... but they're intriguing.

Diary: Take your IPA Day and shove it.

I believe it was on Thursday last week that it was revealed to me. Someone, somewhere had declared it to be IPA Day.

The identity of the governing authority behind such utterances remains unclear, but there it was. I've long been contemptuous of "Hallmark Holidays," wherein PT Barnum is regularly proven right, and consumers will spend money chasing cards and gifts on First Cousin Day, or Deceased Pet Turtle Day, or whatever else has been dreamt up by a marketing firm as an effective means of pinpointing the location of fools, and relieving them of spare cash.

Now, for all my rampant and escalating cynicism, I can't honestly say that IPA Day as a concept is quite this wretched. I like IPAs, albeit it less so than in the past. At the same time, if all beers are IPAs -- as increasingly seems the case -- then we must return to the timeless wisdom of "stamp out and abolish redundancy," because IPA Day becomes the "craft" beer equivalent of Mass Market Lager Day.

I said as much on Twitter, and not content to dip a tepid toe into the Coors Light, went even further: Notions like IPA Day are hokum, to which I am grievously allergic.

Naturally, no more than an hour passed before one of my own employees posted on Facebook about celebrating IPA Day with NABC's Progressive Pints, and immediately I was exposed as some variety of hypocrite, and left to dangle from a gallow's pole of my own construction.

But not really, because pesky concepts like freedom of speech exist, even within  NABC. If you want uniform, monolithic thinking, then go visit RateAdvocate.

In the final consideration, what remains is fairly basic: Hallmark Holidays annoy me tremendously and are likely to continue doing so, and when every beer is an IPA, IPA is meaningless.

This is why I'm here today to announce the Session Gruit IPA Revolution. 

We'll brew a session-strength Pale Ale without hops, substituting a range of botanicals sources primarily in Indochina, hence the acronym. We'll sell a half-pint in a half-empty full sized glass, into which the drinker will add a bottle of Q tonic water ... you know, for bitterness.

Voila!

Have I won a Pulitzer yet?

The saddest thing of all is that in the time it's taken me to write this diary entry, someone's already pitching the idea to AB InBev.

Maybe Goose Island will do it.

Diary: “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

It was a very strange dream. I’m beginning to think it’s time for me to take a long vacation, or maybe find another line of work. I'm not ruling out therapy.

In the dream, I was having a meeting with a beer wholesaler. My cooler was filled with bottles of NABC beer. We tasted all of them. I was talking about how we had beers of proven merit, with more than a decade in market. There was existing brand recognition, and a sales history. It’s a no-brainer, I said. You need to take us on.

Came the reply: “No. We have too many brands already, and we cannot give you the attention you deserve.”

It was fairly disappointing, but it wasn’t the first rejection ever, and so I started packing up my kit. Before I was finished, another brewery rep came into the room. He was very young.

Hi, he said. I represent a brewery that has no beer. In fact, as yet, we have no brewery. But once we actually start brewing, you won’t want to be without us, so can we just tie the knot right now?

Of course, replied the wholesaler. Come right in and join us.

Really? As Dino might have crooned, “Ain’t that a kick in the head.”

Given my reputation, which at widely scattered intervals is deserved, you might reasonably assume I’d be annoyed or angered by this turn of events. Perhaps in real life, this would have been the exact reaction. However, this was a dream, and dreams mean absolutely nothing, and so I pulled my cooler into the restroom to splash water onto my face.

It’s when I noticed my beard was white, and that’s really bizarre – because I no longer have a beard. I shaved it off, and everyone says I look younger.

I wonder what it all means?

Diary: They've always been there, because unlike you, I'm not that stupid.

As many readers already know, at Bank Street Brewhouse, we no longer serve food.

You are encouraged to bring food or have it delivered, and we hope to stage events like last weekend's pop-up restaurant with Louvino's, but as for the kitchen is concerned, it remains health-bureaucrat-licensed and ready ... and also shuttered, at least for now. What the future brings is anyone's guess.

This being Indiana, an establishment cannot maintain its "adult beverages by the glass" license without adhering to a section of the statute stipulating that there must be present on site at all times these items: Sandwiches, soup, soft drinks, coffee and (drum roll please) milk.

Enough for 24 people. Why 24? Only long-dead legislators unfamiliar with lactose intolerance can answer that question. Was it a coin toss?

It's a wonder I know any of this, because having been involved all those years with a pizzeria, it never came up. Any drinks pourer with an in-house food service is given the benefit of the doubt by the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission (ATC).

Roughly six years ago, a bar called Connor's Place (since closed) had just reopened on Pearl Street after moving from its original location, where there had been a working kitchen. Coincidentally, it was Harvest Homecoming week, meaning that food was everywhere on the street outside, even if Dave, the owner, hadn't had the chance yet to reanimate his grill.

Naturally, he was cited by the ATC for not having the required bill of fare for 24 guests, as above, and he was told: Look, hotdogs and buns stored in the freezer and cans of soup count. Just have a microwave handy.

I knew, and as changes were being contemplated this spring, I understood that merely having once been a restaurant would not pass muster. Within a few days in May after ceasing to cook at BSB, we made sure compliance was in place. Since then, there have been 24 frozen hot dogs and buns, cans of soup totaling 24 servings, soft drinks (had 'em anyway) and instant coffee, the latter sufficing until I figure out a way to get better quality coffee service restored (Quills, I hope you're reading).

There's a microwave.

And yes, and powdered milk.

The reason I'm telling you this is that yesterday the ATC called. I'd already discussed it in May with the same phoning officer, who nonetheless had no choice to reconfirm with me yesterday because John Q. Public had called the ATC and complained that we were in violation of the rule.

A member of my fan club, no doubt, so kindly insert a raspberry here. If I find out who you are, I'll spit in your general direction.

As a side note, if we were to eschew our three-way permit and revert to a samples-only, growler-filling taproom without full pint pours, we'd be excused from the emergency menu requirement. But there'd be no fun in that.

Next I'm going to draw up a menu. Perhaps this 24-unit requirement is the germ of an idea, and there's a market for Oscar Meyer on white and a side of Cost Cutter Tomato Soup, with an after-dinner Sanka.

Pair with Hoptimus?

The Diary of Our Own Jimmy Bracken: Celibacy is starting to seem like a viable alternative.

My diary entries are for unexpurgated utterances. I may flesh them out later, or not.

I tell you, I don’t get no respect.

When you’ve been knocked around as often as me, it’s really hard to muster the enthusiasm for getting back into the dating game, but fetishes are fetishes. It’s just my luck to be fatally attracted to Kentuckians. I like them. They sure don’t seem to like me.

Still, my first relationship was quite good for a while. It was me and the black mamba. Then tragedy struck. There was a diagnosis of terminal illness, and a slow wasting away. It was painful to watch.

Right after the funeral, I got fixed up with a transplant from Ohio. Boy, did that one turn out to be a bad match. There are three-toed sloths on Prozac with more get up and go, so I got up and went. I’ve never witnessed such flatulence roaring through ANYTHING.

It seemed like the next one was a perfect fit: Smart, focused and totally on the ball. A genuine dreamboat. However, it ended before it even started, and all because of me: Turns out I’m just not sexy enough. That one hurt. I’m the first to admit I’m no runway model, but I can whistle Beethoven’s Ninth in any key while having my brain washed at Rate Advocate.

You’d think that would count for something.

Undaunted, I kept looking. More recently, there was another pretty good prospect. We actually have mutual connections in other states. I was honest and up front: “You know, I’m not asking for much.”

“That’s good,” came the cavalier reply, “Because you can’t have anything at all.”

Ouch. I’m telling you, these Kentucky wholesalers are a tough crowd. You try to get in bed with one of them, and BOOM. I’m into fireworks, though not necessarily when they start exploding after you’ve been cracked on the noggin with a two-by-four.

Well, wish me luck. There’s another blind date next week. Maybe this one will lead to lasting pleasure. If not, I’m starting to run out of choices.