An Elector always makes democracy pointless, and Tony shows you why.

As always, NABC's artwork comes to you courtesy of the inimitable Tony Beard, who continues to conjure designs as a basis for a pre-election Elector marketing run.

Wednesday Weekly: "Beer and council."

Glad to hear you’re running for city council. You should make grade-school promises of your beer filling the water fountains.
-- Evan

Prior to 2004, local politics and municipal governance were not among my preferred topics. I could have provided a six-hour lecture on European beer history with numerous examples, and still not been able to name a single New Albany elected official other than the mayor.

As of tomorrow, I’ll be running as a Democrat for an at-large seat on the city council. The primary is on May 3. With a top three finish, I’ll go through to the general election in November, when voters choose three from a field of six candidates, divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

If you live within the city limits of New Albany, kindly consider voting for me, please. One of the reasons for running at-large is that there are many more people living citywide with whom I’ve shared good times and beers in the past than in my home district alone. At least, it strikes me as a reasonable assumption.

On Thursday there’ll be a link to my last column in the New Albany Tribune, where my musings will be on hiatus until the election results are final. My other blog seems the appropriate place to comment on the daily sensation of office-seeking, and so it’s my guess that the routine here will proceed as normal. It isn’t like I can take a leave of absence from work for campaigning. I wouldn’t even if I could.

As the accompanying photo plainly shows, I'm no graphic designer, but the notion of melding left-leaning politics with Progressive Pints always has appealed to me, although there is little purpose in arguing about whether the craft beer revolution is inherently left or right. My intellectual fermentables are brewed to one set of influences. Yours might well be different.

Mayor and now Governor John Hickenlooper might actually combine the two – or not: High hopes for one of our own in Colorado, fewer for the same tired faces in New Albany.

The NABC company logo may have to be removed from the pint glass, but maybe the keg lifter can stay. As I have been reminded, a kilt lifter might be a more clever reference in my working world, but there's already a beer by that name, and I’d hate to risk campaign copyright infringement.

Do I have a chance? I think so, at least in the primary, and more so if I can order a few additional “These Machines Kill Fascists” tees so that they can be a part of the daily campaign (by bicycle) wardrobe.

Whether I advance or not, it’s worth noting that already two local ministers, one of whom is a supporter of a group called Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), have filed to run as Republicans. They’ll be unopposed in the primary.

Why does this matter? Imagine ROCK as a sort of regional Moral Majority, leading crusades against various forms of wickedness as defined by their narrow Biblical interpretation, and trust me when I say that among the many “cultural” conditions the organization would like to “reclaim” is the halcyon era of Prohibition. It is the inexorable direction that all such extremist groups travel.

Elected or defeated, it is a personal priority to oppose ROCK's efforts. Craft beer excites me. Violations of church-state separation enrage me. Remember that.

I’ve spoken quite a lot lately about the arc of my epiphany. Steadily over a time, I’ve been drawn into re-examining almost every assumption about being in the beer business, and many, perhaps all, of these dialectics are intimately connected with a sense of place and the community in which we live and work. My business helps the community, and the community prefaces the business. All of it fits together, although I’m not always sure how. Now’s the time to keep pushing, and see where this path leads. Maybe it’s up, and maybe down. It might lead nowhere. But I’ve already been involved, and the step seems logical.

As the county clerk told me, “Why not? You go to most of the meetings anyway.”

Progressive Pints as strategy and tactics? Why not?

Take it away, Vincent.

It's a Free Frites Fete from 2 - 4 p.m. this Saturday afternoon at Bank Street Brewhouse.

This Saturday (December 11), Chef Josh Lehman is soliciting your opinion with free samples of frites and sauces.

From 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., the Bank Street Brewhouse kitchen crew will offer guests free samples of frites in the form of an assortment: Different cuts of potatoes, different types of potatoes (russets, sweet, yukon gold) and different sauces for accompaniment, including the seven sauces currently on the menu, along with ten new ones (green curry, rosemary aioli, blue cheese, dill lime aioli, horseradish, hot chili, mango ketchup, peanut sauce and more).

Patrons are asked to vote for their favorite cuts, types and sauces.

But there's even more.

There will be frites fried in duck fat (which makes everything taste better), and also a special beer for the event.

Anyone care to guess where I'll be on Saturday?

Both NABC locations open and serving beer today!

Don't forget that both NABC locations are open and serving beer today. The state law changed earlier this year, and the prohibition on election day imbibing was removed.

The Pizzeria & Public House opens at 11:00 a.m., and Bank Street Brewhouse opens at 2:00 p.m.

Yep ... it's Elector Day in Indiana, and NABC is Elector HQ. I'll be at Bank Street for a while tonight, so I may see some of you there.

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.

Elector Day 2008: Elector's 6th birthday celebration.

For the record: Hopocalypse Now: Lupulin Land update.

On November 4, vote first, then sample NABC's first-ever Electimus ... "randallized."

For the record: Hopocalypse Now: Lupulin Land update.

Now, good news from brewer Jared Williamson:

Election Day special: ELECTIMUS! It's sterner pointlessness ... a special blend of our two ales (70-30; Elector and Hoptimus) “randallized” with Centennial hops. Only one ½ barrel, steeped over the weekend.

Needless to say: The Public House will not be open until 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4.

Sportstime Pizza will observe regular hours beginning at 11:00 a.m., for what is destined to be an excruciatingly dry lunch. Sportstime has four flat screens to watch election returns, and in a departure from the norm, we'll have a couple of televisions available at the Public House, one in the front room, and, for the first time, another in the bar. There'll also be another Elector Day/Election Night promotion. When the doors open at 6:00 p.m., you can buy an NABC pint glass of Elector "It Makes Democracy Pointless" Ale at the regular price and keep the glass. Limited to the first 50 customers. Electimus is part of the deal, too.

Another NA (non-alcoholic) election day tomorrow.

Longtime readers have seen this one before, but it's appropriate to repeat these sentiments before each election. The text below is my latest reworking as published last week as a "Mug Shot" article for LEO (it appeared on Wednesday, April 30).

Needless to say: The Public House will not be open until 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6. Sportstime Pizza will observe regular hours beginning at 11:00 a.m., for what is destined to be an excruciatingly dry lunch. There'll be open seating at Prost from 6:00 p.m. to watch election returns on the big screen.

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In 2008, Indiana's primary election takes place on May 6, and Kentucky's follows two Tuesdays later on May 20.

In both states, Election Day brings with it roughly eleven hours of state-mandated prohibition against the sale of demon rum, and consequently the bars can't open until the polls close. Of course, one might drink continuously until 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. election morning, and then nurse a carry-out six-pack or a bottle of single malt Scotch during the comparatively brief time it takes to watch an Adam Sandler DVD before crawling off in a stupor to vote when the polls open at six.

Presumably, this unwelcome vestige of an otherwise discredited social policy serves as a bulwark against the horrific possibility that unscrupulous politicos or their conniving agents might swap half-pints of Kessler (or a similarly valued slopping spree at the community's on-premise watering holes) in exchange for a poor wretch's vote.

As there exists no commensurate prohibition against the sale of strong black coffee, chocolate-covered Krispy Kremes and hickory-smoked bacon, apparently the veiled but very real threat of breakfast-induced bribery is not worthy of the same scrutiny as that posed by the insidious grape and the grain.

If you're hopelessly intoxicated after ingesting that half-pint of Kessler, are you really any more destructive to democracy than the perfectly sober voter who is following instructions provided by a fundamentalist preacher, who in turn has promised not temporal inebriation, but a favorable reference when the time comes to take up residence in heaven?

I think not, and hope you had the foresight to visit your favorite package store on Monday night. Otherwise, remember that the taps open at 6:00 p.m., and to quote Groucho Marx, then there'll be "dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor."

Another NA (non-alcoholic) election day.

(Crossposted at NA Confidential)

Don’t forget:

You must have an ID to vote – and to get served after you vote.

Don't forget:

If you're looking for a polling place, call the Floyd County Democratic Party at 812-207-7941.

Don't forget:

To quote Groucho Marx, when the taps finally open at 6:00 p.m., there'll be "dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor," at least until the sad reality of Dan Coffey's inevitable victory over write-in candidate Skittles the Cat begins to sink in. I'll likely be at Connor's Place for celebration and commiseration.

You've forgotten: The following first ran on May 2, 2006.

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Another election day is here, and with it eleven hours of state-mandated prohibition against the sale of demon rum.

Presumably, this unwelcome vestige of an otherwise discredited social policy serves as a bulwark against the horrific possibility that unscrupulous politicos or their conniving agents might swap half-pints of Kessler (or a similarly valued slopping spree at a downtown tavern) in exchange for a poor wretch’s vote.

As there exists no commensurate prohibition against the sale of strong black coffee, chocolate-covered Krispy Kremes and hickory-smoked bacon, apparently the veiled but very real threat of breakfast-induced bribery is not worthy of the same scrutiny as that posed by the insidious grape and the grain.

If you’re hopelessly intoxicated after ingesting that half-pint of Kessler, are you really any more destructive to democracy than the perfectly sober voter who is following instructions provided by a fundamentalist preacher who has promised not temporal inebriation, but a favorable reference when the time comes to take up residence in heaven?

Nope, me thinks you're not. We hope you thought ahead and visited your favorite package store on Monday night.

Cheers ...

Derby and election day operating hours at the Public House.

Two advance notes for local readers:

(1) Rich O's Public House won't open until 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, which is the first Saturday in May, which in turn is a Louisville area holy day known as Kentucky Derby. So many employees have called out festive that we have no one to work the afternoon shift. Sportstime Pizza will be open from 11:00 a.m. as usual

(2) Next Tuesday, May 8, steel yourself for the annual nastiness of election day (municipal elections in New Albany), which means that the taps don't open until the polls close at 6:00 p.m. As is our long custom in recognition of the futility of being a fine beer bar that can't serve during the daytime hours on election day, Rich O's will open at 6:00 p.m. Sportstime will be open from 11:00 a.m. for a long, uninvitingly dry lunch.

Could people vote worse drunk?

"Marcey Wisman for City Clerk" beer tasting fundraiser this Wednesday.