More yawns as "New Albanian beer co-founder to depart."

"But Roger -- you, using religion as an analogy?"

It's been a strange past couple of days, so why not? I may be stepping away, but until all the documents are signed (which might take months), I'm not going anywhere, and so it's a bit weird to be eulogized before I'm dead.

Though flattering, too.

An ex-brewery owner? A future mayor? 30 years later, there's another fork in the road, and I'm pumped.

If I'm not elected mayor of New Albany, then I'll need to get a job doing something. Free-lance punditry doesn't pay well, although it suits my temperament. We'll have to wait and see.

New Albanian beer co-founder to depart, by Bailey Loosemore (Courier-Journal)

"Good beer's a religion. The business part just gets in the way."

The statement is a shot of criticism at the current state of the craft beer industry by longtime supporter and New Albany brewery co-owner Roger Baylor, who said it can seem nowadays to be more about looks than taste.

It's also Baylor's parting words as he permanently steps away from the New Albanian Brewing Company.

This week, Baylor announced he is in negotiations to sell his portion of the company to his New Albanian partners — ex-wife Amy Baylor and her sister, Katie Lewison — who started operating the business together at the former Rich O's Public House in 1992 ...

An ex-brewery owner? A future mayor? 30 years later, there's another fork in the road, and I'm pumped.

Thirty years ago, I closed my eyes wide shut and jumped -- not so sure where or even if I'd land, but firm in the realization that I needed to do something to change my life.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 15 … The traveler at 55, and a strange interlude.

I packed a gym bag, converted my life's savings into traveler's checks, bought a plane ticket and a rail pass, and went to Europe for three months.

It doesn't sound like much, and in the cosmic scheme of things, it wasn't. Millions of human beings have done the same, in different ways in different times. I'm just a speck, but it's the only speck I have, and I needed to relaunch the whole process of figuring out exactly who I was, because back then, the mechanism had stalled.

I was fortunate, and the plan worked. Europe made me what I am today, or more accurately, my stubborn determination that Europe would make me what I became actually bore fruit. It has been one hell of a ride, with only a handful of mostly negligible regrets.

Three decades later, it's time for another jump, and another relaunch. It's been time for quite a while. The public end of this process began yesterday morning with the publication of an article by Kevin Gibson at Insider Louisville: After a quarter century, Roger Baylor will move on from New Albanian Brewing Company. 

As usual, Kevin got it right.

... Roger Baylor, well known for his long career in beer and brewing, is now running for mayor of New Albany. If he wins, that will be his new focus. If not, well, he’ll look for another path to follow. Either way, his position as the public face of New Albanian has come to an end. He already had announced he would step away if he won the election — instead, he’s moving on ahead of the decision. It was simply time, he says.

Regarding his growing involvement in local politics over the last few years, Baylor tells Insider, “It seems to be what I’ve been interested in for a while now and seems to be what I spend a lot of time on. That might actually tell me something about where my head is.”

And while he still enjoys beer and brewing, it’s become more of a hobby-level interest, in part because of the popularity of what is now termed “craft beer.”

This is why folks should always spend months, and perhaps even years, reading between the lines to decipher cryptic hints. The private side of this evolving decision has been cogitating for a very long period. True, the devil's always in the details, timetables are inexact, and numerous stories might yet be written about how we got here, but there are three main bullet points that matter to me right now:

I want to be mayor of  New Albany, because this city desperately needs challenging from someone like me, and it's our time.

If not mayor, then I'm looking forward to a "solo" career as yet uncharted; NABC has been and will continue to be, so don't worry.

I am quite serene about these and other developments.

Thanks to everyone expressing support yesterday, today and in the weeks to come. If not for that first leap back in 1985, I'd have gotten to know precious few of you, and be all the poorer for the omission.

The following was published last week at Potable Curmudgeon. I may even have intended it as prelude. The 1985 travel series will continue in fits and starts, as I have the opportunity to write.

Stay tuned, because I didn't say anything about not writing.

Sorry I haven't been around as much. Here's why.

(Stream of consciousness, unedited)

I understand your concerns. Let me tell you the story as I see it, and know that to the best of my ability, I’ve endeavored to keep you informed. But life has been craaazy lately.

Begin by accepting that it was time for NABC to expand. The trick has been to do so in a way that maximizes our strengths, minimizes our weaknesses, and offers something different in a crowded marketplace. Merely duplicating the original location would be inadequate, and probably disappointing, because it is unique. The decision was to take the most comparatively undervalued section of the portfolio, NABC’s own beers, and provide it the room to grow, while at the same time rebranding it with an entirely different on-premise atmosphere that would contribute to the regeneration of downtown New Albany.

We knew from the beginning that once the Bank Street Brewhouse opened, supplying both retail locations with NABC’s own house-brewed beer as brewed within the confines of the existing garage brewery would be a profound challenge, at least until the new brewery downtown went on line. Everything had to be perfect for the game plan to work.

Unfortunately, everything wasn’t perfect. Because the aim all along was to sell NABC beer and NABC beer alone downtown, without any guest taps, I decided that the taps downtown would be kept filled with NABC beer to the exclusion of the selection at Rich O’s and Sportstime. The reasoning remains simple. At the pub and pizzeria, there are 30 other taps and a few hundred different bottled brands to provide temporary cover for the absence of house brands.

Of course, this assumed that production would be consistent in the existing brewery. We’d run low, but not run out. However, yeast issues in the existing brewery were not supposed to be part of the equation, but as living creatures, yeast sometimes have minds of their own. Replacing yeast and growing it to strength takes time, and so does a normal brewing schedule, and that’s why our core brands have been absent, and it’s also why I’ve already been compelled to swallow hard, reverse course and happily welcome guest beers to the new location. They’ll remain on tap as we slowly catch up, because there’s only one way to catch up: One brew day at a time, until serving tanks and kegs are filled … and then immediately repeat the process.

Meanwhile, rumor has it that the “regulars” at the Public House miss me. I’m flattered, but would ask that you not draw faulty conclusions from my absence.

I spent quite a lot of time in January and February working concurrently with the Bank Street run-up and Gravity Head 2009. Veterans of the pub scene understand how much work Gravity Head entails, much less actively opening an entirely new business. My strategic plan? With Gravity Head off and running for all of March and usually into April, time would be provided for me to concentrate on Bank Street’s opening before returning to the original location to begin envisioning the remainder of the year in beer and facilitating the long overdue beer list update.

All this became possible because of Mike Bauman, the beer manager at Grant Line, who has done marvelous work running the day to day while assimilating a staggering amount of information about the tricks of the trade. Trust me when I say that the many recent shifts in wholesale availability, from regularly stocked items to a large preponderance of special order beers, would have baffled even me, and without the Bank Street demands. Mike’s been slogging through this, and the hard work should soon visibly bear fruit.

Other than getting into the habit of referring to the original site as Grant Line and the new location as Bank Street, which should help newcomers distinguish between the two, little will be changing on the north side. At some point in the near future, we hope to implement a few long-delayed and sorely needed changes: Kitchen expansion, the incorporation of much of Prost as a full-time Public House seating and service area, improvements to the existing brewery as it assumes the role of seasonal/specialty/experimental work area, and whatever outdoor seating can be carved out of the remaining scant real estate. I hope these things can begin happening later this year, and during 2010.

For them to happen, we must continue making our friends and customers happy by serving them food and drink. With respect to me, personally, it should be obvious that doing all these things at the same time makes it difficult for me to predict when I’ll be at which location. I hope you understand that. Like so many other considerations, my absence from the pub isn’t at all personal. It’s business. We’ve been at this a long time, and the business is at the point where it must grow. I’m working as hard as I can to achieve this, and so is Kate, Amy and the rest of the teams in our employ.

Finally, I’ve accepted that this is what I want to do when I grow up. Now, I have to grow up. I’ll be seeing all of you somewhere, some time. You remain family, and don’t doubt it.

How soon is now?

(I needed a break, so I've been listening to the Smiths)

For the first time in ages, money has been a daily concern in my professional career, which is supposed to be about beer to the exclusion of most everything else. At least that's the way I've always approached it.

So far, NABC as currently constituted is holding up well amid the familiar economic problems in the nation at large. We’re holding our ground.

The money concerns I mention are about the beer, in the sense that my company needs money to finish the new brewery in downtown New Albany, which has been partially built but not finished. Until we get a financing package in place, we’re stymied. It has been a frustrating few months, to say the least.

Had we been ready to borrow in 2007, it is likely that one or the other bank would have handed us a pile of greenbacks sans much at all in the way of collateral. The fact that banks did this far too often is the precise reason why we now have a world financial crisis, and in some ways, it would be nice to have a finished project even if we now might be part of the overall problem rather than still standing outside on the doorstep, waiting to be processed.

Banks now insist that they’re practicing “old-fashioned” banking, and this means that they’re holding tightly to their reserves and insisting on conservative lending principles that a younger generation of bankers never even knew existed. Trust me – I’ve listened as they’ve confessed to their ignorance, and how much they’ve had to learn since matters began heading south.

I’ve also heard them cast doubt on the suitability of NABC’s brewery project by noting that they’re not funding start-ups (er, we’ve been in business for 21 years, altogether, and are expanding a brand, not creating an entirely new one), and also they they’re avoiding restaurants.

To the latter, I’ve responded: “Makes sense, but if you’d just take a look at this helpful business plan we spent six months writing and see that the taproom’s a small part of the beer production operation … wouldn’t want to trouble you, of course … we’re here to answer your questions, after all.”

There are times when it makes me want to scream. To all those borrowing idiotic amounts of money at unreal interest rates to fund houses you couldn’t afford in an exurb that I detest, hey … thanks for all that. And thanks to the people who indulged/conned you into thinking you could afford things you can’t. Thanks for voting Republican and acquiescing in the pell-mell shedding of regulation, which might have restrained you from your intrinsic greed.

However, in this situation, the truth of the matter is that the glass of beer is half-full, not half-empty. We took a long time to work through the details of the plan for the new operation, and that’s been good. It's better that way, and I feel even more confident about it now. The fact that we’ve had to go back and look for creative ways around the lending impasse has also been beneficial. I know more about SBA programs and leasing arrangements than ever before. When things break, we're going to be lean and efficient ... at least, more so than before.

Yes, I’d rather be focusing on the beer itself. At the same time, concentrating on all the rest of the financial minutia is an education I’ve sorely needed to further. Eventually it will enable me to return to the beer itself, because we’ll find the financing partner and finish the project, even if it takes longer than we’ve planned.

The beer’s going to taste even better then. Trust me.

How dry I've been ... coming to an end, soon.

There hasn’t been much for me to say lately about beer in the sense of my drinking it, and that’s because I haven’t been.

Drinking it, that is.

That’s because I’ve been taking two varieties of pain medication, neither of them suitable for use with alcohol. As I’ve said many times before: As a professional beer drinker, alcohol does damage enough to my innards without compounding the problem by mixing it with pills. It is my responsibility to, well, to be responsible and save those cells for Gravity Head sacrifices and biking trips.

The pain medication came about because of my recent rotator cuff repair surgery. Recovery is going well, and the physical therapy regimen has been successful thus far, and so earlier tonight I availed myself of the loophole conceded me by Dr. Moskal, who said that in deference to professional obligations, a bit of beer here and there while still on the meds would be acceptable.

During my first two visits to work after a 12-day post-surgical holiday, I nipped at a wee few ounces of Schlenkerla Fastenbier (now gone); BarrelHouse Belgian Style Winter Ale and Boss Cox Double Dark IPA; and NABC’s recent lineup additions. Mt. Lee (California Common) and Jasmine the Mastiff (Sweet Stout). Seriously, just an ounce or two of each, and followed by perhaps four ounces of Croupier IPA on Friday night during a quick nibble stop at the Bistro New Albany.

Back to tonight.

To celebrate the conclusion of her first year of graduate school, the wife and I dropped in at Maido Essential Japanese on Frankfort Avenue in Louisville. You’ve read me tout Maido on numerous occasions, so I’ll spare you another (go there, damn it) and say merely that as accompaniment to a “spicy Seoul roll” that included kimchee, a draft pint of Dave Pierce’s seasonal BBC Dank IPA was mighty, mighty fine.

Gotta get off the pills. Soon. Just not enough hops …