(4 of 4) 18th Street's Sex and Candy: "Your Sexism is Predictable and Boring, 18th Street Brewery."

This is where it comes full circle, with three posts at the MetaCookBook blog. These are self-explanatory, and more incisive than I ever could be. Read them.

My aim at present is to offer the background, not a  deep examination of my own viewpoint on this topic, though to read here and here is to understand where I come down.

My hesitance to leap into this fray owes not to timidity, but doubts about my relevance. I've been out of the loop, and I'm still adjusting from being someone in the brewery game to being outside it, now just a regular consumer like everyone else. It can be disorienting.

I'll have something to say, but not yet. First: Read these blog posts.

Your Sexism is Predictable and Boring, 18th Street Brewery.

My friend Lakeline just watched a brewery she liked take a critique of a sexually objectifying label they have very poorly. She had some words on it, and I offered to share those words here. I have my own thoughts on the topic, but I haven’t been able to put them down yet. For now, know I agree with every word she’s written below. — Natasha

Then ...

No, Seriously. 18th Street Brewery’s Response Was Utterly Predictable.

The most recent post on this blog is a guest post regarding 18th Street Brewery’s sexism. As the guest didn’t have a title, I titled it, “Your Sexism is Predictable and Boring, 18th Street Brewery.” And this is my take on the matter: 18th Street Brewery’s sexist response was utterly predictable.

Drew Fox (the founder & head brewer of 18th Street Brewery) has shown us before what he thinks of women. He’ll tell a woman raising concerns about the industry to “back the fuck off” and engage in policing what women and girls wear to try to derail the conversation at hand.

Then ...

Further Reading: Some Links on Sexism and Beer

One of my goals for blogging is to have an interesting link post every Monday morning. I didn’t manage that this past Monday because my day was spent really writing and polishing my post on beer and predictable sexism. It’s one of my best posts, I think, and very important.

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(3 of 4) 18th Street's Sex and Candy, and wondering, "What ... the Brewers Association (Is) Doing to Address Gender and Race?"

The heated discussion about 18th Street's Sex and Candy dovetailed with a blogger's account of chats about gender and race in "craft" brewing at the recently concluded Craft Brewers Conference.

What is the Brewers Association's position, and by extension, is this something appropriate for consideration by state guilds?

You probably already know my answer to the latter question. I think it is.

wordpress.com/2016/05/09/what-is-the-brewers-association-doing-to-address-gender-and-race/">What Is the Brewers Association Doing to Address Gender and Race?

(By Bryan Roth, at This Is Why I'm Drunk)

 ... Some context before we get to the #longread.

The last few weeks have been ripe for discussion. Last month, one brewer’s Facebook rant on sexism went viral, and rightfully so. Last week, a Twitter argument erupted over a questionable beer label, and rightfully so. Hell, this year’s James Beard Award for Journalism went to a story about the lack of minorities in the beer industry.

It’s not hard to find labels that could easily be found as offensive.

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(2 of 4) 18th Street's Sex and Candy, and how the "Twitter Fight Over Racy Indiana Beer Label Highlights Industry Sexism Concerns."

From the article/18th Street website.

This article explains how the exchange between public and brewery over the Sex and Candy label became, shall we say, heated.

Twitter Fight Over Racy Indiana Beer Label Highlights Industry Sexism Concerns, by Anthony Todd (Chicagoist)

There's a minor firestorm brewing on Twitter in the craft beer community, and it's about an old favorite topic of ours: Sexism in the beer world. We've seen plenty of potentially sex-laden beer labels, and you can add this one to the list: 18th Street Brewery's Sex and Candy. The brewer is also responsible for such beer names as "Bitches' Bank," "Bitter Bitch Pale Ale" and "Bitch Hands," so.

The label for Sex and Candy features a women's panties, emblazoned with the beer's name, and a pair of crossed thighs. Some might object, some might say it's all in good fun. At least one beer lover, however, registered her disappointment with it on Twitter.

OK. Social Media 101 says that if your brand gets attacked on Twitter, you have two choices: Ignore it or use it as an engagement opportunity. Unfortunately, 18th Street took the less-recommended third choice: attack the complainer.

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(1 of 4) 18th Street's Sex and Candy, but first, the story of 18th Street Brewery.

My next few posts are going to be about the 18th Street Brewery, which came into existence a few short years ago in Gary, quickly exploded, and now has opened a production facility in Hammond.

Hardcore beer geeks already know about 18th Street and its founder/brewer, Drew Fox. More casual observers may not be familiar with the brewery, and this isn't unexpected considering the 120+ breweries currently operating in Indiana.

I've neither met Drew Fox nor visited his brewery's locations. I can attest to the quality of those 18th Street beers I've tasted.

What recently brought 18th Street Brewery into the spotlight wasn't its beer, but what some have perceived as sexism, as manifested by the label for Sex and Candy.

The backstory is, I saw the cans at Whole Foods, snapped a pic and sent it to Carla. She questioned the brewery. They stood by the label and called her a piece of garbage and a troll while doubling down with their social imaging. I've asked Whole Foods to consider moving the display to an interior shelf where kids might be less prone to asking what it is.

First, the brewery's story.

18th Street Brewery: Our Story

Sometimes things happen for a reason. Starting to feel burnt out from the wear and tear of the hospitality game, Drew Fox took a trip to Belgium. The hostel he was staying at had a phenomanal wheat beer with which he fell in love. Upon returning to Chicago, Drew found it difficult to get beers that sparked that same feeling he had in Europe. It was around this time that Blue Moon started circulating and it- along with Chicago's Half Acre, started to put Drew's wheels in motion ...

... In 2012 a Kickstarter campaign was begun to get money to open a brewery and taproom for 18th Street Brewery to call their own. The campaign was well recieved and exceeeded its initial goal. In the midst of brewing and bottling six different beers, 18th was able to find a home in the Miller Beach community of Gary, Indiana.

A very detailed brewery profile at Good Beer Hunting: GBH HYPE — 18th Street Brewery Secures an Independent Future in NW Indiana.

18th Street Brewery, lead by entrepreneur and brewer, Drew Fox, has earned local and international standing as a start-up in Gary, Indiana. Initially built through crowd funding on Kickstarter, the brewery has gone on to win “Best New Brewery in Indiana” from Ratebeer.com, collaborated with some of the world’s most creative brewers, and appealed to a local audience that stretches from downstate Indiana, to Chicago and the NW Indiana corridor, and audiences as far away as Denmark. Now, Fox and his team have found themselves on the verge of an incredible new chapter in the future of the business.

The new Hammond brewery opened in February, 2016.

18th Street Brewery opens Hammond brewpub Saturday, by Joseph S. Pete (NWI Times)

On Saturday, 18th Street Brewery will become Northwest Indiana’s first craft brewery to open a second brewpub.

The award-winning craft brewery, which was named the best newcomer in the state by RateBeer when it opened in Gary’s Miller neighborhood in late 2013, is now opening a new brewpub and production facility at 5417 Oakley Ave., in downtown Hammond.

18th Street is moving its brewing operations to the much larger former furniture store warehouse in Hammond, but will keep its Miller brewpub open. In the larger space, 18th Street will now be able to expand its distribution throughout Northwest Indiana and the rest of the state, including in South Bend and Elkhart.

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It doesn't matter whether Guy Fieri's new Louisville restaurant has good beer because none of us will be going there anyway.

Not if Cordish can help it. 

Otherwise sensible people lost their minds earlier today when celebrity chef Guy Fieri announced the opening of a "Smokehouse" eatery within the friendly, taxpayer-subsidized confines of Louisville's Fourth Street Live.

That he did so during an event entitled Hometown Tourist Attraction Showcase tells us that irony resistance is at an all-time high.

Needless to say, independent eateries and watering holes enjoy no such coddled treatment, and if you look at Fieri's web site, and this list of his brands, you'll see that when it comes to opening new restaurants, he minimizes risk at every opportunity.

GUY FIERI’S AMERICAN KITCHEN + BAR: CANCUN
Cancun International Airport, Mexico

EL BURRO BORRACHO
Harrah's Casino, Laughlin NV

GUY FIERI’S BALTIMORE KITCHEN & BAR
Horseshoe Casino, Baltimore MD

GUY FIERI’S MT POCONO KITCHEN
Mount Airy Casino, Mt. Pocono PA

GUY FIERI’S CHOPHOUSE
Bally's Atlantic City Casino, NJ

GUY FIERI’S VEGAS KITCHEN & BAR
The Linq Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas NV

GUY’S BURGER JOINT
Carnival Cruise Lines and Live Nation venues:
Carnival Breeze
Carnival Conquest
Carnival Freedom
Carnival Glory
Carnival Liberty
Carnival Pride
Carnival Sunshine
Carnival Triumph
Carnival Vista

Sleep Train Amphitheater – Chula Vista, CA
Shoreline Amphitheater – Mountain View, CA
Xfinity Theater – Hartford, CT
Jiffy Lube Live – Bristow, VA
MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater – Tampa, FL
Perfect Vodka Amphitheater – West Palm Beach, FL
Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – Tinley Park, IL
Klipsch Music Center, Noblesvile, IN
Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – St. Louis, MO
BB&T Pavillion – Camden, NJ
Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre – Long Island, NY
Blossom Music Center – Cuyahoga Falls, OH
First Niagara Pavilion – Pittsburgh, PA
Gexa Energy Pavilion – Dallas, TX
Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater – Virginia Beach, VA
White River Amphitheater – Auburn, WA

Can you say CAPTIVE AUDIENCES?

Of course, the Curmudgeon isn't saying any of this makes Fieri a bad businessman. However, in the case of Fourth Street Live, government subsidies to Cordish -- which generally favors chains and routinely dismisses the indie ethos -- always have been disturbing, and in Louisville's case, with an indie food and drink community second to none, watching the soulless local media fawning today over an interloper whose business model is as corporate as fix-is-in ever gets, speaks volumes about integrity ... and its absence.

You'll notice I left one of Fieri's restaurants off the above list.

It's Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in New York City, the only one of his branded establishments not attached to a casino, airport, cruise ship, performance venue or Cordish corporate welfare emporium.

It had a rocky start. Surely you remember the New York Times review of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in 2012.

As Not Seen on TV: Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square, by Pete Wells (New York Times)

GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are?

I'm rolling on the floor laughing out loud. No, I mean literally.

But forget all that. Can we expect to see good beer at Guy Fieri's Cordish Smokehouse in Louisville? Maybe, though probably not.

Here's the list at Fieri's Vegas location.

Not awful, though evincing no intelligent designer. When's the last time you saw a restaurant beer list, chain or indie, that looked genuinely thoughtful? They exist, but can be hard to find.

More humorously, Fieri's much maligned NYC tourist route location promises "an extensive draft beer program featuring signature beers craft brewed for Fieri right in New York City."

Nice, except it would appear this novel twist owes to the fact that Heartland Brewery's CEO is a partner in the Times Square venture, and that's odd, because Heartland Brewery isn't mentioned anywhere on the drinks page.

Embarrassment?

Did A-B InBev tithe more?

"Guy's Beer" NYC selections include Independence Pale Ale, Golden State Lager, Red, White & Blonde, Morgan’s Red Ale and Oatmeal Stout. Also available on the "extensive" tap list: A lone seasonal beer, Angry Orchard Cider and Coors Light.

But don't forget the bottle list: Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller High Life, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Rolling Rock, Good Grain Gluten-Free (Heartland) and Beck’s Non Alcoholic.

Extensive? You be the judge.

Yes, you bet your ass I'm being derisive. Bring on the tour buses. Guy's bringing corporate fluff straight to River City -- and Cordish is billing Greg Fischer for the privilege.

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THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Hip Hops ... A look at two new New Albany breweries.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Hip Hops ... A look at two new New Albany breweries.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I'm always an issue behind when it comes to reprinting my columns from Food & Dining Magazine. This one is from Spring 2016; Vol. 51 (February/March/April). 

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HIP HOPS: A LOOK AT TWO NEW NEW ALBANY BREWERIES

In 1906, thirsty residents of New Albany had the choice of three local breweries to visit when it came time to refill pails gone dry.

Paul Reising’s plant was the granddaddy of them all, taking up a whole West End city block, where Bavarian-style beers had been brewed on-site since just after the Civil War.

A half-mile away, Virt Nirmaier crafted a well-regarded “common” beer at his brewery on State Street, the western route out of New Albany, up Buffalo Trace and through the Knobs. Nirmaier’s Common sold to taverns for $1.25 a keg or $5.00 a barrel. His charge for smaller quantities is unknown.

Near the present-day high school on Vincennes Street, the Nadorffs brewed beer and cut ice in winter from a pond on their property. In 1907, the family stopped brewing and opened a wholesale beer distributorship, which survives to the present day.

Soon the scourge of Prohibition descended, ending the first great era of American brewing, but in truth, our failed national temperance experiment merely hastened the passage from independent local brewing to larger economies of scale regionally and nationally.

Pendulums have a fortunate way of swinging back, and brewing returned to New Albany in 2002, when the New Albanian Brewing Company first mashed in.

Then, in 2015, there was an abrupt tripling of numbers: Donum Dei Brewery and Floyd County Brewing Company (FCBC) both opened, and while it may seem novel for such a small city to have so many breweries, this pattern is being repeated all across the country.

Late last year, the Brewers Association reported the existence of 4,000 breweries in America — more than in 1906, and in fact, the most ever at any point in the nation’s history.

New Albany’s two newest breweries typify this upward arc. They’re independent, small and family owned. You can have a pint, grab a bite and take beer to go. Donum Dei is on the north side, down the road from Indiana University Southeast, and FCBC lies a short caber toss from the downtown YMCA.

Let’s take a look at these two local brewing start-ups.

A “Gift of God”

Rick Otey is a 50-something electronics engineer who didn’t like the taste of beer until work took him to Seattle during the 1990s. There Otey enjoyed a transformative encounter with Red Hook Extra Special Bitter (ESB), inspiring him to brew at home and seek craft beers on his own turf.

Facing a career juncture in 2014, Otey and wife Kimberly decided to redirect a portion of their retirement portfolio toward greater liquidity, and Donum Dei Brewery is the fruit of their investment.

By personal disposition and designer, the brewpub’s ethos is thoughtful and unhurried. “It’s not so much what we do, as what we don’t do,” Otey explains. “There’s no rush. Beer is a living thing, and we wait until it’s ready.”

This mantra extends to the compact, café-style food menu, with appetizers, soup and paninis: “It’s as simple and local as possible, at a decent price,” Otey says.

The décor and lighting are almost Scandinavian, with clean and modern wooden accents. There is neither television nor Wi-Fi. Otey would prefer your phone remain sheathed, because he seeks to encourage conversation and reflection.

Donum Dei is Latin for “gift of God,” and although Otey offers it in a broader metaphysical context, the history of beer and brewing is intertwined with the pursuit of higher truth, as with Trappist brewers fashioning their ales for sale, barter and communal consumption.

Otey’s delicious Enkel (single) Belgian Gold is the ideal example. As brewed at 4.4% abv in a classic Abbey mold, it is gently fruity, as befits a monastic table beer intended to accompany meals.

Donum Dei’s beer range reflects Otey’s principled eclecticism. There has been a Saison, Brown Porter, India Pale Ale and Red Ale. During the first quarter of 2016, expect to see a big, malty Wee Heavy in the Scottish stylistic vernacular.

He’ll serve it when it’s ready.

Quest for the Ale

Floyd County Brewing Company (FCBC) anchors a corner of Main and W. First St. in rapidly changing downtown New Albany. In addition to the bustling YMCA, neighbors include The Exchange Pub + Kitchen, Feast BBQ, and Seeds & Greens Natural Market and Deli.

The new brewpub bears owner Brian Hampton’s strategic imprint. “The beer names, graphics and décor all come from me,” he says. “I did most of the woodwork, too. Right now the kitchen learning curve is taking up most of my time.”

Like his counterpart Otey, Hampton is a home brewer and beer-seeking engineer, and he views the ideal pub as a place of refuge and escape, outfitted to provide a comfortable setting to get away from it all.

Hampton sought to refit an older building, creating modern comfort with Old World ambiance. The result looks something like a medieval banquet hall, but scaled down to a Yorkshire public house, then filtered through Monty Python outtakes from “The Holy Grail.” A hundred-year-old house was connected to a new annex built to house brewery and bar areas, and it feels far more venerable than it is.

All that’s missing is the mead bench, but give Hampton time. He’ll build one.

Brewer Jeff Coe is charged with alchem-izing Hampton’s ideas into fermented form. He is concentrating on a bedrock repertoire, including Braun Jovi (Brown Ale), Hefe’ns Gate Hefeweizen and Vlad’s India Pale Ale.

FCBC’s best-selling menu item is fish and chips, but oversized turkey legs often are spotted being gnawed. Both pair wonderfully with Arrow Smith Amber, marrying a malty ale of medium strength to orange peel and coriander flavorings otherwise expected in a Belgian-style Wit. It’s reminiscent of Blue Moon with caramel malt, only better, and it serves to remind us of the medieval tradition of “gruit,” an ale flavored and balanced with spices rather than hops.

For my best advice to Donum Dei and FCBC as they move forward, I propose these highly appropriate words from Richard Atkinson to Leonard, titular sixth Lord Dacre, in 1570, as quoted by Martyn Cornell:

“See that ye keep a noble house for beef and beer, that thereof may be praise given to God and to your honour.” 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Donum Dei Brewery

3211 Grant Line Road,

New Albany, IN 47150

(502) 541-2950

www.donumdeibrewery.com

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Floyd County Brewing Company

129 West Main Street,

New Albany, IN 47150

(470) 588-2337

www.floydcountybrewing.com

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April 26: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part two.

April 25: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part one.

April 18: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 33 … All good things must come to a beginning.

April 11: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 32 … Leaving Leningrad.

April 4: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Birracibo’s local/regional “craft” beer percentage rides the bench.

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Joshua Pietrowski shares a story, and I'm grateful.

Joshua Pietrowski is the brewer at Turoni's in Evansville. We've been friends on Facebook for a while, and I finally got to meet him in Ft. Wayne at the Brewers Conference in March.

He's a big, ebullient, well-spoken character in the Falstaffian vein, and it turns out that we have mutual friends. Joshua grew up with the son of my buddy Lee's brother-in-law.

I trust he won't mind this reprint of a Facebook status update, from just after the conclusion of the Craft Brewers Conference in Philly last week.

My days are spent bemoaning the sterility of what passes for "craft" culture these days, when this wonderful transformational art form sinks so very often to the same level of vapid "me first" consumerism that impelled the revolution in the first place ... and then comes Joshua Pietrowski to remind me that all is not lost, and we're still capable of literacy and feeling outside the narcissistic box.

Thanks, man. I needed this. A lot.


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I took an abnormal amount of pictures today. I was going to put them all on Instagram for everyone to see all the great places I ran to and from in Manhattan. I'm not going to share those with you. I would, however, like to share a story.

Merl and I wrapped the night up at the Skylight Diner. This thing could have been straight out of Seinfeld. I got there, ordered a crappy beer, and took my chances on a real New York Reuben (where they use Cole Slaw instead of sauerkraut and Russian Dressing instead of thousand island), and after it had been cooked and delivered to the diner counter where I sat, something strange happened.

Two bites in, I noticed a man about my size, decked out in full construction gear, still wearing his orange helmet, watching something on his phone. It was so odd, because whatever he sat watching for at least five minutes had classical music playing in the background, not exactly what you'd figure a three hundred pound third shift behemoth of a man in the middle of picking up a round of cheeseburgers for his crew to be in to.

Two bites later. I couldn't get this weird thing out of my head so I looked back over at him to realize, fully, what was going on. On his cell phone danced little girls in leotards, delicately and out of rhythm to the suspect classical music, as I put two and two together. One of those was his daughter, and he had to settle for video because he was stuck at work. I looked up from the phone to the man's face and caught him choking back tears, slowly using grimy fingers to wipe away those tears beneath his glasses as he watched the most important thing in his world bob and weave and twirl back and forth across a stage.

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For every one thing that divides us, there are ten that make us family, sometimes before we even know each other. For every fresh crack or new divot on the surface of our old souls, there are ten patches of scar tissue that remind us that we have survived. That we are surviving. This is not an easy time to feel unified, here in the easiest time there's ever been to be alive, and I know that some days we wake up and think that nothing is worth anything anymore.

I only got half way through that Reuben, and that guy was gone about two minutes after I caught him sobbing. I think he had to get back to work. And I decided not to post those forty pictures because at the end of the day, those places, they're just brick and mortar and some other man's memories. I truly love to travel, and I get to do my fair share of it. But my favorite thing to bring home is not a new Michigan hat, or a new pint glass for my collection at home, but a lesson. The kind that teaches you to step back, put the sandwich down, and realize that even the Skylight diner can be a holy place, and witness to those fleeting moments when heaven crashes into humanity.

"Binny's expansion to Indiana thwarted by state liquor law changes."

My friend and former employee Richard Atnip, now serving at New Holland, sent me this link and asked me what I think. Honestly, I think laws aimed at thwarting out-of-state retailers ultimately are indefensible and will be smacked down like a herniated pinata in a court case.

But I'm not a legal scholar. I merely pretend to be one while propped somewhat aloft at the bar(top).

Binny's expansion to Indiana thwarted by state liquor law changes, by Greg Trotter (Chicago Tribune)

Binny's Beverage Depot was poised to swoop in and open at least four stores in Indiana, where, in the words of CEO Michael Binstein, competitors are "fat, happy and lazy."

It would have been the first out-of-state expansion for Chicago's largest liquor store chain.

But those plans are on hold indefinitely after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence last month signed laws, backed by a powerful liquor store lobby, making it much harder for out-of-state liquor retailers to come in and set up shop.

"The retailers and their lobbyists amassed at the border to keep us out," Binstein said. "Indiana's is a free lunch system, not a free enterprise system."

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Coming to Lexington in September: "Craft Writing: Beer, The Digital, and Craft Culture," Version 2.

In 2014, I was humbled, honored and slightly terrified to be among the speakers at Jeff Rice's inaugural craft writing symposium at the University of Kentucky.

On belonging: Stan Hieronymus has the last word (for now) about craft writing.

At Hey Brewtiful: "Beer Nerds Unite Over Kentucky Craft Writing Symposium."

Two more craft writing recaps: Digital takeaways and a Beer Trappe's perspective.

Hoperatives: On the Craft Writing Symposium.

Gary Spedding of Brewing and Distilling Analytical Services on the Craft Writing symposium.

The PC: Conformity, contrarianism and a craft writing symposium.

The PC: Not so simple a symposium.

Craft Writing symposium: It's fine by me if craft beer gets all introspective.

Yes, I took it very seriously, and now, two years later, it's time for Son of Craft Writing. Best of all, because it's on a Friday, I can attend.

Craft Writing: Beer, The Digital, and Craft Culture

A one day symposium at the University of Kentucky showcasing writing in craft beer.

September 30, 2016
Memorial Auditorium
Free and open to the public
10:00 am - 5:00 pm

This one day event will bring to UK brewers and professional writers from the craft beer industry. Craft beer, the annual production of under six million barrels of beer by small breweries, is one of the fastest growing areas of the food industry. According to the Brewers Association, craft beer provides over 108,000 jobs and its retail dollar value in 2012 was estimated at $10.2 billion. In the last twenty years, over 2,000 new breweries have come online, commanding almost 6% of the overall American beer market. These breweries have, in turn, helped revitalize city neighborhoods, generated new jobs in related industries, and played a key role in expanding digital and social media usage.

This event will showcase the professional writing – in print and digital media – that is dominant in the craft beer industry. Writing has played a major role in promoting the business of craft beer. Craft Writing will serve as an event that draws interdisciplinary attention to the ways industry utilizes writing – in various digital forms – to promote, inform, highlight, argue, market, brand, and foster relationships between products, consumers, and other relevant parties.

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"With the shaker pint, how will beer ever be seen as something more than mildly intoxicating Wonder Bread?"

There is something wring with this picture.

From the very beginning of the Public House, we used Anglo-Irish pint glasses, and this is legacy enough for me.

designer/2014/09/so-long-shaker-pint-we-hardly-knew-ye/380440/">So Long, Shaker Pint: The Rise and Fall of America's Awful Beer Glass, by Laura Bliss (City Lab)

How the entire U.S. came to drink out of a vessel never meant for human lips.

... In more and more bars across the country, the little-recognized shaker is slipping out the back door. And among beer's devotees, the end of the glass that defined a century in beer can't come soon enough.

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"Craft beer is so white, in fact, that there’s an entry for 'microbreweries' in Stuff White People Like."

From the article.

As though to illustrate the impeccable axiom that a stopped clock is right twice a day, I give you a well-written, thought-provoking article from Thrillist.

It isn't a pleasant topic. Neither is sexism in "craft" beer. However, the more uncomfortable the topic, the greater the urgency.

Or, you can just have another IPA.

There are almost no black people brewing craft beer today. Here's why, by Dave Infante (Thrillist)

I’M IN A CRAFT BEER BAR IN BROOKLYN, sipping a $9 stout and looking for black people. “Juicy” is on the speakers, and Notorious B.I.G. grew up a five-minute walk from my barstool here on the dividing line between Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant. This is a traditionally black neighborhood, but right now, at 10:30pm on a Thursday, the only people in the bar are me (white), the bartender (white), and a stocky guy with a beard down at the end mouthing lyrics and nursing a bomber of what looks like Hill Farmstead (he’s white, too).

My search isn’t going well so far.

That’s because craft beer is white. Whiter than a ski lodge. Whiter than a Whole Foods in the suburbs. Craft beer is so white, in fact, that there’s an entry for “microbreweries” in Stuff White People Like, a book based on a blog written by a white person making fun of white people for being white. The passage concludes with this sentence: “Most white people want to open a microbrewery at some point.”

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Bruges beer pipeline, revisited: "The pipeline is just weeks away from completion."

Halve Maan.

In 2014, having just returned from Belgium, I was moved to make a comparison.

The difference between Bruges and New Albany? It depends on Jeff Gahan's definitions of "ruining", "quality of life" and municipal impotence.

While in Bruges that fall, we heard about the construction of the beer pipeline. It's nearing completion -- and the street outside my house?

It's still running one-way. I live in an exceedingly stupid place, indeed.

Brewery Builds a Pipeline, Sending Beer Lovers Into a Froth; Belgian project will carry 1,500 gallons an hour; requests for home taps fall flat, by Matthias Verbergt (Wall Street Journal)

BRUGES, Belgium— Xavier Vanneste, heir to a dynasty of beer brewers in this medieval city, had a pipe dream.

When he woke up and looked out of his window one spring morning, he saw workers on the street laying underground utility cables in front of his house, situated on the same ancient square as the brewery he runs.

“I immediately realized this was the solution,” Mr. Vanneste said.

The brewery’s truck fleet had been bottling up the city’s narrow, cobblestone streets. Matters had been getting worse since 2010, when the brewery moved its bottling facility out of town.

His brain wave? A beer pipeline.

“It all started as a joke,” said Mr. Vanneste. “Nobody believed it was going to work.”

Four years later, the pipeline is just weeks away from completion. It stretches 2 miles from the brewery, De Halve Maan, or The Half Moon, in the city center to the bottling plant in an industrial area. It will be able to carry 1,500 gallons of beer an hour at 12 mph. Hundreds of truck trips a year will no longer be necessary.

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THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part two.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part two.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

The story began yesterday, as I explained how two hicks from somewhere near French Lick (Roger and Barrie) toured the USSR in 1987 and made the acquaintance of two Danes (Kim Wiesener and Allan Gamborg), who began conspiring to introduce us to their friend, Kim “Big Kim” Andersen.

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Once the canalside vodka bottle was emptied, we stumbled back to the hotel, which was a tall concrete monstrosity located in a 1960’s-era suburb of Leningrad. One of the tour participants named Nick had packed a full-sized American flag, which we proceeded to unfurl on the building’s roof after bribing an elevator attendant to take us there, against the dictates of common sense and all prevailing regulations.

Miraculously, even after it flew in full view all night, we were able to reclaim the flag without any difficulty, and there were no disciplinary repercussions. In fact, Nick subsequently traded it to a Soviet railway employee in return for a huge tub of first-rate Black Sea caviar. Still, when I recall allowing vodka to dictate my behavior while passing through a totalitarian country, shivers go down my spine.

Brief stays in the oppressed Baltic lands of Latvia and Lithuania followed, and then the group proceeded to Warsaw and Krakow in Poland.

There are too many anecdotal tales to coherently relate: An elderly fellow tourist mistaking the liquid in our vodka bottle for mineral water and gulping it down on a scorching hot day at the Polish-Soviet border as we waited for the train’s wheel carriages to be changed … building the “Leaning Tower of Pivo” from empty export Carlsberg cans in a Riga hard currency bar … the well-endowed Danish lass Metta’s provocative push-ups at a meet-and-greet with Lithuanian students … wild going-away parties in Warsaw, where Barrie and I drank Bulgarian wine with Bozena, our leggy blonde Polish tour guide, alongside a few of the tour group’s stragglers … and a cab ride to Warsaw’s cavernous train station and desperate, futile foraging for food and drink prior to the long overnight ride to Prague and our ultimate redemption, otherwise known as Pilsner Urquell on draft.

Kim Wiesener, an amazing, hyperkinetic tour leader, was right in the thick of these occurrences, and a sort of wartime kinship was born. At the conclusion of the Soviet bloc tour we exchanged addresses with him, promising to keep in touch. Barrie and Kim agreed to meet later that summer, when Barrie would return to Copenhagen for his flight back to the United States. You can bet your last black market ruble that even then, Kim’s cerebral wheels were spinning: What could be done to bring Barrie and Kim Andersen together in Copenhagen?

In the meantime, Barrie and I embarked upon the beer-based itinerary we had plotted far in advance for the remainder of our time in Europe, first traveling from Prague to Munich, where we met Don “Beak” Barry and Bob Gunn for three epochal days of Bavarian beer hall carousing, and then pressing on with Bob to Paris and the D-Day beaches. After Bob’s departure, Barrie and I crossed the sea to Ireland aboard the “Guinness ferry,” meeting up with Tommy, a newspaperman and good friend of Don’s, and later watching U2 perform at the Cork soccer stadium, before experiencing the operatic wonders of Brian and his “High-B” Hibernian Pub, also in Cork, all the while marveling at the classic pleasures of the Irish countryside.

As the revelry continued, I didn’t think there would be enough time for me to accompany Barrie to Denmark and then double back to Brussels for my own return flight, but at a pub somewhere in Ireland, after my tenth pint of Guinness, I changed my mind. I had a rail pass, after all, and what better was there to do with it?

We began concocting a plan to surprise Kim Wiesener with my delightfully unexpected presence, refining the insidious plot over smoked salmon and Bailey’s Irish Cream (both charged to ever-groaning credit cards) while aboard the ship back to Cherbourg. Once in Paris, we hopped an overnight train to Copenhagen, and contrary to so many failed plans made over the years, this one came perfectly to fruition.

Soon after debarking in Copenhagen we were reunited, burrowed safely in Kim’s tiny apartment with chilled Tuborgs in hand and Monty Python songs in our hearts. Following opening toasts, our devious and conniving host divulged his own surprise: An evening with Big Kim already had been arranged, and so finally, Ottersbach would meet Andersen.

Fortunately, so would I.

The world was advised to forget Ali’s and Frazier’s “Thrilla in Manila.” Instead, onlookers were to gird for the “Battle of the Titans,” to be held in the quaint beer venue called the Elephant & Mouse, or Mouse and Elephant, where we were informed there would be copious quantities of draft Elephant beer, Carlsberg’s fine, sturdy and strong lager.

It was to be our first visit to the M & E, a small and dignified pub near the main square, where the only sign of identification above the front door was a small sculpted plaque depicting – what else? – a mouse and an elephant. In the wake of the pub’s sad closing in the late 2000s, let’s hope the plaque now resides in a museum of cultural history somewhere in Copenhagen.

On the second floor of the pub, up a narrow flight of ancient steps, a handmade elephant head adorned the wall behind the wall. Draft Elephant Beer poured from the snout, powered by a clever tusk acting as the tap handle.

Big Kim arrived along with Graham, a British friend who chose to follow the lead of Kim Wiesener and me, nursing just a couple of half-liter glasses during the session. At $7 a pop, these were somewhat financially burdensome at the time, and anyway, we wanted to watch the spectacle unfold with faculties intact. As predicted, Big Kim and Barrie proved to be perfectly matched humans, perhaps separated at birth, both with a fondness for alcohol of any sort, hot and spicy food in large quantities, impossibly tall tales and jokes, and endless, infectious tsunamis of irresistible laughter.

Big Kim and Barrie approached the high-gravity Elephant Beer at full throttle, and much merriment ensued. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth one, Barrie stumbled; accounts vary, but we can gently infer that some of the Elephant Beer didn’t stay entirely down.

Advantage, Andersen.

After several hours of Elephant consumption, and with monetary reserves reaching dangerously low levels, we decided to continue the match at a nearby establishment where Metta (of Lithuanian busty push-up fame) worked as a bartender. As we stood on the street corner contemplating taxi strategies, Big Kim suddenly broke free of the group and staggered wildly into the middle of the street in a doomed effort to hail a taxi home. We quickly subdued him, dodging passing bicycles and cars, and loading Kim into our own hack to proceed to the next planned stop.

With this unforced error of Big Kim’s, Ottersbach had pulled even.

Now this Battle of the Titans devolved into a brutal battle of attrition, with the clock ticking and everyone involved thoroughly drunk and fatigued. Both Barrie and Big Kim made it through big export bottles of Pilsner Urquell at the second bar, after which we returned to Kim Wiesener’s apartment for obligatory nightcaps, the outcome still very much in doubt. Barrie and Big Kim both opened their green label bottles of Carlsberg. Barrie finished his, but Big Kim stole away, ostensibly to use the toilet, and was found a short time later sleeping on the host’s bed.

Seemingly, it was a last-gasp victory for Ottersbach, but as all those involved were physically unable to tally points in their besotted condition, the Battle of the Titans was fittingly declared a draw and passed into legend.

29 years have passed since that epic summer of 1987 and our first meeting with Kim Wiesener, Allan and Big Kim. Certainly all of us have changed, but the friendships carries on, and I cherish them. We five have met many times, in many places, and they’ve all been special.

Just like the next one, whenever and wherever it may be.

(The Curmudgeon's spring break starts NOW. I'll be back some time before Derby)

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April 25: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part one.

April 4: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Birracibo’s local/regional “craft” beer percentage rides the bench.

March 14: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Two decades of Beer Corner barrels.

March 7: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Can I get a “do-over” on Naughty Girl?

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THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part one.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: The mouse, the elephant, and a clash of nonpareils ... part one.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It is worth noting for the sake of posterity that I was not physically present at the precise moment when a failing “Ignoble” Roman’s Pizza franchise situated off Grant Line Road in New Albany, Indiana, quietly was shifted into the “local” column by the O’Connell family and redubbed Sportstime Pizza, setting into motion subsequent events that changed numerous lives (some perhaps even for the better), and subsequently led to what today is known as the New Albanian Brewing Company.

Such are the vagaries of serendipity. Human beings put great stock in planning and preparation, and to be sure, there are times when advance thinking genuinely matters. Yet, much of the time, little of it is relevant. The Fickle Finger of Fate makes the final call.

The reason for my absence in 1987 was a four-month European sojourn – my second such trip overall. It has taken more than a year to write the 33 chapters of Euro '85 (the postscript is yet to come), stretching from the 30th anniversary of my founding epic into the 31st. Seeing as 2017 marks three decades since the sequel, perhaps it's time to begin the next chronicle in a series intended to arrest the encroaching mists of an ever-more-distant past.

My 1987 overseas pilgrimage was divided into three rollicking acts, with ample time for education, recreation and debauchery: One month in Western Europe, with extended stays in Benelux, Switzerland, Austria and Italy; two months behind the Iron Curtain, including Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, the USSR, Poland and Czechoslovakia; and then a final month’s swath of perpetual motion danced with considerable glee through West Germany, France, Ireland and Denmark.

To this very day, I am amazed, humbled, enlightened and utterly stupefied by my good fortune, when considering the places seen, the experiences savored, and the people encountered while on the road in 1987. Three months in Europe in 1985 had taught me the helpful rudiments of budget travel, and in 1987, because the daily budgetary regimen was established as a habit of sorts, much more time remained to absorb, to cherish, to live and to drink the occasional beer for breakfast.

These many years later, there can be no doubt that the single most abiding outcome of my wandering the continent in 1987 is an enduring friendship with three fellows I met there. The three Danes of the apocalypse are Kim “Little Kim” Wiesener, Kim “Big Kim” Andersen and Allan Gamborg. I’ve now known them for more than half my life, an existence immeasurably enriched by their camaraderie in myriad ways too profuse to recount.

But my motive at present for name-checking the three Danes, and by extension, recalling the manner by which we became acquainted during the summer of 1987, is the drinking bout dubbed “The Battle of the Titans,” held at the venerable Copenhagen pub called the Mouse & Elephant (sadly, it has since gone out of business). I cannot verify the exact date of this grand spectacle, although a solid guess would be August 12, 1987.

It is a day that will live in enduring forgetfulness.

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This story is inexorably intertwined with that of my high school and college classmate, and illustrious, longtime partner in mischief, Barrie Ottersbach, who occupied a formidable role in the narrative of that long-ago summer.

An unsuspecting Kim Wiesener was the tour leader for a “youth” travel group visiting the Soviet Union and Poland, and Barrie and I were enthusiastic, if only marginally youthful participants (we were 27 at the time).

Legend has it that Kim fell under Barrie’s spell (or was it the other way around?) on a hair-raising Aeroflot flight from Copenhagen to Moscow, where I had arranged to meet the remainder of the group, having arrived in the capital of Ronnie Raygun’s evil empire by way of a 36-hour train trip from Hungary, during which my sole company was a bag of fresh cherries, two loaves of bread, a sizable salami from Szeged, and two bottles of delectable Egri Bikaver (Bull’s Blood) wine.

Water? I can’t recall drinking any of it.

On the hazy morning following the boozy evening of the group’s belated arrival at the hotel, all of us were supposed to meet in the hotel lobby for orientation before setting out on a bus tour of Moscow. Kim was mildly concerned when Barrie failed to appear for roll call; I reassured him that all was well, and that Barrie was in safe hands, having ventured into the Soviet underworld with “Bill,” the friendly neighborhood black market sales representative whom I’d met earlier under similar circumstances the previous afternoon.

At that exact point, not even a full day into the excursion, Kim surely understood it would be a very long journey, but he was reassured when Barrie appeared later that afternoon, brandishing a softball-sized wad of colorfully useless rubles. For the remainder of our stay in the USSR, he grandly depleted this ridiculously huge bankroll on lavish restaurant meals, caviar, vodka and champagne; beer was difficult to find, and the rubles were non-convertible inside or outside the country. It was fling time, and fling we did.

For a brief time, Barrie himself occupied a crucial position on the fringe of the black market, a mirthful capitalist amid communism’s decay, profitably reselling his rubles back into hard currency for those members of our group who were too frightened, squeamish or senselessly law-abiding to trade on the streets.

Our introductory lesson in entrepreneurial initiative thus completed, we moved on to Leningrad by overnight sleepless express train just in time for an impromptu Fourth of July celebration. Kim, Barrie and I gathered on the grassy, mosquito-infested bank of an urban canal, a scene made complete when a bottle of the finest Russian vodka materialized from Kim’s backpack. Illuminated by the White Nights, we were introduced for the first time to Allan Gamborg, who coincidentally was passing through the city with a tour group of his own.

Ominously, as the bottle was passed around from person to person, its silky contents ingested without any semblance of a chaser, Kim and Allan began speaking in hushed tones about Denmark’s answer to Barrie: Kim Andersen, hereafter to be known as Big Kim. Their descriptions of Big Kim were offered to us in impeccable English, although occasionally they would lapse into Danish or even Russian in search of the proper words to explain this larger-than-life phenomenon from their homeland.

We scratched our heads and made mental notes.

Would we meet Big Kim, and if so, where?

(Part two is tomorrow, and will take the place of next Monday's column. It's spring break for the Curmudgeon)

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April 4: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Birracibo’s local/regional “craft” beer percentage rides the bench.

March 14: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Two decades of Beer Corner barrels.

March 7: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Can I get a “do-over” on Naughty Girl?

February 22: The PC: Beef Steak and Porter always made good belly mortar, but did America’s “top” steakhouses get the memo?

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Two new breweries coming to Louisville, and a cider bar to New Albany.

A long story made short: Some years ago at NABC's R & D Brewery, Jared Williamson took on an intern of sorts named Kyle Tavares. Later they both migrated to St. Louis to work for Schlafly, and now Kyle has returned to Louisville to brew at Mile Wide.

I've been following Old Louisville's progress on Twitter, and it's been fascinating to see how much has gone into rehabbing the building prior to brewing equipment arriving.

And: Matt's CIDEways project is a ten-minute walk from my house. A few weeks ago, we rode up to Indy and visited New Day, where cider and mead now sell 50/50.

I'm looking forward to all three of these.

Brewery Roundup: Mile Wide, Old Louisville, CIDEways on track to open in 2016, by Kevin Gibson (Insider Louisville)

Monnik Beer Co. and Akasha Brewing Co. both opened in late 2015, while Goodwood Brewing rose from the ashes of the Bluegrass Brewing Co. production brewery. In addition, 3rd Turn Brewing made its debut in Jeffersontown early this year.

But Louisville isn’t finished. Two breweries and a cidery are in various stages of completion in the area: Mile Wide Beer Co., Old Louisville Brewery, and CIDEways, which will eventually become a cider brewery in New Albany.

Here are the latest updates on these three up-and-comers ...

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Louisville's First Link Supermarket, and its connection with Frank Fehr Brewery and Rathskeller.

Who knew that a supermarket closing would bring submerged Louisville brewing history back to the surface?

Downtown's only grocery store closes after more than 70 years in business, by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

Downtown Louisville's only grocery store has closed after more than 70 years in business, and the building will be auctioned next month.

The independently owned First Link Supermarket building, at 431 E. Liberty St., near Jackson Street, will be auctioned at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 18. The auction will be held at the property, according to Indianapolis-based Key Auctioneers, which is leading the auction.

This part grabbed me:

"The site was formerly the Frank Fehr Brewery and Rathskeller, and features a huge lower-level, temperature-controlled environment which would enable it to be repurposed (i.e. liquor storage and distribution), continue to function as a supermarket and USDA meat-processing operation, or to be completely redeveloped for a new use," the release stated.

Broken Sidewalk picked up the story:

Seventy year old grocery closure puts last remaining Frank Fehr structure in jeopardy, by Branden Klayko

The First Link property is older than it looks, dating to sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s. While the facade of First Link along Liberty Street has been bricked up and windowless for some time, the original facade ... featured large expanses of glass, including a layer of glass admitting light to the basement. A rounded aluminum overhang added to the structure’s Streamline Moderne Art Deco aesthetic.

The structure was built by the Frank Fehr Brewing Company and clearly was an effort to modernize its eclectic collection of historic buildings, long demolished for parking lots and the Dosker Manor homes. Another sleek, modern structure approximately three stories tall once stood across from the First Link site, standing in stark contrast with the older architecture.

Following are four random views of the Fehr demolition, circa 1966. They're at the University of Louisville's digital library.

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Brewers Association beer and brewing stats for Kentucky and Indiana.

The straight dope from Kevin Gibson, including Kentucky and Indiana production rankings.

 Since this short snippet was buried in a "business briefing" update, I'm including all of Kevin's text.

Kentucky ranks 38th in U.S. in total breweries, report shows, by Kevin Gibson (Insider Louisville)

The Brewers Association recently reported 2015 statistics on craft breweries state by state and the economic impact of the industry on each state; Kentucky ranked 38th in the nation with 24 total breweries, with California (518) by far being the highest.

The association reports that Kentucky breweries brewed 87,156 barrels of beer last year, or 0.8 gallons per adult (21 and over). Those numbers rank 32nd and 38th respectively nationwide. The economic impact is reported at $495 million, good for 27th in the United States.

Kentucky’s brewing industry, while it has taken a back seat to distilling in terms of popularity and growth, has shown movement in recent years. The number of breweries in the state has more than doubled in the last five years, according to the report.

In Louisville, Great Flood Brewing recently announced it will build a production brewery that will greatly increase its impact, while no fewer than two other breweries are in the process of opening.

Our neighbors to the north, Indiana, ranked 15th nationally with 115 breweries that drove more than $1 billion in economic impact. Nationally, there were more than 4,200 breweries doing business in 2015, according to the report. Domestic craft beer sales grew by 12.8 percent.

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Facebook raids the secondary market for counterfeit whiskey sales, or something like that.

So, this happened.

FACEBOOK ISSUES LAST CALL ON WHISKEY SECONDARY MARKET GROUPS, by Nino Marchetti (The Whiskey Wash)

One of the worst-kept secrets in the whiskey lover’s world is the existence of closed Facebook groups that function as a secondary whiskey market, where private bottle sales go on in a grey market style.

To date, the giant social media company has either has been ignorant of these groups, or chosen to ignore them. But today, that was not the case. A number of groups involved in this activity were shut down by Facebook in a virtual raid of sorts, apparently alongside other groups allowing private sales of other items that could be considered controversial.

This "virtual raid" was the subject of much chatter, but as someone who knows very little about shadowy gray worlds apart from the way New Albany's mayor chooses to govern, apparently it has to do with things like this.

Inside the Pappy Van Winkle Forgery Scheme That's Infiltrating Bourbon's Black Market, by Aaron Goldfarb (Esquire)

​Empty bottles, lesser booze, foil coverings, and blowdryers

... "There's a crazy problem right now," Riber, a senior accountant in Jacksonville and the author of Bourbonr blog, told me over the phone. "And you just know it's going on when you're seeing empty Pappy bottles selling for 100, 200 bucks online."

It's nothing to do with "craft" beer, right?

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THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 33 … All good things must come to a beginning.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 33 … All good things must come to a beginning.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(Thirty-third in a series chronicling my travel year 1985)

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The Travela agency’s chartered motor coach departed Leningrad just after breakfast on Sunday, August 4. By mid-afternoon, I was situated in Turku along with the antebellum Mississippians, their fingernails on my metaphorical blackboard, Northerner and Southerners waiting together to catch the ferry boat from Finland to Sweden.

The island-strewn Baltic was crossed during the night, and Stockholm’s efficient subway connected the city’s docklands to its central train station for the next leg to Copenhagen, Denmark.

It seemed that nothing could stop this relentless momentum, and as the rails steadily clicked past, I made leisurely work of the previous evening’s Silja Lines buffet doggie-bag, all the while plotting a final “Sleep-In” hostel evening in the Danish capital, followed by an early morning train in the direction of the Duchy of Luxembourg.

Way back in May, I’d taken the precaution of reserving a dorm bed at the Luxembourg City Hostel for my last two European nights, but first, there’d be time in Copenhagen for another heaping platter of fried potatoes and eggs at the Vista Self Service Restaurant, a couple bottles of Tuborg, and a decent night’s sleep in something roughly approximating a bed.

Alas, it was not to be.

Somewhere between Stockholm and Copenhagen, surrounded by leafy rural copses, amber waves of grain and cloudless blue skies, the train shuddered to a halt. It remained motionless for a full three and a half hours.

The stoppage had something to do with engine failure, and better a train than a plane in such cases, but the delay necessitated an itinerary rethink. By the time we made Copenhagen, there was little sense paying for a bunk when another train soon would be queueing for the overnight run to Germany. I might as well keep moving.

Scraping together the haggard remnants of my Danish kroner stash, I found fruitful foraging near the station: Three bottles of Carlsberg from a shop across the street, a handful of rødpølser (hot dogs) from the pølsevogn out front, and an International Herald-Tribune. It was enough.

Providentially, there was ample room in the trains’ 1st class car to stretch out across the seats. It wasn’t a bed, though it was an improvement on the ferry’s unyielding floor the long night before.

Morning found me in Kӧln, Koblenz, or maybe Aachen? I can’t tell you exactly where I debarked on Tuesday morning. The most likely explanation is Kӧln, with a change to Koblenz for the final approach to Luxembourg City, via Trier. Wherever it was, two memories have survived reasonably intact.

Most importantly, the train station in question was “old school” and still had a for-pay locker room with hot showers, where filth-encrusted budget travelers could pay a few Deutschmarks to be clean and fresh again. These facilities seemed entirely obsolete even then, and I sensed they were doomed, but it was blissful to have a scrub.

Then, feeling human again, I visited the train station bistro and pointed at a dish that appeared to be chopped steak on a roll, ready to be cooked to order -- and it was, in a manner of speaking, except that the beef was supposed to be served raw, with the added bonus of an uncooked egg on top.

Such was my introduction to Steak Tartare. Had I not already paid for it, rejection likely would have ensued, but funds were running low. Silly American squeamishness had no choice except to be surmounted, and so I ate it. It wasn’t bad, and I did not die.

So it goes.

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This is truly a remarkable story for such a small country (Luxembourg) that originated from an old Roman fort sold to a Prince by some monks.
-- Andre Sanchez

In early afternoon on Tuesday, August 6, my three-month European adventure finally came full circle. Once again, I stood on the plaza in front of the Luxembourg City train station, and this time it was without the incapacitated drunkard.

Roughly 54 hours and 1,750 miles had passed since the bus left Leningrad. My emotions were jumbled and conflicting. Exhaustion vied with exhilaration, and a reluctance to return to America was balanced by the inevitability of the air ticket.

In May, it had taken me almost two hours to find the hostel on Rue du Fort Olisy. In August, a quick stop at the handy tourism kiosk in the station produced a free city map and concise directions in English. I found the hostel after a pleasant 20-minute walk.

In May, confused and probably delirious, I’d noticed very little about my surroundings. Now, in August, Luxembourg City was revealed as a place worthy of exploration in its own right.

The hostel itself reposed in the shadow of a huge stone bridge spanning a quiet valley, north of the promontory where the centerpiece of the city’s fortifications formerly straddled. Two rivers snaked through the historic downtown area, a place seemingly devoid of flat ground.

Luxembourg’s blend of German and French cultural influences was newly evident, especially as reflected by the local language, Luxembourgish. It seemed a hybridized and impenetrable German dialect with French loan words.

Billeted and unburdened of baggage, there remained ample time late on Tuesday afternoon for a visit to the Bock casemates, accessible by climbing the hill behind the hostel.

The Bock casemates are underground passages remaining from Luxembourg City’s castle, formerly placed astride a rocky ridgeline surrounded on three sides by the looping River Alzette. Famed for its impregnability, the castle’s construction began in the year 963, and for 900 years, it was augmented with formidable walls and ramparts.

The Treaty of London in 1867 established a neutral Luxembourg and called for the demolition of the castle and adjacent defenses. The casemates remained. Originally, these radiated from the castle’s cellar. A long, central passageway leads to what were storage areas, workrooms and kitchen capable of being used when the castle was attacked or under siege.

Smaller tunnels radiate from this passageway, leading to artillery emplacements in the walls of the cliffs. After demilitarization, with most exterior structures removed, the casemates still had their uses, most memorably as bomb shelters during WWII.

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Wednesday was my final opportunity to wander European byways with dreamy, aimless intent. It dawned a flawless summer’s day in the Duchy, warm and sunny, but without the oppressive and muggy humidity of the Ohio Valley.

I walked to the train station and exercised the magical powers of the Eurailpass for the very last time. The idea was to ride the slow locals northward to Clervaux and back, perhaps stopping to examine other small towns along the way, and getting a feel for the Ardennes.

As I was to learn the hard way from the saddle of a bicycle 19 years later, the Ardennes may not be lofty mountains by world standards, but they’re far more mountains than hills. They’re also beautiful and filled with history.

Clervaux was the scene of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. In one of the war’s great military feats, George S. Patton’s 3rd Army broke off combat in Germany, reversed course in impossibly rapid fashion, and relieved American forces trapped 20 miles to the west of Clervaux in Bastogne, Belgium.

In the Great War, nearby Troisverges marks the spot in 1914 where Imperial Germany violated Luxembourg’s neutrality in route to their eventual standoff with the French. Everywhere I looked in Clervaux, there was history on a signpost.

Better yet, Clervaux proved just the place to indulge in a valedictory reverie. I went into a small grocery store, bought a crusty loaf, ham, cheese and two local Diekirch lager beers, and walked up to the castle. It houses a museum devoted to the Battle of the Bulge, and outside, a Sherman tank and artillery piece are on display.

I found a bench near these relics of violence and peacefully ate and drank my lunch. Dessert was in my shirt pocket, because I’d bought five small Cuban cigars at the Beriozka back in Leningrad. In terms of quality, they were purely average, but it’s the thought of three transformative months that really counts.

The hostel served supper. I showered, packed and slept. At last, it was time.

On Thursday morning, there was a bus to the airport. We passed a sign pointing the way to the American Cemetery and Memorial. General Patton, who died of injuries suffered in an automobile accident after war’s end, is buried there.

Back amid the jets, it was Icelandair again, to Chicago by way of Reykjavik. I retained my neophyte’s inchoate fear of flying, but oddly, there was a certain tranquility to the boarding process. As the plane began rolling toward liftoff and ascent, something absolutely strange happened.

I barely noticed it.

That’s because I was deep in thought. Not once in three months had I allowed myself the luxury of considering possible sequels. Now, with the wheels folding up into the plane’s belly, I knew for sure.

There was going to be a next time.

Next time: What did it all mean?

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Previously:

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 32 … Leaving Leningrad.

THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 31 … Leningrad in three vignettes.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 30 … Or, as it was called at the time, Leningrad.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 29 … Helsinki beneath my feet, but Leningrad on my mind.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 28 … A Finnish detour to Tampere for beer and sausages.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 27 … Stockholm's blonde ambition, with or without mead-balls.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 26 … The Hansa brewery tour, and a farewell to Norway.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 25 … Frantic pickled Norway.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 24 … An aspiring “beer hunter” amid Carlsberg’s considerable charms.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 23 … A fleeting first glimpse of Copenhagen.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 22 … It's how the tulips were relegated.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 21 … A long day in Normandy, though not "The Longest Day."

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 20 … War stories, from neutral Ireland to Omaha Beach.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 19 … Sligo, Knocknarea, Guinness and Freddie.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 18 … Irish history with a musical chaser.

The PC: Euro '85, Part 17 ... A first glimpse of Ireland.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 16 … Lizard King in the City of Light.

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

The PC: We pause Euro '85 to remember the Mathäser Bierstadt in Munich.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 14 … Beers and breakfast in Munich.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 13 … Tears of overdue joy at Salzburg's Augustiner.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 12 … Stefan Zweig and his world of yesterday.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 11: My Franz Ferdinand obsession takes root.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 10: Habsburgs, history and sausages in Vienna.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 9 … Milan, Venice and a farewell to Northern Italy.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 8 … Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 7 … An eventful detour to Pecetto.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 6 … When in Rome, critical mass.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 5 … From Istanbul to Rome, with Greece in between.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 4 … With Hassan in Pithion.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 3 … Growing up in Greece.

The PC: Euro '85, Part 2 ... Hitting the ground crawling in Luxembourg.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … Where it all began.

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