BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Headlines from August 2018 on the beer beat ... at Pints & Union.

This blog has gone on hiatus, probably permanently. These days my thoughts about beer are being posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.

You'll still find them there in reverse chronological order via the helpful all-purpose tag, Beer with a Socialist, with The Beer Beat having been retired as of September. That's because some also will be identified as Pints & Union Portfolio.

At any rate, use the Beer with a Socialist search term and it should suffice. At the end of each month, I'll still collect the links right here.

Following are August (2018) ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some of these posts are more topical than others.

I hope this isn't overly confusing. Thanks for reading, if belatedly.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Pints&union begins regular hours tonight, and there's a "luxuriant brunette brew" to help celebrate.

As for the beer, eight of ten potential faucets will be pouring. It isn't yet clear whether the permanent number of taps will be seven or eight, but for now I've squeezed in a special treat for those of you who enjoy classic styles: Daredevil Munich Dunkel from Indianapolis.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Drink a toast to trailblazing New Albany brewer Hew Ainslie with a McEwan's Scotch Ale.

I believe Ainslie deserves some manner of recognition. After all, too many plaques are mounted in honor of underachieving politicians, and too few to men like Ainslie. In addition to brewing, he was a published poet and an ardent Scottish nationalist.

I'm telling you abut Ainslie because a spoonful of McEwan's Scotch Ale helps the history lesson go down.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: And the honor goes to Fuller's London Pride.

At approximately 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 2, 2018 the first keg to be emptied at Pints&union was Fuller's London Pride, with Guinness queuing close behind it.

This pleases me for a number of reasons.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: An accumulated thirst -- or, lots of kegs floated at Pints&union.

After four "official" business days preceded by two "soft" evenings, something like 800 pints of draft beer have been consumed at Pints&union, including two full kegs of Fuller's London Pride -- and only one of the other blown kegs was an IPA (Bell's Two Hearted).

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: "When you think of your favorite spot to grab a beer, what architectural features come to mind?"

To me, the essential ingredient for bucket-list bars is that they're located somewhere else, preferably in Europe, and have good adult beverages to drink -- namely, beer. As such, I've actually been to the Hofbrauhaus and Hirschgarten for lagers, and once walked past the American Bar in Vienna.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: No absinthe-barrel-aged IPAs, please. Imperial Stout? Let me think about that one.

Too late.

Someone in the Netherlands already went and did absinthe beer, not barrel-aged (some things should remain far removed from scheming human hands), but with barley, wheat and an herbal extract.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: "In short, hemp and hops can only work together if state and federal regulators get out of the way."

This is an excellent essay about innovation, regulation and weirdness. Thanks to E for the link.

As for me, a pint of Fuller's London Pride will do just fine, but by all means, get out there and expand the perimeter.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: In consideration of Falls City Classic Pilsner, on tap now at Pints&union.

It's always best to start at the beginning, and so it might help to know that the term "Falls City" predates those beers bearing its name, as Thomas Jefferson himself explains.

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PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Beer Tuesday Talk & Taste, and Tabletop Tuesday; beer and board gaming starting Tuesday, August 14.

As often as humanly possible, I'll be upstairs at between 5:00 p.m. and at least 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday evenings, starting Tuesday, August 14.

This weekly event is strictly informal, and you need not be present at any precise time, just at any point within the window. It's not exactly a class, and there'll be no tests. However, there'll be a beer of the week; purchase one downstairs, bring the beer upstairs, and we'll talk it over.

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PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Orval exemplifies true religion, Trappist (ale)-style.

Narrowing the focus, a particularly wonderful sub-culture within Belgian brewing is that occupied by the Trappists, or those ales brewed at Trappist monasteries. In recent years, this practice has spread outside the original six Belgium (and the seventh in the Netherlands) to Austria, Italy, the UK and even Massachusetts.

These thoughts are occasioned by a chance meeting with this article about Orval.

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PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Anyone up for Tuesday evening beer classes at the pub?

When the IU Southeast opportunity came to an end, I continued with the NABC program of charitable tasting donations, which was a light variant of the class, but the class itself never was revived.

At Pints&union, there's a second chance, and we're working on it. The class would take place on Tuesday evenings within a specified period of time -- say, an hour or so each night for six weeks. We'd meet upstairs in the room that still needs to be named.

You'd pay a minimal fee each night to cover class samples, and while attendance wouldn't be mandatory, maybe those who made every session would get recognition on the wall, or some such way of reflecting "graduation."

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PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Revised weekend hours, with a noon opening on Saturday and hangover relief on Sunday from noon - 4 p.m.

For those who have enjoyed the exemplary draft Daredevil Munich Dunkel Lager, the third of our allocated three kegs was tapped earlier this week. When it's gone, probably early next week, it will be time for Oktoberfest season to begin.

The final decision has yet to be made, but I'm leaning toward a traditional Munich interpretation. Also, Wychwood Hobgoblin continues to stand in for Fuller's London Pride, and probably will remain pouring through September.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: There's a place for retro beers, but for better or worse, they don't taste the same as they once did.

Following is my answer, right or wrong, without having done the slightest research on the matter.

To me, it's just common beer sense that many, if not all, of the contemporary "retro" beer brands have little in common with their foundational predecessors.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST Exploding beer cans? If I want to risk injury, I'll try to make it across a New Albany street on foot.

I'd dropped by The Keg to purchase a few German-brewed Oktoberfest bottles for a vital personal sampling, and was told a case of 450 North had just detonated in the storeroom.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, allow me to paraphrase an old saw: I may be entirely befuddled by what you're brewing, but I'll fight to the point of unconsciousness in support of your right to brew it.

At the same time, count me among those who can't come to grips with the notion of craft beer as potential can bombs.

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PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: About a burger, and draft list notes.

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Headlines from August 2017 on THE BEER BEAT.

Previously, I've explained several reasons why this blog has gone on hiatus, adding that my thoughts about beer will be posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.

You'll find them there via the helpful all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat.

However, whenever the urge strikes -- I seem to have settled on monthly -- I'll collect a few of these links right here. Following are August's ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some are more topical than others, and I'm past the point of caring about it.

Thanks for reading, if belatedly.

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THE BEER BEAT: The Moon Under Water -- so, how does Orwell's perfect pub look today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Scotch de Ainslie: Now on tap at both NABC locations. Here's what it means.

Hew Ainslie, New Albany's first commercial brewer, is the inspiration for NABC's Scotch de Ainslie, currently on tap at both locations.

But who was Ainslie?

The biographical sketch below was written by Louisville goldsmith, writer and homebrewer Conrad Selle, with editing by the author. Originally it was published in the FOSSILS newsletter circa 1994. Later it was a staple on the club's web site, and was republished at Potable Curmudgeon in 2005. Many thanks to Conrad, whose tireless research into Louisville area brewing can be experienced in Louisville Breweries, co-written with Peter Guetig. There was only one printing, but a few copies still may be floating around.  

In 2012, NABC brewed four special "throwback" beers for our 25th anniversary. Three of them (Turbo Hog, Stumble Bus and Bourbondaddy) were revivals of pre-2006 recipes formulated by Michael Borchers. Scotch de Ainslie was the fourth, slated for release in December as a prelude to New Albany's Bicentennial celebration in 2013.

Scotch de Ainslie is a 7.4% Scottish-style ale in Wee Heavy territory, but with a twist, one having nothing whatever to do with Ainslie or the typical Scottish ale-making range: We used Belgian yeast, placing Scotch de Ainslie in the smaller, more esoteric category of Belgian Scotch Ales like Gordon's, Campbell's, and my consistent personal favorite, Scotch de Silly.  

Make no mistake: Scotch de Ainslie is a malt bomb, but not without balance. The Belgian yeast accounts for fruity esters that provide a unique complexity to the flavor. The fact that we brewed it early in the year so as to have a bit for preview at the July anniversary party, then sat on the remainder for four months, makes the finished product quite mellow.

Get some before it goes; there isn't much. Here's the rest of the story.

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Early New Albany brewer and Scottish-American poet Hew Ainslie ... by Conrad Selle.

Many early brewers worked their trade as a sideline or temporary trade before moving on to other occupations. Hew Ainslie is unique for having been principally a poet.
He was born at Bargany in Ayrshire, Scotland on April 5, 1792. Hew was the only son of George Ainslie, an employee on the estate of Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton. He was educated in the parish school at Ballantrae, and later at the academy at Ayr. In 1809 his family moved to Roslin, about six miles from Edinburgh. He married his cousin Janet Ainslie in 1812, whose brother Jock had married Hew's sister Eleanora.

Ainslie studied law in Glasgow, and worked as a clerk in the Register House in Edinburgh. In 1820 he revisited Ayrshire on foot with James Wellstood and John Gibson and in the next two years wrote A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, which was published in London in 1822. The book was an account of their travels and visits with some of Robert Burns's contemporaries, with songs and ballads by Ainslie that were much in the style of Burns, and illustrations by Wellstood.

In July, 1822, Ainslie sailed from Liverpool to New York with his friend Wellstood. Mrs. Ainslie and their three children joined him in the following year. Ainslie and Wellstood purchased Pilgrim's Repose, a farm at Hoosac Falls in Rensselaer County, New York. Ainslie and his family lived there for almost three years before joining Robert Owen's utopian socialist cooperative community at New Harmony, Indiana in 1825.

When Owen's community failed about a year later they moved first to Cincinnati, where Ainslie became a partner with Price and (Thomas) Wood in a brewery, then to Louisville. In Louisville, a town of 7,000, Ainslie opened a brewery in 1829 at 7th Street between Water and Main. Records show that B. Foster, Enoch Wenzell and Robert McKenzie worked there.

In February, 1832 there was a major flood of the Ohio River, with the river's waters rising to 46 feet above the low water level. A contemporary account of the "calamity" reads:

This was an unparalleled flood in the Ohio. It commenced on the 10th of February and continued until the 21st of that month, having risen to (an) extraordinary height ... above low-water mark. The destruction of property by this flood was immense. Nearly all the frame buildings near the river were either floated off or turned over and destroyed. An almost total cessation in business was the necessary consequence; even farmers from the neighborhood were unable to get to the markets, the flood having so affected the smaller streams as to render them impassable. The description of the sufferings by this flood is appalling ...

Ainslie's brewery was swept away with most of the neighborhood, but in the following years he remained in the beer business, working at the Nuttall brewery on the west side of 6th Street between Water and Main.

In 1840 he opened the first brewery in New Albany, the partnership of Bottomley & Ainslie. Soon that business was destroyed by fire. In the 1841 Louisville City Directory, Hew Ainslie is listed as a maltster; it was his last listing in the brewing trade. Discouraged by fire and flood, he gave up the brewing business altogether. Thereafter, his working life became somewhat intertwined with that of his children, particularly George and James Wellstood Ainslie.

Hew and Janet Ainslie had ten children, seven of them surviving to adulthood. George Ainslie, the eldest Ainslie son, had been apprenticed to Lachan McDougall around 1830 to learn the iron foundry and moulding trade, and he had acquired a solid business and technical education. He became a foreman at John Curry's foundry and married Mary Thirlwell, daughter of Charles Thirlwell, who was a brewer at the Nuttall Brewery (Hew Ainslie's one-time employer).
Thirlwell eventually acquired Nuttall and operated it until 1856. In 1842, George Ainslie became a partner in Gowan and McGhee's Boone Foundry. By 1845 Hew Ainslie -- still a poet throughout -- was employed as a finisher there as well as working as a contractor and in the building trades.

George and James Ainslie became highly successful in the foundry and machine business, enabling their father to devote more time to writing in later life. In 1853, Hew Ainslie made a long visit to New Jersey to visit members of the family of James Wellstood, undoubtedly providing the poet with a nostalgic link to the Scotland of his youth.

In 1855 a collection of Ainslie's verse, Scottish Songs, Ballads and Poetry, was published in New York. One latter-day commentator called Ainslie's songs of the sea "the best that Scotland has produced," and perhaps this assessment was borne out by the reception accorded Ainslie in Scottish literary circles in 1863, when he returned to Scotland for a final visit.

Janet Ainslie died in 1863 prior to Hew's last Scottish journey. In 1868 the elderly poet/brewer went to live with his son George in a new home on Chestnut Street (between 9th and 10th) in Louisville, where he spent the last decade of his life and was a familiar sight as he passed time tending the garden there. Ainslie died on March 6, 1878, and was eulogized in the Courier-Journal as "a poet of considerable merit to the people of his native land." Hew and Janet Ainslie are buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.

In addition to the many accomplishments noted previously, Ainslie is remembered for his height -- at 6 feet, 4 inches, he referred to himself in his works as "The Lang Linker" -- and for never losing his Scottish accent during almost six decades in America.

There is no specific information to be found as to the products of the breweries with which Hew Ainslie was involved in Louisville and New Albany, but we can surmise from the available evidence that they were typical small breweries of the time, with four or five employees, making ale, porter and stout. As a man who appreciated truth and beauty, it is likely that Hew Ainslie made good malt, and being conscientious with it, good beer as well.

The following poems by Hew Ainslie are copied from the Filson Historical Society's extremely rare copy of A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns and Poetry, Ainslie's 1822 work combined with later efforts and reprinted in 1892, the centenary of his birth.

(Author's note: I have heard a scrap or two of Robert Burns, and expect these are much better read aloud in Scots dialect.)

THE DAFT DAYS.
The midnight hour is clinking, lads,
An' the douce an' the decent are winking, lads;
Sae I tell ye again,
Be't weel or ill ta'en,
It's time ye were quatting your drinking, lads.
Gae ben, 'an mind your gauntry, Kate,
Gi'es mair o' your beer, an' less bantry, Kate,
For we vow, whaur we sit,
That afore we shall flit,
We'se be better acquaint wi' your pantry, Kate.
The "daft days" are but beginning, Kate,
An we're sworn. Would you hae us a sinning, Kate?
By our faith an' our houp,
We will stick by the stoup
As lang as the barrel keeps rinning, Kate.
Thro' hay, an' thro' hairst, sair we toil it, Kate,
Thro' Simmer, an' Winter, we moil it, Kate;
Sae ye ken, whan the wheel
Is beginning to squeal,
It's time for to grease an' to oil it, Kate.
Sae draw us anither drappy, Kate,
An' gie us a cake to our cappy, Kate;
For, by spiggot an' pin!
It's waur than a sin
To flit when we're sitting sae happy, Kate.

LET'S DRINK TO OUR NEXT MEETING.
Let's drink to our next meeting, lads,
Nor think on what's atwixt;
They're fools wha spoil the present hour
By thinking on the next.
Then here's to Meg o' Morningside,
An Kate o' Kittlemark;
The taen she drank her hose and shoon,
The tither pawned her sark.
A load o' wealth, an' wardly pelf,
They say is sair to bear;
Sae he's a gowk would scrape an' howk
To make his burden mair

Then here's , &c.
Gif Care looks black the morn, lads,

As he's come doon the lum,
Let's ease our hearts by swearing, lads,
We never bade him come.
Then here's, &c.
Then here's to our next meeting, lads,
Ne'er think on what's atwixt;
They're fools who spoil the present hour
By thinking on the next.
Then here's, &c.

THE HOOSIER .
We lads that live up in the nobs,
Tho' our manners might yet bear a rubbing,
We're handy at neat little jobs
Such as chopping and hewing and grubbing.
Tho' we roost in a cabin of logs,
And clapboards lie 'twixt us and heaven,
Our mast makes us fine oily hogs,
And from hoop-poles we pick a good living.
Right quiet -- to a decent degree --
it's seldom we guzzle it deep, Sir,
Tho' we don't mind a bit of a spree,
Provided the liquor is cheap, Sir.
Our neighbours, that live 'cross the drink.
May laugh at our fondness for cider,
But so long as we pocket their clink
They may laugh till their mouths they grow wider.
Our gals make our trousers, you see,
From that beautiful stuff called tow linen,
and in coats of the linsey -- dang me,
If we don't look both handsome and winning.
Our wives are our weavers, to boot;
Ourselves are first rate on a shoe, Sir;
We can doctor a tub with a hoop --
And hark ! we're our own niggers too, Sir,
So here's to our Hoosier land,
The sons of its soil and its waters !
May the "nullies" ne'er get it in hand,
Nor demagogues tear it in tatters.
But still may it flourish and push,
Thro' vetos and all such tough cases,
Till railroads are common as brush,
And the nobs are as sleek as your faces.

To provide context to Ainslie's use of the "N" word, "The Hoosier" was intended as an anti-nullification poem -- a direct slap at the slave-owning caste south of the Ohio River, and a self-mocking espousal of the poor but free residents to the north. If any reader can shed further light on the history involved, please do.