BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Headlines from July 2018 on the beer beat.

This blog has gone on hiatus, probably permanently, and primarily because 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, The Beer Beat, although I'm in the process of changing the column title to Beer with a Socialist. For the foreseeable future, I'll retain both labels for ease of searching.

At the end of each month I'll still collect the links right here.

Following are July (2018) ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some of these posts are more topical than others. On occasion, there'll be references to beer in posts using "Beer with a Socialist" or "The Beer Beat" as a label, though not a title.

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

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Catch up on your reading with these links. First, pour a damn beer.

Exhausted, we bivouacked by a street pockmarked by sharrows, across from a corporate multi-tap. A squad was sent to reconnoiter. They were shaken and ashen-faced upon return: "Rows and rows of IPAs, hazy and mango and coffee-infused -- what are we to do?" The major's gaze hardened. "Drink 'em," he replied. "Drink 'em all, and let God sort it out." #secondcivilwarletters

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: On beer lists, beer-speak, and beer geeksplaining.

In retrospect, the three-ring binder beer list at the Public House was my "Dark Side of the Moon." How do you make another album after that?

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Recalling "Love on the Beach" and taking note of changing times.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: "One German pub owner is still serving at 87."

Clocking in at a mere 12 minutes, this is a gem of a brief Deutsche Welle news profile, or perhaps a mini-documentary. Surprisingly layered, little bits of the story keep emerging as Hildegard Schweinsberg works a Thursday at her pub in Neuhaus, near Schwerin on what would have been the DDR side of the border during the period of Germany's division.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: "Light Beer? Not Here," and other Public House beer list views from 1998.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Flint Michigan Tap Water? “Walt Disney knew what he was doing and I plan on making Lakeville the Walt Disney of beers.”

On the topic of buffoonery, excrement and world class douchebaggery, there's this. It may be the first time in my life that I feel sorry for Walt Disney.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Glory days in the bike saddle at the Radler Tankstelle.

Somewhere along the way in Germany or Austria I saw a pictograph of a man on a bicycle hoisting a foamy stein of beer: "Radler Tankstelle, 100 meters."

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Bell's Two Hearted Ale is an iconic American classic.

It's my recollection that we first poured Bell's Two Hearted Ale at the Public House around 2002. It was among the first regional IPAs we could get on a dependable basis at a good price point, and Centennial hops were a big deal at the time. In my world, they still are.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Pints&union beer list theory and practice.

Owner Joe Phillips' plan for Pints&union has continued to evolve since we first began brainstorming. There will be food, cocktails, wine and an old-school pub atmosphere. There won't be television. When I dropped by there yesterday, Joe had Blur and Liam Gallagher playing on the sound system, though not simultaneously.

Of course, even monks clinging to Tibetan mountainsides know that my personal contribution to Pints&union is the beer program, which is why I typically have less to say about the other aspects of the pub. Beer has been my life, and I'm thankful to Joe for the opportunity to reformat the better beer experience for another generation of pub-goers.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: When Old Mister Lew tells a story, you're advised to listen closely.

It's an American "craft" (microbrew?) history lesson from Professor Bryson, but don't panic. Think corrections, not catastrophe. The scene may seem to be in upheaval, but as Lew entertainingly points out, we've all been here before -- in the late 1990s.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Pints&union will be opening later this week.

The obscure and long-awaited regulatory incantation from the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission arrived this morning, freeing the way for the doors to Pints&union to be opened to the public at some point later this week.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Kevin Gibson's look at Pints&union in Insider Louisville KY.

As always, Kevin's reporting is impeccable, so read all about it -- and there are photos, too. Just don't ask me to tell you exactly when. When everything's ready, that's when.

Meanwhile, I'm like a kid in the damn candy store, albeit with back and knees throbbing from stocking cans and bottles today. It feels wonderful. The keg boxes are almost ready to pour; just a few more tweaks tomorrow.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: The forthcoming beer list at Pints&union (bottle and can edition).

Old-timers will notice the presence of "comfort beers," "neglected classics" and "greatest beer hits" alongside beers like Stroh's, Old Style and Little Kings. The juxtaposition is purely intentional.

Indeed, it's a more egalitarian list than I would have written at the peak of polemical fervor, with fewer local craft brews; as noted previously, in my view the revolution has succeeded in large measure, and there are numerous American craft beers being vended in downtown New Albany.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: A Pints&union preview in the News and Tribune.

Now for another pub preview, courtesy of the local newspaper. As of about 2:00 p.m. today, all the draft lines should be up and running, and a big shout-out goes to Kenny Henson of Monarch Beverage/World Class Beer for his efforts in fine-tuning the keg boxes. Joe and the rest of the team have been putting in the hours. All that remains is to tie up 1,001 loose ends and unlock the door.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: A casual soft opening for Pints&union on a frenetic Friday evening in downtown New Albany.

Pints&union cleared its first hurdle on Friday evening. It was a very soft opening, with beers and drinks and nibbles.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Against the Grain to Citra its Ass Down in Okinawa.

As such, perhaps it's to be expected that a brewery priding itself on eclecticism and dirty underwear would find a locale like Okinawa, which goes against the Japanese grain.

Good work, gentlemen.

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BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Kalin Tavern, where a passport is required to cross the barroom.

At Conde Nast Traveler, Ken Jennings writes about a tavern divided.

The Google street view above dates to 2013, affording a clean view of the Kalin Tavern on the left (note the awnings) and the border blockade running right across the street.

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Let's flip this over: The Life of the Flagships.

I didn't read Chelsie's piece until after I'd already written these words.

AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

... My contrarian instincts tell me that the beer climate is ripe for a modest, thoughtful return to basics, emblemized by a relatively small list of classics on draft, and in bottles and cans, to be accompanied by some good, old-fashioned beer education, which seems to have been tossed aside in the era of mile-wide, inch-deep “craft” fandom.

It would be churlish to differ with Chelsie on stylistic grounds, because all the relevant points are there for consideration.

She is describing reality as it is viewed by the digital white whale chasers, and if the digital white whale chasers view their scene as reality, so it must be -- it says so right here, on the Internet -- except the contrarian in me stubbornly believes that this viewpoint skips past the default setting of a significant chunk of better beer lovers.

Hence my current fascination with piloting the vessel straight back to the future, and establishing a pub beer program that is as stolid and set as the remainder of "craft" beer is flashy and ever-changing. Lots of people are drinking Victory Prima Pils and Saison Dupont. If not, these brands wouldn't be available.

Why not consciously appeal to beer lovers who don't chase the white whale, don't stockpile swap booty, and just wish to enjoy a good beer or three over conversation?

Maybe it's impossible, but maybe it's just being undervalued. Maybe it isn't being tried, though maybe the tried and true is tomorrow's freshest approach.

Death of the Flagships: But Why?, by Chelsie (Stouts and Stilettos)

I must admit. I have had this post swirling around in my head for well over a year now… maybe even longer. I’ve often talked about the downturn of flagship beers in great length to many-a-folks who belly up to the bar with me and on Twitter with fellow craft beer minded individuals. Now it’s time to document it all and get it out to the masses, because it’s a recent phenomena that’s really disheartening to some and to others it’s “goodbye. good riddance!” It’s an emotional parting of something classic and sacred yet on the other hand a parting of something boring and forgettable.

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AFTER THE FIRE: The devil made me drink it.

AFTER THE FIRE: The devil made me drink it.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

One of my wife’s favorite Mexican dishes is Camarones a la Diabla, or Deviled Shrimp. Seeing as this delicious specialty tends to be among the higher priced entrees at local Mexican restaurants, we resolved last weekend to try cooking it at home.

The results were excellent, and it will get better as we dial in the recipe, which was chosen because it does not include ketchup.

Laugh at your own peril. This familiar condiment also is a key ingredient in the appetizer spare ribs served by your favorite Chinese carry-out shop.

Happily, having recently bought a few assorted six packs in anticipation of entertaining friends, there was a beer already in our fridge that was fully appropriate for pairing with our inaugural batch of Camarones a la Diabla.

And no, it wasn’t ice-cold, carbonated urine like Corona or Modelo Especiale. Can we retire the laziest of all foodie saws, the one holding that Mexican beer and food go together perfectly? So does ice water. We should be saving the corn for our tortillas, and drinking beers that bring character to the table.

Like German-style wheat ale (Hefeweizen), which during our meal was Hacker-Pschorr Weiss. Indeed, it's multinational-owned, and I’d have preferred Schneider Weiss or even Aventinus, but the important thing is shift, and nitpicking German-style wheat ales isn’t the point to this digression.

Rather, it is to make the case (yet again – I’ve made a career out of this) that Hefeweizen is a wonderful accompaniment to many Mexican and other Latin American cuisines, something you’d never know judging from restaurants alone, since most of them venture no further than the usual pale, limp, beer-flavored suspects.

It’s so enduringly tedious, but verily, this pairing problem disappears when you cook dinner at home.

To which I say: “Viva la revolución!”

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There was a time when I eschewed Hefeweizen, primarily because whenever I was unable to persuade timid pub customers to move beyond starter wheat ales to a wider range of options, it grated deeply within the cavernous void of my tortured, curmudgeonly soul.

This ideology began eroding when Diana decided that Hefeweizen was one of the few beer styles she genuinely liked. I grudgingly indulged her at first, then one fine day at the German Café in French Lick, she offered me a sip of her Weihenstephaner.

My chagrin was immediate and boundless. I’d simply forgotten how much I liked Hefeweizen, and now it is a beer we can enjoy together.

You’re here to learn from my mistakes, and there’s no denying that German-style wheat ale is a singular classic. Hefeweizen is half (or a bit more) wheat and half (or slightly less) barley, and is fermented with a special ale yeast that imparts fruity flavors and aromas more commonly associated with bananas, apples and cloves.

Significantly, neither fruit nor spice is used in brewing Hefeweizen. It’s all about the behavior of the yeast amid a warm fermentation temperature, and the tasty markers graciously left behind.

In fact, “Hefe” is the German word for yeast, and “Weizen” means wheat. “Weisse,” or white, is often used somewhat interchangeably, as the cloudy appearance of wheat ale once prompted snap descriptions of it as “white.”

This same blurry phenomenon is to be found in Belgium, where “Wit” also denotes whiteness. While brewed with wheat, it bears no further resemblance to the German variety. The Belgians use orange peel and coriander to spice their wheat ale, and these ingredients traditionally have been forbidden by the beer purity laws in Germany, though these bastions may finally be crumbling.

Occasionally, German-style wheat ale can be found in its filtered incarnation (“Kristall”), but this is comparatively rare, and makes little sense in the first place.

Decades into the “craft” beer era, most American-style wheat ales remain resolutely flavorless unless they’re heavily spiced or intentionally hopped-up, as with Three Floyds Gumballhead. These usually are brewed as seasonal summertime thirst quenchers using house ale yeast strains, resulting in clean, competent and thoroughly uninteresting temporary lodgers.

Meanwhile, most authentic Hefeweizens come in shades of gold, although “Dunkel” indicates a variety brewed with darker malts. Schneider Weisse is as dark as Franziskaner’s Dunkel, but the brewery sees no need to tout this on the label, reminding us that beer style categories aren’t always exact.

Traditionally, Hefeweizen was a warm weather libation and generally unavailable year-round, even on its home turf in Bavaria. The style staged a remarkable comeback in the 1970s and 1980s after very nearly becoming extinct. Nowadays, German-style wheat ale can be consumed every day if so desired, throughout Germany and the world.

This brings us back to Mexico.

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Mexican restaurants invariably adorn watery lagers with slices of lime, and just as predictably, I toss them in the ashtray, so let’s be clear about the proper use of citrus fruit garnish in beer.

There is no proper use for citrus fruit garnish in beer.

Period.

If lemons were intended for use in Hefeweizen, then lemons would grow in Germany. They don’t. Do oranges grow in Belgium? No, and they don’t grow in Colorado, either, so they have no place in a glass of Coors’s mock Belgian Wit ale, Blue Moon.

(Blue Moon is a multinational shelf-space colonist, not indie “craft,” so get over yourself and move on to something better.)

When you place a slice of citrus fruit in a beer, whether it is a competently conceived and brewed German or Belgian wheat ale or the soapy lagers brewed in Mexico, you are mindlessly following the marketing dictates of someone at Great Satan Inc. who’ll you’ll never know, and who makes more money deceiving you than you will earn in your entire life.

This said, I’ve forged a shaky provisional peace with Dos Equis and Negra Modelo in the absence of better choices at most Mexican restaurants, but the fact remains that ethnic eateries in general, from taquerias to sushi bars, and from dim sum emporiums to Indian curry houses, would benefit from stocking just a handful of beer styles invariably capable of transforming the dining experience in a meaningful way that lager simply cannot achieve.

At the very least, bottles of American Pale Ale, German-style Hefeweizen and indigenous Robust Porter would transform ethnic dining in the metro Louisville area. Toss in an IPA, a Belgian Saison or Tripel and a German Gose, and we’re getting somewhere.

At the high end, that’s $300 wholesale for six cases of beer. Margins are solid. It isn’t nuclear physics.

Thinking back to Camarones a la Diabla, the “deviled” sauce had a mild acidic bite from the tomatoes, and plenty of pepper flavor. Overall, the dish was restrained in the Scoville context, which makes sense, because you wouldn’t want to overwhelm the shrimp.

My Hefeweizen’s medium-bodied fruit and esters coated the mouth and complimented the peppers. The effervescence acted as the curtain being raised on the flavor of the shrimp. It was hard to tell whether the clove was coming from the beer or the food, and it didn’t matter. It fit like a glove.

The earliest verified written instance of my disgruntlement with the beer status quo at local international restaurants appeared around 2003. Nothing ever seems to change, though I have a bit more time these days, and have found myself guided back into the home kitchen.

Perhaps at long last I can follow up on the imaginary pairings that haven’t always been possible to test. Most recently, it was Greek Moussaka with a Belgian Abbey Dubbel.

If I get around to doing it, I’ll let you know how this meal turns out.

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July 28 (at NA Confidential): ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.

July 25: AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

July 18: AFTER THE FIRE: Moss the Boss, his dazzling beer café, and what they taught me about “craft.”

July 11: AFTER THE FIRE: We are dispirited in the post-factual world.

July 4: AFTER THE FIRE: Euro ’85, Part 34 … The final chapter, in which lessons are learned and bridges burned.

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AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.


I always tell young film-makers, ‘find the song that only you can sing.’ It doesn’t just come to you. It’s trial and error and disappointment before you find, slowly but surely, the confidence to express your film-making identity.”
-- Paul “Bourne” Greengrass

Seeing as I have too much time on my hands, odd thoughts of late have turned to those early years at the Public House formerly known as Rich O’s.

Is it creeping nostalgia?

No, not really. I've no great desire to risk my own eternal Groundhog Day of A Cosmic Runaround by reverting to a place and time that’s better left alone. What’s done is done. Oasis and Goose Island were then, not now. I’m serene, and my legacy is secure.

Rather, these recent thoughts have to do with simple curiosity, and given my inclinations, they’ll probably lead to worrisome complexity.

In the 1990s, I took for granted (naively, perhaps) that it was possible to run a small business, to stay alive while doing so, and to be able to grow the business slowly, all the while devoting special attention to teaching about the business’s chosen core specialty – in my own instance, better beer.

It somehow worked. Is this cadence even possible now?

Expenses are high, attention spans are short, and any establishment with a few beer lines and a stand-up cooler packed with nicely decorated bottles can become the hottest destination of the millisecond, as acclaimed by the viral illuminators of social media just prior to their abandonment of “craft” beer for infused kombucha.

The basic founding ideal at the Public House was better beer, which at the time posed a task easier spoken than implemented, and yet better beer options existed back then, too, even if few on-premise locations chose to exercise them.

At the time, crusty old school operators tended to be openly contemptuous of beer diversity: “I don’t drink that shit, so why would I sell it?” gruffly intoned amid an Old Swillwaukee.

A newer generation of more enlightened owners and managers was only just emerging. This more open-minded cohort grew their beer businesses in step with expanded "craft" availability, which eventually merged with the hyper-connectivity of a wired planet to create the chaos we inhabit now.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, the growth process during Clinton I was a series of baby steps, followed by panting reconsolidation, a few deep breaths, beers and chicken wings, then manning up and advancing the perimeter a few taps further.

Ironically, the goal posts always seemed to stay the same distance away, just over that horizon, but when I was young, this didn’t bother me very much. There’d always be time to reach them.

Perhaps if I’d have paid closer attention to end games, there’d be a cleaner script, but we play the hand we’re dealt. I have.

So it goes.

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Those who spent any amount of time at the Public House during the 1990s and early 2000s saw an advanced beer program evolve only slowly. Owners and customers learned together, and there was a shared sense of achievement.

My sourcing options for draft and bottled beers were drawn from a relatively narrow pool, the bulk of it imported. When Sierra Nevada reached Indiana at some point around 1993, it was like a national holiday.

In some ways, reduced choice made stocking easier. However, it could be mightily frustrating, and there are infamous stories of me screaming intemperately at cowering wholesalers and other scurrying intermediaries.

One or two of these stories might actually be true – per week.

For the first 12 years of the pub’s existence, the word “guest” wasn’t even used to describe this evolving list. “House” and “guest” descriptors became necessary later, when brewing on site commenced in 2002, and was expanded in 2005 (with two new fermenters) and 2009 (Bank Street Brewhouse’s debut).

Brewing led the beer program in a different direction, though this was neither clear nor overtly planned in the beginning.

Subject to the limitations of our early pre-brewing pub budgets (in other words, could we afford to buy beer in a particular week?), the aim was to build a beer list that offered stylistic diversity at the best price point possible, given the extra expense of better beer.

In pre-Internet practice, this meant consulting books by Michael Jackson (and a few other writers), subscribing to magazines like All About Beer, and joining the UK’s Campaign for Real Ale.

Tactile books and periodicals informed staff and consumer alike, and gave them something to do apart from watching television (which we banned early on) and imagining what life would be like 15 years in the future, when smart phones would come into existence and suck the essence of enriching conversation from barrooms everywhere.

For several years, a three-tap cold box was all we had, and two of these faucets always were fixed: Guinness and Carlsberg, then later Pilsner Urquell. The third tap rotated by whim.

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There were four basic rules governing my beer advancement program.

• Knowing the stories and history behind the labels.
• Understanding styles and being able to explain them to customers in simple terms.
• Trying as hard as humanly possible to keep printed lists and blackboards accurate and up to date.
• Insisting that when it came to purchasing, ultimate direction – the synthesis of knowledge and understanding - came not from a wholesaler or even a brewery rep, but from behind the bar.

Let’s begin with the latter, which has not ceased to be of critical importance in all the years since.

Working in a package store during the 1980s, I met many shiftless wine and liquor wholesaler reps, and while they were several rungs ahead of used car salesmen on the deportation scale, I learned to be wary. In almost any business, reps exist to sell you products you don’t need, for the benefit of their company.

I viewed my job as protecting my employer from needless expense, and when I became my own employer, knowing more about beer than most reps (exceptions indeed exist) became about far more than fiscal accountability.

It was about pride.

Consequently, I made it a point of honor to scoff at swag – except when accepting it, in which case I tried to be thoughtful and judicious. So long as the reps knew that swag alone wouldn’t sway me, we were good. More often than not, I repurposed these items to bolster the FOSSILS homebrewing club raffle.

To be sure, the sales scene is different now, but not as much as one might assume. Undoubtedly there are hundreds more available beers to fill limited taps and occupy scant shelf space. Consumer demand plays its role, but the ultimate filter still must be wielded by the bar manager or beer buyer.

It’s all about actively teaching customers what they want even if they don't realize it yet, and as for knowing stories and styles, entertainment and education are what separate professionals from novices. To be honest, I don’t care how much a customer thinks he or she knows after a quick glance at the empty mental calories on Thrillist.

No single person can know everything, but it is the obligation of all involved in the sale of better beer to possess an ability to explain and conceptualize. Knowledge remains the bare minimum requirement. It’s a value-added proposition. The more one knows, and can impart with clarity, the greater the chance of a satisfied return customer who tips well – and learns something.

It’s that basic, but at times I fear the art has been lost. Consequently, I sandbag quite a lot nowadays. Before ordering, I ask questions about beer to servers and bartenders.

Sometimes their answers are coherent, other times not. I’ve been known to cringe when listening to the panoply of “beer facts” as dispersed by staffers. I try to stay quiet and groan out of earshot, because I’m not the one signing their checks.

Fortunately, the creaky old saw about Bock beer being colored dark by vat scrapings from once-yearly cleanings finally seems to have gone the way of the tooth fairy.

Unfortunately, there’ll soon be a Sour Bock IPA to fill the nonsensical void. I’ll accept it with grinding teeth, but only if the beer’s three separate stylistic components can be explained to me by my server. If not, I’ll have a traditional Pilsner, please.

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Food and drink lend themselves to constant reinvention, and yet it cannot be denied that there are eternal “classics” amid the bedlam. Clichés become such precisely because they contain an element of truth, and certain aspects of the human experience stand the test of time, whether an umbrella, mouse trap or De Koninck.

If I were to start over, conveniently ignoring pesky realities like rent, logistics and aching knees for the mere sake of conjecture, my plan of operation would be just this sort of time-tested, sustainable, “Classic Beer” programming, the fermentable equivalent of Stairway to Heaven, twice daily.

At my former business, we eventually incorporated our own brewery, guest taps, and hundreds of bottles into a bloated beer program that eventually had to be aggressively pruned to avoid capsizing itself.

I’ve no such grandiose ambitions in my dotage, and I don’t care to run a brewery, ever again.

Rather, my contrarian instincts tell me that the beer climate is ripe for a modest, thoughtful return to basics, emblemized by a relatively small list of classics on draft, and in bottles and cans, to be accompanied by some good, old-fashioned beer education, which seems to have been tossed aside in the era of mile-wide, inch-deep “craft” fandom.

Interpreting songs written by others may be the best singing I ever did, or might yet do. Next week, I’ll sketch this idea a bit further.

Let's sketch it here, instead:

ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.

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July 18: AFTER THE FIRE: Moss the Boss, his dazzling beer café, and what they taught me about “craft.”

July 11: AFTER THE FIRE: We are dispirited in the post-factual world.

July 4: AFTER THE FIRE: Euro ’85, Part 34 … The final chapter, in which lessons are learned and bridges burned.

June 27: AFTER THE FIRE: Out and about in America, Europe … and my cups.

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AFTER THE FIRE: We are dispirited in the post-factual world.

AFTER THE FIRE: We are dispirited in the post-factual world.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

If I’m to judge from the electronic bushel baskets filled to overflowing with social media-borne exclamation marks, the biggest news in Indiana “craft” beer last week was the arrival in Hoosierland of brews from Maui Brewing Company, courtesy of Cavalier Distributing, Inc.

Cursory due diligence reveals that Maui still brews in Hawaii and ships to the mainland, damn the expense. Good for them. This authenticity is commendable, given that I can still remember my befuddlement back in 2006 after being served relatively inexpensive Kona at an eatery in Orlando, yielding shortly to raging annoyance when I learned that it was contract-brewed at Widmer, or maybe Redhook – same thing.

Damned insufferable Craft Beer Alliance. How is it Hawaiian if it isn’t even brewed in Hawaii?

(curmudgeonly grumbling sounds and periodic gnashing of teeth)

Of course, conventional beer geek wisdom has long since overruled me. Sierra Nevada can be brewed in North Carolina, and Stone in Berlin, Germany. Appellations of origin mean almost nothing as “craft” beer crawls steadily forward, toward becoming exactly the same problem a revolution previously was required to rectify.

Note that I don’t exclude overruling myself, having purchased Sierra’s Nooner Pilsner on more than one occasion. In a time when beer appreciation is many miles wide and a scant millimeter deep, who am I to rant and rain on these multi-locational parades of profitability?

Besides, most of the beers I typically drink are locally produced in the metro Louisville area at comfortably small breweries.

I’ve got this localism fetish going for me, if little else.

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Anyway, let’s go back to Maui Brewing’s triumphant arrival into Indiana. It strikes me that I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of similar press releases over the past five years, and on behalf of NABC, I’ve written my fair share of them.

“Finally, your chance to wrap your greedy Rate Advocate-stained fingers around (fill in blank), now coming to (fill in blank) for the very first time.”

I always omitted the exclamation marks, as there are plenty of them floating in the wort-laced ether, sadly homeless. They need loving shelter -- or to be mercilessly slaughtered.

What I’m wondering is how many of these latest, greatest beers remain in circulation two or three years after their arrival. Surely there is an attrition rate, because as endless as those rows of wholesaler SKUs seem already, they’d be even more voluminous if new breweries kept piling on, one atop the other, without a withdrawal now and then.

My suspicion is that when you get past the top tier of biggest sellers at a wholesaler, about as many breweries depart as arrive, which suggests that there’s an informational market niche in need of filling, namely the exit announcement.

“Finally, your chance to say goodbye to (fill in blank), now leaving (fill in second blank) following a period of brave hopefulness and bold optimism, only to be crowded off store shelves by AB-InBev’s pay-to-play mockrobrews – and 145 new “craft” brewery arrivals.”

By the way, any bottles of NABC's Elsa Von Horizon you might happen to see are to be regarded as collector’s items for label art, only.

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Recently while perusing social media, all the while imagining that it would be a better use of my time to be clubbed senseless with a slab of semi-frozen whale blubber, I noticed a blurb from a local eatery with a better-than-average bar program.

“Cheap” beer coming, it trumpeted.

It made me think of all those times I’ve seen breathless announcements for “cheap wine” -- except there’ve never been any of those. Half-price bottles, perhaps, but never the word “cheap.”

Come to think of it, contemporary cocktail-driven bar programs seldom advertise on the basis of “cheap” whiskey, do they?

Verily, it’s top shelf and upscale with wine and spirits, but when it comes to beer, the dumbing-down always lies waiting, just around the corner.

Noting that my observations here are confined primarily to restaurants, and I’m not speaking of specialty beer bars and any other establishment which is eligible for an exception because it evinces signs of willful designer … so, disclaimers aside, why does good beer still get treated like bad beer used to?

A possible answer is the weird recurring cultural habit of otherwise intelligent food and drink people to excitedly exonerate the utilitarian adaptability of rank mass-market swill.

“Well, you know, there’s a time and place for Miller High Life.” No there isn’t – not if you’re actually beer literate.

Ah, yes; literacy. Hence, the other possible answer: There is far less beer knowledge lurking behind the typical metro area bar than one might imagine.

As BJCP judge Gomer Pyle once said, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”

Too many draft selections and bottle lists are what happens when beer “education” is derived from rote readings of Thrillist at 3 a.m. while drinking purely wretched Pabst Blue Ribbon and pretending it’s for a purpose. The only purpose I can see is not being driven to do better.

Pray tell, where the hell are all the Cicerones? Weren’t they supposed to be the beer sommeliers of the future, and the faces of a fresh, factual approach, brimming with stylistic nuggets, and both ready and able to transform beer programs into principled bastions mirroring the typical edgy eatery’s wine and bourbon lists?

The cicerones may be out there somewhere, but I’m wondering if they have any active input into the beer selections I see in metro Louisville. It makes no sense to me that restaurants eager to differentiate themselves in terms of cuisine during these hyper-competitive times seem utterly unable to sort through the beers available to them and to come up with something more distinctive that six IPAs, two wheats, a sour and Coors Banquet.

Silly me.

I thought the revolution was about enabling bar management to eschew passive interpretation of customer demand, the bias of wholesaler reps and the skewing effect of brain-dead swag.

I thought the revolution was about pro-actively creating and nurturing customer demand by offering well-chosen “craft” beers intended to enhance and showcase the talents of the kitchen.

To my way of thinking, it takes only a few “craft” beer fans to justify the more thoughtful approach, and to return the favor with word-of-mouth – still the most cost-efficient means of advertising, and very nearly better than selfies.

In the end, I suppose none of this is possible without a better knowledge base than currently exists, and the knowledge base isn’t likely to improve unless owner and upper management decide it’s a priority. It’s a shame, because lots of wonderful opportunities are being missed.

Then again, maybe I'm completely full of spent grain, in which case this column space is yours, to make the case in rebuttal.

---

July 4: AFTER THE FIRE: Euro ’85, Part 34 … The final chapter, in which lessons are learned and bridges burned.

June 27: AFTER THE FIRE: Out and about in America, Europe … and my cups.

June 20: AFTER THE FIRE: Less can be more.

June 13: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: I know I’m gonna change that tune.

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HopCat is coming to Louisville, and it's gonna be yuuuge.

HopCat (no spacing, alas) is a regional chain out of Michigan, one of those "bigger is better" ideas that proliferate in America, where "craft" beer long since has been claimed as a victim of Disneyesque Capitalism, though it cannot be denied that immediately upon planting a location in Broad Ripple (Indianapolis), HopCat started pouring (a) sponsorship money into the Brewers of Indiana Guild, and (b) lots of Indiana-brewed beers.

Duly noted. Duly appreciated. Here's how the Indy branch of HopCat describes itself on Twitter.

130 all-craft drafts, ciders, wines, cocktails + food your Mom would make if she loved beer. Lunch, Dinner, Sunday Brunch.

The forthcoming HopCat location to Louisville has been mildly controversial owing to the familiar spatial and parking issues on Bardstown Road.

Massive Highlands beer bar now has an opening date, by David A. Mann (Louisville Business First)

HopCat – Louisville will open July 30. The big bar, boasting about 11,000 square feet, has been under construction on Bardstown Road in the Highlands, at the former Spindeltop Draperies Inc. property, since last year.

The first 200 people in its doors that day will get a card good for a free order of its "crack fries" every week for a year.

I don't think "crack" is particularly funny as it pertains to fries, or for that matter to much of anything else (remember "crack babies," anyone?) but to each his own. I suppose if a brewery called Special Ed can talk about "'tard tested, 'tard approved," then crack fries is a relatively mild linguistic offense.

Meanwhile, it's bigger and bigger and better and better. One gets the impression that if "cat houses" were legal, the marketing tie-in would be only nanoseconds away.

(The Highlands HopCat) will feature 132 varieties of craft beers on tap, a full menu, three event spaces (including two with private bars) and a rooftop deck with outdoor seating. It will also have more than 200 whiskey selections, including many many Kentucky bourbons, and a small-batch in-house brewery featuring its own creations and collaborations.

Louisville's HopCat will be the chain's ninth, with a tenth outpost to follow in Lexington, late 2016 with the Lexington outpost having opened in the fall of 2015. As Mark Twain once presciently noted, there are lies, damned lies, and press releases.

“We’ve worked hard to make HopCat – Louisville unlike any other,” Mark Sellers, founder and CEO of BarFly Ventures, said in the release. “I believe we’ve created a location that will serve as a hub for Kentucky craft beers and a magnet for local beer lovers as well as those visiting Louisville from around the world.”

The usual dreary boilerplate code language, concocted to gladden the hearts of fetishists who read business news for their jollies.

But HopCat still isn't AB-InBev, so I'd heartily recommend the Kentucky Guild of Brewers prepare an invoice and get out in front of the chain's arrival in Kentucky.

Finally, am I being cynical? Yes, but only when absolutely necessary.

__

AFTER THE FIRE: Less can be more.

AFTER THE FIRE: Less can be more.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Kindly note that I’m changing the name of this column to reflect the fact that my involvement in the “craft” beer business no longer is active. As a recovering former small business owner, I survived the frying pan, and perhaps it’s time for an evolving perspective. Just don't expect me to jump back into that particular fire ... at least yet.

---

I remember being in Prague in the mid-1990s. We’d wander downtown neighborhoods hunting beer – sometimes hopping street cars, other times the subway, but most often on foot.

The objective was to find drafts from as many of the Czech Republic’s breweries as possible, and having identified these beers, to drink them straight down.

In retrospect, it isn’t clear to me what sort of legal framework for beer distribution even existed in the Czech Republic at the time. Something akin to a “tied house” seemed common, in that a pivnice (piv-nee-tsuh, or tavern) generally would serve beer from only one brewery.

These days, we’d quickly decamp to a multi-tap and be overwhelmed by sheer choice, and I’ve read that Prague now has such establishments boasting bountiful selections, as well as WiFi to enable the inevitable postings at Untappd, but this approach strikes me as tantamount to the king’s gamesmen running the animals past his shooting point.

It’s also no way to conduct a drinking tour of a city, especially when traveling overseas, where there’s so much else to learn.

20 years ago, many of Prague’s pubs served beers from one of the city’s “big three” breweries: Staropramen, Braník or Mestan, the latter two apparently long deceased as independent entities.

Other breweries were well represented, too, and it seemed the closer their home cities to Prague, the better chance of finding them. Pilsner Urquell was a given. Gambrinus, Velkopopovický and Radegast also were around, though at the time, the epochal Budvar not as much.

Intriguingly, it remained possible in the mid-1990s to find watering holes in Prague that had hooked up with smaller breweries, or even larger ones further away from the capital. There’d be occasional appearances by Ferdinand (from nearby Benešov), Hostan (Znojmo), Regent (Třeboň) or Starobrno (Brno). The trick was finding the places serving them, as they didn’t always correspond to addresses amid the prevailing tourist routes.

An obscure brewery called Herold became an obsession for my band of explorers. It was founded in the countryside in 1506, surviving the threat of closure in the waning months of the Communist period only because its stubborn plant manager refused to do what the authorities told him.

These authorities soon were gone, and the plant manager remained.

We seemingly traipsed over half of Prague one evening trying to find the sole pivnice that we’d been told poured Herold, and stopping frequently for directions at other establishments along the way. These wayfinding tips generally came accompanied by beers, which might explain our ultimate failure.

Resolving to locate the Herold brewery itself, eventually we did so with the help of a savvy travel agent in Prague, who secured a minibus and driver for a day’s journey deep into the Bohemian hinterlands.

First we visited the town of Velké Popovice for a Velkopopovický Kozel tasting, then Vysoký Chlumec (home of Lobkowitz), and finally the tiny town of Březnice, where a farmer on a tractor pulling a wagon overflowing with manure slowly guided our careful man at the wheel to the Herold brewery gate.

I’d contacted the manager, but he had an untimely emergency and wasn’t there, so his second in command made a hasty phone call, ran out the door, and soon emerged with a local schoolteacher in tow to serve as interpreter.

Our Herold brewery tour lasted all of 20 minutes, yielding to a considerably more intensive two-hour survey of the lagering cellar. By the end of our seminar below ground, we had absorbed so much knowledge that the ancient stone staircase leading back to the top began wildly undulating to the beat of non-existent music.

The magical motion very nearly kept us subterranean, which would have been just lovely by me.

Two decades later, much has changed in the Czech Republic -- and everywhere else in the world, too. Many of the old-school Czech breweries are gone (Herold survives), and a new crop of “craft” brewers has arrived.

Granted, the range of beer choice in Prague used to be far narrower, but it was a beer paradise nonetheless, and while it may sound as though I’m waxing nostalgic for a bygone era – one I devoted a full quarter-century of my professional life to revolutionizing – it’s very important to understand that yes, you bet I am … unless of course, I’m not.

Just as trudging eight miles robed in primitive bearskin through six-foot-high snow drifts helped transform a previous generation of mid-20th century schoolchildren into improved parents, hunting beers the hard way had its merits.

Beer tastes better when you work for it, and breweries, too; we’d follow a canal or rail line, sniff the unmistakable aroma of a boil in progress, and follow our noses to the goal line. The biggest problem was finding our way home.

---

The real reason I’m bringing all this up is because, as a consumer, there exists a little-known, positive connotation to the tied house: If it’s a Fuller’s pub, you know there’ll be Fuller’s served there. No guesswork is involved, and at times, this can be a good thing.

In the present era, unceasing “guest” tap rotation has morphed into something that’s incredibly diverse, but also no longer comes moored to any system or routine. It’s wonderful and chaotic, all at once.

Rotating guest taps made for a refreshing trend when acting as the changeable component alongside a non-revolving core selection, but we’ve long since settled into the rigid orthodoxy of a daily (hourly?) spin-the-flavor-wheel approach. Accordingly, fresh ideas for marketing and retailing a profusion of better beer choices have steadily diminished.

When the only constant is dizzying change, then surely for some establishments in search of a noteworthy market niche, resolving to give the pendulum a nudge in the opposite direction is merited. Either a semi-permanent selection of classics, or a single brewery’s popular range, would make for a distinctive strategy.

Naturally, I’m not sanctioning tied houses if by “tied” we mean contractually narrowed choice, especially via a swillmonger. And, of course, the tied house isn’t exactly legal in America – even when it happens, which is lamentably often.

Rather, I’m advocating a voluntary tie of sorts, and as always, I’m insistent that any beer and brewing knowledge base emanate from behind the bar, as reflected by an intelligent and coherent (if narrowed) selection, and mirroring the conceptual contours of an establishment’s wine and spirits program.

After all, everyone knows that a bar simply must have a core selection of liquor, but how does this not apply to beer styles?

Conversely, many bars in metropolitan Louisville proudly feature Brown-Forman wines and spirits. So, why not follow suit with an exclusive selection of Falls City’s genuinely independent local drafts?

Wouldn’t it make sense for an eatery on the Indiana side of the river to feature all Sun King drafts?

And isn’t it true that if one did, Sun King’s three flagships – Sunlight, Osiris and Wee Mac – would be the biggest sellers?

There are many ways of cultivating loyalty. My contention is that more customers than we tend to think actually like the idea of “their” favorite brand or style of beer, and when it comes to better (“craft”) beer, the merits of continuity are being vastly undervalued.

Accordingly, there’s a case to be made for making the process of choosing a regular beer easier for those who might become regular customers just because they know what to expect when they drop in for a sandwich.

Recently a friend was musing along these lines: “If I opened a pub, would I be crazy to have a three-tap keg box, pouring Guinness, Pilsner Urquell and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, with no guest taps at all?”

Aside from the absence of representative beer localism, no – he would not be crazy. In fact, there’d be something I personally like on tap, all the time.

And: There's only so much time in the first place.

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June 13: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: I know I’m gonna change that tune.

June 6: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: A Mile Wide sidewalk superintendent.

May 30: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: “The Drinker” (A Book Review).

May 23: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: A few beers on Estonian time (Part Two).

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The beer list at Doc's Cantina in Louisville.

Photo credit: WDRB TV.

Doc's Cantina has opened in the former Tumbleweed on the riverfront in Louisville. The drinks list is here. It's obvious that a great deal of thought was put into the assemblage of wine, bourbon, mezcal, rum, tequila and other libations.

My soapbox, please.

It is my recurring observation that eateries tend to have an absolutely firm idea of how their cuisine, wine and spirits mesh, but most beer lists I see are without any organizing principle at all. I look at the hundreds of  available options and note the opportunity to riff on numerous styles and stylistic variations, rather than the crazy quilt revolving door that sadly has become the norm.

Also, commitments to localism/regionalism in sourcing seldom extend past the swinging doors to the kitchen, with notable exceptions like the Crescent Hill Craft House. This probably addresses a fundamental contradiction on the part of consumers, for while they increasingly want to know that the food comes from down the block, they insist against all available evidence that the quality of local beer cannot match what is brewed a couple thousand miles away.

Looking at the Doc's Cantina draft list ... well, Ritterguts is a Shelton Brothers import from Germany. Ballast Point sold out to Constellation. Moortgat has an ownership stake in Boulevard. Bud Light and the two Mexican lagers are multinational-owned.

Country Boy is independent and regional.

DRAFT BEER
Ritterguts Gose 16 oz
Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin 16 oz
Country Boy Nacho Bait 16 oz or 22 oz
Boulevard 80 Acre Hoppy Wheat 16 oz or 22 oz
Bud Light 16 oz or 22 oz
Negra Modelo 16 oz or 22 oz
Pacifico Clara 16 oz or 22oz

It looks like canned beer only, no bottles at Doc's Cantina. CAN-tina. Get it?

CAN BEER

Rhinegeist Semi Dry Cider 12 oz
Sierra Nevada Otra Vez 12 oz
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale 12 oz
Steigl Grapefruit Radler 16 oz
Stella Artois 16 oz
Tecate 12 oz
Victoria Lager 12 oz
West 6th Amber Ale 12 oz
West 6th Cocoa Porter 12 oz
West 6th Lemongrass Wheat 12 oz
Wild Ginger Beer 12 oz
Wittekerke Witte 12 oz
Against the Grain Brown Note 16 oz
Founders All Day IPA 12 oz
Coors Light 16 oz
Corona Extra 12 oz
Corona Light 12 oz
Country Boy Cougar Bait Blonde 12 oz
Bell's Two Hearted IPA 16 oz
Boulevard Ginger Lemon Radler 12 oz
Dos Equis Especial Lager 12 oz
Bud Light 16 oz
Budweiser 16 oz
Evin Twin Bikini Beer IPA 12 oz
Miller Lite 16 oz
Modelo Especial 12 oz
New Belgium Fat Tire 16 oz
Pabst Blue Ribbon 16 oz
Pilsner Urquell 16 oz

Of course, whenever the food is derived from Mexican, we're doomed to a thematic array of taste-alike Mexican lagers. If the other organizational conceit is canned beer only, choice is vastly reduced even with the expanded range of beers in cans.

There are 28 beers in cans (and one cider), of which 14 (half) are not independently owned. 5 of 28 are local/regional. Without going into excruciating detail, 18 of 36 (50%) of the products on this list are variants of golden lager or golden ale.

As a side note, there's one beer style missing from both draft and canned lists that I guarantee would wonderfully accompany the food at Doc's Cantina.

That's German-style Hefeweizen.

My comments aren't intended as a slight against Doc's Cantina. There are a number of good beers on this card. It's just that to my increasingly jaundiced eye, too many of them are too much alike, with the result that opportunities for creativity are missed. I hate to see it.

Even now, in a time of unparalleled choice, it seems to me that better beer still is slighted when compared to wine and spirits. There is a mode of thinking about wine and spirits that isn't applied to beer.

Then again, I just might be completely full of it, baying at the moon. Could this be why I'm drinking more gin than beer?

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

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

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. I have nothing whatever against Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman, although if I were the sort to nurse ancestral grudges, there might be bad blood.

You see, unlike many basketball fans nearby who pledge allegiance to the University of Louisville Cardinals, it was my good fortune to see Bridgeman play when he was in high school, even if I was only 10 years old at the time.

Junior Bridgeman’s senior year in 1970-71 ended with his East Chicago Washington squad crowned as undefeated state champion, arguably the finest team in Hoosier high school history. All five starters for the Senators received four-year college scholarships, including Pete Trgovich at UCLA and Tim Stoddard at North Carolina State. Interestingly, Stoddard subsequently lasted more than a decade in the major leagues as an above-average relief pitcher.

In winning the 1971 title, East Chicago Washington defeated my Floyd Central Highlanders by a score of 102-88 in the championship semi-final in Indianapolis. At the time, it was a record for most points scored by a losing team in the Final Four.

Bridgeman went on to Louisville, enjoyed a 12-year NBA career, and has had a very successful post-athletic business career, primarily as the owner of several hundred Wendy’s and Chili’s franchises.

Meanwhile, I became a professional beer drinker and went straight to hell in a bottomless, used peach basket – but that’s a fun story for another day.

---

My mornings do not begin with television or radio. Rather, I check my iPhone for updates from the world’s few remaining reputable national and international news sources (Economist, Guardian, New York Times), generally of the sort that don’t rate beers.

Local news comes from the Twitter feed and e-mail headlines. Among my many sources for local information are the Courier-Journal, News and Tribune, Insider Louisville and Louisville Business First. The first two purport to offer comprehensive news coverage, while Insider and LBF typically compete to provide histrionic, breathless “scoops” for that saddest of all human archetypes, those among us who somehow derive erotic jollies from business and finance news.

Restaurant and bar items remain of vague interest to me. Concurrently, gleeful tales of housing prices, stock options and hospital groups have precisely the same effect as an ice-cold outdoor shower in January.

Accordingly, last week Insider Louisville contributed a pulse-quickening, purely sponsored press release from the cuddly Cordish Companies, collector of formulaic, cookie-cutter chain stores, and extractor of municipal economic “development” subsidies from sea to shining sea.

In this for-pay “news” release, I learned that there’s a new restaurant at Fourth Street Live, Louisville’s engorged Cordish outpost. I’ve edited the rhetorical carnage to omit flagrant, self-congratulatory rhetoric, both on the part of Cordish and its best political friend, Mayor Greg Fischer.

SPONSORED

Local business leader and sports legend opens Birracibo at Fourth Street Live!

The Cordish Companies and local business leader and former NBA and University of Louisville basketball player, Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman, proudly opened Birracibo at Fourth Street Live! last month. The newest restaurant specializes in artisanal pizzas, wine, and craft beer …

… “We are proud to partner with the Cordish family to create a truly special restaurant for downtown Louisville,” stated Junior Bridgeman, President and CEO of B.F. South Inc. “Birracibo is committed to quality, local ingredients, and an artisanal food and beverage program.”

“Birra” and “cibo” translated from Italian mean “beer” and “food” respectively. Birracibo honors that namesake by showcasing the best local and regional craft beers, as well as a menu that will assuage sophisticated palates and casual diners alike.

I hope IL paid well for that one. How very, very dreadful to write such drivel.

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Truthfully, we’ve long since pole-vaulted the critical juncture where bracketing “craft” is required, seeing as “craft” has ceased to have any coherent meaning. Though strictly provisional, my current preferred formula is this: “Craft Beer Is Dead; Long Live Indie Beer.” 

Because: As an identifier, “indie” is vital. It reconnects better beer’s conceptual origins to the small, local business revolution, something increasingly forgotten by the boastful white whale chasers. My personal beer values system tells me that it’s just as important to follow the money as to prattle on about quality, especially when hardly anyone can agree on what quality means in a time of raging personal subjectivity.

Of course, the problem with indie beer is that “indie” (and “alternative”) long since were victimized as concepts by the music business in precisely the same way as “craft” has been gutted and wielded by brewing multinationals.

At any rate, we’re told that Birracibo features “the best local and regional craft beers,” and so not unlike a Missourian, I looked at the drinks card, which helpfully is available online. I’ve unilaterally divided the Birracibo beer list into categories that are more truthful than the blanket term “craft.”

MULTINATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL (15)
By definition, neither local nor regional “craft.”

Draft
BIRRA PERONI // Italy, Lager - 4.7% ABV
BUD LIGHT // St. Louis, MO, Lager - 5% ABV
HOEGAARDEN // Belgium, Witbier - 4.9% ABV
STELLA ARTOIS // Belgium, Lager - 5% ABV

Bottles
AMSTEL LIGHT // Netherlands
BIRRA MORETTI LAGER // Italy
BIRRA MORETTI LA ROSSA // Italy
BUDWEISER // St. Louis, MO
CORONA // Mexico City
ESTRELLA DAMM DAURA // Barcelona
GOOSE ISLAND SEASONAL // Chicago, IL
HEINEKEN // Netherlands
MAGIC HAT #9 // South Burlington, VT
MENABREA LAGER // Italy
MICHELOB ULTRA // St. Louis, MO

ISN’T BEER AT ALL (1)

Bottles
ANGRY ORCHARD // Cincinnati, OH

“CRAFT,” BUT NOT REALLY LOCAL/REGIONAL (3)

Draft
NEW BELGIUM FAT TIRE // Colorado, Amber Ale - 5.2% ABV
GREAT LAKES BURNING RIVER PALE ALE // Cleveland, OH, Pale Ale - 6% ABV

Bottles
LAKEFRONT NEW GRIST GINGER // Milwaukee, WI

LOCAL/REGIONAL “CRAFT” (13)

Draft
ALLTECH KENTUCKY BOURBON ALE // Lexington, KY, Bourbon Aged Ale - 8.8% ABV
FALLS CITY ENGLISH PALE ALE // Louisville, KY, Pale Ale - 5% ABV
GOODWOOD LOUISVILLE LAGER // Louisville, KY, Lager - 4.6% ABV
GOODWOOD BOURBON STOUT // Louisville, KY, Bourbon Stout - 8% ABV
NEW ALBANIAN HOPTIMUS // New Albany, IN, Imperial IPA - 10.7% ABV
NEW ALBANIAN ELECTOR // New Albany, IN, Imperial Red - RHINEGEIST COUGAR BLONDE ALE // Cincinnati, OH, American Blonde Ale - 4.8% ABV
WEST 6TH IPA // Lexington, KY, IPA - 7% ABV

Bottles
BELL'S SMITTEN GOLDEN RYE ALE // Galesburg, MI
FALLS CITY HIPSTER REPELLANT IPA // Louisville, KY
FOUNDER'S BREAKFAST STOUT // Grand Rapids, MI
GOODWOOD WALNUT BROWN ALE // Louisville, KY
GOODWOOD RED WINE SAISON // Louisville, KY

Tossing aside the Angry Orchard (cider is not beer, is it?), we’re left with 31 beers on the Birracibo list. Stylistically, it makes no sense, but indisputably, there is a good core of local/regional “craft” beers.

Overall, the picture is less than pleasing. 16 beers genuinely rank as local/regional “craft,” and the remainder do not. The percentage works  out to 52% local/regional, to 48% multinational. Unsurprisingly, reality on the ground does not correspond with the press release’s gushing promises.

Yes, I know: It’s Fourth Street Live, and it’s an imported entertainment concept – so what?

Yes, considering what it surely takes to play ball with Wendy’s, Chili’s and Cordish, the act of appeasing AB-InBev’s monopolists with roughly 30% of an allegedly “local/regional” beer list makes perfect sense. It’s probably in the Fourth Street Live contract somewhere that a business must do so.

But everything I’ve read about Junior Bridgeman’s business career suggests that he’s always been uncommonly hands-on. He famously worked the Wendy’s shop floor before he bought one, and has continued to swoop into his franchises, even as they’ve numbered into the hundreds.

It’s the sort work ethic you’d expect from someone raised by the East Chicago steel mills, and widely admired for professionalism during his basketball playing days. I respect it, even if Wendy's isn't my idea of lunch, now or ever.

Allow me to suggest that the same work ethic – the same respect for what’s true, and the same nose for what isn’t – as applied to the beers carried by an establishment trumpeting an “artisanal food and beverage program,” implies a willingness to do a lot better than this list.

52% is a good shooting percentage, but if “craft” is to retain any palpable meaning whatever, all 52% should buy is a seat on the pine.

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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?

February 15: The PC: Swill in youthful times of penury and need.

When the Euro '85 series returns: Leningrad USSR, continued. 

_

What's on draft in my head at the Expendables Bar & Grill.

Totnes UK, 2013.

People keep asking me if I intend to get back into the pub game. It seems unlikely, though one shouldn’t ever say never.

An old friend of mine is a chef, and recently he decided to step away for a bit. I was joking with him: “You do the food, I’ll do the beer, we’ll use someone else’s money to get started, and it’ll be called Expendables Bar and Grill.”

Make no mistake: “Someone else’s money” is the single most important part of the equation.

But just like anyone, I daydream.

What if I could get back to the beginning, have another place, and just fill six taps? Few bells, limited whistles; none of the constant rotation and chest-thumping, but bread and butter for people who like it that way.

Working under the assumption that I'd buy beer, drink beer and sell what’s left – it worked that way during the formative period of the Public House – what would I put on draft as my ideal lineup?

Today’s answer is three lagers, three ales. Tomorrow's could be different.

Except for the IPA, they all fall in the range of 5% abv, which is a tad high to suit my session beer fixation, except one thing already is certain: I’ll be drinking a lot of that 4% Bitter.

Ideally, there’d be an Indiana brewery on hand to brew some of these to spec. I know one that needs the work …

Here the are:

LAGER

Kellerbier ... an earthy, golden lager like St. Georgenbrau in Buttenheim.

Rauchbier ... more in keeping with Spezial than Schlenkerla, but let’s not be picky. Either model works.

Schwarzbier … it needn’t be stronger than 4.5%

ALE

Ordinary Bitter or Best Bitter … surely someone close to New Albany can make a reasonably authentic English interpretation, right?

Dry Stout … Guinness still appeals to me, though I’ll need a clever escape clause for my “death to multinationals” mantra.

IPA … something like Daredevil Lift Off IPA works just fine, and so would West Sixth IPA. I like them both quite a lot.

What about Belgians? Well, most of the ones I like are better served from bottles, anyway, as are higher gravity beers, so that’s how we’ll treat those. A few classics go a long way. Seeing as my wife likes Hefeweizen, and I won’t be home as much, one of them makes the cut, too.

I have other draft lineup fantasies, like the one with a brewpub-scale brewery producing only historic American styles:

Pre-Prohibition Pilsner
Colonial Dark Ale (or Porter, with molasses)
“Steam” 
Kentucky Komon
American Pale Ale
Cream Ale
Bock (in springtime)

If you have a pot of money somewhere and would like to fund a start-up within walking distance of my house, let me know … and I’ll give Chef Joe a call.

NABC's Gravity Head 2016: The full lineup is here.

The 18th edition of NABC's annual bacchanal is the first without any involvement on my part, and no, the ballyhooed buyout's not yet final. As previously noted, I've turned my attention to Session.

However, I've never had any doubts that Eric, Aaron, Sarah, Ben (the honor roll goes on and on) are perfectly capable of rocking Gravity Head.

I do NOT know if there are plans to continue the Gravity Head Sunday event at Bank Street Brewhouse, or whether there'll be a fan vote, or if someone will count down the casualties as in the past.

Eric has properly exercised restraint in front-loading the list, as part of a long-term plan we discussed to cut down the number of listed kegs and not run into June any longer. He told me there might be some surprise releases along the way.

There is a Facebook event page with a complete list, but since not everyone does Facebook, I'm repeating it below. First, the introduction, then the list.

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Our annual high gravity beer festival returns in 2016 with a myriad selection! Join us in the revelry as we cut a swath through some of the best beers availible.

Opening ceremonies and our tailgate breakfast start at 7am, Friday, Feb. 26th. Opening weekend's featured brewery is the venerable Stone Brewing! Beers can go quickly so plan accordingly.

Check this space for beer line-ups and updates as the great beast lumbers ever closer.

NABC always encourages our guests to be responible with their transportation to and from Gravity Head. Be smart and plan ahead!

Full 2016 Gravity Line-up by style:

14B. Scottish Heavy
Dark Horse Scotty Karate (2013) 9.75%

17B. Old Ale
Bell's Third Coast Old Ale (2014) 10.2%
Founders Curmudgeon 9.8%
North Coast Old Stock Ale (2013) 11.8%

20C. Imperial Stout
Dark Horse Plead the Fifth (2014) 11.0%
Founders Imperial Stout (2012) 10.5%
Smuttynose Imperial Stout (2014) 10.5%
Three Floyds Blot out the Sun (2014) 10.4%
Tin Man Csar 12.0%
Two Brothers Northwind (2014) 9.1%
Upland Teddy Bear Kisses (2014) 10.2%

21B. Specialty IPA
New Albanian Hard Core Gore (2015) 8.5%

22A. Double IPA
Bell's Hopslam 10.0%
Dogfish 120 Minute IPA 18.0%
Founders Devil Dancer 12.0%

22B. American Strong Ale
Stone Double Bastard (2014) 11.0%

22C. American Barleywine
Dogfish Olde School 15.4%
North Coast Class of '88 10.0%
Rogue XS Old Crustacean (2013) 11.5%
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot (2011) 9.6%
Three Floyds/Mikkeller Majsgoop 10.00%

29A. Fruit Beer
Founders Blushing Monk 9.2%

30A. Spiced Beer
Founders Breakfast Stout (2013) 8.3%
Rivertown Death 11.7%

33A. Wood Aged Beer
Bloomington Brewing Barrel - Aged Ol' Floyd's (2014) 8.7%
Founders Backwoods Bastard 11.6%
Founders KBS 11.2%
Great Divide Chocolate Oak - Aged Yeti (2014) 9.5%
J.W. Lees Harvest Ale - (Calavados Cask) (2011) 11.5%
New Albanian Grape Expectations 9.5%
New Albanian Oaktimus 10.7%
New Albanian Oak King 9.3%
New Holland Dragon's Milk (2014) 10.0%
Sun King Barrel Aged Timmie 10.00%
Sun King Whip Fight 9.0%
Upland Barrel Chested Barleywine 9.5%

34C. Experimental Beer
Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break Natale - Pretty Please with a Cherry on Top 11.5%

00. Stone Brewing - Style Unto Itself
Stone 2013 IRS 10.6%
Stone 2013 Old Guardian 11.0%
Stone 2015 Farking Wheaton w00t Stout 13.0%
Stone Mutt Brown 9.0%
Stone 2013 Espresso IRS 11.0%
Stone 2015 Stone Xocovesa Nitro 8.1%
Stone Barrel Aged Brown Ale -
w/Balaton Sour Cherries 8.1%
Stone Stochasticity Project - Quadrotriticale Aged in Red Wine Barrels 9.8%

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