As a reminder, “Edibles & Potables” is F&D’s Sunday slot for food and dining topics that range outside our customary Metro Louisville coverage area, and every other Wednesday (more or less) is given over to “Hip Hops,” a wide-angle consideration of beer news and views.
Today these two themes come together, celebrating the Christmas season with a flashback to 1991.
The back story: 2022 marked my 40th year in “the beer biz,” and I decided it was time to write an autobiographical account of those four decades—if not concluding with a finished product, then at least the raw materials necessary for shaping into a book would have been gathered.
In the end, there may be only one copy in existence of “My Life in Beer: What I Remember,” as resting atop a shelf somewhere within my home library (or more likely, residing as a PDF on a thumb drive).
That’s okay, too. There were fewer than 100 breweries in America when I was in college, and today the number is around 9,000. The Old World has been transformed into a very New Reality. I’m delighted to have played my small part in this incredible growth.
Is it fiction or non-fiction?
Predominantly the latter, of course, but mum’s the word. We mustn’t always allow pure facts to interfere with a good drinker’s tale. I’ve been publishing chapters chronologically at my website, and this link takes you to the listing (not that “previous” and “next” links appear in each installment, assisting navigation):
40 Years in Beer, at RogerBaylor.com
Most recently, I’ve arrived at an account of the Christmas season in 1991, which I spent in Košice, Czechoslovakia (now independent Slovakia), during the course of teaching English to doctors, nurses and staff at the city’s university hospital.
Beer is always present in the “40 Years” narrative, but it never exists in a vacuum, whether here or abroad. Context always matters, and this, to me, is the entire point. Here’s the link and an excerpt, and as always, thank you for reading.
40 Years in Beer, Part Thirty Eight: Christmas in Košice, 1991
In short, despite tight economic times and a full list of daunting problems to be solved, the holiday season in Košice is proceeding according to schedule and tradition. I’ve been given a bottle of homemade peach brandy for St. Nicholas Day; the doctor who distilled it (!) instructed me to make a Christmas Eve toast to peace, health and a good harvest.
On a cold day, with steaming sauerkraut soup and carp filets just around the corner, the toast strikes me as a true and noble thought.
