“One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary… The enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization.”
— John Jay Chapman, American author (1862-1933)
When I began the present position as F & D’s digital editor in 2019, among my first coherent decisions was to try to post food and drink news on a daily basis, weekends included.
After all, fundamental consistency matters when it comes to news, and previously we’d been a tad scattershot in our delivery. The key word in this instance is “try,” as I also resolved to borrow the title of my quarterly print column about beer and transfer it to digital slot, henceforth a weekly dose of “Hip Hops.”
In truth, I’d have preferred reverting to one of my previous identities: “The Potable Curmudgeon,” or maybe “Beers with a Socialist,” but in truth it didn’t matter all that much to me. Five years later, what I’ve learned is that even with sufficient time on my hands (there’s another story), it hasn’t always been easy to manage 52 yearly columns about beer — at least the way I’d like to structure them.
Granted, there was a time when the novelty of local brewing merited commentary about the majority of local brewery events, tastings, releases and tappings; however, hereabouts Louisville Ale Trail performs this function, and moreover, grassroots craft beer seems to have arrived at a perilous juncture wherein fewer brewery events than ever before actually have to do with beer.
In turn, this is because the contemporary taproom model of brewery operation means that breweries must sell as much beer as possible from their own premises in the absence of distribution amid an impossibly overcrowded marketplace. Not only this, but their square footage must generate revenue of any sort; witness the sad advent of pitiable abominations like “handcrafted: hard seltzer.
In short, craft brewing used to be about being different from everyone else, and now it requires being pretty much the same as every other bar in town, and if the reasons to visit Brewery X and spend money there have nothing whatever to do with Brewery X’s beers, so be it.
This makes me want to scream, but alas, I digress. Shall we pop the top on a few PBRs and commiserate?
No. Not ever. PBR is awful, and so is Miller High Life, but as the current political season attests, we Americans possess a genius for self-delusion.
Simply stated, I do not wish to devote the space allotted to a beer column for the recitation of trivia night, karaoke, live music, silent discos or basket weaving classes at breweries, although doing so would make it far easier for me to produce column inches for a beer rumination on a weekly basis.
Except it wouldn’t be about beer, would it?
Now, you might be saying, and plausibly so, that writing about the breweries and their beers on a weekly basis even if they’re not doing so themselves would provide plenty of grist for the mill. After all, they’re still brewing.
You’re absolutely right, of course.
It also would require time and money on my part to visit the establishments, consume their sampler trays and maybe even be out of there before 8:00 p.m., and while I’m still capable of performing these functions as a 64-year-old prospective pensioner — and to put it discreetly — the juice (my energy level and remuneration) does not always justify the squeeze (the cost of these visitations).
Still, it would be fun to hit one brewery a week, drink only the flagship beers (remember them? They’re the ones brewed the whole year round) and draw entertaining conclusions. The challenge would be whether there’s any point in telling the truth about my findings.
At any rate, I’ve cut back “Hip Hops” to every other week, and this seems to work well enough, given that I remain interested in beer as a topic for words, as opposed to gazing at photos of beers that entirely lack context because social media exists to lower our collective IQ each time we indulge it.
Publication every other Wednesday also is helpful to me because I’ve been busy with a solo project. Writers have always been advised to write about what they know, and in 2022 it occurred to me that my first paid position in the beer business dated back to 1982, when I began pulling a few shifts at the long forgotten Scoreboard Liquors in New Albany.
40 was a nice, round number, so why not a memoir? Deciding on “40 Years in Beer” as a title, my muse subsequently directed me on a journey of remembrance that continues two years later, leading me to surmise that the title should be changed to “My Life in Beer.”
First I need to finish the damn thing, which is approaching 160,000 words and has only now arrived at 1996 and 1997.
Multiple installments have been devoted to the year 1994 alone, but what can I say? It was a truly momentous time, like 1968. Not The Summer of Love, but The Liver’s Tale.
Below you’ll find links to the past fifteen episodes in reverse chronological order. I’ve created an entry page of sorts: The “40 Years in Beer Compendium”: links, previews, and coming attractions. It is being constantly updated.
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61. The Silo Microbrewery’s fatal travails, 1994 – 1997.
Unfortunately, the propensity of the Silo’s ownership group to shoot its frail creation in the foot explains why the entity never seemed to find firm footing. A default level of ingrained incomprehension was evident from the start, and although an ownership change in 1995 inspired hope, Louisville’s first brewery of the new era closed in 1997.
60: Those glorious Belgian beer cafes (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part III).
And then there occurred a third Euro getaway, hence my references to advantageous frequent flier miles. Four of us went to Belgium, rode the rails, drank the ales, and learned what all the fuss is about. I haven’t been the same beer lover ever since, and the Public House went full bore into Belgians, albeit without the requisite Spaghetti Bolognese.
59: Czech and Slovak beer & Hungarian Bull’s Blood wine (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part II).
An unexpected midsummer’s excursion in 1995 embraced the Czech Republic (the Moravian countryside near Ostrava) and Slovakia (Košice) for beer, with a wine bonus in Hungary (Eger). Seeing a show by Neil Young with Pearl Jam in lovely Prague merely was the icing.
58: Prague, Urquell & the Doppelbock Viscosity Tour (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part I).
The Doppelbock Viscosity Tour in March was the first of three European excursions in 1995, two of which were small “training wheel” group trips as I began to explore ways of incorporating beer travel into the Rich O’s/F.O.S.S.I.L.S. mission. There were 14 such happenings in all, taking place with small groups and large, by train, minibus, motor coach and bicycle, concluding in 2008.
57: Beer writer Michael Jackson’s reaction to the Red Room at the Public House.
“You’re quite the polemicist,” said Jackson, pushing back the GABF program as I blushed. “Have I told you why your Red Room made such an impression on me?” Then I remembered Jackson’s visit to our pub in 1994, and the way his gaze had been fixed on the Red Room. Now it all made sense, and I learned that Jackson’s Red Room story began with his earliest childhood memory at the age of three.
56: Michael Jackson’s 1994 visit to Louisville — BBC, the Silo, Rich O’s.
In late autumn of 1994, it was revealed that Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson would be making a day-long stopover in Louisville during the course of an ongoing journey through the United States. He was examining beers and breweries from the burgeoning American “microbrewing” movement, then numbering just over 500 breweries nationwide, the bulk of them concentrated in New England, the upper Midwest, Colorado and the West Coast.
55: Cerveza in the afternoon at Pamplona’s Fiesta de San Fermín.
San Fermin’s strain of craziness is a fascinating hybrid. Spectacular public displays of orgiastic, besotted and scatological indecency occur alongside demonstrations of a proud and dignified adherence to traditional values that extend too far back into time to be completely understood. San Fermin is a primitive, almost mythological celebration that is expressed through daily, seemingly disparate, elements: confrontations between man and bull, gatherings of grandparents and grandchildren to share hot chocolate, outpourings of religious conviction, incessant marching musical mayhem and extraordinary alcoholic lubrication.
54: New Albanians on beer holiday in Old Albania (1994).
Yes, there was beer in Albania. As we enjoyed the contrasts in temperature between the frigid lagering cellar and the sunbaked streets outside, the brewmaster’s assistant at Birra Tirana tapped off some two-week old, unfiltered “Hoxha’s Best” and proudly offered glasses to each of us. It was crisp and nicely defined, and tastier than most of the Italian imports on sale in Albania.
53: The birth of Samichlaus at Zürich’s classic Brauerei Hürlimann (1994).
Learning about the Samichlaus brewing method in its original habitat was incredible, but the real story, beginning in the early 1990s when the fall of Communism opened European markets for global “modernity,” was the death of Hürlimann and so many other traditional breweries of its ilk. Whenever a brewery like Hürlimann goes away, so does an entire, interrelated system, both inside the brewhouse and also outside of it, in the surrounding community.
52: “Anheuser-Busch, Gone Home,” our classic 1997 victory lap.
It is worth noting that Budvar is thriving in the post-Communist milieu, in spite of A-B’s protestations that it would do better under the protective, big brotherly wing of the St. Louis-based brewing Medusa. Indeed, the spectacle of America’s arrogant brewing Goliath’s defeat at the hands of the small, yet resourceful, Czech David has proven to be the most enjoyable moral saga of our age.
51: Papazian sidesteps AB vs. Budvar by prohibiting FOSSILS from quoting him.
Budweiser-Budvar, 1994: Both the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and Charlie Papazian answered FOSSILS’ call. I’d harbored few expectations, which made CAMRA’s snarky but positive mention of us in What’s Brewing all the more delightful; meanwhile, Papazian stayed true to himself and lapsed into legalistic gibberish (sorry, Budvar; you deserved better from our “leader”).
50: Papazian goes AWOL as we contest AB’s aggression against Budvar.
By the early 1990s, the Budweiser-Budvar standoff had become a global cause célèbre among the beer cognoscenti. F.O.S.S.I.L.S. joined in with a “Budweiser Versus Budvar” direct mailing campaign, offering an opportunity for homebrewing celebrity Charlie Papazian to step forward and take the lead in drawing attention to Anheuser Busch’s aggression. Had “LOL” existed in the early 90s, the letters would be full appropriate to describe his reply.
49: Bluegrass Brewing Co. — an ideal brewpub? Also, the Lite-Free Zone.
Our contemporary era of beer and brewing in Louisville dates to the years 1992 – 1994. Bluegrass Brewing Company was born in late autumn of 1993, and the Lite-Free Zone at Rich O’s came along in January 1994.
48: F.O.S.S.I.L.S. newsletter antics, Typo’s Brewpub, and True Beer Freedom.
Walking the Dog, newsletter of the F.O.S.S.I.L.S. homebrewing and beer appreciation club, came of age in 1993. Aficionados of barbed polemics rejoiced, but WTD wasn’t always well-received in places like Ft. Mitchell KY and St. Louis MO. I’m not blowing my own euphonium to say that Walking the Dog’s tone was utterly unique among homebrewing club newsletters in our approximate region, and to an extent, beyond it.
47: A “special vacation” with Kölsch, Altbier and Roggenbier (1993).
In Germany, non-Bavarian beer culture was the focus: Kölsch in Cologne, and Altbier in Düsseldorf, as detailed in the F.O.S.S.I.L.S. club newsletter’s annual Travel Dog edition. Upon returning to America, David Pierce told us that Bluegrass Brewing Company would be open for business soon – and he’d jumped over to BBC from the Silo to run the brewery.
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Previously at “Hip Hops”:
Hip Hops: Dear Monnik … look to the Czech Lands for a Highlands hospoda
Roger Baylor is an entrepreneur, educator, and innovator with 
