Since I began offering digital “Hip Hops” musings a few years back, this consideration of a pre-Civil War (1857) imported beer list offered by a top hotel eatery right here in Louisville is among the five most read columns. Thank you for reading.
Just imagine: Abraham Lincoln had yet to become well known, and his debates with Stephen A. Douglas were yet to come during the following year. But if you could afford it, imported British ale was available downtown.
The far more recent era of the 1990s may or may not be as interesting in terms of history, although its proximity ensures that my readers today are alive, as opposed to that other condition. Consequently, let’s swap 1857 for 1996, and the dawn of “craft” beer in Louisville.
These two vastly disparate periods of time actually have something in common, in that imported beers were dominant in both. A wave of German immigrant brewers was in the process of changing everything during antebellum times, and “microbrewing” slowly came to alter beer realities locally when the clock struck 2000.
More recently, in 1996 I concluded that what we really needed was a “good beer” guide to the Louisville metropolitan area, as limited to on-premises accounts and omitting package sales.
FOSSILS homebrewing club members helped gather information, and we found maybe 26 establishments that fit our parameters. Two of them were breweries, Bluegrass Brewing and a reconstituted Silo. Now we have more than 26 breweries alone in metro Louisville.
I’ve reprinted the 1996 “updated good beer guide” in its entirety as part of my ongoing beer biz memoir, “40 Years in Beer.” The cover photo is of the interior of Baxter Station immediately prior to its closing (snapped by Zach Everson for Eater, I think); speaking for myself, Baxter Station and BBC St. Matthews are the two food and drink destinations I miss the most in Louisville. I drank copious quantities of ale at both, and have zero regrets.
40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 66: The Updated Good Beer Guide to Louisville (1996)
There’s a “period piece” value to these listings, as with the presumption of indoor smoking, and the inclusion of this query: “Cigar Friendly?” Times have changed.
Seeing as the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is ongoing, kindly permit me to thank you for reading Food & Dining Magazine, both the quarterly print edition and the daily internet/social media feed. My duties here have become an unexpected third act, one that I find quite enjoyable.
The Winter 2024 print edition is coming in early December, so keep your eyes open.
In addition, thanks for following the “40 Years” narrative at my website. One of these days it might actually conclude (but then what?) You can keep track of what’s been published, and what’s in the hopper, here: The 40 Years in Beer Compendium: links, previews, and coming attractions.
Currently I’m working on these:
- 67: Diminuendo in BREW (the beer travel magazine) in 1996
- 68: Spring Break with the classic Central European brewers, 1997
- 69: The Great American Beer Festival years: 1997, 1998 and 2000
Today’s outro goes to a famous drinking writer who should have visited Louisville, but probably didn’t.
Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain
Quaintest thoughts—queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)
