Rocking the Culbertson's garden party with NABC Tricentennial.

It's the New Albany brewing history segment of the program. Thanks to Maria for  her photos.

Turns out a day's worth of weather anxiety was utterly misplaced. There wasn't a drop of rain on the Culbertson Mansion's garden party last evening, and yet it was appropriately wet insofar as an entire 15.5 gallon keg of NABC's Tricentennial Ale was concerned -- that is, before it became "dry" when the keg floated at last call.

Tricentennial Ale information page

As Bluegill presciently noted, it's encouraging to see the Culbertson emerging as an atmospheric venue, and there's a nice template there for numerous events. What I liked about the garden party was combining music (The Thumps and Myra Craig), food (Habana Blues) and beer with historical education. There's the house itself, and also the stories attached to it.

Mr. Culbertson reputedly was a teetotaler, but with a half-dozen local breweries operational during his mercantile and banking heyday, my guess is that he didn't approach the daily business equation with a prohibition-like stance.

Paul Reising was churning out 12,000 barrels of beer per year at its zenith in the 1880s, and 125 years later, only three Indiana craft brewers out of 63 are bettering that rate of production. Beer and brewing were integral parts of the scene in a working town filled with Germans and Irish. It's worth remembering.

Thanks to Jessica Stavros and staff for having us and organizing the fun. As for the unnamed elderly gentleman who complained that he can't attend a single damned event in town without seeing Roger and NABC there ... well, thanks. That's a wonderful thing to say.