For the bicentennial, adaptive reuse of a beer fest program's listings.

The Great Taste of the Midwest beer festival, which is held annually in the People's Republic of Madison (Wisconsin; this year's date is August 10), is NABC's most entertaining yearly road trip. GTMW just might be the best beer festival in America, and we're proud to be a part of it. Past highlights have been many, including that time in 2011 when we ran a program ad.

For this year's program listings, I took a few liberties in order to tell a broader New Albanian story during the city's birthday year. This year, we're hoping to expand upon the usual theater and have a dress-up -- for example, one of us costumed as Hoptimus, the Tricentennial future gal, or even Councilman CeeSaw. 

It should be great fun at a great taste.

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NABC Beer Descriptions, for the Great Taste of the Midwest 2013 official program.

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At the NABC main station, C02 pour:

IX – Ninth Anniversary (2011)

Ancient Rage

B'Urban Trotter (2011)

Bourbondaddy (2012)

Community Dark

Hacksaw Jim Dunkel

Hard Core Gore

Hoptimus

Hoptimus (Bourbon Barrel aged)

Houndmouth

Knobentinus

Mt. Lee

Oaktimus

Stumblebus (2012)

The Dunwich Porter

Tricentennial

Cask-conditioned NABC (pins at the NABC station; tapping time TBA):

There may be last-minute surprises

Cask-conditioned NABC (firkins at the real ale tent):

Beaks Best

Mt. Lee

Naughty Girl (Double Dry Hopped)

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NABC BEER DESCRIPTIONS: 2013 NEW ALBANY BI/TRICENTENNIAL EDITION

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At the NABC main station, C02 pour:

IX – Ninth Anniversary (2011)

ABV: 9%

OG: 20 degrees Plato

IBU: 50

Smoked Oatmeal Stout (Port barrel-aged)

 … we’ve always saved birthday beers for later. When NABC began brewing in 2002, we were New Albany’s first commercial brewery in 67 years. The very first brewer in town was a Scotsman named Hew Ainslie in 1840. He was a poet and Scots patriot, and we believe he would have approved the resurgence of Progressive Pints in his quirky river town, which is celebrating its 200^th birthday in 2013, making it ...

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Ancient Rage

ABV: 7.5%

OG: 17 degrees Plato

IBU: 130

India Pale Ale (Bourbon barrel-aged)

 … justified and ancient, not to mention sometimes blind, and reminding us that just south of New Albany are hundreds of thousands of gently used bourbon barrels. We at NABC decided to build an IPA meant for rest and repose in some of them, because they really needed liberating, and  ...

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B'Urban Trotter (2011)

ABV: 9.2%

OG: 21 degrees Plato

IBU: 208

Imperial India Pale Ale

 … sometimes the ideal finish line is located at the starting gate. If the Kentucky Derby is the greatest two minutes in sports, then B’Urban Trotter is the finest few moments in sipping, because what better place for a brewer/ostrich rancher from Flanders to seek inspiration than Louisville’s annual Run for the Roses? With collaborative assistance from NABC and Louisville Beer Store, De Struise’s Urbain Coutteau created this “Derbied” Double India Pale Ale to be dry-hopped and bourbon/oak aged, with a suggestion of mint for the home stretch. You might even …

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Bourbondaddy

ABV: 9.5%

OG: 20 degrees Plato

IBU: 18

Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout (Bourbon Barrel Aged)

… “go forth and proceed,” in the immortal words of our local musician friend Roz Tate. The first batches of Bourbondaddy appeared in 2003 and 2004. The 10^th anniversary revival version from 2012 began life as an Imperial Chocolate Mik Stout, and then was racked into Angel's Envy barrels for four months’ aging. It’s a good deal stronger than session ales, but …

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Community Dark

ABV: 3.7%

OG: 11.5 degrees Plato

IBU: 12.5

English Mild Ale

 … inside is what counts, and NABC’s best selling beer in its own two New Albany premises is a traditional English Mild, the style that fueled the factory workers who made the Industrial Revolution during Ainslie’s period of exile from Scotland. Community Dark is revolutionary in its own way. It’s dark-colored but light-bodied, session ale suitable for our emerging downtown renaissance, if only we could wean today’s workers from that Lite crapola, and so they’d best …

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Hacksaw Jim Dunkel

ABV: 6%

OG: 15.3 degrees Plato

IBU: 22

German Dark Lager

 … beware the folding metal chair. Noting that brewery co-owner’s Roger’s knowledge of professional wrestling does not extend past Gorgeous George and Jerry Lawler, any reference to two-by-fours in the context of this rich, malty German-style dark lager is utterly wasted. Roger prefers the brand of baseball once played by past New Albanian stars Jouette Meekin and Billy Herman, and while we’re talking about departed heroes, NABC’s …

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Hard Core Gore

ABV: 11%

OG: 24 degrees Plato

IBU: 135

Belgo-American IPA

 … Hard Core Gore is a unique beer for a unique man. Each year, we remember the late Jason Gore with this massive ale named in his honor. He was a colleague, friend and co-conspirator, who would have been 30 years old on March 21, 2013. Fuck cancer. Here’s to Jason’s singular legacy and the ironclad principle of …

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Hoptimus

ABV: 10.7%

OG: 22.6 degrees Plato

IBU: 100

Imperial India Pale Ale

 … sterner stuff, as when you grasp that living vicariously through others is a sad compromise meant only for rank amateurs and subpar international lagers. Rather, we all might profit from the principled example of Hoptimus, which lives vivaciously, audaciously and capriciously through itself. With a snarky hop character that is blatantly unrepentant, Hoptimus ensures that meek palates surely will inherit neither New Albany nor the planet earth, being assisted in this aim by …

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Hoptimus (Bourbon Barrel-aged)

ABV: 10.7%

OG: 22.6 degrees Plato

IBU: 100

Imperial India Pale Ale (Bourbon barrel-aged)

 … sterner barrel-aged stuff, because when Hoptimus is barrel-aged, we put extra words at the end of the written description and prep a few more stretchers, seeing as though further …

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Oaktimus

ABV: 10.7%

OG: 22.6 degrees Plato

IBU: 100

Imperial India Pale Ale (Oak Aged)

 … aging on even sterner stuff can lead Hoptimus to don its brilliant disguise as Oaktimus, and let me tell you, the liteweights begin fleeing in sheer panic, although they’re not allowed to board … 

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Houndmouth

ABV: 4.5%

OG: 11 degrees Plato

IBU: 28

American Wheat Ale

 … the “gypsy train to Houston” without explicit written permission from the New Albany band called Houndmouth, whose first album recently was released. It’s called “From the Hills Below the City,” and NABC recommends pairing it with the group’s namesake Houndmouth Ale and heeding the admonition that when listening and drinking, you must …

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Knobentinus

ABV: 7.5%

OG: 18.8 degrees Plato

IBU: 20

Wheat Doppelbock

 … watch your step, since Johannes Knobentinus didn’t. He was an immigrant from Down Lower Liechtenstein, and the man for whom the majestic Hills Below the City – the Knobs of Floyd – were named in 1842 in the wake of a most tragic accident: The death by drowning of Knobentinus himself, who accidentally fell into a vat of Ainslie’s Turbo Hog Malt Liquor and expired after coming up for air only three times, a victim of a sad age, denied a chance to go west, young man, and learn that …   

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Mt. Lee (also cask-conditioned at the real ale tent)

ABV: 6.4%

OG: 16 degrees Plato

IBU: 65

California Common

 … everything loose eventually lands in LA, including California Common, the beer commonly thought to hail from the Gold Rush days in ‘Frisco. NABC has relocated its uncommon Common to the City of Angels – specifically, to Mt. Lee, site of the famous Hollywood alphabet. Don’t ask why; only New Albany’s own Prince Charming, television’s Josh Dallas, knows for sure, and we wouldn’t want him to ...

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Stumble Bus
ABV: 11.2%

OG: 25 degrees Plato

IBU: 126

American Strong Ale

 … fall off the Stumble Bus. Along with Bourbondaddy, Stumble Bus is the most fondly remembered seasonal ale brewed by NABC’s founding brewer, Michael Borchers. Was it Imperial IPA, or was it Barleywine? What is it now? It’s not the destination; it’s the journey, but our advice is to check the schedule and make sure to visit …

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The Dunwich Porter

ABV: 7%

OG: 17.5 degrees Plato

IBU: 34

Smoked Porter

 … New Albany’s sister (great grand-niece?) city, described by H.P. Lovecraft in his story "The Dunwich Horror" as "lonely and curious,” boasting "sparsely scattered houses wear(ing) a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation," with "gnarled, solitary" inhabitants who are "silent and furtive." In other words, our quirky river town -- before NABC got hold of it. Now we thrive on beers like The Dunwich Porter, rendering life ...

Tricentennial

ABV: 7.5%

OG: 17 degrees Plato

IBU: 33

Post-Colonial Common

 … by sanity’s edge somewhat tolerable, such that we spend most of our days drinking for the future. Yes, New Albany’s bicentennial is right now, in 2013, and it has been a predictably white-bread, old-person exercise in civic by-the-numbers thinking, perpetuated by all the usual venerable suspects. NABC decided to sit out this year’s “official” commemoration, better to honor the “next” one – that more hopeful, forthcoming party we’re all absolutely guaranteed to miss, not because we weren’t invited as in 2013, but because each and every one of us will be dead as door nails by 2113. Happy birthday to us. See you later … a whole lot later … be sure to save some …

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Cask-conditioned NABC (firkins at the real ale tent):

Beak’s Best

ABV: 5.3%

OG: 14.75 degrees Plato

IBU: 35

Anglo-American Ale

 … American bitter & soul liniment for the time machine, similar to NABC’s ale, named in honor of globetrotting historian and educator Don "Beak" Barry, whose bibulous exploits abroad have set the tone for generations of New Albanians to drink themselves to sleep on their couches, dreaming of the days when they were ...

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Naughty Girl

ABV: 6%

OG: 14.4 degrees Plato

IBU: 69

India Blonde Ale

 … naturally naughty by nurture; savoring the Belgo-American ménage a trois; gaming the tryst; but then we awakening to the arrival of strange brewers and the transformation of a trans-oceanic affair into a hell-bent beer-love pentangle. The collaborative minds at Louisville Beer Store, De Struise Brouwers and New Albanian Brewing Company fashioned a willfully disobedient India Blonde Ale with a hop on her shoulder, which is double dry-hopped when cask-conditioned. It’s where the New Albanian story ends. Or begins, considering that …