The Spring 2019 issue of Food & Dining Magazine is now available at newsstands and online.

The Spring 2019 issue of Food & Dining Magazine is now available at newsstands and online. You also can read the current issue at issuu, and while you're there, do some catching up on past releases.

My "Hip Hops" column this time around is devoted to the beer at my own current place of employment. At first it seemed a tad awkward writing about myself, but given the origin of the beer program at Pints&union and the obvious personal fingerprints all over it, for once I could rationalize a wee bit of self-aggrandizement.

Cult of beer personality?

Did you hear the one about two buddies walking into a coffee shop to talk about building a brand new “old” bar?

One of them was Joe Phillips, and the other was me. We began philosophizing about life, adult beverages, curry and third spaces. This chat was the impetus for Pints&union, a pub in downtown New Albany that opened in August of 2018.

On that fateful morning at Quills, we drained a few bracing espressos and got wired – then excited. We’d both been planning an honest, traditional, no-gimmicks public house where everybody knows your name, and it seemed like a good idea to work together toward this shared goal.

Now Joe is the owner of Pints&union, and I work for him as manager of a purposefully archaic beer program, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, meet Joe Phillips and his dream pub ...