Pints & Union Portfolio: The pub is taking the day off -- happy birthday to us all, staff and guests alike.

It was a year as of August 1.

Closed today, August 4th, to celebrate a full year of shenanigans at Pints&union. Thank you to every guest, staff member, journalist, and friend who has celebrated with us, supported us, or shared a meal or a drink with us this past year. We couldn’t have done it without you. Cheers to our first year at Pints&union! We’ll see you on Tuesday at 4.

Speaking only from my end as the beer programmer, when the pub opened last year and I began buying beer, it was obvious there'd be a learning curve. I'd only been away from NABC two and a half years at this point; however, it bears mentioning that from 2009 forward the Public House's guest beer program was in the hands of Eric Gray, seeing as my time was entirely spent with the brewing effort. That's a full decade of atrophied muscles.

At Pints&union the beer program has come along slowly during for first year, something purposeful for both it and me. Much of what I'd guessed has been accurate, though by no means all of it. I haven't been able to educate as hoped, primarily because we lack the space to teach in the method to which I'd become accustomed over the years.

It means I'll have to come up with something different as a means of furthering the mandate to educate, and this stands to be an ongoing process. It's a case I'm determined to crack, because now more than ever we need more understanding, not less. All those years at the Public House during the 90s was about learning something new every day, putting this knowledge into action, and improving progressively as a result.

What I've said about the retro-heritage-throwback-classic beer list approach applies just as much to me, personally: the fundamentals apply as time goes by. The first year for beer at Pints&union has been good, and the second will be better.