Coming around again: Matters of principle at LEO.

I think it is highly instructive that LEO's Sarah Kelley has chosen to "take a bullet" rather than acquiesce to a directive she cannot abide. Good for her. I recall a similar story back in 2010.

It had to do with my column for LEO, and Sarah Kelley's protectionist view of Budweiser's place therein,as documented at the time in A Tale of Two Columns, followed shortly thereafter by This round goes to the Liteweights, as Mr. Mug Shot is no more.

Recently I was approached by a pleasant LEO advertising sales person and her boss. They pitched the idea of an ongoing, half-page ad/column to be sponsored by NABC, on the topic of cooking with beer and food-beer pairings.

The rate? Reasonable by the standards of the genre.

I asked who'd be providing the actual content, and clarified that it would be NABC (read: me) and not a LEO staffer. After all, isn't the fact that I once wrote a column for LEO sufficient proof that I'm a writer?

Having established that as a writing ad buyer, I'd have control over the content, I told them the story about my experience as a LEO columnist, the tiff over ever-sensitive megabuck monoliths like AB-InBev not abiding insults, and the fact that I encouraged the door to hit me in the ass while exiting.

So, as advertising purchaser, would I still be censored as to anti-Budweiser polemics in the same way as before?

They said they'd get back to me. It's been a few weeks now, and I've heard nothing.

Now it strikes me as ironic. Sarah Kelley's principled departure from LEO, and the uncertainty surrounding the alt weekly's future, perhaps offer an even better reason to be wary of advertising there ... but it wasn't clear that truth-telling would have been allowed even if I paid to place it.

Matters of principle. Funny damned things, indeed.

WFPL: LEO Editor Sarah Kelley leaves rather than cut staffers, by Staff (Insider Louisville)

In late July we told you SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell was in Louisville to meet with LEO Weekly staffers.

At that time, we asked Ferrell both in phone conversations and in emails about information we had from LEO insiders about pending cuts. He declined to discuss the changes on the record, and, as we say, off the record is off the record.

We also contacted LEO staffers about the cuts, but no one would go on the record.

Today, WFPL’s Gabe Bullard reported LEO Editor Sarah Kelley has chosen to take a bullet rather than to layoff colleagues.

This round goes to the Liteweights, as Mr. Mug Shot is no more.

This just in: LEO's editor, Sarah Kelley, has fired intrepid "Mug Shot" columnist Roger A. Baylor for myriad offenses against taste and decency.

Which is why I thought the "independent" "alt"-weekly hired me in the first place, but verily, times and people change. There'll be time later to discuss. Until then:

Under-employed former LEO beer columnist with pompous proclivities and a large, loyal fan base desires biweekly forum for fermentable truth-telling. Pay is negotiable. Note that the columnist is allergic to censorship and poor taste. You know where I am. Have beer -- will write/right.

A tale of two columns.

21 June update: This round goes to the Liteweights, as Mr. Mug Shot is no more.

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“You do not change what I write!"
-- John Reed, played by Warren Beatty, in the 1981 movie "Reds"

I write a weekly general interest column for the New Albany Tribune, a fortnightly beer column for Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO), and a quarterly beer column for Food & Dining magazine.

To greater or lesser extent, I maintain two blogs: NA Confidential (life in New Albany) and Potable Curmudgeon (life in the beer business).

Generally speaking, I’ll provide a link to the Tribune column each week on Thursday at NA Confidential, and a link to the LEO column every other week on Wednesday at Potable Curmudgeon. Since Food & Dining does not maintain an active web archive, those articles are published in their entirety at Potable Curmudgeon on a delayed basis.

This week, the LEO and Tribune links are running together, following this explanation. If you follow my periodic ranting on Facebook, you already know the reason, and therein lies a story.

Basically, the top brass at LEO proposed to censor the column I wrote for publication this week, citing my reference to my own business (necessary to tell the story, and also offered to readers sans the establishment’s actual name) and my mention of Miller Lite (even when humorously altered, and even when it was the specific product mentioned by my on-line critic).

This presumably happened because roughly two years ago, the Louisville branch of Anheuser-Busch Thin-Skinned 800-lb Multinational complained about something I wrote; former LEO editor Cary Stemle thought so little of it that he didn’t even tell me until much later, but those who've subsequently occupying his chair evidently have established a new policy, paraphrased:

One mustn’t tout feel-good real beer and craft beer culture by harmful and factual comparison to bad beer and the excesses of macro beer culture, and one mustn’t offend any potential advertisers, because even though we at LEO egregiously attack errant nitwit politicians, mountaintop removal companies and wretched taste in popular culture, those entities probably weren’t planning on advertising with us, anyway, and after all, beer’s amusing, but not really important enough to waste anyone’s personal integrity defending.

I’m exaggerating just a bit -- a wee bit -- although that’s the gist of it.

I spent about five minutes pondering the blatant hypocrisy, shrugged, withdrew the column, added a few words to bring it to 900, and resubmitted it as the weekly Tribune column, where it appears today, entirely uncensored, courtesy of a local newspaper that in this case possesses far bigger balls than LEO’s, which will continue to term Jim Bunning a son-of-a-bitch while prohibiting (for example) earnest and revealing commentary on a nefarious corporation (A-B InBev) that currently seeks legal changes to deny craft brewers self-distribution in Illinois.

But what the hey: You want someone to take down Justin Bieber or Rand Paul, you know exactly where to look.

Meanwhile, I wrote a completely different LEO column, and within it cleverly insulted a LEO advertiser (the carpetbagging Top of the Hops beer festival) without anyone at the office catching it. As Steely Dan once noted, "Throw out the little ones/And pan fry the big ones/Use tact, poise and reason/And gently squeeze them."

Because so many people have told me that they read and enjoy the LEO column, I’ll continue to submit whatever emasculated Pablum the staff desires, make it as relevant as I can to a real world denied my scrutiny by the Man/Woman, and go on cashing my checks -- even if I have to take a shower after each cha-ching.

As for the Tribune: Thanks, guys. In the year and a half I’ve been submitting columns, only once in my memory has Steve "Coach K" Kozarovich overruled me, and that was in May of 2009 when I proposed to run four consecutive East German travel epics. He was right that time, and the Tribune is far better than it used to be.

In the Tribune, June 17: BAYLOR: Still killing: The scourge of L.I.D.S.

In LEO, June 16: Mug Shots: It’s Christmas in July

Photo credit

Today's LEO column: Absence of local craft beer in Louisville Slugger Field.

If you’re a baseball fan, it’s important to contemplate the legacy of the late Bill Veeck, who was a true American original.

Veeck was the rarest of all baseball creatures, a team owner deserving of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. His specialized skill was reviving moribund franchises with zany, fan-friendly marketing schemes and inventive promotional shenanigans.

Until Veeck, baseball tended to be too impressed with its trademark soul-of-Americana piety, but he generally refused to take the sport all that seriously, operating on the belief that a visit to the ballpark should be about more than the ballgame itself, with entertainment and good times that would help casual fans feel as comfortable as the die-hards with their pencils, studiously keeping score.

Love them or hate them, many facets of the game day hoopla we take for granted nowadays, including the fireworks displays, music, concerts, dot races, mascots, tugs-of-war and outfield swimming pools, owe a conceptual debt to Veeck’s whimsical determination that baseball loosen up and have some fun.

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Nowhere else does organized baseball have more fun than in the minor leagues, that free-ranging habitat where a young Bill Veeck first learned his trade. More than 250 minor league teams relentlessly market themselves as joyful throwbacks, the locally-oriented antitheses of the overbearing and corporate major leagues, and viable, inexpensive entertainment alternatives.

The Triple-A Louisville Bats are quick to remind us that they’re our one truly local pro team, playing in the local ballpark, charging fair ticket and concessions prices for a local experience, involving the local community, and unapologetically deploying as many of Veeck’s exuberant tricks as possible.

A question: Should local food and drink be a part of this equation, or do the commercial implications of catering to the needs of 10,000 people preclude small-scale, local food and drink purveyors in favor of more widely known mass-market producers?

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In the spirit of Veeck, I’m an unrepentant advocate of localized food and drink options for baseball games in Louisville Slugger Field.

As for the availability of local craft beer, Louisville Slugger Field lags behind the experience of the minor leagues as a whole. Progressive concessions programs elsewhere not only exist, but thrive. Here in Louisville, we’re “treated” to Grolsch (Holland) nights, Corona (Mexico) specials, and an overall hegemony of Anheuser-Busch (Belgium, Brazil and maybe even St. Louis -- on a good day).

Given the excellence of locally-brewed craft beer in metro Louisville, and the spectacular growth of the category in America, what must happen for there to be a representative selection of locally-brewed craft beers at Louisville Slugger Field?

I’ve tried arguing that good beer is its own sales pitch, and that small local businesses should get a fair shake in a facility constructed with governmental assistance.

I’ve wondered why a ballclub so proficient in meeting the needs of paying customers representing varying demographics continues to ignore those ticket buyers who want locally brewed craft beer.

Silence raging, I long ago reached the only conclusion possible under the circumstances. Apparently product placement in sporting venues constitutes one of the last great bastions of unfettered pay-to-play, and 800-lb gorillas wielding corporate sponsorship bludgeons simply can’t be surmounted. Until proven wrong, that’s my belief.

Consequently, I’ve attended few Bats games of late, although occasionally I’ve gone to Browning’s Brewpub to enjoy good beer, listen to the crowd roar on the other side of the wall, and wish I could be doing both in the same place.

But maybe there’s a thaw in the air.

According to Gary Ulmer, President of the Louisville Bats, this season a rotating Browning’s beer will be on tap at one of the portable stands along the concourse in the area behind third base.

Courtesy of Ulmer, here are the other beers being served at Louisville Slugger Field:

Bud, Bud Light, Miller Lite, Miller High Life, Coors Light, Bud Light Lime, Michelob Ultra, Michelob Amber and Light, Amber Bock, Shock Top, Landshark, Red Stripe, Smithwick's, Rolling Rock, Red Hook IPA, Sam Adams, Sam Adams Brown Ale, Beck's, New Castle, Harbin, Bass, Stella, Labatt's Blue, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Tiger, Heineken, Peroni, St. Pauli and Corona.

Browning’s is a start, although if you’re keeping score, that’s 30 non-local to 1 local. What would Bill Veeck say about that?

Today's LEO column: On the integrity of craft brewing.

I've decided to begin publishing the text of my "Mug Shots" columns for LEO. The link will be added later, and then you can go back and see if I was edited.

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“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”

This quote by the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe appears at the end of “I Am a Craft Brewer,” a four-minute video created by Greg “Arrogant Bastard” Koch. It was screened during Koch’s keynote speech in Boston during the recently concluded annual Craft Brewers Conference.

In the video, craft brewers from across the United States take turns reading a manifesto of revolutionary intent and recapping the achievements of craft brewing, detailing the positive principles that the better beer movement supports – local commerce, community commitment, environmental sustainability – and reiterating the malice and vacuity of the monopolistic status quo, which made revolt necessary in the first place.

Koch’s typically uncompromising beers – Double Bastard, Old Guardian, Vertical Epic and others – have always been favorites of mine. Now, like Frank Capra’s memorable World War II documentary series, Koch has given us an inspirational reminder of “why we fight.”

“Craft beer is innovation, independence, curiosity and collaboration, character and family.”

American craft brewers have revitalized a domestic industry, served as an impetus for brewers and brewing entrepreneurs worldwide, helped reanimate moribund brewing cultures, and provided a renewed, vibrant ethos that encompasses the best that beer can be.

As with any dynamic, constantly evolving movement, the ever expanding American craft beer consciousness cannot be confined to the fermented liquid in the glass. It is an ethos all its own, a lifestyle, a way of looking at the world, and as with most worldviews, it cuts both ways -- necessarily. Craft beer stands “for” and “against,” and this duality is forcefully stated in Koch’s video.

“We must draw hard lines. We must expose those who would seek to capitalize on what we have created.”

I’ve been drawing those hard lines for more than 25 years, ever since my first day at the package store, and I’ve tasted thousands of different beers since then. Even so, my own education is still ongoing, but long years of experience in the “better beer” game have given me a solid foundation of knowledge, as well as the confidence to express what I know, allowing me to pursue my prime mandate of teaching beer.

Consequently, make no mistake: My personal integrity, which represents the sweat equity I’ve earned during all those years in the trenches, absolutely compels me to tell the whole story, positive and negative, for and against, and while there will always be gray areas, some matters are painted in black and white, such as my certainty that price tags cannot be affixed to one’s ideals, honesty and commitment to living what’s true – and for better or worse, that’s what I do. I live them, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Moreover, neither ideas nor ideals can be contested with mere dollars. However, they can be contested with improved ideas and ideals – assuming they exist.

Is beer as important a topic as politics, health care, unemployment, war, and peace? Admittedly unlikely, and still I remain prepared, willing and eager to show that elements of each are surely present in the study of beer as an art, a science, a business pursuit and a beverage that makes life more livable.

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This week is American Craft Beer Week, and the Brewers Association (http://www.beertown.org) has released a Declaration of Beer Independence. Excerpts follow:

“The beer I drink furthers our culture and teaches us geography and helps to nurture a sense of community, and helps to make the world a better place, and I declare to practice the concept of ‘Informed Consumption’ which has me deserving to know if my beer comes from a small and independent brewer or if it is owned by a mass production brewing company.

“I want to know why so many of my local beer brands are not available in many of my favorite restaurants, bars and beer stores, and I encourage beer sellers to offer a wide selection of beer styles and beer brands that includes beer from my local and regional breweries …

“I therefore declare to support America’s small and independent craft brewers during American Craft Beer Week May 11-17, 2009 and beyond.”

Quotes in bold above are from the Koch video, which can be viewed here: http://www.vimeo.com/4432533

Busy, busy.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Indiana ATC made its final inspection of the Bank Street Brewhouse and signed off. Immediately afterwards, John Campbell and I drove to Indianapolis to snag the license and attend the annual meeting of the Brewers of Indiana Guild.

The guild meeting was followed by a legislative reception upstairs at Alcatraz Brewing Company. District 72 house member Ed Clere was there, and I also spoke with Charlotte Lemieux, one of State Senator Connie Sipes' staffers.

Currently there is a moratorium on legislation dealing with alcohol issues (with a minor exception), but there are rumblings that come April, all bets are off and there will be consideration of revenue enhancers, i.e., increased excise taxes on alcoholic beverages. The craft brewers of Indiana will wait and see on that prospect, retaining our ultimate legislative goal of parity with small wineries when it comes to regulatory matters like Sunday off-premise sales (small wineries are the sole Indiana entity permitted to vend their wares for carry-out on Sunday, while small brewers are prohibited from doing so).

Speaking of neighboring wineries, here's the link to a recent article on the River City Winery in downtown NA: New Albany’s River City Winery slated to open in April, by Sarah Jeffords Pister (Business First of Louisville).

On Wednesday night I was in the Prost room at NABC Grant Line, teaching BeerEd as a non-credit IUS course. The biweekly LEO column was given over to a preview: Beer class tonight.

On Thursday, BeerEd became a road show, as we moved the materials and teaching aides to the Bank Street Brewhouse and substituted the serving corps for Wednesday's adult students: Scenes from employee training at the Bank Street Brewhouse, March 5.

I realize that you're waiting on a Bank Street status report, so ...

The front of the house is 95% complete. Various inspections are taking place today, and I believe this means that we'll be ready to open the doors in a limited capacity some time next weekend, perhaps Thursday, March 12. Keep your eyes on the blog, and as soon as there is news to report, you'll know.

Right now, we don't even know.