PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: NABC's Naughty Claus makes a pre-Christmas visit.

Tony's Saturnalia
artwork, 2011 edition.

Many regular readers know that my 15 minutes of fame (and about as many loose farthings of "fortune") derive from a quarter-century's tenure as co-owner of the New Albanian Brewing Company's original Pizzeria & Public House -- originally Sportstime Pizza and Rich O's, as they're still referenced colloquially.

NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse project came 17 years into this gig, and it proved to be somewhat less enduring, at least from a financial standpoint. Creatively and artistically, I'll still put BSB up against anyone and anything, rather like a rock band that made critically acclaimed albums but never found enough of an audience to fill stadiums.

But in capitalism, one always is obliged to follow the money, and after ten years at BSB the trail went cold. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "so it goes."

Back in the salad days, having brewer extraordinaire David Pierce working in the Bank Street Brewhouse meant a succession of excellent beers, both everyday and seasonal, and of course David had ample assistance from Jared Williamson, Jesse Williams, Josh Hill, Pete Fingerson, Ben Minton and numerous others along the way.

However it was Jesse and Jared who produced the the first Naughty Claus (spiced) Winter Warmer all the way back in November of 2006, working at the original pub brewery on Grant Line Road. Naughty Claus Mach I debuted at the holiday season draft beer fest known as Saturnalia.

NABC’s Saturnalia is our time to emphasize festive draft beers for the holidaze ...

In pre-Christian Rome, Saturnalia was the annual winter solstice celebration coinciding with the feast days for Saturn (the god of sowing and the harvest), Consus (god of the storage bin) and Opa (goddess of plenty).

Many of our contemporary winter holiday traditions derive from Saturnalia’s pagan roots, including the hanging of wreaths and garlands, donations to the needy, prayers for peace, time off work to be enjoyed with family, and of course eating, drinking and merriment.

NABC pays tribute to these ancient pagan origins with Saturnalia. Dozens of special kegs from the USA and around the world – some rare, some seasonal and others just plain festive – will be pouring at our Pizzeria & Public House.

When the doors open at 11:00 a.m. on our new Saturnalia kick-off day, Plaid Friday (November 23), the first wave of sacrificial Saturnalia selections will be tapped in the traditional, ritualistic manner, and the hedonistic pleasures will begin. The remaining kegs will be deployed as the days pass, and the revelry is expected to continue throughout the month of December.

To be perfectly honest, I miss the institution of Saturnalia a great deal. For the general public Gravity Head was the thing, but I persist in thinking that Saturnalia represented my best-ever work as a beer gatherer.

It afforded the opportunity to make a principled point about the pagan traditions we tend to associate with Christmas, as well as providing an excuse to assemble a broader range of seasonal beers than merely "all-hoppy" or "all-heavy." There was a little something in beer for everyone with Saturnalia, and in some as-yet-determined modified format, I'd like to do it again -- maybe with bottles and cans this time next year at Pints&union.

When Bank Street Brewhouse got underway, brewmaster David modified the Naughty Claus recipe, and from 2011 to his departure (circa 2015) it remained the same each year. Josh succeeded David, and now the ale is fashioned by Ben, full-circle, back at the garage brewery from whence it came.

I got a keg from Ben, and it's on tap at Pints&union (starting Friday, December 20 for a very limited engagement).

After a small tasting while engaged in changing the keg, I suspect it has undergone further changes. It tastes good to me, and that's that. These words appeared on a sales sheet I wrote some time around 2012. I'd expect the 2019 version to be in this approximate ballyard.

As Chico Marx once presciently observed, there ain’t no sanity clause, and that’s why restricting one’s choices to either naughty or nice in the sense of holiday largesse is to commit the fallacy of the excluded middle.

In our view, chimneys and voyeurism go together much like Chico’s great uncle Karl and Charles Dickens, author of “A Christmas Carol,” because what is this most materialist of capitalist shopping seasons if not the pretext for a much overdue dialectic?

And then there is the man of the hour himself, Mr. Claus, and he needs his daze off, too, just like the rest of us. NABC’s annual ale in his honor debuted in 2006, and since 2011, the recipe has held fast, as formulated by our director of brewing operations, David Pierce, whose first batch of Christmas ale at the Silo brewpub in 1992 predates the birth of today’s Naughty Claus drinkers of a certain, youthful legal age.

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Naughty Claus

X-mas Spiced Ale

ABV: 8%

IBU: 12

Color: Orange to amber/brown.

Flavor: Medium- to full-bodied. Malty/fruity backdrop, classic Christmas spiced character (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel).

Compare to: Great Lakes Christmas Ale, Old Fezziwig.

Description: Quintessential X-mas. Malts include Rahr pale, Castle aromatic and Crisp medium crystal, with Hosey autumn gold and midsummer day honeys. Hops are German Hallertauer Magnum. Sweet and bitter orange peel, fresh ground ginger, Vietnamese cinnamon and West Indies nutmeg are the spices (with dry-gingering in the Brite tanks). NABC’s house Chouffe yeast completes the scene. 

Recipe suggestion: Seeing as Naughty Claus shadows the Wassail bowl, it isn’t an easy call, but since turkey and ham with all the trimmings are common Christmas meals, why not start there?

In early December the Courier-Journal's Dhalia Ghabour included Naughty Claus in a list of "12 Days of Christmas Beers."

This Belgian spiced ale, Naughty Claus, carries a swirl of flavor from cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, honey and bitter orange peel. Released on Dec. 18, the beer is a dark golden color with a medium mouthfeel, according to brewer Ben Minton. It's available on tap only at New Albanian Brewing Co. — and limited to eight kegs.

"You'll get an up-front spicy characteristic, sort of gingerbread flavor, but also the back taste of the Belgian yeast that Belgians will have," said manager Sarah Howell. "It's a really great one with pizza and sweet desserts."

Saturnalia in 2020? Somehow, some way.

John Campbell's doing?

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Harvest Farewell Party on Sunday evening, 6:00 p.m. - Midnight.

Last year's Harvest Homecoming was our first at Pints&union. We'd been open only two months at that point, and it was a guessing game as to how the weekend would go. This year we made a few calculations and went diving straight into it, and have continued to make adjustments as we've gone along.

Consequently there'll be Sunday hours after all (6:00 p.m. - Midnight); tear down your booth, then come have a beer. Here are the hours of operation for the next few days.

Saturday: 3:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.
Sunday: 6:00 p.m. - Midnight
Monday and Tuesday: Closed for cleanup
Wednesday: 4:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m. (resume regular hours)

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Kind words at my workplace, and I'm touched.

It was a fine Guinness pour on my part, and I'm reminded that it's time to lose thirty pounds; a few too many chins, but I'm almost 60, and nowadays my primary vice seems to be gluttony, not drunkenness. 

Anyway, Cassie gave me advance notice of my turn as subject of the employee profile, and she did a fantastic job with it. It hasn't always been easy finding my footing these past four years, but verily, it's getting better all the time. 

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You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in New Albany who hasn’t heard of or met Roger Baylor, a long-time New Albany resident who has had his hand in many beer-related ventures. Roger curates our beer program here at Pints and spends a lot of time researching, sourcing, and of course drinking the unique and delicious beers we keep on tap.

He describes himself as a “flagrant Europhile,” so the beers at Pints&union that he enjoys most are the ones that connect to travel experiences in Europe, like @pilsnerurquell (Czech Republic), @fullers (United Kingdom) or our excellent small list of Belgian Trappist ales. In 2004, he got to bicycle with a group of friends around the country to all the Belgian monasteries to drink that brew ale so it holds a special place in his heart. Picking a favorite beer at Pints is no easy task, but he says “sipping on a Rochefort 10 or draining a tankard of Urquell takes me back to some very good times abroad.”

When he’s not sorting through beers at Pints&union, he’s generally at home in his century-old house just up the street from the pub with his wife Diana and their three feline lodgers. He loves reading, music, cooking, trip-planning and local political commentary, but he stays pretty busy with his other part-time job as digital editor for Food & Dining Magazine.

Thank you Roger for your dedication and the care you put into selecting great beers for the pub, I think we can all agree New Albany wouldn’t be the same without you!

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: A slicing of ribbon-like objects, together.

Yurt dwellers in southwest Mongolia know I'm not a ribbon-cutting type of guy, but they also understand, just as I always have, that there is no "I" in the word "team."

If ever a crew deserved a Develop New Albany ribbon cutting, it is the guys and gals assembled by Joe Phillips at Pints&union. My own beery role at the pub, while important, is limited. These are the folks who make it tick, and Joe and family are the ones taking the risk.

From the perspective of downtown New Albany's independent businesses, the next three or four years will be critically important, over and above the usual day to day struggles of small operators. Making lemonade out of the forthcoming Sherman Minton Bridge repair disruption stands to be far easier when we're working together rather than separately.

Irrespective of the election outcome next month, our thoughts must be aimed toward Ben Franklin's timeless wisdom, apocryphal or not: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Thanks to everyone who attended Oktoberfest 2019.

We did something on Saturday at Pints&union that I hadn't done for a long time. There was a 30-liter gravity-pour Weihenstephaner Festbier to serve as centerpiece of the Oktoberfest celebration -- and a tap, and a wooden mallet. Back in the glory days at the Public House, each autumn we'd do a dozen of these drawn from the Shelton Brothers portfolio.

I tapped it outside just to be safe, then carried the keg behind the bar and started pouring 18 liter "boots," which sold out as fast as the boots could be filled. The keg's remaining half-liters held out for about 30 more minutes; next to go was a half-full keg of Spaten Oktoberfest. Hofbrau Oktoberfest replaced the Spaten and also was depleted by night's end along with a few remaining bottles of Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest.

Chef Dalton Gahafer's schnitzel and food specials were devoured, too -- and the Pints&union team was hoofing it throughout.

For me it was pure fun being behind the bar and filling those boots. Okay, maybe not as much fun as riding bicycles through Bavaria like we used to do, then stopping at places where someone else did the work and handed us those lovely beers and plates of schnitzel, but plenty of fun nonetheless for a little pub in New Albany.

Thanks to everyone for a stellar Old World party yesterday. There are no more gravity pour kegs this year, but Oktoberfest lager reinforcements will arrive on Tuesday, and it is my aim to continue pouring one or the other brands of Oktoberfest through Harvest Homecoming, wholesaler supplies willing. Vielen Dank, and we'll keep the Gemütlichkeit rolling as long as we can.

The photos above and below were taken by my friend John L. Smith, except for this selfie with meine Fräulein.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: What's in store for our Oktoberfest celebration on September 21.

I've borrowed this photo from the Interwebz to illustrate a bit of what Pints&union has in store for our Oktoberfest promotion on September 21.

Readers with long memories will recall the many times we tapped "Anstich" kegs at the Public House. Another way of saying this is "gravity pour," or pouring beer the old-school way; ram a tap into it and open a hole in the top, and let nature take its course.

We have a 30-liter keg of Weihenstephaner Festbier much like the one pictured above, and three boxes (18) of liter glass boots. There'll be a price for "drink the boot and keep the glass."

Chef Dalton Gahafer has hinted to me that among other German-influenced dishes for Oktoberfest, he might be conjuring up some Schupfnudeln, which the Baylors enjoyed last Christmas in Munich.

They're potato noodles fried up with sauerkraut and bacon, with cheese sprinkled on top. I hope Dalton takes a stab at Schupfnudeln, but even if he doesn't there'll be ample seasonal food.

I haven't decided the rotation of draft (non-Anstich) Oktoberfest beers. They are released so early in August (often late July) that it's usually a challenge to wait until the proper time for pouring and still be able to choose from all the contestants -- and at Pints&union there simply isn't enough storage space to stockpile.

However, we'll make do. As soon as we run through a couple of rare allocations (Bell's Double Two Hearted Ale and Samuel Smith Organic Perry), the Oktoberfests will start, and I'll try to keep one on tap for as long as possible.

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.

Pints & Union Portfolio: Drink a pint of Akasha Otterburn English Brown tonight and I'll match the pub's dollar donation to The Food Literacy Project.

If you're in the vicinity of downtown New Albany today after opening at 4:00 p.m., consider stopping by Pints&union and enjoying a pint of Akasha Otterburn English Brown.

We have ten fine drafts, but here's why I'm recommending just one of them.

At Pints&union there's a new Thursday innovation for Pint Night, in which pub staff selects a charity/nonprofit to feature on a monthly basis, and we donate a dollar to it from every regularly priced draft beer sold on Thursday.

Concurrently these programs and projects also have a weekly platform to educate and inform the good folks who frequent the pub.

During the month of June we're partnering with The Food Literacy Project, which provides farm-based experiential education and entrepreneurial youth development programs aimed at bringing the field-to-fork experience to life for Louisville area youth. Last Tuesday we sold around 100 pints, which means that roughly $100 is headed to The Food Literacy Project.

Tonight (Thursday, June 13) I'm personally sweetening the deal: Drink a pint of Akasha's lovely Otterburn English Brown Ale and I'll match the pub's donation, dollar to dollar. If we sell 20 pints of Otterburn, then The Food Literacy Project gets $40. It's a great beer for an equally great cause. 

Here's the whole draft lineup.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: The week's beer outlook includes a way to help the Food Literacy Project by drinking beer.

My ultimate goal is to provide updates like this one at the Pints&union website, then disseminate them by e-mail and Facebook links. We're gradually making progress toward making the web site functional in this regard, so until then I'll try to get in the habit of offering brief beer updates here at the blog.

We have ten draft lines, six of which don't rotate (the top two rows in the illustration) and the seventh pouring St. Bernardus Tripel most of the time, although St. Bernardus Abt12 will make an annual appearance in winter.

Consequently three draft lines currently are changeable, although Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (the standard golden/amber variety) will continue pouring through the end of August, giving away to Oktoberfest come September. For those who favor the Dunkel (dark) version of Weihenstephaner's famous wheat ale, it is available in bottles.

Meanwhile Sierra Nevada Hoptimum is described as a Triple IPA. I took a nip while changing the keg and it fully resembles these remarks:

Our brewers selected the finest, most flavorful hops, pushed them beyond their limits and forged them into this all-new triple IPA. This reimagined Hoptimum is our hoppiest beer yet, providing a blend of tropical and citrus hop aroma that delivers a refined yet aggressive character.

The Akasha Brewing Company crew visited Pints&union last week for the unveiling of Otterburn English Brown, and it's a wonderfully characterful slice of northern English ale insinuation, subtle and quaffable. When Otterburn depletes, there's a partial of Cigar City Maduro Brown waiting to be finished. My muse has yet to inform me what happens after that.

Queued and ready to replace Sierra Nevada Hoptimum is another exciting choice from Central State Brewing in Indianapolis: Honey Bop, a Farmhouse India Pale Ale with honey and sea salt. It's a collaboration with a bar/eatery in Indy.

Inspired by Love Handle's culinary genius in combining diverse ingredients to create the perfect dish, we took a simple base of flaked oats & Indiana malted barley and added orange blossom honey, a touch of sea salt, and a ridiculous amount of Citra and Simcoe Cryo hops.

Here's the list of bottles and cans. Note that Monnik IPA in 12-ounce cans currently is out of stock. We went through two cases in a little over two weeks, which is very good for a pub our size. Even though I seldom drink IPAs these days, Monnik's version is pleasing to me, simple and good: "American IPA featuring only 2 malts and hopped with Centennial, Cascade and Mosaic."

A final note about the new Pint Night Partnership at Pints&union:

Beginning Thursday, June 6 we’re offering a new Pint Night initiative to give back to our community in a more productive way. We’ll be selecting a charity or nonprofit to feature each month and donating a dollar from every regularly priced draft beer sold on Thursday nights. These programs and projects also will have a platform to inform the good people who frequent our little pub.

For the month of June, we’ll be partnering with The Food Literacy Project, which provides farm-based experiential education and entrepreneurial youth development programs that bring the field-to-fork experience to life for local youth.

Folks from the FLP Stewards Program will be here to chat about their farms and programs and will gladly accept any additional donations. Food and cocktail specials featuring produce grown in their fields are in the works. We’re really excited to be helping a good cause and look forward to hearing and tasting all the good things the Food Literacy Project has to offer. Check them out at www.foodliteracyproject.org

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Jouett Meekin and Kentucky Common at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.

If our long-scheduled Saturday afternoon chat about baseball and beer were to have taken place outdoors, it probably would have turned into a rainout.

Consequently while not the ideal time to play two, it might be an excellent opportunity to drink two 12-ounce cans of Falls City Kentucky Commons (it's only 4% abv) while learning from Justin Endres about 19th-century baseball in New Albany and the important role played by big leaguer and native New Albanian pitcher Jouett Meekin.

We'll kick off at 2:00 p.m. upstairs. Here's a nicely written overview of Kentucky Common as a primer. Click through, read all of it -- and you'll be tested on Saturday afternoon.

Or not.

Kentucky Common: An Indigenous American Beer Style, by Nick Carr (Kegerator)

The History of Kentucky Common

As a beer style, Kentucky Common was a bright, but short-burning star. It is one of the three or four modern beer styles that the Americas can claim as indigenous.

Kentucky Common, also sometimes called “Common” or “Dark Cream Ale,” was once an extremely popular regional style centered around Louisville, Kentucky.

Its origin is rooted in the influx of German and Irish immigrants to the region in the mid 1800s. They came thirsty, keen for the beer of their homelands, and quickly began trying to reproduce it. And, like other immigrants, they adapted to the ingredients available in their new home.

They made a low alcohol thirst-quenching beer, basically a dark version of American cream ale. The grain bill was a mix of the protein-laden six-row malt, and some native corn to smooth the beer out. A dab of dark and caramel malts were added. The water around Louisville is alkaline, so the small addition of dark malt could have been to help acidify the mash. It also could have been added just to increase character ... 

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Amazing Czech lager from Pivovar Kout na Šumavě, and a side-pull tap for Pilsner Urquell.

First things first: Evan Rail is my idol.

Originally from California, Evan is a long-term resident of Prague, where he writes and researches travel, food, and drink, mostly for the New York Times, as well as other publications. He generally covers central and eastern Europe, but also places like England, Italy, France, and Switzerland.

No other European locale has impacted me in quite the same way as the country now known as Czechia.

Next morning after breakfast I embarked on my orientation stroll in the nearby woods, returning to find a dirt-smudged and grinning Uncle Vlasta waiting for me, fresh from a session in the garden. He held up two oversized brown earthenware pitchers and motioned for me to follow him.

We exited the front gate and walked along the rutted dirt road, our ultimate purpose lost to me owing to our language differences. After a quarter-mile or so, we came to a battered, 1930s-era building clad in chipped stucco, residing in the shade of old, leafy hardwoods. It stood next to the terminus of a single branch rail line, one that seemed to exist solely for use by the many holiday weekenders in the vicinity.

It became clear that the structure tripled as railway ticket office, grocery store … and pub. Spying the tap inside, it made perfect sense to have a creamy draft lager and quench my thirst after the morning walk, but as an inexperienced American accustomed to cans and bottles, I still couldn’t quite fathom why we’d lugged the two big pitchers along.

Uncle Vlasta chatted with the friendly barman, who began filling them with cool beer for the journey back. Or, growlers the old-fashioned way. Some of the liquid didn’t make the trip home.

Imagine that.

Evan Rail's words and photos by Michael Kiser in a story about the Czech brewery called Pivovar Kout na Šumavě (coat nah shoe-ma-vyeh) summarizes just about everything that ever spoke to me about this part of Europe.

It's ironic that my pal Bluegill posted the link on Facebook, because at roughly the same time I received an e-mail from Starlight Distribution asking for Kout na Šumavě pre-orders, as a batch of kegs are coming in June from Shelton Brothers, the brewery's American importer.

Beyond the Pale — Pivovar Kout na Šumavě in the Czech Republic (Good Beer Hunting)

 ... Beyond the forest legends, the brewery has its own weird stories: its lagering cellars were carved underneath a church where a blind beggar foretold the future to Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia Charles IV in 1362. Even the crumbling brewery walls are noteworthy: they were partly built with stones and Gothic arches recovered from the ruined castle of Rýzmberk, which had been sacked by the Swedes in 1641. Supposedly the thick brewery walls had also hidden the ancient brewing log that gave Kout its secret recipe.

When a group of writers—myself included—traveled out to Kout, I remember explaining why I had my doubts about the book, and why I tell people I’m not sure it exists today: mostly because Czech beer isn’t about recipes. A good Czech Světlý Ležák is usually pretty close to what homebrewers refer to as a SMaSH, a beer made with a single malt (100% pilsner) and a single hop (100% Žatecký poloraný červeňák, otherwise known as Saaz). It’s brewed with a double or triple decoction mash, fermented cool with a Saaz strain of Lager yeast at 7-11º Celsius (45-52° Fahrenheit), then conditioned at close to freezing for one to three months. That’s the recipe.

These kegs are on the pricey side, but damn it, we only live once. We need choices like this in downtown New Albany, and I'll try to keep half-liters as reasonable as possible. If necessary, five or six of us will drink all of it, the way we used to, even if Kevin's no longer here to carry the weight of two men.

There is other news. Diligent readers may recall some months ago when I spoke of installing a side-pull tap for Pilsner Urquell draft at Pints&union.

If You Know, You Know — The Secret Handshake of Side-Pull Taps (Rail; Good Beer Hunting)

 ... Na Parkánu is the flagship pub for Pilsner Urquell in the brewery’s hometown of Pilsen, Czech Republic, and it’s worth noting that side-pull taps are used in all of Pilsner Urquell’s high-end European tank bars, which serve an unpasteurized version of the classic pale Lager from massive tanks instead of standard kegs. Stateside, side-pull faucets are also used for many important Pilsner Urquell accounts, often sitting next to the traditional beer taps pouring American craft beers.

Bryan Panzica is a national rep for Pilsner Urquell in the U.S. who installs side-pull faucets and trains bar staff to use them on a daily basis. (He got his job after coming in second, by just one point, in the international finals of a Pilsner Urquell tapping competition in the Czech Republic.) I ask him to describe the difference between a traditional beer tap in the States and side-pull faucet from the Czech Republic.

“An American faucet is an on-off switch. It’s either on or it’s off. That’s it,” Panzica responds. “The side-pour faucet is more like a dimmer switch. You can get various degrees of foam. If you open the faucet 15 degrees, you’ll get straight foam, but if you open it 90 degrees, you get straight beer.”

I felt it prudent to delay taking this step until the Midwest's most powerful wholesaler finally got around to ensuring we wouldn't run out of Pilsner Urquell kegs -- which took only six months of patience on my part.

Now we'll be getting the side pull done, then learning all over again how to pour a beer the right way. It's yet to be seen if anyone will want a Mlìko, but who knows? It makes as much or better sense than milkshake IPAs.

Mlíko: In the Czechia, a foamy beer is a sweet and creamy treat (Atlas Obscura)

Residents of Czechia drink the most beer per capita of any nation on Earth. Its residents gave the world pilsner. And when beer fans in Prague order a cold one, they aren’t just tasked with choosing favorite brew—they can select their preferred pouring method, as well. Mlìko, or milk beer, is a style that renders a whole beer white and foamy, resembling a tall glass of milk.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Central State Brewing Night is Thursday, April 4 at 7:00 p.m.

Next week we're shining a spotlight on Central State Brewing out of Indianapolis. There was a lineup packaging change after the graphics were done, so beginning on Wednesday April 3 there'll be cans ...

Garden (Leipziger-Style Gose Beer with Lemon Peel)
Table (Rustic Blonde Ale)
Butterfly Kisses (Farmhouse Ale w/Hibiscus Flower)

 ... and two special draft beers. Garden and Table are everyday ales, and the others will be gone when depleted, at least for 2019.

Stay Out of the Forest (Hazy India Pale Ale w/ Blood Orange & Lactose Sugar)
Barrel Aged Bashi Farmhouse Barleywine (Farmhouse Barleywine Style Ale Aged in Wine and Bourbon Barrels)

On Thursday, April 4 the Central State crew takes over the upstairs room at Pints & Union for a conspiratorial and enlightening evening with a selection of Smoking Goose Meatery meats and local cheese.

Central State: the only brewery in the state of Indiana focused primarily on the wilder and farmhouse sides of fermentation. Specializing in farmhouse beers, sours and eccentrically hopped IPAs.

Here's a good bio of Central State's co-founder and head brewer Josh Hambright.

Starting at the bottom and working one’s way up is Hambright’s recommendation for getting into the brewing business. That way you are exposed to all aspects of the craft. In addition to his experience and reading, he says that collaborations with other brewers have been a valuable source of information. Working for a day in someone else’s space, or having someone work a day in his space affords the opportunity to compare notes and learn different approaches to brewing.

I met Josh six or seven years ago when he was working at Flat12 in Indianapolis, and I know he'll try to make it down next week if at all possible. Count me as a fan, and come down to Pints&union on the evening of the 4th and see why Central State is so highly regarded by beer enthusiasts.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Check out these upcoming beer events, from St. Patrick's Day until Derby Festival time.

I've put together a few events at Pints&union between now and the end of April, and a couple other special occasions have popped up.

Before we take a look at these, be aware that brunch is being served each week at Pints&union on Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Also know that there'll be the requisite St. Patrick's Day merriment on both Saturday and Sunday, March 16 and 17 (poster above). Brunch will proceed as planned, with fish and chips in the evening. In addition to "the Guinness" and Slane Irish Whiskey samples, there'll be draft Smithwick's and Harp.

You'll notice references to Pints&union Historical Society + Beer, which I'm hoping will serve as umbrella for numerous future ideas like these. Here we go, in chronological order.

BOCK of AGES: A GERMAN-AMERICAN BREWING TRADITION
Saturday, March 23 at 2:00 p.m.
My good friend Kevin Gibson, who you know as a writer, musician and beer, joins us for a refresher course on Bock. In the heyday of pre-Prohibition brewing in Louisville, the annual spring Bock beer release was a beloved seasonal event in the German-American community. I'll have a keg of Paulaner Salvator Doppelbock on tap, and if we get lucky, there'll be a glassware giveaway.

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CENTRAL STATE BREWING NIGHT
Thursday, April 4 at 7:00 p.m.
Special Central State cans will be available all week (we serve Garden and Table year round), and then on Thursday the Central State crew takes over the upstairs room for a conspiratorial evening with draft Barrel Aged Bashi Farmhouse Barleywine, a selection of Smoked Goose meats, local artisan cheese and an homage to Underberg.

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INDIAN CURRY AND COMPLIMENTARY COCKTAIL WITH PINTS&UNION STAFF
Friday, April 5 at 7:00 p.m. at Mesa, A Collaborative Kitchen

This one's at Mesa, located about 100 yards away on Pearl Street: "Join us at MESA to meet the talented staff behind our beloved neighborhood old world public house, Pints and Union. Owner Joe Phillips will bring his talented team to serve up 3 courses; featuring Indian Curry and a unique drink to pair! Detailed menu coming soon ... "

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JOUETT MEEKIN : NEW ALBANY’S 19th-CENTURY BASEBALL STAR
Saturday, April 20 at 2:00 p.m.
New Albany native Jouett Meekin (1867-1944) was our city's most renowned big league pitcher predating baseball's "modern" era. Local attorney and tireless Little League supporter Justin Endres has done research on 19th-century baseball in New Albany, and he'll chat about his findings while I introduce attendees to another old-school topic: Kentucky Common, our area's most popular beer during Meekin's prime (it's Louisville's only recognized, indigenous style. Thanks to Falls City Brewing Company for its support.

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CHEW ON THIS
Tuesday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m.
This is a meal and a conversation, with appreciation to Julie Schweitzer of the New Albany's ArtSeed collaborative. Julie spotted the opportunity and thought of us, and we love the idea. I'll be moderating the discussion. The meal costs $25 (alcohol extra) and is being organized by Indiana Humanities. Seating is limited to 15, so go here for ticket information and read more:

"Chew On This" -- a special dinner and discussion at Pints&union on Tuesday, April 23.

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Of course by April 23 it's Derby Festival season -- and that's a whole other story. Stay tuned.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Beer diversity is bitter and malty, sweet and sour, big and small, foreign and domestic.

The current draft lineup at Pints&union is a very good representation of what I've been hoping to achieve in a concise, ten-tap setting.

Taken in concert with the bottle and can selection, our beer list might not be the biggest or even the "best," whatever THAT means these days, but there can be no doubt that it is downtown New Albany’s most thoughtful: bitter and malty, sweet and sour, big and small, foreign and domestic.

The "classic" quotient is high and the "trendy" buzz low, and purposefully so, but if all the others are kaleidoscopic hamster wheels, intelligent and stable design becomes the most revolutionary concept of all.

Thank you for your support.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Solid Gold, from both Founders and Keith Moon.

I place beer orders for Pints&union on Monday and Tuesday. We do not have a surplus of cold storage area, so it's usually a variation of the "just in time" approach.

Last week I learned there would be a brief interruption of the Falls City Classic Pilsner draft supply.

(According to local beer writer Kevin Gibson), in the patois of the present, Falls City Classic Pilsner might be described as a "throwback" or "retro" beer, although perhaps the word "reincarnation" better describes the phenomenon of your grandfather's beer coming back to life for new generation of beer drinkers.

Since the pub's opening last August we've been depleting a keg each week of FCCP, so I knew it would be necessary to find a pinch-hitter to pour for a few days until order was restored. My choice was Founders Solid Gold, which I expect will last through the business week beginning Tuesday, February 12.

The flavor is just what you’d expect: a better version of an American lager like the mostly watered-down versions Americans were force-fed for generations. Solid Gold is a lawnmower beer with more flavor and a bit of body to go with it, while also being ridiculously approachable at just 4.4 percent alcohol by volume.

This should be fun. The retail price of Founders Solid Gold is only a few cents higher than Falls City Classic Pilsner, and both offer excellent value. But there's something else that caught my eye ear about Solid Gold.

Minus Founders the brewery, and turning to the era of old school rock and pop music, "Solid Gold" was a song from Keith Moon's fabled solo album, Two Sides of the Moon.

Keith Moon's 1975 solo album Two Sides of the Moon has been described as "the most expensive karaoke album in history," and even as that, it was a colossal failure, the perfect expression of drunken self-indulgence, and it was so fascinatingly bad that it has assumed a certain cult status. But make no mistake, it was a horrible album on all counts made by a brilliant drummer who chose barely to play drums on it (he appears behind the kit on only three tracks) but instead chose to sing, even though he was tone deaf by his own admission.

I'm a huge fan of The Who, and Moon the Loon was my musical idol when Jimmy Carter was president. But those days are gone, and Founders had something else entirely in mind (and much, much better) with Solid Gold premium lager.

Try it (the beer); I think you'll like it -- but remember we'll be going back to our featured Falls City Classic Pilsner as soon as a fresh keg arrives.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: It’s still better dancing with the table beer than sleeping on the floor.

A long time ago when I first visited Belgium harboring the crazy idea that I'd drink the country dry of traditional ale, there'd be these bottles on the market shelf with replaceable plastic caps and a budget traveler's dream price tag.

Closer examination revealed why; they were "table beers" of very low alcohol content, suitable for thirst-quenching by those (I'm one) who find little value in sticky sweet soft drinks -- or, as was explained to me at the time, intended to take the place of those awful little cartons of milk at American school cafeterias, because Belgian schoolchildren drank table beer, not liquid bovine snot.

Verily, the stork dropped me on the wrong continent.

Like most other beer styles and traditions embraced by Americans during the years of the craft beer explosion, table beer has undergone a metamorphosis into something different than it ever was, explained here.

What Is Table Beer, the Beer We've Been Seeing Everywhere?, by Alex Delany (Bon Appetit)

No, table beer isn't just when you put a beer on your table.

 ... Historically, a table beer was a beer for everyone at the table, most prominent in Belgium and France. Your mom. Her friend Carol. Your great uncle Victor. And the kids. All of the kids. Like, six year-old kids, drinking beer with their 16th century meatloaf. In medieval Europe, table beers usually contained less than one percent ABV.

But, yeah, kids used to drink beer. At the table. Not behind the shed in their friend Chad’s backyard. Table beer (or biere de table) varied widely in color, but probably tasted something like soaking Wheaties in water and then squeezing out all of that absorbed liquid. Kinda bready. Kinda sweet. Gently carbonated (or maybe totally still).

These days, table beer is a bit different ... in Indianapolis, Central State Brewing is canning an easily crushable, pleasantly tart, 4% table beer that tastes something like lemon curd spread over a baguette. It’s the ideal “I am currently sitting in a chair on a porch/deck/balcony/patio and have no intention of moving,” beer.

We're carrying 16-ounce cans of Central State Table at Pints&union.

Table Beer

Rustic Blonde Ale

Table is a rustic blonde ale fermented with our unique yeast strains and brewed in the style of French and Belgian style table beers.

Malt Bill: Indiana-Grown 2-Row and Rye

Hops: Noble varieties, varies from batch to batch

Yeast: CSB House Yeast Blend

ABV: 4%

Got to Pints&union, get a burger and drink Central State Table with it. You won't be disappointed. In closing, allow me to point out that my personal interest in table beer didn't begin yesterday. During my former career at NABC, we formulated a session-strength table beer somewhere around the year 2009, and it was a great favorite of mine for volume consumption.

NABC Tafel Bier

Belgian-style “Table” Beer

ABV: 4%

IBU: 15

OG: 1.040, or 10 degrees Plato

It’s better dancing on the table than sleeping on the floor. Tafel Bier is the Flemish language term for “table beer,” denoting a flavorful session strength accompaniment to the wonders of Belgian cuisine … or burgers and wings, too. What do you think filled those earthenware jugs in the Brueghel painting? It wasn’t Bud Light Lime, was it?

Malts: Belgian Pale, Aromatic, Biscuit, CaraPils

Hops: German Tettnanger, Select

Yeast: House Ardennes

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: If beer choices constantly rotate, then it's revolutionary to rotate them less often -- or not at all.

The Spring 2019 issue (Vol. 63) of Food & Dining Magazine will hit the streets in March. My beer column is returning with a brief overview of Pints&union, emphasizing our revolutionary beer program.

My stand is clear, and the time for a “back to basics” movement is now. I believe there exists a silent majority among American beer drinkers who find the kaleidoscopic tilt-whirl of short attention spans – this frenetic hamster wheel approach to beer appreciation – utterly bewildering.

If you're thinking this isn't revolutionary at all, I beg to differ. The core definition of revolution is "involving or causing a complete or dramatic change." There's an inescapable relativity to this. If beer choices constantly rotate, then it's revolutionary to rotate them less often -- or not at all.

Ah, but BUSINESS -- consumers demand kaleidoscopic hamster wheels, therefore businesses are compelled to provide them or go bust.

Not entirely, and in fact I've never really believed this is true. If I had, would there have been a Rich O's Public House in 1990 offering unknown beers when consumers were demanding a dozen more tasteless frozen light lager "choices"?

Besides, if every bar in town is showing the Stupor Bore, then I want my joint to do something different as a haven for the minority preferring anything but football. Businesses are compelled to find markets, not pander to any particular model.

This is as good a segue as any into a nationwide campaign to restore a dollop or three of equilibrium to the reign of short beer attention spans.

Why #FlagshipFebruary?

What sometimes gets lost amid the constant stream of special releases are the beers that paved the way for today’s remarkable global beer market, or in other words, the flagship beers that got us here.

When the current keg of Monnik Mild George depletes, there'll be two kegs of Anchor Steam to pour in connivance with #FlagshipFebruary, although I can't say exactly when this will begin.

San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Co. is widely acknowledged to be the first modern-day craft brewery in the United States. It is less appreciated that the company’s flagship beer, Anchor Steam Beer, is the first American craft beer in modern times. Because of its status as the last survivor of the steam beer style, which was once widespread in the American West, the beer appears to be a missing link between historic and craft beers. However, the circumstances of its reinvention in 1971 show it to be something far more important.

Finally, at Good Beer Hunting the forever well-informed and provocative Bryan Roth turns the very notion of "flagship" inside out. It's very interesting reading, which makes me more determined than ever to create, nurture and sustain an alternative beachhead.

We’ve Created a Monster — What Does it Mean to Talk Flagship Fatigue?

... Advocates spent the last 40 years decrying the problems of mass market Lager and clamoring for more options and experiences via “small and independent” craft brewers. They can hardly complain when those wishes come to fruition, and when 85% of 21-and-over Americans live within 10 miles of a brewery. This is the future liberal, promiscuous drinkers want, old-guard flagships be damned.

I've been one of these advocates, who now finds his innate contrarianism to be as infinitely mutable as the beer marketplace itself. I'm proud of what we've accomplished so far, and I will continue to work on improving the beer experience at Pints&union.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Monnik beers have come to Indiana, so come to Pints&union on January 29 to taste and celebrate.

In case you were wondering, "monnik" is the Dutch word for monk. I'm guessing the brewery's co-owner Ian Luijk probably can tell you more about it.

Monnik Beer Co. is located in the Louisville neighborhood of Schnitzelburg, and Monnik beers now are being carried in Indiana by Starlight Distribution. Next Tuesday (January 29), Pints&union will be throwing a Hoosier release gala for our pals at Monnik.

The event begins at 8:00 p.m., but these two Monnik mainstays will be on tap from the pub's opening at 4:0 p.m.

Mild George
English Mild Ale, 4.2% abv
Toasted brown bread and dry, quaffable, low alcohol little brother of our King George.

Eagle Skull
Saison/Farmhouse Ale, 6.5% abv
Classic lemon/pepper saison yeast character; herbal hops over a light crackery malt base.

Come for the chance to enjoy Monnik brewer Scott Hand's excellent beers, but stay a while to chat about lots of other aspects of our life and times. Speaking personally, I like just about everyone in the Louisville brewing scene, but Monnik's owners and staff members are especially articulate, engaged and fluent in a wide variety of topics.

Tuesday, January 29 ... see you there.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Craft beer burnout? I told you so (at least) a year ago.

This one's been getting lots of social media play, and justifiably so. Much discussion has followed.

IS CRAFT BEER BURNING OUT? by Darren (The Burnt Out Beer Guy)

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a group of US brewers got together and vowed to reclaim beer from big business by making them with integrity and passion once again.

Thanks in large part to those early pioneers we are now able to sit around in craft beer bars App-drinking a seemingly endless deluge of quirky brews from around the world.

And that’s the problem. Because of their relentless drive to recreate beer craft brewers have inadvertently spawned a consumer culture where beer doesn’t necessarily need to be great anymore.

It just needs to be new.

Pints&union opened on August 1, and six months later I feel the beer program finally is getting dialed in.

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: It's my State of the Beer address for 2019.

Here's something I wrote on February 8, 2018. The roots of my contrarian rumblings go back even further, to the winter of 2014-15 if not before. My goal has remained consistent: maintain an island of stability amid a sea of churning kaleidoscopes. So far, it's working -- thanks, Joe Phillips.

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ON THE AVENUES: Golden oldie classic comfort beers at an old school pub? Sounds like Pints & Union to me.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I’ve peddled this Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) anecdote for years. It’s my very favorite USSR-era Russian joke, and reflects the state of my consciousness as the year 2014 drew to a close.

It's the stagnant Brezhnev era, circa 1970s, but Soviet scientists finally have solved the riddle of death, immediately applying the potion to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's embalmed corpse.

Lenin springs back to life, dusts off, and looks around the room. Asked by the scientists if they can get him anything, Lenin requests access to his office in the Kremlin and all the back issues of Pravda since he died. Fawningly the scientists comply, and Lenin shuts himself in the office.

Day after day passes by, and while the scientists are terrified to bother Lenin, they eventually begin to worry. Finally they decide to break down the door. Inside Lenin's office they find issues of the newspaper strewn everywhere, but no Lenin.

On the desk he has left a note:

"Comrades, everything’s gone to hell in a hand basket, so I'm off to start the revolution all over again."

In the spirit of reincarnation, I say to you: If Sour Passion Fruit Bock IPA is your idea of beer-drinking progress, by all means deplete the inventory at your friendly neighborhood package store.

I’ll even help you carry the boxes to your car. With luck, there’ll be more space on the shelf for a relaxing Best Bitter.

Or maybe a White Pastry Stout is more to your taste – one brewed with spices used by the Inuit to cure whale blubber jerky, then pushed through a Randall filled with salty pebbles from the Yucatan?

Go for it … but you can count me out.

It isn’t that I won’t ever again experience the pleasure of drinking beers from an ever-widening selection of “craft” brewing’s avant-garde, the genre’s cutting, leading and bleeding edge. I surely will, periodically, in a defined context. I’ll find it very enjoyable, now and then.

The simple fact of the matter is that I’m no longer interested in daily games of chance. Roulette belongs in a casino. I’d rather sit peacefully, take my time, and get to know a few wonderful beers better from the inside out.

Verily, I accept my share of the credit, blame or responsibility for the spasmodic new beer world we inhabit, which is many miles wide and depressingly scant millimeters deep. If you’re collecting beer pelts on Untappd, that’s just fine by me. Carry on, please. I’m genuinely happy that you’re happy.

Your white whales are waiting. I’ll be over here in the corner, sipping a Pilsner.

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I’ve always been a history buff, and what interests me these days are the world’s greatest beer styles, from the 1300s through the 1900s. The 2000s were choppy waters for me, and so I’m electing to backshift into antiquity.

During my first year away from NABC, my consciousness was as far removed from the beer world as it has been since high school. In truth, I was exhausted, disgusted and burned out. Being chewed up and spit out can be bruising to both body and ego. The only thing I knew for sure was that it would take time. I had to wait and see if beer still gripped me.

By 2016, simpler beer pleasures began to creep back into view, and it started to occur to me that if frenetic bi-polar beer-ticity was the new normal, the only conceivable possibility for sense and sensibility was counter-revolution – a throwback, a rediscovery, and a fresh appreciation for what brought me to beer in the first place.

To repeat, this isn’t to construe that I’ve become an advocate of creative repression. There are 6,000 American breweries producing tens of thousands of beers, and I wish all of them the very best. When traveling, I’ll look up some of them. When I read articles like this one, it restores my faith in the scene we all helped conjure.

No, it isn't that I'm sick of beer diversity.

What appalls me is beer ignorance, beer selfie narcissism and beer management practices. They’ve become an artery-hardening orthodoxy, and as such, orthodoxy mired in mud up to the axles deserves questions, answers, revision and outright rebellion, if necessary.

I’ve had enough of venues with 20 beers on tap, the inevitable majority of them IPAs, with the remainder Imperial-this, barrel-aged-that, most of universally high gravity. I’m driven to utter distraction when returning to the same venue two weeks later, only to find that 18 of them have changed, with a whole new crop of “what do you have that’s new,” which might actually mean something if there was an outside chance that the best of the new beers would reappear in less than a year.

But wading through the chaos, I seldom can find much of interest at 4.5% abv save for the occasional Session IPA … and don’t even get me started on those.

This wonderful new kaleidoscopic-tap-swap-list-orthodoxy purports to please millennials, and maybe it actually does (even if I have my doubts), but the bucking-and-gyrating-attention-deficit-hamster-wheel approach sure as hell isn’t pleasing to all of us, judging by the comments I read and hear.

And this constitutes the opening of a market niche for comfort beer, one I personally support, and a gap primed for filling. Hence the advent of Pints & Union, later this year. Joe Phillips and I are seeking to recapture the old school with our pub, with a few progressive twists.

The beer program is my rebellious idea, and that's why I'm here today to explain. 

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Way back during the evolution of the Public House, there were four basic rules governing my beer advancement program.

• Knowing the stories and history behind the labels. 
• Understanding styles and being able to explain them to customers in simple terms.
• Trying as hard as humanly possible to keep printed lists and information up to date.
• Insisting that when it came to purchasing, ultimate direction – the synthesis of knowledge and understanding – comes not from a wholesaler or even a brewery rep, but from behind the bar.

Let’s begin with the latter.

As we’ve seen, there are hundreds of beers available to fill limited taps and occupy scant shelf space. Consumer demand plays its role, but the ultimate filter still must be wielded by the bar manager or beer buyer.

It’s all about actively teaching customers what they want even if they don't realize it yet, and as for knowing stories and styles, an aptitude for entertainment and education is what separates professionals from novices. You simply cannot teach without first mastering the syllabus.

To be honest, I don’t care how much a customer thinks he or she knows following a quick electronic glance at the empty mental calories on Thrillist. Remember: miles wide, millimeters deep. The customer might yet be right, though not until I’m finished framing the options. No single person can know everything, but it is the obligation of all involved in the sale of better beer to possess an ability to explain and conceptualize.

Knowledge remains the bare minimum requirement. It’s a value-added proposition. The more one knows, and can impart with clarity, the greater the chance of a satisfied return customer who tips well – and learns something.

Those are the basics, although at times I fear the art has been lost. Consequently, I sandbag quite a lot nowadays. Before ordering, I ask questions about beer to servers and bartenders. Sometimes their answers are coherent, other times not.

I’ve been known to cringe when listening to the panoply of “beer facts” as dispersed by staffers. I try to stay quiet and groan out of earshot, because I’m not the one signing their checks.

At least yet.

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Food and drink lend themselves to constant reinvention, and yet it cannot be denied that there are eternal, renewable “classics” amid the bedlam. Clichés become such precisely because they contain an element of truth, and certain aspects of the human experience stand the test of time, whether an umbrella, mouse trap or a lovely, satisfying De Koninck.

In summary, for several years my troublesome contrarian instincts have been telling me that the beer climate is ripe for a principled, thoughtful return to founding values, emblemized by a relatively small, mostly fixed list of classic beers on draft, and in bottles and cans, to be accompanied by some hearty old-fashioned beer education, which seems to have been tossed aside in the era of cyber “craft” fandom.

Now I understand that "presenting" and interpreting beers brewed by others always was my main skill. This is especially true as it pertains to beers from Europe. I’ve been a Europhile since college, and European styles from the British Isles, Belgium and Germany have been neglected for a long time.

So have the original standards from America’s first wave of “micros” – from Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to Rogue Shakespeare Stout, and so many others. They’ve been pushed aside amid a heated rush to win badges and amass ratings, but I think there's far more to it than this, something that might even be spiritual.

As the beer writer Andy Crouch recently stated:

“There are two kinds of beer drinkers today: those looking to drink a beer only once and those looking to drink round after round. Order me another.”

I’m with him, and this is how Pints & Union is going to be as it pertains to beer. Now we just have to finish building the damn pub.