New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
I'm just the beer guy, and so I can't speak for everyone at Pints&union, but it's a great feeling to know you're working for/with people who take public health seriously, who are NOT science doubters, and who are doing their very best to observe pandemic protocols, and to implement best practices for the benefit of customers and workers alike.
If a food service establishment's or bar's priorities are in the right place, it doesn't matter that these various governmental pandemic mandates lack the necessary enforcement mechanisms to dissuade miscreants from mayhem. You follow the mandates because it's the right thing to do in a public health emergency.
We all know some establishments aren't, and to be perfectly frank, I struggle mightily with the "code of silence" as traditionally observed by the food and drink sector pertaining to withholding comment about what occurs elsewhere in the hospitality business.
I appreciate those of you who have sent me accounts, photos and videos of incredibly unhealthy scenes at local eateries and bars. I applaud your candor and grasp of the issues.
However, I won't lie to you; there's nothing I can do to help. You might try informing your elected and appointed local government officials, although in all honesty they'll probably do little apart from kicking the can a bit further down the road. Regrettable, but true.
I know that there are no sure things in life. Perfection isn't attainable, but the object is to bust your ass pursuing it, and this is what Pints&union is doing with respect to dining and drinking indoors during a pandemic. I can attest to it.
Those of you who have no intention of visiting a restaurant or bar any time soon, you have my complete support; my own household still is doing curbside carry-out (Dragon Kings Daughter and Legacy Pizza and Bakery most recently), and because I'm extremely grateful to Pints&union for allowing me to do my work in the morning, and remotely from home whenever possible, I will not be shaming anyone else for refraining from old haunts until the pandemic is under control.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a community-minded, responsible place to have a sandwich and a drink, and you have not given Pints&union a try, please do. We're doing everything in our power to make the experience safe and enjoyable. Give us feedback, and let us know what you think about your visit.
(I have no ownership stake in Pints&union. As noted, I'm just the beer guy, and I didn't tell anyone else I was planning on writing this. COVID is real, and it's going to be with us for a while. We should be taking the virus seriously; what's more, we should be positively recognizing the efforts being made by those who DO accept their responsibilities toward this end. Thank you for your support.)
The Monarch (wholesale beer distributorship) order arrived on schedule and the driver Ray phoned me according to our usual arrangement. My bike's back from the shop, so I rode it down to unlock Pints&union.
About halfway there I thought "crap, I forgot my mask." Ah, I further reasoned, we have some official Pints&union masks at work; no problem.
Ray was waiting by the back door. I rushed in and ran past all the masks stored by the taps, apologized to Ray because I'd forgotten my mask, said I'd keep my distance, and received the order.
Only then, with no one else around, did I think to grab a Pints face mask from the stack. I put away the beer and came home, sat down, and noticed my mask was right there, hanging from my neck the entire time.
I've likely said this before, but it bears repeating.
When the pandemic's lock-down doo-doo hit the fan blades, many in the local food and drink business were either catatonic (and understandably so; my empathy for them abounds), or, bizarrely, eager to dismiss hundreds of years of scientific achievement at the drop of a narcissistic and self-serving cap (purely inexcusable, then as now).
That's when the LEE Initiative made the biggest pivot of all and organized in a remarkably short time to help people who were in need.
What a concept.
Joe Phillips followed suit at Pints&union. He put people before profit and ran toward the fire. He converted the business into The Lee Initiative's relief outpost in SoIN. He ran himself ragged during the "business as usual" down time. He wasn't coming in every day and asking whether he was getting the credit and publicity. He did what was right, when it was needed.
Now Joe is doing it again, in conjunction with Steven Cavanaugh, our new general manager. Pints&union has safety protocols and socially-distanced indoor occupancy. We are enforcing safety, and our patrons get it. They know it's better to err on the side of caution during a public health emergency than to be the agent of dysfunction. We know better than to relax, but so far, it's going well.
Speaking personally, it is a joy to be an employee in an atmosphere like this, one of integrity and respect.
Here's what Joe had to say about it in a recent Edible Kentucky & Southern Indiana magazine article.
When the COVID-19 quarantine shut down local restaurants in March, we were devastated and silent. We all knew it was coming, but to know it’s knocking at your door is a very different reality than watching others face it on social media or television. We were shell-shocked for two days—then realized we needed to get back to work, somehow.
Knowing our perishable food would go bad, we donated it to our workers who were suddenly out of work. We needed a sense of purpose; we needed to give back to the workers who have been providing hospitality to our communities every day for years.
Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, founders of the LEE Initiative, gave us that opportunity with the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Thanks to a donation from Maker’s Mark Distillery, we gathered essential household items and served hot meals to feed laid off restaurant workers and their families every day. There are no words to fully describe what it felt like to experience the gratitude of the many service workers who received support and love during this scary time. With additional donations, we joined forces with 610 Magnolia, Lee’s flagship Louisville restaurant, to serve Louisville industry workers while still keeping tabs on the people we served in New Albany, Indiana. The streets were empty but our hearts were full, serving over 200 people per week. The program expanded to 18 other cities in the U.S., providing over 275,000 meals.
Moving forward, we are working with the LEE Initiative’s Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, a $1 million commitment to purchase produce from local farmers for restaurants to create more sustainable food supply chains. Restaurants that have hosted restaurant-worker relief centers will receive the food and help select other local restaurants to participate.
This remains a trying time for all of us. I have witnessed firsthand amazing beauty from great loss. I have seen open doors and hearts, open minds and people united for a greater sense of purpose. We look forward to enduring this time, coming out stronger together.
Be well,
Joe Phillips, Owner Pints & Union Restaurant
114 East Market St.
New Albany, IN 47150
812.913.4647
Learn more about The LEE Initiative Restaurant Relief Program, Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, McAtee Community Kitchen, Restaurant Regrow Program and Women Chefs Program.
Pints&union hosted their soft reopening on Friday, July 10th from 4 - 10 PM. While the full menu and draft list were familiar, Pints' reopening also came with new COVID-19 precautions to ensure the safety of patrons.
My good friend (and Best Man in my upcoming wedding) Andrew and I were lucky enough to be invited to the soft reopening. We both were ecstatic and extremely grateful for the invitation. It had been quite some time since we last sat at the bar and enjoyed the unique tastes, sights, and sounds that Pints has to offer ...
Second, because you may not have seen this passage within my ON THE AVENUES column Thursday ...
... our new general manager Steven Cavanaugh explains how this new and evolving era is going to begin.
Most importantly: Masks will be REQUIRED to enter Pints&union, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn.
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PINTS & UNION REOPENING OUTLINE Pints & union will be reopening to the public on Saturday, July 11th at 4:00 p.m. While the charity work we’ve been able to accomplish in the time our doors have been closed has been some of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of our lives, we could not be more excited to welcome our guests back into the Public House you’ve come to know and love in our nearly two years of operation. This being said, there are a few new procedures to be aware of that we’re implementing to ensure the highest level of safety for our guests and for our staff as possible. For starters, masks will be REQUIRED to enter the building, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn. Being a public house, we and all who enter have a duty to do our part in helping keep the public safe. We’ll be doing a temperature screen and taking information from one person in each party for contract tracing purposes. We’ll be self-imposing some capacity restrictions that go a bit further than the state currently allows by properly distancing all tables and bar stools, as well as prohibiting any standing-room-only areas. Our neighbors at The Root have been kind enough to let us use their patio for dinner service from 5 to 10 PM on the weekends as an extension of our small outdoor seating area to help combat the capacity issue. All tables will have a “drop zone” where fresh food will be placed by our staff and dirty dishes can be placed by guests for our team to pick up. We’ll have bottles of sanitizer provided by Starlight Distillery at each table for guests to use while they’re here, and are taking several other behind-the-scenes precautions such as air purifiers, ionizers in our AC unit, and new ceiling fans to constantly clean and circulate fresh air. The whole team is beyond exciting to get our doors open again and see some familiar, albeit masked, faces! We’ve got a new dinner menu to show off as well as some incredible stories to tell behind some of our new products. We’ll see you all soon!
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Let's close with this latter to the editor of The Journal, coverage area southeastern Colorado near the Four Corners. Says it all, in my view.
Colorado has many laws and regulations to protect the public. Since 1997, vehicles must have proof of liability insurance. I can find no evidence of serious protest about this law.
It is a state law that motorcycle riders under age 18 must wear helmets. There was much protest about universal helmet laws; this was the compromise.
“No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” was a response by businesses in the 1960s and 1970s to keep long-haired hippies out of stores and restaurants.
There are no federal or state laws to this effect. However, there are laws that allow businesses to make their own regulations. This phrase has become an accepted norm. No contagion results from disobeying these examples.
If I am parked next to your car that has no proof of insurance, I am not exposing you or being exposed to anything lethal. If you pass me riding your motorcycle without a helmet, your exposure to harm is greater than mine.
Until January this year, we gave little thought to “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service.” Scientific information says wearing masks can keep you and me from being exposed to COVID-19. Businesses can initiate this as a regulation.
Common sense suggests that If there is no choice, we will wear masks. We all will be safer if businesses work together to make “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Masks, No Service ” the norm in Montezuma County.
I'm sharing column space this week with sentences written by two others, so let's get started.
Pints&union is coming back, although to be specific, we never really went away. Owner Joe Phillips explains this in the current issue of Edible Kentucky & Southern Indiana.
When the COVID-19 quarantine shut down local restaurants in March, we were devastated and silent. We all knew it was coming, but to know it’s knocking at your door is a very different reality than watching others face it on social media or television. We were shell-shocked for two days—then realized we needed to get back to work, somehow.
Knowing our perishable food would go bad, we donated it to our workers who were suddenly out of work. We needed a sense of purpose; we needed to give back to the workers who have been providing hospitality to our communities every day for years.
Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, founders of the LEE Initiative, gave us that opportunity with the Restaurant Workers Relief Program. Thanks to a donation from Maker’s Mark Distillery, we gathered essential household items and served hot meals to feed laid off restaurant workers and their families every day. There are no words to fully describe what it felt like to experience the gratitude of the many service workers who received support and love during this scary time.
With additional donations, we joined forces with 610 Magnolia, Lee’s flagship Louisville restaurant, to serve Louisville industry workers while still keeping tabs on the people we served in New Albany, Indiana. The streets were empty but our hearts were full, serving over 200 people per week. The program expanded to 18 other cities in the U.S., providing over 275,000 meals.
Moving forward, we are working with the LEE Initiative’s Restaurant Reboot Relief Program, a $1 million commitment to purchase produce from local farmers for restaurants to create more sustainable food supply chains. Restaurants that have hosted restaurant-worker relief centers will receive the food and help select other local restaurants to participate.
This remains a trying time for all of us. I have witnessed firsthand amazing beauty from great loss. I have seen open doors and hearts, open minds and people united for a greater sense of purpose. We look forward to enduring this time, coming out stronger together.
Joe also threw himself into helping others in West Louisville when the Black Lives Matter protests began, although this is another story for a different time.
You should know that I’m proud to be working for a man who hasn't once denied science during a pandemic, complained about financial misfortune, dismissed the importance of civil rights for fear of alienating antebellum mouth-breathers, or minimized the all-purpose societal challenges we're facing at this juncture.
As I've said before, Joe just lowers his head and runs in the direction of the fire. It’s too bad not every downtown dining and drinking establishment's owner can say the same … but alas, I digress.
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Our new general manager at Pints&union is Steven Cavanaugh, a resident of New Albany who recently concluded a long, productive stint running the Garage Bar in NuLu.
Steven wrote this outline of what we’ll be doing for the safety of our customers and ourselves when the doors reopen to the public on Saturday.
PINTS & UNION REOPENING OUTLINE
Pints & union will be reopening to the public on Saturday, July 11th at 5:00 p.m.
While the charity work we’ve been able to accomplish in the time our doors have been closed has been some of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of our lives, we could not be more excited to welcome our guests back into the Public House you’ve come to know and love in our nearly two years of operation.
This being said, there are a few new procedures to be aware of that we’re implementing to ensure the highest level of safety for our guests and for our staff as possible.
For starters, masks will be REQUIRED to enter the building, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn.
Being a public house, we and all who enter have a duty to do our part in helping keep the public safe. We’ll be doing a temperature screen and taking information from one person in each party for contract tracing purposes. We’ll be self-imposing some capacity restrictions that go a bit further than the state currently allows by properly distancing all tables and bar stools, as well as prohibiting any standing-room-only areas.
Our neighbors at The Root have been kind enough to let us use their patio for dinner service from 5 to 10 PM on the weekends as an extension of our small outdoor seating area to help combat the capacity issue.
All tables will have a “drop zone” where fresh food will be placed by our staff and dirty dishes can be placed by guests for our team to pick up. We’ll have bottles of sanitizer provided by Starlight Distillery at each table for guests to use while they’re here, and are taking several other behind-the-scenes precautions such as air purifiers, ionizers in our AC unit, and new ceiling fans to constantly clean and circulate fresh air.
The whole team is beyond exciting to get our doors open again and see some familiar, albeit masked, faces! We’ve got a new dinner menu to show off as well as some incredible stories to tell behind some of our new products. We’ll see you all soon!
One point in the preceding merits emphasis: “Masks will be REQUIRED to enter the building, to order at the bar, and to move about the pub. Essentially anytime you’ll be away from your table, we’ll require a mask to be worn. Being a public house, we and all who enter have a duty to do our part in helping keep the public safe.”
Here's the best sign I've seen on the topic of masks, as produced by a Twitter friend; it's posted at Chicago Bagel Authority on Belmont Avenue in that toddlin' town.
Now to my column stanzas.
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I suspect that our American cultural preference to emphasize mind-numbling ignorance about the wider world doesn’t manage to produce rebellious Francophiles in quite the way we used to, but there was a time when they indeed roamed the earth.
And so let’s imagine an American man of late middle age, living in Louisville, or perhaps even Southern Indiana, who is enamored of all things French, especially the city of Paris, to him the exemplar of culture, modernity … and yes, all-purpose éclat.
The year is 1939, and the leaves have fallen. Owing to a modest inheritance and toothsome work habits, our Francophile friend -- can we refer to him as Frank? -- has long been able to indulge his love of France through visits every other year. It's not France alone for Frank, who has embraced the classic “grand tour” notion of examining Western European haunts. He usually spends time in non-Parisian locales during his trips.
Still, French terroir is Frank's first and most abiding love.
Frank is looking forward to the year 1940; April in Paris, after all. In fact, he has booked passage to France well in advance for the spring of 1940, sailing on the French Line (the Compagnie Générale Maritime) from New York City to Le Havre, where the trains depart for Paris.
However, storm clouds are gathering. War in Europe is all but certain. Transatlantic passages are starting to dwindle, yet Frank persists, because these trips to France are life itself to him, and the sustenance for coping with the philistinism in FDR’s increasingly socialist America, from which he simply must escape every now and then to a place where they do things correctly.
Unfortunately our Frank is a Republican.
Calendar pages turn, and as Frank’s holiday in France draws ever nearer, he finally gets cold feet. Friends, family and the American government conspire to issue unassailable warnings about the potentially dangerous situation across the pond. As a frequent traveler, Frank wangles a postponement with only the minimum in penalties. He’ll sail instead in 1941, after the inclement geopolitical weather blows over.
And so, on cue, the Germans invade France in the spring of 1940, quickly overwhelming the French and capturing Paris. World War II ensues, by any measure the most destructive war in human history.
It will be 1946 before Frank is able to return to Paris. In the interim, he lives his life correctly. Frank purchases war bonds, maintains a Victory Garden, volunteers for useful wartime homefront duties, reads the library's collection of French novels in translation at least twice each, and burns through multiple phonograph needles listening to the 1941 hit song that always brings his hankie out.
But then it's 1946, and Frank at long last sees Paris again, finding himself seated within the familiar confines of Harry’s New York Bar at 5 Rue Daunou – Sank Roo Doe Noo – with a Bloody Mary in one hand and a Havana in the other, daydreams of his heroes Ernest Hemingway, George Gershwin and Jack Dempsey swirling through the battered touring cap on his simply delighted, albeit far grayer head.
It doesn’t seem to Frank like it has been eight years. He's happy to be back, and the feeling is intensified by gratitude, because beating the damned evil Nazis proved to be a collective accomplishment far outweighing his own selfish desires. Hell, even that filthy communist Uncle Joe Stalin helped us out.
Moulin Rouge, here Frank comes.
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Returning from the realm of fiction to the present day, we’re experiencing a global pandemic, and Europe is closed to Americans because so many of my countrymen exist in a stuporous state of anti-scientific, fruit-loops-grade denial of medical reality, prattling endlessly about their "rights" while burying their heads in the alluvial mud at the slightest suggestion of responsibilities.
Yes, I won't be going to Europe any time soon, and it bothered me at first like it bothered Frank back in 1940, but the constructive way I propose to deal with it is to accept the nature of the threat and react sensibly to it, correctly even, such that a semblance of good might come about.
I'm wearing a facemask in public, practicing social (physical) distancing to the best of my ability, washing my hands often, practicing good hygiene overall, and being as much a part of the solution as I can possibly be, as opposed to being another brick in the wall of problematic narcissism.
At the present time, it is my earnest hope that in 2021 my aching feet again will be transported to European soil. As always, upon arrival, whether it’s next year or five more afterward, I’ll kiss the ground, sob tears of joy and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for my good fortune to be able to enjoy a brief respite from other Americans.
Until then, whatever it takes. I’ll do my part to deal with COVID-19. You should consider doing yours, too, and those of you who are being proud, stupid and plainly anti-social about it -- sorry, not sorry, but you're making it worse for everyone.
Having made it through six months of weekly ON THE AVENUES columns without a single rerun, I decided to celebrate by taking a week off and hopefully reloading for "the second half" of the year. The July 4 holiday weekend seemed perfectly placed for an intermission.
After all, July 4 is an extremely important date in human history; as of 2020, it's been 44 years since The Clash’s debut gig on the 4th of July, opening for Sex Pistols at a pub in Sheffield, England.
Regular readers already know that 2020 would see a curtailment of activity at NA Confidential, which has been rigorously pro bono and non-profit since its inception in 2004. My time has shifted to platforms where I'm writing for material reward. It's as simple as that.
I'll likely never be sufficiently organized to function as a true free-lancer; however, writing is my job as digital editor at Food & Dining Magazine, and it's a big part of what I'm doing at Pints&union, especially lately, with the pub largely dormant while awaiting the reopening (this week, maybe Friday), and a need to do something to help keep our clientele engaged during the down time.
Consequently, I'm delighted to have received so many positive comments about my series of "Staycation Stories," many of which have been reworked beer travel tales from the archive along with a few newly written vignettes. Most, if not all, have been illustrated with recently digitized photos.
Volga outing, 1999.
Following are the eleven most recent, with other available for perusing at my P&U Beer Blog.
On the Food & Dining Magazine side of the ledger, I'm responsible for two web posts each weekday (just one on weekends), with linkage to social media feeds. Some are short and functional, others longer and more detailed. We've started work on an autumn issue of the quarterly print publication (the summer issue was cancelled this year).
I'm also charged with laying out weekly F&D columns contributed by others, including Marty Rosen, Susan Reigler and Ron Mikulak.
Marty's "Letter from the Editor" appears on Wednesday, and Susan's "Bourbon News & Notes" on Friday. Last week Ron began a weekly Tuesday column called "Comings & Goings." As an example, consider Marty's column last week, which deserves a wider audience:
It would verge on redundant for me to point out that I'm by far the junior partner when it comes to the experience and skill of these writers. It makes me a better writer merely by arranging their pieces for publication.
The lesson we should be learning from the pandemic is that what we build may seem everlasting, when in fact it's ephemeral. Things change very slowly, then all at once. I'll be 60 very soon, but my new life and the next chapters actually began in May of 2014 when we closed the restaurant at Bank Street Brewhouse.
From that point, I understood something had come unmoored. There had been a conclusion in my life, and it would be followed by completely new developments. It all took some time, but the shift occurred. As oft times before, I came out the other side. Obviously, in order to come back, one must first go away, into the wilderness, for the required cleansing.
Consequently, I've no idea whether my currently productive era will last, and if it does, for how long. However, for the moment it is quite good, both personally and professionally, and I'm keenly aware of the irony inherent in making such a statement amid pandemic and social upheaval.
The very presence of irony points to the necessity of my staying involved, albeit minding my manners v.v. the local power structure, and advocating for change as it pertains to this dysfunctional shibboleth of a nation, fully half of it engaged in denial of a magnitude I can't recall witnessing.
Maybe I'll write about it for ON THE AVENUES this coming Thursday.
I'm cross-posting this weekend. The article offered here about Kentucky Common beer is something I'd planned on sharpening for use in my print-edition Food & Dining Magazine beer column (and still might), but I'd reserved a keg of Falls City Kentucky Common, received it, and need to make a tout.
Pints&union is open Friday and Saturday for now, probably until the second week of July, when hours will expand as we "reopen." Those details can wait. Until then, and I'll be candid, those of our adherents who'd like to further the cause -- and help us survive a bit longer -- should allocate a bit of their discretionary income to buy a meal and a growler.
Here's some more honesty: While others in town pretend neither the pandemic nor a resurgent Black Lives Matter movement ever happened, Joe Phillips has run toward every damn fire he's seen the past three months. While so many others in the local restaurant business were whining about science ("but I don't WANT to believe it") and doubling down on their distaste for essential social justice, Joe was feeding people, helping people and getting involved with people to further their causes.
If you don't approve of reality in this sense, then maybe you weren't a customer in the first place. If you do, and you were -- and are, and wish to be still -- then please think about coming down and spending a few bucks.
Thank you. And now, Kentucky Common.
Anything except common, that Kentucky Common.
In a narrow sense, bourbon is distilled beer. It’s a fermented mash of grain with no hops or spices added, destined for a very different outcome.
But this very analogy confuses the specific with the general. By definition, bourbon is a particular type of whiskey native to Kentucky, while Louisville’s craft breweries produce many varied types (or styles) of beer, ranging from India Pale Ale (ale) to Bohemian Pilsner (lager), encompassing numerous (limitless?) flavor profiles.
What most beer drinkers in metropolitan Louisville probably don’t know is that one style of beer is indigenous to the state of Kentucky. It’s as specific to the wider world of beer as bourbon is to whiskey, and it likely was the single biggest-selling type of beer in the city of Louisville 125 years ago.
It is known as Kentucky Common, and ironically -- perhaps even obtusely -- it’s a style not often brewed these days by breweries located in city or state.
Therein lies a story.
First, allow me to begin with the conclusion: Starting on Friday, June 19 at Pints&union, we’ll have a keg of Falls City’s Kentucky Common for $12 growler fills, curbside. Call (812) 913-4647 or visit the order portal after 4:00 p.m. on June 19th and 20th, and also on coming weekends until we reopen in July, date TBA.
Note also that Falls City Bock, a superlative dark lager and one of the finest American-style Bocks to hit my lips in a good while, still is available in growlers at the same price. Don’t force me to drain this keg all by myself, people.
Now I’ll explain to you why the commonality of history matters, and why I personally enjoy Falls City Kentucky Common so much.
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Prior to the contemporary craft beer era, most North American beers were brewed according to the broad parameters of styles that originated in Europe and were brought here by immigrants. Almost all of these styles came from the British Isles (in colonial times) or Germany and Central Europe (from the 1840s, on). Recall that “microbrewing” began only in the 1970s, and didn’t reach any semblance of critical mass until the late 1990s.
While brewers from Europe may have come to the United States with traditional recipes in mind, they often found that it was necessary to adapt to New World realities. Perhaps the most noted example of this shift came with lager beers in general, and Pilsners in particular.
Transplanted German brewers were compelled to adjust their thinking to suit climactic conditions and the raw materials at hand, particularly six-row barley as the malt backbone of their beers. Now, 150 years later, we can see that German and Bohemian Pilsners and their American cousins, pre-Prohibition “adjunct” Pilsners, are two separate branches of the same tree.
In like fashion, what we now refer to as “California Common” (or Steam, which is a term copyrighted by Anchor Brewing) reflects a hybrid brewing approach dating to Gold Rush times. Another uniquely American style is “Cream Ale,” which most of us of a certain age always will associate with Little Kings from Cincinnati. Cream Ales came about because 19th-century breweries specializing in top-fermented ale styles (the British tradition) sought a counterweight to increasingly popular German-sourced golden Pilsners.
Kentucky Common fits this paradigm. Here’s a bit of history of which you might be unaware, courtesy of the Beer Judge Certification Program.
A true American original style, Kentucky Common was almost exclusively produced and sold around the Louisville Kentucky metropolitan area from some time after the Civil War up to Prohibition. Its hallmark was that it was inexpensive and quickly produced, typically 6 to 8 days from mash to delivery. The beer was racked into barrels while actively fermenting (1.020 – 1.022) and tightly bunged to allow carbonation in the saloon cellar. There is some speculation that it was a variant of the lighter common or cream ale produced throughout much of the East prior to the Civil War and that the darker grains were added by the mostly Germanic brewers to help acidify the typical carbonate water of the Louisville area. Up until the late 19th century, Kentucky Common was not brewed in the summer months unless cellars, usually used for malting, were used for fermentation. With the advent of ice machines, the larger breweries were able to brew year round. In the period from 1900 to prohibition, about 75% of the beer sold in the Louisville area was Kentucky Common.
In its heyday, Kentucky Common would have been a localized example of “present use” beer, brewed in 6 – 8 days, low in alcohol content, delivered to taverns while still young and intended to be finishing its fermentation in the wooden barrel when first tapped. Kentucky Common was consumed quickly at a low price point.
This is why accounts of the period refer to Kentucky Common as being the working man’s choice. Rushing the growler in Louisville in the year 1900 meant sending one of your kids to fetch a (literal) bucket of beer from the neighborhood watering hole for pennies – and the liquid in the pail probably was Kentucky Common.
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The typical grist for a Kentucky Common might have been 65% six-row barley, 30% corn, and 5% dark malt enough to resolve the brewer’s chemistry issues and give the finished product an amber to light brown appearance (Falls City uses rye).
Hopping was minimal, with American hop varieties used for bittering and just a pinch of aromatic (and more expensive) imported German hops at the end of the boil. Brewers likely used an aggressive house ale yeast to jump start the fermentation. Ingredients and techniques for making Pilsner were reserved for Pilsner, often the higher-priced “special occasion” beer.
There’d have been as many different interpretations of Kentucky (and Southern Indiana) Common, riffing off this basic model, as there were brewers-- several dozen in the metro at local brewing’s acme in the 1890s.
Today, the modern version brewed at Falls City might be the city’s most unique beer simply because no one else in town regularly brews an “Amber Cream Ale.” Exceptions include Apocalypse (brewer Leah Dienes helped write the official style definition), Old Louisville and Against the Grain, but availability isn’t year-round at those establishments. Seldom can we find a beer for direct comparison in terms of flavor profile.
Falls City Kentucky Common has an amber hue and looks a bit like a Dos Equis, but the resemblance ends there. It’s malty, not hoppy, with a bready flavor touched by caramel. The rye peeks through, adding complexity. The body is light, and there is hint of fruitiness. You’ll notice an element of sweetness derived from the use of corn as an adjunct; it’s something most mass market Louisville beer drinkers wouldn’t notice because it’s generally present in Miller and Coors products (less so AB-InBev).
I like Falls City Kentucky Common for what it is: a solid summertime quencher with enough beeriness to maintain interest, and to pair with assertive food.
Starting today we are taking a break to clean, plan and revise May 23-June 9. While most were home in quarantine we have been hard at it since day one of this current challenge. We are stepping back to observe and rest and keep our staff and guests safe. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT. We look forward to seeing you June 9 and share our new vision and extension of hospitality. Be safe everyone, Cheers.
I don't have much to add, apart from stressing to you, the reader, that the stress is very real, and our owners and staff need a break.
As noted previously, it isn't only flipping a business model overnight from dine-in to carry-out; it's also assuming the responsibilities of the LEE Initiative outreach to displaced restaurant industry workers. That's two separate businesses in one, for-profit and non-profit, working amid all the myriad uncertainties of the pandemic.
My own two cents: Joe's most important point herein is "stepping back to observe."
The past two weeks of restaurant reopenings has revealed a division (not unexpected, by the way) among customers: some eager to turn back the clock and dine in again, others who are not willing to do so for some time to come, and yet another grouping of folks who are waiting and watching -- observing, as it were.
Pints&union is in a position to do the same. It isn't yet clear what reopening will bring for the restaurant industry.
Profits? Losses? A spike in infections? A placid return to normality? Will pent-up demand be sustained at the present unemployment rate? How long will it take for the economy to return to pre-COVID levels? Will it ever?
Even I don't know exactly how Pints&union will resume operations, only that we will. Literally and figuratively, all the cards are on the table. Allow me to echo Joe by thanking you for your support, especially for the growler program. There are a few already poured that may be made available for perfectly legal "speakeasy bootleg" sales next week. Stay tuned.
Leading off, I'm six months late to the news, but it's better than not knowing at all. A few days back a weird urge struck me to do a Google search, and I learned that Brian O'Donnell, esteemed owner of the Hi-B (Hibernian) Bar in Cork, Ireland, died last December. I wrote an appreciation at Food & Dining Magazine.
When O’Donnell died last December, the Irish Examiner’s eulogy by Dan Buckley painted a picture of curmudgeonly eccentricity, undoubted erudition and sheer longevity; O’Donnell’s parents had owned the bar since 1924 when he took it over in the early 1960s, and his wife and daughter continued the family tradition when age and ill health compelled him to retire.
O'Donnell was well into his 80s, although his actual date of birth seems not to have been revealed anywhere. It's genuinely true: they don't make 'em like him any longer, and that's too bad.
Every modern theory on hospitality management of which I'm aware frowns on throwing a customer's mobile phone out the open window or banning visitors for chewing gum.
And no, I never consciously modeled my own career as publican (1990 - 2015) on O'Donnell's mindset. He and I met only twice, maybe three times, on those very occasions from 1987 when visiting Cork. However, he struck up a friendship with my cousin. I'd have enjoyed sitting in the corner and listening as they debated politics and sang operatic arias together.
Rest in power, Brian O'Donnell.
Today's second item concerns draft Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale, which will be sold at Pints&union by the growler starting tomorrow (May 20). SeaQuench is a very new-school way of thinking about formulating a beer, but incorporates old-school styles from Germany in route to urging margarita cocktail lovers to try it. I wrote about SeaQuench at the Pints&union website. Each day this week I'll be adding a short refresher about the draft beers we currently are pouring into growlers for take-away.
I am delighted, thrilled and hopeful to see these many recent media references to the post-lockdown period as a propitious time to reassess American society's attitudes toward a panoply of head-scratching alcoholic beverage laws.
The past six weeks have been surreal, to say the least, and the very last thing any of us saw happening in 2020 was creating a workers relief grocery store on the fly, running it out one door as we maintained the curbside food and drink carryout trade out the other, and having two completely separate operations -- one non-profit, one (barely) for profit -- in a building so damn small.
And now, beer. I've made similar comments at the Pints&union website, but because the inception of the beer blog there coincided with pandemic disruptions (read: no one knows about it yet), they bear repeating here.
On March 25, just after Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb eased restrictions on carry-out alcoholic beverage sales at establishments just like Pints&union, we were ready to pour growlers for one reason only, and that’s because Sun King Brewing Company made cases of their growlers available at cost, and the brewery’s Southern Indiana regional sales representative Chris Cox was willing to schlep a load from Indianapolis to the area.
My friend Kelly Conn, who with his wife Teri owns Pearl Street Taphouse in Jeffersonville, providentially clued me into Chris's offer to truck growlers from Indy to Southern Indiana. I'm grateful to them both for the hookup.
Chris has made several trips since, and as of last weekend I’d personally filled roughly 170 varied growlers for sale to our customers. A tad embarrassingly, in our particular case we didn’t even have any Sun King beers on tap and hadn't for a while, but this didn’t matter to them.
Well, it matters to me, and beer karma is real. This week, having finally cleared some tap space and established a working routine, it’s a good time to doff my chapeau to Sun King and fill some growlers with their newest year-round ale, Keller Haze IPA (as the name implies, a hazy IPA at 6.3% abv).
Sun King's anticipated Keller Haze roll-out last month unfortunately coincided with the coronavirus quarantines; it’s a few weeks later now, but the beer’s still plenty fresh. It's also fun to freshen up the presentation, and pour something that everyone can have a chance to buy (as opposed to the subscription-only Schlenkerla Fastenbier).
There’ll be further information about pricing and such on Thursday at Facebook. Thanks again to the folks at Sun King Brewing Company for their help.
As a reminder, Pints&union currently is running two separate businesses out of our small building. The first, our involvement with The LEE Initiative, is described below by the newspaper's reporter Brooke McAfee.
The second runs Wednesday - Saturday, with business-as-unusual; carryout meals and drinks (including adult libations) for the general public.
All of us at the pub thank you for (a) your donations to support our involvement with the Restaurant Workers Relief Program, and (b) your patronage v.v. curbside pickups.
NEW ALBANY — A downtown New Albany pub is part of a national initiative offering relief to service industry workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pints & Union is among the 19 restaurants across the country partnering with the Louisville-based LEE Initiative for its Restaurant Workers Relief Program. With the help of grants and community donations, the New Albany restaurant is providing free groceries each week to local restaurant workers in Southern Indiana who have been laid off or faced a major reduction in hours and/or pay.
(snip)
RELIEF PROGRAM INSTRUCTIONS
Groceries available for pickup on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Pints & Union, 114 E. Market Street
1. Bring photo ID, recent pay stub
2. Pull car into alley beside Pints & Union, park near open door
3. Only take a feminine hygiene bag if you or someone in family needs one.
4. Only approach table to pick up bag/box of groceries after volunteer has reentered building. No one except volunteers are allowed in building.
To donate to Pints & Union's relief effort, visit The Lee Initiative. On the drop-down menu on its donation page, choose Southern Indiana (New Albany).
People can donate supplies such as hygiene products through the restaurant’s Amazon Wish List.
In addition to food and monetary donations, they have received other forms of support from the community. Orange Clover in Jeffersonville recently provided them with a freezer, and MESA, A Collaborative Kitchen in New Albany lets Pints & Union use its kitchen when needed, according to (owner Joe) Phillips.
Phillips said seeing small, independent restaurants rallying together to support their communities been a source of hope amid the pandemic, and he is grateful for the support Pints & Union has received from both the LEE Initiative and those in the Southern Indiana community.
“It’s not just the ones in need — the ones who don’t need anything are so supportive of us, and being an operation of four or five people, we’re just a really small outlet that’s been able to have a wide impact,” he said. “We couldn’t have continued to do without the LEE Initiative, Samtec, other donors and all those supported us.”
We're doing curbside carryout for the general public out the front door (Wednesday - Saturday), and workers relief from the alley side door (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday). These operations are separate from each other. Donations for relief go to relief, not to pub operations.
Donations are being routed through The LEE Initiative web site. Your donation goes straight to Pints&union for so long as this procedure is followed:
Enter the amount of your donation and click SUBMIT
Go to the drop-down menu that says "Would you like your donation to go to a specific city?"
Choose this one: "Southern Indiana (New Albany)":
Then complete the billing information and send. Your donation is tax deductible, and here's what the receipt looks like:
If you'd rather donate by cash, check or in kind, let me know and I'll route you to Joe Phillips: 502-468-9710; mayorbaylor@gmail.com
The LEE Initiative posted the following yesterday on Facebook. It's still amazing to me that we've become a component of a nationwide effort that was organized virtually overnight by The LEE Initiative. It's an amazing group of people.
We are here for you Southern Indiana!
Restaurant Workers Relief Program
Due to the closure of restaurants in Southern Indiana we have an urgent need for assistance for restaurant workers who find themselves suddenly without work, without a paycheck and without a support system.
Independent restaurants are at the center of the vibrant growth in America. For the past decade, we have relied on the stellar hospitality and positive PR of the independent restaurant scene to make New Albany and Southern Indiana a place we are incredibly proud of. But now restaurant workers need your help more than ever. If we don’t take a stand and do something now, there will not be an independent restaurant industry to speak of when the corona-virus crisis is over.
In partnership with Maker's Mark and Chef Edward Lee, the LEE Initiative turned Pints&union (Joe Phillips, owner) into a Restaurant Workers Relief Center for any restaurant worker who has been laid off or has had a significant reduction in hours and/ or pay.
We are offering help for those in dire need of food and supplies. Each night, we will pack to go dinners that people can come to pick up and take home. Dinners are offered on a first come, first serve basis with a limit of one per person unless there is an emergency situation.
We will also have essential supplies on hand. We will limit how much any one person can take of these supplies, but they will be handed out free to those in need. We will continue to offer this program until we can no longer financially support it.
Details of the program are below:
Pints & Union, 114 East Market Street, New Albany
Pick up time is 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday; drive through the alley side.
A month ago COVID-19 intervened just as I was trying to establish a regular writing routine at the Pints&union beer blog. Much of what I had planned to write was intended to address pub culture and the on-premise beer drinking experience, and these came to an abrupt end.
Fast forward a week, and suddenly we were allowed to sell alcoholic beverages for carryout, previously a coin flip of a privilege scattered randomly through the state of Indiana's impenetrable thicket of regulations.
Flipping one's business model overnight may not sound particularly challenging, but it is, and now more than ever before, something's better than nothing. It was good to start moving product again, if far more slowly than before. Beer is better when consumed, not as a museum piece.
There are two points I'd like to make today.
The first has to do with the way Pints&union specifically, and the restaurant business in general, has adapted on the fly to the challenges of the past six weeks.
In our case, Joe Phillips quickly embraced the need to participate in the relief effort for restaurant workers, and consequently we're now operating as a small grocery and commissary kitchen in addition to the evening hours of 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday for curbside carryout of food and drink.
Emergency reinventions have a way of becoming harbingers of the future, and I believe the pandemic responses are presaging an upheaval. At this juncture, I highly recommend reading this essay by a food writer in London. What he's saying here is what everyone in the business has been talking about.
... We are in uncharted waters: the industry has never seen this before, and all signs point to the likelihood that restaurants as we know them aren’t coming back for a while. To move forward, we must start by examining what we would like to save about the industry, giving space to the things that nourish us and our communities, and discarding what we believe doesn’t deserve to survive. After all, the real danger the restaurant industry faces isn’t annihilation – the danger is that it comes back the same as it was before.
Second, returning to the beer, I spent the past couple of days dreaming about smoked lager, Bamberg, travel and the occasional succulent sausage during the course of campaigning for the cause of all things Schlenkerla. These became Pints&union beer blog posts as a preface to seeing if the pre-selling of growlers from a special keg is an idea with legs.
Indeed it was. This morning the quarter-barrel of Schlenkerla Fastenbier took less than 40 minutes to sell out, which is gratifying. The growlers will be poured on Thursday morning, paid and collected over the weekend, and then the proceeds will be enough to pay for a few cases of bottled and canned beer to fill in gaps.
We're not making much money this way, but subsistence is the art of survival for the pub, allowing worker relief duties to take place concurrently.
The many significant ways, the world with which we re-engage after the coronavirus containment measures cease isn't likely to be the same as the one we inhabited just prior to St. Patrick's Day.
It isn't clear yet exactly what this means. Pouring a keg of Fastenbier dry via growlers on subscription isn't exactly what I thought I'd be doing in mid-April, but it's good enough for me at the present time as we await our new dimensions.
Speaking personally, I hope Schlenkerla and other breweries survive, and their beers continue to be available. At the moment, nothing seems certain.
Things started getting just a wee bit crazy on Thursday and Friday, and I trust this will help to explain it. I've tried to keep "official" pub communications separate from this blog and my own social media presence, but these are exceptional times and I want to push the news as far as possible.
Three weeks ago, Chef Edward Lee’s 610 Magnolia restaurant in Louisville KY was turned into a relief center for restaurant workers who’d been laid off or experienced a significant reduction in hours and/or pay because of the COVID-19 crisis.
Virtually overnight the LEE Initiative’s team (Lee, Lindsey Ofcacek, Collis Hillebrand and Kaitlyn Soligan) repurposed the organization to launch the Restaurant Workers Relief Program, providing food, supplies and assistance for restaurant workers in need. Just as quickly, it became a prototype for all of America.
Thanks to overwhelming community support, an anonymous private donor, and the continued generosity of Maker’s Mark, the LEE Initiative almost immediately was able to expand the Restaurant Workers Relief Program to 15 locations nationwide.
Restaurants across the country now are providing to-go meals, groceries, diapers and other essentials to those who need them.
Now, with support from Maker’s Mark, the LEE Initiative has awarded $10,000 grants to four like-minded organizations around the country.
The organizations receiving these grants were selected based on the positive work they’re already doing to support the restaurant industry during COVID-19.
Pints&union in New Albany (Joe Phillips, owner) is humbled to be one of the grant’s recipients, and the only one located in the state of Indiana.
The other three recipients are: Kelly English of Memphis TN (Fino’s Italian Deli); JJ Johnson of New York City (Fieldtrip Harlem restaurant); and Erik Bruner Yang of Washington D.C. (Power of 10 Initiative).
Prior to receiving this grant, Joe immediately pivoted Pints&union to do what’s possible to help people during the COVID-19 situation.
In addition to offering regular carryout/curbside to our customers (which we’ll continue to do), we’ve donated take and bake family meals and distributed groceries to service industry workers, single parents and local non-profits, including Rauch Inc., which provides services to people with disabilities.
Beginning Wednesday, April 8th, Pints&union will offer drive-through grocery service for restaurant workers from 5:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. on the alley side of our building. Restaurant workers must have their IDs and paycheck stubs as proof of employment.
We’re a small pub and intend to begin the campaign with five-days-a-week relief (Tuesday through Saturday) to start, aiming for seven later if it’s possible.
Note: Curbside carryout service will continue at the front of the building.
Inventory will change weekly or daily as donations arrive and are distributed. Times may vary depending on need and will be posted.
Take away meals are first come, first served and will consist of frozen soups, breads, pickled vegetables and the like. Extending the shelf life of donations and helping the food supply chain minimize waste are our chief goals. We’ll have life essentials on hand as well for those in need (limited supply). All variables are subject to change and we’ll keep everyone posted at Facebook and Instagram.
It must be stressed that the LEE Initiative’s grant is intended to serve as seed money. We need you to donate whatever you can, in cash or in kind, to help keep our relief efforts moving forward.
Go to: https://leeinitiative.kindful.com/
Select campaign: Restaurant Workers Relief Fund
Select amount: ($)
Go to this tab: “Are you funding a chef's grant program?”
Select: Joe Phillips RELIEF
Or, send us an e-mail at pints&union@outlook.com, and let’s get the conversation started. Thanks for your patronage and donations. We’ll continue to help for so long as help is needed.
Prior to Monday, I'd have found it hard to believe that a truck could come this close to felling the huge concrete building guard in the alley by Pints&union. It appears that American dipshit slapdash ingenuity has triumphed, because someone found a way.
In the process, more than a few gallons of oily liquid were spilled all over the alley, to be tracked up and down the sidewalk and into our building. We notified 3rd district councilman Phipps, who passed the information to the street department, and we'll see. The concrete is compromised and will have to be repaired, having done its duty admirably.
My guess? The company that services our used kitchen oil collector. Their phone number is right there on the collection vessel in the alley -- just in case the police launch an investigation.
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