ON THE AVENUES: Sixteen of one, thirty five of another.
A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.
When Gravity Head comes calling, familiar space and time continuums can be briefly altered. Normal routines are rendered Byzantine by comparison. Life’s infinite horizons narrow, and one reverts to existence by the hour, minute by minute. Passing through the looking glass bores by comparison.
I’m not speaking of the fest’s actual commencement, because once the opening bell sounds on Friday morning, we all collectively observe the Sidney Freedman dictum from television’s M*A*S*H: “Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice - pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”
No, it’s the preparation for Gravity Head that saps working days and requires so much attention to detail during the run-up to the bacchanalia. We might choose to do it differently, but when it comes to what has unexpectedly become a tradition, the array of minor points adds up to a greater sum. It’s just a beer fest, but it’s more, and different from the rest.
In my opinion, the fundamental difference has been that from the very start, when we decided to have a second Gravity Head, we had no idea what the “proper” organization of a beer festival was supposed to be. Conventional wisdom eluded us, for which I remain grateful. Our aim has been to provide our regular customers and locally-based friends with as many opportunities as possible to taste a few special beers over a period of time. That’s it.
The beers never have been served all at once. They unfold in waves over a period of weeks. We don’t do flights, because flights imply a “right” to taste them all. Rather, the desired end is for folks to taste a few, and then return another time and taste a few more. Not too many at once, because they’re strong.
Of course, Gravity Head’s opening day has become somewhat of a scrum, and a singular tradition all its own. I’m content with the interior logic occurring there, but it isn’t what I look forward to experiencing each year. Rather, there’ll inevitably be a quiet Tuesday night on the second or third week, with a handful of friends, and leisurely, contemplative sipping of one or two quality libations, spiced with conversation. These are the precious times that lead to feelings of timelessness.
And timelessness is why I like beer, among other reasons.
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The 16th edition of Gravity Head begins tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. at NABC’s Pizzeria & Public House. It reminds me that 2014 marks the 35th year of my professional beer drinking career.
The autumn of 1979 provided a familiar impetus for renouncing amateur status and turning pro. There was a messy breakup of a relationship, and one morning during the worst of it my car suddenly veered away from IU Southeast’s parking lot in the direction of a nearby package store. I wasn’t carded, and breakfast magically became two quart bottles of Colt ’45.
There was no looking back – except at those embryonic years of preparation, perpetually trapped in adolescence, but looking enviously at juicy adult privileges just around the corner.
Apart from wee nips taken during childhood from bottles of my father’s Oertels 92, my first real "cold one" was consumed at a junior high school party. Actually, four of us split a single can of Budweiser while hiding in the woods, safe from the prying eyes of the hostess’s parents, ostensibly attaining instant credibility by boasting of beer on our breaths and inexpertly mimicking the outward appearance of drunkenness.
Later, like so many generations of New Albanians, my gang ascended another rung around the time that our first driver’s licenses were issued. Wheels meant easy access to the bountiful paradise of Louisville’s west end liquor stores, just down Vincennes Street and across the claustrophobic steel lanes of the K & I toll bridge.
Raging acne and social ineptitude generally precluded my being chosen as the one to go inside Liken’s or the Corner Store. Consequently, I was at the mercy of my companions’ tastes in beer, and this was problematic, because at this early stage of my palatal development the "flavor" of a beer was the single biggest impediment to ingesting its desired alcohol. My friends liked Sterling and Pabst. I didn’t, but they were doing the heavy lifting of acquisition. Being in no position to argue, I learned to adapt by chilling.
The colder the beer, the less “flavor” it had, and the more I could drink of it. Accordingly, my mission in life became Styrofoam cooler maintenance – to nurture it, to protect it from harm, and most importantly, to keep it filled with ice.
But in high summer the cans got warm very quickly. Crammed into the back seat of a late model junker, and pulling the tab on an ice-cold can straight from the ice, I managed to down the first frozen gulps before being overwhelmed with the dismaying recognition that in spite of all reasonable precautions, the can still contained rapidly warming Sterling or Pabst.
Chugging made me gag. What to do?
A sufficient interval would pass, enough to encourage a carload’s presumption that the warm and thoroughly vile can in my hand had been emptied, and then the time would arrive for throwing it out the window. This called for consummate skill. In the fetid humidity of a hot summer evening, misjudging the distance from the open window of a moving car to the muffled cushion of a grassy rural roadside meant disgrace if a loud "thump" echoed through the valley as the half-full can struck unrelenting pavement.
The verbal abuse to follow was not at all good-natured. After all, hadn’t we driven all the way to Louisville to spend every last dime on beer?
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And so it came to pass that in this manner, slumped shamefully in the back seat trying desperately to choke down a warm Sterling, I resolved to become a better beer drinker than all of them.
Granted, the precise meaning of “better” remained unclear, but as the others began to plan their careers in physics, cosmetology, and insurance sales, I worked at developing a feel for the generic concept of beer, which I came to understand as light-bodied and usually bastardized when compared to the golden continental lager that inspired it, and a taste for its flavor, or at least those discernable qualities differentiating it from cola and orange juice.
After turning pro, these youthful stumbles were brushed aside in favor of broader experiences. It was hard work to progress from the degradation of Schaefer "Weekender" 30-packs to the sublime pinnacle of Belgian Trappists and American Barley Wines, but at least those swill-soaked years of my youth were not wasted. Unless they were. I’m glad I’m older now.
Happy Gravity Head!
