BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: No one asked me, so here's what should happen next at the former Bank Street Brewhouse.

Day old bread, anyone?

After ten years in business the New Albanian Bank Street Brewhouse is closing at the end of May. NABC leaves 415 Bank Street considerably better than the company found it when Resch Construction began the building's renovation in 2008.

NABC "winding down" brewing at Bank Street Brewhouse, and Taco Steve "hanging up his apron."

What's done is done, so let's focus on the future. The sisters and building owner Steve Resch say they'd like to treat the vacated space as a unit, to be taken over as a turnkey.

Here's the inventory.

• Smallish kitchen
• Bar and dining room (50 seats?)
• Streetside patio (with garage doors)
• Indoor event area (50-odd seats, heated but not air-conditioned)
• Outdoor beer garden (100 or more potential seats, capable of being opened to the indoor event area by garage doors)
• Brewery (circa 2,000 barrel annual capacity) with bottling line, kegs, walk-in cooler and all the extras

The puzzle NABC spent ten years trying to solve is how to make these pieces fit together to produce a profit. In essence a brewing system is a machine that can produce a certain number of items each year. When the machine is idle, it costs money.

How much beer needs to be brewed, food served and butts placed in seats?

Naturally the presence of a fully functional brewery places the BSB property in a different stratum than other available restaurant and bar footprints downtown. Ironically, the same is true just two blocks away at the moribund River City Winery -- without the kettle and mash tuns, of course.

As a turnkey operation, and situated at the doorstep of the more populous Louisville market, Bank Street Brewhouse is ideally suited to become the satellite location of a larger, established "craft" brewery. Downtown New Albany is viable and the Sherman Minton is toll-free.

It might be ANY larger, established "craft" brewery, although an existing Hoosier entity would have a leg up in terms of legalities and name recognition. Granted, there aren't many fitting this description. There are a few, and perhaps an outsider lurking, with ambition ... and cash.

Bank Street Brewhouse came into being in 2009 as the larger of two NABC brewing systems, designed to achieve a better economy of scale for those beers intended for outside distribution (which ultimately became our Waterloo). When the BSB brewing system came on line, the pre-existing brewery at the Pizzeria & Public House became the smaller "research and development" brewery, where lesser-volume seasonals and specialties were brewed.

Reverse this scenario and it's easy to see how BSB's brewing capacity (15 barrel hot side, four 30-barrel fermenters) now could become the smaller specialty and seasonal facility for a larger brewer. Much of the brewery's output could be sold right on site. A portion might be shipped back to home base and other satellites, if any. Some capacity might be used to brew beer for other companies under contract, as NABC recently was doing for Mad Paddle in Madison, Indiana.

As BSB's brewery originally was configured, we calculated maximum annual production at approximately 2,250 barrels. In the main these were ales with a brief turnaround. This probably is too much beer for a stand-alone brewpub with on-site drinking and distribution alone.

However, it might depend on the brewing roadmap being followed. Allow me to propose a potential use that makes sense given the space allocations of brewery and public areas at 415 Bank Street.

Most of the existing regional craft brewery candidates for establishing a satellite brewery and taproom at the former Bank Street Brewhouse location in New Albany have product lines dominated by ales as opposed to lagers.

Nationally there has been a recent trend toward craft-brewed lagers, which take a bit longer to brew but in some cases are less expensive in terms of ingredients.

Consequently BSB's brewing system might be harnessed to a program of lager brewing, wherein the annual brew schedule could be recalculated to allow for the extra time required. The corresponding on-premise beer portfolio would be on the Bavarian model, with perhaps only four or five regular choices and a concise selection of seasonals. For a regional example, consider the Hofbrauhaus in Newport.

A Bavarian-style wheat ale program could accompany the lagers, and the parent brewery would ship in whatever of its other beers make sense. Depending on the investment, a retrofit with long-draw lines is possible. The variables are many, although not endless.

A VERY IMPORTANT INTERJECTION: The first objective is to use the brewing system to capacity. Size indeed matters. The NABC experience would have been very different if we'd have met projections and sold 2,000 barrels of beer after the first two years. Any future use of BSB's footprint by a brewery likely will be hybridized, in the sense that not all of what is being brewed will be consumed in one way (by the glass, carry-out, package, distribution), with the only caveat being that capacity must be achieved.  

In ten years none of us at NABC ever could manage to finish the outdoor space. By removing the old asphalt, adding gravel, planting vegetation and planning shade, the result on a smaller scale could be similar to the aforementioned Hofbrauhaus.

That's just beautiful, don't you think?

Barring a complete remodel of the food production area, it would not be possible to go full-frontal Bavarian. Then again, not every beer garden in Bavaria boasts a full menu card. Do the Bavarian "speisekarte" approach with sausages, snacks, meat and cheese plates, sandwiches and pretzels.

Another parallel example is the Capital Brewery in Middleton, Wisconsin (a suburb of Madison). It's one of my favorite spots in the Midwest.

The Capital Brewery Bier Garten is open April through October and often hosts live music as well as numerous public and private events. It is known as ‘Middleton’s Backyard’ and typically attracts over 1500 patrons on Fridays, May through September.

These are views of our last visit in 2016. The serving area is located behind us.

I'm not suggesting a prospective tenant emulate these examples precisely, only that I've been to Germany (and Wisconsin) often enough to see how the outdoor model works. There'd still be indoor space, but the beer garden could be a Louisville metro showplace.

---

My friend Mark asked if I was sad at the demise of Bank Street Brewhouse, and of course I am. At the same time, my mourning has been carried out in installments -- when those initial production predictions didn't come to pass, and when the founding kitchen closed in 2014, and when I left the company as a result of these and so many other factors.

To repeat, the sisters are doing the right thing in ending operations downtown and putting money back into the Grant Line location. There is no doubt about this, and I think it probably should have happened four or five years ago.

As such, another crucial point: whomever comes "next" will be inheriting equities and possibilities at a relative discount. Investment is required, though not to a ridiculous scale.

The brewing system's unexpected "between-the-cracks" size can nonetheless be an advantage for a larger established company, and the unfinished beer garden is a tremendous potential asset.

I'm optimistic that some one's going to agree with me -- and if they'd like toss a few farthings my way as a finder's fee, I'm down with it. 

Satire Warning: "Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents MyYard Urban Piazza, Dog Park and Beer Garden."

M noted this project out west, and it started me thinking about how badly it would fare in the hands of our own New Albany municipal government.

That why you can take your cult of personality and shove it.

Strolling through Quartyard San Diego, the new urban piazza

There’s a pig wearing a pink bow romping alongside a gray Great Dane at a dog park that just popped up in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood. Their owners look on, some sipping craft beers, others uploading photos to Instagram the curious encounter. This might be called a dog park, but pigs are clearly just as welcome.

This is the essence of Quartyard San Diego, a 25,000-square-foot outdoor pop-up, watering hole, and urban piazza where the creative, weird, and iconoclastic minds of the city have been gathering this summer. The area houses a sizable stage, dog run, picnic tables, and games like ladder ball and beanbag toss, as well as craft beer-pouring and sausage-slinging restaurants, food trucks, and a cafe—all housed in 14 retrofitted and repurposed shipping containers. The space is a cross-pollination of people, pigs, poodles, and ideas from all walks of life in San Diego.

Good grief, Wick's Pizza somehow has managed to tick off Harvest Homecoming worse than even me.

We cannot allow your proposal to disrupt normal Harvest Homecoming procedures downtown, given that normal Harvest Homecoming procedures already disrupt everything else downtown.
-- Board of Works (body language, not actual words)

In 2012, Wick’s Pizza had an idea to stage an outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming, and to share a measure of the branding with NABC. This idea was rejected, and I took issue with it.

... It is my belief that this story illustrates an ever-widening disconnect between the understandable self-identity (not to mention preservation instinct) of the part-time Harvest Homecoming, and the re-emergence of a full-time downtown business district with objectives, needs and identities of its own.

Why is Harvest Homecoming still allowed to throw its weight around in this manner for a mere four days a year, when the best strategy of potential benefit for all the city’s residents is to nurture and build a downtown capable of throwing its weight around, and accruing dividends, every single day of the year?

Then, in 2013, the Wick's plan was approved. Once again, I took note of it.

This year Wick's can have a tent during Harvest Homecoming, but in 2012, the tail was wagging the dog.

Today in the News and Tribune, Duniel Saddeath reveals that the Board of Works has approved a request by Wick's to use the adjacent parking lot for a tent during Harvest Homecoming, and that "since Wick’s won’t be using the official logo of the festival, permission from the Harvest Homecoming committee won’t be needed in order to set up the tent."

Ironically, once booth days started in 2013 and Wick's implemented its own fest plan, the pendulum came crashing back again, this time against the eatery's solar plexus. I was moved to comment, and let's repeat my words in full.

HH? WTF.

In a reversal of course from 2012, this year Wick's Pizza was given permission by the city to turn the adjacent parking lots into a "fringe" fest venue operating during New Albany's annual Harvest Homecoming booth days.

Wick's proceeded to spend quite a lot of money for tents, bands, fencing, security, port-a-lets, and all the other little necessities required to stage four days of good quality, locally-based entertainment.

Having done so, Wick's has spent the week experiencing petty harassment from entities ranging from state fire marshals down through city police. The latter evidently made up new rules (see "department, health") governing what folks outside the fenced enclosure are permitted to see, lest the merriment within actually compel them to enter and partake.

The point, at least to me, is yet another indication of the prevailing disconnect during Harvest Homecoming. Having approved the Wick's plan, wouldn't you think that the city would choose to work with the business entity, rather than remain aloof while components of government (in effect) work against the approval? It predictably has infuriated the business and building owner. And yet the city is silent.

Of course, considering the time and effort put into the week by Wick's, most of us instinctively grasp that only one hegemonic structure in town would have any reason to be alarmed, this being Harvest Homecoming itself, which is allowed to occupy downtown for four days in October as the rest of us search for the precise commandment, specific ordinance or cocktail napkin memo enabling the invasive takeover.

Can we please be honest? Harvest Homecoming's extractive business model depends on several things: The city must bear the brunt of infrastructure expenses under a flimsy rationale of economic development -- a rationale that now actively contradicts the principle of downtown revival.

Also, money spent during Harvest Homecoming needs to be directed whenever possible to vendors licensed and approved by Harvest Homecoming, as well as to events held by the festival. If one has only a few days to make maximum bank, then encouraging money to be spent elsewhere downtown is not part of the game plan.

Consequently, given that the Wick's extravaganza in 2013 arguably has been a financial threat to Harvest Homecoming's own riverside plan (and with vastly superior beer at the pizza place) ... even a layman can grasp the nature of the tail wagging this dog. You simply will not be able to convince me that the harassment isn't coming in some part from the orangemen.

Harvest Homecoming turns a deaf ear to complaints by downtown business people, which this year better resemble the roar of jets on the tarmac. City Hall smiles benignly and seeks to avoid involvement, and the rancor multiplies as economic development effort are delineated only with regard to the industrial park, in tandem with the likes of 1Si. It's remarkably ugly behind the facades this year, but as always in a town that is terrified by the most basic discourse, the only thing for sure is that no one will be wanting to talk about it. At all. Not now, and not ever.

And that's the nature of the problem, isn't it?

In 2014, the city (and Harvest Homecoming) chose a more familiar, cleaner pre-emptive strike, denying a third request by Wick's ... and that's right, I wrote about it.

Once again, Wick's Pizza falls victim to the hegemony of the Orange Shirted Harvest Homecoming Mafia. Who runs this town, anyway?

I was told yesterday that New Albany's Board of Public Works has denied permission to Wick's Pizza for a party tent outdoors during Harvest Homecoming.

This makes three years and three differing rationales v.v. Wick's, as the establishment continues to make a good faith effort to be involved during Harvest Homecoming's booth days.

The only thing consistent about it is inconsistency, but one thing is perfectly clear: Harvest Homecoming's Orange Shirted Mafia remains the tail wagging this town's dog, and it's just plain wrong.

Harvest of honor?

Someone may wish to explain to Wick's exactly how that works.

Once again, Wick's Pizza falls victim to the hegemony of the Orange Shirted Harvest Homecoming Mafia. Who runs this town, anyway?

I was told yesterday that New Albany's Board of Public Works has denied permission to Wick's Pizza for a party tent outdoors during Harvest Homecoming.

This makes three years and three differing rationales v.v. Wick's, as the establishment continues to make a good faith effort to be involved during Harvest Homecoming's booth days.

The only thing consistent about it is inconsistency, but one thing is perfectly clear: Harvest Homecoming's Orange Shirted Mafia remains the tail wagging this town's dog, and it's just plain wrong. I'm so old that I can remember City Hall claiming involvement in arbitrating Harvest Homecoming's annual downtown havoc.

So much for that, I guess. Let's have a look back:

---

August 21, 2013

This year Wick's can have a tent during Harvest Homecoming, but in 2012, the tail was wagging the dog.

September 26, 2012

Harvest Homecoming: When the tail wags the dog, we pause.

Harvest Homecoming 2013, Part Three: Recalling 2012, and tails wagging dogs.

Tuesday: Harvest Homecoming 2013, Part Two: No longer what downtown is about.

Monday: Harvest Homecoming 2013, Part One: More evolution, less fear.

In 2012, Wick’s Pizza had an idea to stage an outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming, and to share a measure of the branding with NABC. In 2012, this idea was rejected, but this year it was approved. Just recently I reprinted the third part of last year's Harvest Homecoming series, so I'll not do it again in this space. Here's the link:

This year Wick's can have a tent during Harvest Homecoming, but in 2012, the tail was wagging the dog.

The final paragraphs of the preceding suffice to reiterate my point.

"It is my belief that this story illustrates an ever-widening disconnect between the understandable self-identity (not to mention preservation instinct) of the part-time Harvest Homecoming, and the re-emergence of a full-time downtown business district with objectives, needs and identities of its own.

"Why is Harvest Homecoming still allowed to throw its weight around in this manner for a mere four days a year, when the best strategy of potential benefit for all the city’s residents is to nurture and build a downtown capable of throwing its weight around, and accruing dividends, every single day of the year?"

This year Wick's can have a tent during Harvest Homecoming, but in 2012, the tail was wagging the dog.

What a difference a year makes. 

Today in the News and Tribune, Daniel Suddeath reveals that the Board of Works has approved a request by Wick's to use the adjacent parking lot for a tent during Harvest Homecoming, and that "since Wick’s won’t be using the official logo of the festival, permission from the Harvest Homecoming committee won’t be needed in order to set up the tent."

Thank heavens for that last part. It would kill the edgy Wick's vibe to be shrouded in such stodginess. 

Curiously, last year around this time, the polar opposite reaction was forthcoming. The Wick's request was shelved. I'm reprinting in its entirety the piece published here last September. There was no valid reason for denying the request last year, and so I'm quite happy it has been granted this year. The next logical step? Active, ongoing city participation in reforming Harvest Homecoming, with or without the fest's cooperation. because it fits the emerging, revitalizing downtown street grid just like my high school basketball uniform fits me 35 years later ... which is to say, not at all.

---

Harvest Homecoming: When the tail wags the dog, we pause.

Tuesday: Harvest Homecoming: Not what downtown is about.
Monday: Harvest Homecoming: Do the evolution, don't fear the competition.

Wick’s Pizza on State Street is a popular year-round cornerstone of the independent business scene downtown, as well as a textbook example of the business model currently proving successful in revitalizing New Albany’s previously moribund downtown. Several weeks ago, Wick’s approached the New Albanian Brewing Company with the idea of staging an outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming.

Because the proposed venue is the municipal parking lot adjacent to Wick’s, requiring approval from the Board of Public Works, restaurant management was careful to vet the idea with city hall in advance, and an encouraging response was given. Consequently, planning for the event began in earnest.

The plan called for music, food and beer. NABC’s role would be that of designated local craft vendor amid the customary mass-market beer, and as such, the brewery would share a small measure of the event's identity with Wick’s, including the debut of our Hoosier Daddy seasonal beer release.

I participated in two lengthy discussions with Wick’s management about procedures and legalities expected by the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, because from the standpoint of the excise police, any time is a bad one to ignore alcoholic beverage laws – and Harvest Homecoming is an even worse time to do so.

All necessary insurance and security for the event was being procured. We decided that a portion of the event’s proceeds would be donated to Open Door Youth Services, the recently renamed Floyd County Youth Service Bureau. In my estimation, the plan looked solid. Apart from the weather, all the angles were being locked down.

---

Jarringly, the Wick’s beer garden proposal was tabled by the Board of Public Works upon its first hearing after Police Chief Sherri Knight voiced concerns about security and scheduling (i.e., the number of nights the beer garden would be in operation, and how long it would run into the evening).

Wick’s Pizza immediately began addressing these concerns, and yet approval still was not forthcoming.

In the absence of coherent explanations from city hall and the board of works, it fell to Chief Knight to explain the denial in an e-mail to Wick’s management. In my opinion, this explanation is unconvincing, amounting to this (paraphrased, and not her exact words):

We cannot allow your proposal to disrupt normal Harvest Homecoming procedures downtown, given that normal Harvest Homecoming procedures already disrupt everything else downtown.

---

I remain baffled. From whence stems this reluctance on the part of the powers that be to grant Wick’s Pizza's reasonable request to lawfully expand its business during Harvest Homecoming?

Granted, the Wick’s request is muddied owing to the city’s ownership of the parking lot, one that our officials value so very highly that it’s a persistent, ill-maintained eyesore (see it here).

In this day and age, liability always is a concern, but it is hard for me to believe that city hall’s early positive signals came to Wick’s without legal consultations occurring beforehand.

To be sure, prohibitionist sentiment might be a factor in this muddled response, although I hasten to point out that despite my personally favoring the thoughtful daily application of adult beverages, plenty of folks on the planet actually manage to enjoy pizza, rock ‘n’ roll and even (shudder) elephant ears without drinking, or while drinking lightly.

If there are neo-prohibitionists in government, the Wick’s denial becomes even more curious, as the most common reaction among city officials toward drinking is that there should be a wide variety of options for doing so responsibly; if not, how do we explain the reality of the aforementioned city-sanctioned, three-way riverfront development permits, which constitute a prime tool in the arsenal of any downtown economic development agent, even if Carrie Nation disapproves from beyond the grave?

In short, the city’s elected officials boarded this by-the-drink train quite some time ago, and have supported what amounts to a providential mechanism to attract investment in downtown – moreover, one that has jump-started revitalization all by itself. In 2006, at almost no expense to the city, three-way permits were made easier and less expensive to obtain, and entirely as predicted then, the investment quickly followed. Now, inarguably, downtown New Albany is on the regional map solely because of businesses just like Wick’s Pizza.

Given this reality, isn’t it completely understandable that vanguard businesses just like Wick’s would seek to schedule special promotions and events during Harvest Homecoming?

After all, some are far better placed than others to straddle the otherwise unfavorable target demographic line; if Harvest Homecoming’s annual china shop bull is disastrous for a boutique on Pearl, at least there’s a chance that a pizza place on State can find a way to participate by promoting a crowd-pleasing shindig.

How is this unreasonable?

If it is not reasonable, why does the city first approve criteria for enabling a business like Wick’s to prosper, and then quibble over a perfectly legitimate (and legal) request to enhance its activities during Harvest Homecoming, at the same time as other businesses are doing precisely the same?

There can be only one logical answer. Harvest Homecoming’s organizers evidently do not care for these newfound, multiple and diverse points of market competition for the dollars of drinking festival attendees, because multiple points of consumer happiness threaten Harvest Homecoming’s traditionally mass-market riverfront music tent hegemony ... and the lifeblood profit it garners there. To be succinct, the more year-round options exist downtown, the less attractive Harvest Homecoming’s glacial resistance to reinvent seems.

As I’ve been writing this essay, the ironies have proliferated. The Exchange pub and eatery, soon to open on Main Street a mere stone’s throw from Wick’s Pizza, now will run its own outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming. Because the event will be staged on private property, the Board of Public Works does not have jurisdiction over it, other than to warn about adherence to New Albany’s noise ordinance, which was last enforced at some point during the peak of grunge.

It’s good to know that. Maybe the police officers currently engaged in speed traps on Spring Street will start ticketing boom cars, too.

---

Yes, of course it is within the city’s powers to refuse the event request from Wick’s, and for reasons of liability alone, even if the city’s initial feedback was supportive of the beer garden idea. I must conclude that if the mayor’s own appointees in the police department and the works board rule against such a request, there wasn’t much support at the top in the first place.

Ah, but I’m far from unbiased, right?

After all, NABC is losing a chance to make a few bucks by selling locally brewed craft beer over on Main Street -- the “other” side of the Harvest Homecoming epicenter.

Except that we’ll still have our beer inside at Wick’s, just like always, and now there’ll probably be some on tap at Exchange’s temporary beer garden, too, seeing as these are business relationships we nurture year-round, and not only at Harvest Homecoming time. They see value in us, and we see value in them. That’s called reciprocity.

Indeed, I regret losing the chance to raise significant money for Open Door, although we’ll still do our best for them at Fringe Fest.

As for the “traditional” Harvest Homecoming tent set-up down by the riverside, it should suffice to observe that regional happenings ranging from Madison's RiverRoots to Lanesville’s Heritage Weekend now grasp the utility and plain good business sense of offering locally brewed craft beer to consumers in the present day and age.

Others? They have not.

It is my belief that this story illustrates an ever-widening disconnect between the understandable self-identity (not to mention preservation instinct) of the part-time Harvest Homecoming, and the re-emergence of a full-time downtown business district with objectives, needs and identities of its own.

Why is Harvest Homecoming still allowed to throw its weight around in this manner for a mere four days a year, when the best strategy of potential benefit for all the city’s residents is to nurture and build a downtown capable of throwing its weight around, and accruing dividends, every single day of the year?

Harvest Homecoming: When the tail wags the dog, we pause.

Tuesday: Harvest Homecoming: Not what downtown is about.
Monday: Harvest Homecoming: Do the evolution, don't fear the competition.

Wick’s Pizza on State Street is a popular year-round cornerstone of the independent business scene downtown, as well as a textbook example of the business model currently proving successful in revitalizing New Albany’s previously moribund downtown. Several weeks ago, Wick’s approached the New Albanian Brewing Company with the idea of staging an outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming.

Because the proposed venue is the municipal parking lot adjacent to Wick’s, requiring approval from the Board of Public Works, restaurant management was careful to vet the idea with city hall in advance, and an encouraging response was given. Consequently, planning for the event began in earnest.

The plan called for music, food and beer. NABC’s role would be that of designated local craft vendor amid the customary mass-market beer, and as such, the brewery would share a small measure of the event's identity with Wick’s, including the debut of our Hoosier Daddy seasonal beer release.

I participated in two lengthy discussions with Wick’s management about procedures and legalities expected by the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, because from the standpoint of the excise police, any time is a bad one to ignore alcoholic beverage laws – and Harvest Homecoming is an even worse time to do so.

All necessary insurance and security for the event was being procured. We decided that a portion of the event’s proceeds would be donated to Open Door Youth Services, the recently renamed Floyd County Youth Service Bureau. In my estimation, the plan looked solid. Apart from the weather, all the angles were being locked down.

---

Jarringly, the Wick’s beer garden proposal was tabled by the Board of Public Works upon its first hearing after Police Chief Sherri Knight voiced concerns about security and scheduling (i.e., the number of nights the beer garden would be in operation, and how long it would run into the evening).

Wick’s Pizza immediately began addressing these concerns, and yet approval still was not forthcoming.

In the absence of coherent explanations from city hall and the board of works, it fell to Chief Knight to explain the denial in an e-mail to Wick’s management. In my opinion, this explanation is unconvincing, amounting to this (paraphrased, and not her exact words):

We cannot allow your proposal to disrupt normal Harvest Homecoming procedures downtown, given that normal Harvest Homecoming procedures already disrupt everything else downtown.

---

I remain baffled. From whence stems this reluctance on the part of the powers that be to grant Wick’s Pizza's reasonable request to lawfully expand its business during Harvest Homecoming?

Granted, the Wick’s request is muddied owing to the city’s ownership of the parking lot, one that our officials value so very highly that it’s a persistent, ill-maintained eyesore (see it here).

In this day and age, liability always is a concern, but it is hard for me to believe that city hall’s early positive signals came to Wick’s without legal consultations occurring beforehand.

To be sure, prohibitionist sentiment might be a factor in this muddled response, although I hasten to point out that despite my personally favoring the thoughtful daily application of adult beverages, plenty of folks on the planet actually manage to enjoy pizza, rock ‘n’ roll and even (shudder) elephant ears without drinking, or while drinking lightly.

If there are neo-prohibitionists in government, the Wick’s denial becomes even more curious, as the most common reaction among city officials toward drinking is that there should be a wide variety of options for doing so responsibly; if not, how do we explain the reality of the aforementioned city-sanctioned, three-way riverfront development permits, which constitute a prime tool in the arsenal of any downtown economic development agent, even if Carrie Nation disapproves from beyond the grave?

In short, the city’s elected officials boarded this by-the-drink train quite some time ago, and have supported what amounts to a providential mechanism to attract investment in downtown – moreover, one that has jump-started revitalization all by itself. In 2006, at almost no expense to the city, three-way permits were made easier and less expensive to obtain, and entirely as predicted then, the investment quickly followed. Now, inarguably, downtown New Albany is on the regional map solely because of businesses just like Wick’s Pizza.

Given this reality, isn’t it completely understandable that vanguard businesses just like Wick’s would seek to schedule special promotions and events during Harvest Homecoming?

After all, some are far better placed than others to straddle the otherwise unfavorable target demographic line; if Harvest Homecoming’s annual china shop bull is disastrous for a boutique on Pearl, at least there’s a chance that a pizza place on State can find a way to participate by promoting a crowd-pleasing shindig.

How is this unreasonable?

If it is not reasonable, why does the city first approve criteria for enabling a business like Wick’s to prosper, and then quibble over a perfectly legitimate (and legal) request to enhance its activities during Harvest Homecoming, at the same time as other businesses are doing precisely the same?

There can be only one logical answer. Harvest Homecoming’s organizers evidently do not care for these newfound, multiple and diverse points of market competition for the dollars of drinking festival attendees, because multiple points of consumer happiness threaten Harvest Homecoming’s traditionally mass-market riverfront music tent hegemony ... and the lifeblood profit it garners there. To be succinct, the more year-round options exist downtown, the less attractive Harvest Homecoming’s glacial resistance to reinvent seems.

As I’ve been writing this essay, the ironies have proliferated. The Exchange pub and eatery, soon to open on Main Street a mere stone’s throw from Wick’s Pizza, now will run its own outdoor beer garden during Harvest Homecoming. Because the event will be staged on private property, the Board of Public Works does not have jurisdiction over it, other than to warn about adherence to New Albany’s noise ordinance, which was last enforced at some point during the peak of grunge.

It’s good to know that. Maybe the police officers currently engaged in speed traps on Spring Street will start ticketing boom cars, too.

---

Yes, of course it is within the city’s powers to refuse the event request from Wick’s, and for reasons of liability alone, even if the city’s initial feedback was supportive of the beer garden idea. I must conclude that if the mayor’s own appointees in the police department and the works board rule against such a request, there wasn’t much support at the top in the first place.

Ah, but I’m far from unbiased, right?

After all, NABC is losing a chance to make a few bucks by selling locally brewed craft beer over on Main Street -- the “other” side of the Harvest Homecoming epicenter.

Except that we’ll still have our beer inside at Wick’s, just like always, and now there’ll probably be some on tap at Exchange’s temporary beer garden, too, seeing as these are business relationships we nurture year-round, and not only at Harvest Homecoming time. They see value in us, and we see value in them. That’s called reciprocity.

Indeed, I regret losing the chance to raise significant money for Open Door, although we’ll still do our best for them at Fringe Fest.

As for the “traditional” Harvest Homecoming tent set-up down by the riverside, it should suffice to observe that regional happenings ranging from Madison's RiverRoots to Lanesville’s Heritage Weekend now grasp the utility and plain good business sense of offering locally brewed craft beer to consumers in the present day and age.

Others? They have not.

It is my belief that this story illustrates an ever-widening disconnect between the understandable self-identity (not to mention preservation instinct) of the part-time Harvest Homecoming, and the re-emergence of a full-time downtown business district with objectives, needs and identities of its own.

Why is Harvest Homecoming still allowed to throw its weight around in this manner for a mere four days a year, when the best strategy of potential benefit for all the city’s residents is to nurture and build a downtown capable of throwing its weight around, and accruing dividends, every single day of the year?

Who can tell me about picnic tables?

Capital Brewery's biergarten in Middleton, Wisconsin 

By now, many readers are aware that I’ve succeeded in legislating the Bank Street Brewhouse parking lot out of existence, and initiating a conversion into a rectangular space intended for human, not automotive, habitation.

We‘re calling it Lloyd’s Landing, in memory of Lloyd “Highwayman” Wimp, and it strikes me as important to concede from the outset our clear-eyed recognition that resources are lacking to transform overnight an expanse of fenced asphalt into the sort of patio/beer garden all of us would like to see. I had to start somewhere, and the first hurdle is cleared. Now we embark on a long, meandering pathway to completion, which after all is a longstanding NABC tradition.

The asphalt needs removing and a new surface (or surfaces) put down. Landscaping and abundant greenery must be planned, and already we’ve had a generous offer of assistance in that area. In the sense of daily operations, there is a ripple effect of having Lloyd’s Landing open and usable. It is an extension of the WCTU Reading Room, and so the Reading Room must be completed, as well as beer taps installed in the new, second bar area. There must be employees, procedures, scheduling, sweeping, signage – and can someone buy another case of cups?

However, in order to do so much as bluff our way through this at the barest of minimums, perhaps the second most important factor after the licensing itself is to have somewhere in Lloyd’s Landing for customers to sit.

Two things that all patios have in common are tables and chairs, and when it comes to areas designed for outdoor beer drinking, tables and chairs often merge into the unit we’ve come to know as the picnic table. In a Bavarian beer garden, these usually come detached, with benches not physically connected to the table. They’re certainly an option, and while pricey, can be purchased used in Louisville. The Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky, deploys them to marvelous effect.

Note that if we could afford a first-class buildout like the Hofbrahaus's exemplary Bavarian-style beer garden, I'd likely be living in Munich already.

Thinking outside "classic" boxes, non-traditional materials might conceivably be used, as with hints provided by these benches built from wooden pallets.

However, in an era of enlarged beer drinkers much like myself, I have recurring worries about durability.

Readers, what do you know about sources and pricing for standard, one-piece picnic tables in the American sense? I can be reached through the usual channels, such as roger(at)newalbanian(dot)com, and I’d appreciate whatever feedback you have to offer.

Bier Garten, as performed by Capital Brewery.

Capital Brewery's marvelous Bier Garten, in Middleton (by Madison), Wisconsin.