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 weary of retail "innovation" that exists primarily to produce spewing ad copy mumbo-jumbo about serving the needs of customers, but is designed to boost profits and eliminate human beings from situations of interaction.
Even if you drink alone because you prefer to be by yourself, it's sad to imagine you'd be serving yourself.
What the hell are people thinking? Beer is something robots can't drink. "Self-pour" is a bean counter's masturbatory delight, but learning about beer from staffers is the ideal.
And don't get me started about the breathlessness of this writer. People are frustrated at waiting a couple minutes to flag down a busy server?
Forget BYOB. Instead, PYOB — pour your own beer — is the new term in town. And those who have suffered through the frustration of flagging down a busy bartender for a simple draft pour have many reasons to get excited about this brewing trend.
My ultimate goal is to provide updates like this one at the Pints&union website, then disseminate them by e-mail and Facebook links. We're gradually making progress toward making the web site functional in this regard, so until then I'll try to get in the habit of offering brief beer updates here at the blog.
We have ten draft lines, six of which don't rotate (the top two rows in the illustration) and the seventh pouring St. Bernardus Tripel most of the time, although St. Bernardus Abt12 will make an annual appearance in winter.
Consequently three draft lines currently are changeable, although Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (the standard golden/amber variety) will continue pouring through the end of August, giving away to Oktoberfest come September. For those who favor the Dunkel (dark) version of Weihenstephaner's famous wheat ale, it is available in bottles.
Meanwhile Sierra Nevada Hoptimum is described as a Triple IPA. I took a nip while changing the keg and it fully resembles these remarks:
Our brewers selected the finest, most flavorful hops, pushed them beyond their limits and forged them into this all-new triple IPA. This reimagined Hoptimum is our hoppiest beer yet, providing a blend of tropical and citrus hop aroma that delivers a refined yet aggressive character.
The Akasha Brewing Company crew visited Pints&union last week for the unveiling of Otterburn English Brown, and it's a wonderfully characterful slice of northern English ale insinuation, subtle and quaffable. When Otterburn depletes, there's a partial of Cigar City Maduro Brown waiting to be finished. My muse has yet to inform me what happens after that.
Queued and ready to replace Sierra Nevada Hoptimum is another exciting choice from Central State Brewing in Indianapolis: Honey Bop, a Farmhouse India Pale Ale with honey and sea salt. It's a collaboration with a bar/eatery in Indy.
Inspired by Love Handle's culinary genius in combining diverse ingredients to create the perfect dish, we took a simple base of flaked oats & Indiana malted barley and added orange blossom honey, a touch of sea salt, and a ridiculous amount of Citra and Simcoe Cryo hops.
Here's the list of bottles and cans. Note that Monnik IPA in 12-ounce cans currently is out of stock. We went through two cases in a little over two weeks, which is very good for a pub our size. Even though I seldom drink IPAs these days, Monnik's version is pleasing to me, simple and good: "American IPA featuring only 2 malts and hopped with Centennial, Cascade and Mosaic."
A final note about the new Pint Night Partnership at Pints&union:
Beginning Thursday, June 6 we’re offering a new Pint Night initiative to give back to our community in a more productive way. We’ll be selecting a charity or nonprofit to feature each month and donating a dollar from every regularly priced draft beer sold on Thursday nights. These programs and projects also will have a platform to inform the good people who frequent our little pub. For the month of June, we’ll be partnering with The Food Literacy Project, which provides farm-based experiential education and entrepreneurial youth development programs that bring the field-to-fork experience to life for local youth. Folks from the FLP Stewards Program will be here to chat about their farms and programs and will gladly accept any additional donations. Food and cocktail specials featuring produce grown in their fields are in the works. We’re really excited to be helping a good cause and look forward to hearing and tasting all the good things the Food Literacy Project has to offer. Check them out at www.foodliteracyproject.org
The current draft lineup at Pints&union is a very good representation of what I've been hoping to achieve in a concise, ten-tap setting.
Taken in concert with the bottle and can selection, our beer list might not be the biggest or even the "best," whatever THAT means these days, but there can be no doubt that it is downtown New Albany’s most thoughtful: bitter and malty, sweet and sour, big and small, foreign and domestic.
The "classic" quotient is high and the "trendy" buzz low, and purposefully so, but if all the others are kaleidoscopic hamster wheels, intelligent and stable design becomes the most revolutionary concept of all.
Monday is the day for ordering beer. Since the selection at Pints&union largely is fixed by design, only a few draft slots are open to periodic rotation, as well as three or four spaces on the shelf for changeable bottles and cans.
When you choose to approach the staging and vending of rotating drafts as I do, with fewer of them as intended to complement the majority of year-round offerings, lots of weird variables pop up.
Generally speaking I'm looking for established brands with a lineage, now undervalued owing to the predominance of the new and (occasionally) ephemeral. They can be ales and lagers, hoppy and malty, American and imported -- but my objective is that they fit together and provide balance with contrast. We have ten draft lines, and the one thing I don't want is for all of them to be examples of India Pale Ale.
I don't like to drink at places with 15 draft lines and 12 IPAs, and the reason I feel this way is equal parts personal and professional.
Personally, it's simply overkill. There are dozens of beer styles and sub-styles, calibrated to enhance one's life in myriad ways, although this isn't possible when hops outweigh everything. I don't eat burgers three meals a day, and it isn't my objective to drink the same style of beer each time.
Professionally, it makes no sense to me to cannibalize the sale of IPAs among multiple handles when it remains true that a majority of the beer drinking public does not support such a division. By all means, have some of them on tap; IPAs drive the market when it comes to noise, activism and perception, but you can't convince me that the biggest slice (IPA) of a minority product (craft beer) constitutes a majority.
Find a market for an undervalued beer that isn't IPA and brings people back for more, and you're nurturing the sort of loyalty that survives shifting trends.
The problem I didn't expect to experience in all this is the difficulty of sourcing neglected classic beers. Often I'll peruse the wholesaler books and see brewery listings with availability restricted to their IPAs. It's a tad frustrating at times. Then again, I knew going in that the counter-revolution would be as much of an uphill route as the original revolt.
Viva the restoration! Coming up soon on the rotating taps at Pints&union:
Monnik King George (English Brown)
Abbaye du Val-Dieu Tripel (Abbaye Tripel)
Central State Nephilim (Russian Imperial Stout w/coffee)
Don't worry, hopheads; there'll be IPAs rotating through as commensurate with scale and variety -- just not all at the same time. After all one of the very best is Bell's Two Hearted, and it's on tap every day of the year.
Many of you know it's been an uphill struggle to keep draft Anchor Porter in stock at Pints&union. I take these matters seriously, perhaps too much so. In my previous career, tussles with beer wholesalers were the stuff of legend, and although I'm trying my best to curb my rants, it can be disconcerting to feel that so little headway is possible after long months pass.
But enough of that. Let's look at a glass half full.
Lately I've returned to doing what always used to be necessary, which is going above the heads of wholesalers and speaking directly to importers and brewers.
As such, I've richly enjoyed working with the regional representative for Fuller's, which is distributed in America by Paulaner USA. In no time at all, he's been able to secure a promise from our wholesaler for more consistent shipments of Fuller's London Pride draft into Indiana, which means we shouldn't go through another two-month London Pride drought, as occurred in August a mere two weeks into Pints&union's opening phases.
In turn, this fact has flipped the paradigm for Porter. Accepting that distribution logistics resemble theology, a discipline impenetrable to the ordinary human mind, the upshot for Pints&union goes something like this:
addressing the Anchor Porter draft shortfall was going to be a long haul proposition for us, and a disproportionate use of our time for one spout
my previous hope to stock Fuller's brands in bottles still isn't possible, being unaffected by more regularity in Fuller's draft shipments owing to the wholesaler's inability/unwillingness to sell meaningful volumes of bottled Fuller's brands in Indiana BUT
ironically and concurrently, more timely London Pride shipments mean that other Fuller's draft selections might arrive regularly, too
Draft selections just like Fuller's London Porter.
Joe Phillips and I talked about draft Fuller's London Porter constantly during the pub's planning stages, and it was our first choice; Anchor Porter was second, and after that, the deluge.
Consequently, I think you can see where this is going.
We're both enthused and delighted to announce that until some other fundamental variable in distribution changes without warning, Pints&union will be adding Fuller's London Porter on draft as a full-time pour, starting whenever the kegs begin arriving (late December or early January).
We'll be stocking Anchor Porter in bottles once the draft runs dry. As we await the arrival of Fuller's London Porter in kegs, the Anchor Porter draft slot will be used for a final remaining keg, then rotating Porters, with the exception (I hope) of a keg of Anchor Christmas Ale nearer the holiday.
I regret not being able to make good on draft Anchor Porter, which I adore, and it isn't easy for me to admit defeat. However, it cannot be denied that Fuller's London Porter is an excellent choice.
A modern take on the 19th century porter style, Fuller’s rich, chocolatey London Porter recaptures the brooding beauty of pre-Victorian London. It’s evocative of simpler times but it’s a wonderfully complex pint.
As London’s last remaining family brewer, we’re fierce defenders of the city’s tradition for porter beer. Porters boomed in the capital centuries ago, and though the style died out in the early 1900s, Fuller’s London Porter put it back on the map once again. Rich, dark and classically creamy, this is a beer with reach far beyond our capital. It has won awards right across the globe and is widely regarded as the world's finest porter.
Brewed to 5.4% ABV, London Porter bears outstanding depth of flavour. The blend of Brown, Crystal and Chocolate malts provide earthy character and creamy delivery, while hints of coffee and chocolate carry through onto the tongue. The range of flavours works well with a wide variety of foods, from rich meat dishes to chocolate puddings.
We returned from Gdansk, Poland on Tuesday evening, and no, a keg of Zwiec Porter was not among the checked luggage.
However, my first-ever draft tasting of this wonderful Baltic Porter will not soon be forgotten. Note the absence of compunction with regard to my chosen Gdansk establishment's big fat half-liter pour of the 9.5% abv elixir.
Back home at Pints&union, I can state with near certainty that our long period of unpredictability with regard to the draft lineup will come to an end next week.
Hallelujah.
Although it might get a tad confusing in the interim, please give me until next Wednesday (November 14), when I earnestly hope the following will occur.
Draft Anchor Porter finally will return
A lengthy run of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale will commence
There'll be no outages of Pilsner Urquell, Fuller's London Pride, Guinness, Falls City and Bell's Two Hearted Ale (by the way the latter, temporarily depleted, should return tomorrow, Friday, November 9)
There'll be a new selection in the rotating Serendipity tap slot for just a bit longer until Thanksgiving weekend arrives, when Bloomington Brewing Company's Persimmon Ale and Dogfish Head Punkin will be tapped
Prior to our departure last Monday, I told you about a one-off keg of Donum Dei 812 Nouveau Harvest IPA.
Apologies for the current absence of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier; I know how fond of it some of you are, and it remains my intention to keep bottles stocked when draft is out of season. We'll have it back next week, and until then, allow me to recommend Schneider Weisse -- same style, different brewery.
Our last keg of Revolution (Chicago) Oktoberfest ran dry on Sunday, and as a short-term replacement, the focus shifts to Southern Indiana and a single half-barrel of Donum Dei Brewstillery's 812 Nouveau Harvest IPA, wet-hopped with hops grown near Nashville, Indiana.
Local beer writer Kevin Gibson previewed 812 Nouveau earlier in the month, and I completely agree with his assessment. I bought a growler recently from Donum Dei's taproom on Grant Line Road just to make sure.
Cross your fingers, because when 812 Nouveau is gone, we'll be very close to beginning what I hope will be an extended run for draft Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.
There aren’t a lot of hop farms in the Louisville area or even the region, for that matter, but as they begin to creep in, we may find new chances to drink local beer made with fresh hops.
Most hops are grown out West, largely in Washington state, and then pelletized and shipped. But some beers, such as Founders Harvest Ale, are made with hops pulled straight from the vine and placed directly into the beer.
A local example is available now from Donum Dei Brewstillery in New Albany in the form of 812 Nouveau Harvest IPA, made with fresh or “wet” hops, grown at Eight One Two Farms in Nashville, Indiana, about 90 miles north of Louisville.
Richard Otey, owner of Donum Dei, said 812 Nouveau is basically an Amarus — one of the brewery’s core beers — brewed with fresh Cascade hops from Eight One Two. If a nouveau (French for “new”) wine is made with newly-harvested grapes, then 812 Nouveau is its beer counterpart, he said. In other words, it’s a first product that offers a glimpse into what’s to come from the harvest ...
For many months prior to the opening days of Pints&union in early August, I spent lots of time detailing my objectives for the draft lines.
In short, I wanted to put five or six classic beers on draft and leave them alone -- not constantly rotate them like seemingly every other bar does these days, but test my pet theory that amid the constant gilt and flash, there's still a place for old-school brand loyalty.
Because ... brand loyalty still works for mainstream beers, doesn't it?
If you're a Bud Light or Lite drinker, you probably needn't worry about your regular joint rotating these brands. Maybe craft and import drinkers would appreciate stability, too, with two or three lines still available for seasonal and specialty fare.
The comfort/legacy/heritage brands I want come from Monarch
The company's size ensures excellent tech support
The was (and remains) a personal connection in the form of a friend who works there
Things got off to a wonderful start -- for 12 whole business days.
Then our third keg of Fuller's blew, and there was no more (it recently returned after two months absent).
Then Anchor Porter ran dry, with no reinforcements for at least two months, and none yet.
As of last week, it was Pilsner Urquell's turn; maybe next week for Anchor Porter and Pilsner Urquell, maybe next year -- hey, who knows?
The happier flip side is that Guinness and Bell's Two Hearted have not disappeared, at least yet, and Cavalier, our other primary wholesaler, has assured a steady supply of Falls City. It's the sixth fixed draft selection and the only permanent pour not to be sourced from Monarch.
To summarize:
Pints&union has been in business for 70-odd days. During this time, we've had the ideal draft lineup in place for only the first 12.
That's simply inexcusable. 12 divided by 70 comes out 17%, which is a batting average of .171 for Monarch/World Class thus far when it comes to supplying five (5) beers that by no means are rare enough to merit such futility.
Retailers don't have the luxury of being this inefficient, and I'm not kidding you when I say it galls me, because Monarch has a government-mandated monopoly. We can't get Fuller's or Pilsner Urquell from a different wholesaler, only Monarch. If they're out of stock, there is no recourse.
All this said, we'll get past it. All these recent substitutions don't thrill me. It isn't the way I'd prefer to do it. So be it. Here's what will be happening in the next few days as we get the draft lines back into some semblance of order following the Harvest Homecoming craziness and Monarch's persistent ... er, issues.
The symbol → means "next" or "then."
Pilsner Urquell → Daredevil German Pils
Bell's Two Hearted
Bell's Porter
North Coast Le Merle Saison → 18th Street English Brown Ale
Revolution Oktoberfest → Donum Dei 812 Nouveau Wet-Hopped IPA
Fuller's London Pride
I'll be back later in the week to write about 812 Nouveau Wet-Hopped IPA and Liam's Hill scrumpy cider.
The latter is from the Thomas Family Winery in Madison IN and will be on tap at Pints&union for a good while, as Steve has set aside four kegs of it. This will mean operating with one fewer beer tap, but for a cider as good as this, it's an easy swap.
For fans of Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, summer's over. However, we'll be stocking the same beer in bottles.
Depending on when the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale kegs arrive at North Vernon, our third of three wholesalers, they'll follow Donum Dei and pour through Christmas so long as supplies hold up.
Exactly when these various draft pieces fall into place this week isn't clear yet, but I'll be doing my best to make it sensible.
Normally I'm not prone to hyperbole, but I'll make an exception in the case of Pilsner Urquell.
While Joe Phillips and the boys were busting their buns at Pints&union with the Harvest Homecoming crowds, I was lurking behind the scenes, gaining some valuable yardage toward a few of our beer program goals.
Among these are access to a broader range of Fuller's, both on draft and in bottles; Christmas specialty pre-orders; and prospects for the "three pour" Pilsner Urquell draft set-up in the opening video.
As for the latter, all due credit to our Monarch/World Class sales rep Joe Underwood for getting the ball rolling. We both love Pilsner Urquell, and it's a natural fit for the beer program.
From the moment Joe mentioned it, my mind has been fixed on Pilsner Urquell. It remains a core comfort beer for me, and a love affair that stretches all the way back to 1982, when Big Dave Pelham introduced me to the world's original Pilsner.
On the topic of originality -- we know this beer by its German language name, which translates as "coming from the original source in Pilsen" -- it should come as no surprise that Pilsner Urquell's background has been subject to a degree of mythologizing.
Evan Rail, a Californian maintaining long-term residence in Prague, has written extensively about Czech beer in general, and Plzeňský Prazdroj (the beer's trademark name in Czech) in particular.
There’s something bizarre about a beer with a groundbreaking 175-year history that has to go around introducing itself.
“The most difficult thing is that the brand’s awareness is just really low,” says David Schmid, director of high-end imports for Tenth and Blake, about Pilsner Urquell, one of his company’s premier brands. “It’s a great beer. It’s got a great story. But very few people know about the beer and know the story.”
Schmid is talking about the situation in the U.S., of course, far from Pilsner Urquell’s homeland of the Czech Republic, but you’d still think that most Americans wouldn’t need an explainer for a brewery that gave its name both to a type of beer and a kind of malt, not to mention the traditional fluted Pilsner glass. Pilsner Urquell was being imported to the U.S. by 1873, three years before Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch launched their American Budweiser, and it had become the best-selling imported beer in the U.S. by the time Prohibition darkened our taverns in 1920 ...
Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of Rail's stellar sleuthing last year, when I finally got around to writing about my European travels in 1987.
These wanderings included an abortive attempt to visit the brewery during a day trip from Prague; communism wasn't very conducive to spontaneous decision-making, although I've made it inside on two occasions since the Velvet Revolution.
Following is a reprint of my account of our deterred pilgrimage in 1987. It was an epochal day nonetheless, and is best accompanied by Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic dances, which in my mind always will be synonymous with my passage through the Czech countryside.
For as long we’d been talking about visiting Czechoslovakia, Barrie and I had considered only two firm itinerary prerequisites. Prague obviously landed at the top of the chart. Perhaps less easy to understand at first glance was the city of Plzeň (or Pilsen), 65 miles southwest of Prague, with a present-day population of 178,000.
As a recorded settlement, Plzeň goes back to the year 976. The city remained Catholic during the Hussite wars and became an increasingly important trading center on the route to Germany. In 1869, the founding of the Škoda Works kicked off an era of rapid industrialization, which made Plzeň one of the arsenals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
All those Škoda automobiles we saw in Czechoslovakia? They were manufactured in Plzeň, but we weren’t gearheads, and preferred to take the train, not drive, because drunk driving isn’t good, and our plan for Plzeň involved drinking a great deal of Pilsner Urquell beer -- or as it was known in Czechoslovakia, Plzeňský Prazdroj.
The very word “Pilsner,” as it has come to English speakers, is both an adjective and an appellation: Beer from Plzeň. Obviously, beer has been brewed in Plzeň for centuries, though the current Pilsner Urquell brewery dates from 1842.
The story goes something like this: Certain families in Plzeň had been granted brewing rights during medieval times, and this functioned as a monopoly of sorts, with no incentive to improve. Consequently, the quality of beer in the city deteriorated during the early 1800s, ironically at the very same time as modern brewing techniques were being harnessed to the scientific method elsewhere in Europe – significantly, in nearby Vienna and Bavaria.
In Plzeň, it gradually dawned on the diverse stakeholders that the spirit of the age, and the “higher tech” direction being traveled by beer and brewing science, suggested a pooling of resources to achieve better quality and competitiveness. The Pilsner Urquell brewery was capitalized and born from this revelation, at an indisputably ideal juncture.
Modern malting processes now yielded consistent, pale malts. The water in Plzeň was soft, and hops grew in abundance nearby. The notions of selectively standardizing yeast strains and aging ("lagering") beer resulted in a mellow flavor profile. It was clear, not cloudy, and brilliant gold. Glassware was becoming affordable for all, and the color and clarity were accented by glass rather than submerged by dense ceramic or wooden mugs.
The new beer’s body was lighter and less sweet. A generous hopping rate helped make the beer crisp, and renewed the palate. Pilsner Urquell represented modernity, and became the prototype and yardstick. Soon dark, heavy beers were all but obsolete. The world wanted golden lagers brewed more or less (mostly less) like Pilsner Urquell.
Needless to say, we'd come to adore Urq, as Barrie called it.
The red star is no more.
When Barrie and I graduated from high school in 1978, Cut Rate Liquors in Jeffersonville was the only package store in Southern Indiana with a selection of imported beers. What we now categorize as craft barely existed, even in California.
Regular examinations of the wares at Cut Rate revealed the existence of exotic, unexplored modes of thinking and drinking. Most of them were golden lagers from around the world, but there also were dark lagers, British ales and even a few Belgians.
Money was tight, and sampling meant splurging. There was no source of information, apart from bottle labels and six-pack cartons. Still, every now and then we took the risk and tried a new beer. The flavors were different, and hinted at broader horizons.
In 1982, two of my good friends intervened with essential personal testimony. Both of them had "gone away" to college, to study in places less parochial than Floyd County. Larry returned to the fold singing the praises of Guinness Extra Stout, and Dave introduced me to Pilsner Urquell, then sold in four-pack cartons for a lofty $3.99 plus sales tax.
I was intrigued. I’d had Molson, Labatts and Beck’s, but what was the spicy character in Pilsner Urquell, that piquant bitterness cutting through creamy grain flavor? It was something I hadn’t experienced in Blatz. Dave wasn’t sure, but he thought it had something to do with hops. Guinness was black like coffee. It was dry, roasty and daunting in a way that defied categorization, and completely unlike any "dark" beer I’d had before.
Insight: You mean there were different sorts of dark beers, too?
These always had intrigued me, along with pumpernickel, rye and other departures from the Wonder Bread norm. Finally, liberated from the longnecks of our fathers, the notion of beer was starting to make better sense.
All I needed was a lot more money and a plane ticket.
It was left to Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson’s original book “World Guide to Beer” (1977), as culled from the remainder table at a mall bookshop, to become the cosmic text that wove all the threads into a coherent whole. An updated “New World Guide to Beer” was published in 1988.
Jackson offered the saga of beer as a long and fascinating one, ranging across all aspects of the human experience.
To him, beer is about science and art, farms and cities, social history, local culture and geography. It's about the places you've gone, and the ones you'd like to go. It's about different textures and flavors to match your mood, the time of day, the season, and the task at hand.
With Jackson’s book as a guide, the obscurities of these imported beer brands gradually became comprehensible. I began working at Scoreboard Liquors, a small store in New Albany, and was allowed to replicate Cut Rate’s import selection just so long as it was kept to one door of the six opening into the walk-in cooler.
Barrie and I drank bad beer often, but when the stars aligned and finances allowed, we drank better ones. My work discount helped, and after returning from my first European excursion in 1985, it became ever more difficult to return to the everyday Bud this, Miller that.
I wasn’t a snob so much as a flavor junkie.
(As an indication of the way one’s memory plays tricks, I was about to add that Jackson’s television series The Beer Hunter was an inspiration for our Ur-Quest in 1987, but it couldn’t have been. The series debuted in the UK in 1989, and in America the following year.)
---
July 15, 1987
We caught a train from Prague to Plzeň, got there well before noon, and reconnoitered. From the station, the Pilsner Urquell brewery was easy to see and smell, although we knew to inquire at the official state-run Čedok travel agency (actually established in 1920, prior to communism), which surely would be located somewhere in the center of the city.
It was. This task was accomplished in due course, and we were summarily rebuffed. No one at Čedok had the slightest interest in helping us score a brewery tour. The lone English speaker we found was exasperated; didn’t everyone on the planet know that Pilsner Urquell brewery tours only took place once a week on, well, any day except today?
It was frustrating, but this was the nature of things during Czechoslovakia’s final years of erosion prior to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. There was no benefit for a travel agency employee to go out of his way to help us; perhaps a bribe might have helped, but our lone English speaker had a very hard face, indeed.
Plan B was commenced. We walked to the Pilsner Urquell brewery and made tepid inquiries at the guard shack. No English was spoken; at least the rejection was friendlier.
For years afterward, Barrie’s version of what happened next remained consistent and only slightly exaggerated:
“We couldn’t get inside the brewery, so I went over, kissed the lock on the gate, and we went to the tavern instead.”
The forbidden city.
Fair enough. To the left of the gate was the brewery’s “official” tavern. It seemed appropriately upscale, at least in contrast to the next closest Pilsner Urquell outlet, located across the street, which was on the ground floor of a 1920s-era structure, smaller and shabbier, and alluring in a counter-intuitive way.
We opted for the well-appointed “official” brewery tap first, probably because the odors of pork and dumplings were leaking through the windows and clinging to our clothes, and we needed to eat immediately. Once inside, we admired the wooden interior and beautiful windows.
Drinking, dining and pervasive deliciousness was the result, and there even was an inadvertent floor show, showcasing the intoxicated antics of a visiting delegation of North Koreans, who were having far too much fun in a communist country that actually had drinkable beer.
It transpired that using the restroom meant passing the Czech restaurant-standard coat check desk. There were few coats to check in high summer, but full employment meant staffing irrespective of the need, and at one point when the two of us walked past, the coat check attendant addressed us and sidled over.
In a low voice, she asked if we were American, and we nodded assent. She beamed, and proceeded to tell us in passable English that she still remembered the liberation of Plzeň by General Patton’s 3rd Army at the close of WWII.
The 40th anniversary had been only two years before our visit, and she cheerfully recounted the appearance of a handful of Patton’s elderly soldiers for the city’s commemorative event.
In late 1945, US troops withdrew from Czechoslovakia, which had been determined to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence, which of course became the Iron Curtain as coined by Winston Churchill.
The coat check woman preferred to remember how nice the American G.I.s had been, helping to rebuild Plzeň in the months before being withdrawn, and frequently gifting her and other children with chocolate bars.
Before we left the premises, she surreptitiously pressed coasters and postcards into our hands, as if to pay back those favors from so long ago.
It was sincerely moving, and I’ve never forgotten her hospitality.
---
It was time for a visit to the dive bar, and as we emerged from the restaurant, things were heating up across the way.
Sadly, when I returned to Plzeň in 1989, the entire building was gone, demolished for a street widening project. Looking closely at the photo from 1987, there seem to be few signs of life in the upper three floors, so perhaps the tavern’s demise was a done deal even as we were drinking there.
At any rate, the pub with no name was a delight, and the regular crowd was shuffling in.
When Frantisek and the lads arrived, the party started. He was a cabbie playing hooky, rejecting an afternoon’s fares so he could drive himself and four of his finest friends from one tavern to the next. As long as his communism-pretend credentials were in order, it probably wouldn’t matter whether he worked or not, and if you’re not working, why not have a few beers on a lovely summer’s day?
They spoke no English and we spoke no Czech. Some German words could be shared. The longer we remained, the easier it got. Seasoned drinkers understand that communication becomes immeasurably simpler once all participants have reached the stage of “universal second beer language,” wherein thoughts and concepts expressed in otherwise indecipherable tongues suddenly make perfect sense.
Eventually Franta reckoned we needed an education in the merits of Czech rum.
Tuzemák, formerly called Tuzemský rum (English: domestic rum), is a term for a traditional Czech distilled beverage. It is a substitute good (ersatz) for true rum which is produced from sugarcane mainly in the Caribbean and Latin America. Since the 19th century, Tuzemák became one of the most popular spirits in the Czech lands.
Tuzemský is produced from potatoes or sugar beets, diluted and flavoured by various rum essences. In the 19th century similar substitutes were produced throughout the crown lands of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which had no access to tropical colonies; they were named Inländer-Rum (like Stroh in Austria, today produced from sugarcane molasses and therefore a genuine spiced rum), Domači or Čajni (Croatia) etc.
In 1987, it was simply called rum, and the less said, the better. After a couple belts of it, I undertook a laborious examination of the time, and came to a reckoning of my own: we needed to get back to Prague. As we departed, so did Franta and the gang, motoring toward the next pub on their taxi crawl.
As a final aside, a few architectural details on the brewery's exterior ...
... and the early evening return to our sports club hostel beds in Prague.
Next day, we caught the train to Munich, and a meticulously planned meet 'n' greet with our friend Bob and my cousin Don.
This week at Pints&union we'll be navigating our first Harvest Homecoming. Tuesday and Wednesday should be normal days, and the pub's "booth days" hours look like this, with a scaled-down food menu:
Here's an overview of the theory and practice of draft beer at Pints&union. We have ten draft lines in all, pouring according to plan.
The larger grouping is called EVERYDAY DRAFTS (6 in number), which represents a cross-section of traditional brewing culture. These are intended to remain fixed. We serve them in imperial pints, with half –size pours also available.
Four "everyday" beers have been constant since we opened.
Bell’s Two Hearted Ale (IPA) Falls City Classic Pilsner (American Pilsner) Guinness Stout Irish (Dry Stout) Pilsner Urquell (Bohemian Pilsner)
Two others were intended to be constant, but fell victim to wholesaler outages.
Fuller's London Pride (English Pale Ale) has returned as of last Friday, and Wychwood Hobgoblin will return some day as a seasonal (below).
Anchor Porter (Robust Porter) temporarily was replaced by Bell’s Porter, and the latter remains on tap. Anchor is back in stock at the wholesaler and will resume its place as soon as I can make it happen, perhaps as early as the week of October 15.
I've divided the four remaining taps into concepts.
SEASONAL (2) taps generally will reflect the weather, with lighter beers in summer and heavier choices in winter. The idea is to rotate through them slowly; weeks at a time, not days.
Paulaner Oktoberfest (Märzen) ... We depleted a half-dozen Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest kegs and then turned to Paulaner for two more; now it transpires that the Paulaner currently on tap is the last one to be had this year. It should last for a few more days, then we'll switch to two kegs of Revolution Oktoberfest, a traditionally crafted example from Chicago. At some point after that, my hope is to begin a lengthy run of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier (Bavarian Wheat) ... When the weather finally cools, I'd like to keep this one in the family and begin a run of Weihenstephaner Dunkel, which is much the same as Hefe Weissbier but with darker malts. As the holidays approach, this tap probably will feature Christmas ales.
HERITAGE (1) is about quirky runs of Old World classics. Right now it's St. Bernardus Tripel, a Belgian abbey ale, and we're about to tap the third keg. My only restriction in this slot is that kegs must be the small 1/6 barrel size.
SERENDIPITY (1) was inaugurated with Sierra Nevada's Narwhal Imperial Stout, since supplanted by Founders Harvest Ale, a wet hop IPA. This tap will be the exception to the rule, rotating American craft beers constantly, a sixth barrel at a time. On the list to replace the Founders when the time comes are North Coast Le Merle (Saison); 18th Street Brown Ale (English Brown); and Sun King Wee Mac (Scottish Ale).
There's also one sixth barrel of Dogfish Head Punkin, arrival to be announced. We've agreed to wait until it's cold, nearer to Thanksgiving.
Pints&union has been open for 11 weeks, and we've been crushing kegs. Thanks to everyone who has come downtown to see us, to have a beer and a bite.
Regular readers already know that I'm a pendulum theorist. As the pendulum pertains to the wonderful world of better beer, it recently has been swinging back toward the center. Old-school is the new counter-revolution.
For me, comfort beer is a fastball with no movement, right down the center of the plate. Accordingly, my aim as beer director during the first eight weeks of Pints&union has been to re-establish the concept of a beer list purposefully designed to showcase world heritage classics -- not ignoring contemporary craft creativity, but contextualizing it.
In short, you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been.
As such, phase one of the bottle and can list at Pints&union largely is complete. We have a few housekeeping tasks to complete with regard to storage, then phase two can commence, boosting the everyday list to around 50 selections, with room for a few rotating guests.
Meanwhile draft sales have been the steady engine we hoped they'd be, and in spite of being frustrated by wholesaler outages, a firm template is in place: eight lines, six of them fixed and two rotating, albeit it very slowly on a seasonal basis.
We're using a basic, short-draw keg box system for draft, and all along there has been space in each box for a 1/6 barrel keg. I wanted to take a few weeks to assess the sales landscape, and accordingly we can now begin to use these two draft lines, beginning on Thursday (September 20).
In terms of formatting, one of these taps will be devoted to heritage, and the second to serendipity.
By "heritage" I mean ales like St. Bernardus Tripel.
Belgian Tripel derives from the Trappist brewing tradition, and especially in terms of its typical deep golden-orange hue, it stands as a relatively recent adaptation of old-school brewing methods.
Hendrik Verlinden of the Drie Linden brewery, brewing scientist and yeast specialist, had been formulating a golden ale to combat the celebrity of pale beers in Europe in the early 1930s (he helped Westmalle in the 1920s as a consultant of sorts). In 1932, he released Witkap Pater (now Witkap Tripel). His beers were marketed as Trappist, which wasn’t altogether apropos with those monasteries, but because of his earlier role in assisting their brewing, he was the sole non-Trappist brewer allowed to market his Witkap Pater as a Trappist-style beer. His role in helping Westmalle develop its tripel is nebulous, but it is known that the monks were also tinkering with this new style by 1931. Westmalle introduced its tripel, and newly built brewhouse, in 1934. It is still considered the standard by many. Ever the perfectionists, Westmalle’s esteemed Brother Thomas tweaked the recipe to include more hops. It has remained unchanged since 1956.
Note that Pints&union also carries Westmalle Tripel on bottles, but the draft of the moment comes from the St. Bernardus brewery, one-time Trappist supplier, now a producer of "abbey" styles -- signifying a connection to the Trappist legacy.
Located in Watou, just 12 kilometers (about 7 miles) from Westvleteren, St. Bernardus brewed the “Trappist Westvleteren” beers under a license from the monks at Sint Sixtus Abbey from 1946-1992. There’s a billboard from that era in the St. Bernardus tasting room that reads: “Brouwerij Sint Bernardus: alleenvervaardiger van de bieren van de abdij van West-Vleteren,” or “Sint Bernardus brewery, the sole producer of the beers of the Abbey of Sint Sixtus in Westvleteren.”
That arrangement came to an end when the license expired in 1992. A new brewing facility was established in Westvleteren. Crucially, St. Bernardus retained all the recipes they had brewed for Sint Sixtus during the 46-year relationship, including that of the Westvleteren 12, a 10.2% ABV Strong Ale which RateBeer awarded “Best Beer in the World” in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2013.
Although St. Bernardus is just a few clicks from Poperinge, a town I've visited many times, somehow I've never been to visit the brewery. This omission will be rectified in 2020. Pints&union also carries bottles of the epochal St. Bernardus Abt 12, which is the finest Trappist that isn't a Trappist at all.
Moving to the second new draft line, we'll be inaugurating it with Sierra Nevada Harwhal Imperial Stout, which dates to 2012. Interestingly, the idea of brewing stout goes all the way back to Sierra Nevada's inception almost 40 years ago.
When Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi opened Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California, in 1980, the first beer they made was a stout. Sierra Pale came along shortly after but took almost a dozen tries to get the recipe dialed in to their liking. In his book Beyond the Pale: The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Grossman says the pair spent a lot of time “trying to decide exactly what flavor and aroma profile our flagship beer should have. We knew we needed to create our own style of beer that would stand out as being unique and distinctive.”
Of course "imperial" stout is the boldest and strongest of the stout family.
Though the history of imperial stout is somewhat murky, it was indeed a London brewery that is credited with popularizing the style as a strong, exported stout. Around 1781, Barclay Perkins began exporting its stout to assorted ports in the Baltic region. Purposely brewed to be a formidable beer, it would easily withstand the voyage. The serendipitous extension of this attribute was that it was also perfectly suited for the cold, gnarly climate, where spirits were very much favored. When Empress Catherine II discovered it, its place in Russian legend was cemented. The commercial viability of the brew ensured that the style endured.
Recently the enduring mystery of the narwhal's distinctive "tusk" has been partially resolved: it's used to immobilize prey as an aid in fishing for food.
The narwhal is the unicorn of the sea, a pale-colored porpoise found in Arctic coastal waters and rivers. These legendary animals have two teeth. In males, the more prominent tooth grows into a swordlike, spiral tusk up to 8.8 feet long. The ivory tusk tooth grows right through the narwhal's upper lip. Scientists are not certain of the tusk's purpose, but some believe it is prominent in mating rituals, perhaps used to impress females or to battle rival suitors. Females sometimes grow a small tusk of their own, but it does not become as prominent as the male's.
Here is Sierra Nevada's description.
A malt-forward monster, highlighting the depths of malt flavor, Narwhal Imperial Stout is inspired by the mysterious creature that thrives in the deepest fathoms of the frigid Arctic Ocean. Featuring incredible depth of malt flavor, rich with notes of espresso, baker’s cocoa, roasted grain and a light hint of smoke, Narwhal is a massive malt-forward monster. Aggressive but refined with a velvety smooth body and decadent finish, Narwhal will age in the bottle for years to come.
At 10.2% abv, Narwhal Imperial Stout is a "gravity" beer and will be served in 10-ounce glasses. To me it's a dessert beer in itself, to be sipped after a meal.
For St. Bernardus Tripel, we have 25 cl signature glasses. Pair with a Croque Madame and seasoned frites.
As for what will follow these two beers, I'm not sure. I'd like to keep the Tripel on tap for at least two weeks, at least until Harvest Homecoming. Narwhal's a one-off, and I'll see what's available before rendering a decision.
David "Lad of the Village" Thrasher's take on the classic pub sign now has been mounted above the door to Pints&union. It looks incredible, and I believe the hours of operation have settled into predictability:
Sunday: Noon to 4:00 p.m.
Monday: Closed
Tuesday - Saturday: 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
I'm the beer guy, so here's a beer update.
The current draft list includes two pinch-hitters (Wychwood Hobgoblin in for Fuller's London Pride, and Bell's Porter temporarily replacing Anchor Porter). Rounding out the lineup (* signifies a seasonal beer):
Guinness
Pilsner Urquell
Bell's Two Hearted Ale
Falls City Classic Pilsner
*Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
*Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest
We have two conventional keg boxes with a free tap in each capable of pouring a slim 1/6 barrel keg. So far we've briefly used only one of them (for cider), but if things break the right direction, next week we'll tap kegs on each of them.
One of these taps will be devoted to a legacy comfort beer (Belgian Tripel is sounding appropriate to me). This one will be considered a seasonal, rotating but not week to week.
The other tap will be subject to whim, and it usually will be one-off. The overall goal remains stability, but we also want to have some fun, so this one will feature creative craft brewers, many of them American. The only requirement is 1/6 barrel availability -- and for the beer in question not to be owned by AB-InBev. I have an idea for the opener, though beyond this hunch, I haven't thought much about it.
It shan't be hard to find suitable occupants for the whim tap. The legacy comfort beers actually are a bit more limited in terms of sourcing -- which helps to explain why they're neglected. Welcome to my conundrum.
Stay tuned for further updates. The first six weeks have involved laying out the basic beer program and observing the reaction. Beginning next week, I'll also start tweaking the bottles and cans, as well as announcing the beer class format and dates.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that with the exception of Hoosier brewers, who can deliver their wares to a licensed pub or restaurant in Indiana, an on-premise establishment must rely on the wholesaler for inventory.
No inventory at the wholesaler, no beer at the tavern. The three-tier system giveth and taketh away, often in equal measure.
This is my subtle, back-handed way of informing the Pints&union beer-drinking customer base that tonight or tomorrow, Bell's Porter will take the place of Anchor Porter on the draft list. There are no kegs of Anchor Porter at the wholesaler, and they will not return until early October.
Coincidentally, early October is the predicted time for Fuller's London Pride to return to the draft lineup. You'll recall we sold three kegs of Fuller's in 12 days, thus depleting the entire state. Wychwood Hobgoblin has been filling this spot in the weeks since.
Outages like these aren't as much of an issue for the majority of establishments that follow the relatively new trend of rotating draft selections on a constant basis. For Pints&union, where we've vowed to institute a significant degree of stability on tap, it's a big deal. We'll continue improvising where necessary, while hoping the pipeline eventually will work as we desire it.
Here is information about Bell's Porter. Overall, I'm a tremendous fan of Bell's, and if current sales continue, Pints&union may become one of the bigger draft Two Hearted Ale accounts in Southern Indiana.
But don't underestimate Bell's Porter. It's very good in its own right.
Our award winning Porter bridges the gap between malty brown ales and heavily roasted stouts. Notes of chocolate, coffee and roasted barley are offset with just a slight hop bitterness. Enjoy any time of the year.
Like most of the world's beer styles, the tasty delight we refer to as Oktoberfest comes to us as a product of evolution within the context of tradition.
This beer began as a dark lager brewed in spring, and held until harvest festival season in autumn. It changed in step with advancements in malting technique and shifting popular tastes, lightening from dark brown to orange/amber, and nowadays to tawny golden, though with the basic full, malty flavor balance remaining consistent throughout.
Everyone knows that Munich's Oktoberfest is the most famous such celebration, a two-week paean to sheer excess as calculated to explode heads with numerical overkill via the total of liter beers drained and roasted chickens consumed, not to mention whole oxen on a spit. It begins this year on September 22.
At Pints&union, we decided to get a head start on "official" Oktoberfest by tapping Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest. More about that in a moment.
Beer writer K. Florian Klemp is one of the best we have when it comes to explaining beer styles. His MÄRZEN/OKTOBERFEST lesson is at All About Beer. First came Märzen (in German, the month of March), the forerunner of Oktoberfest, and Vienna is a kissing cousin of both.
The first Oktoberfest was a communal celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) of Bavaria and Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. It was held just outside Munich and attended by both royalty and citizens. The epic event started on Oct. 12, 1810, and lasted five days. The festival grounds were named Theresienwiese, or Therese’s Meadow.
The festival became an annual event, a celebration of autumn, harvest and agriculture. The timing was perfect for tapping that year’s locally brewed Märzen—still a dark beer, suitably aged and in prime condition for fall consumption.
By the 1870s, Josef Sedlmayr, Gabriel II’s brother and brewer at Franziskaner (today part of Spaten), was keen to the changing landscape, noting that lighter beers were becoming quite popular. The Sedlmayrs were among the most prominent brewers in Munich, and the penchant for tinkering was apparently an inherited trait. Josef got busy working on a Vienna-style lagerbier, finally hitting his mark and rigorous standards in 1871. He brewed it the following March and introduced it in 1872.
It was poured in the Schottenhamel Banquet Tent by Michael Schottenhamel, a carpenter from the Palatinate who erected a small barn on the Theresienwiese in 1867. Called Franziskaner-Leistbrauerei Ur-Märzen (original Märzen), it was pricey, but sold like crazy. The newly stylized beer was hastily copied by other Oktoberfest brewers and soon enough became the event’s signature brew.
With the development of refrigeration about the same time by Karl Von Linde in Germany, brewers were able to make beer year round, rendering the literal, traditional definition of Märzen moot, but useful as a simple stylistic designation. Märzen became identified with amber lagerbier because of the festival, and by default, both it and Oktoberfestbier became synonymous.
I'd like to say that Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest will pour through the month of September, but of course this depends on the wholesaler's inventory -- and the lesson I've learned the fastest since undertaking the construction of the Pints&union beer program is not to depend on what wholesalers tell you about their inventory.
My aim is to keep an Oktoberfest beer of one or another variety on tap into October. Klemp summarizes Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest in this addendum to his article, and I think he nails it.
Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest
ABV: 5.8
Tasting Notes: The Hacker-Pschorr brewery was founded in Munich in 1417, making it one of the longest-standing operations in the world. Its Oktoberfest-Märzen is one of six brews poured at Oktoberfest. Full reddish-amber in color, it offers up floral noble hop and warming malt aromatics. Some extra sweetish malt flavor is backed up by a firm dose of bittering hops. Complex maltiness, with both lighter grainy notes as well as a good dose of darker varieties. Nicely balanced, with a bit more hop character than some of the others. The finish is somewhat light and dry.
The "Oklahoma" burger was introduced earlier this week at Pints&union. It's a riff on the Oklahoma Onion Burger, with homemade ketchup, mustard and pickles, and buttered with Duke's Mayonnaise.
The burger is $6, and a side of fries is $2. Throw in two Imperial pints of Falls City Classic Pilsner at $4 each, add tax and gratuity, and it comes to $23. That's a good price point for quality food and drink.
Owing to difficulties with installing the kitchen hood, the food program was the last component of Pints&union to be "dialed in," and the process continues. To date, I've enjoyed everything I've tried.
It's important to know that we are a bar with a kitchen, not a full-service restaurant. Small plates inspired by international street food make up the menu, and there'll be changes from week to week, although the burger is an everyday item.
Elsewhere, the pub got some good ink at SoIn. Thanks, Mikael.
... This isn’t the place to watch the game – not that there’s anything wrong with sports bars. Pints&union just is not that kind of place. It is a place to talk to your neighbors, to read, to write, or simply to revel in the joy of existence with friends, pint in hand.
I'll spare readers the longer narrative about beer wholesaler iniquity, a fact of life that I've re-learned surprisingly quickly after a decade away. Here's the short version.
Pints&union began operations a month ago with the stated intent of specializing in Fuller's London Pride on tap; we sold three kegs in 12 days, and suddenly the entire state of Indiana ran dry, with reinforcements not expected until October.
On Monday I ordered a keg of Anchor Porter, only to be informed that the wholesaler is depleted and cannot restock for at least a month.
I substituted Wychwood Hobgoblin for Fuller's, and now a fill-in for Anchor Porter must be determined next week. Suitable temporary replacements include Bell's Porter, Founder's Porter and Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, the latter back in Indiana after a decade or longer away.
All three are solid, but the point to this digression is that having determined to buck the on-premise trend of tilt-a-whirl draft lists, it appears my war also will have to be fought with the wholesalers, who understandably have adapted their purchasing to reflect constant rotation, as opposed to stability.
And that's okay.
I've spent my entire career in the beer business swimming against the tide, and it's too late to stop now. To complain would be churlish; rather, it's time to go over the heads of wholesalers, grit my teeth and do their jobs for them as in days of old by directly contacting breweries and importers.
I did it before, and look forward to doing it again.
The good news from my friend, the beer wholesaler rep:
"You WILL be able to get more kegs of Fuller's London Pride."
And the bad news?
"Not until early October."
There was a time when I'd have reacted to news like this with a tremendous display of beer-fueled vituperation. After all, I'd spent months talking about picking an everyday draft beer lineup at Pints&union and keeping it in place, and just as much time praising the awesomeness of Fuller's as a stalwart of the solidity.
My friend had warned the wholesaler's beer buyers well in advance, and the ordering schedule duly was moved forward in an effort to accommodate the bump in sales. But go and sell three kegs of London Pride in 12 business days, and the hiccup occurs, anyway. My specialty, disruption.
C'est la vie, or the equivalent in English.
Consequently, if everything goes as planned, as well as any other disclaimers I might insert in this space to cover the inevitable coughs and contingencies, the objective this week is to insert Wychwood Hobgoblin in place of Fuller's. The first two kegs of Hobgoblin will be arriving on Tuesday, and when the London Pride is depleted, the change will be made.
Since we have a couple of months to make do without London Pride, there'll probably also be an audition of draft Old Speckled Hen. I suspect the OSH will be a tad closer to London Pride in character, while if my increasingly muddled memory is to be trusted, the Hobgoblin is amber-ruby-brown with lots of fruity notes.
One aspect of Hobgoblin is to be cherished: the confrontational advertising slogan, "What's the matter, lager boy - afraid you might taste something?"
Of course, the context matters. This hilarious nose-thumbing is not directed against the majority of classic German lagers or a beer like Pilsner Urquell, but references the ubiquitous (and often cheap) international golden lagers crowding out traditional ale styles in the United Kingdom.
Recall that football hooligans weren't ever tagged "ESB Louts" and maybe it will make better sense. As for how generic lager managed to supplant glorious indigenous ale in the first place, we'll have to save that one for a Beer Tuesday.
I am somewhat flabbergasted by the tally, but happily so.
After four "official" business days preceded by two "soft" evenings, something like 800 pints of draft beer have been consumed at Pints&union, including two full kegs of Fuller's London Pride -- and only one of the other blown kegs was an IPA (Bell's Two Hearted).
That's 100 pints of IPA (a very good IPA, I might add) and 700 of the other styles. Bottles and cans are moving at a nice clip, too. Yesterday an old friend in the restaurant business took a look at the beer list.
"This is great. There's something here for everyone."
Music to my ears, kind sir. Another exchange on Reddit produced this comment.
I’m actually really impressed by those tap choices. Solid but not intimidating beers. I’ll definitely be grabbing a Fuller’s or an Urquell.
It's far too early to judge, and as Tom Hanks might have noted in an alternate universe, there's no gloating in the beer business. Still, it's gratifying to play a role in a plan finally coming to fruition. On Sunday afternoon, Joe Phillips posted at the Pints&union Fb page.
I saw all walks of life, many different age groups, strangers becoming friends. That's what a public house is for. No more blaming, no left or right, no more terms like "Boomers" or "Millennial's"; we are all in this together. Thank you for showing up and meeting someone new and getting back to what matters, and that's "us" as a whole. Thank you so much for a great first week, we look forward to seeing you again soon.
Pints&union will reopen on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. Business hours next week are easy to remember: 4:00 p.m. to to 2:00 a.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Monday is our Ruhetag -- the "quiet" or "rest" day (translation: closed on Monday. Sunday hours are coming fairly soon.
As the kegs started popping on Saturday night, I was reminded of a hilarious 1950’s-era Australian song that I first heard performed by the Dubliners with heavily bearded and gravelly-voiced Ronnie Drew singing the lead. The song is based on a true story and the tale is told here: The Original "Pub with No Beer."
It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night where the wild dingoes call,
But there's nothing so lonesome so morbid or drear
Than to stand in a bar of a pub with no beer.
Now the publican's anxious for the quota to come
There's a far away lock on the face of the bum
The maid's gone all cranky and the cook's acting queer
What a terrible place is a pub with no beer.
Then the stock-man rides up with his dry dusty throat
He breasts up to the bar, pulls a wat from his coat,
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a sneer,
When the bar man said sadly the pub's got no beer.
Ther's a dog on the 'randa-h for his master he waits
But the boss is inside drinking wine with his mates
He hurries for cover and cringes in fear
It's no place for a dog round a pub with no beer.
Old Billy the blacksmith first time in his life
Has gone home cold sober to his darling wife,
He walks in the kitchen, she says you're early me dear,
But he breaks down and tells her the pub's got no beer.
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