The cool kids can go fu ... well, you know what I mean.

The pirate looks at sixty, and the evidence is incontrovertible. Each time in my life, when for some arcane reason it seemed a good idea to try becoming a cool kid -- part of the "in" crowd, belonging to a certain trendy group, inhabiting a clique, seeking to enlist in the power elite or aspiring to a socially ascendant organization -- it always has turned out badly.

Always; without exception.

It's better to remain contrarian, an iconoclast, infidel and outsider, because staying true to yourself at least allows your dignity to remain intact. Independence is neither cool nor uncool. It is merely principled. It just is.

Not only that, but you can't become a cool kid by your own rule book, anyway. The beautiful people, those fashionable arbiters of style, have rules of their own, and if you have to ask what these are, you'll never know.

Furthermore, I'm allergic to arrogance, and the thought of abiding the inevitable group-think is enough to avoid these entangling alliances.

The so-called cool kids generally select a leader; there's a head cheese or a big dog at the apex of their pyramid, and this grand poobah usually turns out to be my intellectual inferior; often, he or she quite simply is a dreadful dullard and the ensuing idolatry makes no sense.

Accordingly the exalted boss's followers acquiesce at being sheeple, no less arrogant or exuding their in-crowd privileges, but otherwise devoid of understanding and unaware of any meaningful narrative apart from yearning to belong to something irrespective of the cost to their identities.

You can count me out.

Again and again, perhaps twice on Sunday, remorseless experience has taught me that the "cool kids" aren't cool at all. They'll always make you drink the Kool-Aid first, before there's any chance of acceptance, and then stripped of autonomy, you become one of the braying jackals.

Don't misunderstand, because remaining independent does not imply aloofness. Cooperation still serves the common good, so long as the conditions are clear. I stand ready to be of assistance -- just don't expect me to sell out.

Because you can't afford me, dipshits.

A metaphorical tale of compassion, honesty and integrity in photos, thus updating the East Main Street Improvement Project.

It's how the circle of nourishment works. Go here for more on this topic.

New Holland on "best of" votes: "It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we care too much to bother you with them."

I don't personally encourage anyone to vote in various reader polls, and NABC traditionally refrains from asking its customers and fans to stuff dozens of ballots for the sake of the cause. Some times we are mentioned, some times not … and some times, as an underdog from underrated New Albany that carves out a win, it just feels fine to be vindicated as a business.

But as usual, my friend Fred Bueltmann of the New Holland brewery in Michigan says it much better. Just last week, I remarked to a Bank Street Brewhouse visitor that Fred and New Holland have always been important influences for me. "Stop and Taste" is a remarkably concise way of summarizing a complex larger point about food, beverage and place. If we haven't always gotten it right at NABC, it isn't for lack of trying.

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online-voting-pledge/">Online Voting - Our Pledge

September 6, 2013 - There’s a recent blitz by local media to get online votes in a “best brewery” campaign. This is not a new thing, as we’re all inundated with “best of” lists and other online polls.

At New Holland, we work very hard to remind ourselves why we went into business, and what purpose we serve. We absolutely believe in the social and culinary benefits that good drink and good food bring to the world. We think life can be that much more enjoyable when people have interesting, quality and rewarding choices in what they drink.

In this digital age, communication, branding and self-promotion have seen some serious shifts. We’re online, plugged in and in front of screens way more than ever before. We’ve come to realize that while technology brings us terrific tools for communication, it can also tear away at our lifestyle. If we don’t find balance, the conversations about flavor can actually distract us from enjoying the flavor in its best moments.

We feel seriously enough about this that we crafted a message and principle that we try to live by, called “Stop and Taste.” It is centered around “The Rant”, featured below, which we refer back to frequently to guide our voice and actions, and to help us honor the experience of our customers over all else.

Of course, we still appreciate recognition, like everyone else. Whether it’s a customer reaching out to share what they love, how a beer or spirit changed their evening for the better, or a writer recommending us to others, we humbly accept the praise and share it with our team as reward and encouragement.

However, we find the pervasive effort to get customers to constantly vote on lists, or debate who should be on or off a list, to be a distraction from what we are here for. We’d much rather spend the time encouraging people to get to know various beers, spirits or breweries and distilleries and share what they like about them or the differences between them. This is a far cry from digging into a meritless debate about “Who is better?"

We commit ourselves to branding, promoting and engaging in social media in a way that reflects our mission; to provide quality choices to our customers, improving lives and the world by offering an opportunities to stop and taste. We are here to make our customers happy. When we feel we’re accomplishing this goal, we’re happy.

Before you call “sour grapes”, please know that we’re damn proud of what we do, and feel plenty recognized for it. We just don't feel this activity supports our craft, our customers, or the Stop and Taste Lifestyle. We appreciate any and all praise, including our customers nominating or voting on lists, but we want to explain why you won’t see us touting it, or hitting you up for votes or mentions.

We hereby pledge that we will remain politely absent from campaigns that we feel encourage online badgering for votes, and have the potential to be baseless popularity contests. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we care too much to bother you with them.

Instead, we encourage you to take a moment to stop and taste. For yourself, and as you please.

Cheers!
Fred Bueltmann - Beervangelist

New Holland Brewing
Owner, VP Sales & Marketing

Just as an FYI.

I know that it disappoints some blog readers when I stoop to caress the little people. If you're one of them, perhaps you'd like to stop here.

Long ago, the Tribune permitted letters to the editor with “name withheld by request," and naturally, most such letters were nasty, unforgivable personal attacks.

During the unfortunate period into the Nineties when Eddie Laduke spectacularly verified the Peter Principle by serving as the Tribune’s editor – itself a phenomenon that surely ranks as the nadir of intellectual attainment in this city – he regularly defended the practice in terms similar to those used by our spiteful troglodytes of the Noughts (paraphrased):

“But no one’s willing to call his or her boss a son of a bitch in print without an anonymity clause.”

So it goes. Time passes, the world keeps changing, but as both Laduke then and Steve Price now aptly illustrate, small provincial minds proliferate forever, and hooded personal attacks still are nowhere close to the same thing as “whistle blowing” and other such exculpatory nonsense.

What’s most interesting is the identity of the person during my formative years who taught me right from wrong in this context, because it was my father who was invariably outraged when one of those “name withheld” letters appeared – even if he agreed with the particular sentiments expressed.

If he was feeling okay with the world, the anonymite was simply a “coward,” but if he’d been having a hard day, the full repertoire of colorful adjectives and adverbs gleaned from three years’ service in the Marine Corps in WWII would be unleashed on the offender. The message (expletives deleted) my dad gave me never varied: If you’re not man enough to stand behind it, then keep your mouth shut.

It is a lesson I’ve not forgotten, and so anyone reading this who actually knew my father personally, and who really thinks he’d be “rolling in his grave” at the way his son conducts his life and work – anyone whose pen name throughout somehow remains “anonymous” – is so utterly allergic to irony that he or she is beyond redemption. Lies are another matter, but I think you get my drift.

I’ll give you a tip, anonymous: Keep some of your powder dry, because next week, your blood pressure’s going up. Way, way up. Have a warm, sunny weekend. Time to break out the biking shorts, don’t you think?

Today's LEO column: On the integrity of craft brewing.

I've decided to begin publishing the text of my "Mug Shots" columns for LEO. The link will be added later, and then you can go back and see if I was edited.

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“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”

This quote by the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe appears at the end of “I Am a Craft Brewer,” a four-minute video created by Greg “Arrogant Bastard” Koch. It was screened during Koch’s keynote speech in Boston during the recently concluded annual Craft Brewers Conference.

In the video, craft brewers from across the United States take turns reading a manifesto of revolutionary intent and recapping the achievements of craft brewing, detailing the positive principles that the better beer movement supports – local commerce, community commitment, environmental sustainability – and reiterating the malice and vacuity of the monopolistic status quo, which made revolt necessary in the first place.

Koch’s typically uncompromising beers – Double Bastard, Old Guardian, Vertical Epic and others – have always been favorites of mine. Now, like Frank Capra’s memorable World War II documentary series, Koch has given us an inspirational reminder of “why we fight.”

“Craft beer is innovation, independence, curiosity and collaboration, character and family.”

American craft brewers have revitalized a domestic industry, served as an impetus for brewers and brewing entrepreneurs worldwide, helped reanimate moribund brewing cultures, and provided a renewed, vibrant ethos that encompasses the best that beer can be.

As with any dynamic, constantly evolving movement, the ever expanding American craft beer consciousness cannot be confined to the fermented liquid in the glass. It is an ethos all its own, a lifestyle, a way of looking at the world, and as with most worldviews, it cuts both ways -- necessarily. Craft beer stands “for” and “against,” and this duality is forcefully stated in Koch’s video.

“We must draw hard lines. We must expose those who would seek to capitalize on what we have created.”

I’ve been drawing those hard lines for more than 25 years, ever since my first day at the package store, and I’ve tasted thousands of different beers since then. Even so, my own education is still ongoing, but long years of experience in the “better beer” game have given me a solid foundation of knowledge, as well as the confidence to express what I know, allowing me to pursue my prime mandate of teaching beer.

Consequently, make no mistake: My personal integrity, which represents the sweat equity I’ve earned during all those years in the trenches, absolutely compels me to tell the whole story, positive and negative, for and against, and while there will always be gray areas, some matters are painted in black and white, such as my certainty that price tags cannot be affixed to one’s ideals, honesty and commitment to living what’s true – and for better or worse, that’s what I do. I live them, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Moreover, neither ideas nor ideals can be contested with mere dollars. However, they can be contested with improved ideas and ideals – assuming they exist.

Is beer as important a topic as politics, health care, unemployment, war, and peace? Admittedly unlikely, and still I remain prepared, willing and eager to show that elements of each are surely present in the study of beer as an art, a science, a business pursuit and a beverage that makes life more livable.

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This week is American Craft Beer Week, and the Brewers Association (http://www.beertown.org) has released a Declaration of Beer Independence. Excerpts follow:

“The beer I drink furthers our culture and teaches us geography and helps to nurture a sense of community, and helps to make the world a better place, and I declare to practice the concept of ‘Informed Consumption’ which has me deserving to know if my beer comes from a small and independent brewer or if it is owned by a mass production brewing company.

“I want to know why so many of my local beer brands are not available in many of my favorite restaurants, bars and beer stores, and I encourage beer sellers to offer a wide selection of beer styles and beer brands that includes beer from my local and regional breweries …

“I therefore declare to support America’s small and independent craft brewers during American Craft Beer Week May 11-17, 2009 and beyond.”

Quotes in bold above are from the Koch video, which can be viewed here: http://www.vimeo.com/4432533

A periodic reminder: NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments is explained.

It's time for another brief reminder of our disclosure policy. Thanks to all readers for your support of personal responsibility in the blogosphere.

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Newcomers, please take note.

NA Confidential believes in a higher bar than is customary in the blogosphere, and follows a disclosure policy with respect to reader comments.

First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the lamentable instances of flaming and personal attacks on the part of the anonymous.

Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, the senior editor (yours truly) must be informed of your identity, and according to your preference, it will be kept confidential.

To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which unfortunately plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.

You may e-mail me at the address given within my profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments probably will be deleted -- although the final decision remains mine.

Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse, and that seeks to engage visitors in dialogue.

Roger (senior editor)

A periodic reminder: NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments is explained.

Okay, folks ("snowbird" et al) ... it's time for another brief reminder of our disclosure policy. Thanks to all readers for your support of persnal responsibility in the blogosphere.

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Newcomers, please take note.

NA Confidential believes in a higher bar than is customary in the blogosphere, and follows a disclosure policy with respect to reader comments.

First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the lamentable instances of flaming and personal attacks on the part of the anonymous.

Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, the senior editor (yours truly) must be informed of your identity, and according to your preference, it will be kept confidential.

To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which unfortunately plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.

You may e-mail me at the address given within my profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments probably will be deleted -- although the final decision remains mine.

Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse, and that seeks to engage visitors in dialogue.

Roger (senior editor)

A periodic reminder: NA Confidential's mask-free policy on reader comments is explained.

Given the passions of the election season and noticeable recent increases in site hits and page views, it's time for another brief reminder of our disclosure policy. Thanks to all readers for your support of persnal responsibility in the blogosphere.

----

Newcomers, please take note.

NA Confidential believes in a higher bar than is customary in the blogosphere, and follows a disclosure policy with respect to reader comments.

First, you must be registered with blogger.com according to the procedures specified. This is required not as a means of directing traffic to blogger.com, but to reduce the lamentable instances of flaming and personal attacks on the part of the anonymous.

Second, although pen names are perfectly acceptable, the senior editor (yours truly) must be informed of your identity, and according to your preference, it will be kept confidential.

To reiterate, I insist upon this solely to lessen the frequency of malicious anonymity, which unfortunately plagues certain other blogs hereabouts.

You may e-mail me at the address given within my profile and explain who you are. Failure to comply means that your comments probably will be deleted -- although the final decision remains mine.

Thanks for reading, and please consider becoming a part of the community here, one that is respectful of the prerequisites of civilized discourse, and that seeks to engage visitors in dialogue.

Roger (senior editor)