From 2019: Here are all of Tony Beard's event posters for Fringe Fest at NABC Bank Street Brewhouse, 2008 – 2018.

This one's from last year, but it bears repeating. Monnik has soldiered through the pandemic period, gradually transforming my former workplace into the sort of joint where I'll be spending time at some point down the road. 

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2019 marks the first Harvest Homecoming since 2007 without a concurrent Fringe Fest at NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse, which closed in May and awaits a new owner.

The first Fringe Fest in 2008 actually took place in the gutted former day-old bread store building and adjacent, vacant parking lot, a full five months before the first day of business.

Those were the days, my friends. Take it away, Tony.

My business divorce became final in February, 2018, and losing Bank Street Brewhouse this spring was rough, but it was the right thing for the sisters to do. NABC's original Pizzeria & Public House is a genuine regional icon, and now they'll be able to upgrade it for what I hope is decades to come.

Long Live the Fringe: Here are all 11 (12) of Tony Beard's posters for Fringe Fest at NABC Bank Street Brewhouse, 2008 – 2018.

2019 marks the first Harvest Homecoming since 2007 without a concurrent Fringe Fest at NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse, which closed in May and awaits a new owner.

The first Fringe Fest in 2008 actually took place in the gutted former day-old bread store building and adjacent, vacant parking lot, a full five months before the first day of business.

Those were the days, my friends. Take it away, Tony.

My business divorce became final in February, 2018, and losing Bank Street Brewhouse this spring was rough, but it was the right thing for the sisters to do. NABC's original Pizzeria & Public House is a genuine regional icon, and now they'll be able to upgrade it for what I hope is decades to come.

I've been photographing my poster collection, and I am completely exhausted.

Joe "Pints&union" Phillips and I have chatted quite a lot about pub decor. I mentioned to him that I had lots of posters, wall hangings, items that might be framed, and all-purpose bric-a-brac for attaching to walls.

My famous last words: "I'll just take photos of them and we can see what's there."

As the young folks say, OMG.

After ten days I'm well north of 250, and maybe halfway through the boxes and storage areas. Probably 100 more still adorn the Public House, and another 100 here at home ... dozens more banker's boxes in the basement ... 15,000 photos ... and right now, I can hear my mother saying, "if you'd only been like me and kept track, labeling and dating everything."

If only. She was a machine, and I suppose a few hours of my life that might have been devoted to archival rendering were instead occupied drinking beer. So it goes, but she was right.

You're invited to browse the albums at Facebook. Following (and above) are a few favorites.

THE BEER BEAT: The path to 6,000, or one helluva big difference in 25 years.

Yesterday, amid 14 consecutive hours of joyous Kentucky Derby downpour, I started rummaging through my collection of posters, photos and bric-a-brac suitable for hanging.

This one, called "Brewpubs and Craft Breweries," is a poster that dates from 1992.

It came from the publishers of On Tap: The Guide to U.S. Brewpubs (1991) and The On Tap Companion (1992 update), both by Steve Johnson.

The FOSSILS homebrewing club began in 1990, and the Public House in 1992. One way we kept up with the advent of new breweries was zymurgy, the homebrewing magazine, which came in the mail (huh?) and had bi-monthly listings of openings and closings.

I'm not sure if there were further editions of Johnson's guide. In 1994, author Michael "Beer Hunter" Jackson visited Louisville (and Rich O's) in preparation to write a book about the new generation of American breweries. He subsequently abandoned the project, because the pace of change was so relentless that his information became obsolete faster than he could revise it.

By then, the instantaneously updatable internet was coming into our lives -- and the rest is Untappd, or some similar wasted exercise in missing the soul of beerdrinking.

Back to the old-school, tactile poster, focusing on the heartland:

It's mind-boggling to recall the time when there was only one brewery in Indiana (Broad Ripple Brewpub), one in Kentucky (Oldenberg), and one in Tennessee (Bohannon's/Market Street).

As of April, 2018, the statistics are 137, 52 and 82, respectively. In America as a whole, the number of breweries has surpassed 6,000. For Kevin Gibson's most recent news in LEO Weekly about a few of the ones located in Louisville Metro, go here.

To conclude, a few of the beer-related posters unearthed yesterday. It has become apparent to me that taken together, I have enough posters, photos, coasters, labels and travel memorabilia to plaster the walls of the Pentagon.

A personal beer history museum with a nice beer bar inside? It's a pleasant thought; maybe some day down the road.