BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Flat12 becomes Rad, and I become confused.

Is Rad a power move, or more like the dulcet tones of a shark being jumped?

Only time will tell.

My first reaction: "But wait, it isn't April 1 yet."

There have been many recent changes at Flat12 Bierwerks, and I don't know any of the people involved these days, which makes it easier to be fair and balanced.

My primary interest is how the maneuverings in Indianapolis translate to the mostly detached Flat12-themed outpost in Jeffersonville.

Back in January, I tried to unravel an increasingly opaque situation.

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Why is the non-brewing Flat12 in Jeffersonville considered a "brewery" by LEO Weekly but Gordon Biersch isn't? That's dumb, don't you think?

It should be noted that eventually LEO acceded to my impeccable reasoning, but now there's a new complication, courtesy of Indiana on Tap.

Flat12 Bierwerks Relaunches as Rad Brewing Co. to Support Youth Athletics

Indianapolis, IN – Flat12 Bierwerks is excited to announce it will be relaunching as Rad Brewing Co with the mission to support and promote alternative ways of getting active with a portion of the profits going to youth sports in Indianapolis.

Every purchase at Rad will directly impact the local community through a donation of sports equipment to local youth organizations. The launch party is scheduled for November 29th at 414 Dorman Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, 46202. Changes to the branding and brewpub will begin starting today, Monday, November 4th, and will include a new kitchen concept, “Rad Burger.” Both brewpub guests and online shoppers looking to support Rad’s mission can expect expanded options of merchandise including apparel for dogs as well as outdoor gear and athletic accessories.

I understand rebranding, and if I try really hard, the notion of sports as a beneficiary makes a degree of sense owing to the word "youth" and the corollary of encouraging activity among young people.

However, the big question for SoIn: Whither the Flat12 Bierwerks in Jeffersonville?

Lately this establishment seems to have been drifting more toward operating as a multi-tap (beers from all breweries featured) as opposed to a brewery tap.

Is there any benefit to remaining "Flat12" when it no longer exists, or to becoming Rad when there's little symmetry between north and south?

Each beer will be themed after a sport or athletic activity and each label will highlight on a rotating basis different local, national, and international businesses, teams, and individual athletes. The initial line-up will include, among others:

Beer Name (Style) – Initial Label Feature – Location

Gaelic (Dry Irish Stout) – Indianapolis Gaelic Athletic Association – Indianapolis, IN
Power Jam (Sweet Red Ale) – Chloe Bouffard (Roller Skating) -Ottawa, Ontario
Freestyle (Rad IPA) – Aguska Mnich (Freestyle Soccer World Champion) – London, England
Naptown Fit (Light Cream Ale) – Naptown Fitness – Indianapolis, IN
Endurance (Session IPA) – The Road Sodas (Running Group) – Indianapolis, IN
Breakin’ (Electric Pale Ale) – 31svn Street Dance Academy – Fishers, IN
Belay (Honey Brown Ale) – Climb Time (Rock Climbing Gym) – Indianapolis, IN

Flat12 favorites such as Half Cycle IPA, Pogue’s Run Porter, Tinker Brown, and Cucumber Kolsch will be kept under Rad as the “Indiana Classics Series.” Many other recipes will remain but will be relaunched with new names. Relationships with drivers Jarett Andretti and James Hinchcliffe will continue under the Rad moniker with their products Jarett Andretti 18 (Orange Wheat Ale) and Hinchtown Hammerdown (Pilsner).

Just my opinion: It all sounds like a conceptual muddle to me, and yet what happens next should be interesting.

Couldn't we just snap our fingers and transform the current riverside Flat12 location in Jeffersonville into an Upland or Sun King outlet?

Eric Morris talks about his plans for Gospel Bird in the New Year.

Yesterday at Facebook, Gospel Bird's owner Eric Morris previewed a forthcoming remodel and reboot of his restaurant at 207 E. Main Street in New Albany.

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Beginning in January, Gospel Bird will be shutting down for a week or two for a BIG remodel.

We want to thank you for your support over the past two years, and can't wait to show you what we have in store. Not only will the overall aesthetic be updated, so will the food, cocktails, and wine program.

In striving to be as progressive and welcoming as possible in this industry, we want to continue to bring fun and unique food and drink options to downtown New Albany. This will include an ambitious standard of printing your menus daily with a constant rotation of fresh dishes that not only portray the talent of our team but also the amazing food our local farmers work so hard to produce.

Our new menus will challenge our chefs even more as we lean towards a made-from-scratch standard utilizing only fresh food, fresh herbs, and a zero waste policy. All food that comes through our door will be utilized in respect to our farmers and the environment.

Please stay tuned for all updates and thank you again for your support!!!

-team gospel

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Earlier today Eric expanded on this, via a chat with me on Fb Messenger.

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We will have a lot of new small plates options with a world influence. The wine selection will get an upgrade, and entrees will change week to week. The Gospel Bird staples (the yardbird, shrimp and grits, thunder thighs) will still be served on Whiskey Wednesday. 

Just to make it a little more clear, we want to stay competitive and cutting edge in an industry that is becoming over-saturated. We feel like the way to do that is to serve people food that we feel very passionate about, with no limitations. Some of it will be adventurous, and some you will recognize, but by trimming down our menu it allows us to focus more on each dish, from where it came from to how it is prepared.

Our service to our guests will also see a huge upgrade as we educate them as well.

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Based on previous conversations, I can say with certainty that Eric's been thinking about his past involvement with Ten Tables:

"In its original incarnation, Ten Tables was a location-rotating dinner club hosted by chefs Dustin Staggers, Eric Morris, Ethan Ray, and Griffin Paulin."

Back in 2014, Kevin Gibson surveyed the concept here: Ten Tables creates a buzz no one, not even the chefs, expected.

Ten Tables was a pop-up, both in terms of location and menu. In short, you put your name on a waiting list, and were called to attend. You'd know the menu only upon arrival. Daunting for some, but a sheer delight for others.

Obviously, Gospel Bird will not be a reincarnated Ten Tables. But the influence of Eric's experience at Ten Tables is his belief that diners want to try new and inventive things.

In my view, New Albany is fortunate to have food and dining professionals who believe our scene is evolving, and who are willing to evolve with it. Differentiation is good, so stay tuned; there'll be more as Gospel Bird moves forward.

Read Eiderdown's spot-on explanation about adjusting, changing and upping the embraceable in Germantown.

This statement by the owners of Eiderdown is so impressive that I'm reprinting their Facebook post in its entirety. When I shared it at Roger's Simple Beer Pleasures, frequent reader Mike H. nailed the gist in a nutshell.

THIS, THIS, THIS is how you rebrand yourself. Honest, truthful, and open. Well done and will be on my list to visit on my next trip.

That's absolutely right.

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Dear Germantown-Schnitzelburg,

Saw you at Kroger the other day; that new jacket looks nice on you. Real nice. Hey, you got a minute?

When we opened Eiderdown in October 2010, we had a vision: to offer European-inspired Southern comfort food, a bunch of beers and a good selection of wines all at reasonable prices in a comfortable, rustic setting.

Our hours included lunch back then and we stayed open until 1am on the weekends, with the expectation that we would be an outlet for hungry folks who had been hanging out at the Nachbar (or wherever else). It didn’t take long to realize that — for the food we were making — 1am was too late, then a few month later, we realized 11am was too early. We got rid of late night and lunchtime hours that didn’t make sense and pressed on.

As the years and menus passed, we kinda strayed from our original objective. In 2014 and ‘15, we got busy with a zoning change that allowed us to tear down a warehouse and build a parking lot, as well as offer outdoor seating and liquor drinks. While the food remained delicious, our prices and approachability drifted outside the realm of what is comfortable for the typical Germantown-Schnitzelburger. While we have welcomed (and hope to continue to welcome) people from all over the city, region and beyond, we feel as if we have forsaken many of you, our closest friends and neighbors.

For this, we apologize.

Walking along Texas, Mulberry and Hoertz last Saturday, I realized how crazy it is, in such a densely populated section of Louisville, how few neighborhood folks Eiderdown regularly connects with because we have priced ourselves right off their radars. Right off YOUR radars. So like with the hours that didn’t make sense when we first opened, we feel it’s time to do some more adjusting. Here’s what we have in mind:

1) We will embrace German food. We don’t want to narrow it down so much that we call Eiderdown a German Restaurant, but we will have schnitzel, house sausages, house sauerkraut, potato soup, actual pretzels, spätzle as a side, etc.

2) Prices will drop, yet quality will remain high. As a result, we will be forgoing some local meats (the Nachburger and Sunday Sitdown will remain locally gotten). More sandwiches, fewer entrees, no $32 anything.

3) We will offer more vegetarian options.

4) Beer. We plan to eventually have the most comprehensive selection of German taps in Kentucky. We’ll offer liters, half liters and half pints of many familiar German beers and offer several out-of-the-way styles from smaller German breweries. We’ll round it out with locals, an IPA or two, a couple Belgian beers and Miller Lite.

We are really excited about these changes and feel like they will help Eiderdown nestle back into what we’d always intended it to be. It will take some time for the cabbage to ferment into kraut, so after dinner tonight, we will close for two weeks. We will open back up on Tuesday February 7 as a more embraceable restaurant that we hope you will be proud to have as part of the neighborhood. Either way though, we’ll still say Hey when we see you at the grocery store.

Thanks for your time, G-Town!

Sincerely,

Heather and James

No seals in Czechia: Last night while you were sleeping, we changed the name of our country.

Just one mayoral nod was all it took ...

Where have I heard this before?

A sudden "rebranding" without consultation, without a vote or referendum, followed by unmitigated economic  dishevelment malarkey about temporary "marketing" emblems -- and within months, the unofficial official seal is on every street sign in town.

... to swap seals real quick like.

I'm telling you, if they can change the city seal and saddle us with an anchor in the mud flats, they can change the city's name itself, overnight.

Why do you think I keep referring to New Gahania?

Meanwhile, far, far away in Central Europe, in one of my favorite countries anywhere, it's time for another of these grand rebrandings. The news story is here, but the opinion piece is better.

Changing our country’s name to Czechia won’t solve the problems we face, by
Jakub Patočka (The Guardian)

Rebranding the Czech Republic without consultation has only increased the estrangement between the people and the government

Quite fittingly, the Guardian’s story on the Czech Republic’s attempt to rebrand itself as Czechia opened with a reference to the writer Franz Kafka. For when citizens of the country awoke on Friday morning, they found that things had changed. The announcement that the country’s name was to change came as much as a surprise to the citizens of the Czech Republic as to the rest of the world.

You would think such an important decision would be the result of a broad public debate (just think of the long and complicated process New Zealand went through trying to change its flag) – but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In a poll conducted by the newspaper Mladá Fronta Dnes in 2013, 16,845 people said they didn’t like the new name, compared with 6,160 who did. The fact that officials think they can impose something like this shows how little respect they have for those that they govern. Even those in favour of the name change feel embarrassed by the way the government has bypassed the public.

But it’s an attitude the people of the Czech Republic will be all too familiar with.

426 reboot continues.

I knew these banners were coming, and a glance at Mike Kopp's feed on Twitter tells the story:

426 Bank St Downtown New Albany adds banners for "426 Creative Center" watch for art and artist announcements soon.