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The Potable Curmudgeon May 15, 2013

One lump or two?

(I’m delaying Part Two of “Indiana Statecraft” until June 1; thanks for waiting — RAB) As the venerated journalist David Brinkley once put it, “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.” Well, that suits me. I’m highly opinionated, and much of the verbiage comes barreling out of my subconscious via the written word. For me, writing [...]

Indiana Statecraft (Part One)

What was that? How many breweries are located in the state of Indiana? Only your friendly statewide trade organization knows for sure, although with the situation changing so quickly from week to week, the Brewers of Indiana Guild (BIG) probably isn’t capable of a completely accurate count, either. The best guesstimate bandied about during BIG’s [...]

The Sahara of Slugger Field

The Triple-A Louisville Bats began play earlier this month amid the usual hot stove and cold fridge speculation as to whether Louisville Slugger Field finally would join the craft (beer) (food) (bourbon) (dining) (localism) (choose one) revolution currently underway in Louisville, as well as in most other baseball outposts scattered through the remainder of the [...]

Quality Patrol

The 2013 Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) took place in the nation’s capital last week, and my record remains unblemished, because I’ve never attended a single one of them. I’ve nothing whatever against it, and some day, I’ll manage to make the trip. It’s just that ever since it first dawned on me to pay attention [...]

Killa Stella

In his autobiographical book, “The Factory of Facts,” the Belgian-American writer Luc Sante recalls the drab post-WW II industrial reality of his childhood home of Verviers, a city in the Wallonian rustbelt. Reading Sante’s reflections on a society stratified by factory life and traumatized by its wartime experiences, my thoughts turned to lager beer, which [...]

Gravity’s Rogue

At New Albanian Brewing Company (NABC) we have a peculiar annual institution known as Gravity Head, and with the 15th version currently underway, I’m reminded of how Gravity Head’s internal alarm clock has a snooze button marked “Time Warp.” No, this isn’t meant as an indicator of the way hours become minutes as the many strong [...]

Let’s Explore Anti-local Craft Beer Unconsciousness

“Art can never take the place of social action … but its task remains forever the same: to change consciousness.” – Amos Vogel, from “Film as a Subversive Art” When will craft beer finally change the consciousness of the American beer-drinking mainstream?” I’m tempted to answer one question with another: Should mainstream consciousness ever be [...]

Tom Long is Full of Something, and it Ain’t Craft Beer

Years before most of us were born, there was an Englishman named Eric Blair, who is better known by his pen name, George Orwell. During a lifetime cut regrettably short, Orwell spent much of his writing career pondering abuses and misuses of the English language. Orwell decried the mutability of language and words, particularly when [...]

Getting Our Shift Together

Political stump speeches differ very little from religious sermons, and that’s probably why we call it a bully pulpit, not a milk crate. However, a soapbox might be useful, or better yet, a couple cases of Bud Light in tall cans, because if the pet shampoo is too disgusting to drink, at least you can [...]

Take It Off! Take It Off!

As if you hadn’t already noticed, I’m a beer-loving and occasionally wine-dabbling habitué of all manner of bars, pubs, taverns and adult watering stations. They’re the only locales on Earth where I feel truly comfortable. But there’s even more to it. Emulating other renowned Falstaffian trenchermen in fact and legend, I live to eat and [...]