Part III: We Can Preach, Teach, Brew and Bash All at Once ...
Previous installments in this series:
Part I: Beginnings to July, 1991: "Informality Shall Be the Rule ..." in WTD #61/62 (October/November 1995)
Part II: August, 1991 to February, 1992: "Truth, Righteousness and Common Sense Will Be Our Banner" in WTD #63 (December, 1995)
In Walking the Dog #16 (January 1992), Supreme Brewmaster Dennis Barry wrote a retrospective of the club's activities during the first fourteen months of its existence. Denny closed by asking what it all had meant, and answered his question by citing several obvious benefits of membership: superb beer, drinkable and sometimes great homebrew, the impetus to brew at home, the food, and the chance to learn at meetings. But...
One item often overlooked by most, but in my opinion the greatest advantage of being a FOSSILS, has been the camaraderie, and friendships which I have not only made, but rekindled as a result of our group. Discussions do not center solely on beer, although many outsiders would probably guess as much. We have a great group of people, and good friends are hard to find.
Denny's assessment was accurate. In the late winter and early spring of 1992, FOSSILS meetings and gatherings were uniformly excellent, and an ambitious summer calendar was planned.
The February 9 meeting was my first after returning from Czechoslovakia. It was held at Bob Gunn's Clarksville home, where the padre's fine goulash was complemented by a multi-pound slab of smuggled Hungarian salami that disappeared with alarming speed. The March 8 meeting saw a return to Rich O's, the adjacent, formerly vacant ISTA office having been occupied by tenants in my absence. Slides of Europe were shown, a modified dues structure allowing for family memberships was adopted, the first appearance of Slovak lottery tickets in the FOSSILS raffle was marked, and it was noted that an unprecedented membership tally of 33 might soon lead to the Rich O's meeting place being outgrown.
On March 23, the 2nd Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society's (LAGERS) homebrewed stout competition was held. Barrie Ottersbach placed second, and Dennis Barry came in third. Their excellent showings were praised at the time for showing that FOSSILS could brew, and it was probably the last time that the Supreme Brewmaster finished third in any contest.
On the afternoon of April 12, Barrie Ottersbach called me and said he would be a bit late for the evening's meeting. He had received a call from an elderly gentleman who wished to come to the meeting and needed a ride from his apartment in a retirement home. The surprise guest was the late Virgil Hosier, who told us about his term of employment at Ackerman's Brewery, which was the only one of New Albany's breweries to emerge in any manner from Prohibition. Virgil worked there until the catastrophic flood in 1937, then went to work for Fehr’s in Louisville.
Although his experience was limited to the bottling line, and his knowledge of the brewing process was sketchy, Virgil’s testimony was compelling and memorable. He was certain that if one were to dig beneath New Albany’s Holiday Inn, which occupies the site of the brewery where he worked in the 1930's and was later an ice house, the old lagering cellars would be found intact.
The final meeting before the summer "break" -- which would be Patoka Retreat II, a Louisville Redbirds baseball outing and Beer & Sweat at Oldenberg -- came on May 10. Dennis Barry led a controlled tasting of ales, and participants judged the beers using semi-official judging forms. All in all, it had been the most productive period in the club's brief history.
Strike a Pose ... There’s Something To It
By the spring of 1992, the club had been in existence for only one and a half years, but several of its members had been debating philosophical issues relating to beer appreciation since the mid-1980’s. Most of these debates focused on questions of why American beer had gotten so bad, what could be done to make it better, whether a solution was really possible in a nation so enamored of mass-marketed genericism, and on whom the responsibility rested for the disastrous state of affairs.
Many of the most impassioned discussions had to do with the typical American beer drinker. Why did this beer "lover" settle for such wretched swill? Was Joe Six-Pack at the mercy of intensely persuasive marketing forces so large and inescapable that he would never be able to escape their influence and be able to understand beer as beer was meant to be, or was his refusal to consider any choices beyond the bland path of mass-market, generic "pilsners" indicative of lethargic stupidity and a stubborn unwillingness to even attempt an understanding of life’s abundant diversity?
As the club evolved, the pages of Walking the Dog increasingly reflected the interest of many members in these philosophical questions, and unsurprisingly, there were many different opinions within the framework of overall agreement in the benefits of good beer.
In WTD #16 (January, 1992), a pivotal dialogue was initiated by an article by Mike Hart, in which Mike looked back to our formative drinking years and asked:
How can we chastise Lite drinkers for being Liteweight drinkers... lashing out through the Dog at the companies that say they make great American beer is not the answer, although it does make for good reading. In fact, it may turn some people away who otherwise may become members. I think the FOSSILS should welcome all drinkers and show them how easy and fun brewing can be. By doing so, we can educate new members to the infinite number of choices they will have when they start brewing on their own, which is something I will agree that the American breweries have not given us.
Reading Mike’s thoughts in Holland, just prior to my return from Europe, I could see his point. My own thoughts were written then, and published in #18 (March, 1992):
Mike’s observation that American beers ranging from bland to bestial served as our training wheels is undeniable. None of us lost our beer-drinking virginity to anything as svelte as an Urquell or as vivacious as a Belgian ale; rather, we eagerly bedded the first willing Pabst that came our way. Our sudsy origins were humble, barren and occasionally downright sleazy, yet they were useful and remain so, primarily as yardsticks for measuring how far we’ve come. Whereas my cousin Denny once schemed to obtain illicit Sterling, his son Nolan will be able to filch homebrewed stout straight from the Barry family fridge. That’s progress, FOSSILS-style, and a worthy goal for every household in the nation.
I fully agreed with Mike that "Patience, demonstration and education" were needed to appeal to like-minded drinkers, but I disagreed with his fear that some readers of the Dog would be alienated.
It also might be possible that other people would become interested (in FOSSILS) because it’s good reading... the truth that sets us apart from the ordinary beer club (is that) a FOSSIL is versatile, and thus dangerous.
In other words, our advocacy of good beer could take many forms precisely because the club possessed such bountiful talent in many different fields.
We can preach, teach, brew and bash all at once, with no one person working up a sweat in the process.
This dialogue opened the door to the discussion and development of an ideology, or a club philosophy of sorts. For those readers accustomed to seeing the word used in a perjorative sense, ideology is, in fact, rather benignly defined as:
1: the body of ideas characteristic of a particular individual, group or culture; 2. the assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a political, social and economic program.
To be sure, a conclusive formulation of our ideology hasn’t been attempted, and the very idea of an ideology (or philosophy) of beer appreciation will seem odd, unnecessary, and maybe even pompous to many readers. However, many of us feel that it is appropriate within the context of our collective interest in elevating beer to a position that merits serious consideration beyond the olfactory pleasure it brings to the drinker.
Many of us began to prefer discussing the beer "Revolution," as opposed to the far more common beer "Renaissance,"
Whereas "Renaissance" bears the connotation of rebirth, "Revolution" embraces the notion of a complete and radical change, and it is the idea of radical change that best explains the vivid and exciting differences between the beer that is mass-produced by America’s huge megabreweries and the beer that is brewed by homebrewers and craft brewers.
Our Platform
Briefly, the ideology goes something like this:
Early in the life of FOSSILS, I coined the word "Swillocracy," or rule by swill, to describe the prevailing state of beer and brewing in America. The swillocracy is the status quo, which includes the megabreweries, their bland alcoholic soda pop, and the advertising and marketing campaigns that they employ to preserve their power. The swillocracy is dedicated to the preservation of the lowest common denominator in beer, and the perpetuation of those social and cultural aspects that define the lowest common denominator in beer.
The Revolution is the ongoing process of radically changing the swillocracy, primarily by demonstrating the better path to true beer enjoyment through education, but also by openly and incessantly challenging the assumptions upon which the swillocracy rests.
The Revolution’s raison d’etre is the fundamental proposition that beer is important and worthy of the effort it takes to learn about it, and that some beers are certifiably better than others according to universals that go beyond personal taste. This universal aesthetic derives from experience and knowledge, and from this fundamental proposition a critical value judgment is constituted.
The value judgment is that good beer exists, from which a wholly logical corollary can be deduced, namely, that bad beer also exists. To affirm what is good is to imply its opposite, and this is an inevitable and inescapable reality, whether the beer aficionado consciously understands it or not. It is also a critical corollary insofar as ideology is concerned, because an espousal of what is good, and the effort to convince others that this is the case, is naturally accompanied by the critique and illumination of what is bad.
In the context of the American experience, there are many factors in this process that relate to reasons of history and politics (Agricultural factors in America, Prohibition, post-Prohibition regulatory regimes), economics (Traditional American themes like marketing and advertising), and social and cultural factors arising from the preceding. As we came to discover, other organizations in Europe, particularly Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale and its sister groups in the European Beer Consumers Union, have taken the lead in articulating active platforms based on the circumstances in their countries of origins.
These platforms are uncompromising, and in terms of spiritual thrust, they parallel the motivations and goals that FOSSILS has sought to evolve toward. In terms of the preceding, chief among these is the forceful recognition of what is good and what is not in the world of beer, and of being able to clearly identify who and what assists the cause of the Revolution, and who and what doesn’t.
Since the swillocracy is composed primarily of megabrewing entities that must dilute the essence of beer to maintain the imperative of their growth and profitability, its activities must be carefully monitored and exposed. It is in our interest to explore the possibilities of standardizing regulatory regimes, which amount to a crazy quilt of state and local jurisdictions that hamper the ability of small-scale producers to operate. Also, the policies of federal government agencies, such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms deserve scrutiny; beer is a foodstuff in addition to being a taxable commodity. Along these lines, most of us can see the value of a socialization process for children that places alcoholic beverages in the context of food, and involves education, not knee-jerk prohibitionism -- which we must fight at all times.
These are just a few of the ideological considerations that began to be discussed in the pages of Walking the Dog in the spring of 1992, when we began a process of critical examination, and forthright advocacy, that has continued to the present day.
Summer Schedule, 1992
Reverting to the spirit of anarchy that characterized the early FOSSILS gatherings, those braving the wrath of Mom to attend the May 10 meeting voted to forego formal meetings until September 13... (and) spend the summer months disposing of the filthy cash that has accumulated in the FOSSILS account.
WTD #21 (June, 1992)
First up was Fr. Bob’s Patoka Retreat II, held from June 26 through June 28, 1992. Partygoers discovered that a rear deck had been added and a cistern installed, the latter threatening to make obsolete the "Famous backyard al fresco dumping facility" that had been a focal point of the previous year’s gathering. The last two kegs of Oldenberg beer that FOSSILS will ever have (Pending dramatic changes at Fort Mitchell) were served on Saturday, with no repeat visits from thirsty space aliens.
It was an extremely hot Saturday, an extremely bizarre weekend, and in the final analysis, one of the few instances of a FOSSILS event that didn’t go very well. There were bloodied noses during volleyball and several rounds of nocturnal firecrackers that simply didn’t sit well with the management. These and several other occurrences detracted from the fun.
And then, it got worse -- at least for me.
On Sunday morning, I was chatting with Fr. Bob just prior to departure, and with the car idling several yards away with Amy in the passenger seat, I suffered a convulsive seizure that rendered me unconscious. It was my second such neurological disruption. As can be readily imagined, my illness capped off the weekend on a note of depressing finality that included a $2,400 overnight stay at Floyd Lugosi Memorial Hospital and the inauguration of my subsequent interest in reforming -- either through persuasion or summary executions -- the American health care system.
I include this in the narrative history of FOSSILS for two reasons. First, it is a fact. Second, it had the effect of causing me to reconsider the direction I was going and concluding that I would finally become involved with Amy’s family’s business after years of resistance to such a commitment. It was at this point that I began working at Rich O’s, and that we began slowly moving toward what the establishment is today. The first milestone was September 29, when Guinness Stout went on draft at Rich O’s. Later that autumn, bottled Sierra Nevada arrived. The pub became the gathering place of FOSSILS and like-minded civilians, and the official meeting site.
Unfortunately, July’s Redbirds outing was another bomb. Only seven FOSSILS attended, a sizable thunderstorm negated our efforts to tailgate, and once inside Cardinal Stadium, the mass-market swill was found to be utterly undrinkable.
Then, in August, it was time for Beer and Sweat.
Fear and Loathing at the McOldenberg Brewmall
Beer and Sweat IV was one of the most important defining moments in the history of the club. Fifteen FOSSILS made the trip and experienced two vastly conflicting milieus: first, the great event itself, as shaped by the skill and enthusiasm of the organizers, the Cincinnati area’s Bloatarian Brewing League, and second, the disinterested and shocking bumbling of the host facility, the grandiosely titled Drawbridge Inn Entertainment Complex, including the Oldenberg brewery. The event turned out to be an early test of the ideology that was evolving at the time. Specifically, our experience led us to ask the question of Oldenberg: Are you helping or hindering the Revolution?
The FOSSILS always had been partial to Oldenberg. It was the region’s first, and at that time only, brewpub and microbrewery, and its starting concept seemed very promising to those who were starved for something better in beer. For a few years, Oldenberg seemed to be living up to its potential, but beginning with the firsthand look at the operation afforded us at Beer and Sweat IV, the true state of Oldenberg began to become visible to us.
Our critique was noticed far beyond Oldenberg’s underachieving confines, and it helped to establish a standard for critical analysis in our ongoing consideration of the beer and brewing revolution, in which we were seeking to play a more active role. Beginning in WTD #24 (September, 1992) -- the first computerized Dog -- we informed all readers and interested parties that as far as Oldenberg’s place in the beer and brewing revolution was concerned, the emperor had no clothes.
In my commentary in #24, "Beer & Sweat Recap: Lower the Drawbridge," the event was viewed as entirely successful from the perspective of the effort put forth by the Bloatarians, who were seen as exemplary organizers, but unsuccessful from the vantage point of the Drawbridge Inn’s contribution. I was convinced that as homebrewers and lovers of good beer, we deserved better.
Specifically, I charged that the Drawbridge had committed numerous gaffes, beginning with a catastrophic decision to put "The homebrewers hospitality suite in the very center of rooms occupied by normal guest families." The rooms of the participants were scattered to the far corners of the sprawling hotel complex. The additional party suite requested by the Bloatarians was misplaced. Late in the evening, an authoritarian employee was dispatched to quiet the noise that would not have been a factor if not for the botched placement of the suite. In general, little discernible effort was made to welcome the participants or to provide some recognition, however slight, that those homebrewers and beer lovers attending Beer & Sweat were the core constituency of Oldenberg’s, and, frankly, deserved better.
In the following issue, WTD #25, it was time to reconsider the whole of the Oldenberg enterprise. I began by stating my conclusion and asking a pertinent question: In short, it is now evident that Oldenberg’s novelty has gone a long way toward sheltering it from the type of analysis that it deserves. As a pioneer of sorts, Oldenberg has been given the benefit of the doubt, but now we must ask the difficult question: Is the message being sent by Oldenberg really the message that we, the vanguard of the movement toward good beer in America, want to send to the unconverted, to the Liteweights so desperately in need of redemption?
As a microbrewery and a brewpub, Oldenberg’s strength was supposed to be its beer. Yet...
Oldenberg’s beer would seem to have become of secondary importance to its reliance on gimmickry (The awful puns like J.D. Brews, the Brew-Ha-Ha Revue, etc.) glitter (The revue itself) and gouging (The admission fees for things that were, or should be, free of charge). When the thinking drinker considers these trends, can he be blamed for the nagging thought that these are reminiscent of the obsessive marketing tendencies that have degraded American brewing, thus necessitating the beer-drinking and brewing revolutions that Oldenberg seemed to be in the vanguard of only a few short years ago?
One example sticks in my mind. Earlier in 1992, the extensive collection of beer and brewing memorabilia that had been donated (With much ballyhoo) to Oldenberg, and which had been displayed free of charge for visitors to peruse, had been transformed into the grandly named American Museum of Brewing History & Arts. To pay the costs of changing the Complex’s stationary, a museum fee was instituted.
At the museum’s "dedication," much publicity was given to an appearance by Alan Eames, the self-proclaimed "Beer anthropologist," who eventually was designated as the museum’s curator. At the same time as Eames was being introduced to Oldenberg’s customers as one of the central figures in the world of beer and brewing, the magazine Suds’n’Stuff revealed that he was traveling to major American cities and hosting beer tastings for selected journalists. As I noted in WTD #26:
The specific type of beer being dispensed and discussed at these gatherings is described by Eames as being ’Misunderstood by the public despite its popularity."
Yes, you guessed it: The topic is light.
Says Eames, "The light beer category is vibrant and dynamic, with a range of styles and tastes. We are working with leading chefs to showcase fine light beer as an ideal accompaniment to today’s lighter cuisine."
And what has piqued Eames’s curiosity in light beers to the point that the renowned "Beer anthropologist" has become their staunch defender? We don’t know for sure, but he is currently serving as spokesman for Beck’s Light (read: low calorie) Beer."
So much for the credibility of Oldenberg’s museum, although the irony was lost in Ft. Mitchell. I closed my commentary on Oldenberg by saying:
Must being American inevitably lead to these sad instances of price-gouging and all-pervasive cuteness, or do we have a glimmer of hope remaining that true quality can be its own reward apart from the huge, generic, compulsive symptoms of Disney-envy that seem always to emerge when someone has a good idea? Can we, as Americans, somehow reconcile aesthetics and authenticity with the mass market and financial considerations? Can we place a dollar sign on the answer to these considerations?
Et tu, Oldenberg. Now we look to Louisville to see if the Silo and the proposed Oertel’s project can scale the heights and succeed where the footing is treacherous, at the juncture of art and profit, where Oldenberg seems to be losing its grip and casting sidelong glances into the abyss below.
A copy of the critique was sent to Oldenberg. Would the brewery and entertainment complex respond to our concerns?
Meanwhile, the "Proposed Oertel’s project" never got off the ground beyond managing a brief contract brewing of its brands by Wisconsin’s Huber Brewing Company, but the Silo opened for business as scheduled in mid-October. Both Oertel’s and the Silo were featured prominently in a Courier-Journal Scene article entitled "Derby City Suds: Louisville’s Going Back into the Beer Business" (Saturday, October 3, 1992) by James "Chip" Nold, who had attended the infamous FOSSILS "Tent revival" meeting at the Ottersbach residence in September, and also made it to the annual mead and fruit beer party at Bob Capshew’s (also in September). Nold had joined in the merriment in the backyard at the Ottersbach estate, and he described the club in a fine, balanced article that touched on commercial brewing in Louisville, its revival, the popularity of homebrewing, and the area’s two homebrewing and beer appreciation clubs: although several of its members brew, FOSSILS is more of a beer-appreciation society than LAGERS. The group publishes a newsletter, Walking the Dog, that consists in large part of members writing about beer’s philosophical and cultural aspects. The philosophy varies in quality, but the love of beer, and the quest to put its attractions into words, is a constant presence.
An issue might feature a quote from Kemal Ataturk ("Those who are inclined to compromise can never make a revolution") or a law from medieval Augsburg ("The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love"); an account of a member’s visit to a Dublin pub, a Houston bar or the Czech brewery where Pilsner Urquell is made; or a series of pointed questions aimed at "Liteweights" ("Why don’t you like the taste of beer?").
The group meets monthly to taste and discuss a "beer of the month"... (and) its most recent meeting featured awards -- re-lettered bowling trophies, mostly -- for such honors as Most Diverse Brewer and Most Improved Drinker.
It was the FOSSILS’s first local media triumph, and confirmation that the beer and brewing revolution had arrived in the Louisville area. As we waited for Oldenberg’s response to our published critique, and as the Oertel’s saga (Now we have the money; now we don’t) first unfolded, then plummeted into a seemingly perpetual legal struggle, all beer-loving eyes turned to the Silo, which had hired David Pierce as brewmaster and had every appearance of becoming a bastion of good beer in River City.
After a promising beginning, it didn’t. The story of how and why the Silo went wrong will be taken up in Chapter 4.
