My “40 Years in Beer” series has paused for a few weeks. Honestly, I’ve had little time to write lately; this will change once cooler weather arrives, and I anticipate concluding Volume 1 (of two) by the end of October.
This will bring me to 1992, and the launch of Rich O’s Public House (and later NABC) in earnest, the story of which will comprise Volume 2, eventually leading to the present day.
Among other reasons, 1992 is a personal dividing line from a practical standpoint of possessing dozens of boxes of Public House and NABC archives in the basement. Let’s just say these are haphazardly organized, and must be straightened before plunging into the narrative. It’s going to happen, but it will take time.
It’s not as if I sketched any of the story up to this point. However, the 1990s are going to require more forethought than I’ve allotted thus far. Volume 1 probably will clock in at 70,000 – 80,000 words, and so will Volume 2. Then the tightening can commence.
Thanks for reading up to this point in time.
I may have been crazy to run independently for mayor of New Albany in 2015, and I may be just as crazy seeking to write a beer lifer’s autobiography in installments. But I also recall being called crazy when making various efforts to sell better beer in a place where few knew what this meant, and even fewer thought it would succeed.
Why not tell the story of how all this played out, not in New York or Seattle, but in fly-over Middle America? After all, it’s never been about just one person or a few people. It has taken a village, and even I once had my doubts whether such a grouping existed. Yet it did, and it has grown.
So, thanks again. The series will resume, and the saga will continue, but first there are other tasks that need to be tended to.
Cover photo: Slow-poured Carlsberg in Copenhagen, 1991.
40 Years in Beer: All installments are listed here.
Most recent episode:
40 Years in Beer, Part Thirty Four: In 1991, a smoky Bamberg sojourn with Happy Helmut
