Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 62: Rich O’s expands, and we gain an affinity for Rogue Ales (1995).
The Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society (F.O.S.S.I.L.S.) turned five years old in 1995. Arguably our local homebrewing and beer appreciation club was approaching its peak, with membership and participation levels high, and an annual calendar firmly set.
Most regular club meetings were held late on Sunday afternoon at Rich O’s Public House, which otherwise was the pub’s customary Ruhetag (in German, “rest day”). Obviously it couldn’t be a genuine day of rest if Amy and I unlocked the doors for the club meetings, but the members also were regular customers, as well as our friends. ‘Nuff said.
We always sold a few pints; besides, all I’d have done anyway was drink alone, and drinking was more fun with friends.
Club dues remained a dollar a month, which paid for Walking the Dog newsletter expenses, including at least two annual double issues (the membership guide and Travel Dog). Members donated items for monthly raffles, which were responsible for the remainder of the club’s operating revenues. These made for a vastly entertaining segment of regular meetings as emceed by Barrie Ottersbach, although the variable quality of winning items led eventually to new rules: “YOUR dumpster, not ours.”
Whenever possible I booked speakers from the ever-expanding pool of beer business owners, brewers and sales staffers, and whether local, regional or national, they drew big crowds by bringing beers and raffle items. Of course, their presence worked hand in glove with our objectives as a better beer bar.
(Although, as we’ll see even more persuasively in a few minutes, attendees “stripping down” often was an ancillary benefit, as with Spaten’s sales rep Mark Proehl, seen here swapping logo shirts during a presentation at a regular Public House meeting in November 1995.)
In terms of bigger events, usually there’d be a summer season picnic held at the big Indian Bluff acreage near my ancestral home in Georgetown in conjunction with the Louisville Area Grain and Extract Research Society (L.A.G.E.R.S.), as well as a party for the Christmas season. In turn, these gatherings were augmented by “brew-ins” scheduled to precede them, which were designed to produce the homebrew we’d be drinking, one brew-in occurring in March and another in September or October.
For the uninitiated, a homebrewing club’s “brew-in” is a dual-purpose event. It is an invitation to bring one’s homebrewing equipment to a central location, usually on Saturday or Sunday at someone’s house, to brew beer communally and guide newbies in the process. There is food, drink and the jocularity inspired by non-brewers in their sidewalk superintendent costumes monitoring the proceedings.
It seems exceedingly strange now to divulge homebrewing’s fundamental chauvinism during the early period of the beer revolution. Men assumed that women weren’t interested in such matters, and yet during the course of this narrative we’ve seen that in Louisville alone, Eileen Martin was a pioneering professional brewer at the Silo, to be followed by Leah Dienes, an award-winning homebrewer who later partnered with Bill and Jane Krauth to open Apocalypse Brew Works.
In fact there were numerous other women who wanted to learn about brewing, and consequently one of the foremost F.O.S.S.I.L.S. traditions became the club’s all-women’s brew-in held in March. One male was allowed to participate, subject to invitation and approval. He was required to don the ceremonial identity of “Raoul” for the day, and dedicate himself entirely to preparing food and drink, serving the brewers as they worked, and readying the hot tub.
I believe it was one of our greatest achievements. In 2007, the Pink Boots Society – now a 501(c)3 – was founded by Terri Fahrendorf (formerly of Oregon’s Steelhead Brewing) during her “road brewer” period,
Pink Boots Society aims to assist, inspire and encourage women and non-binary individuals in the fermented/alcoholic beverage industry to advance their careers through education.
We are the movers and shakers in the fermented/alcoholic beverage industry. We make fermented and alcoholic beverages with the highest possible quality. We are the women and non-binary individuals that own the companies, package the product, design the labels, serve the drinks, write about our industry – and just about everything in between. Most importantly, we teach each other what we know through our own seminar programs, and we help each other advance both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house careers by raising money for educational scholarships.
For January meetings we concocted an event called the Pungent & Funky Appetizer Competition. The idea was to prepare nibbles for cumulative grazing, ones suitable to accompany beer (both homebrewed and commercially brewed).
The definition of “pungent & funky” was not narrowly illuminated. Rather, the aim was to encourage strong flavored nibbles deploying expressive combinations of basic ingredients, although not necessarily palate-destroying scotch bonnet pepper bombs.
One time I prepared stinky Czech-style beer cheese. There’d be my first exposure to bacon-wrapped stuffed dates, or homemade braunschweiger; I seem to recall curried deviled eggs at some point. One year a garlic infused beer was submitted. I didn’t care for it, but as a marinade it was amazing (if time consuming to make).
My single favorite pungent and funky appetizer ever was “Grub on This,” submitted by Rick Buckman. His sister was in the military, and returned from a tour in South Korea bearing cans of beondegi – silkworm pupae, with which Rick whipped up a chili sauce for dipping.
Opinion was divided.
Themed gatherings regionally were many, and included the Bloatarian Brewing League of Cincinnati’s Beer and Sweat, annual draft-only, sanctioned homebrewing competition in high summer, and a cool-weather bookend to the north called Beer and No Sweat, held in Cleveland in late winter by the Society of Northeast Ohio Brewers.
In fact, the mid-1990s was something of a golden era for homebrewing clubs, one of the most famous of which (ever since 1983) was the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild (MHTG) in Madison, Wisconsin. Somehow we got to know each other and exchanged newsletters, which eventually led to a series of heaven-sent visits during the 2000s by the New Albanian Brewing Company to MHTG;s li’l ol’ annual club beer fest: Great Taste of the Midwest, only the finest beer fest anywhere.
Certain of us had always been enamored of Porter, originally a dark English ale about which legend and reality often fail to coincide. No matter; I was an avowed ringleader of the Porter contingent, stocking quite a few at the Public House and adoring David Pierce’s delicious “robust” interpretation of this classic style at Bluegrass Brewing Company.
When F.O.S.S.I.L.S. came to discuss staging an annual homebrewing competition of our own to be held annually in November, Porter became the choice of featured styles (Robust, Brown and Baltic). In time this competition was sanctioned by the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), although I believe it has fallen by the wayside; after all, as of 2024 F.O.S.S.I.L.S. is 34 years old, and change is inevitable.
It so happens that early in the game, the L.A.G.E.R.S. navigated official channels to establish a homebrewing advocacy booth at the Kentucky State Fair each August. Shortly thereafter an annual homebrew judging was added, slotting nicely with the fair’s pie-baking, chicken-raising and other ribbon-worthy competitions. The annual LAGERS homebrew judging at the state fair quickly became an official Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) competition and persists to the present day.
Arguably the most famous state fair competition entry did not win a medal. It came from FOSSILS co-founder Barrie Ottersbach and was called “Smoked Spruce Ale,” although some of the judges thought they detected Mr. Clean.
Walking the Dog, the official newsletter of FOSSILS, chronicled these gatherings and events. One of the most enduringly popular articles I ever wrote for WTD summarized my shift as a volunteer at the LAGERS State Fair’s homebrewing booth in August of 1996. The memory of these hours, and the ensuing taxi ride to St. Matthews, is weirdly fresh after almost 30 years. On several occasions other occasions I pulled a shift at fair, and they always played out the same way.
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PC ’96 – A Day at the Fair.
On the morning of a gorgeous summer’s Wednesday that I had chosen to man the L.A.G.E.R.S. information booth at the Kentucky State Fair, I awoke to that irritable feeling of discomfort that many people describe as a hangover.
I was shocked and appalled. As a trained, professional drinker of fine ales and lagers, I have “hangovers” about as often as I find Beluga caviar shelved next to the Star-Kist tuna at the Dairy Mart down the street.
Anyway, what had I done the previous evening to even merit the mention of a hangover? I’d only had one Old Rasputin Imperial Stout … followed by an Affligem Abbey Dubbel … and a couple of Sierra Nevada drafts to ease my aching feet … and a nightcap of Anchor’s Old Foghorn to chase down an evening meal of one and a half cold breadsticks with thoroughly coagulated garlic butter.
Hangover? Nah, it must have been some kind of allergy, ‘coz it simply couldn’t have been a hangover. To prepare for the rigors of the day, I ate two doughnuts and drained three cups of black coffee. Thusly fortified with sugar and caffeine, I was off to greet the fair-going public.
I was driven to the fairgrounds and deposited at the first Crittenden Drive gate near the I-65 exit ramp. I stepped from my ride into a cloud of sweat-laden dust raised by the University of Louisville football players practicing nearby in the shadow of the former Mt. Schnellenberger, which has been reduced to the status of mere knob in the collective memory of University of Louisville football fans. It was a little after 10:00 a.m. when I paid the admission fee at one of the auto entry booths, producing my ticket for the next bored employee a few yards further on.
He looked at me incredulously, as if paralyzed: “A walk-in? Seriously?”
I headed for the third base side of Cardinal Stadium, took advantage of the pedestrian crosswalk through the horse promenade, joyously filled my lungs with the accompanying bluegrass excremental equine ambiance, navigated the East Concourse of Freedom Hall, and finally emerged on the South Lawn, to be greeted by Freddy Farm Bureau.
Freddy was too busy ogling the scantily clad young schoolgirls to bother with me, but I had spotted a Courier Journal booth and asked if I could buy a newspaper to keep me company. “No, we don’t have any newspapers,” yawned the woman on duty, turning grudgingly away from her telephone conversation about the dating habits of fellow office inhabitants. “But there’s plenty of free maps of the fair! You want one of those?”
Sure. It had a nice recipe for pie, and a reminder that our lone metropolitan newspaper is always there when needed.
I turned toward my destination, only to be jarringly confronted by a beer tent that trumpeted the availability of Budweiser beers, those fine premium products from the House of Busch – or the Outhouse of Busch, where carbonated urine enriches the Busch family as it impoverishes the collective palate of the nation, which in turn worships the swill barons like medieval peasants groveling in the presence of the local nobility.
To conquer swill, you only have to think …
The LAGERS booth was right where it was supposed to be. I assembled the free handouts (L.A.G.E.R.S., F.O.S.S.I.L.S., Bluegrass Brewing, the Silo, Nuts ‘n’ Stuff, Winemakers Supply) on the long table, surveying the sparse crowd wandering through the exhibits in the South Hall. I brought a notebook to keep a log of sorts, and here are excerpts.
10:30 First of the very accurately billed “heartburn” specials — loaded Chicago-style hot dogs from the stand out front of Freedom Hall on the South Lawn.
10:35 First “hey, you givin’ out samples?” question from a passerby.
10:47 First “I remember my dad’s/granddad’s/uncle’s bottles of homebrew blowing up” story, this one from a woman who now lives in Pittsburgh.
10:53 I quit trying to count the number of Kentucky Wildcats ball caps bobbing past.
11:45 A sincere man about my age (36) asks me “do you think there are any places at the Fair where I can get a specialty beer to drink?” My answer: “Do you really think Auggie Busch drinks his own swill?”
12:00 (noon) Lengthy country music cerebral torture begins emanating from a stage somewhere in the distance. One Patsy Cline number was tolerable, but the remainder utterly inane.
12:05 Ball cap on ambling, tank-topped redneck reads “tell me now before I spend $20.00 on drinks.”
12:10 Pleasant older gentleman asks me if I know the best way to filter red wine vinegar.
12:15 Sudden burst of energy has me out of the chair, trying to work the crowd.
12:20 Energy subsides.
12:30 First hot fudge sundae at booth on the South Lawn.
12:40 “My granny used to make it. My daddy used to make it. We’d just sit on the front porch and listen to it explode.”
12:50 A teenager asks me a question. His country accent is so thick that I’m unable to understand him. I tell him I’m sorry, but I just moved here from France and I haven’t picked up the language yet.
13:15 An older man tells me stories about his late father, a rural physician in a dry county, who’d send him out for soft drink bottles to use for the homebrew, which “he’d make out of anything he could.”
13:35 Mark, one of the owners of the Liquor Barn in Lexington, stops by to chat.
13:55 Idle speculation: Why do old men dress the way they do — dress shoes and socks, knee-length shorts, golf and polo shirts? It’s like some sort of AARP-mandated public uniform, which I presume they can purchase at a discount at Wal-Mart.
14:00 Wanderlust. Off in search of TARC schedules, having concluded that I could take a bus to get to Bluegrass Brewing Company after my shift, and meet my friend Buddy Sandbach there.
14:15 First ostrich burger.
14:26 Back to work.
14:35 First gyro from booth on the South Lawn.
14:51 Fifteenth request for samples. Make that sixteen.
14:53 Seventeen.
15:10 The band in the South Hall lobby tears into an inspired rendition of the theme from “The Brady Bunch.” People actually sing along. Women with babies in strollers go past me again. A cooking demonstration gets under way. Men in town for the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention wear political buttons, some Gore/Clinton, many more Dole/Kemp. I find that I’m very thirsty, but although there are leftover homebrew entries hiding in the back of the booth, one wrong move could yield a smoked spruce. So I wait.
At some point before 17:00 (notice how fond I am of the 24-hour clock?), FOSSILS Supreme Brewmaster Dennis Barry arrived to commence the night shift. I headed off in the direction of Crittenden Drive with the aim of finding the bus stop, but there was a taxi stand by the side of the Redbirds (remember, that’s the local baseball club that lied to the world about its intention to have good beer at ball games – you don’t think the Curmudgeon would forget such a slight, do you Dale Owens?) ticket office. (1)
What the hell, I thought. I’m thirsty. The efficient, professional cabby regaled me with stories of convention traffic, noting that religious conventions are particularly good for business, with numerous fares requesting to be picked up a block or two away from the convention hall, to be taken to “whiskey stores and tittie bars.” The best of all, according to my driver, were the visitors to the annual farm implement show.
“Man, those farmers raise hell!” he exclaimed.
As we pulled into the BBC lot, I was telling my driver about ways of hailing cabs in the old Soviet Union, when you could stand on the street corner and hold up a pack of western smokes or toothpaste, and then watch the competition for your patronage. He was extremely amused by these anecdotes, and he vowed to tell his fellow drivers.
I slipped him a twenty, went inside, ordered a Dark Star Porter, clipped the end from a Punch Diademas, and relaxed, finally among my own.
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1995 closed with the standard-issue F.O.S.S.I.L.S. holiday party at the Lewison residence in New Albany, except that from the very start, there was a strange and off-kilter energy to this all-day gathering. Something edgy was in the air, and for evidence of this assertion, I present to you the legacy of the “Robust Men of F.O.S.S.I.L.S.
Holy bat cake, beef man.
Immediately thereafter the notion of an all-male FOSSILS calendar was minted. It did not come to fruition, but lest anyone think the idea was derivative, note kindly that The Full Monty film wasn’t released until 1997, and Calendar Girls didn’t come along until 2003. We’d have been trailblazers.
Who the hell spiked our homebrew at Christmas in 1995? Was the club and its wider social structure wobblier than it appeared? Did a shaky axis foretell a period of great personal churn, decline and fall?
As television’s Sgt. Shultz once averred, “I know nothing.”
Next: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 64: The 2,301 day McOldenberg Brewmall 1990s vigil.
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NOTES
(1) Another of my ongoing “dialogues” involved the management of the Triple-A baseball Louisville Redbirds (later renamed Bats), who regarded Bud Light as good enough.
