Kevin Gibson - Louisville Beer: Derby City History on Draft

Published by American Palate

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Kevin Gibson

All rights reserved

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.995.3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gibson, Kevin, 1966

Louisville beer : Derby City history on draft / Kevin Gibson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-462-5 (paperback)

1. Beer--Kentucky--Louisville--History. I. Title.

TP528.K4G53 2014

338.47663420976944--dc23

2014028462

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

For an eleven-year-old boy, being offered your first beerand Im talking about my very own, not just a sip of Dadswas quite a thrill. An honor. A rite of passage, even. But Id just finished mowing both the front and back lawns, it was a hot summer day and I had soaked through my thin T-shirt, so I had earned it, by god.

My memory of the moment is blurry, but when I reached into the fridge for some water, I believe I mumbled something about how good those beers looked sitting there. My father never drank much, but he always had beer in the fridge. Always. It was as much a staple as milk or eggs, even though he might drink only one or two per month.

On this day, I eyeballed a six-pack of Miller High Life minis (as my dad called them) on the lowest shelf in our old, white fridgeseven-ounce bottles of the self-proclaimed champagne of beers beckoned to me as I stood there, sweat dripping down my forehead from my tangled brown hair.

You want one?

What, a whole one? I was caught off guard; Id never been offered a whole beer beforenot a beer just for myself. It was always a begged (or stolen) drink or two of my dads beer on the occasions when he would pop one open. It was like forbidden nectar, and I remember him giving me tastes as early as maybe age six or seven, poured sometimes into the little brown plastic tumbler we had in the cupboard. It would be a small pourmaybe an ounce, if that muchbut I felt like a grown-up as I sat on the couch watching football or basketball with my dad, sipping beer as we cheered on the Kentucky Wildcats.

But a whole beer, just for me? Count me in, Dad. And with that, he confirmed the offer, and the deal was sealed. There were no twist-off caps in those days, but I was skilled at opening bottles of Pepsi, so it would be no issue for me to crack open my own beer. My first beer, ever.

While I cant remember what I was wearing that day (probably a UK shirt and tight gray gym shorts, if 1970s family photos are to be believed), I can absolutely remember that first drink of my very own bottle of beer. It was so, so cold, and to this day, I can still conjure a glimpse of that moment by drinking a Miller beer following yard work. Sure, these days my tastes have changed to prefer higher-quality beer, but I wont turn my nose up at a High Life.

And as I drank that first beer, the stuff that had seemed so harsh just a few years earlier seemed smooth, natural. I took a long, measured drink, and the coolness of it filled my senses and soothed me almost immediately. Sure, a glass of Kool-Aid could have done just as good a job at that part, but this was beer. Beer.

If youre reading this book, chances are you have a similar storyan awakening, a moment in time that is forever burned into your minds eyeor your minds taste buds. That is the moment when you realized the wondrous, glorious beauty of beer.

My friend Jennifer Rubenstein, who works for Keep Louisville Weird, told me during an interview about the Louisville Craft Beer Festival in 2013 that the motto around her office is Beer is a magical thing. I was talking to her on a bad cellphone connection, and I misheard it as Beer is a natural thing. But when she corrected me later, we jointly agreed that both assertions ring true. It just feels natural to drink beer. Because of my experience with itit was always around, even at my grandparents housesit simply just is. While society has come to take a sour view of the sweetest of beverages, probably due to the focus on drunk-driving deaths, beer is simply one of those things that has always just been there for us.

Beer is also made from natural ingredientsbarley, hops, wheat and so onwhich is another reason why the word natural is an apt compliment for beer. But when Jennifer told me that the word she used was magical, I took a step back and realized just how much more appropriate that word is. Beer is magical. It was magical that summer day back in 1977 when I heard that pop sound of my first beer being opened, and its magical now. Its magical for all the many flavors and colors and textures in which it exists. Its magical for all the places from which it comes. And it is magical in the way that beer, like almost nothing else in the world, can bring us together and nourish us.

I see beer snobs come and go, with their condescension and negativity, and think about my non-snobby friend Tisha Gainey, founder of the Tailspin Ale Fest, who once told me, At the end of the day, its just beer.

Not that she was discounting beers magical-ness (is that a word?); rather, I took that as her way of saying that beer is not something that should ever cause discord. And that is so because it is so magical and because it is and should be something that brings us all together. Tisha gets it. As a beverage director for a small Louisville restaurant chain and lover of all things beer herself, she gets it perhaps more than most.

As I grew into my teenage years, I didnt drunk much, unlike many of my friends. I remember the parties I attended where, if enough people pitched in, Miller Lite was the beer of choice. If not, it usually ended up being Busch Light or perhaps one of the versions of Keystone (I seem to recall my young taste buds preferring Keystone Dry if it came to that).

But sometime around 1987, while I was working at a place called Tooheys Auto Supply (If your car goes blewy, dont say phooeycall Tooheys!), a friend of my boss who worked for a beer distributor began bringing poor-selling brews into the store and leaving them with us. My boss preferred whiskey, so I usually ended up taking home most of that beer. One I remember in particular was called Lemon and Lager, and it was just what youd think: a cheap lager-style beer infused with fake lemon flavorkind of a forefather to that Bud Light Lime stuff that I refuse to try. The first two green bottles of Lemon and Lager I drank were exotic and wonderful. My dad thought so, too. But I think we made it through only half of that case before we started pawning them off on others.

Still, my curiosity was ignited. There was more available than just corporate light beer? I had no idea that there was anything else. One beer that distributor dropped off was an amber ale. An amber ale? Are you kidding me? This stuff is the wrong color. Its not even yellow! I believe it may have been a Berghoff beer, and it was much better than the Lemon and Lager. That case didnt last long.

But it wasnt until 1992 that something big started to happen for me and my beer curiosity. Thats when Silo Microbrewery, the first brewery in Louisville since Falls City closed its doors in 1978, opened on Barret Avenue near downtown. I remember going there for the first time and ordering the first wheat beer Id ever had. Of course, it was unfiltered and, if I recall correctly, was served with a lemon wedge.