40 Years in Beer (Book II, Part 42): Barr built the bar, and the Guinness began pouring

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40 Years in Beer (Book II, Part 42): Barr built the bar, and the Guinness began pouring
Barr at his bar; winter of ’92-’93, after we annexed the adjoining suite and installed the strange window.

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II, Part 41): Just a singer in a rock and roll band (1992).

And so it came to pass that during high summer of 1992, I finally clocked in for full-time duty at Rich O’s BBQ. My lifelong friend Barrie “Barr” Ottersbach came with power tools and built the bar, and I swept up his sawdust. We bought an ancient but functional three-tap keg box, cleaned and serviced and painted it, found a source for the needed nitro mix, and scored imperial pint glasses.

A keg of Guinness was tapped, debuting on Tuesday, September 29. It surely was the first one in the history of Floyd County, given that our wholesaler was compelled to learn how to order kegs for the establishment of inventory. Guinness was followed a few weeks later by Carlsberg golden lager; the “third tap” came later.

Guinness on tap was tantamount to our ribbon-cutting ceremony, and soon enough I was zipping down the other side of the roller coaster, round and round, up and down, all the way until 2018.

I’d already become accustomed to well-meaning naysayers informing me that Guinness could never sell in New Albany, so I confiscated a gently used cocktail napkin and calculated otherwise, seeking to quantify my hunch with numbers like those wankers in business school might do.

It began with an estimated total of adults in New Albany, and a guess at how many of them consumed beverage alcohol. How many would drink a black beer from Ireland that didn’t resemble Old Swillwaukee in the slightest? Admittedly, not many, at least yet. Perhaps more out-of-towners would opt for the Black Gold; we cautiously assumed that no one would cross the river from Louisville to drink a pint, even if many eventually did.

However, we had an ace in the hole, right there in plain sight, which precious few of the sidewalk superintendents noticed. For two years the F.O.S.S.I.L.S. homebrewing club had been brewing, drinking, growing and educating. I knew from the start that club members would be the pub’s vanguard, both in terms of patronage and propaganda, and it always was quite likely that they alone would be constituency enough to move beers with sufficient speed through two (and later three) draft lines.

Clearly, if...Read more