Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 65: Smoky treats, a 9-hour, 9-brewery, 9-beer Bamberg stroll in 1996.
The 1996 F.O.S.S.I.L.S. Membership Directory Issue (#66 & 67; March/April 1996) comprised 34 pages (8.5 x 11), and there’s no telling how long it took for me to assemble it, sequestered in my cubbyhole with beer and leftover pizza.
The issue contained items I judged as being important to members of a homebrewing club, with a wee bit of advocacy thrown into the mix in case they passed it along to a newbie.
There as an active roster of members; directions to the club’s still relatively sparsely populated homepage on the internet; sources for homebrewing supplies, brewing help and empty bottles; where to find books and publications; information on the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) and Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA); meeting and event calendar; and quite a lot more, including a brief note on the last page that was destined to become more significant with the passing of time: “Tucker Brewing Company Prepares for Its Lon-Awaited Opening.”
ATF approval has been given, and Tucker Brewing Company’s initial batches are being brewed. President-for-Now Ed Tash visited the brewery in Salem on March 16; his report will appear in the next issue of Walking the Dog.
Almost three decades later, the Tucker brewing system is still at work, and can be viewed through the pizzeria dining room window at the New Albanian Brewing Co. How it got there is a longer story, and I’ll get to it eventually. A clue: it took six years and a warehouse stay.
Also included in the membership issue was a pet project of mine. Having fed myself a steady diet of CAMRA publications, I concluded that what we really needed was a “good beer” guide to the Louisville metropolitan area, as limited to on-premises accounts and omitting package sales.
Reflecting the tenor of rapidly changing times, it still hadn’t occurred to me that such a resource might be far easier to manage on the internet; had “The Good Beer Guide to Louisville” ever reached fruition, I’d have been compelled to go digital or risk being buried like always beneath stacks of paper and toner.
The guide is reprinted here in its entirety as an exercise in — what, exactly? It should be obvious that at least in part my aim is to illustrate how much better our local options are today. We dug to...Read more
