Spoiler: I found the Bak, and yes, it was dark.
During the transitional era that preceded our international craft brewing revival, beer hunting was comprehensively different than it is today. In the absence of immediate access to information via today’s ubiquitous mobile phones, an appreciable degree of winging it was a customary default mechanism.
Not that reference materials didn’t exist. There was an ample supply of beer books, but a car would have been needed to tote one’s non-digital library; those of us traveling more lightly with a backpack or similarly scaled-back, dirty-clothes-hauling mechanism found ourselves confined to pocket guide books (like Michael Jackson’s) ― the smaller the better.
(As an aside, who wanted to drive, anyway? For me, the whole point of beer hunting in Europe is to drink my findings as I please, which on widely scattered occasions inspires inebriation, and then take the inexpensive subway home. Even today when traveling in Europe, we spend entire afternoons riding public transportation in order to build up immunity to automobile-centric America.)
Back then, I often made one-sided photocopies of useful beer, brewery and pub information, to be repurposed later as note paper, and discarded when no longer relevant; not in the trash, because as a socialist I’d leave them stacked in the hostelry lobby for the potential benefit of others.
The 1980s may have been the last decade when any sort of beer guide in the form of a book made sense, and could be trusted to last a few years and still be mostly correct. Changes came more slowly. Still, books like the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide, were updated yearly and merited inclusion even when the pack bulged.
The overall pattern was to cobble together books, newspaper clippings and whatever else might be found to provide basic points of orientation. The remainder was gleaned experientially, by talking with people, looking at restaurant menus, taking note of advertising signs, and going into grocery stores for a look at the selection. The latter was my most common source for new beers (most of them bottles; there were far fewer cans), since I usually couldn’t afford to drink for very long in bars and restaurants.
I sat on a great many park benches and sipped on beers purchased...Read more
