Owing to the subject matter, this “Hip Hops” column supplants the usual Sunday slot for “Edibles & Potables.”
You may have heard the news that Monnik Beer Co. (Schnizelburg’s oldest brewery) will be moving into the space recently vacated by Pivot Brewing Co. at 1753 Bardstown Road in the Bonnycastle/Deer Park neighborhood.
BUT … as Michael L. Jones reported last week at Louisville Business First, this will not be another branch of the same known Monnik, as was attempted unsuccessfully in New Albany a few years back.
Rather, it is to be an entirely new concept, as yet unrevealed. This means that onlookers from a distance (like me) are free to speculate wildly without just cause about what will be materializing.
Well, it’s my pleasure. All I have are these memories, and I know this proposal is unlikely, but …
Assuming this new concept involves Monnik’s house-brewed beer, which of brewer Buddy McHagan’s creations might be gathered together and arranged to inspire a conceptual spin-off, as opposed to a satellite taphouse with karaoke?
Monnik’s McHagan brews a great many styles of beer on an annual basis, including British (Churchill Best), Belgian (Eagle Skull) and American “craft” (IPA) beers. These are ales, but lagers like Hauck’s American Pilsner and Italian Disco also are staples, with seasonals lagers like Kaiser von Schnitzelburg appearing when appropriate (read: right about now).
During the past decade it has become obvious that the metropolitan Louisville area has reached a sort of cumulative tipping point with respect to Oktoberfest-themed events. Every barber shop, quick oil change, church choir and county jail caterer is doing an Oktoberfest celebration, the sum total of which suggests a new norm: Oktoberfest is just another occasion for adults to dress-up like it’s Halloween.
But I quite enjoy the seasonal Märzen, even wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, as though I were an actual American absent the pretending gene.
Anyway, for me the most under-valued portion of Monnik’s brewing portfolio is its Central European lineup, including the preceding lagers as well as other German and Czech beers.
In recent years the latter have at last become acknowledged in America, and McHagan does a fine job with lagers like his periodic 12P Dark Czech Lager.
For the rundown of Czech beer styles, visit this page at the Beer Judge Certification Program’s web site.
Czech lagers...Read more
