Hi, I’m Roger, an erstwhile “beer guy” charged with holding down this digital fort in quiet desperation, or something like that (the metaphors flow like craft cocktail programs in frantic times like these).
Today is not customarily “Hip Hops” day, but I drink the pint I’m dealt/handed/poured, which comes to me from Amanda Hancock at the Courier Journal: New Louisville brew pub pouring lots of lagers to open soon from Monnik team: What to know.
The dimmed sign for Pivot Brewing still hangs outside its former Bardstown Road address, but the inside has been quietly transforming for months. Shortly after the craft brewery and cidery ceased operations in Aug. 2024, the prime Highlands spot was scooped up by the team behind Germantown’s Monnik Beer Company.
Since then, the space has been shaping up to be “a cozy, welcoming pub” that’s purposely not Monnik 2.0, owner-operator Brian Holton told the Courier Journal. The result is Rose Hill Lager Haus, which should open at 1753 Bardstown Road in February, Holton said.
As its name suggests, this brew pub is all about lagers. And a whole bunch of them. Holton estimates 75% of what’s on tap will be from the lager family, highlighting a trend in the craft beer world toward lighter brews.
The bold text is mine, a teaching point necessitating this correction:
Just because it’s a lager does not imply that it is light in flavor, color or alcohol content.
The existence of styles like Dunkel, Bock, Doppelbock and even Baltic Porter (which can be brewed using lager yeast, and often is) points to the misperception of lager as “light.”
Granted, Americans have experienced long and stifling decades of ever-diminished lager character, until “beer” is often indistinguishable from odious hard seltzer. But that’s why the craft beer revolution occurred in the first place, and as all of this pertains to Monnik’s project in the Highlands, for once the capital letters are justified.
I TOLD YA SO.
To be sure, Monnik will NOT be operating Rose Hill Lager Haus exactly as I suggested in my column from last September, which is reprinted here. Not once did I speak to anyone from Monnik.
I just know that Buddy McHagan brews superlative lagers, and the rest seemed elementary. Stinky Czech beer cheese? I’d still be there for some of that, but dreams deferred comprise the story of my life. A mug of 12P, prosím.
(Cover photo: Classic lagering cellars at the Budvar...Read more