Earlier this year Donavan Hall began sort of a running diary – officially an online book right now, with a print version in 2008 – about drinking in a pub he has adopted as his local.
He’s accumulated enough posts now that he has a Table of Contents that I can link to, and that means enough posts that you can dig in to.
I quite like the leisurely pace at which he is proceeding and the mix of beer, pub and patrons. Here’s a beery example:
One of the interesting things about drinking in one place, and especially about drinking the same beer day in and day out, is that you get to track the development of the keg as it ages. At Callahan’s they have about five different taps. One of the taps pours the local microbrew, Blue Point Toasted Lager. You can tell if a keg of Blue Point Toasted Lager has been sitting on the tap for along time when you detect a faint but detectable degree of smokiness in the finish. …
Last week I went into Callahanâ’s and sat down at the bar. Stephanie, on of the bartenders, asked me what I would be drinking. I asked for the Blue Point Toasted Lager. She poured me a pint. I detected that signature smokiness of a well aged Toasted Lager. I was having lunch that day, so I ordered a second pint. And since there are no other microbrews on tap, I had a second Blue Point Toasted Lager. While Stephanie was pouring this second pint the keg ran out. Stephanie called into the back and asked someone the switch the keg. Within a few minutes a new keg of Blue Point Toasted Lager was on and she poured me the new pint and brought it to me.
“I’s on the house,” she said. I like this custom of getting of free pint if you finish a keg. Very civilized.
This second pint of Blue Point Toasted Lager drawn from the fresh keg had none of the smokiness associated with the aged keg.
My previous post (on tasting Three Floyds Dreadnaught) was about evaluating a beer as it exists in the glass. But the appellation in Appellation Beer refers to place, which can mean where the beer is enjoyed as well as brewed. Sometimes magic happens outside the glass, and who are we to complain?
In the The Great Good Place
Hall has named his adopted third place Callahan’s (after a couple of months of reading about the place I forgot he made the name up). Blue Point Toasted Lager is a damn fine product, so it’s not like he exiled himself to a year of boring beer, but if you drop in you’ll soon realize there’s more to a good local then 30 taps pouring exotic beer.