American craft beers and micros break the monopoly (monotony) of the swill merchants

Prior to the cultural holocaust known as Prohibition, local brewing flourished in the United States. Immigrants brought with them the traditions of Old World brewing and adapted these to specifically American settings. After Prohibition, most small breweries were dead, the traditions they embodied lost, and the way was paved for large brewing companies to consolidate the market and to apply modern industrial and marketing techniques to the creation and distribution of a product that suffers immeasurably when forcibly wrenched from its small-scale, artisanal roots.

The situation deteriorated for decades until suddenly there was a miraculous upheaval, stemming perhaps from the cultural politics of the 1960's and the ensuing notion that thinking people must question the oppressiveness of the modern corporate state. Perhaps the real determination came when drinking people began to question the proposition that the insipid, aluminum-clad liquid presented to them under a variety of aliases truly represented beer at its best.

In any case, in a little over a decade the United States has gone from being a barren beer wasteland to embracing a tumultuous revolution in the fermenting arts that has made America one of the most dynamic brewing nations in the world. Most of these gains are being made locally, by microbreweries and brewpubs, which usually don't sell their beers over a large area, and often don't even bottle them. Ironically, and probably rightly, this means that we often find it easier to acquire beer from Europe than from a neighboring state. The beers listed on the menu of Rich O's Public House are meant to serve as an introduction to what Americans can do if they focus on the essence of the art rather than the profit to be accrued from its standardization and mass production. When you're on the road, look for the brewpubs and local beers!

For information on the way things once were in the Louisville metropolitan area, read this excerpt from a fine book that's worth owning and giving as a gift. By sheer coincidence, we sell this book at Rich O's Public House.

Web Resources:

http://realbeer.com
http://www.beerexpedition.com/index.shtml http://www.allaboutbeer.com/beertravelers/index.html

U.S.	Belgium	England	France
Germany	Scotland	Ireland	Swiss
Czech	Austria	Europe	World Beers

 Rich O's Public House
 3312 Plaza Drive
 New Albany, IN 47150
 (812) 949-2804
 [email protected]
.