The recent Facebook post by Atlanta-based Scofflaw got a lot of attention for its ill-advised tone and photo. More interesting was how it surfaced an issue that doesn't get a lot of discussion: the role class and culture play among beer drinkers, brewery workers, and increasingly, among small breweries.
Read MoreBars like this have always been vulnerable, and churn is high. They're low-margin businesses that depend on volume sales and low rent. In cities across America, both trends are working against the neighborhood tavern. With more and more places to drink, dive bars don't get the traffic they did twenty years ago. More significantly, as the middle class leaves the suburbs to return to the city, rents are on the rise in the urban core.
Read MoreThe most vivid of the foodstuffs to which I drunkenly resorted were 'lil smokies, one of those fancy items that the bartender had to microwave before serving. They were maybe two inches long and the girth of an average index finger. They were spiced to cover up what was obviously the hooves and snouts they were made from--and bone bits crunched under tooth as you gobbled. They were also stained a maraschino red, unnatural and unsettling (why would they try to make them look more vividly bloody?).
Read MoreA few months ago I was sitting in an Irish pub with The Beer Nut and I did what any American would do: I held my pint glass aloft and said "Sláinte" with gusto. Hey, that's what the Irish do when they offer a toast, right? Fortunately, just as the word was dying in my mouth, shamrocks, leprechauns, and Blarney stones trooped through my mind and I had the good sense to ask John (the Nut's actual name) whether this is something Irish drinkers say.
Read MoreThere is a cafe in Brussels. It is close and cozy, feminine in a way that is unlike pubs anywhere else I've visited. The walls are so coated in objects and pictures that you are able to confirm their existence largely by inference. The tables are small and dainty, as are the chairs.
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