Author: Kate and Amy

Belgium begins at the sea with sandy beaches and mud flats bordering the English Channel, and ends in the hilly, scenic terrain of the Ardennes, where towns like Bastogne remind the visitor that war regrettably has been a regular feature of European history.

The country has been a hybrid from the start, carved out of former royal dominions by the “concert of Europe” less than two hundred years ago, given a king and some postage stamps, and intended as a buffer between French and German lands. King Leopold later became the famously corrupt “owner” of the Congo. Belgium’s mandated neutrality was violated twice by German militarism as a prelude to world wars.

Now renowned for its Flemish (Dutch) and Wallonian (French) cultural and linguistic dichotomy, Belgium’s politics are convoluted, but somehow it remains intact. Famous sons include Adolphe Saxe (inventor of the instrument named for him) and Jean Claude van Damme (The Muscles from Brussels). Coincidentally, the European Union’s considerable bureaucracy is centered in Brussels, and the Mannekin Pis statue is a metaphor for money passing from rich countries to poor ones – especially since the 2008 financial collapse.

Belgium is renowned among beer lovers for its eclectic and diverse stylistic legacy of ale making, one the Belgians themselves once were about to forget until reminded of it by exploring Brits and Americans. Portions of the local Belgian brewing heritage survived modernization and lager encroachment, and then later, brewers shrewdly exploited the same forces of modernization to their advantage, including the practice of vigorous exporting, electronic media visibility, and hitching to the country’s reputation for gastronomy and tourism.

American craft brewers have derived considerable inspiration from the saga of Belgian brewing, and the New Albanian brewing company is no exception. Each year just after the holidays, we release Tunnel Vision, dubbed a Royal Wallonian Ale, and intended to showcase New Albania’s equivalent of the Ardennes: Our stubby, mysterious Knobs of Floyd, which rise over our own riverside flood plain, and are inhabited by American landed gentry in their castle parapets.

Lots of NABC’s customers tell us Tunnel Vision is their favorite, and therein lies a story. It began in the 1990s as a homebrew recipe devised by NABC co-owner Amy Baylor. Amy’s recipe included barley, wheat, rye and honey, and was fermented with Belgian yeast. It was of mid-range gravity, and quite popular.

In 2003, NABC’s founding brewer Michael Borchers adapted Amy’s recipe for our start-up, low-mileage garage brewery at the Pizzeria & Public House. Gallons of honey were required, as delivered to the brewery in dozens of small jars by a frantically toiling Crawford County beekeeper. The first batch was good, but the formulation was complicated, and the logistics involved in shifting to larger scales of operation invariably resulted in changes and experimentation by his successors. Then the price of honey skyrocketed, followed by a time when we couldn’t get any at all.

When David Pierce became NABC’s director of brewing operations in 2009, he locked down the Tunnel Vision formula and made it sing: Five continental malts, Magnum hops, both sweet and curaçao orange peel, coriander seed and Wallonian yeast (brought to America from Belgium under stove pipe hats worn by gnomes seeking subterranean refuge beneath the McMansions of Floyds Knobs).

22-oz bombers of Tunnel Vision will be available in Indiana and metropolitan Louisville on the Kentucky side of the Ohio. A limited amount of draft will be allocated, and of course, it can be enjoyed in all forms at NABC’s two New Albanian locations.

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Tunnel Vision

Royal Wallonian Ale

ABV: 9.5%

IBU: 20

Color: Orange/amber.

Flavor: Full bodied, with malt sweetness and fruity Belgian yeast character.

Compare to: La Chouffe and other strong ales from Wallonia.

Description: Those hardy immigrant gnomes who came from the venerable hills of the Ardennes to take up residence beneath the mysterious Knobs of Southern Indiana need a potion reminiscent of home, and one sufficiently versatile for consumption in all seasons. This is it.

Recipe Suggestion: Up beyond those Knobs, westward past Greenville, world-famous goat cheese is crafted by the Schad family. It’s called Capriole Farms, and it’s the ideal pairing with Tunnel Vision. Surface-ripened Piper’s Pyramid and Wabash Cannonball are fine choices, so cut up the cheeses, and gather some nuts and berries, and perhaps venison salami. Use a Belgian-style glass for Tunnel Vision, as dispensed from a growler or bomber bottle, and feel the power of the gnome’s table.

California has Silicon Valley, and Nashville its Printers Alley, but here in the city of New Albany, we’ve got Falling Run Flats. It’s a district that combines high tech with low comedy, where rotary dial phones constantly interact with one too many half-pints of Kessler, and the dead get downright lively come election time.

One of the most locally famous denizens of Falling Run Flats was named Hacksaw Jim, founder of New Albany’s dynasty of rust repairers and mayoral fixers. For generations untold, the city’s political bosses relied on Hacksaw Jim and his numerous descendants to apply maximum value to that most simple of tools, the signature two-by-four: If you can’t use it to jury-rig a sewer connection, you can wield it to bust a dissident’s skull.

NABC’s seasonal Bavarian-style Dunkel now bears the moniker of Hacksaw Jim, not so much because he liked dark beer, but because of that crumpled note we received on funeral home stationary instructing us to make a beer as principled and honest as Hacksaw Jim himself.

This we have done, and we stand by it. We can only hope they do, too.

In more recent times, Hacksaw Jim became widely associated with a professional wrestler. But in New Albany, where political time can stand stock still for decades, memories of Hacksaw Jim, English Dug and Carlos “The Mackerel” are gifts that never stop giving — mainly to themselves.

Hacksaw Jim Dunkel will be available on draft ONLY at NABC’s two New Albany locations, and will not last long. Or so we’re told.

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Hacksaw Jim Dunkel

Bavarian Dunkel

ABV: 6%

IBU: 22

Color: Chestnut brown.

Flavor: Medium-bodied, with rich, malty Bavarian character.

Compare to: Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel, Weltenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel

Description: There are so many ways to say yes, and so few to say no.

Recipe Suggestion: Think about brats and kraut, dumplings and red cabbage. Think about the way that a dark lager’s elegant maltiness renders “liquid bread” into pure truthfulness. Think about Hacksaw Jim’s dining room table. Whether we speak of the NABC beer or the hooligan, the man obviously knew how to eat.

In my memory I will always see
the town that I have loved so well
Where our school played ball by the gas yard wall
and we laughed through the smoke and the smell
Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane
past the jail and down behind the fountain
Those were happy days in so many, many ways
in the town I loved so well
— “The Town I Loved So Well,” by Phil Coulter

We at NABC love, and seemingly just as often loathe, our own town of New Albany. It’s a topic requiring more thought than time permits, not to mention occasional bouts of psychotherapy.

Beer helps, too.

Long ago, Celtic (KELL-tic, not SELL-tic) cultures expanded into many European territories. The advent of the Roman Empire gradually pushed them toward the continent’s western periphery, to remote green islands and misty, isolated coasts. In modern times, we think of the Celts as comprising Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx peoples), Welsh and Bretons.

It’s far more complicated than all that, but for our purposes today, it’s enough to know that a few central elements of convivial living, including music, beer, conversation and food, are stocks-in-trade of the Celts, and that among Celts, the Irish stand out as the most visible and enthusiastic proponents of these timeless virtues. While Irish origins are quite common in New Albany, descendants of all the Celts are here, drinking beer. Haggis Laddie is the one for them.

This anecdote, as relayed by Sean Cannon of the band known as the Dubliners, aptly explains it.

“In the Irish love triangle there are three parties involved: A man, and a woman – and drink.

“And so the girl gives an ultimatum to her boyfriend: It’s either the drink, or me.

“And he chooses the drink.

“But afterwards, he relents. They get married and live happily ever after … the three of them.”

Haggis Laddie is released annually on St. Patrick’s Day, and is available ONLY on draft at NABC’s two New Albany locations. Drink some before it’s gone.

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Haggis Laddie

Irish Red Ale

ABV: 5%

IBU: 17

Color: Amber/red.

Flavor: Light- to medium-bodied, malt-accented.

Compare to: Smithwick’s, Kilkenny.

Description: From the Liffey to the Ohio, in ¾ time.

Recipe Suggestion: Add equal literary elements of James Joyce, Seamus Heaney, John Synge and W.B. Yeats to gifted instrumental musicianship, complete with fiddles, tin whistles, guitars and banjos, which on occasion can lead to jigs and reels. Spice the emerging concoction with everyday speaking voices that transform common English into lilting melodies, even when reading the Dublin phone book, and listen as golden-throated singers render these tunes into the realm of the ethereal and sublime. Enjoy the results as often as possible, with pints of Haggis Laddie at the ready. If necessary, munch on some crisps.