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.