Same As It Ever Was

An Old Brown Dog, an old red brewery, and an old, broken liquor licensing system

This is not a photo from 2009.

A couple weeks ago while in London, a friend asked me to name my favorite American Brown Ales. I hadn’t given much thought to the style in a very long time, and instinctively, my first thought was to respond with Avery Ellie’s Brown. I don’t know why this came to mind, except that it was the first beer I ever ordered at The Pony Bar’s original location in Hell’s Kitchen when they kept track of their All-American Club on paper sheets in a hanging file.

But after some prodding, I remembered another iconic American Brown Ale that was pretty regularly available in New York that hadn’t crossed my mind in a while: Smuttynose Old Brown Dog. I drank this beer a bunch back in the late aughts and early teens, and often had six-packs of bottles in my fridge in those years. When Smuttynose was feared to be closing in 2018, a friend and I made a last-minute decision to drive up to New Hampshire and visit.

Five years later, I’ve occasionally seen Smutty in the city, but it’s been rare that I’ve seen Old Brown Dog on tap. But last night, it was on tap at a spot where I probably drank it countless times in my formative beer years: Blind Tiger Ale House. It’s funny how a certain beer in a certain place will trigger a memory. That pint was like time traveling without leaving my barstool.

Phil Murphy will veto New Jersey brewery reform bill

After dragging his feet for nearly three months on a bill to lift onerous restrictions on brewery taprooms in the Garden State, New Jersey governor said he would veto the legislation that was passed unanimously by both the House and Senate in late May. The governor seemingly buckled to restaurant and bar interests in declining to sign the bipartisan bill, shrouding his justification for the veto in a pledge for full-scale liquor license reform. Last month, Murphy spokesperson Jennifer Sciortino justified his inaction on the bill by stating that the governor “has been clear that our outdated liquor license system needs comprehensive reform, not a piecemeal approach, in order to ensure equity and affordability so that all small businesses and the entire industry as a whole will benefit.” The governor indicated the conditional veto would return to the legislature with proposed full-scale liquor license reform.

But that full-scale liquor license reform is a pipe dream at best and impossible at worst. The lift would require an end to caps on the number of liquor licenses by municipality, which would also devalue existing liquor licenses, which some holders purchased for upwards of a million dollars because of the state’s archaic system that allows reselling of licenses. The governor’s earlier proposal for reform would offer those license-holders tax credits at an expense to the state. The brewery reform bill, in contrast, proposed simple, logical rule changes at no cost to the state that would reverse a Division of Alcohol Beverage Control that imposed draconian restrictions that the agency claimed “struck a balance” between breweries and the bar and restaurant lobby. Brewery owners argue privately that the bureaucrat Murphy appointed to run the ABC has been overtly favoring bars and restaurants in the state at the expense of breweries simply being able to operate the way they do in every state that borders New Jersey.

For now, the rules are not being enforced by the ABC, but that directive only lasts through December 31st. The legislature does not return to work until its lame-duck session after the November election, which would give them less than two months to completely overhaul the state’s entire liquor license system just so breweries could show a football game on TV, sell non-alcoholic beverages and snacks, attend any beer festival they’d like, or have a food truck legally operate in their parking lot.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,184
Total breweries visited in 2023: 289
Total breweries visited in California: 255

Brewery Visit of the Week

Photo via Red Car Brewery on Instagram

Brewery #32, Red Car Brewery, Torrance, California (Visited 7-Nov-2008)

In 2008, even most Californians would agree that the Los Angeles area was a beer wasteland. At the time, the Bay Area had stalwarts like Anchor and Drake’s and 21st Amendment. San Diego had Stone and Ballast Point and Green Flash. And Los Angeles had… not much of anything. But long before Smog City and Monkish set up shop in Torrance, about 15 miles southwest of Downtown LA, there was a small brewpub there that was quite literally my first brewery visit in Southern California. I was doing a bit of a soul-searching there and came across plenty of great beer bars in the LA area at the time (Father’s Office in Culver City, Blue Palms Brewhouse in Hollywood, The Otheroom in Venice Beach, and Library Alehouse in Santa Monica were all stops on the trip), there was a distinct lack of breweries relative to other large cities in the U.S.

Red Car Brewery has been open since 2000 in a rare, walkable suburb of LA. I fail to understand how I remember having a Red Ale there on my visit in 2008, and I recall it being malty and brewed in the English tradition. Being a self-professed beer snob at the time, I also recall being mildly disappointed by this, only because I had been seeking out some West Coast IPAs on this trip (though we didn’t call them that at the time — they were just IPAs that happened to be brewed on the West Coast with lots of high alpha acid hops). But beggars can’t be choosers when you’re visiting the only brewery for many miles in any direction.

These days, Red Car is still going strong in its 24th year, still in the same location, still brewing beer in the English tradition, and is now one of nearly a dozen breweries in Torrance and many dozens in the LA area. But this place has managed to stand the test of time, and while Red Car may have felt to me like a run-of-the-mill brewpub in 2008, its dedication to tradition makes it stand out today in a sea of IPA makers in Southern California.

Correction of the Week

Hopefully this isn’t a weekly feature, but in last week’s newsletter, I misstated the date of this year’s Blocktoberfest, an event featuring only New York City-brewed beer put on by the New York City Brewers Guild. The event will be held on Saturday, September 30th. Tickets are still available!

The Weekly Reader

• Brooklyn Brewery is investing in hop water and hop tea company Hoplark [Keith Gribbins, Craft Brewing Business]

• Get to know the people behind Harlem Hops [Marcea Cazel, Hop Culture]

• Climate change has been brutal for German hop growers [Catie Edmondson, NYT]

• Where are all the celebrity beer brands? [Josh Bernstein, VinePair]

One More Thing

I had a ton of fun celebrating KCBC’s 7th anniversary last weekend among a whole bunch of beer friends, many of whom read this newsletter (some signed up for it that night and are reading it for the first time — hi!). This weekend, Interboro is next to celebrate their 7th anniversary. They’ll throw a party on Saturday starting at 3pm with DJs, food, new beers, and more. There’s also Flagship’s annual Oysterfest on Saturday. And Wild East’s Oktoberfest is Saturday, too. And Strong Rope’s Strongtoberfest is tomorrow.

Hoo boy. I’m gonna need a weekend after this weekend.

Cheers,
Chris