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TRAGICALLY DELICIOUS
MICROBREWS IN A CAN: WHO KNEW?
Like the old Jewish joke about being the
Chosen People—"Couldn't You have chosen
someone else?"—the phrase "the luck of the
Irish" has always carried the tang of irony
about it, from the incursions of the Roman
Empire to Ireland's current financial crisis,
with a potato famine, crushing poverty and a
century of violence thrown into the mix. The
fortunes of the Irish make for tragedy, on both
epic and personal scales. Brian Friel's 1990
family drama Dancing at Lughnasa, currently
staged by the Town & Gown Players, is one of
the latter, a slice-of-life ensemble piece that
deals with the trials endured by a rural Irish
family on the brink of the worst of times.
Darby O'Gill this ain't.
Friel's play deals with the Mundy women,
five unmarried sisters living outside the
County Donegal village of Ballybeg, during
two days at the end of the summer of 1936.
Eldest sister Kate (Virginia Simmons), a deeply
pious schoolteacher, is the breadwinner and
mother-figure to her younger sisters Maggie
(Kris Schultz), Agnes (Hannah Broom), Rose
(Gilliane Gentzell), and Christina (Marisa
Castengera).
The quiet Agnes and simple Rose knit and
sell gloves to supplement the family income,
while Maggie keeps the house and chickens
arid Chris tends to her seven-year-old son
Michael (invisible in the play and portrayed
as an adult, the narrator whose memories
form the story, by Thomas Guillebeau). As the
Mundy sisters struggle to make ends meet, it's
clear that each of them ha* sacrificed personal
happiness, loved and lost, for the good of the
family.
As if the house weren't crowded enough,
the sisters are caring for their elder brother
Jack (Hue Henry), a priest just returned from
a 25-year mission in Uganda with a case of
malaria that has eaten away his physical and
mental health. Jack struggles to remember
his sisters' names and words in English after
speaking Swahili for so long and speaks of his
life in Africa in the present tense and with an
involvement too personal for a proper mis
sionary, much to Kate's distress. Equally upset
ting is the sudden appearance of Michael's
absent father Gerry (Benjamin Ray), a Welsh
c: armer with endless money-making schemes
! extremely itchy feet. As Chris swoons to
charisma, her sisters fear for Chris' fragile
:• art.
These events occur against a backdrop
of events gathering ominously like thunder
clouds: rising turmoil on the Continent, the
introduction of industrialism to the country
side, the growing divide between well-off and
poor, and the clash of Catholicism with the
pagan practices still occurring in the back-
woods of Ireland. Chris' reunion with Gerry
and Rose's childlike infatuation with a local
married ne'er-do-well threaten the family from
inside, while the march of the 20th century
threatens them from without. Friel's play jug
gles these mounting crises deftly and subtly, a
soft-spoken chronicle of the varying strength
of family bonds in the face of despair.
Director Leara Rhodes and her cast are
equal to the material, taking what could easily
be done as strident melodrama and executing
it instead as a play of quiet words and mean
ingful expressions. The watchwords for this
play are "longing" and "regret," and Rhodes'
cast pulls it off beautifully. Schultz does an
especially pleasing turn as Maggie, moving
between wry observation and outbursts of
joy as her character tries to keep the family's
spirits up, and Castengera delivers a nuanced
performance as a woman who badly wants
what her erstwhile man is offering but knows
him too well. Kudos as well to Simmons, who
imbues Kate with the sensitivity Friel slips
into her stern character under the radar.
The play looks terrific, with the Mundys'
cottage rendered in beautiful stonework and
cracked plaster and the set dressing, from a
cabinet radio that is virtually a character in
the play to an authentic turf-burning stove,
is just perfect. Anyone who has attended a
Town & Gown production knov/s that the tiny
stage necessitates some seriously creative set
design (belated praise for the Rocky Horror
crew for fitting everything on that postage
stamp so artfully). In this case, the stage
looks huge and evokes the feel of rural Ireland
wonderfully.
Fair warning: Dancing at Lughnasa is a slow
play. It clocks in at two hours 20 minutes with
intermission, and it's all dialogue. Don't let
that deter you. Friel's words are great words,
and Rhodes' cast delivers them so well you
won't feel the time passing. In this case, the
luck of the Irish goes to everyone who buys a
ticket to this terrific drama.
John G. Nettles
With these words, we begin a new series
of columns: less ramblesome than my online
ones often are and targeting that elixir which
assists in the lubrication of many of our indi
vidual cogs: beer.
This series will be limited, at present, to
once a month—simply because I have other
topics to pursue, not to mention that even I,
known for my love of good ale, tire of drinking
and go on the wagon for days at a time in a
vain attempt to reduce the size of my signifi
cant girth.
Synchronicity is a beautiful thing when it
occurs. I had collected enough notes to begin
writing this column by Thursday evening, but
a few things still needed tweaking. Imagine
my surprise when I wandered into Copper
Creek for (you guessed it) a pint. There was
the new Feb./Mar. edition of Southern Brew
News, and emblazoned on the front page was
a story about the very subject I was going
to write about: microbrews in cans! So, if
Elizabeth Wheat (who wrote the Southern Brew
column) spies mine here, I hope she won't
think me guilty of plagiarism.
Microbrews in cans—like beer with flavor:
what a concept! Initially Oskar Blues Brewery
in Lyons, CO (they're now in larger quarters
in nearby Longmont) came up with canning
as a way to allow backpackers and mountain
climbers to carry a beer package that wouldn't
shatter. Great idea, this! When
they began canning their brew
pub beers in November, 2002
on a tabletop, hand-operated
line that produced one can at
a time, little did they know
. .»at would blossom forth
from this ingenious idea.
Canned microbrews have
been the rage in British
Columbia since sometime in
the 1980s. A Canadian com
pany, Cask Brewing Systems,
perfected small canning lines
(for small breweries, natch!)
and marketed them to several
Vancouver-and-Victoria-area
brewpubs. The aluminum trail
begins there.
Their inspiration may
well have been an Anchorage,
AK microbrewery, one of the
very earliest new brewery evenings in the
U.S. that fits into what we could describe as
microdom. In their four-year run from 1976 to
1979, Prinz Brau Alaska released five cans and
proved that quality beer could be thus pack
aged. I managed to taste all these brews from
fresh sources, and this idea was a brilliant
one; the brews were excellent.
Now we return to Oskar Blues. Dale
Katechis, the owner, grew up in Alabama. As
soon as Georgia boosted the allowable limit
on beer to over 6 percent, he began the move
to market his products here. This was thus
the first beer of its type to arrive, and now
cans of Dale's Pale Ale, Old Chub Scotch Ale,
Gordon Ale, Mama's Little Yella Pits, Gubna
Imperial I.P.A. and Ten Fidy Imperial Stout
are all widely sold in Georgia. I've tasted and
enjoyed them all. Here's to Dale Katechis and
Oskar Blues!!
Avery Brewing in Boulder, CO, whose prod
ucts have graced our shelves and tap handles
for a good while now, has begun selling four
of their brews in cans here: they are Avery
I.P.A., Ellie's Brown Ale, White Rascal Belgian
Style White Ale and Joe's Premium American
Pilsner. Thus far, I've only tasted Joe's, which
is quite nice. Eventually, I'll find the others
so I can have them for my can collection,
even if I have to bite the bullet and buy a
six-pack. By the way, Avery's been operating
since 1993.
A newer kid down the block has introduced
four canned brews to our state. Butternuts
Beer & Ale of Garrattsville, NY (a real, live
farmhouse brewery!), is selling Heinnieweisse
Weissebier, Porkslap Pale Ale, Snapperhead
I.P.A. and Moo Thunder Stout hereabouts.
These have not passed my tastebuds as of yet,
but the cans are little works of art—even if
they are a tad silly.
Breckenridge Brewing of Colorado has
recently brought us /vaLnche Amber Style
Ale and Lucky U I.P.A. in cans. This latter is
"a hoppy homage to a Denver landmark, the
Tivoli Brewery." Tivoli Beer's nickname was "I
lov it," but not enough folks did to keep the
place operational! Breckenridge began in 1988
in its same-named city and has now relocated
to Denver. I haven't tasted these yet, either.
Also recently admitted to our state's list
of available brands are the products of the
21st Amendment Brewery of San Trancisco.
Their initial shipment was of Hell or High
Watermelon Wheat Beer, Brew Free! or Die
I.P.A. and Back in Black Black I.P.A. The com
pany's pre-Christmas seasonal, Fireside Chat
Winter Spiced Ale, was excellent,
but has come and gone: maybe
next year they'll remember
to silkscreen Fala (F.D.R.'s
dog) onto the cans! 21st
Amendment (est. 2000) is fix
ing to release Monk's Blood
Belgian Dark Ale as well as
Bitter American Extra Pale
Ale, which they tout as their
January-to-March seasonal.
I've enjoyed the Fireside Chat,
the Hell or High Watermelon
and the Back in Black; the
others have yet to trickle my
innards.
In warmer months of the
year, canned Brooklyn Lager
makes its local appearance,
as does Brooklyn Summer
Lager. Since Saranac Pale Ale
is already sold in Georgia and is
canned for summer, we might well see that
here. If you'd like to have it thus packaged,
request it; if enough of us ask, the distributor
might well pick some up for us.
New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, CO
will soon ship us their Fat Tire Amber Ale,
Sunshine Wheat Beer and Ranger I.P.A. in
cans. The canned versions of these have gone
over very well, initially only in Colorado,
and last year in several other states. We'll
apparently be getting ours in, say, April (as a
guess).
Lastly in our census of canned microbrews
in Georgia come Beil's Oberon Ale and Bell's
Hopslam Ale in 5 liter (1.32 gallon) cans.
The brewery also offers their Best Brown Ale,
Winter White Ale and Two Hearted Ale in this
package (Georgia may or may not have these
yet)... ask for 'em by name, folks!
Next B^er Notes, I'll tell you about why
tiny Kellyton, AL 35089 is such a beer destina
tion (you flat won't believe the story!)... and
maybe I will have made a roadtrip worth a pic
ture and another thousand words. Prosit! (30.)
William Orten Carlton = ORT.
10 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 16,2011
