[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg and I am here with Kevin, who is kindly filling in for Jessica today. And we're going to keep the same format. I'm going to tell Kevin a story from the eighties in New York City and then he. He's going to tell me one. Thank you, Kevin, so much for helping me out. Jessica came up against all these deadlines and you are a godsend. This is very, very, very kind of you.

[00:45] Kevin: Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here.

[00:49] Meg: And some of you guys might know who Kevin is just cause we talk about him all the time. He is the owner and proprietor of Malt and Mold, which has kindly hosted us for our hundredth episode party. And you are our leader for the East Village Pub Crawl. We did our first live taping at Malt and Mold, which just feels like.

[01:11] Kevin: I mean, that was super exciting.

[01:13] Meg: It was very exciting for us too. And gosh, I'm just thinking about how wonderful Malt and Mold was then and how it's even grown now. Like, it's just got this awesome outdoor space. It's really fun. It's like a clubhouse, a wonderful place for the neighborhood.

[01:28] Kevin: Like a living room.

[01:30] Meg: Yeah, yeah, a living room with beer. I have a weird question for you. Do you have like a favorite beer or. I know probably people ask you that all the time, but if they're all your babies, you don't want to like privilege one over the other.

[01:46] Kevin: There's certainly that aspect. But I try and think of it the other way. When I go to somebody else's or someone's brewery, I will often first order a saison if I can, because I don't drink a ton of saisons in my daily bartending life. But it's a really interesting, great way to judge a brewery or kind of get to know a brewery. Because you can't hide behind a Cezanne. Everything that you do is right out there.

[02:14] Meg: And if it's a saison, a kind of beer, I thought that was a kind of wine. Am I crazy?

[02:18] Kevin: Oh, I don't know about the wine world, but I can definitely speak to the beer world. It's Belgian style beer and it just means in French, the season. And it was brewed during the farming season. For the farmers, it was generally lower in abv and they could drink it while working.

[02:35] Meg: So what is it about Cezanne that makes you go like, this is what I know about this establishment is a

[02:41] Kevin: beer where the yeast does most of the talking and that provides a ton of the flavor. But also, you can put a ton of hops into any beer and kind of hide the flaws. And there's not a lot of hops in a saison. So the. If there are flaws. And generally, people don't put theirs out if there are flaws, but if there are flaws, they're gonna be exposed. It's light on the palate, and it's very delicate, and it's usually pretty complicated. So it's also a very good beginning beer. If you're gonna have more than one.

[03:13] Meg: Okay.

[03:13] Kevin: Because then you can go deeper and deeper and a little bit stronger flavors after that without killing your, you know, your tongue.

[03:19] Meg: This is very important information. I feel like I've learned a very important lesson. I'm having dinner later tonight over at Pete's Tave. Would that be a place where I'd ask for a Cesar?

[03:30] Kevin: Definitely not.

[03:31] Meg: No. I'd just go Stella there. Stella.

[03:33] Kevin: Or Guinness, Really? I think is your move.

[03:48] Meg: So, Kevin, do you know what a gin mill is?

[03:52] Kevin: Ooh. Now that you're asking me in that particular way, I don't think I do. Oh, I thought it was bar.

[03:58] Meg: Yeah, it is. But is it a particular kind of bar?

[04:02] Kevin: Speakeasy.

[04:03] Meg: Interesting. I guess that makes sense, because, like,

[04:07] Kevin: that's the only time I would have heard it referenced was during Prohibition.

[04:10] Meg: Okay. During Prohibition.

[04:11] Kevin: But now it's not a speakeasy.

[04:14] Meg: I don't know. Oh. I mean, is a speakeasy just a place where you're serving alcohol and you're not allowed to.

[04:19] Kevin: Yes.

[04:20] Meg: All right. Do you know of any gin mills that are still, like, in existence or former gin mills?

[04:28] Kevin: Oh. Hmm. That used to be. But are now legal. And you can go there.

[04:32] Meg: Yeah, I guess.

[04:33] Kevin: Or actual places that are still illegal serving. Because I don't know of any of those.

[04:37] Meg: Of course you don't, but I.

[04:39] Kevin: And I don't think Chumley's exists anymore. But Chumley's was my only one.

[04:43] Meg: Wait, that was in the West Village.

[04:44] Kevin: West Village, yeah.

[04:46] Meg: Is that the one? Is it 69? And that's what 69 came from?

[04:51] Kevin: I don't think that's what 69 came from.

[04:53] Meg: You don't think so?

[04:55] Kevin: 86 came from.

[04:57] Meg: Oh, 86. Oh, shit.

[04:59] Kevin: 69 is something totally different that was bad.

[05:02] Meg: Me. Yes. Is what 86 came from.

[05:06] Kevin: Yes.

[05:06] Meg: Right, right. Okay. Because that's the address on whatever street Cholmondeleys was on.

[05:12] Kevin: I think so.

[05:14] Meg: And we don't know what street Cholmondeley's was on. But it doesn't exist anymore. Is that correct?

[05:18] Kevin: It had a fire, it burned down. It was supposed to come back. It might have even come back for a moment. I don't think it's open today.

[05:24] Meg: Oh, that's sort of interesting.

[05:25] Kevin: Please don't quote me on any of this.

[05:26] Meg: Did you go there?

[05:27] Kevin: I've been there several times to drink. I also did one of those great West Village literary pub tours and lots of great fun facts when I was there.

[05:35] Meg: So if it's not Cholmondeley's anymore, what is it? Like? What sort of.

[05:39] Kevin: Oh, I don't think it's anything now because if it is and I find out about it, I will go there just to check it out, because it's a neat space.

[05:46] Meg: And what's another kind of neat space that still exists that we know of that's like in that kind of category now?

[05:53] Kevin: They have sort of fake speakeasies, right. Where they put a bar behind some sort of fake storefront or an existing storefront. There's a really cool one on Eldred street next door to Vanessa's Dumplings, and it's one flight up, and they're. I believe it's a working hair salon. And then at night they just leave the hair salon empty with an open door, which I think is the most fun part about it. You. You just walk through and there's no one there. And then you walk to the back door and push through, and then there's this tiny pocket sized Japanese style bar.

[06:26] Meg: Ooh, awesome.

[06:27] Kevin: But they do advertise that there's a speakeasy on the chalkboard downstairs. But that's the only way to let people know. But then there's other speakeasies that don't let people know.

[06:36] Meg: Mm hmm. I belong to this. Belong. I follow Secret New York. Have you seen that? It's like an Instagram page.

[06:46] Kevin: I don't think so. I might.

[06:47] Meg: It, it, it tells you about things like that, but I'm like, as soon as they're telling me about that, isn't it now going to be crowded? Yeah, now it's blown up. Yeah. Yeah. But it's still, it's fun to see all those kind of cool things popping up around the city. All right, My sources are the New Yorker and the New York Times. In 1981, Robert Hayes, Kim Hopper, and Ellen Baxter. And these were all friends who met in their 20s when they were students at NYU and Columbia. And they founded, like, these kids in their 20s. They founded the Coalition for the Homeless, which is still around, and it advocates for and directly serves homeless people in New York City. And their mission, these kids, their mission began in 1979 when Kim and Ellen started interviewing men they saw on New York City streets who were, quote, sleeping rough. Robert, who was a young lawyer at the time, he was struck by the number of homeless men living on the streets in his neighborhood around Washington Square Park. And after talking to Kim and Ellen, he decided that the city was not doing enough to help. So the homeless population had skyrocketed in the 70s, specifically for men, because veterans were returning from Vietnam with physical, mental, and emotional scars and addictions. And all these patients had been released from state psychiatric hospitals beginning in the late 60s. And the closing of SROs created this perfect storm of need. But specifically with men, which I thought was very interesting. There was nowhere to go once the SROs went away. And in New York City, many headed to the Bowery, which had been always as, you know, like the epicenter of gambling houses and brothels and gin mills and flop houses and, you know, dating back to the Civil War. So the Bowery during this period of time still welcomed the down and out and desperate, and until the 90s, still had SROs. You know what an SRO is, I assume?

[09:05] Kevin: Single room occupancy.

[09:07] Meg: Exactly. Have you ever had any experience with them, or how did you. Do you remember when you first found out what they were?

[09:15] Kevin: When I first moved to New York, I saw these places and didn't know what they were and. And just walked into one one time to see. And in the early 90s, you could just pretty much walk in, and there was security, but there was single men just walking in, no matter how you were dressed. Although in the early 90s, I'm pretty sure I might have looked like someone who lived there or dressed like someone, at least. And, yeah, you could just wander through the hallways and see.

[09:44] Meg: Yeah, I remember there was one. We lived on East 7th street for many years in the 90s, and there was one on St. Mark's I would never have been confident enough to walk into one as a girl.

[09:59] Kevin: Right.

[10:00] Meg: But, yeah, I was like, what's going on there? All right. So SROs offer inexpensive small rooms, and the residents usually share a kitchen and a bathroom down the hall, so you've just got your room. And SROs were a lifeline to many who would otherwise have been on the street. But in 1961, there was a zoning resolution that dissuaded developers from investing in SROs and neighbors. Fears of poverty, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions significantly reduced the number of available SROs moving into the 70s, not a very good time to do that because they didn't realize that, like, suddenly there was going to be a great need for them. The neighbors, usually definitely not fans of SROs. One described living across from an SRO in the 80s. This is a quote. At the time, I could look out the window and watch hand to hand drug deals and a steady stream of traffic going in and out of the building. People seek out its unsavory mix of drug use, drug sales and prostitution. We have photos of hypodermic needles and condoms on fire escapes and more than one police raid on the building. But closing down these SROs only exacerbated the growing problem. Homelessness had not been a significant problem since the depression, which I also thought was interesting.

[11:40] Kevin: That is interesting. I would never have guessed that.

[11:43] Meg: I know. And during the depression, Mayor LaGuardia was able to pass a constitutional amendment to help those in need. This is article 17, section 1. The aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and in such manner and by such means as the legislature may from time to time determine. We know obviously why during the depression there is a need for extra housing. But Moving into the 40s, the unemployed went to war. And in the 50s, things were pretty prosperous. And New York was still like a working man's town. It was a manufacturing town. In 1964, a team of researchers went out to document the homeless and they could only find a small population of older, mostly white men on the bowery. So it just wasn't an epidemic.

[12:42] Kevin: That's. That. I mean, that's fascinating, but also crazy to hear.

[12:46] Meg: I know, it's just there was news to me, right? But by the mid-70s, it was crowded out there. Robert, the guy I was talking about at the very beginning, the young lawyer guy, he met three homeless men at a catholic mission and filed a class action lawsuit on their behalf. They. These men were given nowhere to sleep except the big room, which was a dangerous, unsanitary and crowded overflow area of a municipal shelter. And sometimes they couldn't even fit in there. So the city, once the homeless population ballooned, didn't have any resources to take care of them. They were really caught flat footed. Robert argued that shall be provided in LaGuardia's amendment meant exactly that. Shall. And he won. Justice Andrew Tyler stated, quote, the bowery derelicts are entitled to board and lodging, and the city has not made adequate provision for housing all the destitute and homeless, alcoholics, addicts, mentally impaired, derelicts, Flotsam and Jetsam and others during the winter months. Also, I think pretty interesting that homelessness really was just. They were considered just the guys on Bowery, Flotsam and Jetsam, Flotsam and Jetson, and people who were coming on hard times, mostly because of addictions, alcoholism specifically. Now, once word got out, more than a thousand men started seeking shelter every night, and the city, like, completely freaked out, and they had to scramble to provide for them. And sadly, the man whose name was used in the lawsuit, Robert Callahan. The lawsuit was Callahan v. Kerry. He died of alcoholism on a street near the Bowery soon after the ruling. Now, you could get a room in a downtown SRO in the 80s. There are few of them left, because remember that in the 1960s, the zoning regulations made it just, like, not even worth the effort and the money for developers to keep them up or to build new ones. So that was a housing solution that suddenly just disappeared overnight. But there were still a few of them around. And the ones that were around in the 80s were, you could, for about 40 bucks a week, you could have a room. And counter to their reputation of housing transient. A transient population, many of the residents stayed there for years and years. But the local welfare program was overhauled in 1974, just making a bad situation even worse. Before that, qualified people received $150 a month for rent and $100 a month for food, clothing, and everything else. But after 1974, they decided to overhaul the whole thing. And now people in need got a supplemental security income of $206.85 to cover everything. So suddenly, many could not even afford to stay in an SRO anymore. And those were the cheapest rooms in town. And if you can't afford to stay there, they're going to close down because

[16:29] Kevin: now they have no market.

[16:30] Meg: Right, Exactly. It took away the market. Crazy.

[16:34] Kevin: Which almost seems like that was purposeful.

[16:36] Meg: You think?

[16:37] Kevin: Yeah.

[16:38] Meg: Oh, God, that's awful. But then where are they supposed to go?

[16:41] Kevin: Right back to the Bowery, where they've always been.

[16:44] Meg: The Sunshine Hotel. Do you know of the Sunshine Hotel?

[16:48] Kevin: I don't think I know any of the names.

[16:50] Meg: There was a documentary about it, and they covered what it was like to live in the Sunshine hotel in the 90s. And I think it's still there.

[16:58] Kevin: Ooh, on the Bowery, like, right where the old.

[17:00] Meg: It's on the Bowery. It's at 241Bowery. And actually, I do know this. Whoever owns it, they can't just kick the longtime residents out of there, all they can do to, if they want to sell it, is offer to pay them to move. And many have taken that money and some have not. And the people who are staying there, they have every right to stay there until they die.

[17:29] Kevin: Also a straight up New York move,

[17:31] Meg: except they don't have to take new people in. So that's the deal, right?

[17:36] Kevin: So each vacant room is now just a vacant room.

[17:38] Meg: Exactly. So they offered men a bed, a locker and a bare bulb in a room about the size of a prison cell, 4ft by 6ft and 7ft tall, with a chicken wire ceiling. According to Chris Franz, who is the drummer for the Talking Heads, who moved into that neighborhood in 1974. This is a quote from him. At the corner of Bowery and Houston, you were likely to see a bunch of guys drinking cheap wine such as Thunderbird or Night Train and hanging on for dear life to the chain link fence that surrounded the lot there. One or two would be vomiting and another would have his pants down around his ankles as he relieved himself and then wiped his ass with his bare hands in broad daylight while traffic whizzed by. Some of the crazier guys would venture out into the intersection to direct traffic. Others would ask for a handout from people in cars stopped at the light while cleaning their windshields with an oily rag or a piece of dirty newspaper. In those days, these poor drunks were known as bums. Close quote. So bars. Now we're getting back to like the gin mills. Bars along the Bowery welcomed, quote, these poor drunks which who were the staunchest alcoholics. And if you wanted to drink yourself into a stupor, you'd be in good company. Back in the 30s, there were several gin mills along every block of the Bowery. And as late as the early 70s there were still a dozen. But by the late 80s there were fewer SROs. We know where this is going. There were more artsy people like the drummer for the Talking Heads spilling out of CBGB and La Mama and more bars like Phoebe's and Marion's. So it's just a different demographic hanging out in that neighborhood. The last rummy bar or old man bar or gin mill on the Bowery closed in 1993. In its prime, Al's offered refuge to 50 customers a night until 4am but by the time it closed, only 20 would maybe shuffle in each day, according to Bruce the bartender. Quote. Now people drink alone in their rooms if they have rooms or they go to the parks. If the crackheads don't chase them out. He also suggested that the old men don't feel as comfortable in the neighborhood as they once did. The city shut down the public baths during the AIDS crisis, and trendy eateries replaced restaurants which offered cheap meals. Quote, the Bowery used to be the center for the hiring of casual workers. There were employment agencies for dishwashers at resorts or messengers, and they're gone. So are the barber colleges where the men could get haircuts, and dental schools where they could have their teeth fixed by students, which I thought was so interesting. There's just a whole community there that could support people who were down on their luck. And once those things started going away.

[21:00] Kevin: Right. And I remember those places, those barbershops in the dental school, it would never have occurred to me that that would be part of their patient base, customer base.

[21:11] Meg: Absolutely. And without that, what are you going to do? You're no longer welcome in, like, the place. The. Really, the last place that you felt like you had a community and a support system. And the old timers were very different from the new crop of men. So all these guys who were down on their luck because of war, because of, you know, the things that we discussed before, it's different in the 80s because of crack. This is a quote from, oh, Monsignor John Ahern of the Holy Name Center Mission. In the past, you would get people who had left wives or jobs or the army to drink. The new homeless men of the 80s are much younger. More of them are black. Crack has changed things. Crack is a younger person's drug. There's more isolation, more rage. One regular at Al's said, you know, anybody can be a drug addict, but it takes a real man to be an alcoholic. And another who lived across the street at the Salvation army residence said, you see, we're not allowed to bring a bottle into the mission, even though crackheads bring in their crack. Somebody would see a bottle. But crack vials are tiny and easy to bring in. And when asked about the only bars left in the neighborhood, the college boys go there. Now the prices have gone up. There's not so many veterans anymore. Yeah, I mean, all those artists who are like, we can slum it on the Bowery actually were somewhat responsible for

[22:57] Kevin: pushing young admin assistants at small publishing houses. I feel like I might have been

[23:03] Meg: part of the problem, but times change. I mean, what are you gonna do? But I had never heard that perspective before. Or really, I guess I had always sort of assumed that there was always a homeless population in New York first

[23:19] Kevin: and foremost, it just blossomed in the 80s. And I'd heard, or my recollection of it was that Reagan specifically had changed some, either regulations or laws or funding, and that that specifically contributed to it booming. And it sounds like it was as much economics and crack just sort of on its own and a little bit less to do with that. Although obviously that sounds like it was still part of big part of the

[23:49] Meg: problem, Perfect storm, all these different elements. And also really interesting to hear that the city just wasn't prepared for it. I mean, if it had been a gradual escalation, it would be one thing, but it kind of sounds like it hit the city suddenly.

[24:08] Kevin: Right. And also, I had never thought about the impact of Vietnam veterans specifically in regards to New York City's homeless population. But when you put that together, the wars prior to Vietnam, the Army and society in general had been much better at helping ease their transition back. And in Vietnam, people came back on their own, not in large groups. And so they were on their own. And not only. And they're not being welcomed back into society and they're gonna have problems with alcohol and a lot of em are gonna come through New York City to begin with, so they're gonna stop here. Because there is, at the time there was that little bit of an ecosystem.

[24:47] Meg: I was also reading about how homeless. And again, it's so interesting that we're talking about men. We're not talking about homeless women, we are not talking about homeless families. We're talking about a very specific demographic. This was the problem that was first addressed. It was men. It wasn't until 1982 that the right to accommodation was extended to homeless women.

[25:12] Kevin: Oh, interesting.

[25:13] Meg: I know. And it wasn't until 1986 that it was extended to homeless families. And it was even later than that to people with aids that there was a right, that people had a right to some kind of care and housing. But also that in those earlier years before the balloon that we were just talking about, these were men who left their families.

[25:38] Kevin: Right.

[25:39] Meg: And so they had a memory of stability. But then when you're talking about Vietnam vets and also people addicted to crack, they might never have known any stability at all. They might have, you know, as teenagers already been disenfranchised.

[25:59] Kevin: You mentioned that they were younger, so. Right. They've not. They don't. They never even had that first experience. But also that the society our city would have addressed just men first. If the stereotype for ever has been that they were Bowery bums and they were men and so it does occur to me. Politicians are just like us. They're thinking in terms of stereotypes as well. They don't have. I mean, they have access to all the information that we do probably didn't have back in the pre Internet era, but they don't. You know, they're just dealing with things that are right in front of them. So I do, in my mind, I do give them a little bit of a break in that they just wouldn't have thought of it, you know, like, of course there's no female homeless problem. If you had read about the Bowery, if you had read Joseph Mitchell and you moved to New York in the early 90s, as I did, you could literally, if you wanted to see what an SRO looked like. Right. I forgot about the chicken wire ceiling on the rooms. And most of them had. Not most of them, but enough, as you wandered through, had their doors just wide open because there's nothing to steal.

[27:07] Meg: Interesting.

[27:08] Kevin: And I do remember that as like, eye opening to see a room with chicken wire. There's no ceiling, there's no privacy.

[27:15] Meg: But I also remember in the 90s, in the early 90s, mid-90s, I guess, Bowery Bar, suddenly it was also really trendy to hang out on the Bowery. You were kind of slumming it, but it was really cool.

[27:28] Kevin: Yeah, well, I couldn't get in, so it was that cool. Madonna used to hang out there, I believe.

[27:34] Meg: Indeed. Indeed. And now, I mean, the Bowery Bar is closed. What is the.

[27:40] Kevin: You get into Marion's, though, and Marion's was my first real cocktail bar, and I love that place.

[27:46] Meg: And Alice just went to Phoebe's the other day.

[27:49] Kevin: Yeah, Phoebe's is. Phoebe's is Phoebe's. I don't think you can get a $5 picture of Bass Pale Ale anymore. But you could back in the day.

[27:55] Meg: And it's college boys, no doubt about it. Always has been. Just a new new group.

[28:11] Kevin: Meg?

[28:12] Meg: Yes.

[28:12] Kevin: I have an engagement question for you.

[28:14] Meg: I'm so excited.

[28:16] Kevin: What was your first craft beer? Do you remember?

[28:20] Meg: Oh, I have no. I don't even really know. What does craft just mean, like Budweiser didn't make it or something?

[28:28] Kevin: Sort of. But I'm gonna take you back. Okay. You're in college probably, and all you've ever been drinking are Rolling Rocks. Rolling Rocks.

[28:37] Meg: Corona.

[28:38] Kevin: Yep, that's it. Bud Light. I love that you differentiate between those. That's fantastic. And there was not a moment where you saw this new beer that was not nationally advertised, and you thought to yourself, oh, that's different. I need to try that.

[28:58] Meg: Not until I was a legit adult, I think when I was like. Because, okay, I was a very heavy smoker and beer was my alcohol of choice.

[29:10] Kevin: Sure.

[29:10] Meg: And when I stopped smoking, which was an extremely difficult thing to do, I can imagine, I switched to wine because I just had to have a different sensory experience. And so it was actually quite a while until I went back to beer. And I would say it was. Yeah, I think it was like after I had kids. So now I'm a grownup with kids. And so I don't have a Rolling Rock. I mean, that's sort of blase, right? Like, that's a kid drink. I need to have something darker. But do I know names of things? Okay. I mean, Estella, does that count? Sierra Nevada?

[29:50] Kevin: Well, Sierra Nevada definitely counts.

[29:52] Meg: Okay, there you go.

[29:53] Kevin: We got that. Fantastic.

[29:54] Meg: Great. We got there.

[29:57] Kevin: But Stella is a very good beer. It's an import as opposed to an American craft. That's the only distinction I want to make there. I definitely don't want to disparage Stella, although people disparage Stella all the time. And I think it's very unfair and I'll just leave it there. That's all I'm going to say about that.

[30:11] Meg: Okay.

[30:11] Kevin: Brooklyn Brewery was founded in 1987 at the Nascency of the modern American craft brewing movement. Two neighbors in Brooklyn, Steve Hindy and Tom Potter, were bored with the bland, macro brews and they wanted to return brewing to Brooklyn. At the time, there were less than 100 breweries in the U.S. so now, prior to our current moment, the high point for the US brewing industry goes all the way back to 1873. There were 4171 breweries. Brooklyn alone had 48 breweries in the late 1800s. So it wasn't necessarily that Prohibition killed off the brewing movement. Even as the volume of beer that was produced increased, the number of individual breweries slowly declined. And by 1920, the year that Prohibition went into force, There were roughly 1300 breweries in the U.S. the expansion of the rail industry meant that breweries willing to risk expansion themselves to use their economies of scale to make a more efficient beer, put many of those breweries out of business. And this was still when the industry was producing great tasting beer. When Prohibition finally ended in 1933, there were only about 330 breweries ready to start brewing again.

[31:26] Meg: Let me see if I get this right. So you're making beer in your American brewery and then Prohibition happens and you don't just like decide you're going to make widgets, you decide, we'll just hold off for a second and then we'll just. We think this will be temporary.

[31:44] Kevin: No. Interestingly, they all moved. So they all attempted, or virtually all of them attempted to stay in business. Most of them, almost all of them that did decide to do that made non alcoholic beer, Nier beer, which was a product that people continued to consume. Most of them also made soda because that was an easy transition. And then surprising to me, many of them produced ice cream. Now they've got the cold storage, they've got a lot of the things that go into it and being able to distribute it. You know, there's no frozen food trucks at that point. So you're still dealing with making something and trying to deliver a cold product to a consumer, but you've got a lot of the other aspects that you can do it. So ice cream was a fun one. My favorite one is that Coors had a bunch of clay deposits on their land and they started making ceramics and it was called Coors Tech. And Coorstek today still makes more money for the Coors family than the beer does. The latest number I could find was 2015. It was the largest industrial ceramics producer in the world.

[32:47] Meg: Wait, ceramic? Like what?

[32:48] Kevin: Like a. I couldn't quite delve into my frustration getting that little nugget and then not quite being able to figure out. Exactly. I don't think they're making pottery.

[32:59] Meg: I think it's like industrial products, maybe ceramic tile.

[33:04] Kevin: And I couldn't figure out, yeah, what exactly are they making? And that is another podcast worth of research for me to do that.

[33:11] Meg: That's wild. Can I tell you my great Brooklyn Brewery story?

[33:14] Kevin: Please.

[33:15] Meg: Because that might have been. That might have predated my ordering of Sierra Nevada. Because when I was doing theater in the nineties in New York City, Brooklyn Brewery was extremely generous as far as donating to fundraisers.

[33:33] Kevin: Yes, they.

[33:34] Meg: We were all drinking Brooklyn Brewery beer because they would send it over in cartons.

[33:40] Kevin: That was their entire marketing philosophy. Tell me that they do not readily spend money. You see Sam Adams commercials on TV and you did even as far back as, I think 1990. I'd have to check the exact date. Sam Adams had a completely different marketing strategy. Brooklyn Brewery got their name out by donating beer to events all over the city. And they basically immersed themselves into everyone's just cultural experience. And that's how they became the dominant beer maker that's so branded with New York City.

[34:14] Meg: And I have to Say, to this day, my eye goes straight to that logo in a freezer, like in a refrigerator. I'm like, ah, Brooklyn Brewery. And I've got great associations with them because they were so kind.

[34:27] Kevin: Yeah, they did all the right things, and they're still here today.

[34:30] Meg: I love that.

[34:31] Kevin: Partially because of them.

[34:32] Meg: Smart, because they're generous.

[34:35] Kevin: The reason that logo is so memorable. Milton Glazier, famous for designing the I Heart New York logo, designed the Brooklyn Brewery logo.

[34:45] Meg: How did they get him?

[34:47] Kevin: He was a big fan of what Steve Hindy and Tom Potter were doing about trying to bring really good beer. No one was calling it craft beer. No one was thinking about microbreweries. Just this concept of bringing a real, authentic product back to a place where it was associated.

[35:04] Meg: So better than Budweiser is better.

[35:06] Kevin: Go better than Budweiser. But I think for Milton Glazier, and again, I'm just an opinion that he just liked the authenticity. And it really. I don't necessarily know that it mattered what that product was gonna be, but just that it was integral to what this place used to be and that he was able to find that association. You know, definitely, that logo invokes Brooklyn Dodgers. But all things, you know, that were authentic to that burrow.

[35:30] Meg: You want to make something that is local, and so you name it after the place.

[35:35] Kevin: Right?

[35:35] Meg: I know, but you know what?

[35:36] Kevin: There were a ton of breweries that there was New Amsterdam Brewing, and they didn't make it. And that was a cool name, you know, because it had an older association. Yeah. Just too cool, perhaps. Also, maybe the beer just wasn't quite as good. You know, back in the day when there was only three or four craft breweries in your neighborhood, it was all good. But as more and more started coming about, the shakeout happened. So that's where Brooklyn, the liquid always was first. And then there was the logo, and then there's the generosity and figuring out how to become part of the culture.

[36:09] Meg: Very cool.

[36:10] Kevin: All right, so now jumping back into how we get there. Prohibition finally ends in 1933. There's about 330 breweries that start brewing beer again. And Steve Hindy quoted in the New York Times saying, then came the great homogenization of beer. Americans felt the national brands of beer were better than local. And the fate of the local breweries was sealed when they tried to compete with national beers. By trying to make the same product, their beers lost their individuality and distinctiveness.

[36:39] Meg: That's when they're trying to be like Budweiser instead of trying to do Their own.

[36:43] Kevin: Precisely. And cheapening the product and also trying to compete with costs. So now in post Prohibition, the large breweries that are the few that are left are now fighting with each other for remaining market share and just cheapening the product down to the lowest common denominator. Now, during this, the beer scene in Brooklyn remained fairly robust. In 1960, or as late as 1960, breweries in Brooklyn were still producing 10% of the beer consumed in the entire U.S. so they're fighting the good fight against the Anheuser Busches and the Millers of the country. But ultimately homogenization came for them as well. And the last two breweries left in Brooklyn, Schaefer and the brewery that brewed Rheingold, closed in 1976. Coincidentally, that year, Jimmy Carter signed a law which allowed for homebrewing, which previously had been illegal. That year, 1976, also saw the founding of New Albion brewing by Jack McAuliffe. And that's out in Colorado. So we're a little out of our borough here.

[37:40] Meg: Wait, I'm curious, like, why did Jimmy Carter. Because I remember Billy Bear.

[37:44] Kevin: Billy Bear, right, yeah, of course.

[37:46] Meg: Named after the.

[37:47] Kevin: Although I'm not entirely. I don't know if that was a real thing or if that was a brand for a big company. I have no idea.

[37:53] Meg: Yeah. What that actually happened.

[37:55] Kevin: Right.

[37:56] Meg: With Billy.

[37:56] Kevin: I'm going to come back to you with a follow up. I'm going to email you and Jess with that, definitely.

[38:00] Meg: Because, yeah, Billy Carter, Jimmy Carter's brother,

[38:04] Kevin: who was famous for drinking.

[38:06] Meg: Famous for drinking. And he was like, very much not like his lovely, smart brother. There was such a thing called Billy Beer. Right.

[38:14] Kevin: And it was a big deal.

[38:15] Meg: And it was a big deal.

[38:16] Kevin: And I don't think his brother Jimmy was very happy about it, if I recall correctly, because it did kind of diminish.

[38:21] Meg: But isn't it interesting that Jimmy at the. Around the same time is going like, yeah, you can like make it in your bathtub.

[38:26] Kevin: Wait, it's weird that that was actually a law that you couldn't do. Unless that was one of the Prohibition laws, is not only can you not sell beer, you can't even make this stuff at your house.

[38:34] Meg: Yeah.

[38:34] Kevin: And then when Prohibition was repealed, they were like, let's leave that in place. I have no idea. I'll also look that one up.

[38:39] Meg: Yeah.

[38:39] Kevin: So anyway, 1976, the founding of this craft microbrewery, New Albion Brewing, by a guy named Jack McAuliffe in Colorado. It's a seminal moment. It's the first true microbrewery in the US So prior to that, we have one large craft brewery called Anchor Brewing, making Anchor Steam. It's owned by a guy named Fritz Maytag, a scion of the washing machine family. It had been a large brewery. It was about to go out of business. Fritz Maytag has all this Maytag money buys it, restores the original recipes, and creates a massive macro craft brewery. New Albion only lasts six years, closes due to lack of funding for expansion. But he inspired the next wave of microbrewers, who in effect launched what is now the current craft beer scene. This is all the way back 1976, 1982. Those pioneers who name him as their influence include Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada Brewing, Jim Cook of Boston Beer Company, AKA Sam Adams, and Sam Colaggian of Dogfish head the nadir for breweries. The amount of breweries. 1980, there are only 44 breweries left in the US now, again producing great quantities of beer. So there have been slowdowns in growth of volume and occasional stagnation. We're in stagnation right now, but almost never an actual decrease in volume. So it's always been an upward trajectory, huh? Sierra Nevada opens in 1981. The Great American Beer Festival opened in 1982. They found 20 breweries serving 40 different beer styles to over 750 people. So you can sort of see there's, there's this market for it, sort of. And then Boston Beer Company opened in 1984 with Sam Adams Boston Lager. That brings us back to Steve and Tom and Brooklyn Brewery. They start out by contract brewing at the FX Map Brewery, maker of one of my favorite regional adjunct beers, Utica Club, up in Utica, New York. And they deliver their first batch of Brooklyn Lager to a bar called Teddy's in Williamsburg in 1988. Now, Steve is a former AP foreign correspondent in the Middle east, and he learned how to homebrew while stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, countries where alcohol is forbidden under Islamic law. And like I mentioned, they get Milton Glazier to do the logo, and that helps their branding. And then when they really take off is they hire Garrett Oliver to be their brewmaster in 1994. Now, there's still contract brewing, but that's when their beer starts to become. It becomes distinguished. He comes out swinging with Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, which is a Russian imperial stout. It's rich, velvety, clocks in at 10% alcohol by volume.

[41:16] Meg: Whoa.

[41:17] Kevin: And he put the local beer scene on notice that while their classic European style would continue to be Their moneymaker, he was going to shake things up a bit and experiment and make some big and interesting beers. And then in 1996, Steve and Tom fulfill their mission to bring brewing back to Brooklyn. They open a production facility, and then two years later, a tap room, which are both designed by their resident Renaissance man, brewmaster Garrett Oliver. And this all happens in Williamsburg, but their brewmaster is designing the buildings. He goes on to write the Oxford Companion to Beer.

[41:50] Meg: What?

[41:50] Kevin: He's a noted scholar and speaker on the subject of beer.

[41:54] Meg: And.

[41:54] Kevin: And if you ever get to see him in person, he's just this fascinating guy who doesn't really embrace the celebrity, and yet he's just a celebrity. I think he's just this magical human being that's wonderful. Who makes great beer. At their party, though, they get the mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, to host as their brewmaster for the day, pouring beer to a raucous crowd of local dignitaries. Brooklyn beer now served in 30 countries over five continents. Garrett Oliver has won many prestigious awards, including being the first brewer to ever win a James Beard Award.

[42:28] Meg: Ooh.

[42:29] Kevin: And There are over 14,000 breweries in the US today.

[42:33] Meg: And we can thank these guys.

[42:35] Kevin: They are part of that movement, important part of that movement. As much for making Brooklyn part of it. You never know, right? You never know what happens. But if New York City's not part of something, it seems like it's gonna take a little bit of more of a leap.

[42:48] Meg: That's very interesting. And I wonder, too. I mean, does New York water have anything to do with the.

[42:54] Kevin: I do know that when Paul Honor Brewing from Munich opened a brewery in New York City, they tested the water, because you can add elements or subtract elements to replicate water from anywhere.

[43:04] Meg: Okay.

[43:05] Kevin: They found that New York City water perfectly replicated Munich water. So, yes, you can make a great beer with New York City water.

[43:13] Meg: Well, I'm not surprised. It's also interesting if the American beer movement or craft beer movement is happening in different parts of the country, that if New York isn't in on it, we're such an epicenter. Sorry.

[43:26] Kevin: Well, we're also jingoistic about our own city. You know, yeah, we'll drink other people's beer, but we're going to complain that we don't. And there's been ebbs and flows. And when west coast breweries started to take off in the early aughts, New York City had just Brooklyn Brewery and Six Point, and both were making their own thing, and they weren't doing these big West Coast IPAs. I don't want to be definitive on that, but it wasn't quite to the same level. It wasn't until the 2010s, where all of a sudden, there was one brewery, another brewery in New York, and then there were four more breweries, and now I don't even know how many there are. At least 25, possibly 40, depending on how you count and what you count as a brewery.

[44:05] Meg: So what's a good brewery to go to? Can you visit? Do they have tap rooms?

[44:11] Kevin: Without naming favorites?

[44:12] Meg: Without naming favorites? Just one.

[44:14] Kevin: Talea is owned by two women, Tara and Leann.

[44:18] Meg: Okay.

[44:19] Kevin: Their home base is out in Williamsburg, but they have tap rooms in another part of Brooklyn on the other side. That's not Williamsburg. They have one in the West Village. I believe they have one in Bryant Park. So you don't necessarily need to go out to their home base. Everyone's making great beer in New York City. They also are making very, very great beer.

[44:39] Meg: Awesome. Thank you. I love this story. So you know how Jessica and I usually do like a tie in.

[44:56] Kevin: Yes.

[44:56] Meg: What did those two stories have in common? I think it's a pretty easy one. Like, we both just talked about bars.

[45:04] Kevin: Bars, beer delinquents, Jetsam and flotsam.

[45:10] Meg: Flotsam and jetsam. And you brought a growler with you today from malt and Mald. What was in the growler?

[45:17] Kevin: Oh, it's Brooklyn brewery Oktoberfest.

[45:20] Meg: Oh, my gosh.

[45:21] Kevin: To stay on the theme, of course. Of course.

[45:23] Meg: Well, cheers. Thank you so much, Kevin. This was amazing.

[45:28] Kevin: Thank you so much for having me. I had the best time.

[45:30] Meg: Yay.