Becoming a Beer-Trailblazer with TagaBrew

It may not surprise you, especially if you have seen any of my Youtube series, that I am a Michigander. So I’ve had the privilege of being around the craft beer movement for a couple a decades. Michigan is home to some heavy hitters like Bells, Founders, Shorts, Darkhorse, and Jolly Pumpkin, along with hundreds of smaller breweries, and brewpubs (200+). So much beer has been produced here, you can bet that we Mitten-folk have seen (and tasted) it all.

It also means that we have seen a lot of fads come and go, like the 14% and higher beers, the almost impossible not to break teku glass, or the dreaded double lactose milkshake IPA with edible sparkles. So when I came back to Michigan this year I noticed this new thing called TagaBrew being sold in breweries all over the place. Admittedly, at first I was skeptical, but after working in a few of those breweries I have become a convert.

Before I go any further I guess I should step back and explain exactly what TagaBrew is for anyone unfamiliar. TagaBrew is a third party company that makes souvenirs for breweries. Each brewery gets a copper tag, kind of like a dog-tag, and a unique charm associated with it. TagaBrew also has an app (for $3.99) where you can track your progress along the TagaBrew trail. You log into the app, and record which charms you have collected and which breweries you have visited.

I think I was initially skeptical of TagaBrew for the same reason I am skeptical of many other trendy craft beer apps/websites. I am always a little wary of institutions that allow consumers to influence beverage culture with as much, or with more authority, than people who work within the industry itself. These other websites/apps can be a place where beer enthusiasts come together and communicate about great beer. But they also can be an echo chamber where people are more concerned about bragging rights and propagating cliché opinions than actual useful discussion.

Too often apps with forums or rating systems end up glorifying particular beers instead of promoting craft beer in general. This can lead to some problems like encouraging the hoarding or reselling of beer in a secondary market. It can stifle a younger brewery’s creativity by influencing them to make beer similar to the big boys just to try to break into the market. Worst of all, it can give a certain authority to some of my least favorite customers, the people who come in and ask for, “…whatever beer is ranked highest on [insert website here.]” That mentality shows that they aren’t interested in engaging with our brewery, or in beverage culture more generally. They don’t want to discover things for themselves or form their own opinions, they just want to be able to say they only drink, “the best” beer, whatever that means.

“Our job is to bring the Breweries, TagaBrewers… we never knew it was going to grow to be this big. It's all about people getting together and drinking good beer.” - Debi Steward Co-owner

So you can imagine my apprehension when customers started showing up, with hundreds of TagaBrew chains around their necks. I felt like they were coming to the brewery simply to check us off a list (and I’m sure some of them were). They were looking for that new kind of bragging right, being a completionist. But after giving it some thought I realized that that might be exactly what beer culture needs right now. A side effect of this completionist mentality is that the TagaBrew community tries new experiences and expands their craft knowledge. By tapping (haha) into this “collect them all” mentality, TagaBrew incentivizes going off the beaten path and trying new breweries. And by creating these small inexpensive souvenir tags, TagaBrew gives the consumer something to collect without needing space in their house for multiple growlers/tee shirts or a having to spend a lot of money on merchandise.

The TagaBrew app is pretty straightforward. Essentially there is a list of all the breweries on the TagaBrew Trail, which you can filter by state, city, or name, and there is an interactive map that will use your GPS coordinates to show the closest breweries to you. When you go to a brewery and pick up a charm you can mark it on the app. If the $3.99 price tag is giving you a moment’s pause TagaBrew is planning to release a free version of the app in the coming weeks, which will be a little more stripped down, but will allow anyone to join in the community.

What TagaBrew does better than other online beer communities is promote craft beer in an inclusive sense. They allow people just getting into beer to geek-out and collect something without it being cost prohibitive and the app provides a literal road map to discovering craft culture. On the TagaBrew website, owners Debi and Jim, say that each brewery on the TagaBrew trail is, “one of a kind, yet we have experienced one big family.”

When it comes to family, you don’t play favorites. Any beer tourist coming to MI knows they have to visit Bells Brewery, but they might miss places like One Well Brewing, or Territorial Brewing Co along the way. By presenting them all as simple blips on a map TagaBrew doesn’t allow smaller breweries to be overshadowed by their bigger brothers. Honestly if you are looking for an inclusive way to document your craft beer experience, the TagaBrew app might just be the best $3.99 you spend this year.

Getting Started: Bourbon

A Brief Dicussion on America's Most Famous Spirit.

Picture by David Ambrose taken at The Avenue Pub in New Orleans LA

If you are going to bartend anywhere in or near the U.S. then there is one spirit you have to be familiar with, Bourbon Whiskey. When I first started bartending I didn’t know what Bourbon was, or exactly how it differed from whiskey more generally. Looking back at my first year I realize I gave out a lot of misinformation about Bourbon. I’d like to rectify that here and in the process give all you bartenders just starting out a resource by which you can avoid the same pitfalls.

So What Exactly is Bourbon?

Alright, lets get something out of the way early. Bourbon whiskey does not have to come from Bourbon County Kentucky. That is one of those tenacious bar myths that keeps popping back up. Like the one that says the French 75 cocktail is named after the 75 mm field gun, or that shaking a martini “bruises” the gin. Don’t worry you are not alone in making that mistake. Other products such as cognac or champagne have to be made in the Cognac or Champagne regions of France, so why not bourbon? To put it simply those other products are associated with what’s called an AOC, an Appellation D’origine Controllée, a French concept/certification process that designates where a product needs to come from in order to have a certain name.

We will need to have a way more detailed discussion about AOC’s some other time. For now just think of an AOC as a way to certify a product’s authenticity and place of origin. Bourbon, has no such certification and there is no geographic restriction on it other than it has to be produced on American soil. That having been said, there are plenty of other rules you have to follow if you want to call your whiskey, “Bourbon.” So what is the official definition of bourbon?

Definition: Bourbon Whiskey is a spirit made from a grain mash consisting of 51% or higher corn, along with various other grains, distilled to no greater than 80% alcohol by volume (160 proof), introduced to the barrel at no greater than 62.5 % ABV (125 proof), aged in unused, charred, oak barrels, on American soil, and bottled at no less than 40% ABV (80 proof).

At first glance, this definition might look pretty strict, but once you break it down there is still a little wiggle room left open for interpretation. We know that there has to be at least 51% corn in the mash build, but after that you can use whatever you want as long as it is grain. Wheat, rye, barley, and spelt are most common but it would be possible to make bourbon from quinoa, rice, sorghum, millet, oat... etc. as long as there was at least 51% corn present in the mash.

You’ll notice that there is no age statement attached to the definition of bourbon, that means that as soon as the white grain spirit begins the maturation process in the barrel it is technically bourbon, not good bourbon mind you, but bourbon. The only stipulation in the aging process is that if you age bourbon for less than four years, you have to put an age statement on the bottle.

While the base definition of Bourbon leaves some room for interpretation there is a lot of additional labels which help to narrow the definition of the spirit quite a bit. If a spirit is labeled as straight bourbon it must be aged for at least two years and it cannot have any additives like flavoring, coloring, or supplemental spirits. Such additives would make a straight bourbon into a blended bourbon in some cases or a rectified whiskey in others.

Picture taken by Polly Watts at Four Roses Distillery, KY

Another qualifying addition to a bourbon label is the phrase ‘bottled in bond’ which refers to the bottle in bond act of 1897. This was essentially an attempt by the Federal government to assure the quality and authenticity of a spirit. For a spirit to be bottled in bond it must be the product of one distillation season by one distiller at one distillery and then aged for at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse under the supervision of government officials, and then bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV).

You may also see the term “sour mash.” Mash refers to the crushed grain that water and yeast are added to, to begin the fermentation process. Sour mash occurs when saving a bit of the mash from one batch of whiskey and using it in fermenting the next batch of whiskey. It is essentially the whiskey equivalent of making sour dough bread from a sour dough yeast starter. Sour mash stands in opposition to sweet mash which relies on fresh yeasts for the fermentation process. Using a sour mash does not influence or sour the flavor of the whiskey, rather it creates a consistency between batches allowing for brands to have a specific flavor profile.

There are several terms that can be used to further define bourbon, i.e. terms like barrel strength, single barrel, or small batch but those are pretty self-explanatory and don’t actually do much to change the nature of the spirit itself so we will not dwell on those terms here. Instead lets dive into why the spirit is called bourbon.

Photo Taken By Dave Ambrose at Woodford Reserve Distillery KY

The Mysterious Origins of Bourbon Whiskey

At the top of the article I mentioned that bourbon doesn’t have to come from Bourbon County, Kentucky. If that is the case, though, you may be asking yourself where does bourbon get its name? The answer to that question is a complicated one, and like any good bar story, it is largely apocryphal. What we do know, is American whiskey started being called ‘bourbon’ instead of just ‘whiskey’ sometime between the 1820’s and the 1860’s, but why it came to have that name is shrouded in mystery. Here are a couple theories about how bourbon got its name, and how exactly it is relates to Kentucky.

The first bourbon legend states that the name comes from the county itself but was first designated as bourbon in New Orleans. According to this story, merchants in New Orleans found an invoice attached to a shipment of particularly popular whiskey that stated the it came from the town Limestone in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Customer’s liked the whiskey so much they started asking for the Bourbon-Country whiskey which was eventually shortened to bourbon. The problem with this theory is that Limestone was only part of Bourbon County for a very short time, and at that time shipments from Kentucky to New Orleans were very sparse. The idea that there were enough invoices coming from Limestone specifically to have caused New Orleans to propagate that name is unlikely.

Photo taken by David Ambrose at the Avenue Pub, New Orleans, LA

The second bourbon legend revolves around New Orlean’s Bourbon Street. It states that people found that drinking whiskey coming from Kentucky was much more agreeable than drinking local ones because it had longer to mature in the barrel while in transit. During the long road from Kentucky to New Orleans, the spirit rested in the barrels and in its travels every movement or bump in the road (or boat ride) caused the spirit to age more richly. When the Kentucky whiskey started to be sold on Bourbon Street, people would say lets go get some of that Bourbon Street Whiskey, and from that the name was shortened to Bourbon.

This version of the story was corroborated by a tour guide on at the Woodford Reserve Distillery. While the story doesn’t seem downright outlandish, it doesn’t explain the folk tradition of equating the spirit with Kentucky. Bourbon Street would be using whiskey supplied from any territory along the Mississippi River, and its unlikely that they would be so choosy as to stock whiskey specifically from Kentucky. So if anything the name would have been associated with Louisiana Whiskey.

Both versions of the story seem a little too convenient. Each finds a way to associate bourbon whiskey with both Bourbon County and Bourbon Street. And while they are both great bar stories, there is a third, less romantic, and admittedly more likely, theory put forth by Michael Veach a leading booze scholar and whiskey historian.

Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage

By Michael R. Veach

Buy on Amazon

Veach, in his book, Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage, argues that the name ‘bourbon,’ just like most things in the industry, was the product of a simple marketing campaign. According to Veach at the time whiskey was beginning to gain traction in the bigger American cities it was competing with existing, already popular, aged spirits like French brandies such as armagnac or cognac, both of which were already being aged in charred oak, and had an already assumed level of quality. It may have been that the French sounding bourbon was simply a name chosen by a grocer or whiskey wholesaler to give this newer American spirit the gravitas that these other spirits already enjoyed.

The name Bourbon would have already have positive connotations in the cultural psyche due to the the aid given to the the American colonies by Louis XVI (of the house of Bourbon) during the the the revolutionary war some decades before. In fact, that’s who Bourbon Country is named after. Choosing the name ‘Bourbon’ allows the customer to fill in the blanks behind its reasoning tying it to the region that produces much of the whiskey, or in the case of New Orleans, tying it to the street in which it was enjoyed, all while implying it having a regal lineage.

Whatever the reason the for the name, bourbon has made a name for itself around the world. It is a distinctly American spirit with flavors as rich and complex as its heritage. And wherever you are starting your bartending career it will do you well to be knowledgeable about it. If you want to learn more about bourbon, I whole heartedly suggest picking up Michael Veach’s book Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage to see a comprehensive study of bourbon’s history. It is a fantastic read, and not too dense, so it is approachable for both service industry and lay persons alike. And if at the end you can’t decide which origin story has the most evidence, do what any good bartender would, pick your favorite story and run with it.

Cheers!

The Customer is Always Right... until they're not (pt 2)

In my previous post I said that the customer is not always right when it comes to their relationship with alcohol. Sometimes we as bartenders have to put their best interests in front of their actual desires, especially when it comes to their safety and the safety of those around them. After reading it (if you haven’t, seriously go back and read it) you might be thinking, “Alright Dave, I will give you that point, the customer is always right, with the exception of when they need the bartender to act as their better judgement in terms of drinking too much. But outside of that one instance the customer is always right.” And I’d have to say I agree with you. The customer is always right…

…except, again, when they’re not. The customer is always right when it comes to the manner in which they want their restaurant experience to be exactly that a restaurant experience. They control the way in which their food and beverages are prepared, the timing by which they would like to order, the section in which they would prefer to sit, and many other aspects of their visit. They should never be shamed for ordering a muddled old fashioned, a steak extra-well done, a non-alcoholic drink while sitting at the bar, or any other service industry faux-pas. People are allowed to like what they like.

Customers also shouldn’t be made to feel bad for sitting at a table for longer than expected, or for tipping under twenty percent. These things are just part of the grind. Someone may tip us poorly or take up our section for too long, and that might make a normally profitable day less profitable, but there will be other days. Getting hung up on these things is a rookie mistake. As far as money is concerned, you have to look at your overall average not your day to day. Feeling anything more than a mild disappointment at a bad day will drive you crazy if you can’t find a way to let it roll off your back.

Where the guests preferences stop being meaningful is when their wants conflict with the culture of the bar more generally. Any bar or restaurant has a certain kind of broad identity, maybe it’s a sports bar, maybe its a fine-dining Italian restaurant, maybe it’s a pub that specializes in whiskey and dessert. Most times the broad identity of the bar is apparent in the name, the menu, and the décor, and most customers will be coming in and getting what they expect. There is a more narrow aspect of a bar’s identity, however, the unofficial rules of place, made up by the people who work there. It is in this space that the customer will sometimes further try to extend their personal preferences, and it is important that we as bartenders establish some boundaries.

To understand why these boundaries are important lets start with something small. When it comes to the ambiance of the the bar, the lighting or the music for instance, the personal preferences of the customer have no real bearing on the matter. If a customer asks me to change the music I will more than likely refuse even if I have it in my power to, and even if they suggest something I would like to hear.

If need be I’ll give an excuse like the music is chosen by my managers, or its preset company playlist. The reason for this is simple, if you take one request, you have to take them all. (See Figure 1) Setting the precedent that you will change the music allows for the customer to begin to have control of portions of the restaurant that they should’t have. And I can tell you from personal experience its these same customers that want other extras, the kind that start costing you money. Having small things like the radio or television be in the hands of the bartenders (or The House more generally) paves the way for more important rules.

Restaurants and bars have always been shared public spaces. That is why the term ‘bar' is often synonymous with words like inn, tavern, public house… etc. People from all walks of life will come into a bar and the mingling of all those people is something that the bartender has to keep in mind. The bartender has to enforce a narrow identity of the space that makes everyone feel comfortable and safe. And sometimes that tone, that identity, will clash with some of the customer’s wants. 

In just the same way that the bartender has a moral responsibility to the customer to be their better judgment in terms of alcohol consumption, the bartender also has a moral responsibility to monitor customer interactions with each other and the space more broadly. As people drink they get a little loose. They may get louder, more volatile, more forward or touchy feely and we, as the people facilitating these changes, owe them, and more importantly the people around them, our efforts keeping everyones behavior comfortable.

The way we can do this is to have some rules in place that we can fall back on in the event of an uncomfortable interaction. One rule I have for any bar I work for is no one can buy a person (they did not walk in with) a drink without going through a few extra steps. Buying people drinks can be a random act of exuberance or camaraderie, but more often than not it is a way to force an interaction with someone who otherwise would not have wanted to have it. In this case it’s a predatory action wrapped up to look like kindness. I cannot tell you how many times a guy has come up to the bar and said, “I’ll take a beer, and… (scans the room for an attractive woman) and I want to buy whatever that girl is having.”

I can tell you, without any uncertainty, that these two are not waiting for you to buy them a drink.

During my years as a bartender I have come up with a few rules to navigate this situation. If someone would like to buy a stranger a drink they must first introduce themselves, ask the stranger if it would be okay to buy them a drink, ask if it would be okay if they kept the stranger company for the duration of the drink, and let the stranger know that they will be perfectly happy to leave the table should that person change their mind about the interaction half-way through. This is usually a thorough enough proviso to discourage the behavior, but if they go through with it, at least it shows some amount of good faith.

I’m sure that to some of you this sounds like overkill. I am also sure that this rule is not always necessary. There is every potentiality that someone might like a stranger to buy them a drink and strike up conversation. The fact of the matter is this rule makes people rethink imposing on others, and it also informs my patrons, whether they have the purest intentions or not, that the bartender is actively invested in the safety and interactions of their guests. Personally, I’d rather be know as a little overzealous in protecting my customers than not thorough enough. My bar space should be known as a place where people feel safe.

When you are behind the bar you have a real say in how the restaurant is run, this narrow identity of the bar. You have a certain amount of authority in setting the vibe of a place, and you owe it to your customers and to yourself to take that responsibility seriously. I’m not here to tell you how to run your bar, thats for you to figure out. All bars are different. For you it may not be a big deal changing the radio station and it may not be necessary to be as strict when it comes to people buying drinks. What is important is that you engage with the situations as they arrive, and when you do I have often found it is useful to have some guidelines already in place. So I suggest thinking up a few. That way when something comes up, you’ll know whether or not the customer is, in fact, always right.

The Customer is Always Right... until they're not

The customer is always… go ahead, I know you know the rest. Go ahead and fill it in. The customer is always right. The truth is that phrase is not just a reasonable sounding bit of folk wisdom, in fact most companies I have worked for have that exact rule, or a similarly worded one in the employee handbook. There is always something in the book about “the guest experience being the most important part,” or “the guest being in charge of the experience,” of the restaurant. And for the most part I agree. When the customers dine with us they should feel comfortable, at home, and very much taken care of. After all, we are the service industry. We are, very much, at their service. In short the customer is always right…

…right up until the point that they’re not. The customer is always right within reason. There are a few instances when the customers’ wishes should not just be left unfulfilled but should be completely contradicted. I wanted to pen a little something here because navigating where and when you should ignore or contradict the customer is a hard thing to judge. This is especially true for new bartenders. When I was first starting out I would constantly be worried about whether or not my decisions would make the customers, or even worse, one of my various bosses angry. One instance where you might need to act contrary to the customer’s wishes is when dealing with alcohol.

When it comes to the frequency of ordering alcohol and the quantity expected to be imbibed I’ve found people’s decision making processes to be suspect, even before they start drinking. In my years behind the bar I’ve had to, on occasion, cut people off. And I can tell you from experience it is never not weird. One reason for this is that you are dealing with an intoxicated person, but I would assume another more pervasive reason is that we have been taught to bend over backward for the customer, regardless of how nonsensical their requests. So its a jarring and somewhat contradictory experience to suddenly give the customer a hard no.

I think its important to note that I am not trying to give you strategies on how to prevent over-serving. I won’t be outlining the signs of drunkeness, nor giving you a calculus of how much a person can drink in relation to their body mass index. There are plenty of resources out there designed to give you that precise information. And many of you, I’m sure, have already taken classes or attended training on how to safely serve alcohol. Those types of classes always felt only marginally useful to me. They tell you when to cut someone off, but they don’t tell you what that really entails. They don't mention that when you cut someone off they might swing on you, or call you all manner of foul names, or threaten your life. So instead I want to chat a bit about what that side of the business looks like.

Aside from the big stuff like slurred speech, or loss of motor skills, figuring out where the line is can be a difficult. What constitutes drunken behavior is culturally contingent. What gets someone cutoff in Detroit is vastly different from what gets someone cutoff in New Orleans. And depending on where you work the rules can vary a bit. And let me say up front most times when you cut a person off they will comply quietly, even sheepishly. Sometimes, however, they’ll get angry and/or combative and may even try to bargain with you. It is important to hold your ground in these moments, especially if you are the only person on the floor. If the customers think they can push you around, they will. (This is where the threats and shouting come in.) To be a good bartender you have to find that balance between being firm and emotionally detached. It won’t do you any good to get worked up. It’ll only result in goading them on, and raising your own blood pressure.

Exactly why people have such a push back against being cut off is something I am still trying to figure out. I imagine it has something to do with our cultural relationship to alcohol. On a fundamental level we believe alcohol is inherently valuable. One look at a cocktail menu will tell you that. A drink generally costs more per ounce if it has a higher percentage of alcohol than a lower one. But it is not just monetary value that we are talking about. Generally it’s considered better to have a high tolerance than a low one. We poke fun of people who “can’t hold liquor,” or we feel the need to comment on someone being a “cheap date,” when they don’t drink.

Alcohol is used to demarcate both celebration and mourning, to toast our successes, and drown our failures, to christen new endeavors and to pour one out for the homies. Think of how many people use it every week for religious purposes. Alcohol may be considered a vice, but these examples prove that it is also important. Given that importance and pervasive quality we give alcohol, I suppose it makes sense that when people are cut off they would have a certain amount of push back, but I imagine the more severe behavior, the threats and the insults, are due to something we as bartenders should always keep in mind. Alcohol is an addictive substance.

We as alcohol purveyors are in a unique and somewhat contradictory position. Alcohol is an addictive substance that can alter moods, lower inhibitions and if overindulged in can be very destructive. Bartenders are in the business of making people unable to operate heavy machinery, give consent, or in some cases walk a straight line. We are in the business of making people, in a word, vulnerable and as such we owe those people our vigilance in making sure they are safe, and are not making bad decisions.

The House (the organization you work for) and the culture more generally, will give you this contradictory role most likely without ever acknowledging the contradiction. They tell you the customer is always right, that we should bend over backward to satisfy them but also that we should never over-serve them. They will pressure you to up-sell but also pressure you to never put more than one drink down in front of someone, or not to serve them more than one an hour. Side note: This is cuckoo-bananas. If I had to sit in a restaurant for an hour to get a second drink, I would walk out.

We are supposed to give out a substance that makes people unable to drive, but send them home when they get too drunk. In many states we are the ones liable if those people go out and get in a car accident. As bartenders we are like the ring master of a drunk circus, and we need to make sure that we are always striving to keep things running smoothly. Do our job too well and people get out of control. Don’t do it well enough and The House will be mad at you for not making the sale, and alienating the customers. 

To be a good bartender, you will have to be one-part salesman, and one-part caretaker. And threading that needle means you have to be alert, gauging your customer’s condition, and second guessing whether what the customer wants is actually what is best for them and the bar more generally. In other words, in relation to serving alcohol, it is not the customer who is right, nor The House with its split agenda of pleasing the customer, making the sale, and not over-serving. Rather I would argue that when it comes to serving alcohol, it is the bartender who is always right, because it is we who are legally, and more importantly morally, responsible for the results of that alcohol.