In February, I had a post about the Bronx and the neighborhood I grew up in. I mentioned The Bronx Ale House. I was under the impression that the Ale House had taken over an old Irish neighborhood bar, The Punch Bowl. Today I was actually in my old neighborhood and saw that The Punch Bowl is still there on the corner of 238th and Broadway. The Bronx Ale House is also on 238th, a couple of doors down. Now all I have to do is to go to both and see if The Punch Bowl is still the same and what kind of craft beer the Ale House has.
Posts Tagged ‘drinking’
The Punch Bowl is Still The Punch Bowl
Friday, August 20th, 2010Academic Couples
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010This post is an expansion of a comment I made to Tenured Radical’s post, “Never Mix, Never Worry: A Brief (and incomplete) History of the Academic Couple”. She wrote the post in response to Caroline Bick’s essay in the Sunday New York Times, “Is the Husband Going to Be a Problem.”
That question arose in the mind of a professor interviewing Bick for her first academic position. Bick’s essay mentions this sexist thinking about her husband potentially being a hiring issue. However, this is not really the main point of the article, which is not about sexism in academia but is about the intersection of careers and relationships.
Her advisor reassured her potential employer, not Bick as Tenured Radical indicates. Bick wishes she could have responded. She would have told them that it would be no problem because she planned to chain him under the bed. Bick does acknowledge that the “adult” behavior expected of her in the moment would up influencing her choices for many years.
Tenured Radical and many of the commenters felt that Bick’s story had a happy ending because she, her husband, and their children live together in the same city. It is a successful conclusion from the point of Bick’s relationship with her husband. The husband’s first career ended and he had to reinvent himself. As I know from personal experience this can be very difficult. If the woman had to give up her chosen academic career but got to live in the same city with her husband and children would it still be a successful conclusion?
Tenured Radical feels that the issue of “academic commuting” is a recent problem. “Once women decided to stop baking cookies for their husband’s seminars and type manuscripts for love and pin money, it occurred to them get their own advanced degrees (it was around the mid 1960s, when women’s liberation really took off,…)” Was feminism really as straight forward and simple as women making a conscious choice to stop baking cookies and get PhDs? I guess there were not any social forces that kept them baking and no changes that enabled woman to have more options, in both career and personal life.
The post contains several pictures of Elizabeth Taylor from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the reader might assume she represents the prototypical faculty wife. Honey, the younger woman in Edward Albee’s play, actually better fits the stereotype of the faculty wife.
Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Martha, the character Elizabeth Taylor plays, is an alcoholic, frustrated and vengeful woman. Her frustration does not seem to be related to her not having obtained an academic job. She does not really fit into the point Tenured Radical makes about secret drinking by faculty wives.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
College campuses across America have scholarship funds for women returning to school, loans for students, funds for campus beautification, and wings in medical centers because of faculty wives. Apparently, these women found time to do other things besides baking cookies and becoming alcoholics.
Spousal hires are much more likely if one or both of the people are stars or if they are looking for jobs at large public universities. In general, small private liberal arts colleges cannot easily add a second line when trying to hire someone. In addition, spousal hires can often conflict with affirmative action goals.
Two people in the same field are unlikely to wind up with two jobs at the same institution. Someone will have to give up and do something else; that is what happened to Bick and her husband.
Beer Here
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010Today we finally got to a bar. It is in Hyde Park and had cheap but good burgers and a decent selection of beer. I had a Fat Tire, which I had never tried before. It was good. Besides going to the Woodlawn Tap tonight, we have bought two different six-packs while in Chicago. The first was Leninenkugel’s Classic Amber, which I liked a lot. They don’t sell it at home, so I was interested to try it even though I know Miller owns the company. The other six-pack we bought was Goose Island IPA. Goose Island is the biggest craft brewer in Chicago. I liked that as well.
Craft Brewers Conference – Chicago
Thursday, April 8th, 2010The 2010 Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) and BrewExpo America started Tuesday and runs until April 10. I didn’t know that it was in downtown Chicago until we got here. Rep. Pete DeFazio and Rep. Richie Neal (from Western Massachusetts) were the keynote speakers. They are both part of the Small Brewers Caucus which I discussed here.
The conference is primarily a trade meeting, but there are some events connected to it for the public. Tonight I could have gone and seen Fritz Maytag in another part of town but I didn’t. On Friday and Saturday Stone Brewing will be taking over eleven taps at a taqueria. I am going to try to go to that.
Day Two: Rutherford B. Hayes
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010Today we are in Fremont, Ohio. The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center is here. It is his family home, Spiegel Grove. There is also a museum and a library. I always think of Hayes as one of a fairly undistinguished group of presidents from the late nineteenth century. He became president following a disputed election. Once in office he ended Reconstruction and any federal support for Southern blacks.
His wife was Lucy Webb Hayes. She was the first presidential wife the press and others called “first lady”. She was also the first to have graduated from college. Like many other women during the 1870s, she was a temperance advocate. Her opponents called her “Lemonade Lucy”. President Hayes shared her temperance position; however his grandfather owned a tavern in Vermont.
The house and grounds were beautiful and the weather was warm but windy. It was nice to get out of the car and walk around. Tomorrow onto Chicago.
Beer in Other Places
Saturday, March 6th, 2010In the past week there have been some interesting items about beer in different places as well as some different beer customs.The New York Times had a very interesting story about beer in Vietnam. The local draft beer is bia hoi, “a crisp, cold beer with a clean taste suggesting rice and an almost subliminal whisper of something like hops.” I think most of the Americans who go to Vietnam are Vietnam War vets but I loved China and it would be very exciting to visit other parts of Asia.
The Alcohol and Drugs History Society website has a story today about Green Beer Day at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. David Fahey teaches there. It is apparently a pre- St. Patrick’s Day beer crawl. This year there were twenty arrests.
A Good Beer Blog writes about proposed beer regulation in Botswana. One of the local beers is chibuku is made from sorghum. They also have a higher alcohol content beer made from honey and sugar, khadi. The Chinese make Baiiju from sorghum. It is very strong and viscous. I didn’t really like the taste.
The final item comes from the Mount Hope Monitor, a Bronx newspaper. Apparently Burger Kings plans to sell domestic beers – Budweiser – in some New York locations. I do not know if that will make Burger King more or less appealing.
Research Trip Blues
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009Yesterday, our second day in Raleigh was not that much better from the food, beer, or entertainment side. After our first full day in Raleigh, I have to say it is not my favorite place. Heavy construction is going on around the University, making getting anywhere very difficult.
The library is beautiful and the people at Special Collections are very nice. It is modern with lots of comfortable seating.
After long day at the archive, we tried to find somewhere to eat. First, we went into a bar, which was so smoked filled I had trouble breathing. I have really forgotten what being around people who smoke is like.
We settled on another bar and sat in the dining area to try to avoid the smoke. I asked the server what kind of beer they had on tap. She replied, “Everything.” She then rattled off a lot of names – PBR, Bud, Coors, some names I had never heard of and Magic Hat. I asked her if there was any local beer. She replied, “Coors, everyone drinks that because it is cheap.” I said, “I mean beer made in North Carolina.” She said no.
I picked the Magic Hat. No. 9. I had never had it before. It was a standard lager and very sweet. So far, Raleigh seems to have a lot of fried food, smoking, and mediocre beer. Maybe tonight will be better.
This and That
Monday, November 16th, 2009Here are some interesting links from around the web. They are mostly alcohol related but I couldn’t resist this story about giant jellyfish.
Giant Jellyfish Washed Ashore
My favorite part of the article is that the Japanese are trying to make consumable products out of these creatures, including ice cream.
This past weekend there was a brewers festival in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was the first year and it sounds like a lot of fun.
Carla Champion, The Beer Babe, talked at a seminar entitled, ” I Wished My Girlfriend Liked Beer.” The subject of women and beer seems to have become a required element of any beer festival. As someone who has been drinking beer since I was eleven, on some level I don’t get it. I think more women probably like beer than is commonly known. It is more an advertising and marketing issue.
Roger Protz, beer-pages.com, has an interesting post about the Scottish brewer, Brewdog. Apparently they are in an issue of a newspaper, appearing lewd and drunk. He thinks this is bad for the image of brewing.
The final item is also from Scotland. The Scottish drinks company, Whyte and Mackay is drilling in Antarctica to recover 100 year old Scotch. The liquor was left there by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. It is not clear whether they plan to drink it or not, but they do plan to see if it would be viable to start distilling it again. Didn’t McKinlay and Co., the original distillers keep records?
Update
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Thomson Reuters posted a story about Brooklyn Brew, the small start-up selling home brewing kits, that includes comments from myself, Sam Calagione, and Beth Goldstein.
Home Brewing Businesses
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009Yesterday I received an email from an editor at Thomson Reuters asking me to evaluate the business model of Brooklyn Brew Shop. They have a video pitch that I looked at.
Brooklyn Brew Shop’s business idea, a small one gallon home brewing starter kit, is a good. It is small enough with a low cost to be appealing to first time home brewers, particularly those who live in apartments. Erica, one of the-owners, talked about the cost savings of home brewing, especially if you want to brew higher alcohol content beer. This is one of their main selling points. You also avoid taxes as a home brewer, which further lowers your costs. I thought the beer prices in New York were astoundingly high.
The appeal of home brewing is getting exactly the taste you want. This is something that Brooklyn Brew Shop should stress more in their promotions. Home brewing also involves creativity and this aspect could be stressed more as well.
Erica is a good spokesperson and she highlights the growing role of women in the brewing industry. Traditionally women did the brewing at home in their kitchens and this is something that could be mentioned as well.
I am not sure about going into retail as their next step. I would continue to try to build the business online and at festivals and fairs before going retail. What retail avenues do they have in mind? I am not sure about package stores or other home brewing supply stores. They probably need a broader brand identity before they can approach places like Target and Wal-Mart. They could try to sell the kits on Amazon.
