For the past few years, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get Hike’s Point, which is where I currently live, rebranded as HiPo. The makeshift signs I placed (without permission) around the area were quickly torn down; and the 2nd Friday Trolley Hop, where a trolley would take patrons from one Cash for Gold shop to another, was a financial disaster. I obviously can’t do this by myself, so I’m turning to you, the Louisville area beer drinking public.

I know a lot of you reading this want to open a small brewery, because you just brewed an amber lager at your house and it was tasty, god damn it! Opening a small brewery is all the rage these days. In fact, “opening a small brewery” is the “opening a smoke shop” for people who aren’t complete pieces of garbage. Well, why not open a brewery in HiPo? Really, it wouldn’t even have to be that good. Have you seen our bar choices in this area? What is the non-NASCAR enthusiast to do? When I think of our current bars, I imagine that lady from The Blues Brothers: “We have both kinds of beer, Bud Light AND Miller Lite.” Open the doors, serve us some fresh beer, and start taking our money. And since right now the 2nd best restaurant in HiPo is a Frisch’s, maybe serve some kind of food.

Or better yet, if you are an established brewery, why not open a second location in HiPo? After all, what could be more “against the grain” than putting a brewery in a strip mall next to a Big Lots? You could name a brown ale “Captain D’s Nuts” in honor of the neighborhood’s third best restaurant.

Either way, a brewery would kick start a genuine HiPo revival. In three short years, residents who now are grateful to the Starbucks for saving them from terrible gas station burnt black water will sneer derisively at the thought of entering such a soulless corporate entity; especially when HiPo Coffee, from the owners of Please and Thank You, is right across the street. There will still be a Big Lots, but folks will shop there ironically. Is there a “Matt Anthony’s HiPo Record Shop” in the future? Maybe. Why not? I’m a dreamer, kids.

The Keg Liquors Fest of Ale is Neither Decadent Nor Depraved

It’s hard to apply my usual world-weary cynicism to the annual Fest of Ale, because it’s probably the perfect event. There is lots of great beer, ample space, and best of all, a limited number of tickets. I’m someone who has never entered a space and thought “Wow, I wish there were more people here,” so maybe the limited number of tickets thing isn’t as important to you as it is to me, but less people = shorter lines for beer, and that’s something we can all get behind. Also, if all of that isn’t enough to make you worship the Fest of Ale as your God, all proceeds got to the Crusade for Children, proving that money can be raised for the Crusade without making local traffic even worse.

I saw a number of people I know or sort of know at the Fest of Ale, and I’d like to apologize retroactively for having to engage me in awkward small talk. I swear I have all kinds of brilliantly witty greetings in my head, but then I hear my name and all I can think of is “Hey, so…you’re here, huh? How about that…” Jesus, I’m the worst.