40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 72: Mitch Steele attends a F.O.S.S.I.L.S. meeting (1998)
The current biography at New Realm’s website. No mention is made of pre-merger Anheuser-Busch, but it’s probably just an oversight (insert smiley face emoji). Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 71: A-B, Molotov cocktails, Mitch Steele and me (G.A.B.F., 1997 & 1998). On November 8, 1998, something I thought would never happen actually did. At the regular monthly meeting of the Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society, held as always at Rich O’s Public House, the club’s very special guest was Mitch Steele of Anheuser-Busch. Then again, Nixon did go to China. Steele was a tremendous hit, even though it remained the case that far more New Albany residents would have turned out to fete the brewer had we advertised him in the local newspaper as “The Man Who Makes YOUR Bud Light.” Obviously we didn’t — because then they’d have insisted on drinking Bud Light. An eventful travel year passed between the 1997 Great American Beer Festival, when I first met Steele, and his arrival in New Albany (both European trips will be described in a forthcoming installment). March 1998: the inaugural motorcoach tour of Dutch and Belgian beer bars and breweries, serving as a prototype for future group excursions. July 1998: immersion...Read more