New signage!

Thanks to Christian, our intrepid graphic designer and painter, we now have a painted logo on our door, and some nice painted graphics on our beer sign. To wit:

By request, a few recent bar photos.

Many featuring dogs, including photos of an epic puppy throwdown between our friends Nina and Jameson.

April the 6th, 2008

Nearly thirty years ago, one of our owners, John-Christian Godsil Rauschenberg, emerged into this world full of vague fears, doubts, and adorable baby-sized ennui. Despite enormous obstacles, he has managed not to die, and to grow to the full, manly age of thirty years old. On Sunday, April 6, we'll be celebrating his birthday with toasts, encomiums, sing-alongs, huggings, and microbrew. John will return to the bar after a Brooklyn tour at 11 pm, and festivities will promptly ensue with the Fourth Avenue crew. All of you are welcome to come by. We'll be in a generous mood, so free rounds are likely.

A bold social experiment.

This Friday, and on succeeding Fridays, as an alpha test, we're going to open earlier, at 12 noon, for those of you who might have a half-day, or be getting out of a long day of teaching school, or those of you who, like us, are simply oddly-scheduled genteel men- and women- about town who'd like to stop by for an afternoon tipple. Our beloved Becca will be working these Fridays from 12-8. Come in, have a conversation with her, read or relax in our skylit back room, use your computer, or whatever strikes your fancy. It'll be happy hour the entire time.

Sorry, A's fans.

This is Pacific Standard, coming to you at 7 am on Tuesday. As yet, DirecTV has been unable to solve some unexplained "updating issues" (don't you love contemporary customer service lingo?) which are completely preventing all subscribers, including us, from receiving the A's-Red Sox game. At this point, our tired selves are going to go home and listen to the game on radio. Rest assured, we (and about 10 million Red Sox Nation fans) will be letting DirecTV know how we feel about these "issues", and we're certain there's going to be a big backlash. Check the news in the next few days. Thanks, and see you soon for maybe some game replays.

Fiction reading April 29.

The Pacific Standard Fiction Series: Art, Politics, and Murder
featuring Francisco Goldman, Anne Landsman, and Ceridwen Dovey

Tuesday, April 29th, 7:00 p.m.
82 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (between St. Marks and Bergen)
hosted by Garth Risk Hallberg

Books available on-site!
Drink specials to be chosen by dartboard!
Come see why New York Magazine named us "Best New Literary Event of 2008!"

*

Francisco Goldman's novels, THE LONG NIGHT OF WHITE CHICKENS, THE
ORDINARY SEAMAN, and THE DIVINE HUSBAND, have been finalists for
honors including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the
PEN/Faulkner Award. His latest book, THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER,
extends the themes of his fiction as it explores the real-life
assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the Guatemalan human rights
leader. The Washington Post called it "a passionate cry of outrage
that should be read and passed on by anyone who believes, as Goldman
proves here, that truth is always more improbable than fiction."
Truth; fiction...tonight, he will read a little of both.

"Goldman, a highly artistic writer of conscience, delves more deeply
into the injustices and paradoxes of Central American society with
each book.... Ultimately, he not only dramatizes the fate of one lush
but unlucky Central American country but also conjures the very spirit
of humankind in all its perfidy and splendor." -Booklist


South African-born Anne Landsman's new novel, THE ROWING LESSON, was a
recent New York Times Editor's Choice. "[Its] beauty, wrote O
Magazine, "is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling laced
with fragments of Afrikaans, and [its] lyric desperation." Landsman's
first novel, THE DEVIL'S CHIMNEY, was nominated for the PEN/Hemingway
Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She has contributed
regularly to The Believer Magazine.

"Nothing about this curriculum vitae conveys the visceral appeal of
Anne Landsman's second novel...a book that puts readers as deep into
[its protagonist] as if he had been opened up on the table before us.
Landsman is a gambler, and here she risks everything." -The New York
Times


Ceridwen Dovey's debut novel, BLOOD KIN, will be published in 14
countries, and has been shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize
and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book. "Refreshingly
spiky and precise...startling and original," wrote Entertainment
Weekly. Dovey earned her Masters in Creative Writing at the University
of Cape Town in her native South Africa, and is currently pursuing a
Ph. D. in Social Anthropology here in the States.

"A fable of the arrogance of power, beneath whose dreamlike surface
swirl currents of complex sensuality." -J.M. Coetzee


Host Garth Risk Hallberg is the author of A FIELD GUIDE TO THE NORTH
AMERICAN FAMILY. The Pacific Standard Fiction Series aims to showcase
the intense and varied literary energies of Brooklyn by pairing
writers from the borough and beyond. We offer fine stories and
appealing beverages in a civilized setting. For more information,
please visit www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.

Pub Quiz Season II beginning tonight

After a very successful first season of pub quizzes here on Sunday nights at 8:30, we're starting Season II tonight. The questions are, dare I say, more fun, Woody and Becca are back, and various multimedia experiences await.

We're giving more points to more teams at every quiz this season, so if you start showing up soon, and show up regularly, you'll be very likely to accumulate enough to make the playoffs, which will be at the end of May. Big prizes await our playoffs champions, and as always, the nightly winner gets a $20 bar tab.

Pacific Standard Music Contest

A frank admission, ladies and gentlemen. Jon and I work here a lot. A lot. And the whole time we're working, since it is a bar, music is playing. The end result is that though we have a massive playlist, we now know it backwards, forwards, sideways, and any other kind of relativistic, "Wrinkle In Time" way you can think of.

In short, we're bored, even with our favorite music. Deathly bored. And it's kind of terrifying us--it's ruining our personal musical touchstones. Save us, our fair clientele. Make a mix CD, or several, and bring them in to the Standard during the month of April. In return, we'll do the following:

--Do our best to work your CD or CDs into our playlist (with some limitations, of course: super-experimental or hard-core stuff just won't work for our kind of bar).
--Give you $2 off a beer (this applies just for the first CD you bring).

Most excitingly, the top submissions, as judged by our magnificently sensitive ears, will win prizes. Like lots of beer, and gift certificates to the iTunes store. The luxuriousness of the final prizes will depend on how much music we get, since we want to encourage you all to bring in as much as possible.

See you, and hear you, soon.

Hop Obama is out (sadly), but wow, what a showing!

We're in the Brooklyn Paper due to our enthusiastic Hop Obama campaign (http://tinyurl.com/yo62om), but sadly, the last of the four kegs we purchased kicked today. That's four kegs in 11 days, pretty amazing. We sold 334 pints, so we'll be making a sizable $334 donation to the Obama campaign. Thanks to all of you who came by, and stay tuned--from what I hear from the Sixpoint brewers, Obama might return when you least expect it.

MLB Season (and 162 A's broadcasts) is nearly upon us!

As we did last year, we'll purchase the MLB package from DirecTV that will allow us to show all the games, out-of-market or not, on our lovely big projection screen. So baseball fans in general (and West Coast baseball fans in specific) should come by to catch their favorite teams' games. The season starts off with our favorite team, the Oakland A's, taking on the evil Red Sox empire in Japan. We'll be showing it live at 6:00 in the goddamn morning, no kidding, so grab a cup of coffee and come by. Even if you're a Sox fan.

Leftover cheese!

We had a great turnout for beer and cheese night II, but we have a little bit of cheese left over. If you come by in the next day or two, ask about buying a cheese plate. We're selling them for the dirt-cheap price of $5. Grab one for your NCAA Tournament-watching, or just grab one for some damn good cheese. See you soon!

Pacific Standard March Madness Tournament Pool

It's NCAA tournament time, ladies and gentlemen, and we here at Pacific Standard couldn't be more excited. We may not be able to root for our beloved Cal Bears, but we can at least root against Stanfurd, USC, and the many other teams that serve as instruments of oppression, privilege, and sheer evil.

We've started a Pacific Standard group on ESPN's Tournament Challenge site:

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/frontpage

Go there, sign up for an ESPN account if you need to, and join our group. The group name is "Pacific Standard" and the password is "gocornell". Then, if you'd like to be part of our pool, bring $5 by Pacific Standard before the games start on Thursday (or make arrangements with us if you're in a remote location or for some other reason won't be able to come by). The winner of the group will receive all the money that people put in for their entries, plus a $30 bar tab here at the Standard. The second and third place winners will each get a $20 bar tab.

Pacific Standard will be opening early, at 12 pm, to show the opening-round games on Thursday and Friday, and will open as usual at noon on Saturday and Sunday. We'll be showing whatever CBS is showing on our massive projection screen, and we'll have drink specials. (Free round on us if Cornell can manage to beat Stanfurd!) Come by and enjoy March Madness in a relaxed, non-fratty setting. See you soon,

John and Jon

Fuller descriptions of the cheeses for tomorrow night.

Hoja Santa, pasteurized goat, Texas. Made by The Mozzarella Company. The cheese takes its name from the Hoja Santa leaf it is wrapped in. The leaf wrapping gives the cheese a nice licorice or star anise note. Some people say the aroma reminds them of root beer. Otherwise the cheese is tangy, lemony and fresh.

Constant Bliss, raw cow, Greensboro, Vermont. Made by Jasper Hill Farms. In order to be legal in the U.S., raw milk cheeses must be aged for at least 60 days. Pasteurization removes some of the subtle nuances that can connect a cheese to its terroir. Unfortunately, this can make some of the fresh young soft cheeses blander than they would be if they were raw. Andy and Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farm adapted a recipe for a traditional French double creme so that it will still be soft when aged to the 60 day minimum. This means that the cheese maintains its richness and its earthy, truffle notes.

Barick Obama, cow, Vermont. Made by Lazy Lady Farms. While the cheese is ready (and delicious) on the first day, I've decided to wash it in the Sixpoint Hop Obama. The continued washings will bring out the fruity notes in the cheese and the maltiness of the beer will pair nicely with the rich meatiness of the cheese.

Tumalo Classico, goat, Oregon. Made by Tumalo Farms. Classico is a goat's milk gouda that isn't aged too long, about 8-12 weeks. It has a nice bit of caramel flavor, but is pleasantly tangy and acidic as well.

Upland Pleasant Ridge Reserve, cow from Wisconsin. Uplands Pleasant Ridge is an award winning cheese made in the style of the great Swiss mountain cheeses. It is made in the traditional style only during the summer months when the cows are grazing on pasturethis gives it a complex nutty and earthy flavor with hints of spiciness reminiscent of raw garlic or onions. This wheel is about 6 months old.

Black Ledge Blue from Cato Corners in Connecticut. Cato Corners has about 35 cows on 75 acres of land. They make wonderful organic raw milk cheeses. Black Ledge Blue is a really nice earthy, fudgy blue with a loooooong finish.

The best cask system in New York. Seriously.

So we've spent several days in the last week installing a completely separate state-of-the-art cask system for our firkins. A lot of bars have gone part of the way towards pouring good cask beer, but we think we've more than mastered every niggling detail regarding the storage and delivery of real ale. Casks are refrigerated in a separate location from the normal kegs, at 55 degrees, optimal cask temperature; the system also includes line chillers to maintain the temperature throughout the pour. Given the short line lengths, and the well-designed engines, our cask beers should be pouring perfectly for every pint. We're proud to have one of the best cask systems in New York (or, we hope, anywhere), and we'd like you to give it a try soonish. Go Casks, and so on,

John

More information about the cheese night--summary: you HAVE TO BE HERE.

You already know about our Barack Obama beer. Then, out of the blue, I get this e-mail from our beer and cheese night curator, Sean:

"John,

I will email you Friday with the specfic cheeses I will bring for next Tuesday. I have a pretty good sense, but I want to see whats in the best shape closer to the event. I've got a really cool one from Lazy Lady farms called 'Barick Obama' thats a really tasty mild washed rind cheese. It tastes like change and hope!

Sean"

That foul wench Fate seems to have smiled on Pacific Standard, and you, our esteemed cheese-eaters. We'll have a Barack Obama cheese and beer on Tuesday. What's more, we're planning on washing the cheese in the beer beforehand, to make them an even better pair. Below are the other excellent cheeses:

Hoja Santa, a goat's milk from Texas wrapped in Hoja Santa leaves. The leaves give the cheese a nice licorice or star anise note. Otherwise the cheese is tangy, lemony and fresh.

Constant Bliss, a cow's milk double creme from Vermont. It is aged until it is exactly legal (60 days) and then released. It is earthy, truffly and rich.

Barack Obama, from Lazy Lady farms in Vermont.

Tumalo Classico, goats milk from Oregon.

Upland Pleasant Ridge Reserve, cow from Wisconsin. an award winning cheese made in the style of the great Swiss mountain cheeses. It is nutty and earthy with a hint of spiciness reminiscent of raw garlic or onions.

Black Ledge Blue from Cato Corners in Connecticut. A really nice earthy, fudgy blue with a loooooong finish.

We're planning on getting everyone more cheese (and guaranteeing everyone full plates), so we'll have to increase the buy-in to $10. Still a steal, in our opinion. There will be a limited amount of tickets, so come as early as possible to buy yours in advance and have a beer or two before the tasting.

Green Flash makes its debut; Miller High Life is back.

Green Flash, an eminent San Diego microbrewery, is now on tap at our bar with its Barleywine Style Ale. This American-style barleywine undergoes a three-hour boil to intensify the caramel malts and the enormous Pacific Northwest hop charge. The result is a rich, estery brew with toffee notes and citrus hop flavors layered throughout.

And we finally got Miller High Life (the champagne of beers) back in stock; as always, it's an affordable $3 for a 12 ounce bottle. For what it's worth, it's my favorite macrobrew.

Sixpoint Hop Obama is here!

Just a few minutes ago, we got our shipment of Sixpoint's Hop Obama, a Barack Obama tribute beer. It's made with five different types of Crystal malts, and three hop varieties from the Pacific Northwest--a diverse collection of different strains, just like the man himself. It's a mixed style (of course), packing a big hop and malt punch, and checking in at a reasonable 5.2% ABV. I can't give you a fuller description at this point, but this beer isn't about details--this beer is about hope and a rejection of beer as usual.

We're charging $6 for the beer; for each beer sold Pacific Standard will donate $1 to the Obama campaign. (But we don't want Hillary backers, Republicans, or independents to be prevented from trying a great beer--if you're fervently for someone else, you can request that we not make the donation.)

We've stocked as many kegs of Hop Obama as possible, but it will go very fast, so come in here early this week to fight the old adage and prove that politics and beer should, in fact, mix.

Sam's Monday Movies

Our friend Sam has restarted our moribund movie series, running classic movies every Monday night at 10 pm. Come by for some really good stuff, both famous movies and movies that have been overlooked, all on our massive projection screen. Tonight it's Ghostbusters. Print is dead.

Ace Perry Cider back on tap; Victory Baltic Thunder stumbles in.

Two other notes today:

1. For those of you who have been wondering where the Ace Perry cider went, it's back.
2. Victory Baltic Thunder, the resurrection/modification of Heavyweight's Perkuno's Hammer, is now on tap. It's really worth checking out--a great, heavy baltic porter perfect for the season.

See you soon!

Harviestoun Ola Dubh is here.

We've got some exciting new beers here, the first of which is our first-ever import, which we've chosen for damn good reasons. Harviestoun is a great Scottish brewery that just collaborated with Highland Park, a great Scottish distillery, to create a beer called Ola Dubh. They took Harviestoun's award-winning Old Engine Oil, a rich, dark 8% ABV beer, and aged it in 16-year-old malt whisky casks. It's the first ale to be aged in casks from a named distillery, and with traceable casks and numbered bottles, the first with genuine provenance. Retaining the appearance of used motor oil, from which the beer gets its name, it's deep dark brown, dense, and oily, with burnt and bitter notes and fragrant smoke. It was launched in the US in February 2008. It'll set you back $14 for 11.2 ounces due to its rarity, but it is worth it.

Poetry reading a week from today!

Chin Music: The Pacific Standard Poetry Reading Series
Featuring Monica Ferrell, Cathy Park Hong, and Brian Carey Chung

Thursday, March 13th @ 8:00PM

Pacific Standard Bar
82 Fourth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

http://www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com

Please join us for Chin Music, Brooklyn's new reading series at
Pacific Standard bar in Park Slope. Established and rising poets and
writers from near and far are featured during each of our seasons. Our
March 13th reading will feature three great writers: Monica Ferrell,
Cathy Park Hong, and Brian Carey Chung. Future readers this season
include Brenda Shaughnessy, Kathleen Graber, Craig Morgan Teicher,
Reif Larsen, Meehan Crist, Richard Levine, and Evan Eisman. Series
curated by Colin Cheney.

Located on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, near the Atlantic/Pacific
station, Pacific Standard is a literary bar serving up over a dozen
West Coast microbrews on tap (as well as choice selections from small
and local breweries), a fine collection of wines, and tasty cheeses
and meats.

--
Featured Writers:

Monica Ferrell's poems have appeared in The New York Review of Books,
Fence, Paris Review, Tin House, and other magazines. A former
"Discovery"/The Nation winner and Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford
University, she is the author of a novel, THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS YES ,
forthcoming from Random House in May 2008; her first poetry
collection, BEASTS FOR THE CHASE, was selected by Jane Hirschfield to
win the 2007 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, and will be published
by Sarabande Books in October. She lives in Brooklyn.

Cathy Park Hong's first book, TRANSLATING MO'UM, was published in 2002
by Hanging Loose Press. Her second collection, DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION,
was chosen for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was published in 2007
by WW Norton. Hong is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Village Voice
Fellowship for Minority Reporters. Her poems have been published in
American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Verse, Chain,
Jubilat, and other journals, and she has reported for the Village
Voice, The Guardian, and Salon. She now lives in Brooklyn and teaches
at Sarah Lawrence College.

Brian Carey Chung, a choreographer and poet, is currently an MFA
student and adjunct professor in creative writing at New York
University. He is a member of Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and
has been published in Open City, Spoon River Poetry Review, Fourteen
Hills, Modern Words, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian where he was a
winner of its 13th annual competition. He performed as principle
dancer and soloist in the companies of internationally acclaimed
choreographers Karole Armitage, Alonzo King, and Dwight Rhoden. He has
taught master classes and guest lectured on dance at New York
University, University of Arizona, Stanford University, and University
of Hawaii. As a choreographer, Brian has created ballets for the Santa
Barbara Ballet, Cedar Lake Ensemble II, and Luna Negra Dance Theatre.
This summer, Brian will be the assistant choreographer to Karole
Armitage in the Public Theatre's production of HAIR.

--
Directions:

Pacific Standard is located at 82 Fourth Avenue in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, between St. Marks and Bergen Streets. It's a short walk from
a dizzying array of subway and commuter rail lines at the
Atlantic/Pacific station, namely, the 2, 3, 4, 5, D, N, Q, and R, as
well as the Long Island Railroad. New York subway map. After you exit
the Atlantic/Pacific station, just walk four blocks south on Fourth
Avenue to get to our bar. We're not too much longer a walk from the F
and G stop at Bergen Street, and are also close to the B61, B63, and
B65 bus lines.

A note on beer prices.

You may have noticed that our beer prices are drifting towards $6 recently. Though I don't get out as much as I used to, I bet other bars are also raising beer prices. This price ascent isn't due to sheer bar owner money-grubbing; it actually has a complicated backstory. I wanted to give a brief economic-historical explanation as to what's going on.

Several years ago, a hop surplus drove down hop prices and left many hops unsold, hitting growers hard and causing them to reduce their hop acreage in order to use the land for other purposes. But the microbrew industry kept expanding rapidly, and beers that packed in massive amounts of hops were the most successful. Nearly every microbrewery began competing to out-hop each other to win the hearts of hopheads. The reduced US hop acreage couldn't keep up. Hop prices soared, doubling, tripling, and so on. It's now so bad that many brewers simply can't get the hops they want. Hop growers are maxed out just honoring their existing contracts; they can't even sell to new microbreweries. So you can imagine how much the breweries that are actually winning the fierce competition for hops are paying.

Not about to take a fiscal soaking, most brewers have recently decided to raise keg prices. Distributors (the middlemen between breweries and bars), no less desirous of eating extra unit cost, have raised their prices in turn. So bars like ours are now paying much higher keg prices. The end result is that, while we'd like to keep most of our beers at $5, the profit margins just don't work any more. Welcome, consumers, to the $6 beer. At least it's not as bad as the gas situation.

The good news is that US hop growers are madly increasing acreage again. In a couple years, it's very likely that hop prices will drop significantly. At that point, it's up to the brewers and distributors to drop their keg prices; if they do, I think bars will happily follow suit and drop pint prices, hoping to make beer more affordable to their customers. For our part, we promise we will. Hopefully your newfound knowledge of hop scarcity will encourage you to savor every precious hop as you drink your beer in the meantime. Ask us if you have any questions.

Awesome reading on March 25.

The Pacific Standard Fiction Series: Locals Night
featuring Colson Whitehead and Christopher Sorrentino

Tuesday, March 25th, 7:00 p.m.
82 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (betw. St. Marks and Bergen)
hosted by Garth Risk Hallberg

Books available on-site!
Drink specials to be chosen by dartboard!

Colson Whitehead is the author, most recently, of APEX HIDES THE HURT - "a brilliant, witty, and subtle novel, written in a most engaging style, with tremendous aptness of language and command of plot." (The New York Times Book Review). His previous novels, JOHN HENRY DAYS and THE INTUITIONIST, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award, respectively. Whitehead's nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Granta, Harper's and Salon, and in the essay collection THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK. He has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Whiting Award. He lives in Brooklyn, and will be reading here from his next book.

Whitehead is making a strong case for a new name of his own: that of the best of the new generation of American novelists." - The Boston Globe

Christopher Sorrentino's second novel, TRANCE, concerning would-be revolutionaries in the early 1970s, was a finalist for the National Book Award. "This sprawling work is so ambitious and irreverent that it doesn't fit easily into any genre...full of descriptions sublime in their precision," wrote The Los Angeles Times, which named it one of 2005's best novels. Sorrentino's first book, SOUND ON SOUND, established him as a "funny, perceptive, and dead-on" novelist (Publisher's Weekly), and a writer of formidable ambition. Sorrentino is also the author of collaborations with the novelist Jonathan Lethem and the artist Derek Boshier. He lives in Brooklyn.

"[Sorrentino] remains a virtuoso...an insightful, sensitive writer who makes you believe you're seeing what he's describing." - Harvey Pekar, The Baltimore Sun

Host Garth Risk Hallberg is the author of A FIELD GUIDE TO THE NORTH AMERICAN FAMILY, a PRINT Magazine Editor's Choice. The Pacific Standard Fiction Series aims to showcase the intense and varied literary energies of Brooklyn by pairing writers from the borough and beyond. We offer fine stories and appealing beverages in a civilized setting. For more information, please visit www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.