Black Star Co-Op

Black Star Co-Op (hereafter referred to as 'B.S.') is a brewery based in Austin that I'd been hearing about for a while, although I couldn't tell you from where or how. It has been a fledgling brewery in Austin since 2006, and now seems to finally be gathering some wind in its sails. They have a very informative website, where I learned that the B.S. was hosting a 'Beer Social' on a saturday night that would serve very nicely as the beginning of this brewery tour idea that I am pursuing. Also, B.S. is a co-op, and co-ops are very interesting to me, becaus

e while I find the idea of a co-op appealing, they usually come across as utopian in the loftiness of their ideal, and then in the reality of a co-op's existence the politics of human interaction on a mostly volunteer and faith towards an idea basis complicate things things to a usually messy degree in the inception phase--where all ideas count and are valid, but are not necessary good. Anyways, this idea of the co-op centered around the appreciation of an intoxicating beverage piqued my interest, to say the least, and so I headed to the 'Beer Social,' which, did I mention, was free?

Before I went I did some tooling around on their website to get an idea of what B.S. was, and I got excited. I learned that the B.S. is a very recent addition to the Austin scene, and maintains a lofty goal of "working to open world’s first cooperatively-owned and worker self-managed brewpub." That's the first line of their website. There are so many wonderful buzzwords in there that make it hard not to get excited about the project. The B.S. hosts these 'Beer Socials,' which are monthly, and about which they make no pretenses of being anything other than plugs for membership, with free beer and music to blunt any annoyance from that primary objective.

The B.S. idea is something of a fusion project--the desire to create a really great brew pub that is intrinsically a co-op--the first of its kind under a unique business model. Of course, since it is so new, none of this has happened yet, and so some of the details are unclear. For example, exactly what the full benefits of membership would be, to what extent members would be able to participate in the different aspects of the co-op, and what special privileges members will be entitled to after the establishment of the brew pub these issues are somewhat nebulous at this phase of the organization.

Initially the co-op business model sniffed of a non-traditional way of securing investment, through membership/ownership. Because so much of the co-op decision making activity is nuclear, relegated to a small business-end, decision making group of people, and because so much of the membership activity appears to be ancillary satellite efforts to this decision making body: paying the membership dues, attending social events, reading the email newsletter, waiting for the brew pub to open. And if the decision making body does have a clearer idea of what the member's role will evolve into when the brewery becomes physical, they haven't been forthcoming about it.

The website does say that collective membership will be the ultimate decision making body in the form of democratic votes on referendums. But of those decisions, they were relatively limited to "electing the Board of Directors, setting the Co-op’s End Policies, and making other major decisions by referendum," which is realistic, since managing the day to day operation of a business through the consent of 1000+ members would be a joke, and though those "ultimate decisions" seem somewhat token, it also seems like a pretty standard managerial role for a collective membership to play. And certainly personal interest would also dictate membership participation. That however much of their life a member is willing to dedicate to the B.S. cause I'm sure would naturally dictate the amount of personal influence their involvement will have on the growth and evolution of the organization, and eventually could possibly lead to a seat on the board of directors, whose job it is to run the nit and grit of the organization according to both co-op principals and the voted-on and stated end policies, directors who are ultimately answerable to democratic hordes of co-op members.

But then again, that didn't seem much like the main draw of becoming a member either--I certainly wouldn't want to join the co-op and then have business ownership responsibilities. Membership appears to have perks directed towards the area of socialization, participation, and, of course, appreciation of beer. The most obvious benefit to becoming a member is that you become an owner. Other benefits are that you are allowed to vote on long term decisions, run for a spot on the board of directors, and once the "brewpub is up and running, the excess net savings of the business will be distributed to the membership on the basis of patronage," according to their website. If there are any other benefits, such as bar access, or brew requests, they are not listed on the page, and again I assume won't be figured out until after the brew pub is opened.

Skeptical, curious and thirsty I headed to my first Beer Social.

When I got there the place was packed. They are held at Kenny Dorham's Backyard--the undeveloped space behind Victory Grill that recently grew a chain length fence and has events from time to time. No reservations, or money required, just a photo I.D. for the volunteers working the gate, and then I got a wristband that entitled me to two free drinks. Once inside I proceeded to the next, obvious order of business of acquiring beers. At the door the volunteer who put my wristband on offered me a 5oz tasting cup, or the option of buying a $5 B.S. pint glass. Of course, I also had the option of bringing my own cup, plenty of other people--non-members--had done so, but I didn't mind paying the $5 for a souvenir, and plus I didn't have any intention of becoming a member that night, so it seemed fair to buy a cup in exchange for the beer. I didn't see a single person with the 5oz cup the entire night. A tricky matter with the pint glasses is that they look deceptively small. I was assured, though, that they actually are pint glasses, just made with thinner glass than a traditional glass, and later, when I got home, and poured water from my High Life pint glass into my new B.S. pint glass, I was pleasantly surprised. Then into the monstrous line that moved surprisingly quickly and was divided up into a (short) member line and a (long) non-member line, and as far as I could tell, the two drink limit applied to everyone, including B.S. members. The separate lines were kind of a funny inequality gesture for a co-op, but it was probably the most obvious way of showing the benefits of membership. Set up strategically across from the bulk of the non-member line was the membership sign-up tent with a large membership information board, and staffed with members, frothing (beer-frothingly-unintimidatingly) at the desire to inform Beer Socializers about the mission and status of the B.S. the place you could play in that goal, and the perks of being a member. I bowed my head, listened and ignored their inviting smiles and let a member check one drink off my wrist as I proceeded towards the beer.

Becoming a member is easy. You can sign up online, or you can sign up in person at a Beer Social. Signing up costs a hundred dollars. That's a non-refundable $15 for administrative fees, and $85 to buy a membership share. The membership share entitles you to one vote and whatever savings dividends eventually come from the brewpub. The membership share can also be exchanged for cash if you ever decide to pull out of the project. If you don't have the money to pay everything at once B.S. has a program for paying over time, which allows you a vote, but with reduced benefits until the full share is purchased. And if you act now, and become a full member before the brew pub is opened B.S. will make you a charter member and you can prove it because they'll put it right on your membership card!

When I got to the front of the beer line I recognized my beer server as one of the members of the board. Something to note about these people is that in their bios on the website most of them have listed, unsurprisingly, interest and previous experience in home brewing, unsurprisingly, interest and participation in other co-ops, and curiously, a history or employment in the tech industry. Mark didn't have anything on his name tag identifying him as a member of the board, and was only identified as a volunteering member. This seemed like it could be a nice gesture of how ranked members of the co-op might not flaunt their seinority in the future, though this is only an assumption, and which kinds of assumptions I will continue to be unabashed about making since it is the only source of predicting how this organization will operate, other than in an 'and time will tell' sort of fashion. Mark didn't volunteer any information about his membership on the board, and didn't even try to plug us for membership, he only mentioned that the beer line was interminable and that people seem to like the events, since he'd been pouring beer nonstop all night.

The beer itself came from a tall glass pitcher and when those were empty they filled pitchers up from a jockey box connected to a bunch of purple kegs behind that. The choice was between a hefeweizen and a pale ale. It was hot, and assuming that would dictate most people's decisions, I went for the hefe. Apparently I don't know people, because later when I came back to the line for my second drink it was the pale ale that had sold out. The beer was good, and cold, but I wouldn't say that it completely blew me away. Full-bodied is a bad descriptive phrase because overuse has taken away or obscured any meaning that it could have, but I'll say that it the beer wasn't quite full-bodied, since the phrase isn't used quite so often in the negative. It had about a half flavor. I could taste the beer at the beginning and taste it at the end, which I guess would make it a two-thirds flavor, but regardless, the beer was missing a middle taste, and had instead a kind of thinness. By no means was it bad, but it just didn't have a complete taste like I'm used to. And the bubble-gum flavor that you can taste in hefes sometimes was particularly strong in this one, which isn't something I'm particularly attracted to.

With beer in hand I went to check out the band, which was interesting when the singer was quiet, but became boring and tired when he got in front of the mic. I left there pretty quickly and walked past a concession tent where members were selling hot dogs and (non-alcoholic) beverages to a table that had a lot of interesting looking beer making equipment on it.

Behind the table was a Mac Clone looking guy with an eager smile who was explaining the intricacies of making beer to a couple in front of me. This guy turned out to be Jeff Young, the future brewer and half of the workers' assembly of B.S., which I take to mean the only other guy besides the founder who does this as a full time gig and/or gets paid for it. Jeff plugged us for membership and then showed us all of his beer making equipment. He explained how he had started home brewing three years ago and joined B.S. in its inception as soon as he heard about it. He was a man with a love of the craft, explaining how beer making can appeal to the desire of a person to put things together, see how things are made, and solve problems. I assumed that this was how beer making appealed to him, but he never said so. He showed us an ingenious contraption that he had made out of a cheap sprinkler to help keep the mash wet during beer making, the cheap solution being the rarest of solutions in beer making, but also one of the most rewarding aspects of home brewing--making something the best way that you know and being rewarded with good beer by your troubles. He went on to tell us how B.S. was going to be the intersection of interests between people who were interested in beer, brewing beer, drinking beer and getting drunk, partying, starting/participating in co-ops, and starting small businesses. He extolled the superiority of the co-op model, how cooperation helped solve problems, how it kept B.S. a lively enterprise, and how cooperating interests had led to them creating more diverse and exciting beer recipes, and he explained that it was this kind of input that was crucial to the B.S. design that would always keep their beers more exciting than anybody else in town. And he kept going on about how this kind of place could only work in a town like Austin.

But this wasn't B.S.. This was home brewing, and B.S. was supposed to be a new brewery in town. They were getting rid of all of this equipment, Jeff told us, because they were about to move to large scale production. So these were all home brewed beers in the tap? I asked him. They weren't. According to state and federal law it is only legal to provide home brewed beer to immediate family and friends within the confines of one's own home. I was confused, and Jeff looked a little troubled. He told me that B.S. couldn't serve their own beer in public until they had the right licensing, and we both agreed that that was unfortunate, but probably necessary in some situations, and then he explained how B.S. had worked out a deal with North By Northwest, a restaurant and brewery in town, and that it was actually their beer in the kegs. I don't think I did a good job of hiding the disappointment in my face. And we won't be able to serve our own beer, he told me, until we open up the brew pub. So B.S. is just a collection of beer recipes and good ideas. The had been trying to open the brew pub for a while, but kept coming up against difficulties. Jeff told me that they were at that time working with a realator on finilizing lease agrements and were all very excited about how close to making B.S. a reality, and he had a far off look in his eyes that made it hard for me to not feel excited about it too. He couldn't tell me where the pub would be, because of the legality of finalizing the deal, only that it would be somewhere in the downtown quadrant, which is a very non-specific location, and in a better place than the last place where the deal fell through at the last minute.

I started feeling skeptical about this time. For a lot of bar owners, a good location is on 6th street. For a lot of shitty stupid people a good time is 6th street. I don't agree with either of these assumptions, but maybe if I was a business owner I might change my tune. I don't know if B.S. plans on making a lot of money on this deal, but if they wanted to, they could take all of these memberships and all of these people's hopes and plop the bar down in a crummy place with bad drink specials, bad music, and bad atmosphere and make it their m.o. to lift a few more dollars off the roaming herds of vacant drunks Thursday through Saturday night. This doesn't mean that they're going to, or that they appeared to have any inclination to do so, but I kind of resented the fact that he had to be so cavalier about the bar location because it reinvigorated my suspicions that this was just a scam to raise money to put another bar in town. When I asked about the bar he told me that they were planning on a relaxed atmosphere with long tables for people to sit together at, another manifestation of the co-op idea, but he didn't go into much more detail than that.

Maybe he couldn't go into much more detail about the bar because he just didn't know yet, because no one knows exactly what B.S. is going to be, because it is still just an idea, because he and everyone else is just waiting to find out what B.S. will be, and hoping for what it will be. We already have a lot of bars in this city. Sure, it's nice to find a new bar once in a while, but this place is an ideal. If everything works out and the collective dream comes true, then this really could be a one of a kind place, a real addition to the Austin scene and a testament to the character of the city. But for now, we'll just have to keep waiting, and keep hoping.