I’m not much of a beer connoisseur.  If I have 8 bucks, I go for a single malt scotch or cognac.  Then I have to tip at least 2 bucks.  Shit, as Harry Dean Stanton would put it.  But this isn’t about me or my ‘special’ tastes.

I stopped in Three Penny Taproom Thursday for its grand ‘expansion’ reopening.  And I flashed on what is wrong with Montpelier, and the whole fucking country for that matter.

They did a great job turning Three Penny into an elegantly comfortable cafe.  The new restaurant part is all wood decor, plenty of seating, plenty of space to move around, and good artwork on the walls.  A very ‘eclectic’ menu to go with the 24 also eclectic draft beers.  I says to myself, I haven’t seen an imaginative business like this in Montpelier since...forever.

This is the kind of place that people talk about.  And I’d bet money that this ski season word will spread.  Three Penny is the kind of place Americans go to when they’re looking to get away from the same-old same-old day-to-day drear that eats away at their pea-brains and causes them to say things like:  “What the fuck.  I’ll vote for Romney.  What’s the difference.”

The difference is in the imagination.  Wes, Scott and Matt won’t need a whole lot of luck to make Three Penny Taproom a showcase cafe in Vermont.  These guys don’t need luck.  They got brains.  There is imagination in the menu, the set-up, the old-fashioned barstools and wooden tables and chairs, the staff, and, if you look around, even imagination in the way some of the customers tip back a beer, as if to say:  “This is cool.”  And it is.

So………..WHY can’t the Town of Montpelier and the Downtown Merchants Association figure things out.  I mean, there it is (as the old Nam saying goes), right there on Main St..  Giving that section of Main St., from Rivendell Books to the NECI Restaurant, a kind of Greenwich Villagey feel.  A kind of beckoning away from upscale pseudo-glam with pizza towards a more thoughtful elegance for the mind and soul–with TWENTY FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS OF BEER THAT THE MIND AND SOUL FUCKING THIRST FOR!!!  Yes, you won’t find these beers at other places–not even in New York.  (New Yorkers, are you reading this?)  If the Town of Montpelier lets the Downtown Farmers Market move up that long steep hill to Vermont College, it ought to go to Matt, Scott & Wes and ask:  “Please help us.  We’re morons.  Show us how to do it.  Please.”

And, ON THE NATIONAL LEVEL, Three Penny Taproom shows the Corporate Reich on Wall Street and their Congress of YesMen/Women that some things just can’t be–refuse to be–co-opted or eaten up by the boorish Pig of Capitalism.  I suppose, Three Penny will be copied by other small entrepreneurs, but I doubt we’ll see a ThreePennys-R-Us chain.

Oh, all these Deep Thoughts are making me thirsty.  I believe I’ll break down and actually buy one of those beers instead of a scotch.  Three Penny is right next door to my office here on Main Street.  I can smell the beer from here.  It smells like…Victory.  Are you jealous?

Anyway, it’s a hot day.  A good day for a beer.  Beer as Alternate Energy?  Beer shot into the atmosphere to stop Global Warming?  Maybe when Obama’s on his campaign tour in Vermont, he’ll have brains enough to stop in.  He likes his beer, doesn’t he?

And YOU.  YOU check it out.  Do what I tell you.  If people had listened to me since ’66, we’d be in Alpha Centauri by now.  

Beer to power Warp-Speed Starships?  Hmmmmm…….

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.