(A note from the Chief Angry Troll: Resident Cold, Hard Football Facts.com sud stud Lew Bryson sent this story late Thursday night, distraught over the passing of a trusty old friend. Feel free to send along your sympathy to Lew as he copes with an emotional loss. And a warning: If you cried watching Old Yeller, stop reading here and spare yourself the pain. Don't say we didn't warn you.)

 

 

One of my favorite bars caught fire and burned to the ground Wednesday. Schnitzel’s Tavern was located in the Bush House Hotel, an old and historic building in the little upstate Pennsylvania town of Bellefonte, just about eight miles from Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State Nittany Lions. It was a German restaurant with a good German atmosphere, a nice little bar, and stone patio seating along Spring Creek. Now it’s a heap of smoldering, stinking bricks and rubble, and I’m diminished by its passing. That's it right there in the photo, burning to the ground.

 

The first time I went to Schnitzel’s was about eight years ago. I was in State College to do a book signing at a beer festival in town, the State College Microbrewers and Importer Exposition, still a good event. I was working both sessions, and I wanted to get away from the hubbub a bit between them, calm down a little. I buttonholed a local beer lover I knew and asked him, "What’s good for dinner around here?" He looked at me, thought a bit, and said, “For you? Schnitzel’s Tavern in Bellefonte. Don’t go anywhere else.” He gave me quick and simple directions.

 

I made the trip in 15 minutes, a spin through fields and ridges drenched in golden summer afternoon sun. The road wound into the center of town, past Talleyrand Park, situated around powerful Big Spring, a gushing outflow that inspired the town’s name, Bellefonte, French for “beautiful spring.” The name of the park reflects local tradition that the town’s name was suggested during a visit by Talleyrand, the sly French statesmen who served Napoleon in an extremely flexible manner.

 

Schnitzel’s was just a block and a half downstream from Big Spring, located in the old hotel, built in 1868 by Daniel Bush. It was an impressive four-story brick building, across the street from the train station. I parked just a couple spots down from the front door and walked in and down the stairs to Schnitzel’s.

 

It was well-kept, without the lingering smell of piss that afflicts so many German restaurants in the U.S. – I don’t know why – and the booths were tall, made of dark wood. I was alone, so I decided to eat at the bar. There was one other guy there, a tall, heavy guy – if I weren’t so fat myself, I’d say he was fat.

 

Oh, hell, he was fat, bulgy fat, and pale-skinned with it. As hot and sunny as it was, sitting at the bar at Schnitzel’s was probably the best place for him. He was drinking hefeweizen, a tall glass of unfiltered German wheat beer.

 

I looked at the taps myself. There were six or eight of them, and all were German except for the required Coors Light tap: hefeweizens like the other guy had, pilsners, and a tap of Kostritzer Schwarzbier. Kostritzer, at the time, was a rare find. “Schwarzbier” means “black beer,” and it was pretty much black, but smooth as seduction, a great beer in the day. And I’d never seen it on draft. I continued to stare at it, lost in thought of this lucky find…and the guy says, “This is a wheat beer I’m having, you ought to try one.”

 

I turned to look at him, caught off-guard by this unexpected reaching out of a beer lover. He took the pause as confusion – okay, it was – and kept on going.

 

“It looks cloudy, but it’s supposed to be. It’s not filtered, so it’s got all the yeast in there. It’s healthy, and it’s really good, too. That’s special yeast, it makes the beer taste like it’s got bananas and spices in it, but it’s just the yeast. You should try one!”

 

Here’s this guy, out in the sticks – because whatever other wonderful things you can say about Bellefonte, it is the sticks – who looks like the kind of guy who probably got picked on all through school, he’s all alone in the bar, and he’s got the gumption to push wheat beer on a total stranger. I was impressed. No, I said, thanks, but I’m going to have one of the Schwarzbiers. "Have you ever had that?" I asked him. The barmaid came and took my order for Schwarzbier and smoked trout. (Damn, no more of Schnitzel’s smoked trout and fresh horseradish cream!)

 

“No, not yet,” he said. “This is my first beer, and it’s a great beer for the heat. I might have that next. I like to try something new. That’s the way you find the ones you really like.” Me too, I said, and I handed him my card. "I’m doing a book signing down at the beer festival today. Did you go?"

 

“Oh, my, look at this, you know all about this!” he said, looking sheepish. “And here I was, I was going to tell you about beer.” Hey, I said, you were doing great! "Where do you drink?" I asked him. "Are you from down in State College?"

 

“No, I live in Lock Haven,” he said. “I come over the mountains to get here, it’s about 26 miles. There’s no place in Lock Haven that has these beers. Schnitzel’s is the closest place.” And then he paused, and I swear to God, he actually sighed. “It’s kind of lonely. I like these beers, and no one else does, and I don’t even like going to bars anymore, because they don’t have anything I like to drink. So I drive all the way down here, where I don’t know anyone, just to have a couple beers.”

 

Look, I said, I’ve got an hour. Let’s talk beer. And I called the barmaid over, and ordered my dinner (I got schnitzel, what else?). I got him another hefeweizen, we talked beer for an hour, and we were happy geeks.

 

And when friends e-mailed me Wednesday morning to tell me Schnitzel’s was burning, I was touched that people who loved Schnitzel’s, and beer, and German food, and the atmosphere of a great bar knew that I would want to know and thought to contact me. One guy, Sam Komlenic (who was with me when I got tossed out of that bar in Wilkes-Barre), even sent pictures. I posted one on my site; I read the news reports; and I hoped, and hoped, and hoped that the town would rebuild.

 

But the first thing I thought about was that poor pudgy bastard in Lock Haven. Where was he going to go now? So I did what all good beer writers do: I Googled it. And don’t you know, even Lock Haven has a place for good beer these days, The Old Corner. I’ll bet my fat friend is there every night, trying something new and telling someone new about it. He’s doing what I do, just one person at a time.

 

I used to drive 30 miles out of my way to stop at Schnitzel’s for a beer and a plate of smoked trout, and I’m going to miss the place. I’ll never forget it. But I think the next time I head up in that direction, I’ll drive over the mountains to Lock Haven and try something new.