The Steel Guitar Forum

When I was growing up a tavern was known as a "Beer Joint". I played music in beer joints for many years... any one know when a beer joint became a tavern and why the name change?? I guess when you start getting old your memory does fade away! Bennie

I don't know much about the laws in Washington but up here in Minnesnowta, there is a difference between a beer joint and a tavern. Some places only have a "3.2" license. That is the amount of alcohol in beer and that's all they can serve. On the other hand, a tavern can serve all kinds of liquor.
Erv

I think the main difference is what the English refer to "atmosphere".

In France it is known as "ambience".

In the joints I play we just call it "+#@%'ing dark".

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"Stump" Reeves

Taverns go way back. Crown rule
(latin Taberna)
Beer Joint is an American thang.
found mostly down South along w: Dry Countys
some brownbaggin'there too
i never got used to the smell
and we got Alcohol from the Arabs)
what kind of Alkihol was served in Honky Tonks ?

Erv, I certainly can remember the 3.2 beer. In the county where I grew up in Missouri a beer joint could not serve 5% beer on Sunday. It had to be 3.2 beer and there was only one 3.2 joint in the entire county open on Sunday..You couldn't find a place to park for a mile...made the band feel like they were really packing them in! Bennie

Since y'all started talking about beer.. Mr. Schmitt, how much does a beer cost in France now that have started using them Euro Dollars?


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"Stump" Reeves

Hey Bennie, I Live Way Over Here In South Carolina And I've Always Heard The Term "Beer Joint"

Bennie -- I take it that you remember the term "beer joint" from your childhood in Missouri, and that you now live in a completely different area of the country where the term "tavern" is more prevelent. Seems to me it might just be due to a difference in regions. Some other similar terms that are used in different areas of the country to mean the same thing are "dinner" and "supper." Also, "pop" and "soda" and "over yonder" and "over there" etc. etc.

So, in my opinion, to answer your question, "beer joint" never became "tavern" --

To me a beer joint is a place that serves beer, dancin', loud music....a place that most people wouldn't be caught dead in, but I love to be in.

1 regular beer 1.50 €/$
1 spezial beer 2.50 €/$

Tom, I think you may be right. I still call it "supper", and some of my coworkers still make fun of me...I guess the term hillbilly is going to stick with me the rest of my career.

i drink my beer in a Tavern
and sing some of these Workin'man Blues<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by CrowBear Schmitt on 10 March 2003 at 09:47 AM.]</p></FONT>

there's a great honky-tonk/soul tune written by Dan Penn entitled (to the best of my recollection) This Ain't No Beer Joint, It's a Tear Joint and goes on to tell a tear-jerkin' beer-drinkin' tale.

Puckett's Farm Equipment in Charlotte,the definitive American beer joint.... http://www.amagickgarden.com/puckettsfarmequip.html

Having been raised in a county in East Tennessee that until recently was dry, I was taught that beer joints were the dens of sin and debauchery. "I heard that he hangs out in the beer joints," or "Somebody saw her coming out of a beer joint last Saturday," was a remark that the persons were "no count" and on the road to ruin if not hell.

A man might be excused for a brief fling in the beer joint if he'd just lost his wife or his job. But if he was strong and believed in the Lord, he'd pull himself back up and stop hanging around in the joints. It didn't help that these placed did indeed draw the roughest and rowdiest of the country folk where I was from. If there was a gun or knife fight, 9 times out of ten it probably started at a beer joint.

Beer was the only legal alcoholic drink you could buy in those days but no self-respecting restaurant would sell beer. Most people I knew were teetotalers (or at least professed to be around the other church members). Nobody called a place a tavern, as I recall, because that gave it too much respectability. Every now and then you heard honky tonk or juke joint used to refer to a beer joint.

I remember sneaking into a beer joint when I was 18. "You're 21 ain't you?" the bartender said as he handed me a Pabst. To which I answered with the deepest "Yeh" I could muster. The one thing I remember most was that it was indeed dark and smoky and the jukebox was playing George Jones.

If you want to get a flavor of how Southern country people looked at drinking and beer joints before George Jones and Merle Haggard made it cool to hang out in them, listen to "Crash on the Highway" by Roy Acuff.

RB

RB, that about covers it. A beer joint is a place to get drunk without spending your whole check, then blow your whole check betting on something, or playing a machine of some(illegal, here in SC)type, get beat up, beat somebody up, smoke too much...you know, what guys do. Some women come in beer joints, but they're usually angry wives.
As coffee has reached the "elite brew" level, and a cold brew now has to come from a "microbrewery," I fear for the loss of good ol' beer joints.
Y'all remember when you ordered a beer, and the only question asked was,"you want that in a can?"

My family had a "beer joint" back in the '40s and '50s in Lone Grove,OK.
It was called The HardRock Cafe, they had a juke box and the first TV in the county. They served sandwiches like BLTs, grilled cheese, and burgers for a quarter, and beer for a nickel. This was before my time but I've heard plenty of stories about it and they always called it a beer joint. My dad always liked to tell us how he was a bartender by the time he was 12 years old.
Heres a picture of my Grandfather and Grandmother in front of the original "Hard Rock Cafe" with neon sign above the door.

Alvin,
That sure looks a lot more inviting than the "Hard Rock" cafes of today!
Erv

Well,at least we know what time the pic was taken.

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©¿© It don't mean a thang,
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Well, tavern / bar / beer joint.....
regardless what you call 'em, you can always meet wimmin in one of 'em.

Didja ever notice how the wimmin in beer joints always have a twinkle in their eye?
All be it, that twinkle is generally a reflection of the light, through the window, a'flashin' in off the neon sign.

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"Stump" Reeves

Alvin, I grew up in Oklahoma in the 40's and 50's and your post brought back a multitude of memories..thank you my friend! www.genejones.com

Alvin,
Your folks and that building look a lot more respectable than the people and beer joints I saw in Tenn. Maybe beer joints and society were a notch higher on the social circuit in Okla.

RB

The term beer joint started fading away here in the 60's when liquor by the drink was approved.Pool halls were also sometimes beer joints.


Sho~Bud LDG Nash 1000

Just to add a bit of an international aspect here, I have always been able to tell the difference between a pub and a boozer.
If there is no carpet, or one that your feet stick to,
no light, even at lunchtime,
nobody speaks, or moves away from the bar to let anyone else get a drink,
no women (except maybe one or two wearing very short skirts and peroxide hair!)
no food other than crisps and peanuts
and definitely no music, It's a boozer!
Cheers
Dave

When I was living and gigging in Spokane, WA. a tavern only sold beer and wine, (don't know if it was 3.2 or what) and a RESTAURANT sold hard liquor. In WA you have to be a restaurant to serve hard liquor and you have to sell more FOOD than liquor. Also, the bartender has to go to the state liquor store and pick up the booze for which they have to sign in triplicate. Ain't no such a-thang as a DELIVERY!

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