Wait.
That is a relatively weird title for a blog post. Is it a declarative? “you there (understood), wait!” Or perhaps it is the start of a sentence describing disbelief, as in “Wait – you are kidding me right? I have to put sprinklers UNDER the stage?” Or is it something more?
It is actually the title of my favorite White Lion song, the lead single from their second album “Pride”. “Who?!?”, says the under-30 reader who comes across this post? White Lion, a woefully underrated 80’s hair metal band, with an overlooked by all but his peers guitar player and songwriter named Vito Bratta. “Where ya headed with this, Mike” I can almost hear you saying…. but give me a chance. It’s all connected.
“Wait” was released almost 22 years ago to the DAY, and was Vito Bratta’s coming out party. To this day, major rock and metal virtuosos cite his solo in Wait, and really his entire style, as one of the finest examples of doing alot with a little and making the complicated seem effortless. “That’s great, good guitar, big hair, blah blah Mike..” you mutter as you scroll your mouse up to close this tab. But hold on, just wait.
That picture in the header image, the one with the jeep and the empty lot, that was a picture taken almost 5 years ago, to the day. The caption read “sipping on a saison, visualizing a full lot, happy people, and content owners. #2014isouryear”, We were in a self-imposed delay as we waited to get our expanded license, which at the time, about 0.002% of PA-based breweries were doing. That license allowed us to sell pints like a bar, sell wine by the glass, and a few other benefits that our brethren without the “P” part of the license were unable to take part in. It’s water under the bridge now, with everyone pretty much allowed to do everything in their PA brewery, but the point is – the wait. How ironic it is now, 5 years almost to the day later, that our grand wait has come down to the same damn thing – getting our license. Getting it transferred, to be clear – we still have a license.
Back to Vito – just about 5 years to the day AFTER “Wait” was released, Vito Bratta and White Lion was no more. “What happened to Vito Bratta?” was asked all through the genre-power players. You can literally google that phrase right now, and pages will pop up from forums 15 years ago and 15 months ago, all asking the same question. The answer is not what you think, but the conclusion of the Tale of Vito Bratta will have to wait a moment.
Weirdly, we have seen some “What happened to Broken Goblet?” crop up recently. An odd, out of nowhere animosity even. After all, we are 2 months to the day since we closed our doors in Bristol. The answer to “what happened” is, of course, somewhere between nothing and everything. We are on the cusp of opening our new spot, there is nothing we could do about the wait to date, and the reason for the wait is a combination of, well, everything. Again, for the folks in the back – nothing of our own doing contributed to the delay with the new facility. We feel your pain too, in a different way. It is hard to put into words, on this gorgeous start to Memorial Day Weekend 2019, how bittersweet it is to see all our friends in the industry releasing new beers, posting their hours for the weekend, announcing food trucks, planning events. And we, on the other hand…. we wait. Yes, we have had some soft openings, and they were amazing (and the best chicken soup for our souls, trust me), but this wait, it’s killing us. In every way.
When last we left Vito, he had left the band, and the guitar world didn’t know what had happened. Turns out – and this is where it gets really weird for me – Vito left the band because he had to tend to his father. For 5+ years, he took care of his dad. If you need to understand that connection, read our first blog post. There is much to be said about his decision, an injury he suffered, and on and on, but I will leave that part of the tale for you to explore at your leisure, or just erase from your mind along with the rest of Vito Bratta, and White Lion and their second album.
So, again – “Where ya headed with this, Mike?” Simple – there is nothing left to talk about. There is nothing left to show you via photo, or video. No cool corners of the rooms unearthed, no beers being brewed (yet), nothing. It’s just the wait. And, so desperate to find something to talk about, I somehow wrote this meandering and pointless blog connecting Broken Goblet to Vito Bratta just because that song popped in my head as I responded to a question on Facebook that included the word “wait”.
I am (we are) so tired of this wait… it’s driving me crazy.
PS – if you look at all the songs on that album, save for maybe 1 or 2, every damn title could be connected to our brewery – songs like “Hungry”, “Lonely Nights”, Don’t Give Up”, “All You Need is Rock and Roll”. That’s like 4 more blog posts, and one heavy-hitter based on kids in breweries titled “When the Children Cry”.
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