From The Glass-Lined Tanks of Old Dayton

Last week, I made my annual pilgrimage to Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio, which is to amateur radio buffs what Woodstock was to rock fans --- a chance for a very large group of people to act in unsanitary and anti-social ways.

Er, let me try again.

Hamvention is advertised as the world's largest amateur radio trade show and convention, and I have no reason to doubt that. Practically every major international electronics hobby company in the world (Kenwood, Icom, Alinco) has an exhibit, while many government and public-service groups (the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the National Weather Service) put on demonstrations. High-tech companies show up to recruit personnel as well.

Outside, there's an enormous radio and computer flea market that has to be seen to be believed --- everything from 1920s handmade radio sets to World War II spy gear to brand new satellite receivers are on sale.

But it does attract a certain odd element. And while I could mock that element, these guys are doing a much better job, frankly. (Warning: Some content marginally not safe for work.)

I also paid social calls on WMKV-FM (89.3), a non-commercial station outside of Cincinnati that's operated by a retirement community, and which has a library of more than 100,000 big band and jazz records; and WULM (1600), located in Springfield, about a half-hour east of Dayton, which is rather unique in being an oldies station owned and operated by a church.

More about them, perhaps, another time. But if you like big band music, or oldies, both stations are streaming.

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One thing we have that Western Ohio doesn't seem to have --- other than hills and mountains --- are local breweries.

In most bars in this region, you have a choice of four brands of beer brewed within easy driving distance --- Iron City, Penn Pilsner, Stoney's and Rolling Rock --- and at least two more if you count Erie (Erie Brewing Co.) and St. Mary's (Straub) as part of Western Pennsylvania.

(OK, some of Penn Pilsner's product is brewed under contract in Maryland, and Stoney's is now made at Pittsburgh Brewing, not in Smithton. But they're still separately owned, with distinct brands and tastes, for better or worse.)

There are no regional breweries in Ohio, unless you count the old Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Co. in Cincinnati, now owned by the makers of Samuel Adams beer, though there are some brewpubs and microbreweries around.

At the local watering hole in Piqua, Ohio, where I ate dinner Friday night, the only beer on tap was Blue Moon --- a Coors product --- and most people were drinking either Miller Lite or Michelob.

I guess those are kind of local products for Western Ohio, since Miller and Anheuser-Busch operate plants in Trenton and Columbus, respectively. Still, it's kind of a sad state of affairs when an area settled by the Germans, the Scots and the English doesn't have a beer it can call its own.

What a shock it was to come home and find out that Latrobe Brewing Co. is in danger of closing, and that the "Rolling Rock" brand name is being sold to Anheuser-Busch. You might as well move the Steelers to Portland, Oregon, and replace the Cathedral of Learning with a Jiffy Lube.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out what advantage this offers Anheuser-Busch. Rolling Rock has developed a national following, but (no offense, Rock drinkers) it doesn't taste that much different from any other good American pilsner beer.

I suspect much of the devotion to Rolling Rock has to do with the "romance" of it being brewed in Latrobe, Pa. Take Rolling Rock out of Latrobe, and it becomes just another beer --- better than some, maybe, but not very distinct.

I have a feeling that if (when) this sale goes through, Rolling Rock is going to be quickly lost amid Anheuser-Busch's other brands, and will fade away like Schmidt's, Rheingold, Hamm's and dozens of other once noteworthy regional beers that are now discount brands owned by big companies.

In my experience, Rolling Rock's most devoted partisans are Westmoreland County residents who have always viewed the beer as their "hometown product," along with displaced Pittsburghers, who enjoy feeling a connection to the area. If Rolling Rock isn't brewed in Western Pennsylvania any more, what reason do they have to choose it over Yuengling --- or Miller, for that matter? (I'm a Straub man, myself.)

Barring a last minute reprieve, I suspect that Rolling Rock sales are going to tank (no pun intended) throughout Western Pennsylvania, and the beer will be on the slow slide to oblivion.

If that happens, Rolling Rock fans will have plenty of people with whom to commiserate: Former drinkers of Tube City, Fort Pitt and Duquesne will feel your pain.