At Jack Brown’s, regulars and ‘notchers’ are the culture

In 2018, Birmingham’s third “saint” — the term dubbed for someone who has had 1,000 in-store beers — is celebrating another year of love for beer at Jack Brown’s Beer and Burger Joint.

Jack Brown’s, which has been in Birmingham for a more than four years, is well-known for its cult-like following of the beer list, Chris Brown, joint manager of Jack Brown’s Beer and Burger Joint, said.

“Regulars and ‘notchers’ are the culture of the place,” Chris Brown said.

A “notcher,” Brown said, describes the dedicated customers who have completely filled out their list of 100 beers that they have bought and drank over the course of their time spent at Jack Brown’s. 

The tradition of documenting and celebrating beer-drinking milestones has been going on since the very beginning of the venture, Brown said.

“We put a huge emphasis on the people that come in here and spend their hard-earned money, and we try to throw parties for them,” Brown said.

Jack Brown’s was originally started as a bar in Harrisonburg, Virginia, by two long-time friends and lovers of good beer. After noticing customers’ interest in keeping up with the different types of beer they tried, the owners began to keep a list of everyone’s beers they drank each time they came to Jack Brown’s.

“When one guy reached 100, everyone kind of thought that was a big deal, so they decided to engrave their names on the seat of the wooden bar stools with the day they drank the 100 beers,” Brown said. 

Before long, Brown said they ran out of barstools with space to engrave and so they started to hand-hammer the names, dates and number of beers to the inside of PBR cans, which were hung around the stores. 

Eventually they started the tradition they still do today: to take Polaroids, label them with the ‘notchers’ and showcase them on the walls.

“When the company moved to Birmingham, everyone really embraced it and fell in love with [the tradition],” Brown said. “We’ve probably got a little over 300 [notchers] that have drank at least 100 beers.”

The beer list includes a place to write the name of the beer, where Brown said some people also list the brewery, and then there’s a spot for a rating system that people can choose to participate in, where they can rate the beer a number between 1 and 10.

“That way, three or four months later when you remember having a beer or if you hear someone at the bar talking about the name of one, you can look back to see what you thought of it,” he said. 

Every Wednesday night is a popular night for notchers, Brown said, because of Steal-A-Pint night, where Jack Brown invites a representative from a brewery somewhere in the country to give out free pint glasses and offer Jack Brown customers the chance to try four of their beers. 

In all, Jack Brown’s has almost 150 different beers that are available to order each day, and those beers even change on a weekly basis. They also offer wine, various ciders and liquor drinks, as well as their daily rotating specials of Wagyu beef burgers.

Go to their website at jackbrownsjoint.com or their Facebook page to see which brewery is coming each week for Steal a Pint Night.