Pint of No Return (11 page)

“I think I’m used to the smaller quantities of wine,” she said.  “This just looks like a lot of liquid.”

She picked up the first glass, which was light yellow.  She held it up to the light and it was shot through with sunlight.  “You should be able to recognize this one,” said Jeremy.

She took a sip and immediately recognized it as the Cloudburst’s signature beer, Liquid Sunshine Lager.  Instead of just drinking it as she had before, this time she rolled it around in her mouth before swallowing, much like she did when she was tasting a new wine.  “This is good, but after trying the darker filbert beer at Walt’s, and Gerta’s beer, it doesn’t seem as substantial as before.”

“I’d guess that’s because you haven’t had too much beer and you were sort of taking it on its own merits.  Now you have others for comparison.”

She nodded.  “With only wine to compare it to, I think I found it a bit yeasty.  After drinking the darker beer though, this doesn’t seem quite so, I don’t know, thick?”

He nodded.  “That’s understandable.  However, don’t be fooled into thinking all beers that color are lighter in flavor.”

He handed her the next glass and she held it to the light.  That one was also golden in color, but the liquid was shot through with darker highlights.  “Is there something floating in this beer?” she asked. 

“Good eye,” he said.  “This is a German style wheat beer.  As part of the process, a bit of yeast sediment remains in the final product.”

She took a drink and rolled it around on her tongue.  “That’s weird.  This definitely reminds me of what I first thought the Liquid Sunshine Lager tasted like.  This is more bread-like though.”

“You’re tasting the yeast used to ferment the beer,” he said.

A pale pink beer was next in line.  “Why is this one colored?” she asked. 

“This year we tried a bit of a fruit flavor,” he said.  “That’s our Raspberry Refresher.  It was made for summertime drinking.  You’re lucky to get it as we’re on our last keg and won’t make it again until next spring.”

In the light, the beer was a bit more golden, but still had a pink tinge to it.  She took a sip.  “It does seem refreshing, but I don’t think I could drink a lot of it.”

He laughed.  “See, you’re already developing a palate.  I call that one a girl beer as it is mostly drunk by women who want to be seen drinking a beer, but don’t like beer much.”

The next beer was a pale brown in color.  “Is this a nut ale?” she asked.

“What fun would it be if I told you what it was first?” said Jeremy.

She took a sniff and didn’t detect any nutty odors.  Taking a sip, she found the first taste on her tongue was the sort of smooth flavor she knew to associate with a malt.  However, when she swallowed, there was a sharp, bitter taste.  “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully.  “I’m not sure I like the bitter finish.”

“I think the beers with the heavier hops flavors are definitely an acquired taste,” he said.  “When you first drank wine, did you like dry Chardonnays or prefer Rieslings?”

“Definitely the Rieslings,” she said, remembering how long it had taken to develop her palate. “Although now, I don’t like those as much.”

“It’s the same thing with beer,” said Jeremy.  “Right now you enjoy the milder, sweeter flavors.  And while you will probably always enjoy them, especially if you are pairing them with food, you’ll find that you learn to appreciate the greater depth of flavors in some of the darker, hoppier beers.”

“If you say so,” she said doubtfully.

The final beer on the tray was very dark, with a white foamy head.  When Callie held it up to the light she could barely see through it although it seemed to be shot through with some tones of a dark red.

She smelled it.  “This smells like coffee beer.”

“Good nose.  That’s the Brazilian Bean Stout we’re using at the brew fest.”

She took a drink and was immediately taken with the underlying dark flavor of the stout that had notes of chocolate and brown sugar in it.  The coffee flavor enhanced those other tastes.  “Wow.  I would never have ordered this on my own, but I really like it.” 

He nodded.  “I think I would have been able to guess that.  Not only do you like coffee, but your palate is developed enough from wine that you can enjoy the more complex flavors of this beer.”

She finished the glass.  “Is that all you got?”

“Well, that’s our standard tasting tray,” he said.  “We have about ten other beers we rotate in throughout the year.  Do you want to try any more?”

“No, no,” she laughed.  “I don’t think I want to stretch my palate any farther than it’s already gone.”

“The traditional drinker now orders a glass of his favorite,” said Jeremy.

“Can I just get a half glass of the stout?  It will seem like dessert,” she said.

He got her a glass.  “How’s the planning for the event going?”

“Usual stuff.  What do you think of the Johnson Pavilion?”

“It’s come a long ways since its bad wooden roof days.  A lot of people have weddings there,” he said.

“I guess if you aren’t going to use a local church, it’s some of the nicest interior architecture we’ve got in town,” said Callie, thinking of Audrey Wolcott’s nuptials.  “You heard Audrey Wolcott was getting married again?”

“I had heard things were getting serious between her and Vijay Singh,” he said.

“Not that I think of you as a gossip or anything,” said Callie, “But what do you know about the prospective groom?”

“A good bartender always has his ears out for any information,” Jeremy said, smiling.  “Although he’s been in Skinner for more than twenty years, and a practicing dentist for more than ten, he’s looked at as a bit of an outsider because he was born in India.  He went to dental school back east somewhere, but has been in Skinner long enough he should be considered a native.”

“Nothing like small town politics.  You think Skinner would be a bit more open-minded.”

“It has nothing to do with him being from a foreign country. To some here, Idaho is a foreign country.  He’s looked at strange just because he’s not from Skinner.  And he’s marrying into one of our more prominent families,” he said.

“I never thought of the Wolcotts in that way,” she said.

“You were pretty close to Audrey in high school, but since then her Dad’s spent a lot of time in the public eye working for the prosecutor’s office.”

Callie didn’t mention Scott.  Jeremy had been on the one outing they had had as friends and she was sure he knew she had an interest in Scott.  Thank goodness he didn’t know about their last disastrous date.  If one could call it a date.

Jeremy brought him up instead.  “And of course, she was married to one of our police officers and they had a fairly contentious divorce,” he said.  “This will probably bring all of that up again.”  He looked at her expectantly.  “Does Scott know?”

She glared at him.  “Why would I know what Scott does or doesn’t know?  He’s no worry of mine.”

“That’s not the impression I got.  From either of you,” he said laughing, and swatting away her hand as she tried to punch him in the arm.  “But go ahead and pretend as long as you want.  It’s no skin off my nose.”

She finished her beer and told him good night.  The drive home was short and as the lights were off downstairs in the house, she went straight into the cottage.  Turning on her computer, she checked her email and turned in for the night.

Chapter Eight

On Friday, after breakfast in the kitchen with Noah and Grandma Minnie, Callie got into the car for her last day of visits to premium showcase breweries. 

As she approached the warehouse, she could see that Sylvan Ales was a much different style of brewery than Magic Waters or Weissworks.  There wasn’t an apparent sense of the past, or of tribute to the long history of brewing.  All the buildings were new and reminded Callie more of the computer chip plant in West Skinner than of a decades old brewery decorated with mahogany bars and beer barrels.

There was an open overhead door that allowed deliveries into the plant.  Callie walked in the door and stopped to get her bearings.  The warehouse was segmented into three main areas.  On the left was the brewing area, full of floor-to-ceiling tanks, fronted by a glass wall.  Further along in the building were shelves that held silver kegs.  The remaining area opened into a tasting room that allowed the patrons full view of the brewery operations.  Callie smiled to herself as she noted that they did have one remnant of the old days.  There was a large wooden keg on the counter, with a tap, just like at the other breweries.  She wondered if it was an active tap and what beer was served there.

Her attention shifted as a group of people came out from the far end of the warehouse, out of the shelves of kegs.  There were four people, but it was obvious from the way three of them were focused on the fourth, that he was leading the group and even at this distance she could tell is was Chris Ashton. 

He was dressed in worn jeans that hugged his body.  As with the other breweries she had been to, she saw he was wearing a shirt with his brewery’s logo, but she wondered if it had been designed with his physique in mind.  The black V-neck t-shirt accentuated the muscles in his chest and his well-defined biceps.  The sight reminded her she needed to be going to the gym.  Maybe she should join his.

If his inattentive presence at this safe distance was distracting to her, that was nothing compared to what she felt when he saw her at the end of the warehouse.  She saw him smile and say something to his companions.  They gave her the impression of small mice, scurrying off to tasks elsewhere.

It wasn’t often Callie got the feeling of sheer enjoyment when watching the male form.  For one, there weren’t that many male forms in her daily life worth watching.  Second, she was generally too busy to pay attention.  And of course, for many years she’d had her previous boyfriend, Peter, no slouch in the looks department, to occupy that portion of her brain. 

She didn’t know much about the man, but as he came towards her, she felt as if she was seeing a stalking tiger moving forward and pinning her with his gaze.  The analogy bothered her as she didn’t think of herself as prey like a wild animal.

As he approached, she saw his eyes were dark brown with long lashes.  He had high cheekbones that made his lips protrude slightly.  There was no hint of make-up she could see, but his skin seemed too flawless to be natural.  Must be good genes, thought Callie.  His dark brown hair had a hint of a curl with slight copper highlights. 

“Miss Stone?  It’s nice to see you again.  I didn’t get a chance to speak with you at the Brewery Guild meeting,” he said, reaching out his hand towards hers.  His voice was low and rumbled in her brain directly behind her ears in some sort of subsonic hearing range.  She wondered if he knew how attractive he was.

What on earth was she thinking?  Mentally, Callie shook herself back awake.  “Yes, it was a fairly busy meeting.” His hand was warm and dry in hers. 

Callie was wearing her good jeans again and black half-boots.  Her cashmere V-neck teal sweater was accented by a multi colored scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.  She had left her chestnut brown hair down, but was now wondering if she should have put it up.

“What can I do for you today, Miss Stone?” Chris asked.

“Please, it’s Callie.  Didn’t Walt Eckman call?”

“Yes, we’ve had some conversations about the premium showcase,” Chris said.  “If I had realized the package included a visit from you I might have been a little more excited about it.”

“Why wouldn’t you have been excited about it in any case?”  Callie asked, changing the topic as she tried to resist being flattered.  “It’s a great chance to show off your product.”

“I’ve finally got Sylvan Ales poised to take off nationally,” he said.  “In fact, this is the last year I’ll even qualify as a small craft brewer by Bru-topia’s standards.  I would have skipped it, except Walt persuaded me with the premium showcase idea.”

“Why would the idea of the premium showcase change your mind?”

“I’m not sure how much you know about us,” he said.  “We are a fully organic brewery with almost all our ingredients locally sourced.  Everything that goes into the beer is certified by an independent organization.  We use solar power for much of our operation, recyclable materials for all our packaging and promotion, and we use our spent grain as animal feed.”

“Is this sustainable with as much beer as you’d need to produce on a national level?” asked Callie.

“That’s a good question and very perceptive,” he said.  “What I’m trying to do is make the model of what we do here marketable.  Although I also plan on increasing the amount of beer we make, you’re correct in that only so much can be produced at one plant and keep it sustainable.  My idea is to take the template and franchise it out.”

“So it wouldn’t actually be you making beer somewhere else.”

“It wouldn’t be me or my Sylvan Ales staff doing the labor, no.  Instead, we franchise out the name and the model, and supervise and certify the other breweries using our name.  We’ve got a plant started in California that should start operations next year.”

“A chain of organic breweries nationwide?” she asked as if mulling the idea over.

“Maybe internationally,” he said with a smile.  “I have many ideas about how to lessen our carbon footprint and sort of return beer brewing to its roots.  The premium showcase will give me a small bit of marketing leverage with my unique organic beer.”

She looked around at the gleaming factory. “It looks very modern as opposed to some other breweries.”

“I didn’t say we had to go back to milling the grain at a water wheel,” he said, somewhat sharply.  “Using modern technology, we can make beer even more sustainable than it was in those traditional older times.  However, you aren’t here to have me pontificate on the origins and the future of beer.  Can I take you on a tour and show you the operations?”

Callie nodded.  “Lead the way.”  Callie thought she could happily listen to him pontificate on any number of things.  He grew more emphatic as he had been speaking about his ideas for the brewery and the passion in his eyes made him even more attractive than he had been previously, if that was even possible, she thought. 

Like a small child taking a friend out to play, he grabbed her hand.  She felt her face redden at his touch, but didn’t take her hand back.  “Let’s go start at the beginning,” he said.

They walked through a door, inside of the glass that was fronting the large silver tanks.  “We like to be completely open about our process,” said Chris.  “The beer we make is one hundred percent organic and our motto is ‘Beer in the Buff.’  We like to think our transparency in the brewing process lives up to that motto.”

Callie’s mind refused to shy away from imagining Chris’s body in the buff and she was glad he was walking in front of her as her face reddened.  They walked between the tall tanks, past a row of shorter tanks to the back of the warehouse.

“Let me know if any of this is too much information,” said Chris.  “I’ve been told I have a tendency to overestimate my listener’s patience.”

Callie grinned.  “I’m a total novice and need some lessons in beer brewing.  I will be an information sponge.”

He gave her a wicked grin.  “Let’s see what I can teach you.”  Chris took her through the grain room where the basic ingredients of wheat, malt, barley and hops came in and were toasted, milled or otherwise processed into the forms that could be added to the beer with the flavor profiles that Chris imagined.  Callie didn’t see many of the same bags she had seen at Magic Waters, as Sylvan Ales used all organic materials, and the whole room was more organized.  All the shelves were labeled and there was less dust than in her own living room.  She couldn’t imagine Hops being allowed to rub against the green burlap bags of hops they had in here.

Chris momentarily stopped the flow of information as they walked from the grain room to a large open space where the mash tanks sat.  He put his hand on her waist to steer her to the correct side of the room.  “Have you always been intuitive about the way the flavors mix together?” she asked, feeling his breath on the back of her neck.

“Yes and no.  I think I’ve always had a good nose for scent and when I first went to college I thought I would go into the wine industry.  But so much of wine depends on the grapes and the aging or the weather.  Many a great wine is a lucky combination of random factors.  Beer is easier to control.  I can put in certain ingredients and be fairly sure of the flavors that will come out of it.  I ended up majoring in agribusiness with a minor in horticulture.”

Callie’s phone buzzed in her pocket.  She looked at it and said, “It’s Walt.  Would you mind if I took this?”

He nodded OK and Callie answered.  “Walt?  It’s Callie.”

Chris wandered over to one of the tanks and began adjusting a gauge.

“Callie, I have some bad news,” Walt said, his voice sounding hoarse.  “Floyd Fillmer passed away early this morning.”

“What? How? I mean, he had the flu,” Callie exclaimed.  Her tone of voice caused Chris to look up suddenly and walk back towards her.

“They said it was organ failure, but they don’t know the cause yet,” Walt said.  “They’re going to do an autopsy.”

“Walt, that’s terrible.  I don’t know what to say,” said Callie.  “I’m at Sylvan Ales with Chris Ashton right now.  Do you want me to come over?”

“No, there’s nothing you can do here,” he said.  Callie could hear someone in the background crying. 

“We’re touring the event space tomorrow, still, right?  Or would you like to postpone that?” asked Callie.  They were scheduled to do a walk through with the Bru-topia organizing committee at the Johnson Pavilion.

“Yes, we will still do that and we can talk about the impact of this then,” he said, “when it’s had more time to sink in.  I can’t imagine canceling the brew fest.  Floyd would want us to hold it.”

Callie hung up.

“That was obviously bad news,” said Chris, touching her arm in concern.

“Yes.  How well do you know Floyd Fillmer?”

“I’m good friends with Ethan.  Also, Floyd and I were on the board for the small brewer’s guild together last year and of course, see each other at all sorts of functions in town,” he said.  “He’s a brewing legend.”

“He’s dead,” she said baldly.  “He died this morning.”

His eyes went wide.  “You said something about the flu?”

She said, “I was over touring Magic Waters on Tuesday.  He seemed a little out of it, but said he’d had a bad bout of the flu and was just getting over it.  He collapsed a couple of minutes later and got taken to the hospital.”  She shook her head.  “I assumed it was dehydration or that he had been back at work too soon after being ill.  We were just trying his premium showcase beer when he collapsed.”

Chris tensed a little.  “Did he say anything about the premium showcase?”  He hesitated a second.   “Did you taste the beer?”

“I’m sure Ethan’s not worried about his brewery’s unique beer right now, but I’m not going to give anything away,” she said, surprised he would be thinking of the competition at this moment.  “He might still want to present it, now that his father can’t.  But no, we were just making a toast, so I never got to take a drink.  Floyd said no one else knew what he was brewing.”

Chris smiled wanly.  “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Callie knew Walt was right, and there was nothing she could do, so she and Chris continued her brewery education, although more soberly than before.

He was a good teacher, but she was continually conscious of how close he stood.  When discussing the fermentation tanks, they climbed one ladder and he somehow managed to position himself almost directly behind her, his full body touching hers as he pointed out various features of the tank over her shoulder as they looked in.

It was strangely intimate, especially when she thought of Scott.  It didn’t feel quite right to Callie to be so attracted to someone she had just met.  Of course, she had known Scott for a while and maybe she really didn’t know much about him after all, did she?

  The tour ended more than an hour later in the tasting area.  Callie looked back through the warehouse with new eyes.  “That was a great tour.  I definitely didn’t learn this much at the other breweries.  I don’t think they were being secretive, but I think they were somewhat proprietary about their processes.”

Chris nodded.  “I don’t think I’m giving away any corporate secrets with a tour like this.  It’s not like you’re standing and watching exactly how much of each ingredient I add, so the most important part of the process, I keep to myself.  Now we get to reap the fruits of our labors.  How would you like to try my premium showcase beer?” He asked.