So this past Saturday at 10:30 AM I picked my four and a half year old son up from a friend's house after a sleep over. I convinced my wife that I should do the grocery shopping with him so it would: A. Get done and B. leave time for the rest of the day to occur as it will. Great plan.

Charlie (that's the boy's name BTW) let's me know he's dying of thirst and we must take action immediately. This opened the gateway to my alterior motive of heading down to the brewpub to check the progress of our recent brew. Charlie loves the Beach Beer and will gladly take a trip, anytime, to the shark beer house to have some.

To this point, Charlie's only experience in a real functioning brewery has been at our Milton brewery which is quite a bit larger and more modern than the brewery inside the pub. He's been to the pub a gazillion times but has never been inside the the tiny brewery. The trip turned out to be, in his words, "totally awesome, daddy!"

Upon our arrival, we headed straight to the bar for the Beach Beer which disappeared within two minutes. We then headed for the brewery a mere three steps away. His first reaction was, "Where's the brewery?" "We're in it," I replied. I layed down the rules: don't touch anything and don't step in a drain. When rule one was broken within five seconds, I had him sit on a bucket which oddly enough was really cool according to him. I gave him a quick tour which involved spinning in a circle and naming everything. He was able to relate what he saw to what he knows from the Milton brewery. The little shelf by the window is the lab, the tiny brewhouse and the little fermenters. It all fit.

I started taking samples of the Namaste to check the gravity to decide wether or not to cool it that day and to smell and taste it as those are the most important of all quality criteria (the gravity is important but not as important as flavor and aroma). I was reprimanded for making a mess by missing the drain. I got in trouble again for making a mess dropping yeast before cooling the beer. Then I asked Charlie if he wanted to "do something inside which he was never allowed to do inside before".

Oh, yes. He got to spray a hose inside. His glee was marvelous. I then saw the twinkle in his eye and realized I was about to get wet.

As we were wrapping it up (the work and the hose), I wanted to taste the beer one more time before leaving. I pulled my sample into a brandy snifter and a little curious voice asked, "Can I smell it for you, Daddy? ... Wow! It smells delicious."