The Brewer (Part I)
A magical realism triptych with hops, malt, and a bit of moody fermentation
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Penelope was a Braun, and that was all that mattered.
This place is the heart of the community, her father had said, again and again. Where would this town be without us?
Penelope pulled the lever on the tap, and midnight black Salem Stout (charisma booster) streamed into the glass. Turning with a pasted smile, she placed it in front of Mr. Zimmerman, already red-cheeked and jovial.
“How is it being the boss, Penny?” he boomed in her general direction.
Penelope’s smile tightened. She wasn’t Penny. She’d never been Penny. And she would give back being the boss in a heartbeat if she could. “Going great.”
“Glad the place is staying in the family. A young mind, a new vision - always good for business.” Mr. Zimmerman turned his beaming face back to his friend, and Penelope escaped to the next customer waiting by the bar.
Braun’s Beer Garden was a bustling place in the gentle May twilight. Though the Beer Garden was always busy, the summer months were boom time, when people lingered until the stars were sparkling dots in an inky sky. The town talked and laughed and sipped, while children dug in the wide-open sandbox and played on the little wooden playground.
The town didn’t understand what really brought them there, of course. They didn’t know what drew them together time and again, what made the little beer garden, with its wooden bench tables and gravel floor and clambering potted plants, the town’s de facto gathering place. They didn’t know there was something older and deeper than fermented yeast and live music at work. That secret was for the Brauns alone.
“What can I get you?” Penelope stopped in front of an unfamiliar face, a newcomer. Someone stopping by from out of town, most likely.
The young man squinted at the menu. “I don’t know a whole lot about beer. Could you, maybe – Do you have a recommendation?”
Penelope took a breath, eyeing the man. She wasn’t well-practiced at this part of the business. “What brings you to Rhinesburg? Are you just passing through?” She was stalling, but maybe it would yield some useful information.
“Actually, I just signed a lease on a house.”
“Oh,” Penelope said. “You moved here? On purpose?”
“Looking for a change from the city.” The man gave a shrug and looked back toward the menu. “The real estate agent said I should check this place out.”
“Jan Schafer?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
“There are, like, two real estate agents in town. And everybody knows everybody.”
“That sounds really nice.” The man smiled, then. It was a nice smile, Penelope thought, but there was a melancholy downturn to it. What did he need, though? That was the question.
“Do you prefer dark or light beer?” Penelope asked, floundering.
“I don’t really know. Maybe light?”
Penelope turned back to the taps, her mind ticking. Littlehorn Lager, maybe? His self-esteem didn’t seem to be the issue, though it was hard to tell after a conversation of less than a minute. Or the Ponderosa IPA? Maybe he’d had a string of bad luck, and that’s what was causing that hitch in his smile. Why wasn’t she better at reading these things?
“You drink that slowly, Henry, you hear?” With a laugh, Aunt Greta swept away from the customer she’d been attending and brushed past on her way to a shelf loaded with glass steins. “Gemütlichkeit,” she whispered into Penelope’s ear.
Of course. Penelope could have kicked herself. Gemütlichkeit Ale, mood tonic. Always a safe bet; why hadn’t she thought of it? While her dad had been alive, she’d had plenty of opportunities to observe and practice. Why hadn’t she paid better attention when the stakes were lower, when the business’ lifeblood wasn’t in her inexperienced hands?
Penelope filled a glass with the golden liquid. Though Aunt Greta moved slower these days, she was a natural at this, at all of it. Brewing, finding new combinations and infusions that cured grievances and other small ills, discovering new ways to buoy spirits and highlight people’s good qualities. It took Aunt Greta mere seconds to diagnose and prescribe, and some of the best remedies were her own creations. Temper suppressor, motivation booster, attitude tonic - all of them were Aunt Greta’s brews, secretly curing the little frustrations and disappointments of the town. Aunt Greta had had decades to practice, of course, but she also had a knack, an intuition, that seemed to have skipped a generation in Penelope.
“Give this one a try.” Penelope slid the glass across the counter to the man. “Gemütlichkeit Ale.”
“That name’s a mouthful.” Taking a sip, the man raised his eyebrows, and his drooping smile lifted a bit. “That’s good,” he said. “I mean, I’m not a connoisseur or anything, but I like it. Can I open a tab?”
“Sure thing.” As the man waded through the crowd of locals pressing toward the bar and around the tables, Penelope took a moment to watch his retreating back. Why would someone leave the city, willingly, to come here to tiny, sleepy little Rhinesburg?
All of her college friends were living their best lives in the city, working hard, staying out late on weekends, meeting mobs of new people. None of them had an invisible rope dragging them back to their obscure hometowns, laying claims of duty and obligation and community.
Penelope had excelled in her classes; she could have gotten any number of jobs. Not that she had a particular job in mind. But she had a vision: a quirky apartment, a packed schedule, new people, new experiences, the unfamiliar. Something that didn’t involve living her life around malt and hops.
No one had forced her. She had to keep reminding herself of that.
It was the suddenness of it all - she thought she’d have years, decades, even, before she’d have to turn her priorities to the family business and the little town that had sprouted around it. But she hadn’t had decades. And the time that she’d had had slipped through her fingers, sped up by the grief that hurtled toward her like the growing lights of an oncoming train, and the anxious knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop or slow it. All she could do was watch her world waste away.
If only she wasn’t the last of the Brauns. If only her mother had lived longer, if only her father had remarried and produced more little Brauns, if only her aunt had ever had children - if only her father had lived - then there would be someone else, someone who would throw themselves with abandon into brewing, into learning to understand and use and interpret the strange alchemy of their family’s creations. But there was no one else. Only her. She was alone now, alone with a mysterious, heavy legacy.
“Penelope,” came a voice. “Penelope?”
Penelope started from her thoughts. Aunt Greta gave a meaningful glance toward the waiting line of customers at the bar.
“Oh, sorry.” Shaking her head, Penelope scuttled up to the bar. “What can I get you?”
“Some Littlehorn, please.” Ann Koch gave Penelope a hopeful smile. Shy and retiring Ms. Koch never got anything but Littlehorn Lager, but she brightened like a flower every time. Self-esteem stimulant had that effect on people.
Penelope reached for a glass and found Aunt Greta beside her again.
“You doing okay?” Aunt Greta said, leaning in close, her voice low.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Penelope said, pulling on the tap. “If I don’t take over, who will?”
A slopping sound came from the stein. Penelope’s eyes darted to the tap, and she stumbled back with a gasp. The stein, suddenly full and heavy and dark, slipped from her hand and dropped to the ground, shattering in a crash of glass and thick, black sludge.
The live band’s folksy voices and plaintive fiddle died down just as the stein smashed, reverberating through the sudden silence.
Her voice trapped, choked down by the nausea whirling in her stomach, Penelope crouched down. Dark paste like grainy black mud spattered the floor and shelves. A glopping puddle coalesced on the ground, poked with shards of broken glass.
Shooting to her feet, Penelope snatched another glass and pulled the lever again.
Thick blackness oozed out, sliding down the glass like a slug and leaving a slimy grease trail.
Penelope caught Aunt Greta’s round green eyes, mirroring the horror in her own. She spun around to Ms. Koch, whose narrow face was pinched with confusion.
“What is that?” Ms. Koch’s hands were over her mouth.
Penelope’s chest was tight, her head suddenly throbbing. Eyes fixed on her, so many eyes. Familiar eyes, that had known her all her life. “It’s the Littlehorn Lager. Something –” Penelope forced the words from her strangled throat. “Something’s wrong.”
→ Keep reading! Onward to Part II.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Part I of “The Brewer”! Parts II and III will arrive over the next two Saturdays, after which I’ll be taking a short break to prepare for psychic detective Judith Temple’s next case, Murmurs in the Walls.
While recovering from the physical and emotional toll caused by her most recent case, Judith Temple decides to switch gears and take a stab at working as a paranormal investigator. When she receives a plea for help from a family who claims their house is haunted, Judith throws herself into the case, determined to get to the bottom of both the eerie happenings in the little home and also her own hopes and feelings regarding Sheriff Tim Morrissey.
Oooh. Bet it was the new guy’s fault, except Penelope will be blaming herself for it …
I love this idea, has a cozy Alice Hoffman vibe.