Saving Grapes - Madeline Kirby Page 0,54
heard, but I’ve been busy lately. We had a little flooding in the warehouse and I’ve been dealing with that. Today’s the first day we’ve been open in a week. How is he?”
“Pretty banged up – a few broken bones. But there was major damage at the vineyard.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah, just gotta get him there, you know?”
“Right, right. So, what brings you by today?”
“I need a project to focus on so I don’t lose my freaking mind. Anyway, I’m thinking IPA. I came on the spur of the moment, so I don’t have a recipe in mind or a list or anything. I’m at your mercy.”
Al laughed and headed back to the warehouse, motioning Ben to follow him. “Come on, I’ve got some ideas.”
Ben was in a better mood by the time he got home. He’d spent a good hour at Bent Brewing, chatting with Al about all kinds of things and tossing around recipe ideas. It reminded him of when he used to talk beer and brewing with his friend Doug back in Texas.
He carried his purchases into the kitchen, where he found his dad and Steve sitting at the table drinking coffee.
“Hey, Ben,” his father said. “We weren’t expecting you so early. Everything okay at the hospital?”
“Thom is being a bad patient. He kicked me out, so I decided to come home and start a batch of beer. I’ll go back tomorrow and see if his attitude has improved.”
Steve snorted and took a sip of his coffee.
“Beer?” Jon asked. “Like that one I tasted a couple of weeks ago?”
“Well, that was a homebrew too, but I’m making a different kind this time.”
“Can I help? Or will I be in the way?”
“Sure! That’d be great. How about you, Steve? Wanna learn how to brew beer?”
“I’ll just hang out here and watch, if that’s okay?”
“Yeah, you’re fine. Let me go grab some stuff from the basement and we’ll get started. Dad, will you put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and scrub out the sink? I’ll be right back.”
Ben jogged down the stairs and it hit him – he had just called Jon ‘Dad’ for the first time. It had just come out naturally – he hadn’t even thought about it. Sometime over the past few weeks, probably the last week, with all the crazy pressure they were under, he had come to think of Jon as his father. It felt good, he thought with a smile. So maybe he was in for a battle of wills with Thom, but tonight he was going to make beer with his dad.
It turned out Jon made a great brewer’s assistant and was happy to wash dishes or stir or whatever needed doing. Ben explained all the steps as they went through the process. Jon asked a lot of questions, but Ben wasn’t surprised, what with the older man being a teacher.
“I never really thought about beer so much,” Jon said as he watched the wort bubble in the pot. “I always just popped the top and drank it. I sure never thought about making it myself.”
“I’ll be honest – part of the reason I started making it was because I was too young to buy it. Then I got really interested in it. I’ve even considered taking a course and becoming a professional brewer.”
“So why don’t you?” Jon asked.
“Well, the timing’s bad now, but I’m still thinking about it. The course I’m considering is mostly online, but I would need to do a two week residency training. It also requires an apprenticeship, but there are plenty of breweries not too far from here where I might be able to do that. I’ll see.”
“You should do it,” Steve said. “I know you’re worried about Thom and this place, but as far as I can see, there’s no better time.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s down time here. Sure, there’s some stuff to be done, but I can supervise it, and nothing can be done in the north section for now anyway. You can take your classes or whatever you need to do.”
“But what about Thom?”
“Let us worry about that,” Jon told him. “There’ll be a home health aide coming in, and Mindy is going to stay, at least for a while. She’s got classes too, but if we all pitch in we can make it work. If there’s one thing I know about, it’s this, and if you put all your focus on him, it won’t be