In Chris’ words:

Making our way from the western part of Alaska into the North Pacific, hoping for a break in the weather when the sun turned from shying and spite to warm and loving. When the ice had dripped its last tears of surrender to the flowers that would welcome us into the spring of the Pacific Northwest. A celebration of the end of icy cold and hard winds of where we had earned a living harvesting the bounty of the Northern waters. Passing the city of Seattle into the Duwamish Waterway, the glowing green hills and buildings shining in the sun, a city filled with possibilities and sights.

Lines now dragged upon the deck for securing the boat, sparking a light to the power of dreams and hopes we had before the season. Finally touching a road that did end a few miles away at the Bering Sea, and being free for a while to peruse a life of our own. 

"Groom Finds Cure For What Ales Him". That was the headline of the Columbian newspaper article featuring my husband and I when we got married almost 23 years ago. You see, our first date was brewing a batch of beer, Charlie Papazian's Holiday Cheer Ale; we got engaged in Brugge, Belgium while on a Belgian beer tour; and we did our celebratory toast at our wedding reception with Rodenbach Alexander, the beer we were enjoying when Paul popped the question. For the record, I was totally sober when I tearfully and excitedly said, "Yes!".

A year and a half later, I was pregnant with our first kid. There's an old custom in England and Colonial America that an expectant mother would prepare a high-gravity ale and cask-condition it for 7-9 months, drink a little of it during labor to ease the pain, and then bathe her newborn in the beer. In our case, Paul was the brewer, I didn't get a chance to imbibe before heading in for an emergency C-Section, and Erin did not get dipped into a beer bath. But hey, we did get to share the Baby Bath Ale with our friends in our homebrew club, Oregon Brew Crew!

Two kids and many pints later, beer is still a big part of our lives. Paul and I have fun going to brewpubs wherever our paths take us and we geek out on Untappd, an app for keeping track of the beers we sample. I've only brewed twice since our first date, but Paul is back at it now that the kids are in college. We recently bought a kegerator so we now have two of his homebrews on tap. If you ask me, the Columbian's headline should have been "Bride Finds Cure For What Ales Her".