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Ten Degrees and Getting Colder

  Cold Sunrise   That's just the name of the song written by Gordon Lightfoot.  It was actually -13 F when I got up this morning (wind chill -24).  Tucson may have pulled back into the lead!  There's a lot of weighing pros and cons of Colorado vs Arizona by the wood stove.  Not much else to report. I did enjoy a few games of pool and a beer with my brother this week.  We don't get together very often, so it's good to try to keep the lines of communication open, especially with my mother celebrating her 86th birthday next month.  He lives in Milwaukee and just started semi-retirement.  Our opposing politics and lifestyles keep things very casual and surface-level.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.   It's important to find common ground.  He and his wife have started going to concerts and recently saw the Steve Miller Band.  Music is one of our common interests.      
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Beer in the Barn

Some of the best beer surprises are the ones you find in unexpected places. One of our new Iowa pickleball friends recommended that we try out a bar in St. Donatus for a good burger with homemade French fries. I asked about the beer, and the response was along the lines of “yes, they have beer.”

St. Donatus, population 120, is a very small town founded by a Luxembourg early settler. If you blink at highway speeds, you could easily miss it.

In doing some navigational research, I saw a listing for “Beer in the Barn” across the street from said bar and tucked behind an old Inn. As it turned out,  the burgers and fries at the bar were just okay, but Beer in the Barn was a stunning find. 



The pictures we took don’t do it justice. The stone barn is supposedly the oldest standing barn in Iowa. 


We asked the chief bartender/owner to tell us his story. In doing so, we learned that his wife is the brewmaster. We later learned from her that one of her best friends lives in Lodi. That Lodi woman is one of Julia’s friends and was Justin’s long-time piano teacher. Small world!


Julia’s hazy IPA was delicious. My milk stout was very good. There will be live music on Sunday afternoon. We plan to be back.

Comments

MFH said…
Justin played piano?
May 19, 2024 at 4:52 AM
John said…
He did. He even won a couple of awards at Solo Ensemble in high school.
May 19, 2024 at 5:13 PM
MFH said…
Cool! What kind of music?
May 19, 2024 at 7:15 PM
John said…
They were classical pieces. I couldn’t remember the names of any of the pieces, and neither could Julia. I do remember hanging on every note from the beginning to end, hoping he would do well. Justin would roll up to the piano bench with Elvis the service dog, and I would transfer Justin from the chair to the bench and then back again after his performance. By his senior year, moving his arms and hands became too difficult, and he gave up the piano. Justin had a small electric keyboard that he kept playing for about a year longer.
May 20, 2024 at 9:15 PM
MFH said…
WOW!

What a wonderful memory.

Thank you.
May 21, 2024 at 5:45 AM
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