Complaint Department

Dahlia and Edmund were a couple like many other newbie couples.  Each of them had been in the community a relatively short time, and if you knew what to look for, it showed.  And I actually don’t mean that in a bad way – everyone is new at some point.  New people brought new ideas […]

“Build it, and they will come.”

One of the joys of running just a bar is not having to muck about with food. Offering food requires more storage, more resources, more chances of spoilage, a kitchen, additional licensing and inspections, etc., etc., etc. One of the sorrows of running just a bar is that people want food that you cannot supply […]

Happy Brita-Day!

It was the middle of a Sunday afternoon, and it was raining.  Business at Floggin’ Brews would pick up later in the day, but for now the mid-day munch crowd had cleared and there were just a handful of patrons. Mikhel was in the basement with the kegs and I was at the taps, changing […]

Family Mysteries

It was early afternoon on Sunday and Floggin’ Brews was pretty quiet.  It was the fifth Sunday of the month, so there weren’t any munches scheduled.  And we don’t serve food, so we don’t get much of a lunch crowd, especially on Sundays.  But a few people usually wander in after lunch to enjoy a […]

Stopping By the Bar On a Snowy Evening

T.S. Eliot declared that “April is the cruelest month,” but he never lived through a Minnesota winter.  January is the cruelest, hands down, because you know that spring is still so far away.  And because things tend to break when it gets really cold or really snowy.  Things like the electrical grid. It was snowing […]

Strangers in a Strange Land, Part 2

Was a time I did not believe in The Inexplicable.  You know, the things that people call “supernatural” or “miraculous.”  Ghosts.  The Fay.  Angels. Mythology. But that was before I started working at Floggin’ Brews.  The Inexplicable happens here on a regular basis, and I’d kind of gotten used to it.   For instance, I half-expected […]