With warm days upon us and cool evenings in the Biergarten, patios, backyards and on tailgates I would like to take a moment to reflect on the first beer connoisseur in my life, my father, Edward Sherlock. He was a blue collar man that worked at a stainless steel manufacturing plant that specialized in small scale precision welded tubes. They were famous for making fuel lines for Ford and GM as well as making GE stove top components. Ed loved to work hard and play hard, both traits that I learned from him. He was also a woodworker, a tinkerer, a fisherman, a part time VHS data hoarder and cable pirate, as well as a guy that loved working all day and rewarding himself with a cold beer, a good conversation, and a lot of laughter.
I can remember many evenings hanging out with my dad at Longshots lounge in Englewood right next to his work, going with him to order a beer after work with his buddies. He would promise to get me a Shirley Temple with extra cherries, if he could get a beer and I wouldn’t say anything to my mom. He was also the guy that would want to throw backyard BBQ parties and would insist on getting kegs of beer so that the guests “wouldn’t run out of beer”, much to my mothers displeasement with the arrangement, we always got kegs.
Each fathers day we would take an annual fishing trip up to Saratoga, Wyoming. This was the town my father grew up spending his summers at, where my grandfather would lay brick for the clubhouse and other buildings at the Old Baldy Club, a millionaire’s golf course and playhouse. We continued the tradition later on by going fishing there each Fathers Day weekend. We would leave the women behind and my father (oldest of 10) and his 7 brothers and my grandfather would all go up for the weekend. Each year before departing my father would have to make a stop at the “special liquor” store to pick up the “good beer” for his brothers and him for the weekend. This memory did have an impact on me later on in life, that my father made an effort to get something other than his daily driver beer (the classic Michelob bottles) to grab a few different beers to let his brother sample. Ed, being the oldest, was a father figure in some ways being that he was 18 years older than his youngest brother, it was his job to make sure there was good beer available for these special times.
All weekend long we fished hard. We would get up no later than 4am and go get breakfast at Mom’s Kitchen, where the pancakes were as big as my head then head out to the lake. If you got on the boat when it launched you better have had a lunch and enough to drink, which meant a few coolers of beer, sack lunches and many tackle boxes. We would fish till the stringers were full or the guys ran out of beer, whichever came first. The fishing was so good up there in the 80’s that typically we could catch our limit before afternoon. We would then retire to town and go to the public hobo pool, a free community hot spring in town, where the coolers came along and we relaxed. We would then go cook many of the fish we caught that day on a BBQ and retire for the evening to only do the same thing the next day.
The takeaway for me was that what my father really wanted to do was make sure that those weekends were as special as they could be for himself, his father, his brothers and me. The beer was just part of the fabric of us getting together to cut loose from the wives, sisters, and daughters for a few days. We would come home to celebrate Fathers Day on Sunday afternoon and share our stories. Once I was of age, I did attend only 2 of these trips with my father and of course shared a few beers with him while fishing. Ed Sherlock passed away in 2007. As a Father, I attempt to create these types of outings with my son to celebrate; family, friends, getting outdoors and having fun together, all the while a cold beer is usually involved. Without the values and experiences that my father gave to me I wouldnt be able to give such experiences to my son. It is the moments we have together with special people that make all the good food, good beers, stories and laughter all worthwhile.
Cheers! To all the great fathers in the club, I toast to you this Fathers Day.
Here is a picture of my Ed Sherlock tending bar for some family at our house in 1991:
Meeting Info:
Where: Sherlock’s Brewery and Ale House (Central Arvada)
Location:
6525 Independence St. Arvada, CO 80004
Date:
6-21-23
Time:
7:00 – Beer tastings
Notes:
Side gate on 65th Ave will be open, just come in behind the boat to the backyard.
RSVP:
Register Beers and RSVP to the meeting here.
May Meeting Recap:
I am pleased to welcome Graham Alexander as our newest member of the Olde Town Mash Paddlers! We are really glad you made it out to your first club meeting last month, and that you found our beers to be at least drinkable enough to keep wanting to sample them.
Dennis really put on a show this last meeting by smoking a brisket, making bread and some slaw for us to chow down on. Thanks for the incredible hosting and food. Gordon made a welcome addition with some older aged good beer (aged IPA?). It is also worth mentioning that somehow the amount of lagers at this last meeting was out of this world. It was noted that the 34/70 yeast should be our new sponsor. I am really just happy to see so many of our brewers getting more into lagers and taking on much harder beers to brew. This is really a sign that this club is growing and developing with our brewing skill sets.
Attendants: See attached notes in the Google Sheets
Meeting Recap / Beers: