18 Jun To My Fallen Beer Fridge
By Donovan Wheeler for Indiana On Tap
In the stagnant heat of a June afternoon the old family beer fridge sputtered its last pair of compressed wheezes and slipped out of commission forever. The fan still hummed—like lingering brain waves latching onto cognition (and life) in those moments after the heart has stopped. For a little while I shopped around, scouting replacement compressors online. This body, however, had long outlived the value of a new ticker.
The apparent crisis that comes with a newly dead beer fridge was largely averted, however. The old, dirty-white box had long ago been retired from the grunt work of keeping the Osiris frosty and the Dragonfly freezing. Relegated to little more than a holding bay for a forgotten sleeve of Diet Cokes and half-dozen Flav-r-ice popsicles, the beer fridge’s greatest family duty, was an assignment far more noble than keeping a vacuum-sealed back of processed meat in suspended animation. That fridge’s primary role was always one of serving as our own ambassador to the craft beer world Wendi and I had inhabited for the last half-decade.
Every afternoon when I pulled in the car…every late evening when I carried the patio cushions inside…every weekend morning when I darted by hunting for a missing drill bit…all the time that fridge was there. Peppered across its face the assortment of brewery stickers often transfixed me—sometimes once every two weeks, other times more than once a day.
The red webbing of the Fountain Square logo hung just under the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—one of the first stickers my son handed over when he tossed his old laptop and moved out into the world on his own. Next to that: one of the original Brew Link stickers, still bearing the company’s old moniker, Cartel Brewing. There’s the big, red Tow Yard sticker, celebrating the beer makers who landed the best location in all of Indiana, promising to “out King” Sun King. A half-foot away, a nondescript Haw Creek emblem spoke to those tiny little operations in those tiny little towns. They put up a good fight but still lost. Down in the corner, under the freezer handle, Wooden Bear’s “Wooden Bear” stares me down. In the corner above that Broad Ripple’s rubber boots cross leisurely at the ankles. All over the door—everywhere across that door—Bloomington’s BBC reminds me that they are nearly as old as the state’s oldest brewers (the ones sporting those aforementioned rubber boots).
When I ran my index finger across those first half-dozen stickers, I beamed at my work, stepping back and admiring each of them like a hipster marveling over each new tattoo. Somewhere along the way…maybe three years ago…the reality that my fridge’s lifespan was limited assaulted me. I looked longingly at those especially dated, particularly irreplaceable plastic trademarks and savored my moments with them in 15-second intervals here, a minute or two there.
I suppose the idea of introspectively losing myself in front of a decrepit Whirlpool in a stifling garage seems odd. The thing is however (and when it comes to craft beer for me there’s always “a thing”) that before those adhesive badges appeared on those insulated doors, my life was somewhere else. I was someone else.
The short version: divorce, bankruptcy, and depression followed by new love, a new home, and happiness. A significant part of this new life has been craft beer. Happiest among all my memories of this greatest decade are those lazy afternoons at Black Swan trying out our first flight samples together. When I gather my grandchildren around my knee, I will revel them with tales of the summer craft beer festival at Broad Ripple Park. I will excitedly recount how Wendi and I braved our way through the foliage, to the bend in the creek in order to latch onto some of Indiana City’s Haymaker. I will tell them about all the times we made fun of all those foolish souls wasting away their precious minutes in the hopelessly long Three Floyds line. I’ll regale them with descriptions of dark green port-o-pots, food trucks smelling like burritos, and young men with big bellies throwing empty kegs across an open stretch of grass.
You see…today…when people ask me how I’m doing, I don’t tell them I’m happy. I tell them that the last time I was this happy I was 10.
I won’t lie about this. When I realized the fridge was done, I despaired. I masked that woe in a mocked show of ambivalence, but my heart sank nonetheless. If there’s one thing my divorce (and the subsequent financial implosion which followed) taught me, it’s that “stuff” is nothing more than that. Shelley told us that in “Ozymandias.” Marvell also said it in “To His Coy Mistress.” The fridge is done. The stickers are going with it.
So…this week, I’m going to roll that fridge to the edge of the drive. I’m going to hand the appliance guy a couple Andrew Jacksons, and he’s going to trundle that silent member of the family onto his truck and haul it away. Affixed to it will my homage to the best time to be a beer drinker…to the best time to be me.
In a few weeks, I’ll start collecting new stickers. I’ll find a new surface, and I’ll slowly build a new shrine. It’ll be a tribute to a wonderful industry. It’ll be a cultural marker of a life well-lived in a great part of the country. Most of all, it’ll be yet another reminder that, when bad things happen, beautiful things often follow.
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