This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another.

In our house, Christmas is something you earn. Rather than striving for a place on the Nice list, we spend the year between yuletides playing cribbage in a competition to earn funds that go towards gifts. It’s a longstanding tradition that we started while living in North Carolina. There, we were raised the curiosity of nearby strangers almost any time we played the game in public. They looked at us slapping down playing cards, doing math aloud, and moving begs around a hunk of wood and were unable to fathom what we were up to. Since we moved back to Wisconsin, we’ve pulled out the cribbage board with similar frequency and not once has anyone furrowed their brow and asked what we playing. We are occasionally complimented on the quality of our board.

I offer this to aid in understanding why it’s so natural for a Wisconsin brewery to create a beer with branding based on the game. When 3 Beers Brewing released a stout called 15-2, I knew with certainty it would be a regular part of my rotation. I don’t know that it brings me good luck, but it at least makes the bouts of bad luck a little easier to take, sip by sip.

Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Beers I Have Known” tag.