Opinion

Welcome to back-to-school – or as I like to call it, “Let's see how fast we can spend every penny in the checking account.” Oh sure, there is a lot of excitement about summer ending - the house will stay clean for longer than five minutes and food may actually remain in the fridge until well after 2:05 p.m. (for those of you unfamiliar with the teenage species, 2:05 p.m. is their version of the crack of dawn).

How fast time races by. As impossible as it might seem, it was one year ago when our incredibly talented (I’m hoping for another year) editor asked me if I would be interested in writing a column for the prestigious Morgan Hill Times. Never one to pass a a new challenge, my response was a predictable, “Who me?”

Beer is the new wine. Cliché opener I know, guilty as charged, but it’s true. Microbreweries are popping up like wineries were 15 years ago. The experimental brews are flowing from taps and the industry is happy to come out and peddle their liquid wares. The Morgan Hill Downtown Association is right in step to capitalize on the trend and I’m excited about the Second Annual Brew Crawl coming up on Saturday, Sept. 14 from 1 to 5 p.m. downtown. Great idea. Have my tickets, which are $25 in advance at www.morganhilldowntown.org. For that, you get a glass and all tastes from the 22 breweries scheduled to show up. That includes 21st Amendment, a San Francisco brewer that  sells the very popular “Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer.” It’s strange, but good. And there’s  Goose Island Brewing Company based in Chicago which makes my middle daughter Cayla’s favorite brew – “312 Urban Wheat Ale” – which is delicious. She’s become something of a beer connoisseur  in the last year with all the new brew pubs popping up in Nashville. Our hometown brew, El Toro, will be on tap as will Kona, Redhook and Speakeasy brews. If it’s not too late, organizers should reach out to English Ales in Marina, a local brewery that makes a spot-on beer called “1866.”