1) This post starts with my uncle’s funeral. Sorry to bum you out right at the start. My mother is one of four girls, who were all born before my uncle Peter. So that made him the baby of the family. It also made it that much harder for them to take when he was the first to pass away. The youngest in the family just isn’t supposed to do that.

2) I have a few memories of Peter. The favourite ones are from when I was a kid and we’d get taken to gran’s for babysitting while mum and dad went out for dinner. Or to play hockey. Or whatever it was they did – I was eight, as if I cared where they were going. Sometimes Peter would be there and that usually meant he’d take us up the road to McDonald’s for dinner. Yes, these days, the magical sheen has very much worn off McDonald’s, with kids eating that stuff several times a week, but back when I was young going to McDonald’s was a special event. Peter also had a panel van and, in the eyes of a 10-year-old who had no real concept of the sexual undertones of those vehicles, that was so cool.

3) Anyway, maybe I should get to the part where I talk about beer. At a local club for Peter’s wake I spotted a beer tap decal I didn’t recognise. It read Sunday Road Brewing Company and the beer was Enigma Ale. Turns out they were a brewery near the club. So I did the usual thing when I’m confronted by a beer I’ve never heard of – I bought one. And it was tasty. A bit fruitier than I’d expect from a beer with Enigma hops backed with a good length of bitterness.

4) A week or so later I was up at Cronulla Mall looking to blow a stack of cash at the Berkelouw Books outlet. After I did that I walked across to the other side of the mall to Bottlo Brien’s. Lo and behold, right in front of me as I walked in was a display for Sunday Road’s Enigma Ale. I’d figured I’d never see that beer again, so I made sure I bought a six-pack.

5) And I can tell you, my uncle Peter has been in my thoughts every time I opened one of those six beers.
Free or paid for?: Well, the schooner at the club was free because my brother paid for it. But I bought the Sunday Road six-pack myself.