Less than two weeks ago, my girlfriend, knowing my love and passion for beer, took the initiative and created The Beer Truck on my behalf. That in itself is a fun story I’ll share sometime…if you’re lucky. Early this morning my sister, Sara, sent me a message with a few suggestions that she thinks would be fun to read about. One of them stood out above the rest: “Best beer memory ever”. Tonight, my friends, I bring you that memory. And yes, I really do remember it…here you go:

In July of 1999, I moved from Muskegon to Grand Rapids to an apartment with my best friend, Nick. Why in the world we did this in July, I’ll never know. It was HOT!! And what better to drink at the end of an extremely hot day of moving lots of furniture and boxes than good cold beer. That’s right, I said “cold beer”. Once the moving was done, we went down the street and picked up a six-pack of beer for each of us, came back home and kicked up our legs with a cold one in hand. Prior to living together, we hardly ever drank, so needless to say, a six-pack for each of us…well, I’ll just say we were lightweights at the time.

Nick and I have known each other since the fourth grade and on this night, all those years of friendship were revealed in true “hoppy” fashion. What conversations exactly led to the following, I don’t recall exactly and I don’t think it really matters. All that really mattered was we were both sitting next to our “long time buddy” and those six-packs forced us to say such things as “I love you, man” and “when I get married, you’ll be my best man”. The rest is history and history in the making.

In August of 2005, Nick married his best friend and I was there as his best man. And someday, I hope to have the honor of having him as mine. This is one of many, many, many, many stories painted across the history Nick and I have created together, and whether he’s there or not at the time, he’ll always have a positive impact on how my life turns out. Nick, I love you, man! Thanks for everything.

Cheers, brother!

From Nick’s wedding