“Hmm,” the girl says. “I think I’ll try the Goldenpour first.”

“Ah, well,” I say quickly as Smitty snorts out a laugh. “He can tap it for you.” Smitty gives me a grin and reaches for a glass. She moves down the bar to wait for her beer.

“Can’t win ’em all,” Hamish—my best customer—says from a barstool in front of me.

“True.”

“But the night is still young. As are you, whippersnapper.” Hamish is a carpenter. His studio is a hundred yards down the road. In fact, he and I own matching old brick mill buildings on the Winooski River, where we each spend a lot of our waking hours tending to our respective businesses.

His is a high-end woodworking operation, while mine is devoted to mankind’s greatest accomplishment: craft beer.

“Plenty of fish in the stream,” I agree. And right now I’m more worried about serving all the fish than banging them. It’s Thursday night. The weekend onslaught begins now, and I’m more or less ready.

Becky is working the tables tonight, which means Ed Sheeran is playing on the sound system. We have a rule—the waitress controls the playlist. She’s making her way around the room right now, stopping to light a candle on every table. The reach-in coolers are stocked. The empty tables are clean.

It’s November, so tonight’s crowd won’t break any records. The Gin Mill is the busiest during ski season and leaf-peeping season. Summers are pretty good, too. But there’s a lull during November until the ski resorts open.

Tonight we’ll be serving two kinds of customers—locals and foamies. A foamy is a beer tourist—a crazy soul who has come hundreds of miles—or even thousands—to sample Vermont’s hard-to-find craft brews.

This year they’re all dying to drink Goldenpour by the Giltmaker Brewery. Rated 99 by Beer Advisor, it’s the new Heady Topper—terrific yet impossible to buy. You can drink pint after pint right here at the Gin Mill, or you can wait in line for two hours on Tuesday morning outside the brewery in Waterbury. They’ll sell you exactly two six-packs.

Lucky for both me and the foamies, I serve Goldenpour six days a week, along with a dozen other rare Vermont craft brews. To get the word out, I’ve spent the last year writing to every beer blog and travel website in the world, making sure they know that the Gin Mill is the place to be if you want to taste the best.

And it’s slowly beginning to work. My bar is always crowded on the weekends and often on the weeknights, too.

I opened a bar because I wanted my life to be a seven-day-a-week party. Turns out owning a business never really feels like a party. But I love it anyway.

“Need a fill up?” I ask Hamish.

“Nah, I’m good,” the carpenter says. “Thanks, kid.”

“So what beer do you want to serve at your party?” I ask. He and I are planning a retirement shindig for him next month.