Trouble Brewing - Softcover

Baltsar, Suzanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501188313 ISBN 13: 9781501188312

Verlag: Gallery Books, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

This sweet, savory, and satisfying novel—perfect for fans of The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert—follows a smart, ambitious woman making her way in the male-dominated world of beer brewing.

Piper Williams is used to being the only woman in a room full of men, but she isn’t used to being instantly drawn to someone she’s in business with.

After working long hours brewing in her garage, Piper is determined to prove herself—and to ignore the chemistry she has with Blake Reed, owner of Minnesota’s newest gastropub who is going to stock four of her brews. She wants her craft beer to stand on its own merits and knows that the tight-knit male-dominated brewer community will assume the worst if she starts anything with one of her vendors. No way she’ll risk everything she’s invested in her budding business on a guy who might not stick—no matter how charmingly handsome and funny he is, right?

And Blake has a conflict of his own—his haughty family wants him to ditch the gastropub and support his father’s political campaign. Well, that, and the fact that he knows Piper’s snark and sass is the perfect blend of crisp and refreshing for him. So Blake and Piper make a pact: she’ll go out with him if, and only if, two additional pubs start carrying her beer. Sticking to the pact proves harder than either of them expected—especially since the attraction is off the charts between quirky, independent Piper and smart, charming Blake.

Then Piper gets a once-in-a-lifetime offer that could launch her company to the next level—and take her away from Blake. Are she and Blake just drunk in love, or do they have something real that’s worth risking her dreams for?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Suzanne Baltsar writes romance novels, manages a small cinema, and has her own film company, for which she wrote and directed a narrative feature in 2014. She writes and lives her happily ever afters in Pennsylvania with a Mr. Brawny look-a-like and a couple of children, some furry, some not.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Trouble Brewing

CHAPTER 1

Piper

It was miserable out. The groundhog saw his shadow this year, and we were all paying dearly for it in Minneapolis. I mean, really, who gave that four-legged, bucktoothed furball that much authority anyway?

While he hid away enjoying the rest of his long winter’s nap, we’d been hit with a foot and a half of snow on the first day of spring and were still waiting for it all to melt, even though it was now the last day of March.

I hefted the garage door up another couple of inches so it was off the ground a few feet, despite the outside temperature. Between the heat from the propane boiler and the smell of hops and barley, I needed to get some fresh air. I tugged my beanie farther down on my head before slipping out underneath the garage door, leaving the humidity of my pseudo nanobrewery.

The neighborhood was quiet at this time of day, before schools let out and people got home from work. I watched the melting snow fall in big clumps from nearby trees and made tracks with my boots in the now-dirty gray mush, contemplating the latest e-mail from my sister. I had asked her to send me some mock-ups of my logo with different colors. My website needed a little pick-me-up; the drab taupe and brown just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.

Out of the Bottle Brewery had been my dream for years, ever since I’d learned you could actually earn a living from making beer. And with a couple of cases at a distributor, the reality of making my dream come true was closer than ever before. I wanted—needed—everything to be perfect. Including the welcome banner on my website.

I breathed out a big puff of white air, still not used to a Minnesota “spring” even though I’d been there for two years now. Two years of this cold and all of my savings, hoping I could reap the benefits of an expanding craft brew scene.

So far Out of the Bottle hasn’t gained much traction, despite winning a few local tasting contests. But that would all change soon. It had to, because there was no way I was ever going back to work for someone else, brewing recipes that weren’t mine. Plus, my bank account was in dire need of a paycheck. I had to believe I’d get some of my beer into paying hands. Sooner rather than later.

Before my teeth started chattering, I stomped off whatever snow was left on the bottom of my boots and ducked back into the garage. With five conical fermenters, a lautering tun, three wooden casks, a small utility sink, and a tiny desk, my two-car garage at the back of the house was a miniature brewing kingdom and I was queen.

I couldn’t wait to expand and open up a real brewery. One with a multiple-barrel brewing system, a tasting room, a couple thousand square feet, and a few workers. A place I could actually reign over.

But to get there I needed to sell. And to sell, I needed to get to work.

I pushed up my sleeves and sat down to look back over my sister’s e-mail. Unfortunately, the quick jaunt outside hadn’t helped in deciding what color to make the funky wording. I dropped my head to the table with a frustrated groan.

“Piper?”

“In here.” I turned just as my roommate stuck her head in the side door. Her normally golden-brown skin was tinged pink from the cold. “What are you doing home?”

“My last two clients for today canceled, and Manny heard me sneeze three times. He sent me home to recover,” she said, stepping inside.

I snickered. Sonja was the healthiest person I knew. Between her strict workout regimen and constant green juices, I didn’t know if she’d ever been sick. Manny, her boxing coach, would have a fit if his star athlete ever really came down with anything more than the sniffles.

“Does this mean you have the night off?”

She lifted a resigned shoulder. Only Sonja would be bereft at having absolutely nothing to do for the night. “Guess so.”

“Piper and Sonja’s day of fun!” I sang, matching the annoying pitch of Chandler’s girlfriend Janice.

She pointed a finger at me. “No, we’re not watching Friends.”

I waved her off as she sat down on a folding chair, extending a pair of fancy leggings out toward me. She always got cool-looking workout gear because of her boxing sponsorship, and the hot pink called to me.

I plucked at them, touching where the black mesh met the pink spandex.

“We could go for a run,” she suggested.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want to do,” I deadpanned.

I loved my friend, but I hated her idea of a good time. She was always on the go, and quite frankly I couldn’t keep up. In fact, that’s how we met—she literally ran into me. Sonja likes to argue I ran into her, but that’s not true.

She had her headphones and face on, the one I’d come to learn was her all-business face, and she smacked right into me next to the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. I was brand-new to Germany and happy to bump—literally—into a fellow American. She was there for a month visiting family; I was there studying to become a brewmaster, and we became quick friends. It turned out we were both fish out of water. Me being a student with zero friends, she being reintroduced to her mother’s family who she’d only ever met as a child.

Our friendship quickly grew over daily lunches and weekends spent dancing at EDM clubs, forever bonded by bratwursts and a struggle to learn the native language. When she went home, we kept in touch, so much so that when I was moving to Minneapolis, she offered me room and board.

That was almost two years ago. Now we were more best friends than roommates.

“Here.” I turned my laptop screen to her. “Which colors do you like for the logo?”

Sonja tied her thick, dark hair on top of her head, a few tiny corkscrew curls sticking out by her temples and at her neck. “Navy with the lime green.”

“I like that one, too.” I sent off a reply to Kayla to change the header on the website, and before I stood to turn the propane off, I got my sister’s response that she’d have it updated as soon as possible. Sonja had seen me brew enough times to know the drill, so she followed me to the sink. I grabbed the wort chiller—a bungle of plastic tubes and copper wire—and untangled it as Sonja screwed one end of the tube to the utility sink’s faucet. I dropped the copper wire into the pot, and she let the ice-cold water rip from her end.

Using this method to cool the beer was a bit amateurish, but it was all I had without the money and space for a glycol chilling system. I let the hot water drain out of the garage, carving a steaming path in the snow. My mind went with it, once again losing my thoughts to a future of chrome and steel. I’d had just about enough of these homemade shortcuts.

I was a professional, dammit.

My phone rang in my back pocket, disturbing the mental image of my future kegs. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway, hoping it wasn’t the credit card company chasing down the payment I owed them. I was already up to my ears in interest rates.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m calling for...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501188313
• ISBN 13: 9781501188312
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: River House; mail@indigo.de; ; Schlachthofstr. 36 A; Hamburg; 21079; Deutschland