My wife and I are in Sonoma County. It is our 23^rd anniversary of her birthday trip. No, I am not going to tell you her age in human years. I am not a fool – well, maybe I am, but I’m not stupid – well, maybe I am, but I do have some sense of self-preservation. Yeah, that’s it.

What I will tell you is that we love making this trip every year (for reference on how things started, please see Twenty Years ).  And my best advice to anyone that is visiting wine country is this – Beer.  Really, after so much wine, you really need to have a beer. Even when it involves mudwrestling (yes that happened to us in 1996 in, of all places, snooty Napa Valley.)

Which is why we ended up in Hopmonk Tavern in Sonoma (https://www.hopmonk.com/sonoma).  We were done for the day and debated going back to the house and drinking wine or going to a tavern for a good beer. Beer won out (until we got home and, yes, had some wine as well. Heck, this IS a vacation, right?)

We walk in, take a seat at the end of the bar – there’s a guy to our left and a guy to our right. The bartender takes our order.  He places down my wife’s, but not mine for some odd reason. Maybe it’s because I ordered Death and Taxes beer (Sidenote – I actually got a picture of this beer into Taxing Times, an actuarial journal.)

And that’s Free Beer #1: He realizes that he made a mistake, brings my beer and tells me that it’ll be on the house. After we shouted victory to the whole bar, we made sure to compensate him for it. We are nothing if not civilized.

As civilized people, my wife starts talking to the guy to her left, and I talk to the guy to my right.

Which brings us to Free Beer #2:  Turns out that the guy to our left owns a pub in San Francisco called RadHaus (https://radhaussf.com/).  He excuses himself, comes back and hands my wife free beer tickets.  She texts our nieces in SF, and it turns out that this is their go-to place right across from their workplace. Yep, we’ll have to go.

He gets up to leave, and I’m still talking to the guy on my right.  We’re looking at a soccer game together.  Turns out that this was pre-recorded and even knowing that I’m willing to bet him on the outcome that he already knows. The guy must have some sort of ethics as he doesn’t take the bet.

Which brings us to Free Beer #3:  Turns out that he owns the Pub Republic in Petaluma (https://pubrepublic.com/).  He’s from Nepal and offers us a free beer if we visit him. Since Petaluma is a stop, we will be there. As a bonus, he gives us some hints on the best Nepalese/Indian places in town, one just down the road from our house for the week and which was a great meal.

So, in all my years, three free beers from three different places on the same day in the same bar?  Yep, I should’ve played the lottery.