Essay
A Cooler, a Dog, a Lake
一只保温箱，一条狗，一片湖
On the first Monday I have taken off since March, I drove north for an hour with a cooler in the trunk and the dog in the passenger seat. Barley is fourteen; he needs the window down and he needs to stop twice. We stopped twice. The lake, when we got there, was the colour of a nickel and there was nobody on it.
The cooler held six bottles of pilsner left from a batch that sold badly and was, in my professional opinion, perfectly fine. A jar of pickles I put up in September: cucumbers from the market, dill, too much garlic, the way I like them. A record I had not played yet, because the turntable at home is on the fritz again.
Nobody to pour for
I am not good at days off. At the brewery I always know what comes next; the tanks are a to-do list that talks back. On the shore of a lake I am a man holding a bottle opener with nothing to fix. It took about an hour, and then I sat down, and that was that.
You can be proud of a beer, but you cannot drink it for someone else.
Barley waded in to his chest and stopped, the way old dogs do, and stood there a while looking at the far shore like he was checking a calculation. Then he came out, shook himself off next to the cooler, and lay down in the sun. I ate pickles, drank one beer, and did not think about the readings waiting for me on Tuesday.
What I brought home
I brought home an empty jar, five bottles, and a wet dog. Also a smell of pine that stayed in the car for a week. That is the whole trip. In summer I will brew something for this lake, lighter than what we pour at the bar, and I will bring it up in the same cooler and drink it sitting on the same rock.
The lake does not care about your schedule. That is the reason to go.
On Tuesday the tanks were waiting. Two of them had dropped two points overnight. I wrote it in the logbook, pitched the yeast, and by ten in the morning I was elbow-deep in a mash, feeling like a man back from a country where nobody mentions diacetyl.
中文译文
三月以来第一个休息的周一，我往北开了一个小时，后备厢一只保温箱，副驾坐着狗。Barley 十四岁了，窗户得开着，还得停两次。我们就停了两次。到湖边时，湖水是五分硬币那种颜色，湖上一个人也没有。
保温箱里是六瓶皮尔森，来自一批卖得不好、但以我的专业判断毫无问题的酒。一罐九月腌的黄瓜：市场买的瓜、莳萝、蒜放太多，我就爱这么吃。还有一张没听过的唱片——家里那台唱机又犯毛病了。
没有人等着我倒酒
我不擅长休息日。在厂里我永远知道下一步做什么，六个罐就是一张会顶嘴的待办清单。站在湖边，我成了一个拿着开瓶器却没什么可修的人。大约过了一个小时，我才坐下来，然后也就那样了。
你可以为一批酒骄傲，但你没法替别人把它喝掉。
Barley 走进水里，到胸口就停了，老狗都这样，站在那儿望对岸，像在核对一道算式。然后他上了岸，在保温箱旁边抖了抖身子，趴进太阳里。我吃了黄瓜，喝了一瓶酒，没去想星期二等着我的那几张检测单。
我带回家的东西
带回家的是一只空罐子、五瓶酒和一条湿狗，还有一股在车里留了一个星期的松树味。这趟就这样。夏天我要为这片湖酿一款酒，比吧台上卖的更淡，用同一只保温箱带上来，坐在同一块石头上喝。
湖不在乎你的日程表。去那儿的理由就是这个。
星期二，罐子们在等我。其中两个一夜之间掉了两度。我记进本子，投了酵母，到上午十点已经两条胳膊埋进糖化醪里，感觉像从一个没人提双乙酰的国度回来了。
