There’s a small gas station above the harbour in Grand Marais, and it’s one of two places in town you could buy carryout beer when my family visited in the mid-2000s, at a time when I was just beginning to like beer. There was a six-pack of something called an IPA with a trout on the label, and its muted but clear earth tones brought to mind the Hurricane’s bed under a rippled surface.

Back at the campground, I opened my first Two Hearted Ale. It was bitter but clean; bracing like the frigid water of the river on my bare feet. There were notes of the forest—the wind through the high pines and lonely birches clinging to the sandy soil—and bright citrus notes, and more I couldn’t yet identify. It got its hook deep in my heart on that trip, and I still feel the tug.

***

Two Hearted Ale has taken its own meandering route to success. In 1995, a young Bell’s brewer named Rob Skalla (who has sadly since passed away) suggested an all-Centennial IPA to founder Larry Bell.

“I think we had some Centennial lying around in-house,” recalls Larry. “For whatever reason, he was just interested in it.”