It’s a bleak picture of the endless work it takes to sustain something of value in this world. But the part that Thoreau cynically chalked up to some legal and financial obligation on the part of the farmers, was also mixed with the very passion and connectedness those farmers felt to the land, their families, and their legacy that Thoreau was so desperately in search of himself.

I’ve worked with a lot of breweries. Big ones, little ones, some with clear plans and others stumbling forward every day. And one thing I’ve learned is that no matter how many people help build a brewery, there’s always one person who walks around with the whole thing in their head every day. It weighs on them almost every minute of the day as they continuously contemplate the future of their endeavor, and the great responsibility they feel for all involved.

Andres Araya is one of those brewery owners. He’s a quiet, almost brooding character in Chicago’s brewing scene — much loved by those that know him, but not often found at events or in the press — until the legal battles over 5 Rabbit’s ownership hit the papers a couple of years ago. At the time, most beer drinkers in Chicago identified the brewery with Randy Mosher, an icon in craft brewing and one of the creative forces behind their early graphic design and adventurous recipes. But Randy was only a small part of how 5 Rabbit got started — and he had almost nothing to do with the real challenge this brewery had starting up: Andres’ and Isaac Showaki’s crumbling partnership.

From the moment they split, Andres was left with a struggling brewery and a storyline that was mixed up, misconstrued, and misrepresented in almost every way imaginable. Rather than add to the noise of the fallout, he decided to keep his head down, focus on building the brewery, and put together the team he felt could deliver on the vision he and his wife, Mila, had laid out three years ago in Mexico — to become the first Latin-inspired brewery in the US.

Today, Andres agreed to sit down for some Critical Drinking at Sheffield’s Bar in Chicago, to hopefully lay down some of the burdens he’s been carrying, and talk about how he’s finally finding the momentum that 5 Rabbit had just three long years ago as one of Chicago’s best and brightest breweries.

A story in four parts.