Yesterday was a sunny Saturday.  After some yard work I headed to the office in Long Grove to tie up a few loose ends.  Loose ends prey on the mind, until they are properly connected.  After about 20 minutes, satisfied that all was taken care of, I decided to visit the new Buffalo Creek Brewry.  The brewery is across the Stemple parking lot from my office.  While under construction just a few months ago, the owner Michael gave me a tour of the facility.  I was impressed by the large stainless steel fermentation tanks, the warm and commodious tasting room, and by the heritage of craft necessary to operating a brewry.  From Michael’s enthusiasm and story telling I had no doubt of his prospects for success.

I perused the menu.  Not gifted by nature with a simpatico between my taste buds and beer, I’ve had much less experience with the beverage than have most of my contemporaries.  My selection from the menu was entitled 42K.  I liked the story behind name.  42K was the amount of the bill presented to Michael by the village subsequent to connecting his business to the water main.  A bill not soon to be forgotten is memorialized in the name of a beer.

Taking a seat at the long table at the back of the tasting room I marveled at the sublime shape of the glass vessel containing the golden liquid.

I turned my attention to the small, battered note book of philosophy quotations that I sometimes have at hand.  A few minutes of meditatively reviewing favorite sayings, as I sipped a never-before-tasted beverage seemed like a fine way to celebrate the Labor Day weekend.

The yellowed notebook page offered a description of knowledge that is as satisfying to me now, seated here, as it was when the words were first read and written down 30 years ago when I was in grad school.  Knowledge is an art form, whether a skill or whether the judgment of a connoisseur.  All knowledge is a matter of a practice that transforms the individual who risks the necessary engagement.   How many years did it take Michael to acquire the know-how that was essential to opening this brewry, and to produce this glass of 42K in front of me?

Knowledge transforms us. I am not the man that I once was.  The many elements offered and received from teachers too many to mention, have caused a transformation in my being.  Not only has the world changed, but so have I.  Of course many professors come to mind, bosses, co-workers, my wife, my three children, friends—teachers all, have elevated the standard by which I judge myself.

Here is the quote from Michael Polanyi:

Here, in the exercise of skill and the practice of connoisseurship, the art of knowing is seen to involve an intentional change of being:  the pouring of ourselves into the subsidiary awareness of particulars, which in the performance of skills are instrumental to a skillful achievement, and which in the practice of connoisseurship function as the elements of the observed comprehensive whole.

The skillful performer is seen to be setting standards to himself and judging himself by them; the connoisseur is seen valuing comprehensive entities in terms of a standard set by him for their excellence.

–Personal Knowledge page 65

After about 20 minutes, my glass half empty I sensed that more and more effort was needed to maintain focus upon the words on the page.  The thought occurred, “Wonder how much alcohol is in this beer?’  No need to check the menu.  It was time for a walk around town before driving home.

42k Buffalo Creek Brewing Belgian Strong Golden Ale, 10.5 ABV