When we were kids our lunch bags invariably included one of those little red boxes of Sunmaid raisins. I really didn’t like raisins to begin with, so as you might guess, by the 6th grade I hated raisins. Loathed them. Couldn’t stand them.

But being the clever individual I am, and hanging around with a fair number of other clever individuals, we always found things to do with our raisins. We crunched them into raisin wads and heaved them at each other like ugly snowballs. We stuffed them into drinking fountains like plumber’s putty. We stuck them in our nostrils and pretended to blow out boogers. We licked them and flicked them in the popular girls’ hair.

Oh, and we made kazoos out of the empty raisin boxes. (Try it, it works.)

Now jump forward about 30 years. I meet this brewer guy named Tomme Arthur, and guess what? He sticks raisins in all kinds of stuff — even his beer.

You know what? It’s pretty good.

Actually, it’s really good. Sample a little of his Lost & Found or his new one, Judgment Day and you’ll know what I mean.

And while you’re uncorking a bottle, read the story on how those raisins got in his beer instead of the hair of that cute girl that sat next him in social studies class.

» The Lost Abbey (aka: is that a raisin in your beer?)