The Brewing Life (and Afterlife) in Shanghai

James Fallows has a lovely reminiscence of Gary Heyne, a brewer he met in Shanghai:

When I was living in the city in 2006 and 2007, I spent many afternoons evenings in an ambitious but obviously economically-doomed microbrewery called Henry's, in a grim location on Sichuan Lu off the Bund. There I usually talked with the brewmaster, the roistering Texan Gary Heyne, who had come to the city around the time my wife and I did.

Like many writer friends of the all-around character, Jim tried to help write a book about his experiences designing water-treatment facilities in Iraq. He left that to another friend, left Shanghai, and kept up with Heyne's efforts to raise money for his own brew pub, "the famed Boxing Cat Brewery, on Fuxing Lu in the French Concession area." But as soon as he recently arrived in Shanghai and went to cheer Heyne at his new place, he found...well, I'll leave you to read the story. Food attracts big characters, beer bigger ones. Here's one we can be sorry we missed.