Babe Ruth Summer Ale

Some people might wonder why the home-brewed beer we served at the wedding is called "Babe Ruth Summer Ale." There's a legend there.

While he was a pitcher for the Red Sox, Ruth rented a house about 2.5 miles from the Arabian Horse Inn, where the wedding takes place. Sudbury has a special place in Red Sox history, in fact. As legend has it, Ruth got drunk one night and pushed his piano out onto the ice of Willis Lake in Sudbury. When the ice melted that spring, the piano sank to the bottom. The Red Sox didn't win a World Series for another 86 years.

In 2002, a group actually organized a volunteer effort to retrieve the piano, believing that a successful salvage might break the then 84-year-old curse. This demonstrates how desperate Sox fans were at the time. The group scanned the pond with sonar and identified what it thought was the submerged instrument. They made two dives but came up empty-handed.

Of course, the Red Sox won the World Series two years later and the salvage effort was forgotten. Thanks to the Web, though, the details are still available.

So the name of our beer is a tribute to Sudbury and to Paul's undying devotion to his beloved Red Sox. Does this all make sense now? :-)