Murder By The Pint (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 1) by Belle Knudson

realize that you didn’t need a guy with eight years of medical school to tell you that you've spent most of your free time sitting on your butt indoors. So you start a daily regimen, eating right, doing good things for yourself, and walking every day. You relish this time because there's no one in town, not yet anyway. The summer people aren’t due to invade the town for another month or two at least. And the crisp air of late spring clears your head, wakes you up, and lets you know that there's a reason to be alive now, in the moment, and caring for yourself. And then a new face lurches forth, her hair a mess because a wind picked up and teased it out of control, so that, though normally it probably looks pretty good, today the gray roots are showing and the salt air has coarsened it somewhat, and the wind has tousled it to the point where the head basically looks like a softball after some dog has had its toothy way with it. This person asks you, in the most awkward way imaginable, whether or not you've seen "this person," and she holds up a cellphone picture, snapped surreptitiously, of an attractive blonde, and the picture has obviously been taken from an angle that shows off the woman's... assets...with great clarity. The questions arise quickly: Why am I being shown this? What has this woman done? Who took this picture, and if she took it herself then why didn't she grab the woman after she took it? How desperate is this person holding the cellphone if she's been out here all morning?
                  I got a few looks that asked these very questions without the inquirer having to say a single word.
                  So, dejected and defeated, I went into work at one with nothing but a cellphone picture of someone who still didn’t have a name.
                  Now, about my lap.
                  Ask anyone who works at a microbrewery out there that offers tastings and they'll tell you: We get a lot of nutjobs. I say this with all due respect and with the utmost appreciation and oodles of love, but some of our customers are just plain bat-guano kooky.
                  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Mitch.
                  Mitch came in one day, all bursting buttons and overgrown goatee, all milky skin and horn-rimmed glasses, all pocket protector and condescending stare. We threw glass after glass at him. Some of our best stuff. And wouldn’t you know it? Mitch had nothing more to offer than a smirk at best, a frown at worst, and a monotone, "standard," as his single-worded review for everything.
                  Thing is, he was in at least once a week. There was a mystery.
                  Well it got so that Aimee, our tasting mistress, soon wanted nothing to do with this lout. It was up to me either to ban him or serve him myself – if I really wanted his business.
                  Do I need to tell you that I love a challenge?
                  I slid over a glass of our robust porter – a smoky, malty, coffee-centric quaff that can grow hair on your teeth.
                  He took a sip and frowned.
                  "Well?" I said. "Are you going to sit there and become one with the furniture, or are you going to tell me what you think?"
                  Not even a hint of a smile. "Standard," he said.
                  "I wish I could say the same for your personality," I said. There are times I love being the owner.
                  "Oh, ha ha," he said, lackadaisically.
                  "Okay then, Mitch," we all knew his name – the man was now a legend in these parts, "tell me; why do you come here every week if you can’t stand the beer?"
                  "I never said I can’t stand it."
                  "I know," I said. "Standard. That's the extent of your review. You could say it has all the body of a