It’s summertime, and this year more than the preceding ones, we should truly appreciate when the living is easy. Last year, we weren’t safe; this year, many of us are vaccinated, our shot at freedom after a year of self- and government-imposed restrictions.

Why not have a cold beer? In Memphis, we have plenty of opportunity for a local brew as we have close to a dozen hometown breweries. Through the summer, we’ll take you to them, tell you their story and about their beers. Let’s start at Crosstown Brewing Company, at Crosstown Concourse, of course.

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Will Goodwin and Clark Ortkiese opened their brewery in 2018, but that wasn’t really the beginning.

“The story really starts in 2010,” Ortkiese said. “I bought a house in the neighborhood and I was really passionate about where I live. I found out the neighborhood was called Crosstown, and I’d never heard of it.”

He and Goodwin were home brewers and most of their work took place in Ortkiese’s backyard.

“We would work in my backyard and could look up and see the Sears tower,” Ortkiese said. “So I called my little home brewery Crosstown Brewing Company. My wife even had some stickers made.”

Fast forward a few years. When the home brewers heard about Crosstown Concourse, they knew they wanted to have a brewery there and they arranged a meeting with the developers to make it happen.

“They were very enthusiastic, but we had to wait for it to open to start our construction,” Ortkiese said. “We’ve been really pleased with the Concourse, our vertical village. In a way, we’re the village pub.”

When we visited last month, pub games hadn’t been put back out yet, but that’s changed. Corn hole and foosball are back and board games are available. 

“What happened with the foosball table is that Will and I have used it to sort of release some COVID frustration,” Ortkiese said. “I guess it’s time to release it back to the public again.”

Like most breweries, Crosstown has a handful of standards. Traffic, an IPA, is the bestseller, the most popular beer. Siren Blonde (our favorite, a unanimous decision by two, though I have something to add later) and Terraplane are others.

Ocansey, a pale ale that I thought everyone loved, is done. Beer is much like a moment, like a perfect summer day, like life; it is fleeting. Brewers gonna brew, and that can translate to here today, gone tomorrow as one beer gives way and another takes its place. The lesson is simple: If you got ’em, drink ’em.

And like the all brewers in town, folks at Crosstown like to have a little fun. They make seasonal beers, including the summer-release shandy Dog Days; it’s a watermelon-lemonade and it’s light, fruity and fun to drink.

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We ordered two flights of four beers each, which got us a 4-ounce pour of each of the beers on tap that night (there were others in cans).

We sampled Siren, Traffic, Raised by Sound and Animal Frequency in the first flight. The second started with Crosstown Brown and moved on to Dog Days, Fancy Hat and Quench.

Siren, a blonde ale, was our top pick of the beers. It was easy drinking, lightly hoppy, just pleasantly bitter, well-balanced and easy to drink. Terraplane, a Pilsner that we ordered in a can after the flight, is also a nice easy drinker. But no fear: If you’re looking for complicated, you can find it.

Fancy Hat is mint julep-inspired, and we declare it a success. The strong ale is aged in bourbon barrels with mint after fermentation, and you can tell. On the nose and in the mouth, there are standard characteristics of bourbon: Vanilla, warm spice, a bit of oak. The mint cuts right through too.

Does calling it a success mean we want to drink it? Only a little. It’s interesting to taste and undoubtedly fun to make — we all like to show off now and again — but it’s likely more suitable for sipping than downing.

“Those beers are like concept cars,” Ortkiese said. “Sometimes you come to the brewery and you want something that really stands out and they’re popular among a certain population of drinkers who want to try new things. We’re not going to make a lot of those. No one is going to sit down and drink a lot of it.”

His favorite is also his most popular beer.

“My favorite is Traffic. Will and I knew we wanted an IPA and we wanted to make it our way. We wanted to get away from what we think of as the West Coast flavors, pine and resin. We were looking for fruit — grapefruit, tropical fruit, passionfruit — something with bitterness but flavorful too.”

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There are food trucks at Crosstown Brewing Wednesday through Sunday, but we were there on a Tuesday and decided to eat at Pizzeria Trasimeno. We walked down to the other end of the concourse for dinner, where we ate pizza and finished the night with an Aperol spritz. Global Café — both restaurants are owned by Sabine Langer — was also open and serving.

When we were there, it was a couple of days before the release of a new beer, one with a story. Lucky Chompers, a Munich Helles lager, is a light and malty brew that is named for an unfortunate squirrel. While Chompers, given a choice, would probably prefer he was never so named, that’s not the way it turned out. On the other hand, how many squirrels have a name and their own beer?

In late 2019, in those days before COVID, a squirrel ran across a power line in Ortkiese’s neighborhood.

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“For whatever reason, he bit down on the power line,” Ortkiese said. “And for whatever reason, he stayed there for about a year.”

Yet Chompers, RIP, became an unlikely symbol of hope during COVID, when folks would stroll through the neighborhood as they had no other place to go.

“We sort of felt like if Chompers was still hanging in there, then we could too,” Ortkiese said.

One day he was gone. No body was recovered.

“I think he was basically just pelt by that time. He could’ve blown away.”

But when it was safe to gather, a stuffed squirrel stood in for the real Chompers and was given a proper backyard burial. Now he’s on a beer can, complete with a little halo above his head and a lightning bolt behind him. And it’s an easy drinker, to boot.

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I stopped back by last week. The brewery wasn’t open (hours have adjusted a little since COVID) so my plan to sit outside, listen to a little music and sip an afternoon beer alone, forcing a temporary reset, was thwarted. But the woman opening up sold me a 4-pack and I enjoyed it later.

And enjoy it I did. It was clean and refreshing, hoppy enough but balanced with sweetness. It made me question if Siren is really my favorite beer at Crosstown, and I can’t say. I didn’t taste the two beers at the same time and just don’t know the answer, but I know this: It went down just fine, and that’s what I really want from a beer. A challenging wine or a complicated cheese is its own kind of pleasure, but when life is hard enough, can’t we just have some things that are easy?

“I’ve gotten to where I really enjoy the simple beers,” Ortkiese said. “And good lord, I thought I drank a lot of the beer before I opened the brewery, but now we’re always trying things.

“We do a lot of crazy stuff, but my palate has really drifted to stuff that is clean and easy.”

He’s singing my song.

Crosstown Brewing, 1264 Concourse Avenue, is open 2-10 pm. Monday and Tuesday; noon-10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and noon- 8 p.m. on Sunday. Call 901-529-7611.