It was the summer of 1992, and Steve McCarthy and his wife were having one of those vacations. The couple had flown to Ireland all the way from Oregon, and rented a car in Dublin. From there, things started promisingly enough. They drove out into the republic’s sparsely populated western reaches, staying at delightful hotels
On a July evening in 2009, five men sat down to gin martinis and medium-rare steaks at Harris’ Restaurant in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood. Two of the men were there to pitch a proposal: a consultancy involving the Anchor Brewing Co., the oldest independent brewery in the United States making small batches of beer