The Art of Becoming a Noticer

Meet Jesse Gagnon, craft brewer and chief notices of Orthodox Farmhouse Brewery

*As always, this is an AI-Free piece of writing.

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If you’ve followed my work for any amount of time (Coming Clean and The Book of Waking Up in particular), it might seem odd that I’m writing about beer, and yet, here I am. Yes, I still believe that sobriety is critical to the well-formed life, and yes, I realize beer can lead to drunkenness, debauchery, raiding, pillaging, and the like. (I’ve watched all the Viking shows, too.) But as I’ve written time and time again, sobriety is more than cold-turkey, tee-totaling living. Sobriety is the ability to use creation only to the extent that honors the Creator. Some, in fact, use the craft of beer to honor the Creator. For instance, meet Jesse Gagnon, the brewer who has leveraged everything for his craft.

In the beginning, there was little—raw land, an old stone house, a dilapidated barn, a barely working windmill, a metal building with floorspace enough for a few tanks. In the beginning, there were weeds and dead trees and overgrowth. In the beginning there were only these things and a man with a vision of reclamation. He’d take this land, restore it. He’d turn the land into community hub by building a small, community-based brewery, one less rooted in party-culture and more tied to historic roots of fine family brewing.

I watched for years as Jesse brought the vision to life, as he transformed the property from a run-down, overlooked farm to a pearl in the heart of the Arkansas Ozarks. Now, each week, from Thursday to Sunday, you’ll find patrons occupying tables and lawnchairs at Orthodox Farmhouse Brewery, their dogs or children running in the yard. You’ll find a quiet table and a few minutes to swap stories with a new friend. If you’re lucky, you’ll share some space with Jesse. This is where I found myself Saturday evening

Octoberfest at Orthodox Farmhouse Brewery

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Winding our way toward closing time, Jesse and I sit across from a small group of cardplayers who erupt with the last card of each hand. They are oblivious to time, to the fact that the server is wiping down tables and closing tabs. Their competitive boistrosity might be annoying, except I know this is how it’s been for so much of human history—undistracted people connecting over their cards, dominoes, dice, whatever.

Jesse leans across the table so I can hear him over the eruptions of the card players, and he asks, “Have I told you about the millstone project?” I cock my head, purse and push my lips to the side, and he takes my awkward confused expression for what it’s worth. “I guess I haven’t,” he says.

Weeks ago, he says, while walking the banks of Richland Creed, Jesse noticed a stone too large and too round to be uncut by human hands. It was 48 inches wide, a foot or more thick, and it had a hole running through its center. A former miller, the stone called to him, and when he stooped by it, when he wiped away the mud, he confirmed what he already knew—this was a lost millstone.

The stone was well preserved, despite its age, despite the fact that decades of flooding had pushed it downstream. And because Jesse believes in knowing and preserving the history and tradition of a place, because he’d researched the Richland Creek valley, he knew exactly what it was. It was the old stone from the original mill just up the creek, the one that stood for just over a hundred years before burning. It was a part of history believed to be lost, and with it, the stories of the men and women who operated the mill were last, too.

“Hundreds of people must have passed that stone over the years,” he says, “and they never stopped to ask whether it was just an odd piece of concrete or something else. People don’t know how to notice anymore.”

He pauses.

“And that’s the bigger issue. People don’t slow down long enough to notice what’s disappearing. Land, family farms, community connection, and older ways of life—it’s all going the way of the old millstone.”

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There’s a preservation project underway. Jesse, together with a few government officials and historians, has set out to reclaim the stone and place it where it belongs, in Mill Branch Park, less than a stone’s throw from my house. There’s more to the story, but it’s Jesse’s to tell, and perhaps I’ll let him do it when the time is right.

Details of the story aside, though, Jesse’s meta-concern is an arrow aimed at the heart of the matter. Have we forgotten how to notice? How many people drove past the old farm where Orthodox now sits? How many assumed it nothing but a run-down piece of land? How many took the time to notice the beauty in an old barn, a windmill, the old stone home? How many contemplated it, examined it, saw it not for what it was but for what it could be?

Not nearly enough.

This, I think, gets to the heart of Jesse’s craft. He is a excellent brewer—perhaps the finest in the region if you ask people who know. But more than that, he is a noticer, an examiner, a true conserationist. He believes there are old lands, old ways, old crafts, and old stones to be protected, and he orients his life around his belief.

Who can say whether Orthodox Farmhouse Brewery will be around in 100 years? No one. But hopefully, as long as this little brewery remains the pearl of Goshen, Jesse Gagnon will inspire its patrons to go a little slower, turn their eyes up a little more, ask a few more insightful questions. Hopfully, through Orthodox, he’ll inspire us to become noticers.

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