Today is the 61st birthday of Tony Simmons, who owned the Pagosa Brewing & Grill of Pagosa Springs, Colorado Springs, which was founded in 1996. He began homebrewing in his school locker, but later got more formal training attending the Siebel Institute. He also created the recipe for Poor Richard’s Ale in 2006 to celebrate the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin, and with the BA invited all members to brew it, too, and over 100 breweries took him up on it, brewing their own version of his recipe. I run into Tony from time to time at beer invents, and it’s always a fun time. More recently, in July of 2022, Tony and his wife Julie closed the brewery and retired. Join me in wishing Tony a very happy birthday.