She stuck around long enough to share hard times and weird times, transitions and heartbreaks, long hikes and brief strolls. She looked like nothing but skin and bones those last few days, yet the flowery metal box that holds her ashes feels heavy as stone.

She got her name from a variety of hops but never liked beer or wine or sleeping on beds. She stole her share of pizza and meat scraps, of course, but scoffed at the niceties of domestic life. Her world centered on the job at hand. The watching. The yard. The squirrel. The magpie. The vole.

The flutter and the flight.

Recently, I met with Barb Miller and Mark Staples to look at the site for their brewery. They started Midnight Sun Brewing Co. in a small space next to a taxidermist on Arctic Boulevard in 1995. It probably outgrew itself a few years ago.

In early November, they signed a lease on a 10,000-square-feet space on a side street off Abbott Road between the Long Branch Saloon and Alaska Serigraphics. The building on Dimond Hook Drive offers three times the area as its current location, but, "We totally trust our industrial roots," Miller said.

By which she means that the view of the mountains might require looking over (or overlooking) equipment and gear. No one lives near enough to fret about noise or traffic -- fortunately -- though the brewery might run out of some beer varieties now and again.

Though Midnight Sun still makes beers such as Kodiak Brown, the brewery forged a reputation for pushing boundaries and creating series of Belgian ales.

Its Sin series generated buzz last winter, and its current Planet series includes Venus, a Belgian quadrupel spiced with star anise and aged in French oak, as well as Uranus, a golden Belgian ale fermented with 100 percent Brettanomyces yeast.

Jupiter, the eighth beer in the series, involves an even more time-consuming process. After fermentation, bottles are stored upside down, turned and shaken to get yeast to settle into the neck, cooled sharply so that the yeast plug can be removed and then dosed with more Jupiter before being corked and wired.

When it comes to beer, godliness has nothing to do with timeliness, so expect Jupiter to arrive in bottles after the new year. In the meantime, try the draft version called Zeus, a wonderfully robust and supreme beer by any measure.

Zeus tops out at 10 percent alcohol by volume and has a pronounced hop character. It costs $20 per growler.

The stuff might be long gone by the time the new location opens in March, but the core brew team will remain the same. If anything, the brewery will need to add staff to handle the to-go counter on the first floor and the food service area upstairs.

The second-floor "loft" area looks skeletal at the moment, but Stables and Miller envision it as a place where people can buy things like sandwiches, merchandise and 6- or 12-ounce beers.

The brewers have already plunked down cases of Jupiter at the new site, turning bottles and waiting for the yeast to settle. The world centers on the job at hand.

My dog Cascade practiced patience and willfulness in equal measure. Today I implore Zeus to help me do the same.

• Find Daily News reporter Dawnell Smith at adn.com/contact/dsmith or call 257-4587.