Between Two Beers
By Dick Thunder
The Club Mom. Just like in cub scouts, there must be one den mother. The one that makes sure we have our coats on and have all eaten a good meal. She always gets the snacks there and remembers the details we are all too stupid to think of. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure who is under the microscope this time. We are only blessed to have one woman in our club. What an important member she is. Kathy Troxell, here is your slanderous article.
Born in Standale and raised in Walker, Kathy spent much of her earlier years in Irons, Michigan. A graduate of Grandville High School, she would spend nearly every weekend in Irons. Her family still has a cottage there. She used to sell Watermelons and Cukes at a roadside stand in the summers to the tourists. Always a hard working business mind way back then.
Her personal life is a story in itself. She raised her 2 children largely by herself. She is now very excited about her first granddaughter on the way. She is a loving person that puts herself out there. There is no guile or intrigue there. What you see is what you get from KT.
Everybody knows she takes care of us, but do you know she is also an accomplished and experienced business professional? After bouncing around a few jobs at places like the Burger Den, Levine’s Department Store, and The Ice Cream Garage, she graduated Davenport with a BA in Finance and Communications.
After several years in the corporate world, she learned about Homebrewing. Her neighbors were congregating around a pot in the driveway. Her curiosity demanded that she check it out. Just like a mom, she came over with a plate of baked goods and investigated. She ended up being the first paying member of the Rivertown Homebrewers. When she first brewed, it was a Belgian Wit Kit. Shortly after that she made a mead, a sour cherry mead. That mead netted her a Silver Medal. Since then she has enjoyed several NHC final spots. Many ribbons and medals adorn her beer shrine at her house.
After her tenure at Rivertown, she was thinking of finding a new club. When leaving NHC and flying high on her big win, she was walking down the street when some bald and bearded asshole in a shitty pickup truck with a “No Farms No Food” sticker on it yelled that PTB needed women in the club so she should join them. She joined Brewsquitos because of that encounter. Soon she met the rest of the Primetime and came to her senses. Now she is a Primetime Member. She even has ties with the MOB, but we won’t hold that against her.
K Trox is known for her meads. With many different fruits, teas, and other flavors, she makes some very good flavor profiles. Trox says the biggest part of making good beers is to get your base styles down pat. Her philosophy is that cooking and brewing have many parallels. If you know your ingredients, and get some basic techniques under control, you can make some decent stuff.
When she is not brewing and mead making, she loves to entertain. Her dream job is to operate a brewing B and B. To some degree, she is doing that now. Shortly after parting ways with Meijer Corporate, she converted her Grandville home into a multiple room Air BnB. She did all the modifications and marketing herself. She even built her own Brew Barn of the garage. Part of the package when staying at Dutch Dame Brewing Bed and Breakfast is to learn to make beer or mead. Someday she would like to open a farmhouse style B and B in the country with an operating brewery and meadery.
What does Trox the Fox drink when she goes out? She loves 3 Floyds and Deschuttes, but her go-to local brewery is TwoGuys Brewing. When she goes downtown, she likes to hang out at the Knickerbocker on Bridge Street. You can also find her near home at Monellis because she says they make the best Old Fashioneds. This makes sense since if she couldn’t drink beer or mead anymore, it would be Bourbon.
To sum up Kathy Troxell, she is hard working, honest, smart, and always willing to teach people about her passions. She often says things that can easily become an innuendo. All of these qualities are great qualities in a mom. We are lucky to have her taking care of us.--DT
