Sara Rebstock, an attractive widow, is suddenly startled at the sight of someone who looks like her late husband, Kyle Rebstock, who disappeared suddenly twenty years ago. Later that day, still greatly upset, she phones her married daughter, Emma, who tells her that she, too, feels sure she saw her father that afternoon.

All this reopens old wounds for Sara, as she recalls how her life changed when she married Kyle. Shortly after, she lost her parents in a railroad accident, inherited the family brewery and, for awhile, acted as president. Then, hoping to forestall Kyle's waning interest in her, she made him president. But he did not share Sara's pride in her hundred-year-old heritage and used the brewery for his own self-centered purposes. Making matters worse, Sara sensed he seemed more than professionally interested in Pamela, the recently-hired brewmaster. Once just an office worker, Pamela had left the brewery four years earlier to pursue a better job. Now she was back - a full-fledged brewmaster.

Sara's suspicions grow, and when Kyle returns from a week-end business trip, she confronts him. Furious, he stamps out of the house and is never seen again. After several years, he is declared legally dead.

The brewery continued to flounder. Finally, Sara and her much-loved uncle, Vincent Streicher, decide the time had come to sell it.

The owner of a small brewery in northern Wisconsin, who wants to move to Milwaukee, makes an offer. They accept it, and this changes Sara's life in ways she never would have thought possible.