If you want it done right, you have to brew it yourself!

My wife and I were at Woodman's in Howard last Thursday. I had been looking for some replacement cherries to make my pLambic into a pKriek (the first ones I had got fuzzy on me: don't ask). Fortunately, Woodman's carries frozen, pitted Door County cherries! Read the labels carefully because some of them have added sugar. They also have frozen raspberries and a number of other fruits. They have dried cherries too, but those are about $7/pound whereas the frozen ones are about $1/pound. No affiliation, yadda, yadda.

Just a couple of random notes:

• My family and I went to Egan's for their Sunday brunch last Sunday. It's an excellent brunch and well worth the money. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
• I got an email from Dave at Freshops announcing that they have hop rhizomes available for purchase for the spring planting, as well as some hard-to-find whole hops. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.
• Version 1.6.a of Promash is available for download. If you haven't purchased ProMash yet, what are you waiting for?

Get those beers ready for the Titletown Open VII!

Mike got the Titletown Open VII entry forms converted into a PDF file. You can download it right here (164K). You will need to download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print this file.

The club brew is just about ready to be racked. It took off like nobody's business early Wednesday morning. Speaking of the club brew, when I was there I picked up a copy of the latest Cream City Suds. Who should happen to be on the cover but Egan's own gak, Paris, and Tim! Make sure to check it out!

There's a new Egan Brewing News available for your perusal. That's right, gak, I posted it the same day I got it!

Now that I'm finally caught up after vacation, I thought I should update the site with some stuff that was sent while I was gone. I updated the Egan Brewing News, which includes information on their next beer dinner on March 3.

Ryan Landwehr also sent along information on the N.E.W. Beer Fesitval which will be held on Saturday, March 31, from 6:00-10:00 P.M. at Monarch Gardens in Appleton. Tickets are $19 in advance and $23 at the door. You can get tickets at Adler Brau, Homebrew Market, and Flanagan's Stop & Shop.

Speaking of Ryan, he and I will be tag-teaming the club brew on March 6. Be there!

Egan Brewing is looking for a Brewery Sales Representative (someone to sell Egan's draft beers to local taverns and restaurants). Interested? Contact head brewer Richard Stueven at 339-2702.

I'm going to be AWOL until February 14. Don't wreck the place while I'm gone!

Hey kids! We need a brewer for the March Club Brew! Email me to volunteer! Don't make me come over there! Or use more exclamation marks!

I got all the schedule information from Mike so our schedule page is now up-to-date for 2001.

I actually have an excuse for not updating in a while. On Sunday night, January 14, I severed the tips off my index, middle, and ring fingers on my right hand in a snowthrower accident. I'm recovering well, and fully expect to be at Saturday's meeting. My typing is just 50% slower for the time being.

Steve Oswald gave me a good lead on a guestbook script. I'll work on getting it online as soon as my hand is healed up.

I officially yanked the guestbook code off the bottom of this page because htmlGear seems to have lost all of our entries. 90% of the time you can't get to their site anyway because their servers are overloaded. I guess we got what we paid for (it was free). If anyone is really interested in having a guestbook again email me and I'll look into it. Otherwise, I'll just forget about it.

gak sent along a couple of interesting tidbits:

• Since some of our members were interested in knowing when he brews at Egan, he's going to keep a schedule on Egan's website which he hopes to keep up-to-date. No guarantees on that, however.
• He also may be able to get his hands on some authentic Budvar, the real Budweiser, not the Clydesdale effluent they sell over here. Details to follow, I'm sure.

Club brew tonight at Egan! Be there!

gak sent along the latest Egan Brewing News, which contains another nice plug for our club, as well as an announcement of another upcoming beer dinner. Check it out!

Now that all the pictures have aged nicely in my in-box *cough*, I have finally gotten around to posting them! There are pictures from the brewing of the Titletown Open V Best-of-Show winner at Egan's, from our July club brew, and from our Christmas meeting. The pictures are courtesy of Richard "gak" Stueven, Bob Franklin, and Paris Cunningham, respectively. Whew! I'd better let my FTP client cool down a bit.

One of my New Year's resolutions should probably be to learn to read a calendar. Thanks to Chuck Golueke for pointing out to me that next Tuesday is the ninth, not the eighth. The club brew is indeed next week, Tuesday, January 9. Mea culpa.