Hi, Brink. My son's "Bears Den Pizza" is finished except for enclosing a patio on the side of the building, which we will probably do next week; besides some additional seating during nice weather, we need it in order for the smokers to be able to take drinks outside. It was a lot of hard work, and I worked completely through the night from Tuesday afternoon until after 6 p.m. Wednesday night when they had their 'soft' opening for family, friends, and special invitees (Mayor, Chief of Police, college coaches, etc.). They then opened to the public last night.

The place is named after the U.C.A. 'Bears', which is the college across the street, and it is painted with the school's colors, and the decor is done up like a sports bar with most of the memorabilia being from U.C.A., but also some from various high schools in the county. The waitresses are pretty much college girls, and their outfits make them look sort of like U.C.A. cheerleaders. U.C.A. has over 12,000 students, and with the dorms right across the street and the football stadium just a few hundred yards away, ... and since we are the only place serving alcohol within perhaps a mile or two of the college, ... we think the business will do very well. I also think the city is going to install one of those special cross-walks that have flashing lights embedded in the street that are triggered whenever someone starts into the crosswalk.

Now, as for selling MY beer, I would need a brewery license, which I can't get because we are in a 'dry' county -- so no alcohol can be manufacturered or sold here; the reason my son can sell is because he obtained a special 'private club' license, which is the only exception for the backward rules that Arkansas has for dry counties. So unless the people vote to go 'wet' (and there is nothing on the ballot for that this election) or the laws change, we can't brew here. Of course, we could brew in another county that is already wet, and then sell the beer to his restaurant, but that wouldn't be very practical for a small operation. Adding a small brew-pub operation to the restaurant would be the thing to do, and then brew maybe ten gallon batches at a time (that's how Sam Calagione started 'Dogfish Head Craft Brewery', which has expanded into selling beer in something like 20 states, IIRC) -- so small batch brewing is a feasible way to start.

After the election, I plan to begin lobbying our legislators to see if we can get that law changed. If it does, then I think my son and his partner will try to persuade the 'nail salon' next door to relocate so that they can lease it to expand the restaurant into that area and still have enough space for some brewing. If we can do all of that, and if our own brew seems popular enough with the customers, then we would probably expand into some small commercial size batches -- maybe something like 5 barrels at a time.

There is another ridiculous law that I'm going to try to get changed, too. Currently private clubs can't purchase beer or liquor from any wholesale distributors; instead, they are required to purchase at retail from the same liquor stores where any citizen can purchase, which really drives the cost up and then that has to be passed onto the customer. I can't imagine the reason for such a law; it just doesn't make sense to me.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

I've been out of town, so I haven't had a chance to congratulate our team on the big jump in performance from 11/2 through 11/4, with a new team record in daily points of 187,249 crunched on 11/4.

I estimate that we should jump to #92 in four more days. Great work, everyone.

Regarding brewing, I bottled two batches on Sunday, but didn't have the time to brew and I have nothing fermenting right now. I have a lot of things going on right now, but maybe I'll be able to squeeze in a brew session sometime this weekend.

By the way, another small milestone for my brewing interests is that my Yahoo 'Brewing Equipment' group, which is dedicated exclusively to that topic, finally had its 1,100th member join.

Cheers.

Our team's three-year "Anniversary" is tomorrow, so I will be posting an announcement in the various brewing forums where I am a member, and I invite all of you to post one in any forum where you don't see one from me, or even post your own separate message and/or endorsement of my message if you see one somewhere. Our team will be three years old tomorrow, and I can tell you that I have conducted extensive recruitment campaigns many times over those years -- at least two or three a year -- with constant reminders at the bottom of my signature block in posts that I make in brewing forums. With the vast numbers of homebrewers that I probably am reaching, I am disappointed that our team has remained so small, especially when I realize that many of our members have been recruited by people other than by me and my efforts.

To give a comparison of effectiveness of recruitment, I formed my 'Grow-Hops' yahoo group 18 months ago (May 21, 2007), and in half as much time our our team has existed, our Grow-Hops membership has grown to 2,459 -- as compared to only 106 for our team, and many of them aren't active either; how I wish that I were only one tenth as successful with my WCG recruiting. <sighhhhh> Anyway, we can't give up the fight, so please keep on crunching and also please help with some recruiting if you can.

Here are links to the 18 remaining teams we are gaining upon, with 'Homebrewers' listed on the third link:
http://tinyurl.com/6d4clj
http://tinyurl.com/5astr8
http://tinyurl.com/66plvz

Here are links to 16 teams that are gaining on us:
http://tinyurl.com/5e84qz
http://tinyurl.com/5meyej

Thanks again to all of you for your help.

Cheers.

Hi, Fred. Nice to hear from you again. You sound like you lead an extremely interesting life even if you don't get to 'vacation' during your travels. The only countries I've ever visited are Mexico and the Bahamas.

As you can tell, we've slipped another position -- down to #94 -- and unfortunately I have spotted two new teams that have snuck up on us and are gaining fast -- team 'BOINCstats' now #133 and 'TeAm AnandTech' now #212. Recruitment has become nearly impossible, so it will be a struggle just to stay in the Top 100 as long as possible, and the end is coming soon. But we've had a good run and a lot of fun in the race, and the most important thing is the good that our team has accomplished.

Here are links to the 18 remaining teams we are gaining upon, with 'Homebrewers' listed on the third link:
http://tinyurl.com/6d4clj
http://tinyurl.com/5valc8
http://tinyurl.com/54tvb7

Here are links to 16 teams that are gaining on us:
http://tinyurl.com/5edk9q
http://tinyurl.com/58k4d5

Thanks again to all of you for your help.

Now for some 'brewing' discussion. I brewed a partigyle on Saturday to make a 5 gallon batch of IPA and another 5 gallon batch of pumpkin ale. I decided to do the pumpkin ale a little different this time to compare it to my previous batches. My other batches did not actually include pumpkin, but just the spices, and they turned out real nice -- the favorite of one of my sons. I've read posts about adding pumpkin to the mash and about adding it to the boil. Neither approach seemed reasonable to me; putting it in the mash risks a stuck sparge and the possible loss of some flavor components, etc. And since the nutritional information had some unaccounted grams of carbohydrates -- after listing sugar and fiber -- I had to conclude that they were starches, although not specifically listed as such, and I didn't want unconverted starches in the boil to cause haze later. So, I mashed my grains and then after 15 minutes, recirculated my mash just a little bit to be sure I had a good mix of enzymes and as a vorlauf to clear it, and then I drained about half a gallon of runnings and added them to a separate pot with my two 15oz. cans of pumpkin pie filling, and held that at 152F as a separate mini-mash. After sparging my main mash, I added everything to the kettle, including all of the pumpkin which I _assume_ had converted any starches (I didn't have any iodine to test for starch, but it mashed for at least 45 minutes before going into the kettle). I have also started my tincture of vodka and pumpkin spices in a mason jar, and will add that at bottling time as I have done in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. I know that 30 oz. of canned pumpkin isn't much for a 5 gallon batch (less than recipes I've seen), but it should be enough to indicate if it makes a difference, and I'd rather adjust a little at a time.

Cheers.

I'll always have a cold beer waiting for you here at home if you're ever in Greenbrier, Arkansas.

Thanks for joining us. Do you brew beer, or just like to drink it. If you brew, please feel free to share any techniques, recipes, etc. If you don't brew ... WHY NOT??

While I try to keep this forum going with a new post at least every week or so, if you are really interested in learning or sharing a lot about brewing, you should visit my portal to my various brewing pages, including 'Grow Hops' which currently has 2,479 members, and BrewingEquipment which now has 1,125 members.

Welcome to the group; it's nice to have you.