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| Wort hog meeting |
I was one of the three original Wort Hogs for the club and it's grown to a point where we need to look for a bigger venue. We're different then the Madison Home Brew club who really don't talk about brewing any more. We have a different topic each month such as water chemistry, hops utilization and so forth. For next month we purchased 4 kits ($150 each) that will demonstrate 12 different problems with beer so we can figure out what went wrong through flavor profiling and so forth. I can't wait!
Every 3rd month is just a social meeting. What is nice is seeing members brewing award winning beer. We have had three beers brewed by Mobcraft (as seen on Shark Tank) and two more brews have been available at One Barrel in Madison. Our founding member is still working a million dollar brewery in Sun Prairie. The problem is that there are not enough contractors to go around and estimates for construction is 40% greater then anticipated. OUCH This will be a brewery with a brew pub as opposed to just a brew pub.
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| another Wort Hog Mobcraft brew |
Everyone is invited to come to the meetings which are typically the 4th Thursday of the month at The Nitty Gritty in Sun Prairie (but the 3rd Thursday in November).
OH - in case you are wondering "WORT" is what beer is before yeast is introduced to create alcohol.
If interested in the club contact me. We will be at the Colonial Ale fest next week and almost all the big beer fests in Wisconsin. We built a traveling 8 tap system.
In other news we have a number of Enerpac employees as Wort Hogs and it's always interesting to hear their side of things and what is going on there. Lots of interesting tidbits from the ground troops. Seems to be a problem getting employees with American Packaging eating up the few people Columbus has left to offer. Columbus need more people for industry. It's a catch 22. We need people for industry and industry to bring people.
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Here is something interesting about the election.
Of all the people voting for Clinton. 57% are voting FOR Clinton and 40% are voting AGAINST Trump. Of all the people voting for Trump 40% are voting FOR Trump and 55% are voting against Clinton.
The Clinton percentage has had a constant rise while the Trump percentage has been steady. The Trump number (40%) is the lowest FOR percentage . . . .ever (since 1980) while the Clinton percentage (57) is pretty much on par will all winners. Obama was 80% FOR in 2012. Trumps 40% is lower then even Bob Dole and much lower then the Bush's.
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In other news
Man Dressed as a Tree Arrested for Blocking Traffic
Bistro Racian (Italian Restaurant · Caterer · Pizza Place) is scheduled to open November 1st in the old Mama Mia's.
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| Postcards - available at The Workshop - larger quantities contact me |
Christmas Sleigh - EV Melotte
For most of my life I’ve carried in my mind an enchanted impression that felt like a memory. Although I’ve always known it couldn’t be a real one. It had to be something I’d read about in a children’s book.
Sometimes I get so involved in a book, that I feel I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve crossed the plains in a covered wagon, survived a storm at sea in a sailing vessel, escaped from a dark, stinking prison during The French Revolution. After reading Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, I was Chinese for three weeks.
So it was obvious that as a small child I’d read about the sleigh ride through the woods.
It was a wooden, box-like sleigh, pulled by two big horses with bells—deep toned bells—on their harness. It was a dark night, with enough snow-light to distinguish things but not enough to see them clearly. There was hay in the bottom of the sleigh, and around my feet and legs. I was small. I could just see over the wooden side. The clop of the horses’ hooves was muffled by the snow, the bells chimed continuously, the runners made a swishing sound under me. The air was bitey-cold even through the wooly scarf that covered my face up to the eyes, and it smelled of snow and haymow. We traveled a narrow white road between woods so deeply black that they must have gone back for miles.
Oh, it was beautiful. It was enchanted. I’ve always wished I knew what book it came from. I’d like to read it again.
In the Christmas season of 1998, I got a letter from my older brother, Wayne. He left home shortly after I did, and has lived in Ohio for fifty years.
When a man walks away from everything he knows and remembers and avoids thinking about any of it, he tends to forget. Wayne has blocked out almost all of his childhood. Recently I asked him a question about the interior of our Goodrich house, and he couldn’t even remember where his bedroom was.
In his letter he said that he had just been to a Christmas program at his church, and at the end everybody, performers and audience, stood and sang “Silent Night.” He said he was suddenly flooded with such an intense recall of a moment of his childhood that his knees almost buckled.
He was in the yard at Washington School, on a still cold night, standing beside the horses that had pulled the sleigh that had brought us to the Christmas program. The horses wore bells that sounded with every move of hoof or head. They were covered with blankets. Their breath rose in frosty clouds. The windows of the school were brightly lighted and there was a murmur of voices from inside. Wayne was worried for the horses. He was afraid they’d be cold, waiting outside while we were all warm inside.
Wayne wondered if I had been old enough to remember the year we all rode to the Christmas program in Emil Lemke’s sleigh.
It happened. That enchanted fragment of memory is real.
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Columbus had 2.52 inches of rain in that last storm.
