Update

Hello again from inside the walls of NHBC. It has been a while (a long while) since we have posted anything and I felt it was time to get back at it. I should first say that we were trying to rotate posts in order to give everyone a chance to speak, but we've all been a bit busy and the blog was last on the priority list. That being said, a lot has happened since our last post. First up was festival season - and oh what a season we had. The Michigan Brewers Guild summer festival was great, two days of great beer and good friends. When you work in the industry, the party doesn't really start until the festival is over - and we took full advantage. Without going into too much detail (and giving the prosecution too much evidence) there was extreme intoxication (that's a given), more male nudity than society was ready for (including naked man-ass being thrusted on the hood of a car driving through a trailer park to the tune of Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls"), and a failed attempt at getting a stripper (apparently you need to give them money when they show up). I'm not going to say that all of these activities were appropriate or in any way justified, but if you want the truth - there it is. The Great Taste of the Midwest was also a hell of a time. For the third?? year in a row we took home the award for best booth - I guess when you show up with burlesque dancers it's kind of in the bag. In all seriousness, we put a lot of effort into making our booth what it was and we were all very proud of it (no naked man-ass ensued at this festival however). Also since we have posted last we hired a new brewer, Jeff Sheehan. Jeff worked at a brewpub in Idaho for a while and is somehow fitting right in with the likes of us. Look for him to blog shortly. In other news, there's another new brewer around, Collin Michael Haggery - that's right, John had a child! We're all really happy for John and Danielle and can't wait to meet the little guy. If only my father had that sort of beer cellar when I was growing up - the kid is going to be 14 years old chugging bottles of Cantillon in the basement when mom & dad are gone! What else is new? We got in two new 100BBL fermenters a few months ago, which have helped up our capacity a bit. Also, (and make no mistake about it, I'm letting the cat out of the bag here) we have recently brewed an Imperial Stout. It's the first time we've done it and it should be big, so look for that in a few months. So with all of that having gone on in the last few months, our fearless leader John Haggerty is taking the whole crew out to dinner in Grand Rapids tonight. I myself am a little nervous. It seems that every time we all get together there is an epic story the next morning. I think the last time I stayed the night at John's house I was trying to figure out how I was going to replace urine-soaked couch cushions the next morning - that was never a conversation that I had envisioned having with my boss. At any rate, we will make an effort to blog more - please feel free to leave comments on this site, we always enjoy them. Until next time...

Pierre LeClaire