Dear Kid,

Last night we went to MadTree Brewery for a celebration for Ohio River Foundation and Dad’s birthday. Unless it was Dad’s birthday and an ORF celebration.

Either way, we were there.

We had a goat cheese pizza and a variation on mac and cheese. One of these days I’ll remember to photograph food before we eat it.

Ohio River Foundation is the charity of the month at MadTree. So if you go to MadTree during December, you can throw a dollar (or many dollars) up on the screen, and at the end of the month the money will go to ORF. (They get the money down from the screens with a leaf blower!)

Happy today,

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Many college students think they know all there is to know about beer (drink it). Many parents of college students think they know all there is to know about the cost of beer (82% of the kid’s food budget).

While both of these may be true for actual college kids, it is far from accurate in the World of Beer as I had the great fortune to learn this past weekend.

Huge thank you to Best Friend Errand Service for inviting me to help set up for the Samuel Adams employee Oktoberfest event. And huge, HUGE thank you to the Samuel Adams folks for showing us around and letting me see things that aren’t usually on the “you’re here to get this place set up” tour.

Samuel Adams’ Utopias® is a blend of batches in which the barrels become “an integral part of the brewing and aging process.” It’s an uncarbonated dark beer (did you even know there was such a thing as uncarbonated beer? I did not) so you can drink a wee bit and close the bottle back up for another time.

Utopias is not for the poor college student as a single bottle (complete with its very own limited edition number) will run you several hundred dollars. If you can get one. Which is not at all obvious because of the “limited” part of limited edition (they made less than 15,000 bottles in the last production year).

Not only is it rare and expensive, there are 13 states where you can’t even buy Utopias because the alcohol content exceeds the legal limit for beer. Yes, Ohio is one of the states where it is verboten.

Now you know.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Yesterday I toured a beer brewery.

It was even cooler than it sounds.

Social Media Cincinnati had a gathering. They frequently have Saturday afternoon get-togethers on dates and at times that are particularly inconvenient, so I was very happy that I could get to this one. Also it had been waaaaay too long since I’d seen some of those folks.

The Gathering was at MadTree which you have never been to, partly because I’d never heard of it before this event and partly because you are underage.

But let me back up to tell you about getting there.

Now, there is no one alive who is going to say that I am the best navigator on the planet. I’m not the worst mind you, but if there were an Olympic sport in navigation, I’m quite sure the selection committee would bypass our house without a thought.

Fortunately, I had printed out the directions.

I was driving down I71, paying close attention to the traffic and all traffic laws, when the traffic stopped. And by “stopped” I mean “stopped.” Red lights, not moving, out of nowhere stopped. The car in front of me fishtailed wildly (no, it did not look like fun). I slammed on my brakes.

The good news: I did not hit the car in front of me and the car behind me did not hit me. Big “whew.” The less good news: my purse went flying. And by “flying” I mean crashed to the floor and spilled the contents pretty much everywhere. Guess where the directions were? If you guessed “in your purse” give yourself an extra point.

The good news: I remembered which exit to take. The less good news: I had no idea what to do after that.

When I got off the highway, there was a Home Depot right in front of me. Yippee (I thought to myself) I’ll just pull into the parking lot and grab the directions.

There was a very (very) long red light before I could pull into the HDPL (Home Depot Parking Lot). So I put the car in park and tried to reach for the directions.

Have you ever noticed that I am a short person? With correspondingly short arms? I could not reach the directions while I was buckled in. Even when I made the “ooooo I’m reaching” sound. As it was a very (very, very) long red light, I grabbed the lint roller (in the car to remove Booker fur as necessary). It was just long enough and there was just enough sticky stuff left to grab the paper with the directions.

You’ll be glad to know I got to MadTree, no problem.

There were lots of lovely, fun people there who you don’t know, so I won’t list them out. (Hi, lovely, fun people—it was great seeing you!)

MadTree is not only a taproom (place that sells beer) but a craft brewery. And they gave us a tour (I am a sucker for a fun tour). It was very interesting. MadTree doesn’t bottle their beer, they can it. (Cans are kinder to the beer and to the environment—apparently people are more inclined to recycle cans than they are to recycle bottles.) The canning line is small—it fills four cans at a time, which translates to an amazing 2 cases a minute.

It was all very nice and—you will be glad to know—I made it home without any mishaps.

Hope your day was equally intoxicating (figuratively speaking).

Love, Mom

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