Dear friends Peter and Nancy are visiting for a few days from Columbus, OH and naturally we had to celebrate Petefest West (as opposed to Petefest East which is held in Columbus). Let me explain – Peter loves to homebrew and each year he holds a beer tasting for friends and family known as Petefest. I was thrilled to get on the invitation list while they were my neighbors years ago and since they moved in 2001, they have returned to host this event in Springfield 3 times and we have ventured to Columbus to participate there. Clearly Peter’s beer is worth the trip!
Not only does he enjoy the brewing – and sharing the final product – but he grows his own hops and provides us with a seminar on brewing along with colorful commentary about each beer and the origin of the name. In keeping with his professorial nature, he also provides a grading sheet for us to rate each beer on a scale of 1-10 and provide our comments. Wife Nancy, shown behind him in the photo, is his trusty grad assistant!
Last evening we gathered at the home of friends Bruce and Joyce to sample 9 of his beers, eat BBQ plus a plethora of yummy side dishes provided by the guests and then sit around the fire pit near the pool and polish off the rest of the beer along with some homemade wine courtesy of Joyce – a yummy peach and a super blueberry number.
Additional fun was provided by my buddy Dana – shown here with gal pal Laura. Dana scoured the local stores yesterday in search of these Halloween pens that light up when you write. Needless to say, the more beer we drank, the more entertaining they became!!! Dana is a member of the adjunct faculty of Webster University where Laura is the director – he starts his next term in a couple of weeks and will again teach Marketing. We suggested he show up at the first class with this pen and have the class develop a marketing plan for next Halloween based on the “run” on pens Dana created yesterday at Target, Walgreens, Hobby Lobby, etc!
Unfortunately while we were lushing it up at Petefest West, the MU Tigers forgot to play the second half of their football game and came out on the losing end of Oklahoma State – thereby insuring they will NOT be ranked #3 in the country next week and Chase Daniel may not again be a Heisman trophy contender.
