Boredom, wasted time, disaster

It's been really quiet here at the brewery. I've spent most of my time working on my brewery record-keeping software, converting it from Windows and Microsoft Access to Linux and MySQL.

I delivered five half-barrels of root beer to Council Bluffs on Thursday.

The PT Cruiser is bigger on the inside

Paris flew home from Boston on Friday, but I couldn't be there to collect her, because Dusters catered the 2008 Cattlemens Ball in Albion. It's a huge annual event, drawing some 700 people for Friday's party, and 4,000 for Saturday's festivities. They bought two half-barrels of beer from us for resale at three bucks a glass, and I brought three more quarter-barrels for free sampling, along with a half-barrel of root beer. We started at 6:00pm, and ended at 9:00.

The grounds of the Cattlemen's Ball

Something you don't see every day: a stretch Cadillac Escalade

A cowgirl entertains the Coors guys

Lots of people eating, no people drinking

At the end of the night, after three hours of standing behind the table, we had sold nine beers and three cups of root beer. We had poured maybe three gallons of free samples, including those we drank ourselves.

One ticket per beer sold

Dusters' food tables were very busy the whole night, but for me, it was a colossal waste of time.

Paris had checked into a hotel in Omaha, so I drove there to join her, and we came home Saturday. (She flew out again on Sunday.)

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Last week, I had ordered yeast for my upcoming beers. (Recall that my Hefeweizen yeast had been mistakenly sent to a root beer customer a few weeks ago.) Seven liters of Hefeweizen yeast, seven liters of ale yeast, and one liter of Strong Belgian Ale yeast. Nearly eight hundred dollars worth of yeast in all. It was scheduled to arrive on Friday, and apparently it did, while I was not at the brewery.

I discovered the box of yeast, clearly marked "REFRIGERATE UPON ARRIVAL", in the stairwell at the brewery, where it had been festering at 80°F all weekend. The sides of the box were bulging. It doesn't look like the individual containers ruptured, but I didn't open the box to find out. I put it downstairs in the cooler. I guess I'll open one up tomorrow to see if it smells like it will make beer, but more than likely, it's $800 worth of yeast shot to hell.

Fuck it. I've got kegs to clean.