Holy cow guys! It’s been a month since I’ve posted anything on the old blogging machine, but for good reason! See we’ve been getting ready for the Breese Fall Festival where we poured three of our favorite brews.

We poured our Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale.

Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter.

And our Red Rye-der Red Rye IPA.

This event is held in the beautiful city of Breese, IL and it’s a chance for homebrewers to showcase their beer in a friendly competition. BUT it’s not just about the beer, there’s a little something for everyone as you can see from the flyer.

All in all this competition is a blast! The people of Breese are just a wonderful group, very welcoming, very friendly and they know their craft beer!

First you set up your booth, then you wait for the people to make their way around to try your beer. The best part about this event is you get instant feedback. You get to see the look on the person’s face when they try your beer and get a genuine response. You know instantly if they would buy your beer if it was in a bar or on a store shelf.

Our first customer of the day!

There was a great turnout!

Our best customers of the day were Dwayne and JT! Cheers fellas!

Brian chatting up Blues Alumni Terry Yake and 97.1 radio personality Dave Glover as they sample our beer.

This. Is. Focus.

By the end of the day we had three empty kegs, that’s 15 gallons of delicious craft beer served to the wonderful people of Breese. We converted a few macro drinkers, found a favorite beer for a lovely woman who “doesn’t even like beer”, made some great friends, drank plenty, ate a lot and just had a great time.

Oh and we won a couple of things too! Our Hot Blonde Jalapeño Blonde Ale took first place in the Open Class and we won third place in the People’s Choice category. Thank you to the Breese Optimist Club for putting on this great event and thank you to the fantastic people of Breese, IL!

Until next time…