I was by Rock Bottom Chicago yesterday evening, and Pete Crowley's cooler is in serious danger of completely filling up with boxes containing National Homebrew Competition entries. You can't even get to the two tanks in back - they are surrounded by boxes. Pete says most of them are heavy - meaning they contain lots of entries and not very much packing material. I've never seen so many boxes - they just keep going on and on to the back of the cooler; an ocean of homebrew. We have our work cut out for us. We may be about to have even more than the record 813 entries we had in 1997, when I was Site Director. We'll know when we unpack this coming Saturday morning. Even if you can only judge one or two of the sessions Friday Evening 4/26 Saturday Morning 4/27 Saturday Afternoon 4/27 Sunday Morning 4/28 (might still be avoided with enough Sat. judges) we need you. More is better, of course, but even one session is good. Many of us will be there for all of the sessions. Our goal is to avoid judging sessions on Sunday evening, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... ... ... (but we'll do that if that's what it takes.) You will be judging in a bright, comfortable room, and you'll be fed very, very well. It is literally up one escalator and two flights of stairs from the Red Line "L" stop at Grand. Email Joe Preiser mailto:jpreiser@attbi.com to register to judge; be sure to tell him any styles you have entries in. Those who register earliest are more likely to get their first choices of styles to judge, so do it now! Roger Deschner rogerd(a)uic.edu =============== You can accomplish just about anything, ================ ================== given an adequate supply of beer. ===================