It's one of the hottest hop tips you'll receive all week: If you live in the Great Lakes Brewing News region, you're probably aware of the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison every August on the second Saturday. I may be biased, but others have called it one of the best beer festivals they've ever attended and wouldn't miss it for just about anything. And if you don't want to miss it this year today is the day to send in your ticket orders for the second longest-running craft beer festival in North America, Details are posted at http://mhtg.org , but here are a few highlights: Orders postmarked *ON* May 1 will be entered into a random lottery and the lucky orders will receive tickets. If you've tried to jump the queue by sending before May 1, sorry, but you made yourself ineligible. If you don't send until May 2, you won't be ineligble in that sense, but orders come from among the earliest eligible postmarks, and as a practical matter that means May 1 because the host Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild typically receives May 1 orders for more tickets than supply is available to fill those orders. They're $35 this year (yes, costs of just about everything have gone up), but most still consider it a bargain, and the limit remains four tickets per household. And their volunteer ticket processors are good at spotting attempted cheaters trying to order more than their fair share, and orders from people trying to go over the limit (that includes multiple envelopes) get returned unfilled (and not just the excess, but all the multiple orders--trying to stuff the mailbox in an attempt to increase one's chances in the ticket lottery , will almost assure that you will get zero, And for the possible few who sneak on by the ticket sellers' watchful eyes are only bringing bad beer karma onto themselves. In short, just play by the rules. Good luck, hop tipplers, and we'll hope to see you in August. Noe go have a beer, Bob Paolino, columnist and Hop Tips editor Great Lakes Brewing News -- To unsubscribe from this list visit http://www.brewingnews.com/hoptips/?p=unsubscribe&id=3&uid=2bfe577c… To update your preferences visit http://www.brewingnews.com/hoptips/?p=preferences&uid=2bfe577ca06c37a79… -- Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --