If you've been looking at information about the coming Mash Out, you should know that we're offering two special activities: Indoor Pub Crawl - like last year, we'll have growlers with a variety of beers from some brewpubs. Taste the beers and help determine the "people's choice". Sale of growlers - a new activity - we'll be gathering orders for growlers from some brewpubs and will deliver them during the competition. In order to accomplish this, I need some volunteers to talk with the brewpubs to solicit their participation and to pick-up the growlers and bring them to the competition site. We'll also be offering discounts from the brewpubs as well as good beer bars. Here's an initial list of the brewpubs and bars that we're considering: Granite City - Fargo, Maple Grove, St Louis Park, St Cloud, Eagan Town Hall - Mpls Rock Bottom - Mpls Herkimers - Mpls Great Waters - St Paul Green Mill - St Paul O'Garas - St Paul Barley Johns - New Brighton Mantorville O'Haras - St Cloud Backwater- Winona Muddy Pig - St Paul - bar - discounts, not growlers Happy Gnome St Paul - bar - discounts, not growlers So, the first part - please let me know if you have a good relationship with the brewer/manager and are willing to ask them: If they would like to be part of the growler sale - we'll take orders, give them the totals, pick them up and pay for them. If they would like to donate prizes for medal winners. This could be a "assistant brewer for a day" for a first place medal, or a free pint, or a yeast sample, etc. Up to them. If they would like to provide growlers for the pub crawl (this would be a donation), we're not paying for it. There will be a People's Choice award determined by ballots. Offer discounts to all MashOut participants. These would be distributed in the volunteer package and almost anything goes, i.e. $1 of pint, buy one get one at half price, buy 'something' get 'something', etc. The discount could last only through the competition weekend, or any other time that they agree with. I have some more detailed information to review with whoever agrees to work with a specific brewpub/bar. The second part is to volunteer to pick up the growlers for the growler sale and the indoor pub crawl. This needs to be done either Thursday, January 25th or Friday, January 26th. So, please let me know if you could work with a brewpub/bar to arrange their participation or could help with the pickup of growlers. Finally, if you know of other brewpubs or good beer bars or also good restaurants to solicit, please let me know. Thanks! See you at MashOut! -- //Mike Behrendt MGBehrendt(a)mn.rr.com Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. Groucho Marx