John responds: As I mentioned in an e-mail to this list serve a few weeks ago, my girlfriend Dawn and I were very disappointed with St. Cloud's Granite City's beer when we stopped there in June on the way home from the bluegrass festival. We make a point of seeking out every brewpub on any trip we take (we're right now hitting about 8 Colorado brewpubs this week!), and have probably been to 30 in our various adventures. We both concurred that the beer at Granite City was the worst we had experienced at any brewpub in MN, CO, WA, WI, ND, or TX. We had never given a brewpub's entire line of beers a complete thumbs-down before we visited Granite City. Each brewpub had at least one very good beer (we always get the sampler platter) or had a slew that were passable. There seemed to be a flaw in each of Granite City's offerings, and we left much of each sample. There are plenty of brewpubs that produce only mediocre beers, but this was the first place we had sought out that didn't even get a grade of 'C.' Perhaps they were just having a bad hops day? On the topic of brewpubs, in today's Denver Post it was reported that Oasis Brewing is closing their Boulder brewpub after New Year's Eve. It has been in business for 11 years, so apparently, brewpubs aren't safe even in the best beer state in the Union. Of course, there are five other Boulder brewpubs, and the town is only 100,000 thirsty consumers strong. Oasis will continue their brewing and bottling line. That's all the news from Colorado. Happy Brew Year! John _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963