I’ll throw out an update while it’s still actually Monday.  Not that I’m even consistent on that anymore but what the heck.

So last weekend we took a lightly-planned drive to Cincinnati to visit with the Paff family.  We’ve been trying to plan a weekend with them someplace for a while now, but it never quite worked out for both our schedules.  As it happened, they were having a Beer Festival in Cincy this past weekend, so we figured that would work as well as anything.  Donette’s parents were nice enough to watch Teagan on short notice, so we packed up the car and headed east.  We made it as far as St. Louis on Thursday night, where we stopped for dinner with Jeff & Victoria and got a good night’s rest.  Friday morning we hopped up early and got back on the road, and got to Ed and Kim’s around four.  That left us just about enough time to change clothes and head out to the first night of the beer fest.  We met up with Ed’s family as soon as we got there and proceeded to make the rounds of the endless selections.  I don’t think I had a single thing I’d tried before during the entire night, and I’d say most were from breweries I’d never even heard of.  The event was rather lightly attended for the enormous venue it was held in, which worked great for us;  Huge selection and no lines for anything.

Saturday morning, Ed got up and headed back downtown to attend the 5B conference downtown.  Believe me, I was more than a bit disappointed that I missed out on this event.  I mean c’mon;  A whole conference dedicated to blogging?  That’s just too nerdy to be true.  Which is to say, right up my alley.   But, alas, I waited too long and they were all full by the time we decided we were making the trip.  Who knows where it may have led had I gotten in.  Actual interesting content on this site?  Doubling my hit-count per week to, say, four-ish?  The sky would have been the limit.  Oh well, there’s always next year.  I DID, however, get to go to the “Connoisseur Reception” with Ed and some friends before the general admission opened up at the Beer Festival Saturday night though, which was pretty sweet.  They had a selection of beers there, paired with some interesting foods, that we walked around and sampled for an hour or so before heading down to the main floor.  It was quite interesting, as the people serving the beers at this event were generally very knowledgeable about what they were pouring.  (In some cases even the Brewer.)   Downstairs it was more of a “Yeah we’re just volunteering, which one would you like.”  Unfortunately this just lasted a short time and then we headed downstairs to find an absolute mob scene at the main festival.  They posted a picture of the madness on the Hoperatives site.  Not quite the scene for this old man;  I didn’t last too long.  Kim came down and rescued us and we headed back to the house for some peace and quiet.  Ed posted some more info on the event at his site, as well as a few of his favorite brews of the weekend.  My favorite?  Well, I’m going to say the Imperial India Pale Ale from Green Flash Brewing.  Not exactly a bold pick but it was just that good.  Close second was the White Rajah IPA from The Brew Kettle, or maybe the Double Stout from Green Flash.  (I really liked the Green Flash selections;  They should broaden their distribution for my benefit.)

Sunday we discussed a few possible entertainment options, but ended up just hanging out with Ed, Kim and Trey all day in Cincy, which suited us just fine.  We were a bit worn out.  We had our obligatory lunch at Skyline, then drove around and checked out some local shopping, including probably the single coolest grocery I’ve ever been to.  Rash statement, but true.  Ed had a hockey game at 6:00 so we all went and watched him play, and that pretty much finished us off for the weekend.  Today we got up and made the rather brutal drive all the way back to KC.  And aren’t we glad to be back;  Lovely snow, just lovely.