I know we have some beer enthusiasts here - so yesterday...

Was the grand opening of a bar called The Hopcat in the nearby town of Lansing. This is their second bar now - the first opened up in my wife's home town of Grand Rapids in the past, and she loved the food there. It became pretty popular in short order, and the opening here just before MSU students get back into town got a fair amount of press:

http://www.mlive.com/business/jackson-lansing/index.ssf/2013/08/hopcat_east_lansings_grand_ope.html

Of course, it wasn't just the opening up of the bar that drew attention, but a goal that they sought and hit. The bar put 100 beers on tap, all from Short's Brewing Company. It was an attempt at a new world record - the previous one of 70 - so they topped it by 30.

My wife doesn't care for beer - but loves the 'crack fries' - and she knows I'm a craft beer enthusiast so she and some friends agreed they wanted to go yesterday. The place opened at 11 - we got there about 9:30 and we were around the 250th people in line at that point. Some people had lined up and been waiting since 9:30pm the previous night. At my workplace we have quite a few craft brew enthusiasts, including about a dozen who make their own batches as well. Several of them had arrived at 7am and were among the first 200 in (who get crack fries now once a week all year long for free).

My little adventure almost ended early though. My wife had become the designated driver for our party of four (because - well, she doesn't like beer) - but the line was going VERY slowly once the initial group of people got in at 11. They were not hurrying people through (in fact, my other co-workers who got in about 11:30 did not leave until about 7pm) and they feared they would not get in, fed and home in time to pick up their kids from the babysitters. I admit, I wanted to stubbornly stick to it (I had after all, taken a day of paid vacation from work to participate), but eventually I relented and we jumped out of line much to my chagrin around 1. The estimated wait was still another two hours.

We drove back to our hometown (about 30 minutes away) dropped them off and I wound up texting some other coworkers who had arrived after we left. They said the wait time on the lines was down to about an hour. My wife rather surprised me by saying we should go back - so we did. We waited it out about another hour, and we go t in. It took us about 35 minutes to get seated at a table from there, but at least we had access to the all-important bar. She settled on a long island ice tea and whiskey sour, and I got to try a couple of brews while I was waiting (woodmaster and bourbon evil urges). The place was packed, and during our wait they finished off the first of their 100 taps - causing the staff to break out and sing '99 barrels of Short's on the wall'. Considering how busy it was, and likely how tired the employees had to be, they were all very friendly.


Eventually we got seated - in what was probably the coolest, most casual seat in the house. We wound up on the second floor, on a nice leather sofa with a view over the main floor and the front doors. The food was excellent and I *might* have worked in a few more beers (Peaches and cream ale, The Gambler, Bourbon Wizard, Chocolate Wheat, Liberator... I wanted to try a wide variety). By the time we left (we hung about for a few hours, just chatting and nibbling on food and sipping at drinks) 3 more taps had emptied out, all to the tune of 'barrels of Short's on the wall'. it was a neat, record-setting event, and boy if I didn't sleep really well last night after all that standing and having a drink (or .

The moral of the story? Um... beer is good, my wife rocked with the unexpected visit back, and I got to participate in the setting of a new world record. I figured I'd share this out - we have a few beer enthusiasts (Matt's talked about making a site about beers for some time now - how is that not a forum here yet? lol), so I figured I'd share with the rest of the class.