The Frenzy Before the Storm

​It's been one heckuva week down here at Bone Up Headquarters and Novelty Snack Emporium, let me tell you. After we finished running around in circles and excitedly squealing about our permits (total estimated time: four days), it dawned on us that we've got a whole heckin' bunch of shit to do before we open on Saturday! For months, we've been shoveling stuff onto lists marked "To Do Later" or "Need to Do Before Opening the Taproom" or, simply, "Probably?" So it's been intense, but we're as close as we're gonna be to what you might call "ready:" our kegs are full, our staff is staffed (more about them later);*

Our snack bins are brimmin' with goodies;

The game shelf is fully stocked and ready to rock and/or sock;

And the walls are festooned with a whole bunch of weird art that we bought from comic strip artists!

We're ready to serve you beer! Life is good!

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​And somehow, in the midst of all this craziness, we still made time for the absolute highlight of our brewing year - Brewers' Day at Four Star Farms! As you may well know,** roughly half of the hops we use come from this fine farm in Western Mass,*** partly because we think it's the coolest that we know the people who grow our ingredients (the other reason is that we've been getting some crazy good aromas from their hops).

Anyway, they invited us out and we got to see their picking machine in action and meet a lot of other brewers and (most importantly) pull hop cones straight off the bine and smell the heck outta that fresh hoppy goodness (a process which left our hands yellow and sticky for the rest of the day)!

My point is: hop farms are cool and you should go visit one during harvest season if you can (that being said, you will also probably treated to more bragging about dirt than you're normally used to - they are farmers, after all). And amidst all the festivities, there was (of course) a bit of shop talk, which means (of course) that we've got some cool hop-related goodness comin' your way soon!

​Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to go take a nap on top of a grain bag. See you's Saturday!

* Holy heck. We're employers now!
** Or not, since we don't tout that fact as much as maybe we should. 
*** Loosely defined as "anything west of Newton."