Award winning....

...well, sorta.

Siena Heights University's Alumni weekend featured an alumni brew-off today. Which would have been great, except the only two participants were myself and Bill Blackerby, a business professor at the college. Bill has an affinity for porters and ales, so he brought some of that along, and I brought down four bottles of the first batch of Pilsner for judging.

Something happened along the way toward getting things organized, and not everyone who might have participated was notified to show up. So, basically, I won by default, although we sat down and had a nice conversation with Bill, Joe and Christi Balusik, Tony Scioly, and some other faculty and a few students. Bill did the show and tell bit on what homebrewing is, having brought along some of his equipment. I filled in a few details here and there, and in between watching the kids while they had their faces painted and bounced around in the big moon walk, I received some nice complements on the Pilsner. Bill disqualified himself for the grand prize -- a giant beer mug with an engraved plaque proclaiming the bearer to be "First Place -- 2004 SHU Alumni Brew-Off," so I ended up with it.

As a bonus, Mr. Balusik, who, uh, has connections in the Toledo glass industry, kicked in a couple of brand-new cases of 12oz bottles.

And a good time was had by all.