The Hulmeville Inn RULES

Thanks to the Hulmeville Inn, Jeff Lavin, and ALL the folks who gave so generously Sunday afternoon: we raised almost $1200 for pancreatic cancer research...WITH BEER!! You folks are beautiful! My thanks also to the folks who came to the Hulmeville for the first time just for this event (okay, and the six Russian River drafts they were pouring), including members of my church choir!

It was a great day. My dad never went to the Hulmeville, but twice the folks there have turned out their pockets in his memory, and to help smack down this swift, vicious killer. If Jeff will keep offering, I'll keep doing this; help me make this a big annual event. And bars/brewers: I'll be happy to come host a pancreatic cancer fundraiser at YOUR place of business. Just drop me a line and we'll talk. Thanks again!

Great beer, great cause, you, me, Hulmeville Inn, 11/20...what's not to like?

Jeff Lavin, the big-hearted beer-loving owner of the Hulmeville Inn (and congrats to him for pegging #36 on the FooBooz 50 Best Bars list!) is gonna help me memorialize my father again on November 20, and you're gonna want to be there: it's a Russian River-Sierra Nevada-Lew Bryson Collaboration, as I give up one of my two kegs of Sierra Nevada Exportation, the beer I helped design and make with the Philly Pholks at Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp last year...that we double-batched, half of it being sent to Russian River to age in wine barrels there for a year. I tasted some during Philly Beer Week, and it's a wonderful, lightly sour, very drinkable Baltic porter (you'll see by the huge variances in the BA tasting notes that it's a beer that takes some thought).

The last time we did this...that's Mike, The Hawk, and Jeff!

It is, of course, extremely rare at this point, as are Russian River beers outside of California, and you've got a chance to have all that as Jeff puts on the Exportation and at least two other RR drafts. Proceeds from the sales of Exportation will go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network for research into this terribly swift killer. We'll be accepting direct donations as well (I'll be throwing in a hunk of cash, I urge, beg, cajole you to do the same), and will send it all in; please be generous. This is the disease that took Steve Jobs, and -- last June -- my father. It means a lot to me. Thanks, Jeff.

Hope to see you out there at the Hulmeville on November 20, starting at noon! 

THANK YOU to everyone at the Hulmeville Inn!

I went down to the Hulmeville Inn yesterday to celebrate Steve Hawk's win as Philly Beer Geek. When I got there, the first thing I did was order a Sierra Nevada ExPorter, because Jeff Lavin, the owner, had decided that he would donate the proceeds from the sales of that keg to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in my father's memory. When I wanted to pay, the bartender told me, "You'll have to find The Mayor; he's got The Can." Hah?

Well, I knew who The Mayor is, anyway: Mike Sodano. So I went looking for Mike, and found Jeff. Jeff went to look for Mike, and I went back to my excellent beer (kept for me by my excellent wife and the charming Bryan and Patty Kolesar, and Philly Beer Geek organizer Carolyn Smagalski, who is recently engaged, congrats!). About ten minutes later, Mike and Jeff came and got me for pictures. Pictures? Yeah. What happened, before I got there, they'd strapped a 3 gallon keglet of ExPorter to Steve's back (at left), and he'd gone around telling people what was going on, and Mike followed him with a can for donations. Jeff handed me an envelope that had a check and and more cash donations that totaled $843 for pancreatic cancer research. (That's Mike, me, and Jeff in the picture below; we grabbed Christine Gumpper and got her in because she's such a sweetheart.)

I was stunned...but not speechless. Mike got the mike, quieted the crowd, and let me speak. I told them what they'd done, told them they were fantastic, thanked them "from the bottom of my beer-soaked heart," and toasted my father with them. It was a humbling moment. My thanks to everyone there that day. I will write a check for the cash, and send both checks into PCAN tomorrow.

I may have found a cause.