Don’t worry, we’re not moving to somewhere lame like Delaware.  We’re just moving our site over to a new bigger, better, faster server this evening.  What this means to you:

• Quicker, more reliable load times when you click on all the amazing pictures of me
• No downtime (we were getting death threats from our fans last time the site went down)
• Better beer (site loads faster, we waste less time on it, we spend more time brewing beer…I think the logic works)

Also, don’t post any comments between now and tomorrow or else they’ll be lost in never never land as the database will be in transition from one server to the other.  BTW, we’re thinking about creating a never never land feature as a permanent one we could use selectively for certain commentors on the site (and Chris, maybe you can patent that for us).

The Great American Beer Festival is the mecca of beer festivals in America. 400 brewers, 1800 beers, 3 days (and plenty of water). And it’s going on right now. If there was one place that someone looking to start a brewery should go, this would be the place. But we’re not in Denver, we’re in Atlanta. Why?

Because we’re losers. I wanted to go, but couldn’t swing the vacation day(s) right now. Jeff and Joel are equally swamped. And while this may be the right place to go, I’m not sure if the timing is right. This time next year we will be much farther along in terms of planning – who knows, maybe we will have launched already! But no excuses, we’re losers.

In spite of this fact, we’ve been living vicariously through our beer blogging friends who are attending. You can follow along on Twitter, or just read a few of our favorite posts thus far:

Surviving the GABF: Great tips from DJ over at Fermentarium on how to get through the GABF alive. Free beer, after all, has the power to elevate AND the power to cripple.

Celebrating an Anniversary: Chipper Dave from Fermentedly Challenged (who I will undoubtedly crush in this week’s beer blogger fantasy football league matchup) recaps his day of volunteering at the GABF. 14 hours. Was it worth it?

First off, be sure to vote for us as the best homebrewing blog over at Beer Bits 2 (check the sidebar). We may not be the best straight homebrewing blog, but some poor soul nominated us, and we’re determined to win this popularity contest. I will NOT be the ugly guy that no one wants to take to prom.

And now a quick recap of the HOToberfest beer festival that Joel and I attended Saturday afternoon with Joel’s cousin Matt. This new (first year) beer festival was held in Glenwood Park. $35 got you a tasting glass and free range of the tents. There were plenty of great beers there – some of my favorites were from Unibroue, Allagash, Avery, Victory and Dogfish Head. Matt brought along his camera and apparently has some skills:

Joel and I also had a good semi-buzzed discussion about tap handles. I think Terrapin does a great job with this (see above). The keys in my mind are:

• Consistency
• Bold, easily readable letters of the beer style
• Something a little different

We’ll be thinking about MNB tap handles further. I want them to be made of diamonds and glitter, but Jeff said no. Be sure to vote for us!

Last night was busy. We had at least 30 folks come by. More folks than Joel knows, period. And we’re hoping that the Drafty Kilt will turn out splendidly. Sorry for the poor quality pics. I had to use the ones from my iPhone since I forget to take legitimate pictures last night. To make up for the quality I’ve decided to name the pictures really well.

I call this one “Contemplating Sparge at Twilight.”

And this, our greatest work, I call, “Caged the Scurrying Fury of Delicious.”

Notice Joel pretending to work in the foreground. He was actually posing for the shot. Thanks to all who came, we’ll see you again next week!

I’ll keep this short and sweet. We’ll be brewing another batch of our Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale tonight. We’d love to have you join us.

Joel and I attended a beer festival in Glenwood Park on Saturday, HOToberfest. I hope to have pics and a write-up posted soon.

And as always, be sure to sign up to receive a text alert every Monday with news on if and what we’re brewing.

This edition of “Interview with a Brewer,” in which we interview various professional brewers and try to cheat off of their answers, is a little different. Why? Because we can’t divulge the name of the brewery, or even their exact location. They’re still planning their brewery and don’t want the competition to get wind of it yet. I found this brewery-in-planning on Twitter. You can follow them here. You can also follow us.

And so I present to you our interview with someone who I will call “Jeremy,” which is, in fact, his actual name.

1) Give us a synopsis of who you are and what you’re about

My brother and I are opening a 15 BBL production brewery on a tropical island. We are planning to produce a lager targeting the resort market. Most of our production will be bottled (yes, in spite of every brewer I’ve spoken to rolling their eyes when you mention bottling). Would love to can instead but that’s just the way the market is. We have our brewery and our building, so hopefully opening March 2009.

2) What kind of beers do you like to brew?

Well that’s an interesting question as I’m not actually a brewer (we will be employing a head brewer), so I guess I can say what type of beer I like to drink instead? I love Little Creatures Pale Ale and am very partial to Hefeweizens.

3) What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

I love the creative side of designing the brand and look of the product. I never dreamed I’d be involved in designing a beer bottle/brand but it’s been extremely enjoyable. I’ve also enjoyed how happy brewers have been to offer advice on producing a great beer.

4) How have you been able to or how do you plan to “spread the word” once you’ve launched?

We are building relationships with the buyers at the resorts. Customers will be visiting the islands say once or twice a year so our best bet is to get a good presence in the resort’s bars with signage and marketing material. We are also building quite a creative website with an interactive aspect for customers.

5) If you were to start another brewery from scratch tomorrow (purely hypothetical) what would you do differently this time around?

At this stage a tough call – I would love to have gotten a brewer on board earlier (we’ve been using a consultant) but it’s chicken and egg. We couldn’t hire a brewer till we knew we had our plant and building secured, yet it would have been good to have our brewer involved in those decisions. For someone with my background I think using a consultant is a must – its critical though to get someone who has plenty of experience with the type of brewery operation you will be running as well as experience in the market you will be operating in.

Thanks again to Jeremy. We’ll be hopefully updating you as things unfold. It’s interesting to watch the top-secret launch of a brewery unfold.

Naming our Belgian wit has proved trickier than we thought. We got a lot of great response from our last call to arms, but I’m still left feeling, well, witless.

Here’s the issue: Wit’s End appeared to emerge as the crowd favorite, though there were some other great names thrown in the mix. However, I have some trouble connecting the name “Wit’s End” to a strong character, like the Eye Patch = Pirate and the Drafty Kilt = Scotsman. Sure, we could make the stretch to a jester, but if you’ve had our Belgian wit, I think you’ll agree that it deserves a money-maker of a name. (I also mean that literally.)

And not to belabor the point, but I wish the name of the wit could somehow be connected to the style of beer, if only tangentially. We tried to do this with our other names:

• Eye Patch is named after a pirate, and the IPA has its origins on the sea, from the journey from England to India. A stretch? Yes. But we had to get that pirate in there.
• Drafty Kilt is a Scotch Ale, so… Scotland. Kilts. You know.
• Laissez-Faire Barleywine takes forever to age, so you just have to leave it alone and let it do its thing (the laissez-faire principle of economics).

We had some decent traction on this front, specifically with the names

• Weatherman Wit
• Partly Cloudy Wit

What are your thoughts on all of this? Does anything else come to mind? Is Weatherman Wit an awesome enough name? Are we barking up the wrong tree? What if we just call it “Witless” in honor of the naming troubles we’ve had?