Hi All,

     I just hooked up a generator here at the brewery to save our hops, and finally have some sort of computer power.  I am surprised to find our Internet working.  I have just seen the photos and video clips of Galveston and Bolivar.  I feel sick inside.  These are places and people that I am intimately familiar with and they are trashed, or just simply gone.  Fishing spots I could find my way around in the dark – Gone.  A whole west-end neighborhood I spent the summer of ’95 in – Gone.  The whole sea wall layout that I knew like the back of my hand is completely altered forever.

     I stayed up and watched this thing roll through.  All night I stood in my garage and watched winds scream up the road and rain fly sideways and even upward.  The air was inundated almost immediately by the scent of pine and sweet-gum sap as their tortured limbs danced wildly and eventually gave way to the gale.  We were lucky in The Woodlands – it could have been much worse; although the damage is as extensive as pretty much any other inland place I have seen.  We are without power, like hundreds of thousands of our neighbors.  Thankfully a cool front blew through and has relieved us (albeit temporarily) of the oppressive Gulf Coast heat that dominates this time of year.  I can’t ever remember it being in the 50’s at night in September.  I think that this is the most important cold front that Houston has ever had.  At least it’s bearable, if not pleasant at night.

            As for Southern Star – I’m sure that things will get back to normal here eventually.  We are shut down due to lack of power.  Depending who you talk to we will get power back here between tomorrow and a month and a half.  So far, there is no damage to the beer in the fermenters.  The cold-box, which is pretty full, remains pretty cool.  Our distributor should be here early next week to move out inventory and get some more beer out there.  If our hops go bad, we’ll get some more.  The most important thing is that no one in our families was hurt, and that we all faired pretty well in the storm.  I’ll let y’all know when we are back up and running and when our tours will resume.  Hopefully we are on the short end of the outages and that will be soon enough.  Until then , Peace.
Dave