Another Year Older/Wiser

I started this post 2 days ago and I'm just finishing it now!  I'm so bad at blogging lately.  I still need to show pics of our Easter egg hunt too.  Geesh!

My birthday was on Saturday, so I wanted to show you part of my day.  I wanted to do something fun and different, so I went to Google (what would we do without Google?) and searched for things to do around Delaware. We don't live in Delaware, but we live pretty darn close to it.  I found Old Dominion Brewery, in Dover, and they offered tours.  It sounded like fun, and it was only $5 per person!

We got there about 15 minutes before the scheduled tour time, and we were given 5 wooden tokens for 5 samples of beer.  We went to their little bar and started drinking!  The samples were sort of small, about a cup each, but they were good.  My favorite was their cherry kind, which I don't see on their website.  There were lots of other people there, so we chatted with them.  We met one couple from Canada that came down for the Delaware Wine and Ale Trail tour!

After sampling 3 different beers, I decided I better quit and gave my 2 remaining tokens to a very appreciative fellow-tour goer.  He was happy to have more beer!  We started on the tour, which was very laid back and fun.

 I got a kick out of the sign above.  Below, you see 3 of the 4 large tanks in the first stop of the tour. I just remember the first one was called the mash mixer, and I can't remember what the other 4 do!  They're really deep though, only about the top third or fourth was sticking above the floor (we were up on the 2nd floor). 

Then we moved on to the floor where the beer gets moved into the big bulk tanks, and I think this is where it ages or brews. To be honest, it was almost a week ago and I forgot!  The picture below is from the second floor looking down. 

Then we took a picture in front of the tank.  It's a little blurry. Maybe the guy who took it for us was starting to get tipsy!

Then on to the bottling and boxing area....

Check out these huge bags (1 ton!) of sugar!  They make soda here too!

And the massive quantities of different brewing grains...

They said they have spent brewing grains every day, and that I could just email or call ahead and pick them up! They could be a potential food source for the pig or chickens!  It wouldn't be convenient for every day since we don't go to Dover too often, but next time we go I'm definitely going to ask for some!

That concludes my summary of the tour.  :-)   I just wanted to share a picture of the pashmina my sister got me as a gift.  It's from New York, and she said ALL the locals wear them.  I tend to get stuck in the jeans and t-shirt rut, so it's nice to have something different to accessorize with!  I didn't realize it was "inside out" until after I took the pics. The colors on the right side are so bright and vibrant!

I had a great birthday and didn't want the day to end!  Only 12 more months until my next one.  :-)