We’ll be having our first General Meeting at our new location on 1684 Quincy this coming Monday.  Topics of discussion are on the agenda, which you can review and edit here.  The minutes from the last meeting should be up soon here.

After the meeting, we’ll be heading to Two Brother’s Brewing Company to celebrate the new space and our successful move-in.  You can subscribe to the event at Plancast.

When I first arrived at the brewery, I actually passed it up. It’s a very unassuming industrial building with a little silo on the side. If you didn’t know where to look for it, you might never know it’s there. Continuing the trend of unassuming, the door itself into the “Tap House” restaurant is just a single door that looks almost like a side entrance, with a little sign that says “Two Brothers Tap House Main Entrance.” Once you step through that door, you know you’re in the right place. You’ve been transported into a modern bar and restaurant who’s food and beer rival’s that of anywhere I’ve been in the suburbs. Everything in this building has been finely crafted, from the food to the beer to the environment. It’s obvious they take great pride in it all.

Besides good food and good beer, we had good company. We were joined by some of our brethren from PS:One. We were certainly glad to have them, it was a regular meeting of the geeks. Discussions on Dr. Who, Star Trek, and all forms of Makery ensued over the best Cuban Sandwich I’ve had in quite some time. I’m pretty sure every else was as enthralled with their food choices as I was. But I’m not sure it’s possible that anyone could have enjoyed the Red Eye Coffee Porter as much as I did. Being a long time fan of the Drew Carry show, experiencing coffee beer pretty much fulfilled a life long dream for me.

The tour that followed was extremely thorough and informative, but not at all boring. They take you right into the heart of the operation, and walk you through the entire process of making their beers. They aren’t afraid to share the little tidbits that make them successful, they’re excited to have home brewers in the crowd, and eager to share with them. Our tour guide Gabe, who also manages the restaurant, epitomized hospitality. He was in fact, so good at keeping your interest, that not one of our shutter bugs could snap a photo of him motionless.

Gabe even gave us a look into the future of Two Brothers. He told us about a series of oak aged beers that the brothers are planning. They’ll do their aging in one of these virgin casks.

Of course, after the tour comes the best part. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better. At the end of the FREE tour, they give you three tickets, which you may exchange for three samples of any of their beers… FOR FREE.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why am I sitting here reading this when I could be sitting there, drinking free expertly crafted beer?” So, now that you’re interested, they hold tours every Saturday at 1:00 and 2:30, they last about 45 minutes, and will be one of the more memorable experiences in your life. But for now you’ll just have to do with having a look at the gallery below.

We’ll be meeting at Two Brothers Brewing Company this coming Saturday (12/19) at 2:30PM for a brewery tour.  This’ll be our second Workshop 88 outing, and, from what I’ve been told by Russ, should be quite the scientific (and awesome) experience.  We’ll have lunch beforehand at 1PM if anyone wants to join the pre-gaming festivities.

In other news, the Workshop 88 beta blog is up and running here.  Please drop by and leave suggestions (maybe in the comments of this post?) on what you think, and what improvements we can make.  Look for the design to be implemented within the next week or so.

Finally, for the holidays, Workshop 88 will be doing a (sort of) last minute impromptu Toys for Tots collection — we’re calling it 70y5 4 7075.  So if you want to bring toys to our next meeting (preferably of the maker-oriented kind!)  on 12/21, feel free!  I know I’ll be hitting the stores for Legos and K’nex.