Bitter Water Brewery

With finals completely over and grades in the bank, I am gearing up for a summer of playing in urban-impacted streams of Chicago. Not enough preparation has been done to set this processes in motion, but I'm going to get my feet wet anyway. My thesis research proposal is ready to be signed off on, the committee meeting last week was superb! Much thanks be to God and the faculty giving me professional guidance for my project. They even cut back some of my work, saying that I was a little too ambitious in the methods I had planned. When I return from Kansas I will be perform a 'dry run' of the main sampling sequence I've devised. Anyway, you can check out the finished version of my thesis proposal, which is significantly different from the first: Mechanisms of Phosphorus Control in Illinois Streams.

Yes, I am making a short visit to Kansas very soon! I'll be packing my stuff up Saturday evening for the return trip to KS on Sunday. I plan to be in Topeka four days and three in Kansas City, eventually leaving for IL on the 5th. At this moment, the trip looks to be a whirlwind of travel and visits, so please forgive me for not being able to visit all of you.

Friday and Saturday of this week, just before the trip home, I'm participating in the Stateline 60 - a bicycle ride along the IL/WI border. I'm looking forward to ride particularly because I purchased a new bike last weekend. My new sweetheart, Charlize, is manufactured by a Trek subsidiary known as Lemond. Here are her specs: Tour Malet. My bicycle isn't the subtle silver/grey as shown on Lemond's website, but imagine that bicycle with a vivid, dark metallic blue, and instead of a white decal on the downtube, there is a black one with white lettering. Let me be candid for a moment, Charlize is absolutely ravishing!

More news from CU: Michael and I brewed our first batch of beer over a week ago, and we bottled the lager the last night. While the carbonation has yet to build up, I have to say that the smooth, subtle amber wheat flavor is quite appealing. Michael and I just wanted to have something that resembled beer, but, praise be to Jesus, it turned out darn tasty! When I return from Kansas M and I plan to have a little party to share our brew with friends and church family. By the way, our brewery name is 'Bitter Water Brewery', named after the test for adultery as cited in Numbers, chapter 5. The reason for BWB is that often in evangelical circles an explicit or even subtle legalism is placed upon Christian consumption of alcohol. In Christ, though, there is a liberty and freedom to enjoy the drink outside of condemnation. Consumption in sin - drunkenness and impure motives - is on your head, and on the last day if the righteousness of Christ is not your covering then the mere act of drinking, or any other action not acted out in Faith, will be bitter and condemning. Michael and I ask that those who partake in the fruit of our labor do so in sincere love for the King and neighbor.

A bunch of reusable and larger bottles = $2.00 (my advisor let us borrow the big ones)


Ingredients and yeast (below) = $32


Hours spent brewing, cleaning and bottling = 10


Getting to cap, taste and see our beer bottled: absolutely priceless!!!


And the sum total of efforts - a bunch of bottled amber wheat beer and two excited graduate students who have become better friends!


Praise God!