Fields

This past weekend was packed with Half Acre events. On Saturday a group of us trucked out to Toyota Park to be counted as Chicago Fire fans. Some friends of ours are members of Section 8, the official Chicago Fire Supporters Club. These guys are serious about the Fire and throwing down in the parking lot before the match.

We decided the best thing to do would be to bring a keg of the Lager with us in order to be welcomed with open arms. A keg of beer usually does the trick when looking for open arms. After a brief period of hanging around and only draining a few cups of beer the buses started showing up. Both Small Bar on Division and Fado Irish Pub run buses out to the games with aid of Windy City Wanderers. (For some reason unknown to me they decided to put Toyota Park in the middle of nowhere just far enough that no one in their right mind would think about casually heading out to a soccer match.) With the buses came the lines and the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about our company and the beer they were drinking.

Between our beer and the Smoked Bourbon Pork Sandwiches the Section 8 guys were whipping out, I think people were really glad to be taking part. Following all that we got to watch the Fire take Toronto 2-1. It was a fine way to spend a Saturday night, so thank you to the Section 8 crew.

The rub came when the alarm began to chirp at 6am Sunday morning. Matt and I had to be up in order to help out at a Half Acre Cycling race. This race was a time trial in Hillshire, IL. Ever been to Hillshire? Me neither. But it was a nice place to spend a morning monitoring traffic and riders around turn 4. We managed to get through the race without one rider getting maimed on our turn. Another friend, Ben, who is an accomplished rider himself, almost got run over by a motorcycle while trying to halt him so a rider could make his turn, though. It was pretty funny really, but the guy on the motorcycle was less then amused. I was glad he didn’t hop off the bike and throttle Ben.

The weather in Hillshire was beautiful and it was impressive to see riders on Half Acre Cycling come whipping around the turn pedaling full-out when I knew we were only witnessing a few seconds of a race that was upwards of an hour long. It takes a great deal of endurance to move your body that hard for that long, and I’m glad to be affiliated with folks that wake up at four in the morning on a Sunday to push themselves like that. I was happy to be wearing a bright orange vest, waving a bright orange flag alongside a wheat field on turn 4 in Hillshire, IL.

Gabriel
Half Acre Beer Co.