I'm on a train. I'm on a mutha cussin train... heading to New York City where the film 'Beer Wars' will be screened as part of NYC Food & Film fest tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing Anat, who made the film. And I think we are speaking right before or after Mayor Bloomberg which is cool.

On Friday, we had a ribbon cutting for the Steampunk Treehouse we installed in front of our Milton brewery. It was built by our friends at the Orlando, CA-based art collective 5-Ton Crane. It's a really cool giant treehouse representing the many limbs of the artistic community and how well they can come together.

The Steampunk Treehouse

Dogfish will use the Treehouse to host department meetings and intimate distributor and retailers meetings. The idea is sorat like this: when you go up in treehouse with friends and coworkers that is filled with beautiful art, a woodstove, and a steam pipe organ you cannot help but be transported to another world where collective/creative ideas can flourish and develop roots. It's an idea safety tree of sorts.

Here's a photo of the ribbon cutting ceremony where Mariah has just smashed a bottle ofLife and Limb against the door in the trunk of the tree. The door was salvaged from a WW2 US submarine.

Ready to christen!

I come back to Delaware tomorrow then head to Italy on Tuesday to brew batches of an American Pale Ale spiced with Italian rosemary with my buddies Leo and Teo at Leo's brewery outside of Rome. This will be one of the year-round beers of Eataly NYC. We're helping with the beer for the brewpub that will be run by Joe Batianitch and Mario Batali. It will be located on an NYC rooftop overlooking the Flatiron Building and the Empire State.

From Rome I go to Florence to work on the design of the Eataly NYC taphandles at a design firm there run by my friends Mauro and Michelle. Michelle and I grew up in the summers together at Dogfish Head Maine an she moved to Italy a decade or so ago.

It's a small world after all.