Great Lakes Brewery

You can click on the picture to get more of the story, but I'm always amazed at what you can learn while you're out sketching. It's like, if you stay still in one spot long enough, something or someone interesting always comes by to teach you something if you're curious enough. Today, Blaine and I learned what happens to the wet barley when Great Lakes Brewing is done with it. I always knew that they are a very eco-friendly company, and it's so cool to know that all of this barley is going to a good use. The farmer said that his biggest expense every year is protein for his cows and chickens. Last year, he'd spent $100,000 on feed, and using the wet barley had saved him tons of money over the years. Plus, Great Lakes doesn't have to pay to dispose it. He said that his daughter even bakes bread of out of the wet barley.

It did smell really good. Someone should make candles and soaps out of that smell. I know that I'd said it smelled "yeasty" in my journaling, but it wasn't at all yeasty in a bad way.

The funny thing is that I told Blaine to meet me on West 28th, just north of Lorain. When we get there, we have the back of the brewery to draw or the back of St. Ignatius high school, which I told her that it looked like Harry Potter's school. So, she arrives, and continues to look back and forth, never looking behind her, and says, "What about this looks like Harry Potter?" I said, "Turn around." She laughed, becasue she thought she'd missed the chapter where Harry Potter gets drunk at a wizardy brewery.

I wish it hadn't looked like rain, or I would have stayed out longer. I am very much in the mood to be sketching outside today. But, it's so overcast, and I kept feeling sprinkles.