A pub crawl with friends and family. Lots of 'em!
Our first ever pub crawl was 11 years ago in the Rice Village. We held it right after the Christmas Ale release (not realizing that the seasonals would become the theme of future crawls). There were about 40 people on it and we had a seated dinner together at the Village Brewery.
These crawls have slowly grown and this past weekend's was no exception. We estimate close to 900 people were carousing with us. Our biggest challenge this time around was to come up with a new plan so everybody could still fit into all the bars; thus the "open house" concept was born. Whenever we come up with a new wrinkle like this, we have to also try to guess what the pitfalls will be so we can anticipate and, hopefully, avoid them . But something pretty much always comes up and with it a pleasant dose of humility. Our biggest issue this time was being short, oh, a couple hundred pint glasses.
One quirk of this company is that I get to see people over the course of many years. People whose names I don't know but upon seeing their faces we greet each other as old friends. Which we are. The pub crawls are full of people like this. In readying the launch of our new website, I was going over photos from old crawls and choosing a few for the site. I came across one group that included a gal whom I remember asking me the date for that year's Christmas Ale pub crawl as we both disembarked from a plane in Denver (me to go to the GABF and she to go recruit geology grad students for Rice, as I recall - I can remember things like this but can't remember a name to save my life). 
Here she is with husband and friends in December 2004. 
And here again this past Friday. I think he's wearing the same shirt!
All of this creates a sense of family.
I look forward to watching our family grow. And nothing makes me happier than seeing familiar faces at our events.