The emails have poured in and the postman is sick and tired of dragging the sacks of postcards and letters up the front step. The crowds have let us know what they want and it is poetry! Yes, the second beer blog contest¹ of 2007 is going to require you to maybe do a little haiku, maybe a little rhyming or a little iambicking - well if you are going to lean on pentambic iameter that is...or is it iambic pentameter?

Anyway, you are going to want to enter this one as this contest offers perhaps the greatest prize ever in the history of beer blog contest prizes. I have ten tickets graciously provided by our sponsors TAP New York 2007 to be held at Hunter Mountain Resort in the Catskills in upper downstate New York. Click on the map to the left for more details. Each ticket has a value of 45 bucks and gets each ticket bearer a day at the event and, as the website says, admission to TAP New York includes a special souvenir tasting glass for trying out the over 80 beers representing many styles and you'll also get to sample local gourmet foods, prepared by chefs from some of the area's best restaurants.

In a stroke of brilliance to make this the best prize for you it can be I am bundling. Here is how the first, second and third prize winners will be rewarded:

1. First place winner - six tickets which means the winner and two pals can take in both days for free at TAP. Value - $270 USD.

2. Second place winner - four tickets which means the winner can take a pal to both days free. Value - $180 USD.

3. Third place winner - no tickets but you get your name added to the pantheon of winners of something from A Good Beer Blog and you can trash talk everyone else's poetry except for the two who got the tickets. Value - beyond imagination.

• minimum 100 words - extra subjective favour will be given to works of bizzare length as long as they are reasonably good;
• The topic has to be either related to the personal experience of beer or forty plus stanza odes to the history of a single brewery that has not been in operation for over half a century;
• Do not plagerize anything that can be cross-referenced on the internet or subject to challenge by other contestants before the deadline; and
• Vowels and consonants both to be used and are in fact encouraged. Do not send in drawings - drawings are not poems.

¹Legalese-ish-ness: Any prizes are mere gifts to my favorite contributing poets. This is not a skill test, a means to prove merits or even a random award like a draw in any way - or really a contest when you think of it. It is sort of a ego trip for me that you can benefit from. Be true of heart and you shall learn much. I reserve the right to be arbitrary and have poor taste. You will have to get yourself to Hunter Mountain, find you own place to sleep and comb your own hair. I can't even promise the postal system will work. You are on your own.