The Lupulin Land starting lineup won't be decided until Friday.

There are times when one’s best efforts fall short, and every year, I’m forced into tweaking draft festival lineups at the last moment when product doesn’t arrive on time (or, on occasion, not at all).

The main difficulty with Lupulin Land 2006 is with the projected allotment of Great Divide ales. There are several reasons for this, but they’re less important than the reality: We’ll begin the festival with none of them, and if we’re really lucky, have all three of them in stock by October 25.

But don’t count on it. The prognosis for Titan IPA is bad, Fresh Hop Pale Ale good, and Hercules Double IPA maybe.

Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale will be late, but not too much. Bell’s Hop Slam Imperial IPA won’t be shipped until the end of October.

In all these cases except Hop Slam, I had every reason to believe that delivery would be timely when first deciding to list them for Lupulin Land. Things happen.

Here are two late additions:

Harpoon IPA ... English accent was needed.

Two Brothers Heavy Handed ... from Chicagoland.

A final note: We hope to have Bluegrass Brewing Company (St. Matthews) Ultra/aka Homewrecker on the hand pull on Friday, October 13, but won’t unveil Randall until the following Friday, October 20.

As should be evident, all of it is subject to change.