Meet Mike, our new beer manager.

From the inception of NABC/Rich O's/Sportstime, and apart from our own brewing operation, which is the semi-autonomous domain of the brewers, I've been the sole beer guy, and the one responsible for the overall composition and conceptualization of our guest beer program, guest beer being anything we don't brew ourselves.

Come to think of it, I suppose we didn't need a term for "guest" beer until we began brewing our own beer.

In recent years the day to day management of the guest beer – bottles, kegs, buying, stocking, menus, chalk boards – has slowly evolved to the point that I couldn't begin to handle all of it, and numerous people have gotten involved at various times in the effort to pick up the slack. What we've needed is a single employee responsible for the day to day management of guest beer … a Beer Manager.

As many of you already know, Mike Bauman is now the official Beer Manager of NABC/Rich O's/Sportstime. He's been working for NABC for a long time in numerous jobs, and has shown the initiative necessary to be entrusted with the keys to the beer wagon, as it were.

I will be retaining overall control of the strategic planning, but Mike's doing the daily grind. He's the one to ask about special orders, outages, special requests, and anything pertaining to what we're doing with beer. He's taken over Tony Beard's part-time brewery gig, too, and can also help with matters pertaining to NABC-brewed beers.

Having introduced Mike, he wants you to know that Rich O's will open at five p.m. on Thanksgiving, with he and Steve manning the trenches. Mike says, "We'll be serving beer and chili, but bring that extra piece of pie or turkey leg you couldn't quite get down for the free pot luck buffet (the kitchen and all of Sportstime Pizza will be closed).

There you have it. The choice already is paying dividends. Once he learns the rules, he can progress to the fun part: Breaking them.