Back in February 60-odd sage souls braved the cruelest of days that Old Man Winter would present to attend a festival about all that is good in the world: Beer.

We did it again with a little warmer weather on Friday, September 19 at 7:00 PM at Carenbauer Distributing, whom we can't thank enough for all their help at the last event and this one. Here were the full details:

• Date & Time: Friday, September 19, 7:00 PM
• Where: Carenbauer Distributing, 1900 Jacob St., Wheeling
• What You Get: Snacks, and a whole gang of new and existing beers / alcholic beverages to try out. We'll also have water and pop for DD's and non-drinkers.
• Cost: Goods for the WVU Children's Hospital

On behalf of the WVU Children's Hospital, we'd like to extend our deepest thanks to all of you who came out. You may have come for the beer and to hang out with other young professionals from Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, but you also helped us raise about $500 in cash and goods for sick children.

As promised, we're going to purchase actual goods like clothes and sippy cups and deliver them to the Hospital. We'll put up pictures and more information in October after we're finished so you can see all the kindness you created.

And while we're at it, we'd like to give another huge thanks to Erin, Carl, and all the folks over at Carenbauer Distributing who provided all the de-lish malty goodness we partook in, but also gave up their Friday nights to serve us. Quality folks!

Check out some photos from the Beer Tasting back in February and come back to this page later for photos from the September 2008 beer tasting:

Beer Tasting - Carenbauer Distributing

We decided to turn this event from having no redeeming social value to being chock-full of it. We're not accepting any payment, meaning we're guaranteed to lose a few bucks on this one.

Instead, your admission price is some goods for the Children's Hospital. They're a really, really good cause. Go to their Web site if you don't believe us and read what they do.

So in turn for an awesome night of beer awesomeness, all we ask is you bring some goods we can turn over to the Hospital. Don't go super cheap or super crazy - something in the $10 ballpark.

While they can always use stuffed animals, they get those quite a bit. They more often need sippy cups, onesies, socks, baby spoons, and kid band aids as many families find themselves far from home and don't think of these much needed baby/toddler items.

If you can't make it out to pick some of these things up, we request that you bring $10 in cash or check. Any such monetary donations will be given in their entirety to the Hospital.

As you may or may not be aware, even though we have members from Ohio and Pennsylvania, too, OVConnect is a member of Generation West Virginia. One of our fellow member organizations is Generation Morgantown.

We're teaming up to strenghten our efforts in both donating needed goods to the Children's Hospital and drinking beer. To that end, all of you are cordially invited to Generation Morgantown's First Friday @ Brew Pub on Friday, September 5. Learn more here.