The marketing manual for sheeple herding says that we’re supposed to engage you by soliciting user-generated content with catchy challenges like this: “Hey die-hard Stone fans! Show you’re the Ultimate Stone Head by posting sweet pics of you and your BFFs at Stone Beer Week-Chicago events on our Facebook fan page! And don’t forget to Twitterize us with #StoneWeek hash-tags! Win a Frisbee!”

But we know you're a whole lot smarter than that. In all seriousness, since we won’t be sending everyone from the brewery to Chicago this week, we’d like to get some vicarious pleasure from the absurdly decadent events we’ve been working so hard to plan, which is why we’re asking you, for real, to post those Facebook pics and Tweets about Stone Beer Week-Chicago. So do us that favor, will ya?

Now let’s back up a bit. As a supremely plugged-in Stone fanatic, you are undoubtedly aware that our exceptionally beautiful beers will finally be available in Chicago starting April 1st. Yes, the wait has been long and arduous for the legions of bastardly disciples in the Second City, but we aim to make up for lost time—in a hurry.

To that end, we have planned an epic week-long celebration of all things Stone, entitled Stone Beer Week-Chicago*. A veritable carnival of Arrogance will introduce us to Chicago with proper gusto from April 1^st-9^th. This extravagant series of soirees will see us taking over an entire grocery store, hosting 30 taps at a single bar, offering an ultra-rare tasting of Stone Vertical Epic Ales with Greg Koch himself, grilling up Stone Smoked Porter sausages, presenting incredibly tasty barrel-aged versions of our most ambitious beers, pairing exceptional food with fine vintages from our past, and the list goes on and on…

Do those kinds of events sound enticing to you? What if I told you that the events mentioned above represent a mere fraction of the 34, yes thirty-four, events planned for Stone Beer Week-Chicago? And what if I added that the remaining Stone events will be every bit as awesome, such that Stone Beer Week-Chicago will feature a concentration of Stone awesomeness that the world has never seen before? That would be exciting for you, wouldn’t it?

Well that’s great, because while I’m stuck here in sunny San Diego, you’ll be cabbing/bussing/train-ing/shuttling/walking from one jaw-dropping Stone event to another, having the time of your life sipping some of the sweetest nectars this brewery has ever made. So enjoy yourselves Chicagoans. You’ve earned it. Just don’t forget to send us a postcard, mmmmmk?

*Best said in a Big Announcer Voice with lots of reverb.