If Beer Ads Were Honest

Continuing on the beer theme:

If Beer Ads Were Forced to Be Honest -- powered by Cracked.com

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Your beer may be furloughed.

It's bad enough that people are being laid off, we may default on our debts, children aren't receiving medical treatment, ,but now this government shutdown may impact our beer. This means war. From the Detroit News:

"...the shutdown has closed an obscure agency that quietly approves new breweries, recipes and labels, which could create huge delays throughout the rapidly growing craft industry, whose customers expect a constant supply of inventive and seasonal beers."

I hate fall, but love me some seasonal beer. Damn you Republicans, Damn you all to hell!

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In the HOPper

This weekend, I keg the Wheat Ale I brewed, and in another week, I keg the Saison.  Those ought to turn out fine, and perhaps we'll hold a few bonfires and invite people to help drain the kegs ASAP.

This is important because of the next 3 beers I have coming-up:

1) Spiced Pumpkin Ale.  This will be my first attempt at a pumpkin ale - including using real pumpkin in it.  Going for a hint of pumpkin pie, not this-beer-is-too-sweet pumpkin pie.

2) Bourbon Barrel Porter.  I brew porters frequently; most notably my Maple Syrup Porter.  In this, I have some bourbon barrel oak spirals that I will put in the fermenter to infuse that bourbon-y character I'm after.

3) Spiced Winter Ale.  Nice basic copper-colored Brit "bitter" brewed with beautiful, aromatic mulling spices.  Looking forward to this one!

More details as they come, but you should all at least be informed of what my kegs will contain this Fall/Winter.

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Sci-Fi In Six

I recently stumbled across a great Tumblr called Sci-Fi in Six.  It is just that:  science fiction stories told in six paragraphs or less (I highlighted this Tumblr on my last post here, Another List of Power).

I've sifted through a gob of these.  Like any site of this nature, some are poor, some are wonderful, intriguing, deep, or fun.  I'm considering submitting one of my own.  What do you think:

Ensign MacGould stood surrounded by the throng, a grin starting to spread across her face. What started as hair-raising, skin-crawling fear was fading quickly, replaced by amusement. 

A taller being adorned (so to speak) with much more...foliage...than the others, made its way with what could only be described as reverence through the seething mass who even only moments ago seemed so threatening. The well-adorned being stopped, wide...eyed, and promptly fell on its face in front of her. It held up its appendages and spoke, or rather, made some noises that MacGould associated with a bad cold and the sounds of vomiting. 

Immediately, the throng around her fell to their faces, and repeated the sounds, gag for gag, hock for hock. Over and over and over.

And MacGould stood in her impeccable white uniform surrounded by the sounds of a sick-bay after an epidemic wondering if, all these millennia and millennia ago and worlds away, this is how it all started. 

She grinned benevolently. And maybe opened her palms just a little. 

’What's the harm,’ she mused. 

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