Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill

After a quick skit by the Ben Franklin players, Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review a French Toast stout, then discuss the production of EV batteries. The story goes that the planet is heating because of carbon emissions, so we have to move to electric vehicles. Energy drives prosperity and human flourishing. Right now, most energy is produced by fossil fuels, and agricultural relies on fertiliz...

The boys drink and review a robust porter from Bell's, then evaluate western values. Western values developed from three major sources. * Classical antiquity * The Judeo-Christian tradition * Germanic customs Roughly speaking, "western values" include the following: * Democracy * Individualism * Human rights * Free speech * Free markets * The rule of law * Secularism * Rationalism *...

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Carlsberg, then discuss Candide as part of their "shortcut to the classics" series. The boys give a short review of his life. Voltaire was a pillar of the Englightenment. In Candide, Voltaire employs biting sarcasim against the idea that this is "the best of all possible worlds." Candide suffers through "one damned thin...

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review a Belgian saison, then discuss a few essays by Michel Foucault, who many people say was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Longinus gives a brief biography, then the boys work through two essays: "What is Enlightenment" and "Truth and Power." Foucault is considered a post-modernist. The boys try to...

The boys drink and review Pigweed's homemade brown ale, then discuss nuclear war. They distinguish fission and fusion reactions, and how that relates to nuclear bombs and their development. After Word War 2 there was a mad rush to develop larger and larger stockpiles. Today, nine countries are confirmed as having nuclear weapons. But for some strange reason we seem less afraid of nuclear war n...

The boys do a "nooze and booze" episode about recent events at Fox news while drinking homemade apple pie moonshine. In a matter of a week, there were several big stories in the news world. Fox News parted company with Dan Bongino, Fox News settled with Dominion Voting for an ungodly sum, Don Lemon was fired from CNN, and Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News. The boys discuss the basic...

The boys drink and review RAR's Groove City Hefeweizen, then review short selling, the Gamestop story, Sam Bankman-Fried, and FTX. After watching the Netflix "Eat the Rich" series, the boys remembered their interest in the Gamestop story, so they consulted their financially intelligent friends, Hansel and Gretel, to get up to speed on what happened and why. It's a fascinating sto...

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review an IPA from Three Floyds, then discuss whether the United States should pay reparations for the evils of slavery. P&C agree that the concept of reparations is sound. When you harm someone, you should try to repair the wrong that's been done. They review some of the arguments for reparations and have sympathy for many of them. The idea is not simply tha...

P&C drink and review "Level Up," an IPA from a Yard's variety pack, then discuss things "everybody knows" that aren't so. You might be surprised at some of the answers. Here are the topics discussed. Who was the first president of the United States? Everybody thought the earth was flat before Columbus. How did "Caesarean section" get its name? Who was the...

P&C drink and review Double Nickel Session IPA, then discuss January 6 and all the hyperventilating about it. The over-hyping of the events of January 6 turned Pigweed and Crowhill away from the story. When everyone over-reacts, we under-react. Now that there's some distance and the rhetoric has died down a bit, maybe there's some ability to evaluate it calmly. First, Trump was absolut...

The boys drink and review Bakalar, a Czech dark lager, then discuss the history of religious revivals in the United States, and their effects. They discuss what makes something a religious revival -- what are its signs and effects. What elements are essential and what are accidental? They review several of the great religious revivals in U.S. history, and mention some of their leading figures. Als...

P&C drink and review a dry-hopped pilsner from Nepenthe, then discuss crucifixion. Crucifixion didn't start with the Romans, and wasn't limited to them. The Romans learned it from the Persians, the Carthaginians and the Macedonians. But the Romans "perfected" and systematized it. Crucifixion was reserved for crimes against the state: rebellion, treason, and religious dissent....

The boys drink and review Dark and Righteous, from Jailbreak brewing, then discuss their recent experiences with destination weddings. P&C both attended Roman Catholic weddings -- Crowhill was the father of the bride at a wedding in Nashville, and Pigweed was at La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, near Puerto Vallarta. The boys discuss similarities and differences in their experiences at the weddings, as...

The boys drink and review Lagunitas's Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale, then discuss the new word Latinx, and vacations. Our language overlords have insisted that Latino and Latina are inappropriate in our new woke universe, so they imposed a monstrosity: Latinx -- which makes no sense. Spanish is a gendered language, but white woke people in America figured they had to fix that, because tho...

P&C drink and review Xingu black lager and then take a look back at the government response to the Covid crisis. Do you remember all of this? "Three weeks to flatten the curve" became "everyone must stay inside until we have a vaccine." From the start, they tried to crush the lab-leak explanation as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory. We were given contradictory nonsense about m...

The boys drink and review Troeg's Nugget Nectar, then discuss how men are stealing all the top places in women's rankings. While thinking about transgender ideology, the boys look at ... * Contradictions in transgender ideology * What "transgender" means * Can people be "trapped in the wrong body"? * Examples of how men are stealing women's thunder * Where have all...

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review Paulaner pils, then discuss Lent and fasting. Lent is the penitential season before Easter. Crowhill gives a basic history of Lent, and the boys discuss some common Lenten customs. The 40 days of Lent are symbolic, similar to other 40-day events in the Bible. Modern Lenten fasts are usually not as stringent as fasts in the past, and especially...

The boys drink and review Sweet Baby Banana by DuClaw, then discuss two short works by Tolkien. In this latest installment of their "shortcut to the classics" series, Longinus joins Pigweed and Crowhill to review these two interesting stories. Niggle is a quiet little man who would like to spend his life on his grand work, which was a painting of a tree. His neighbor, Parish, keeps inter...

P&C drink and review an Irish Stout from Nashville, then discuss five topics in five minutes each.  * Self Love on Valentine's Day. What do you think of someone who sends her love to herself on Valentine's Day? P&C think that's ridiculous. Love is outwardly directed, not inwardly.  * Brandon and the Chinese Balloons. Was this the most embarrassing thing for the U.S. in decades? W...

P&C drink "Watch out for Bears" brown ale from Calvert Brewing, then discuss the history of Singapore.  It starts with the East India Company, which wanted a port in this strategic location between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca leading into the Bay of Bengal. Commerce between China and India, and then later to the Suez canal, had to come through this area.  Singapore...

P&C drink and review Cold Snap White Ale from Sam Adams, then discuss their trip to the Maryland Live Casino.  Although P&C generally frown on gambling, they wanted to see what a casino is really like. So they went to see for themselves on the weekend of the NFL division championships.  Unlike the casinos in Vegas, which are beatiful, with stunning art and fancy displays, and lot...

P&C drink and review a homebrewed stout, and along with special guest John Wayne Jew discuss how diversity, equity, and inclusion don't mean what you think they mean, or what they should mean.  They start with an effort to find the good things in DEI. But they don't get very far.  DEI is a social and moral catastrophe. It hides behind words that sound virtuous and pleasant, but it tw...

P&C drink and review Cream Team, a cookies and cream milk stout, then discuss "advances" in reproductive technology.  Ectolife is working on creating an artificial womb, where babies can be grown in a production facility. There's been some success with mice, and they want to extend the tech to humans.  The goal is to alleviate some of the pain and risk inherent in childbirth, and to...

The boys drink and review Crowhill's Henry IV homebrew, then discuss possible causes of the recent uptick in gender confusion.  Just recently -- all of a sudden -- we're getting an epidemic of people with gender dysphoria. Why? What's causing this?  We're told that the only possible explanation is that this has always been true -- that sex is not binary -- but that truth has been suppres...

The boys drink and review a chai latte stout from Schlafly, then discuss out of dates ads.  You've probably seen the headlines. The basic concept is "ads that are not acceptable today." But why are they unacceptable?  In some cases, the old ad is playful, and we're too uptight to go along with the joke.  In other cases, there were cultural assumptions in the past, or a different und...