Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill

As America approaches its 250th birthday, we fire up a (mostly) reliable time machine and imagine what the Founding Fathers would think if they could see the United States today. Would George Washington be amazed by America's military power? Would Benjamin Franklin marvel at electricity, space travel, and modern technology? Would Thomas Jefferson recognize the federal government they created—o...

As part of our America 250 series, Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus put each other to the test with a wide-ranging game of American trivia. How many people signed the Declaration of Independence? Which president served the shortest term? Why did George Washington's resignation astonish the world? Which four states meet at Four Corners? And could you answer the same questions that left some coll...

With special guest Longinus the boys review a Troegs Graffiti Highway Mosaic IPA and take a deep dive into Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, one of the defining novels of the Beat Generation. We talk through the plot, the major characters like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, and the larger ideas behind Kerouac’s world: freedom, authenticity, rebellion, conformity, jazz, the open road, and the moral chao...

Genuine racism is a bad thing. That's why the word "racist" used to carry real moral weight — because real racism is a serious wrong. But the word has been misused, abused, overused, and trampled on. After decades of overuse, misapplication, and outright abuse, the accusation of racism has jumped the shark. Today, voter ID is racist. Advanced math is racist. Showing up on time is rac...

P&C crack open a Dogfish Head apricot IPA and take on the 19th Amendment — the real history, not the mythology. The standard story says women were yearning for the vote while men kept them down. The actual history is more nuanced. * Who actually opposed women's suffrage (hint: many women), * Why the anti-suffragettes predicted today's social problems with eerie accuracy, and * What the...

Why does the aftermath of every revolution look like a disaster -- except ours? Pigweed and Crowhill walk through the big ones. * France's Reign of Terror killed tens of thousands and left the country in chaos for a century. * Haiti's slave revolt produced 111 changes of head of state and has never stopped bleeding. * Russia's communist revolution promised a people's paradise and d...

Has Pride Month reached its peak? Pigweed and Crowhill discuss the origins of Pride Month, the Stonewall riots, the changing meaning of the word "pride," and why June feels different than it did just a few years ago. Along the way they explore corporate virtue signaling, rainbow branding, LGBTQ activism, transgender controversies, compelled speech in sports, and whether the movement has...

Benjamin Franklin was a printer, publisher, inventor, scientist, diplomat, entrepreneur, author, and Founding Father. He helped secure American independence, invented practical technologies still used today, built civic institutions, and retired wealthy at age 42. He may well have been the most impressive American -- maybe even the most impressive man -- who ever lived. In this installment of our...

Is the insanity defense a get-out-of-jail-free card — or does "not knowing right from wrong" actually make you more dangerous? Pigweed and Crowhill dig into one of law's most misunderstood doctrines: what the insanity defense actually requires, why it succeeds in only about 25% of the cases where it's even attempted, and why the guys think the standard argument runs backwards. Fr...

For the inaugural episode of Conspiracy Corner, Pigweed and Crowhill investigate the claim that birds are actually government surveillance drones. The theory is completely fake—and that's the point. Created as a parody of conspiracy culture, Birds Aren't Real became a social experiment that exposed how easily movements can gain momentum and how quickly people can mistake satire for sinceri...

The boys drink and review Sierra Nevada's Torpedo Extra IPA, then move on to political strategy and methods. Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals remains one of the most influential—and controversial—books on political organizing ever written. In this episode, Pigweed and Crowhill dive into the life and ideas of the Chicago community organizer whose methods have shaped activist movements for...

Is the government secretly poisoning us through airplane exhaust? Pigweed and Crowhill drink a couple of stouts and dig into the chemtrails conspiracy — one of the most persistent theories in the skies today. They break down the real historical cases that give the theory its legs: Operation Sea Spray, Operation Large Area Coverage, MKUltra, and other documented government experiments conducted wit...

Human moral judgment emerges from emotion, empathy, lived experience, social development, and our embodied understanding of the world. AI has none of those things. So, can artificial intelligence be taught right from wrong? If we're going to rely on AI (the way the tech bros want us to), we're going to need to trust it, which means we're going to need to believe it has a trustworthy mo...

The Southern Poverty Law Center began as a respected civil rights organization that targeted the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups. Decades later, however, critics argue that the SPLC has drifted far from its original mission, expanding its definition of "hate" to include mainstream religious, political, and advocacy organizations that simply disagree with progressive orthodoxy. In...

Welcome back to Conspiracy Corner, where Pigweed and Crowhill examine theories that range from ridiculous to surprisingly plausible. This episode tackles one of the internet's newest suspicions: genetically engineered ticks. Lyme disease is rising. Alpha-gal syndrome is spreading. Tick populations seem to be exploding. The government studies ticks. Universities study ticks. Billionaires fund r...

Were there always teenagers, or did modern society invent them? Pigweed and Crowhill explore the surprising history of adolescence and the emergence of the modern teenager. For most of human history, young people moved directly from childhood into adult responsibilities. They worked on farms, served on ships, fought in wars, and contributed to family life from an early age. So what changed? The co...

Crowhill and Pigweed drink and review a Sweet Baby Jesus chocolate peanut butter porter and discuss a question that's challenged churches and society for centuries. Should religion and politics mix? Using a collection of social issue position papers published by the United Methodist Church as a starting point, the conversation explores the history of Methodism, from John Wesley's "hea...

Welcome to Conspiracy Corner — where Pigweed and Crowhill examine the plausible, the ridiculous, and the occasionally true theories about what’s really going on. In this episode, the guys dive into one of the internet’s strangest modern conspiracy theories: “Birds Aren’t Real.” Are pigeons actually government surveillance drones? Are birds recharging on power lines? Is bird poop really a tracking...

Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus crack open a high-octane Voodoo Ranger “GeForce” IPA and head west into one of the greatest adventures in American history: the Lewis and Clark expedition. What begins as a discussion of America’s upcoming 250th anniversary quickly turns into a deep dive into the astonishing story of how a small band of explorers crossed an almost completely unknown continent armed...

In this episode of Beer and Conversation, Crowhill, Pigweed, and Longinus crack open a West Coast pilsner and dive into the world of Louis L'Amour. The boys review three L’Amour stories: * Mistakes Can Kill You * The Man from Battle Flat * The Rider of the Ruby Hills Along the way, they discuss frontier justice, cattle rustling, gunslingers, hidden competence, classic Western themes, and wheth...

What if the modern world was shaped by people wanting better-tasting food? In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we dive into the surprisingly wild history of the spice trade — from pepper worth its weight in silver to the Dutch East India Company, piracy, colonialism, the Columbian Exchange, and the discovery of chocolate, chili peppers, coffee, tea, and sugar. Along...

In this episode of Beer & Conversation with Pigweed & Crowhill, the guys crack open a homebrewed IPA and dive into one of the most controversial ideas in modern culture: “suicidal empathy,” a term popularized by evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad. The conversation explores:* The difference between empathy and sympathy* Why empathy evolved in human societies* How compassion can become self-...

People joke about bubble-wrapped children, but it's almost that bad. We've become obsessed with eliminating risk. But there's a cost. In this episode, we crack open a Lost Rhino stout and dig into the growing culture of safetyism: how it started with reasonable child-proofing, morphed into stranger danger hysteria, and ultimately produced a generation of emotionally fragile young adult...

The boys drink and review "Fried Salad," a dry-hopped oat lager from Tactical Brewing Company in Orlando, then dive into the world of national parks. They start with a little history: from Yellowstone's establishment under Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, to Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy, to the National Park Service itself. Then they take a tour through Maryland's 15 nat...

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we start with a light IPA, but quickly get into a heavy topic: how devices like Ring cameras are quietly reshaping everyday surveillance. What begins as a helpful feature — like Ring’s “Search Party” for finding lost pets — raises bigger questions. If cameras can identify your dog, what else are they tracking? And who ultimately h...