Social media can be both a fantastic and terrible place. You can follow the lives of celebrities, brands and long lost friends and family that are not a part of your everyday life. You can also provoke and prod discussions into the deepest depths of hell as anonymously as you wish to.

When I first started this blog I saw Twitter as a wonderful tool to interact with other beer lovers across the globe and for the most part it did exactly that. In my hiatus from blogging, and Twitter for that matter, things changed a lot. Opinions were becoming more staunch and no ground was being given on certain arguments in the Beer Twittersphere. Today it seems like a weekly occurrence that certain topics will lead to all day back and forths from pundits, beer fans and industry folk alike. Kids and pets in taprooms? All out fucking war! Private equity verses selling out to the big boys? Fuck them!

I bravely entered into a conversation on Twitter today about the term mediocre in beer. I second guessed myself on it for a good couple minutes. Do I really want to get into a debate on Twitter today. I mean it is a day off for me, so I have the time, but I was feeling brave. Luckily the interactions that I had, specifically with @BeerBabe, were civil and I think that by the end we understood each other’s standpoints.

But this is the risk you take on social media. You can get swept into a shitstorm quicker than a presidential aide. Continue reading…

June 1st marks the beginning of hurricane season in any part of the world that has the wonderful pleasure of being in the Tropics. I don’t like hurricanes, like at all. You are probably thinking, “Well who does Mike?”

And I would respond to you with “Some sick fucks.”

I know that most people dread seeing the cone of uncertainty hovering over their little piece of the peninsula during weather reports. They jump in their cars and raid every grocery store in a 20 mile radius of all bottled water. They descend upon home improvement warehouses for every piece of plywood that the Pacific Northwest can produce. They create lines at gas stations curving around corners and into neighborhoods. You know what that all does to me? It freaks me the fuck out, is what it does! It’s hard to not see other people freaking out and that is exactly what I start doing.

There has already been one named storm in the Gulf last week so things started a bit early. Fuck hurricane season. Continue reading…