Category Archives: Uncategorized

            People have been prepping for the apocalypse for as long as we’ve been intelligent enough as a species to abstract the end of all things. It has taken myriad different faces. There were any number of ancient cultures who thought that ritual would stave off the long dark; European Midwinter Solstice sacrifices to scareContinue reading “2022”

When I was a teenager, buying beer was the easiest thing in the world. It wasn’t because I had a good friend who was 6’10” and never got carded, though that didn’t hurt. It wasn’t because no-one was checking ID’s – being the young’un of the group, I missed several 18th birthdays held (finally) atContinue reading “Tyranny of Choice”

Hybridism is the new perfection.             There was a time, it seems, when there were clearly defined goal lines, and success meant hitting those goals. Culinarily speaking, that is. Well and good. There are still a lot of examples of this in the world today. The best examples, to me, seem to come from FrenchContinue reading “Hybridism”

Sometimes, something will simply float through your defences. You’re ready to go, you’re forewarned and thus forearmed, and you know what you’re about to experience. But just occasionally, something you think you have a pretty good handle on will sneak through your defences and blindside you. Take, for example, Watership Down. Ostensibly, it’s a bookContinue reading “Trojan Horses”

Until this year, I had never had an advent calendar in my life. They seemed like fun, but they just weren’t something we did. We were neither religious nor, frankly, a typical family and we simply didn’t observe the tradition. Which is a pity, because those small traditions are the things that people truly lookContinue reading “Canventional Christmas”

As a follow up to my last piece, here is a guide I never considered that I might have to write – How to Go Out. As someone who can, at a minimum, organise a piss-up in a brewery, here are a few pointers on the lost art of how to do one of theContinue reading “How To Go Out”

Melbourne’s lockdown 6.0 is over, and the world is once again our oyster – provided you’re checked in, masked up, with proof of vaccination ready. People are back on the streets, the trams, and most importantly, filling up the hospitality venues. But what I want to know is, now that we have many more optionsContinue reading “Over Indulgence”

Beer, like so many things, is not an intellectual choice, but an emotional one. Now, the motivations may vary, but more often than not the choice to like a beer doesn’t necessarily come from the grey matter. The stories as to why a person likes a beer are always my favourite. “I love _x_ becauseContinue reading “Emotional/Intellectual Divide”

A lot of people have questions about how to properly taste beers and other alcohols. There is a specific skill to it – it requires a learned palate and much application. Below is a handy chart to help you get started in picking out the different flavours offered by different (mostly) beers. Bundy and CokeContinue reading “Tastes Like…”