Thanks a million for your patience while I was up in Maine, hacking away at the book and knocking back a whole mess of these. Catching up on a zillion different things today, then back tomorrow with a post about Somali immigrant remittances.
Entries Tagged as 'beer'
“That’s Some Big Hole You’ve Got There”
July 2nd, 2012 · Comments Off on “That’s Some Big Hole You’ve Got There”
Tags:beer·Cold War·Maine·propaganda
The Purple Tin
January 20th, 2012 · 6 Comments
Though Europeans are generally drinking a great deal less these days, the Scottish are bucking the trend. Per the chart above, alcohol consumption has been steadily rising in the land north of the border established by the Treaty of York. The question that no one seems able to answer with any degree of certainty is […]
Landing on Planet Mercury
August 31st, 2010 · 2 Comments
Unlike everyone’s favorite intergalactic MC, I am not bio-enhanced. And that means I must occasionally steal a day to focus on a single project, rather than multitasking as if I’d been blessed with multiple brains. Today is such a day, which means no meaningful Microkhaning ’til after the next sunrise. Apologies, and hope y’all understand. […]
Back from Whitefish Bay
June 3rd, 2010 · 15 Comments
Though there were moments during our vacation when we were tempted to chuck it all and reboot our lives as laborers on the Soo Locks, we finally managed to make it back to world headquarters yesterday. It might take us a day or two to shake off the mental dust, but Microkhan should be back […]
Tags:alcohol·beer·British Empire·Michigan·psychology·Soo Locks
Blitzed on Feudalism
February 10th, 2010 · 15 Comments
Living in Europe during the Middle Ages was certainly no picnic, given the abundance of horrid diseases, the precariousness of the food supply, and the constant threat of having one’s arms lopped off by a passing knight. Yet how much agony and anxiety did the denizens of Medieval fiefdoms really experience? Not bloody much, given […]
Best of Oh Nine: Booze
December 30th, 2009 · 18 Comments
Being anchored to headquarters and relatively penniless meant that the Microkhan clan engaged in much low-brow imbibing throughout 2009. (Think Ballantine in the 22-ounce bottle, and some occasional Jim Beam.) But we’re of the mind that life isn’t worth living with somewhat alcoholic splurging, a mindset that led us to encounter a number of fine […]
In Tragedy, Inspiration
October 5th, 2009 · 6 Comments
For those of us who worship at the altar of hops and malted barley, no trip to Kenya can be complete without sampling a bottle or twelve of Tusker, East African Breweries’ flagship beer. It’s by no means a great lager—when served cold, it reminded us of the thin-yet-refreshing Brazilian brew Antarctica. But Tusker gets […]
Tags:animal attacks·beer·elephants·George Hurst·Kenya·Tanzania·Tusker
The Madonna of Malternatives
September 8th, 2009 · 4 Comments
For those of you residing in or near the County of Kings, please consider checking out our live appearance tonight. No, we won’t be boring you with yet another Now the Hell Will Start reading. Rather, we’ll be taking part in Adult Education, which proudly bills itself as “a useless lecture series.” Tonight’s topic is […]
Tags:beer·housekeeping·marketing·Zima
Fatally Besotted
July 20th, 2009 · 10 Comments
Upon reading this tragic yet all-too-common tale from this morning’s New York Times, we were reminded of our long-held hypothesis that a huge number of homicides would never occur were it not for the ingestion of alcohol. Yet we’ve never really had a good sense of what percentage of killings involve inebriated parties—at least until […]
Temple of Boom (Cont’d)
July 2nd, 2009 · 1 Comment
We’ve already expressed our boundless admiration for Madlib’s Beat Konducta in India album, arguably the most perfect slab of sonic creativity we’ve heard over the past five years. Thanks to this new Grooveshark widget, we can now bring you our favorite track off that opus—the song we’ve long imagined as playing over the credit sequence […]
Why We Aren’t Razorbacks
June 15th, 2009 · 10 Comments
Look, we’ve occasionally been as tempted as the next Mongolian monarch to pull up stakes and move to Arkansas. But every time the urge hits, we remember that Al Green’s birthplace boasts the toughest liquor laws in the nation—even tougher than those in Utah, where we once had a devil of a time finding an […]
The Losers Club
April 16th, 2009 · 6 Comments
Those of you who read Microkhan’s debut post know that management reserves the right to veer away from estoerica on occasion, and delve into topics of a far more personal nature. Well, this is one of those times. Read on if you’d like a brief peek inside Microkhan’s troubled heart; otherwise, fear not, the polymathism […]
Microkhan’s Kind of Research
April 3rd, 2009 · 4 Comments
The Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists rarely fails to be a highly entertaining read, and the latest issue is no exception. Most of the articles are far too technical for the layman to grok; Microkhan’s eyes certainly glaze over at the mere mention of “alpha-acids isomerization yield”. But the issue’s lead piece, […]
The Sludgy Pleasures of Zu
March 25th, 2009 · 2 Comments
The Nagas of the India-Burma border region are especially dear to my heart, seeing as how they play a pivotal role in Now the Hell Will Start. They were always gracious during my travels through the Patkai Mountains, despite facing myriad problems of their own (beginning with a tenuous security situation). And a big part […]
