Living in the Boston area, I know what a she-bitch Winter can be. Sure, she shows up to the party with brisk breezes and picturesque snow-dustings. But before you even have a chance to buy a new ice scraper, the frozen hoe is dropping blizzards on your ass and stampin’ all over your Raynaud’s-addled digits.

Remember, Winter is not your friend. She’s not even your friend’s friend. All she wants is to see you suffer the ice-prickled sting of seasonal blue balls.

Fortunately, there are ways of curbing the blow delivered by the Time of the Taiga. Take hockey, for instance. This sport is not unlike an astrophysicist who was raised ferally by   a pack of abusive lycanthropes, succeeding in spite of a terrible formative environment.

Is hockey the only worthwhile wintertime activity? Hell no. There’s also beer drinkin’.

The folks at Vermont’s Magic Hat Brewing Company understand the protective qualities of intoxicating libations. How do I of   know this? Well, I’ve sipped on Howl.

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I love sequels.

After all, what’s better than getting to revisit   the worlds that’ve inspired us? The first voyage to these lands sees us falling in love, realizing we’re being changed irrevocably, and then making lifetime commitments.   But the subsequent trek? Well, that’s the honeymoon, with garters torn asunder and bed frames busted in half.

That’s not to say that all successors are worthy additions to a franchise. Many aren’t. And some are goddamn abominations. But those sequels that fire on all cylinders? Magic.

The Empire Strikes Back. The Godfather Part II. Die Hard with a Vengeance. Ghostbusters II. Aliens. Terminator II. Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Predator II. Temple of Doom. The Two Towers. Army of Darkness. The Dark Knight.

You get the point.

Today, I’m applying my love for sequels to my penchant for Friday beer-drankin’. Instead of guzzling any run-of-the-mill, first go-around brew, I’m sippin’ on the third member of a veritable beer franchise.

Today, I’m drinking Fade to Black Volume 3: Pepper Porter.

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In my most cherished fantasies, I’m a member of Rogue Squadron. That’s right, if you see me crashing into the mailbox during a mid-drive daydream, I’m probably imagining myself nosediving into the Death Star’s exterior. As the suburban townsfolk yell and scream and cry in the hopes of getting my car off of their lawns, I can only hear Biggs and Wedge and Porkins egging me on. The cops throw down spike strips, and my tires blow out, and all I do is turn up the radio and mutter, “Stay on target.”

It’s this wonderful hallucination of being a bad-ass space-rebel that helps me cope with the fact that I’m nothing more than a sci-fi lovin’ scamp of a man.

Also helping me get through the ennui of my regularly-scheduled quarter-life crises is beer. Sweet, bitter, dark and fizzy beer. On Fridays I make a point to try a new beer, thereby expanding my palate and giving me a deeper basis-for-comparison well.

Tonight, I’m combining my yearning for intergalactic adventure and beer-lust by sipping on the Rogue Brewery’s Double Mocha Porter.

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Sometimes we need to drink.

When we’re dissatisfied with our jobs. When it seems as though we’re stuck in limbo, neither ascending into the honey-sweet halls of Valhalla nor descending into the darkest depths of the liberating Lake of Fire. When our wheels are spinning without taking us damn near anywhere worth goin’ to.

Sometimes we need to drink.

When we want to warm our faces with synthesized satisfaction. When it’ll help us enjoy a movie by chopping chop down those imaginative barriers that go up when we become adults. When we want to forget about our broken spirits. When we want to fill our gullets with something tasty.

Sometimes we need to drink.

When we’re writing irresponsible blogs posts – not because we have to, but because it makes us happy.

Sometimes we need to drink.

Tonight, I need a drink. And so, I’m sipping on the Wachusett Brewing Company’s Milk Stout.

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The economy has yet to recover from its monumental floundering in 2008. Most jobs are in short supply. Other Jobs are dead. Nations are entangled in conflicts its citizens don’t understand, don’t believe in, and don’t want to fight. Hordes of the disgruntled are flooding streets, occupying major metropolitan areas and declaring their dissatisfaction. Tumult is proliferating at unprecedented rates.

And yet, it’s Friday. Love is still free to give and receive. Guitars still vibrate-melodious. High-fivin’ a buddy still feels awesome. Even in these most turbulent of times, persistent are those little reminders of why we persevere. It’s one thing to acknowledge the human spirit, but entirely another to know its power.

I know that the general consensus is that everything’s awful and I’m supposed to check my optimism at the door. But I’m not going to.  Tonight, I’m taking a stand against the tyranny of our times. It’s Friday, goddamn it, and I’m going to enjoy my life for what it is and what it can be! Though my flesh-vehicle betrays me and society’s crumbling, art and beauty and truth still exist.

As does beer.

So, in the midst of existential collapse, I sip on BRRRBON.

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The Cambridge Brewing Company is once again bottling The Great Pumpkin Ale. Since this is the first time in twenty-two years that we’re getting a chance to taste a bottled version of the punkin’-brew, this is a huge deal for all microbrew enthusiast. Keep Reading »

Let us rejoice, for Friday night is upon us! Those of us lucky enough to remain unfettered – without the shackles of offspring or weekend jobs or second drafts of suicide notes to edit – we get to spend this glorious evening any way we see fit.

So how am I spending the evening? Well, I’m attempting to both appease my insatiable appetite for dessert and honor my weekly intoxication-ritual in one fell swoop. How’s that, you ask? Well, I’m slurping on a drank that models itself on a delicious treat.

Tonight, I’m tossing back Creme Brûlée Stout from the fine folks at the Southern Tier Brewing Company.

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James Taylor once penned a tune called Country Road. I’m not exactly sure that it was Taylor’s intention, but when I hear Country Road  I can’t help but imagine myself walking through an apple orchard in the heart of autumn. Perhaps I’m some sort of modern day Johnny Appleseed, walking along a deserted October highway and handing out smartphones to indigent children. “Help us, Techno-Papa, help us! We want to download apps and steal music and message our friends in Vietnam! We’re tired of burning these orange leaves to make smoke-signals! Techno-Papa, we need you!”

And I’ll look at these children, plagued by rickets and smiling their Pepsi-stained smiles, and I’ll deliver. Against the backdrop of autumn, decay and decrepitude as beautiful and wondrous, I’ll hand these diseased scamps the modern-magic they need to survive.

Or, at the very least, to die with smiles on their faces.

Is this what James Taylor thought of when he wrote Country Road? Probably not. But the motherfucker spent so many years on heroin, I wouldn’t rule it out.

Tonight, I’m celebrating dragon-chasin’ pop-song daydreams of autumnal techno-wizardry. It feels good, real good, but it’s parching me out. So it looks like  I’m washing these dope-sick delusions down with a cold can of  Autumnation.

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[cue the music]

There’re moments   in life in which appreciation simply cannot be thwarted, try as Life might.

Today has been the Greater Boston area’s first real taste of fall, a forty-degree recess that seems to cool not just the sweltering landscape, but burning souls as well. That stack of work piling ever higher? Crack open the office window and laugh as the breeze pushes papers across your desk. Stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a nameless worker-bee in the mass exodus from the hive? Take a look beyond the overpass at the trees, all showing off their summer’s-end sunburns of red and yellow and orange. Finally home and having trouble sloughing off the day’s worth of stress?

Just crack open a Harvest Pumpkin Ale.

Autumnal awesomeness will follow.

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My lust for autumnal brews   is absolutely insatiable, transforming me into an ethanol Donkey Kong. Stay out of my way, other beers, or you’re liable to get a barrel thrown off your fucking neck! I’m serious, man! Watch out! The spell has been cast, and only orange-labeled harvest-intoxicants will lubricate my arid braincells properly!

Enjoying a recess from His reaping, the mighty Saturn gazes down into the terrestrial realm. Humans and their dominions, ants and their hills. It’s rustic but aspiring, unrealized but bursting with potential. The brisk breeze cools Saturn’s glistening brow and he smiles upon us in gratitude,   for we raise our glasses in his honor. He raises his chalice, teeming with the syrups and elixirs and sweet ambrosial dreams, and reciprocates.

Gods and Men, united in spirits.

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