We didn’t notice it then but now we can see that this person is you at the end of 2016 and you are 2016.  You just don’t want anything to do with 2016 anymore.

It only took 10 days into 2016 for the first big name to check out of life permanently — 20 days prior to your likely abandonment of your diet or workout routine.  David Bowie succumbed to his battle with cancer and the music world died a little bit inside too.

Over the course of the next 11 plus months it seemed like beloved celebrity after beloved celebrity left the world garnering more social media hoopla than the last.  Pretty much, if you were moderately to insanely famous you had to be wary of 2016 — except Keith Richards, he’s never dying.

I do realize that saying that on December 30th does mean that I could be eating those words in the next 2 days.

We witnessed a bitter United States Presidential campaign between an orange skinned man child — who’s racial, sexist and xenophobic rants could make a klansman blushing visible under his hood — and an non-tech savvy woman — who’s smile gives me more nightmares than Pennywise the clown in a sewer.  Social media was a near unbearable place for many.  Friends took extended sabbaticals from their profiles.  Others deactivated or even deleted accounts with hope that it wouldn’t lead to deleting friendships.

It took a lot out of us.  We were exhausted from the marathon of the mindless.

Today we are not any better.  Our country remains divided.  But in more than one way.  Many are bitter while others are ecstatic.  We have those that feel helpless, with swatches more feeling angry.  We have a long way to go to sew these holes.

At times it felt like 2016 met you at bar and the next thing you know you are waking up in a field with no idea how you got there.  You’re missing your pants and left wondering where you are.  You’re thinking, “I should have never left 2015.  She was so good to me.”

Countless people lost their lives in mass shootings or acts of terror and cowardice throughout the world.  Hell you can even throw in the mind boggling number of police related shootings too.  I’m not trying to make a connection between terror, mentally unstable people and police.  I’m just saying that this many lives should not be lost.

People started pouring beer like amateurs, on fucking purpose!  Iceman is a lame superhero anyway.

Cleveland sports teams.  The Indians blew a lead in the World Series to lose to the Cubs…the Cubs!  The Browns are who we thought they were.  Yeah the Cavs won a ring but Lebron had 2 of those already from his extended vacation in Miami.

Undoubtedly many of you succeeded in 2016 despite the world’s attempts at totally harshing your mellow.

Probably 2 of you stuck to your diet or workout regimen.  Trust me, eating spinach and kale for lunch almost every day can suck but you can have results.  Plus cut down on the drink…some.

You may have gotten a dream job and moved somewhere better than where you did live.  Many of you certainly met or married the love of your life and began your first steps towards a wonderful life together.  A metric shit ton of you brought life into this world by welcoming sons and daughters that have filled your lives with more joy than your dog when you drunk uncle dropped the entire bowl of stuffing on the floor during Thanksgiving dinner because the Cowboys scored a touchdown.

Let’s take those positives and use them as our starting blocks for 2017.  Do positive things in the new year like donating to a charity you feel strongly for.  Volunteer your time for a cause that moves you.  Donate blood for those that will no doubt need it.  Hold a door for a stranger.  Say please, thank you and your welcome.  Pour your beer with a finger to finger and half amount of foam on top of it.  You know, all the simple things.

Negatives will come, we can’t stop them.  Our president will likely mouth off on Twitter about some newspaper, TV network or megalomaniac foreign dictator.  Some musician, actor/actress, public figure, hero that you admire is going to die.  The Browns will be pitiful.  A TV show will piss you off way more than a work of fiction should.  Mistakes will be made and apologies will be slung.  It’s just going to be about how we roll with the punches.

We should continue to look at the positives that came out of 2016 — as difficult as your racist former high school best friend might make it on Facebook — because that is what should drive us to get over 2016 and try to make 2017 “the best year yet.”

We know what happened, we can admit that now right?  We have a president elect that has mocked the disabled and our troops.  He’s been openly misogynistic and racist.  He’s threatened to jail political opponents and isolate our country.  We got this right?  Okay.

With this thought starting to sink in we must take a particular course.  I’m not saying that this is the right one but it’s the one that makes sense in my sleep deprived, racing head right now.

Despair

Right now many of you are probably feeling despair, I know I am.  And I think that this is a perfectly acceptable feeling, in moderation.  We wouldn’t be the free thinking, amazing creatures that we are if we, who felt so strongly against the opposition, didn’t feel despair in the fact of these matters.  But with that we shouldn’t let it consume us.

I propose that we take November 9th and let it be our day of despair.  Grieve, be upset, take a sick day, lie in bed.  Do all of those things but just today.  I’m not saying that you can’t be angry at this turn of events anymore after November 9th.  Actually it’s quite the contrary, we are going to need that later.  Just get your doom and gloom out today.

Reflect

After November 9th we all need to take some time to reflect on what occurred here.  To call our country divided would be like calling Cubs fans happy they won a World Series.  We will need some time to try to figure out why this happened.  That means listening to people from the other side is a peaceful, logical manner.

It’s not going to be easy and it’s probably going to be frustrating but it is a path that will allow us to understand one and other better.  And when we can understand one and other we can discuss and ultimately unify.

Rebuild

This is going to be the hardest thing out of these points.  How do we rebuild?  I don’t exactly know.  Hell, I don’t even have any clues.  But when we are likely going to have a president that doesn’t care about us we must come together and rebuild our nation ourselves.

People can make a difference, and I don’t mean in just a voting station.  If we the people can band together and support one and other we can at worse weather these next 4 years and at best show everyone that we are unwilling to be pushed around by an orange dunce.

Year after year fans of this fall seasonal drink up gallon after gallon of the spice forward brew and clamor for more.  Each subsequent year breweries start bringing out their pumpkin beers earlier and earlier to meet this demand from the consumer.  Last year we released our pumpkin beer at Due South, Isle of MaGourdo, on August 1st in order to get into displays at some of the bigger retailers.  August 1st!  For a pumpkin beer!  The beer drinkers kept wanting the pumpkin beers earlier and the stores will do whatever they can to meet the demands of their customers.  With that a lot of breweries comply in order to get prime spots in the stores.  Which is why 2016 has come  as a bit of a surprise

After years of increasing demand for pumpkin beers those same people seem to be revolting against the very beer they wanted so much of.  Once again we met the deadline to get our beer in a prime spot in stores and so did many other breweries that produced pumpkin beers in package.  But unlike previous years the beer drinkers don’t seem to want pumpkin beers.  Whether this means that they don’t want it just yet or don’t want it at all is still yet to be seen but this has been a subject of conversation for the past few years.

Small pockets of beer geeks, brewers and dignitaries alike have been saying that the pumpkin beer push would die down eventually and it’s seeming like 2016 may just be the first year of said downturn.  And it’s not just pumpkin beer that is victim to this.  People are condemning pumpkin coffees, creamers, candles, ice cream and everything in between for coming out “too early” this year.  To be serious there have been people saying this stuff for years but it seems like those people are getting louder or gaining in numbers.

If these people are fed up with how early pumpkin beers are coming out I think we may have a very interesting situation on our hands.  Fall beers are far from the only seasonal brands that come out ridiculously early, it’s all of them.  Spring beers come out in February, summer beers in April/May and so on.  If people are finally getting tired of beer releases making them feel like their years are blowing by way too quickly we may finally get ourselves back to a more traditional release schedule for seasonal beers.  I for one am for this.

However if the issue is that people are just sick of pumpkin beers in general a number of brewers, ours included, will have to seriously take a look at the market and see what will really be best for business.  For most breweries in the fall you will see either a pumpkin beer or an Oktoberfest style lager.  We have the rare distinction of doing both at our brewery but our pumpkin beer has far and away been the bigger seller in the fall.  A matter of fact it is one our best selling seasonals we make.  Each year we have brewed it we have made double the amount we did in the previous year and are pretty much sold out by the end of October.  Will brewers start scaling back the amount of pumpkin beer that they make?  Will they transition away from making them if their sales go down and opt for a different fall seasonal?  I think by November a lot of breweries will have a good chunk of data to begin their attack for next year’s planning.

But really who knows?  We may see that people will start chugging down copious amounts of pumpkin beers when the temperatures finally start going down and might catch things back up to the normal numbers.  In the mean time this leaves some extra Oktoberfest for myself.

Yes pouring the perfect Duvel is slightly different than pouring your locally brewed IPA but it follows some similar principles.  The most obvious of these is the head on the beer.  The head, or foam, on the top of a beer can be difficult to get right at first but it’s a task that even any weekend warrior of drinking beer should be able to master in a Saturday afternoon.  Instead of me going into great detail and taking up way too much space, on a piece that will already be long enough as is, may I direct you to this lovely article from the Art of Manliness.  Go ahead and read it, I’ll wait.

One of the keys to pouring a proper beer is to have a nice finger and half to two fingers of head on the top of your beers.  This is where much of the aroma is held when you pour a beer.  And of course smell is an important roll in fully enjoying a beer or just anything you consume.

What is really beginning to drive my mind up a proverbial wall is this trend of pouring beers all the way to the top of the glass with no head whatsoever.  Who the fuck started this and why do you hate America so much?  I say this because I’m assuming you are a terrorist hellbent on destroying our country from the beer community out.  I mean let’s take a look at this.

What in the serious fuck am I looking at?  Is this beer?  I mean the bottle next to it seems to indicate as such but what’s in the glass lacks one of the typical characters of the tasty beverage that I love and make for a living.  Search through Instagram and you will find pictures like this one all over the place.

Some might argue that the only pictures like this are of the “New England Style” IPAs that are all the rage right now.  I’m not getting into those beers right, that’s a whole other piece that I could write.  The claim is that people pour these beers like this because their color and cloudy nature makes them look like orange juice in a glass.  Well I’m calling bullshit on that because I went through and found pictures of Imperial Stouts, Sours and even Lagers all poured in this ridiculous fashion.

Some of you might even be thinking, “But Mike, the Art of Manliness article only shows how to pour into a shaker pint and those glasses are terrible for beer.”  While yes those glasses aren’t great for beers because they don’t allow for the proper ability to get aroma from beer even though what you are doing by pouring a beer up to the rim is the same fucking thing.  Sorry for that run on sentence.  Yes that article is about shakers but any snifter, chalice, Teku (fuck the Teku), tumbler (trigger alert), pilsner or any glass follows the same principles when pouring.

But then you might be saying, “It’s just a fun, cool thing to do and it makes my pictures look cool.  And anyway it’s not hurting you.”  Firstly, no, it’s not cool and, no, your pictures look beyond amateur because a good looking beer has a nice layer of foam on the top if it.  And secondly, yes it is hurting me.  When people pour beers like this and take pictures and show them to the masses it makes people get the wrong idea of how beer is.  It smacks people like me and my co-workers in the face that work hard to create beers that have lovely heads that leave lacing on your glass as you drink them.  I can only imagine what my good friend Kevin, head brewer at Barrel of Monks Brewing, would think if he saw a picture of his Three Fates Tripel poured with no head into a glass.  We should all be thankful he barely uses social media and hasn’t come across this trend.  I’m fairly certain the world would not exist anymore if he did.  So yes it does hurt people.

With that can we just get back to pouring our beers normally, with head on them.  It actually takes you a lot more time to pour a beer that carefully that you don’t get foam in the glass.  That’s wasted time that could be used taking picture perfect beer snaps or just drinking the beer.

In the past I’ve ranted on my personal Facebook about, and caught a good deal of shit for, the ways sales people will not simply give a potential customer the information they are looking for.  They want to know how big your business is, what your favorite color is, if you like frills on your panties.  None of that information being relevant to the service or products that they provide.  Just give me the damn price of what it is you provide!

Now I absolutely get that there are some businesses out there that have different factors that go into their pricing.  Some of these do require a few simple questions to get you the correct pricing, like when I order labels for beer cans or bottles.  Those items can vary in size, print type, colors, etc.  Add in quantity discounts and I understand I have to provide someone some important details before getting a price however most companies that provide goods and services do not need all this.

There are countless tech companies that I come across on a near daily basis that offer a service with different packages that contain different features.  However when I search for pricing it is nowhere to be found.  There are buttons and links all over the site begging me to request a quote.  Why can’t you just put the pricing for each package on the site?  Hell I’d be okay with contacting someone to complete the payment if I decide to get it but why do I have to contact someone, be asked a bunch of silly questions and just be bothered in general just to get your standard pricing plans?  Do these companies change their pricing for different potential customers?  If so that’s some shady business practices.

Let’s face it, traditional face to face sale jobs are becoming more insignificant by the day.  Majority of customers now and days want ease and peace of mind.  They want to order things online or deal with a person by email.  Yes there will always be the people that want to talk to human, and they will forever be weird to me, but a sales person must be versatile and work with customers in the way they feel comfortable in order to keep them as a customer.  Making things difficult for a potential customer when you would rather deal with them face to face or on a call when they just want to do things via email is not likely going to land you a customer.  I don’t know how many times I have turned down soliciting emails from sales people that want to immediately set up a sit down meeting in order to even tell me what they offer.  I don’t work that way and if you don’t want to work with me then I will not be a customer of yours.  But back to the pricing issue.

Even with many vendors that I deal with I know that they aren’t going to list all their pricing on their websites.  My grain providers have hundreds of products they offer all with different quantity discounts.  But I’ll be damned if I can’t just email someone at their companies, ask for a pricing list and they will give it to me without needing to know my emergency contact information.

While talking about pricing and websites, do you ever browse around that big website with all the stuff that begins with A, ends in N and in the middle is MAZO?  Yeah?  Well every once in awhile you will come across an item and on it’s page it says that you must add the product to your shopping cart in order to see the price.  What?  Why?  They claim that the manufacturer will not allow them to list that item for the low price that they are selling it for.  In no other aspect of life does this argument apply.  When you are grocery shopping and come across your favorite flavored hummus on sale it doesn’t refuse to tell you the price of it until you get to the cashier.  Department stores do not refuse to give you the pricing on that hilarious graphic tee that you’ve been wanting unless you put it into your basket.  The store has already purchased the items from the manufacturer, it’s now up to them how much they want to charge.

Today is the age of convenience, or laziness, or maybe both.  Let’s call it conveniently lazy if you insist.  Either way companies must stop putting so many obstacles between the path from a potential customer to becoming an actual customer.

The Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is a branch of the US Treasury and they regulate alcohol on a federal level. One aspect that they regulate is the approval of labels that go on beer. This include bottles labels, printed cans and keg collars. The TTB has a number of rules and regulations that must be followed on these labels and require a brewery to submit the labels for approval to them if they intend on selling the beer across state lines. This is called a Certificate of Label Approval or COLA for short. Luckily if you are only going to sell the beer in the state of production you do not have to acquire COLA. However even though you do not have to get label approval for this you must still adhere to the rules and regulations set forth by the TTB.

Looking on social media I come across a lot of new and interesting label and can designs but the things I always look for first is if it is legal. Time and time again I see labels and cans that contain incorrect information. For those breweries that are close friends I’ve very nicely brought these issues up to them while just stating that I’m not stepping on toes but just trying to be informative. But I decided to write this piece about the 5 most common things I see that are done wrong on beer labels.

Location

This might be the easiest thing in the world but I see people forget this. The TTB requires a label to have the name of the company and the city and state of production on the label. This can be as simple as something like this.

Some Dude Brewing Co., Sometown, FL

You may have the full address including your street name but it’s not required. A lot of breweries also opt for adding something like “brewed and packaged/bottled/canned by” on there as well. Again this is not required but you can feel free to add it. The only requirement is the production facilty that made it and it’s city and state must be on there.

Alcohol by Volume

This along with the beer designation, which I will get to, is one of the most common mistakes. Alcohol by Volume is not even a requirement to be on labels as far as the federal government is concerned. They leave it up to the states to individually determine whether to require it or not. With that said many brewers put the Alcohol by Volume on a label just in case they ship to a state that requires it and as a convenience to the consumer. I see the use of the acronym ABV on so many labels yet the TTB does not allow this shorting of the term Alcohol by Volume. The TTB allows the following for writing of your Alcohol by Volume.

5% Alcohol by Volume
Alchol 5% by Volume
5% Alc by Vol
Alc 5% by Vol
5% Alc/Vol
Alc 5% by Volume

While we tend to just use ABV in our everyday speech we must remember to curb this when it comes to labels.

Contents

The TTB requires contents of a keg or package to use US standards of measurement. This is fluid ounces, pints, quarts and gallons. Metric, such as for the popular 750 milliliter bottles, can be present on the package but not solely. It must have US measurements as well. Additionally the label must use fluid ounces and not just ounces, as one is a measurement of volume and the other of weight. You may abbreviate fluid ounces as fl oz if you wish.

When going up in size is when things can get a little tricky. A package under 16 fluid ounces can simply be marked as something as simple as 12 fluid ounces. Once you hit 16 your package must be marked as 1 pint. Anything above that until 32 ounces must be marked like 1 pint 8 fluid ounces, for the 22 ounce bomber. Once you hit 32 ounces it turns to quarts and then at 128 ounces to gallons. So your crowler labels would say 1 quart, not 32 fluid ounces or 2 pints.

Forbidden Words

While it may come as no surprise, the TTB has their own list of dirty words that are forbidden from use. Any word that indicates high strength or physical effect of the beer such as Strong or Full Strength are not allowed. This will throw some brewers for a loop as American Strong Ale or Belgian Strong Ale are actual styles. You will need to find unique ways of portraying your style without use of the word Strong.

You also may not say that the beer gives a warming feeling. This is actually a new one that I just learned this past May at the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia. A seminar put on by the head (and only) label analyst at the TTB went into this one.

You also may not make claims to health benefits of a beer unless it is backed by a lab study proving that claim. This comes into play with low-carb, low gluten and gluten free beers.

Designations

Like I said earlier, this one gets a lot of people. The designation of the beer makes the claim as to the style of beer and any additional ingredients are added. There are a handful of allowable base designations for beer and they are the following.

Beer
Bier
Ale
Lager
Porter
Stout
Malt Beverage

For some beers the name itself will take care of this designation. Let’s take Stone’s Arrogant Bastard for example. On the bottles the name is listed as Arrogant Bastard Ale. It has the brand name and the designation right there. But others may not be that easy. Founder All Day IPA needs to have a classification with it. That is why India Pale Ale is also written out on the label. IPA alone is not acceptable as the classification.

When getting into international styles like Belgian, German or Irish you must not make a confusing statement to where a consumer may think the beer is actually from one of those countries.  With that, the use of the word Style after the country name is acceptable.  For example:

Belgian Style Golden Ale
German Style Wheat Beer
Irish Style Red Ale

But things get even more confusing when it comes to beers with additional ingredients added into them.  Up until mid 2014 any beer that contained ingredients outside of the 4 main ones for beer (water, hops, malt, yeast) had to submit a formula to the TTB for approval before you could even submit COLA.  Luckily in 2014 and again in 2015 the TTB created a list of exempted ingredients that no longer required formula approval before COLA.  A full list of those ingredients can be found here.  Also exempted during these rulings was barrel aging.  If an ingredient is not on that list or it’s an extract you will need to submit for formula approval prior to COLA.  If you use extracts please keep in mind that the manufacturer of that extract must submit and receive approval for their extracts prior to you being able to use them.  It’s best to ask you extract manufacturer if they have TTB approval on their flavors before using them.

Now to get back to the actual designation.  How to properly create the designation depends on when the ingredients were added to the product.  You pretty much have 2 options here, pre fermentation and post fermentation.  If the ingredients, in this case we will use orange peel, were added in the boil or whirlpool your designation would look like this.

Ale Brewed with Orange Peel

If the ingredients were added after fermentation, like as a dry hop or treatment in a secondary vessel, it would look like this.

Ale with Orange Peel Added

Sometimes you can have both.  Maybe you added spices into the boil and some citrus after fermentation.  In this case it can look like this.

Ale Brewed with Spices with Orange Peel Added

It is also worth noting that the TTB does not really have a desire to note each individual spice on a label if you are using multiple of them.  For the ever popular pumpkin beer many of us use a blend of many spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice.  Simply using the term spices is cool with the TTB as long as it’s an approved ingredient.

Barrel and wood aging has a specific way that it must be worded as well.  This can differ between virgin wood and spirit barrels but they all pretty much have a similar format.

Ale Aged on Oak Chips
Ale Aged on Oak Spirals
Ale Aged in Oak Barrels
Ale Aged in Bourbon Barrels
Ale Aged in Red Wine Barrels

I could go one for that one but when it comes to spirit barrels you must be specific to the type of spirit but not the brand.  If it’s wine barrels it should be noted as either red or white.  If it is apple brandy barrels as opposed to regular brandy that must be noted.  And as for the old home brew tactic of aging your own oak chips in a spirit at home and then using those, that is a big no no.

The TTB even has a nice article that lays out a number of designation examples to help you.  It can be found here.

I’ve been wanting to write an article about this topic for a couple years now but always knew that it couldn’t be a short and sweet one.  There is a lot to know when it comes to labeling rules and regulations and this probably why so many labels have errors on them, because there is just so much to know.  Brewers, especially small ones, are busy making their beer great and probably only know the bare minimum about labeling so they just roll with it.  The TTB does have a lot of helpful information on their website.  I know, calling a government branch helpful doesn’t always seem to go hand in hand.  I’ll admit that getting someone to return a voicemail or email over there, let alone pick up the phone, can be daunting but their site is actually pretty good.

I honestly don’t even know how I can make a TL;DR with this whole thing, it just doesn’t seem possible.  With all that said I hope that this was helpful to some brewers, designers and just seekers of knowledge out there.  If it can help save you from printing up a few thousand labels with incorrect information, awesome!  If you have any questions about any of this please feel free to contact me.  I’ll be happy to make some time to go into more detail (yeah it can get more detailed) for you.  Keep making incredible beer brewers.  Cheers to you all!

In essence the experiment is a form of sensory deprivation and it causes your brain’s natural urge to create patterns to start to make patterns when it can not find them.  The amazing thing about this experiment is that you can do it in the comfort of your own home and can stop it at any time that you like.  You don’t have to worry about the trip working it’s way through your system if you don’t like it, you can simply take off your mask and it’s over.  Reality re-established.

So here is what you will need:

• Plain, ordinary printer paper.  It doesn’t need to be a heavy cardstock, and this is actually discouraged.
• A head band or a few rubber bands and some staples.
• Cotton balls are optional.
• Noise canceling headphones or good earbuds.
• A computer or phone.
• 30 minutes of quiet time.

First I took the paper and cut out an oversized sunglasses shape.  Just think of something a Kardashian would wear.  I have a thin headband that I put over the top part of the paper to hold it as it covers my eyes.  This is where you can use rubber bands or staples.  Lay down and see if the paper is covering all of your peripheral vision.  If not, this is where the cotton balls come in.  Use these to cover any areas where you can see out of when laying down.  You can glue or tape them onto the mask to keep them in place.

Now you might ask why can’t you just use a sleep mask or anything else that covers your eyes.  Color is said to be very important in this experiment and white is the color we need.  Sleep masks tend to be black or dark colors which promote your body to go to sleep while lighter colors encourage it to stay awake.

Once you have your cool shades done be sure that where you are conducting the experiment is going to be quiet.  Tell roommates, spouses, kids, shady pets and neighbors and whoever else to get out of the house.  Tell them it’s for science.  Turn your A/C off so that it doesn’t kick on and cause noise.  Set your phone to silent, not vibrate, so that it will not cause any noise or disturbance.  After that find some white or pink noise on YouTube, there’s tons.  I opted for a standard TV like static.  Make sure you have lights on in the room, pop on your headphones, turn on the noise and lay back, relax and just look at the white of the paper for around 30 minutes.

The aforementioned video that I talked about showed the people get up from their experiment and just appear in total awe.  They spoke of visions that they saw and noises that they heard that began in as little as 90 seconds of starting.  They mentioned crazy colors, shapes, eyes, creepy faces, windows and elaborate scenes.  Did I experience this?  Yes and no.

Firstly it took much longer for me to feel like I was beginning to see anything.  Since I couldn’t see a clock I would guess around 10-15 minutes.  I believe I was maybe too excited to where I couldn’t get totally relaxed.

Next, I was getting rather tired at the start.  I struggled to keep my eyes open as I could feel myself nodding off a few times.  But after one particular moment, where I know my eyes were closed for a slightly longer period of time, I opened my eyes to something different.  The white of the paper was a sandy tan color.  At this point I was no longer feeling the urge to fall asleep.

Next I began to see colors.  Greens and blues began sweeping through but in no distinct shapes or patterns.  A few moments later I began to see faint shapes.  I saw a few eyes that appeared to come in and out of focus all over my horizon of view.  After the eyes I began noticing sharp objects jutting up from the bottom almost in a pattern that resembled a well executed wave at a sporting event.  Through all of this none of the shapes were in total focus, they were faded and dull.  Eventually the sharp objects formed a circular shape, almost like a pinwheel, and they began moving in a counter-clockwise motion.  It was around this time that the music ended and my 30 minutes had ended.

I took off my blinders and I thought back to when I was preparing for this experiment.  I was anticipating myself jumping up in amazement.  I would be so enthralled by what I just saw I would want to begin writing immediately so that I remembered it all.  I had a Notepad window open on my computer for just such a moment but that just didn’t happen.

Yes, I’ve never dropped acid or taken any other drug that causes you to trip balls, as the kids would say.  So I honestly don’t know what tripping or hallucinating is actually like.  I mean I’ve had some very vivid dreams that I could swear were real even in my first minutes of waking up.  None of this was anything that caused me to have an experience that resembles what people explain from tripping or even those that have done this experiment.

I’ll likely give the experiment another go at some point just to be sure.  There are some people that have much higher thresholds to these sorts of effects and maybe I am one of them.  As I mentioned it was probably about halfway through before I saw anything out of the ordinary.  Maybe I have to wait longer.  We shall see.

If you decide to give this experiment a go please comment below about your results and experience.  I’m really interested to see what other see and feel.

I’ve become accustomed to seeing debate on Facebook between people that range from mildly not having a clue about the subject to being 100% ignorant. Dealing with this comes with the territory if you are invested at all in the social media monster. I’ve seen my fair share of hate thinly veiled as conversation between people that I consider friends. But even with all that I was able to put on a smile and keep marching with Zuckerberg’s baby until Orlando.

Sunday, June 12th I woke up to see my feed consumed by a story out of the theme park capital of the world. While information was still being gathered, word was that potentially up to 50 people were dead due to a shooting inside of an Orlando gay bar. As the day went on I saw many stories posted by people, many containing false information that was obviously meant to stir controversy. But while all that happened it was great to see us, as a whole, come together and mourn what became the largest mass shooting in our country’s history. It seemed like we were united in trying to help this city and it’s residents in recovering from such a horrific act. My brother and many friends call O-Town home and for us to be able to show support like this was a wonderful display that can provide in a glimmer of hope in humanity to the most stone cold misanthrope. But then Monday came.

It certainly didn’t take long for the banding together to start to crumble. This heinous act became split into 2 sides and those sides each “knew” that they were right. The topics became about gun control, terrorism, gay rights and conspiracy theories. Almost everyone had an opinion and they were fighting tooth and nail for it. On this day Facebook was no longer fun for me. It was no longer about seeing my friend’s vacation antics, looking at memes or spreading word of events and get togethers; all things that I love about the network. It wasn’t about the people that lost their lives, the people that were hurt or the ones that lost loved ones. No, it became about social issues. It was left vs right. I took all this in and realized that I didn’t want to play anymore. I decided that Facebook and I needed a break.

Look I’m not saying that some of these topics shouldn’t be talked about, they absolutely do, but we need to do it in a different manner.  Your opinions and beliefs are important and you are free to believe them but when you have little to know actual knowledge on a subject and begin to fight on one side or the other with the ruthless aggression of a bastard honey badger you are doing more harm than good.  This is how misinterpretations, half truths and lies get passed around.  If we can be civil and talk about actual facts and data it will lead us on a path to dealing with these social issues in a positive manner.  I’ve digressed from the original point of this piece so let me wrangle you all back in.

That following Wednesday I wrote up a little post explaining why I was taking this hiatus from Facebook and decided to let it be. I can’t 100% break off from the book of faces as my job requires me to interact with our page and my podcast still requires me to make posts on there. So the tubes were more tied rather than cut.

It wasn’t an easy break either. You find out how ingrained Facebook has become in your life when you are just going through your phone and opening the app out of habit or starting to type “fac” in your web browser based on muscle memory.  I must have inadvertently opened that app at least 5 times a day that first week.

I broke my hiatus on Father’s Day to say a few words about a fellow South Florida craft brewer that lost his life in a car accident the night prior. Other than that I have been back at my hiatus. I get notifications of people tagging me and I admit I peak but then I just close it off and go back to things. And honestly, I think it has made my life a little more enjoyable.

I’ve taken to Instagram to be my social media crutch as I ween myself off the big blue brand. Yes I know they are owned by the same company but I enjoy that Instagram is more about things that people love and have passion for in a manner that’s not so hateful and personally destructive. You don’t see bitter debates with people who only have 25% of the facts. You see pictures that are artfully taken and edited. You see smiling faces of people enjoying the great outdoors, their favorite watering whole or a new taco spot that their friends told them about. Overall it’s a pretty positive vibe and that’s what I need right now. Hell, that’s what a lot of us need right now.

I don’t think I will drop Facebook forever, I just can’t. As I mentioned, I have have ventures that require the use of the platform and I need to post links to my commentaries somewhere for people to actually read. Plus the presidential race will be over soon and everyone will simply go back their cat memes, restaurant check ins and TV show discussions. It’s only a matter of time before I come crawling back but I will certainly enjoy my time away.

I’ve decided that the site that bears my name should be up and functional.  It should also portray me for who I am and what I’m about.  I’ve figured that those things are simply craft beer, podcasting, design and commentaries.  With a defined vision for how I want people to view me it makes maintaining the website seem much easier.

This site will serve as a look into my life and who I am and what I represent, a central hub of sorts.  I will post design work that I do.  I will write about things that I feel compelled to write about.

We’ll see how things go.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter and Instagram as well.

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