Phil Cook

It's officially¹ Shandy On A Rooftop Season. 1: I mean, I say so. An excellent day wandering around a warm Melbourne has put me in the mood to declare it, and I'm claiming the authority. Any objections? Didn't think so.

This reminds me to remind you that Coyote v. Acme is SO FUCKING GOOD and you should absolutely watch it if you haven't seen it yet

I’m going to re-up this with a short list of points that bear repeating. 1. Writing about beer may have once been the province of amateurs and hobbyists, but now a corps of professionals cover the broad range of topics under the beer banner. And they’re *good.*

🥪 We’ve just done the final site update for #CrispSandwichDay 2026, that’s a wrap/sandwich vole.wtf/crisp-sandwi...

Your country might be great but does it follow Australia’s lead by colour-coordinating its currency with the nation’s favourite snack foods?

Happy #CrispSandwichDay to you all, from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C.. (With thanks to @vole.wtf for recognising that the best snack deserved semi-official celebration.)

Anyway. I don't think they've done any of this in bad faith. It's pretty gross and bad though . However any brand who goes for this "what if drink but for WOMEN" marketing doesn't generally make it past six months so we won't see it ever again. And that's my take on "Vodkher"

Spent some time looking at this new vodka brand new "Vodkher". It's a vodka, but get this... It's for women. Which like, idk. A quick look at vodka demographics doesn't give us a lot of info, but it seems like women are already across vodka.

I'm quite tolerant of kids in pubs, it's the parents are the issue. Currently in a quiet pub and the parents have their kid dressed as Michael Jackson (yes, that one, not 'our' one) and dancing to Smooth Criminal played loudly from a crappy speaker phone, on repeat. Kill me f#cking now ...

'Much Here is Beautiful' at SAAM www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen... and reupping our Dia de los Muertos events: www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

People often ask why we only do 330ml cans and the answer is that it makes it easier to avoid unfortunate incidents when you’re making a risotto with your eyes closed.

Oh, this is a beautiful thread full of similar schadenfreude stories from Dave

We paid a designer a videographer and took pictures with a film camera. A.I? I hardly knew her.

this remains a great study of the estranged parents movement, and one of the almost universal features of these narratives is the missing missing reasons--the extreme caginess with which these parents present the events that led to the estrangement

“The internet is a store but it used to be a library” hits me like a slug to the chest

If you would try to win by abandoning trans people (or any targeted group) you can save this “we need to win” talk; there is no “we.” I am about solidarity, and you have chosen anti-solidarity. You are not any “we” I recognize. You are the enemy I’m trying to defeat. Beating you is how my “we” wins.

Yankee Candle's Stages of Abstraction Level 1: The scent represents a physical object where the object's aroma is one of its distinct properties.

No joke. I think this is the most important video I have ever seen about mobile games. This guy breaks down how this game psychologically profiles you, and makes the game harder or easier in order to show you ads

A reminder that retailers not allowed to surcharge for Paywave means that can ONLY recover their costs with higher prices, and consumers are incentivised to use Paywave as much as possible. It's bad for retailers and consumers, but a *bonanza* for the owners of Paywave (credit card companies).

Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, has died.

Man, imagine you're minding your own business, getting kind of drunk with your friends at a picturesque brewery in Maine, when suddenly John Roberts walks by and you get to start heckling him. Must have felt incredible. That's the dream. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/u...

BLOG POST: Does your AI-generated beer app actually contribute something? Is it meeting a real need, or providing new information? Or did you just get excited about being able to make something with zero effort? boakandbailey.com/2026/09/ai-h...

Really nice article from David Nilsen for Pellicle takes a look at the Mischief we’ve been making the last 13 years. www.pelliclemag.com/home/2026/9/...

i'm not the first person to say it but it sure is fucked up how many popular video games these days are just "wouldn't it be cool if you could pursue a single career you enjoy, with plenty of time for rest, and get paid a reasonable living wage for doing so"

I'm at Unity Bookshop Wellington for the Nicky Hager book launch. The event is not due to start until 6 pm, but the room is mostly full already and filling up fast.

17 days until launch!! Watch the *alternative* trailer, voiced by Not Just Bikes. store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/...

at some point trying to make fun of people being into craft beer is more embarrassing than simply being into craft beer and i believe we are rapidly approaching that inflection point

This is such a perfect example of a quick, gentle-but-thorough debunking of needlessly superlative marketing nonsense. Love it when a subject matter expert suddenly appears.

🎯

Oktoberfest started today in Munich, so here are my #beerhistory blog posts about its history: 1. the scandal of the first giant Oktoberfest tent: how a restaurateur from outside Munich ignored the authorities and established what is Oktoberfest nowadays. dafteejit.com/2026/03/the-...

The "AI will kill us all" panic says everything about the dudes promoting it: genAI is already killing people through inaccuracy, encouraging violence and self-harm, and giving bad leaders false confidence to make harmful decisions But that's not a *cool* kind of "killing us all" so they don't care

Humaning.

It simply shouldn't be possible to buy a company out of administration without making good the debts it owes to its employees.

More anti-AI breweries, pubs and cidermakers have been added to my directory. And before anyone comments, if you don't care that a business uses AI, then don't bother reading the list. Easy.

It's opening day for the City Rail Link on Sunday, and if you need to find a drink while riding the rails, I have just the article for you: hoppiness.co.nz/riding-auckl...

The fresh hop beers are out! But wait, is that “green” character diminishing? I try to get to the bottom of things.

23 YEARS AGO TODAY, @mrweebl.bsky.social posted BADGERS to @Newgrounds.com

I tested this theory with 22 fluid ounces (that's 650ml, for the folks back home) of Foster's at the Outback Steakhouse at Orlando International Airport and I have to say, it checks out.

If AI writing detectors worked, the AI platforms would just use the same algorithm to create writing that doesn't look like it was written by AI. They don't, because it doesn't work, never has.

14 hours later and my mentions are still full of angry treatises about badly behaved cyclists. Bike lanes are not a reward for good cyclist behavior! They are infrastructure proven to make cities safer for ALL ROAD USERS. Whatever way cyclists have wronged you is irrelevant to the discussion!

As always, astute observers of bartending dynamics. I'm also a huge fan of whichever boss was okay with the staff reading a book if the vibe was right for that. Much, much better than doing forced busy-work during lulls in service.

NEW: One year in, Trump's troop deployment in D.C. is ongoing, unending, pointless — and very bad. The "America 250" flags are a particularly empty emblem on the uniforms of troops deployed on the streets of the nation's capital. Tonight, at Law Dork:

again, if i had a calculator that gave me the wrong answer one (1) time, i would throw it out and never use it again and could probably bankrupt the company by simply telling people what happened

New blog post: Book Review: The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' by Sidney Dekker ★★★★☆ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/book-review-the-field-guide-to-understanding-human-error-by-sidney-dekker/ This is such a useful book. It makes the case that there's no such thing as "human error" …

The District of Columbia Archives has released its largest digital collection of historic photos — showing new views of the city from 1947 through 1959. Find anything interesting? Let us know!