Beer and Conversation Podcast

What if civilization didn’t begin the way we thought it did?

For generations, the standard story was fairly straightforward: hunter-gatherers settled down, developed agriculture, built permanent communities, and eventually created cities, temples, art, writing, and civilization.

Then archaeologists discovered Göbekli Tepe.

Built around 9,500 BC in what is now southeastern Turkey, Göbekli Tepe is more than 5,000 years older than the Sumerian civilization and more than twice as far back in time as the pyramids are from us. Its massive stone pillars, elaborate animal carvings, and monumental structures were apparently created by people who had no metal tools, no domesticated animals, and no established agriculture.

So who built it? Why did scattered groups of hunter-gatherers gather there and undertake such an enormous project? Why was the site eventually buried? And why does some of the older work appear more sophisticated than what came later?

Pigweed and Crowhill explore Göbekli Tepe, the Younger Dryas, the traditional story of the rise of civilization, and the strange questions raised by one of archaeology’s most fascinating discoveries. We also venture into the theories of lost civilizations and Atlantis—and ask how much mystery is left once the wild speculation is stripped away.

Plus, we review a pilsner.

What happens when people stop believing the justice system will deliver justice?

Pigweed and Crowhill start with the banned movie *Citizen Vigilante*, but quickly move into a much bigger question: Why do vigilante stories become popular when people believe crime is out of control and the authorities aren’t doing their job?

From Charles Bronson and *Falling Down* to Batman, John Locke, the social contract, and the state’s supposed monopoly on force, they explore the uneasy bargain at the heart of civilized society: We give up the right to take justice into our own hands because we expect the government to do it for us.

But what happens when that bargain breaks down?

Along the way, they discuss immigration and crime in Europe, censorship, the difficulty of talking honestly about politically sensitive problems, and why vigilante stories may be a warning sign that public confidence in institutions is collapsing.

Plus: Alpaca Riot IPA, the Streisand effect, and a surprisingly serious theory about the size of Batman’s ears.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review Cape May Brewing Company’s Coastal Evacuation Double IPA and ask a deceptively simple question: When are we going to live on Mars?

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Tesla, and even the Boring Company can all be understood as pieces of his larger vision of making humanity a multi-planetary species. And there’s a compelling argument behind it: Earth is humanity’s single point of failure.

But getting to Mars may be the easy part. What happens when we arrive? The boys discuss radiation, low gravity, Martian dust, atmospheric pressure, growing food, human reproduction, terraforming, and the uncomfortable possibility that people born on Mars might never be physically capable of living on Earth.

The problems are enormous. But perhaps that’s precisely why we should try. Even if Musk’s dream of a permanent Martian civilization never happens, attempting it could teach us things we would never learn otherwise.

On their recent trip to Mexico, Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus read Greene’s novel set in Mexico — a moral thriller about the relentless pursuit and persecution of a Catholic priest during the Mexican civil war.

A paramilitary group has outlawed the Catholic Church and is executing the clergy. A humdrum, milquetoast, “whiskey priest” is on the run, and a determined officer is trying to hunt him down. He’s stuck between duty and addiction, religion and survival.

Who was the greatest man who ever lived?

Yeah, okay, Jesus. But who was called “the greatest man” by his enemies?

That would be our first president, George Washington, who was declared the greatest man who ever lived by none other than his rival, King George.

Why?

Pigweed and Crowhill dive into that topic, and explore the amazing life and legacy of George Washington.

But first, they drink an IPA inspired by … Iron Maiden? What do they have to do with beer?

This show is part of our America 250 series. We hope you appreciate our efforts to highlight important parts of American history as we celebrate 250 years of this strange experiment in the American Republic.

Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus are back from Mexico with stories to tell. The trip takes them from the beach town of Sayulita to the sprawling metropolis of Guadalajara and finally to Tequila—where the agave fields are endless, the distilleries are fascinating, and the tour bus gets considerably livelier on the way home.

Along the way, they encounter mariachi bands, Mexican craft beer, cobblestone streets, scooters that would horrify an American safety inspector, mysterious walls topped with barbed wire, a spectacular rainstorm, and a culture that can feel simultaneously more relaxed and a little more dangerous than home. It leads to one of the recurring observations of the trip: part of Mexico’s charm is the feeling that nobody is quite in charge—and that’s both liberating and unsettling.

Pour yourself a beer and join us for a conversation about what surprised us, what we loved, and what Mexico looks like when you get beyond the resort.

Why do some cultural fads disappear while others hang around long after everyone seems to have moved on?

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review a hazy IPA and ask, “Are we still doing this?”

From pronouns in bios, COVID-era leftovers and land acknowledgments to climate alarmism, corporate virtue signaling, Pride Month, recycling and other remnants of the great cultural craziness of the past several years, they run through the ideas and practices they thought would have faded away by now.

Every society gets swept up in bad ideas, moral panics and strange enthusiasms. The question is whether we can eventually admit it, laugh at ourselves, and move on. The good news? Pigweed and Crowhill think most of these things are finally trending in the right direction.

Pigweed and Crowhill review two versions of the same old ale and tackle Helen Andrews’ provocative argument that much of what we call “wokeness” can be understood as the feminization of our institutions.

As women have become majorities in fields such as education, law, publishing, and human resources, Andrews argues that traditionally feminine priorities — empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition, and consensus over conflict — have increasingly shaped the rules by which institutions operate.

Pigweed and Crowhill explore that idea through cancel culture, the workplace, the legal system, free speech, DEI, and the very different ways men and women tend to handle conflict.

Is Andrews onto something? Probably. But is feminization really a unified theory of wokeness, or just one factor among many? As usual, the conversation wanders through history, politics, psychology, law, and culture — with beer close at hand.

America needs more data centers to power AI—but communities across the country are starting to say, “Not here.”

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we explore why counties and states are putting the brakes on new AI infrastructure. Data centers promise billions of dollars in investment, but they also consume enormous amounts of electricity, require vast tracts of land, generate noise, and create surprisingly few permanent jobs. Is the economic payoff worth the cost?

We also tackle the bigger questions:

* Why AI is driving an unprecedented demand for electricity
* Whether America’s power grid can keep up
* The case for small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)
* Why local communities are increasingly resisting new data centers
* Whether fears about AI are justified—or overblown
* How the AI race with China changes the debate
* Why this issue is becoming one of the country’s newest political battlegrounds

The result is a genuine dilemma: America may need AI infrastructure to remain competitive, but the communities expected to host it are increasingly questioning whether they’re getting a fair deal.

Grab a beer and join us as we explore one of the most important—and least understood—technology controversies of our time.

Thomas Jefferson was far more than the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a lawyer, architect, inventor, linguist, scientist, diplomat, president, and one of the most influential minds behind the American experiment.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we trace Jefferson’s remarkable life—from writing the Declaration of Independence and championing religious liberty to the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, the Barbary Wars, and even his surprising belief that woolly mammoths might still roam the American West.

We also tackle the hardest question surrounding Jefferson: how do we reconcile his soaring ideals about liberty with the fact that he owned hundreds of slaves? Rather than reducing him to either hero or villain, we examine the historical, political, and personal contradictions that continue to shape the debate over his legacy today.

Along the way, we discuss:

* Why Jefferson was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence
* The revolutionary ideas that transformed government forever
* States’ rights vs. federal power
* The Louisiana Purchase and constitutional questions
* Lewis and Clark’s unexpected mission to search for mammoths
* The First Barbary War
* Jefferson’s passion for science, education, and the University of Virginia
* The enduring paradox at the heart of Jefferson’s life

Grab a beer and join us for a thoughtful conversation about one of America’s most brilliant—and most complicated—Founding Fathers.

Foucault. Derrida. Lyotard. Three French philosophers walk into a cafe — and forty years later, American universities can’t define what a woman is.

In this episode, Pigweed and Crowhill dig into a viral French mea culpa: an apology, on behalf of France, for exporting postmodernism to the world. They trace the direct line from French theory’s core claim — that truth is just a mask for power — through Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, and into today’s language of oppressor/oppressed, meritocracy-as-racism, and “words are violence.”

Topics covered:

* Why civilization rests on three pillars — truth, morality, and inherited tradition — and how French theory tried to dynamite all three
* The difference between what Foucault et al. probably meant and what their disciples did with it
* Why “everything is a power struggle” is really just Marxism with race swapped in for class
* The philosophical case against relativism (and why no one actually lives like a true relativist)
* Fragmentation, diversity, and the postmodern seduction of “there is no truth, only narrative”
* Why a civilization that’s only trained to deconstruct forgets how to build

Plus: a four-year-old bottle of Flying Dog Double Dog Triple IPA that’s mellowed into something closer to a barleywine — tasting notes, aging thoughts, and whether it’s worth the cellar space.

The 2026 World Cup brought millions of international visitors to the United States—and many of them experienced something they weren’t expecting.

For years they had been told America was dangerous, hostile, racist, politically unstable, and falling apart. Instead, many found friendly people, clean cities, incredible food, welcoming communities, freedom, abundance, and an atmosphere that challenged everything they thought they knew.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we examine the gap between America’s international reputation and the experiences of the people who actually came here. Why has so much of the world developed such a dark view of the United States? What role do media, politics, and ideology play? And why were so many visitors saying, “I’ve been lied to my entire life”?

Join us for a conversation about perception, propaganda, culture, and what the World Cup unexpectedly revealed about America.

As America achieves its 250th birthday, we fire up a (mostly) reliable time machine and imagine what the Founding Fathers would think if they could see the United States today.

Would George Washington be amazed by America’s military power? Would Benjamin Franklin marvel at electricity, space travel, and modern technology? Would Thomas Jefferson recognize the federal government they created—or wonder what happened to the republic they envisioned?

Over a German wheat beer, Pigweed and Crowhill explore questions the Founders might ask about:

* The Constitution and the Bill of Rights
* Free speech and religious liberty
* The Second Amendment
* Taxes and the growth of government
* The Tenth Amendment and states’ rights
* Originalism vs. the “living Constitution”
* The rise of the federal bureaucracy
* Presidential power
* Political parties (which many Founders distrusted)
* Whether America has fulfilled—or departed from—the Founders’ vision

Along the way, we also review a classic German Weissbier and finish with another round of “Satire or No Satire?” — where today’s headlines are sometimes stranger than fiction.

Whether you agree or disagree with our conclusions, we hope this conversation encourages you to think more deeply about America’s constitutional heritage as we celebrate the America 250 anniversary.

Cheers!

As part of our America 250 series, Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus put each other to the test with a wide-ranging game of American trivia.

How many people signed the Declaration of Independence? Which president served the shortest term? Why did George Washington’s resignation astonish the world? Which four states meet at Four Corners? And could you answer the same questions that left some college students completely stumped?

Along the way, we discuss fascinating stories from American history, including the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, Valley Forge, the Statue of Liberty, Fort McHenry, the American flag, and many of the remarkable coincidences and personalities that shaped the United States.

Before the trivia begins, we also review a Baltimore Pilsner from Guilford Hall Brewery, comparing it to the classic pilsner style and debating whether it really fits the category.

Whether you’re a history buff or just enjoy learning something new, grab a beer and play along to see how much you know about America.

In this episode:

* Baltimore Pilsner from Guilford Hall Brewery
* America 250 trivia challenge
* The Founding Fathers and the Revolution
* George Washington’s remarkable legacy
* American symbols and traditions
* Surprising historical facts

Can you beat Pigweed and Crowhill?

Cheers—and happy birthday, America! 🇺🇸🍺

With special guest Longinus the boys review a Troegs Graffiti Highway Mosaic IPA and take a deep dive into Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, one of the defining novels of the Beat Generation.

We talk through the plot, the major characters like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, and the larger ideas behind Kerouac’s world: freedom, authenticity, rebellion, conformity, jazz, the open road, and the moral chaos that often comes with living for pure experience.

Along the way, we explore the relationship between the Beat movement and the later hippie movement, Kerouac’s writing style, the role of bebop jazz, the rise of the American highway culture, and whether On the Road is really a novel, a travelogue, or something in between.

If you’ve ever wondered why On the Road became such an important American book—or what the Beat Generation was actually searching for—this conversation is for you.

In this episode:

* Troegs Graffiti Highway single-hop Mosaic IPA review
* A summary and discussion of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
* Who Dean Moriarty was and why he matters
* The meaning of the Beat Generation
* Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and the Beat ethos
* Freedom, spontaneity, authenticity, and the rejection of conformity
* The connection between Beat culture, hippies, Ken Kesey, and the Merry Pranksters
* Jazz, highways, postwar America, and the romance of the road
* Why On the Road is both exhilarating and morally unsettling

If you enjoy conversations about books, literature, culture, philosophy, religion, history, and beer, subscribe and join us for more episodes of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill.