Beer and Conversation Podcast

In this episode of Beer and Conversation, Crowhill, Pigweed, and Longinus crack open a West Coast pilsner and dive into the world of Louis L’Amour.

The boys review three L’Amour stories:

• Mistakes Can Kill You
• The Man from Battle Flat
• The Rider of the Ruby Hills

Along the way, they discuss frontier justice, cattle rustling, gunslingers, hidden competence, classic Western themes, and whether L’Amour deserves more literary respect than critics usually give him. They also explore the appeal of “formulaic” storytelling, memorable cowboy language, and how L’Amour’s deep historical research gave authenticity to his Westerns.

Topics include:

• Why Louis L’Amour became the defining Western writer of the 20th century
• The difference between “great literature” and great storytelling
• Western archetypes and the hero journey
• Real Old West terminology and ranch culture
• Why audiences often love familiar story structures

Plus: beer review, cowboy slang, and a surprising discussion about opium smuggling in a Western novella.

If you enjoy Western fiction, classic storytelling, or authors like Stephen King and Jack London, this one’s for you.

What if the modern world was shaped by people wanting better-tasting food?

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we dive into the surprisingly wild history of the spice trade — from pepper worth its weight in silver to the Dutch East India Company, piracy, colonialism, the Columbian Exchange, and the discovery of chocolate, chili peppers, coffee, tea, and sugar.

Along the way, we explore:

• Why spices were once luxury items for kings
• How the search for cinnamon and pepper helped launch the Age of Exploration
• Why Columbus accidentally found the Americas
• How the Dutch created one of the world’s first mega-corporations
• The dark side of the spice trade: war, slavery, and empire
• Why your kitchen spice cabinet is a tiny museum of world history

Plus: Crowhill experiments with a homemade Manhattan variation called “The Dutch Indian.”

History, economics, food, exploration, trade, empire, and cocktails — all in one conversation.

In this episode of Beer & Conversation with Pigweed & Crowhill, the guys crack open a homebrewed IPA and dive into one of the most controversial ideas in modern culture: “suicidal empathy,” a term popularized by evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad.

The conversation explores:

• The difference between empathy and sympathy
• Why empathy evolved in human societies
• How compassion can become self-destructive
• The “weaponization of empathy” in politics and culture
• Immigration, tribal loyalty, and social cohesion
• The balance between compassion and judgment
• Whether modern Western culture has lost that balance

Along the way, Pigweed and Crowhill discuss evolutionary psychology, virtue signaling, theory of mind, and why even good virtues can become dangerous when pushed to extremes.

If you enjoy long-form conversations about culture, philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, and the strange state of the modern world, subscribe and join the discussion.

People joke about bubble-wrapped children, but it’s almost that bad. We’ve become obsessed with eliminating risk. But there’s a cost.

In this episode, we crack open a Lost Rhino stout and dig into the growing culture of safetyism: how it started with reasonable child-proofing, morphed into stranger danger hysteria, and ultimately produced a generation of emotionally fragile young adults.

Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff addressed this question in The Coddling of the American Mind, namely, the unintended consequences of overprotective parenting, and how smartphones turbocharged the demand for emotional “safety.” Along the way, we ask the questions nobody wants to ask — like whether COVID lockdowns were the ultimate safetyism stress test, and whether removing all risk from childhood is actually more dangerous than the risks themselves.

As Thomas Sowell reminds us: there are no solutions, only trade-offs. So grab a beer, take off the helmet, and let’s talk about it.

Topics covered:

• Growing up in the 70s & 80s vs. today
• Haidt & Lukianoff’s Coddling of the American Mind
• Stranger danger, 24-hour news, and moral panic
• Smartphones, social media, and emotional fragility
• Campus speech restrictions and trigger warnings
• COVID, safetyism, and government overreach
• Why some danger is essential to raising resilient kids

The boys drink and review “Fried Salad,” a dry-hopped oat lager from Tactical Brewing Company in Orlando, then dive into the world of national parks.

They start with a little history: from Yellowstone’s establishment under Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, to Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy, to the National Park Service itself. Then they take a tour through Maryland’s 15 national park sites before turning their attention to the roughly 20 parks and monuments designated in recent years under the Biden administration.

What do the new designations have in common? The guys break them down one by one — from Bears Ears and the Grand Canyon expansion to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad site, the Harvey Milk National Historic Site, the Pullman National Historic Park, and the Emmett Till Monument — and share their take on what the trends say about how America chooses to remember itself.

A wide-ranging, honest conversation about conservation, history, national identity, and whether the park system should make you feel proud — or guilty.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we start with a light IPA, but quickly get into a heavy topic: how devices like Ring cameras are quietly reshaping everyday surveillance.

What begins as a helpful feature — like Ring’s “Search Party” for finding lost pets — raises bigger questions. If cameras can identify your dog, what else are they tracking? And who ultimately has access to that data?

We explore the tradeoffs between convenience and privacy, including:

• How networked cameras could allow real-time tracking of people and vehicles
• The growing normalization of constant recording in public (and even private) spaces
• The risks of data collection happening before you opt in or out
• Why the question “What do you have to hide?” might be the wrong one
• How surveillance tools—originally built for safety—can be misused by individuals, corporations, or governments

Along the way, we connect Ring cameras to broader trends: dash cams, license plate scanners, facial recognition, and even government surveillance programs. The result? A world where everything is recorded—and the real question is not *if* it will be used, but *how*.

Is this just the cost of modern convenience, or are we drifting toward something much bigger?

Grab a drink and join the conversation.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation, Pigweed and Crowhill take on a recent United Nations resolution addressing the history of slavery and the call for reparative justice. Beginning with the obvious — slavery is a moral evil — they quickly move past the headline and dig into the deeper question: which history is being told, and why?

The discussion explores the broader global context of slavery, including the transatlantic trade, intra-African slavery, and the often-overlooked Arab slave trade that spanned centuries and affected millions. Along the way, they challenge the common narrative that frames slavery primarily as a Western phenomenon and examine how economic realities, geography, and historical conditions shaped the “supply chain” of slavery across different regions.

They also unpack the political dimensions of the UN resolution—why certain countries supported it, why others abstained or opposed it, and what role modern ideologies play in shaping how history is interpreted. The conversation raises uncomfortable questions about reparations, historical accountability, and whether it’s possible—or even meaningful—to apply modern legal and moral frameworks to actions that were once widely accepted.

From there, Pigweed and Crowhill zoom out to consider a broader pattern: the tendency to simplify complex historical realities into morally satisfying narratives. They discuss how this dynamic shows up not just in conversations about slavery, but in how nations remember (or ignore) other forms of conquest, exploitation, and violence—from the Mongol Empire to the Aztecs to European colonial powers.

As always, the episode blends historical commentary with candid opinion, a bit of humor, and a willingness to question prevailing assumptions. And, true to form, it all begins with a beer—this time, Dale’s American Light Lager.

After decades of staying close to Earth, the United States is finally pushing outward again.

In this episode, we talk about the Artemis missions and what they represent: not just another NASA program, but a return to the kind of ambition that once put men on the moon.

We cover the physics, the risks, the history—and the big question: Why did we stop in the first place?

Plus, some thoughts on space competition, moon bases, and what comes next if we actually follow through this time.

How did New York City elect Zohran Mamdani—and what does it mean for the future of America’s most important city?

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we review a citrusy blonde ale while unpacking the rise of NYC’s new mayor and the ideas driving his agenda: socialism, wealth redistribution, and an expansive vision of government power.

We dig into:

• Mamdani’s background and rapid political rise
• The appeal of socialism among younger NYC voters
• Policies like free buses, government-run grocery stores, and rent control
• The real-world consequences of taxing the rich and expanding government
• Tensions between progressive politics, religion, and modern cultural movements

Along the way, we ask a deeper question: is this just another political cycle—or a sign of something more fundamental changing in New York and the West?

If you’re interested in NYC politics, socialism, or the future of major cities, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Grab a beer and join us.

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review Noir, a black IPA from DuClaw, then discuss slang.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we dive into a wide-ranging (and occasionally grumpy) discussion on slang — what it is, where it comes from, and why so much of it drives us up the wall.

From Valley Girl “like” to “literally” meaning its opposite, from “no worries” to “full stop,” we go through the phrases we love, the ones we tolerate, and the ones we refuse to say under any circumstances.

Along the way, we explore:

• Why slang spreads (and why it spreads faster now than ever)
• The role of influencers, media, and subcultures in shaping language
• How words become clever… and then unbearable
  * Whether language is evolving faster—or just differently

• Why you’d be exposed instantly as a time traveler just by the way you talk

We also get into newer phrases like “based,” “not on my bingo card,” and “living rent free in my head,” and ask the deeper question: what does the way we speak reveal about who we are?

Bottom line: language is fun… until everyone starts saying the same thing.

Cheers.

You might remember the Police referring to “that book by Nabokov.” Well this isn’t it. It’s an earlier book about a Russian immigrant.

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review “Dance of Days” IPA by Atlas Brew Works, then take on Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin — a novel that’s equal parts frustrating, funny, and quietly devastating.

At first glance, Timofey Pnin looks like a classic “nice guy who finishes last”: awkward, socially out of place, and constantly overlooked. But as we dig deeper, the question becomes harder to answer. Is Pnin really a loser, or is he one of the only genuinely decent people in the story?

We explore:

• Whether Pnin is a victim of others… or of the narrator himself
• The role of the unreliable narrator and what it does to your perception of the story
• The strange structure of the novel—more like a series of vignettes than a traditional plot
• The tension between Pnin’s outward awkwardness and the profound suffering underneath
• Why this might be a book you appreciate more after reading it than while reading it

We also wrestle with a bigger question: what’s the relationship between intelligence, social success, and moral worth?

And of course, we start with a beer.

If you’ve ever struggled through a “classic” and wondered what you were missing, this one’s for you.

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we crack open a Steady Eddie IPA and take on a big cultural question: why are people who hate Star Trek directing, producing, and writing the show?

From the optimism of Star Trek: The Original Series and the (somewhat) moral clarity of Star Trek: The Next Generation to the confusion of modern efforts like Star Trek: Discovery, something clearly changed.

We explore:

• Why classic Star Trek worked as a moral framework without preaching
• The shift from storytelling to ideology
• How strong characters like Picard gave way to “feelings-first” writing
• The difference between a future where humanity improves… and one where standards disappear
• Why newer shows feel more like social commentary than science fiction

Along the way, we revisit favorite series, debate underrated entries like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and ask whether anything in modern Trek—like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds—still captures the original spirit.

This isn’t just about Star Trek. It’s about storytelling, culture, and what happens when a compelling vision of the future gets replaced by something else entirely.

And yes, there’s a beer review and a few Star Trek trivia detours along the way.

The boys drink and review a homebrewed porter, then discuss birthright citizenship.

The question of birthright citizenship hinges on one phrase in the 14th Amendment, which reads “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” What does that mean?

The point of the amendment was to give citizenship to freed slaves, but it’s been interpreted to mean that the child of an illegal immigrant, born in the U.S., is a citizen. Is that justified in the text? The boys discuss.

This weird aspect of American law has led to many business opportunities for enterprising criminals. People make a lot of money bringing pregnant illegal aliens into the country. That’s bad enough, but the Chinese have found ways to exploit this as a national security issue. They’ve been creating “American citizens” who are then raised in China. To what purpose, we wonder.

While on the topic of the 14th amendment, the boys discuss the Obergefell decision, in which SCOTUS decided that states cannot prohibit same-sex marriage.

If the court addresses and overturns birthright citizenship, maybe (God willing) they’ll overturn Obergefell as well. (Not likely, but we can hope.)

P&C end the show with predictions about how SCOTUS will rule on upcoming cases about birthright citizenship.

Chuck Norris wasn’t just a movie star — he was the real deal. A multi-time martial arts champion with serious credentials, he built a reputation long before Hollywood ever noticed him.

And yet, Hollywood did notice. From a run of classic action films to the long-running hit Walker, Texas Ranger, Norris proved he could carry a screen just as well as he could win a fight.

He also wrote books, spoke openly about his faith, and built a broader legacy beyond film and television.

But in the end, what may keep him most alive in popular culture is something completely unexpected: the legendary “Chuck Norris facts.”

At the end of the episode, P&C share a few of their favorites—and reflect on how a genuine tough guy became an immortal punchline.

The boys drink and review Blackbeard’s Breakfast, a robust porter, then discuss a new series about Merlin.

The Daily Wire has entered the fantasy arena with The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin — but to understand what they’re trying to do, you have to go back much further than Camelot.

In this episode we trace the evolution of the Arthurian legend from its earliest Welsh roots to modern reinterpretations. The story didn’t start as knights and chivalry — it started with a war leader and a mad prophet in the woods. From there, it became a national myth under Geoffrey of Monmouth, a romantic tragedy in the French courts, and finally a moral and symbolic drama in writers like Alfred Lord Tennyson, C. S. Lewis, and Stephen R. Lawhead.

Along the way, the core tension of the story takes shape:

• Arthur represents order, law, and civilization.
• Merlin represents mystery, prophecy, and the unseen world.
• Lancelot and Guinevere introduce desire — the human element that breaks even the best systems.
• Mordred brings the final blow: the collapse that comes from within.

We explore how these layers built up over centuries — and how modern versions, including the Daily Wire’s, are really attempts to answer an old question:

Can a civilization hold together without something sacred at its core?

We’ll also talk about:

• Why Arthur is almost strangely free of personal desire
• Why Merlin is often the one who falls first
• How the love triangle turns myth into tragedy
• Why modern culture can’t seem to agree on what this story means anymore
• And whether Rise of the Merlin is trying to recover something we’ve lost — or just retell the story with a different agenda

If you think this is just a fantasy story about swords and magic, you’re missing it.

This is a story about order, mystery, desire — and why every kingdom eventually breaks.

Grab a beer and join us.