Author: Pigweed and Crowhill

In this episode of Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill, we crack open an Amber Castle from Silver Branch Brewing and dig into Andrew Doyle’s hard-hitting new book The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter‑Revolution.

What we cover:

• Why 15 years of “woke” may have peaked — from DEI backlash to Trump’s political re‑entry
• Woke vs. Liberalism—Doyle argues woke isn’t progressive—it’s authoritarian masquerading as virtue
• The rise of a counter-revolution: Are we replacing one tyranny with another? Doyle warns anti‑woke leaders can slip into censorship
• Where do we go from here? Doyle’s rallying call for true liberalism—free speech, rational debate, and defending individual liberty.

Expect sharp insight, brutal honesty, animated debate… and some beer drinking. 🍻

✏️ Why this matters:
Doyle’s book examines not only the excesses of the woke era, but also how the reaction may have slipped into its own version of illiberalism. He challenges listeners to ask: in fighting a culture war, are we losing our freedom—again?

Join the debate—drop a comment: are we ending woke—or picking up another form of control?

The boys drink and review a pale ale from Oliver Brewing, then bask in the fortunate timing of their births.

No, we didn’t win World War II or build the postwar economy, but those of us born between 1960 and 1980 — the late Boomers and early Gen X — may have hit the generational jackpot.

In this episode, we explore why we think our generation is the most fortunate of all. We were…

• Too young for Vietnam, too old for TikTok
• Raised in a world without smartphones — but smart enough to use them
• Adults before housing, college, and groceries became luxury items
• Raised with recess, real food, and real music
• Part of a shared culture where we all watched the same cartoons and sitcoms
• Witnesses to real progress on race before the outrage industry hijacked the conversation
• Taught to fix our own cars, mow our own lawns, and go on actual dates

This isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake — it’s a look at a narrow window in history where peace, prosperity, and analog childhoods gave rise to a uniquely grounded adulthood.

Call it lucky. Call it blessed. Just don’t call it boring.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review Summerfest lager from Sierra Nevada, then dive into the most consequential U.S. Supreme Court decisions handed down since the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

We explore the Court’s growing willingness to redraw the legal map on race, religion, executive power, parental rights, and the limits of judicial authority. Highlights include:

Affirmative Action Implosion: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ends race-based college admissions.

Free Speech vs. Anti-Discrimination: In 303 Creative v. Elenis, religious liberty takes precedence over LGBTQ protections.

Executive Power Check: Biden v. Nebraska smacks down student loan forgiveness via the HEROES Act.

Trump v. CASA: The Court ends the era of universal injunctions, with Justice Barrett dressing down Justice Brown’s call for judicial supremacy.

Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: Age verification for online porn upheld, raising quiet questions about whether obscenity should be protected speech at all.

Mahmoud v. Taylor: Do public schools have the right to impose moral instruction against parents’ religious beliefs?

Riley v. Bondi: A case on the expedited removal of a Jamaican immigrant underscores due process boundaries.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood: Can states exclude abortion providers from Medicaid reimbursement?

We break down what these decisions mean for American law and society, and where the Court may go next. Whether you see these rulings as a return to constitutional sanity or a shift toward reactionary retrenchment, the terrain is shifting fast. Buckle up.

The boys drink and review Calaminator, Crowhill’s homebrewed dopplebock, then discuss the surprising comeback of Catholicism.

What is a “rad trad”? Why are young people — particularly young men — increasingly attracted to conservative Catholicism?

“How Catholicism Got Cool” by Madeleine Kearns addresses this question. Reasons include …

• Transcendence and mystery
• Giving meaning to suffering
• Beauty, aesthetics, and the sacred
• Structure, discipline, and tough moral teaching
• Male identity and brotherhood
• Intimacy with God
• Rejection of the shallow alternatives
• Cultural credibility and intellectual depth

Is this a good thing for the culture? The boys discuss.

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s home-brewed pale ale, then discuss the societal danger of the so-called beta male.

They react to a review by Dr. Orion Taraban of a Survivor episode that discusses the complex interactions between alpha males, beta males, and clever women. According to Dr. Taraban, the women made an alliance with the beta males to kick out the alpha males, but then the women turned on the beta males and kicked them out.

How does this dynamic play out in society? Where does “toxic masculinity” fit in? The boys discuss.

But what is this alpha / beta stuff? Pigweed reviews some of the characteristics.

Crowhill tries to tie it together with a higher-level theory that doesn’t distinguish by sex — teasing out the roles of strong leaders, weak leaders, and behind-the-scenes manipulators.

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review an IPA from the Ministry of Brewing in Baltimore, then discuss some fairy tales.

The two stories reviewed in today’s espisode ended up as #4 and #3 in a recent contest between Grimm’s fairy tales.

Pigweed, Crowhill, and Longinus review the stories and evaluate the imagery and messages they contain.

The fisherman and his wife is a tale of avarice and a lack of contentment.

The two brothers is a confusing story that seems to stitch together several different stories into a mad tapestry. It’s long and fun and very strange.

With special guest Longinus, the boys review a shandy from Founders, then continue their “shortcut to the classics” series with a review of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” — a haunting 1886 novella that ripped the mask off Victorian respectability and exposed the brutal split within human nature.

Set in the same foggy, gaslit London as Sherlock Holmes, this story of duality, repression, and moral despair hit like a thunderclap on both sides of the Atlantic. But it’s more than just a gothic thriller — it’s a mirror held up to human nature and society itself.

We explore:

• The origins of the story and why Stevenson rewrote it from scratch after his wife’s critique
• The moral message: man is not one but two — and there may be no salvation for either
• The symbolism of Jekyll’s divided house, the hidden back door, and the cultured facade over inner rot
• The novella’s critique of Victorian England, where public virtue masks private vice
• Interpretive lenses: from Romans 7 and Christian theology to Jung’s shadow, Freud’s psychoanalysis, and even Star Trek
• Why Hyde isn’t some external monster, but a part of you — and why that makes the story more disturbing
• The tragedy of Jekyll: not that he loses control, but that he *wants* to

We also ask whether Stevenson’s bleak vision of human nature holds up — and contrast it with the biblical vision of a unified, redeemable self.

If you’ve ever wrestled with the dark side of human nature — or just want to understand why this little book still packs a punch — this episode is for you.

The boys drink and review Ballast Point Sculpin IPA then discuss CIA brainwashing.

From LSD-laced cocktails in CIA-run brothels to secret psychic spy units trying to read Soviet minds, this episode dives into some of the U.S. government’s most bizarre and controversial experiments.

We expose the dark legacy of MK-Ultra, including mind control, psychological torture, and illegal human experimentation. Then we explore the Stargate Project and other military efforts to weaponize psychic abilities, including remote viewing, telepathy, and even psychic assassination.

What motivated these programs? Did they really end? And are similar experiments happening today under different names?

This isn’t conspiracy theory. These are declassified facts, and they’re more disturbing than fiction.

• MK-Ultra: LSD, Torture & Mind Control
• Operation Midnight Climax
• Remote Viewing & Psychic Spies
• Cold War Paranoia and Soviet Psychic Tech
• Why These Programs Might Still Exist
• Neural Interfaces, AI Psy-Ops, and the New Frontier

The boys drink Pigweed’s crazy “Iron Dome” cocktail, then continue their “nooze and booze” series with a discussion of the Israel-Iran war.

Israel and Iran have been adversaries for decades. Iran loudly insists it wants to destroy Israel. They also insist they will develop a nuclear bomb. Israel calls that an “existential threat” to their regime and will not allow Iran to get the bomb.

Iran has been getting closer and closer to having a nuke, so Israel preemptively attacked Iran to shut down their nuclear program.

President Trump has insisted for decades that Iran can’t have a nuke. So … will the United States get involved?

The boys discuss the war to date and what might happen next.

The boys drink and review Lost Navigator from Heavy Seas, then discuss the idea of bringing your authentic self to work.

There are benefits to having different views and perspectives in the workplace — both for the employer and for the employee.

But some people think the job of the workplace is to make them feel good. To feel affirmed and comfortable. That’s nonsense.

And sometimes your “authentic self” is not consistent with the company’s brand or mission. What if you’re an introvert and the company wants extroverts?

“Don’t be a phony and don’t lie” seem like reasonable rules, but this “authentic self” business is taking it too far.

P&C drink and review Shiner’s Ruby Redbird, then discuss the big bang and what (if anything) came before.

While most scientists believe in a hot big bang, there is a lot of dispute about what happened right before that. The most well-known theory is the “singularity,” and there is no “before” in that scenaio. But there are a lot of other options that scientists have considered.

The boys review some of these other options and their implications.

P&C drink and review a robust porter from Founders, then discuss how artificial intelligence will change education — for good and ill.

Crowhill wonders why we don’t yet have the self-paced education that his mother promised way back in the 70s? AI could do that, but it would be a major challenge to the current institution and would almost certainly be opposed.

AI disrupts the current system in many ways. For example, the teacher can’t tell if the student or AI did the homework. The teacher can’t tell if the student wrote the paper.

AI might move us toward in-person assessments, a system that looks at the whole process (drafts, revisions) and not just the final product, or requiring students to explain what they’ve done.

The boys drink and review Vixen Irish Style Red Ale by Old Bust Head, then discuss a provision from the infrastructure bill that was designed to prevent drunk driving.

The mandate is that all cars after 2026 would have a system to monitor the driver to ensure he’s not drunk, in which case it will shut down the car. This system would monitor the face of the driver and all conversations in the car.

Who came up with this, and why isn’t there more conversation about it?

This law gives the government a back-door switch to decide who can and who can’t drive. The justification is to stop drunk driving, but of course it will be expanded beyond that.

P&C discuss all the ways this could go wrong and how the government and other bad actors could use this in devious and dangerous ways.

P&C drink and review an amber ale from Nepenthe brewing, then discuss the Ubertrends shaping society.

Michael Tchong’s groundbreaking 2019 book “Ubertrends: How Trends and Innovation Are Transforming Our Future” revealed eight major societal shifts that are redefining values, behaviors, and our everyday lives in 2025. From the rise of casual living and digital lifestyles to the obsession with anti-aging, wireless connectivity, and the culture of surveillance, these trends illuminate where we’re headed—and what it means for us all.

P&C give them a critical look.

Discover how Casual Living is changing social norms, how Generation X-tasy prioritizes experiences over possessions, and why Time Compression fuels our demand for instant gratification. We’ll delve into the Unwired era of wireless control, the voyeuristic nature of modern media, and the empowering rise of women shaping culture and economy. Plus, we’ll examine the nuanced impacts—both positive and problematic—of these societal transformations.

Whether you’re a trend enthusiast, a curious explorer of societal change, or simply want to understand the forces shaping our future, this episode offers a deep dive into the eight ubertrends steering us into a new era.

The boys drink and review a light IPA, then delve into the recent assessment by the President’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission.

The report highlights a concerning rise in childhood illnesses and chronic conditions. From skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders to mental health crises among teens, the data paints a troubling picture of America’s youngest generation.

P&C explore the key factors driving this health decline, including the impact of ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, chronic stress, and overmedicalization. The report also sheds light on systemic issues such as corporate influence, conflicts of interest in healthcare, and media advertising that shape health outcomes.

Topics Covered:

• Increasing childhood chronic diseases and mental health issues
• The role of diet, environment, and lifestyle factors
• Overmedicalization and pharmaceutical influence
• Systemic challenges and policy implications
• Next steps and recommendations from the MAHA Commission