A Reminder: Play Fantasy Football At The Bulletin

August 31, 2010 By Jay Brooks

There’s only two days left before the new NFL season of football begins on Thursday night. And as we’ve done for the past few years, there are two simple games for Bulletin readers to play, and plenty of room to fit as many as want to play (or at least the first 50 people anyway). Below is the original post from last week with all the details on how to sign up. Don’t be shy, sign up today!

This is the fourth year for the Brookston Fantasy Football Games. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last three, so if you love football and beer, consider joining us again this year. The NFL season begins on Thursday September 9, so you’ve got about a dozen days to sign up.

I’ve again set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool. Up to 50 people can play each game (that’s Yahoo’s limit), so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up for one or even both. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to join each league and play.

Standings for both leagues will be listed at the bottom of the Bulletin’s right column.

Pro Football Pick’em

In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. I’ve added a new wrinkle this year. Since we’re all very busy, and you (or I) might screw up at least one week, you can now throw out your lowest week. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.

Also, a new feature Yahoo added is the ability to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 37001 (Brookston NFL Pick To Win)
Password: brookston

Survival Football

If picking all sixteen football game every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Actually this year they added a new feature and I changed the game so to be kicked out you have to be wrong twice. In that way more people stand a better chance of lasting longer into the season. So get one wrong, and you’re still okay, get a second wrong, now you’re gone for the season. Last man standing wins.

Yahoo also added the new feature to this game, too, where we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.

In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 15291 (Soused Survival League)
Password: bulletin

With 50 players allowed in each game, there’s plenty of room, so don’t be shy. Sign up for one or both games. Beginning after the first weekend of the regular season I’ll post the standings on the home page (at the bottom of the right-hand column) and then each Monday after that through the season. Won’t you join us?

NFL Football: Pick The Winners At Brookston Fantasy Games

August 27, 2010 By Jay Brooks

Standings for both leagues will be listed at the bottom of the Bulletin’s right column.

Pro Football Pick’em

Also, a new feature Yahoo added is the ability to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 37001 (Brookston NFL Pick To Win)
Password: brookston

Survival Football

Yahoo also added the new feature to this game, too, where we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.

In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 15291 (Soused Survival League)
Password: bulletin

Beer In Ads #44: Miller High Life Plays Chess

February 15, 2010 By Jay Brooks

ad-billboard
Monday’s ad originally was published September 15, 1958 and is for Miller High Life, “The Champagne of Bottled Beer.” It’s a beautiful illustration of a man playing chess with only the beer, bottle and Miller logo in color. The art has an MC Escher quality to it, and though it’s signed, even at the original size I can’t make out who it was. The detail in the illustration is wonderful, especially the chess pieces.

miller-high-life-09-15-1958

Chess & Beer Don’t Mix

September 11, 2009 By Jay Brooks

While many sports and games are invigorated by adding a few tasty beers, such as poker or ping pong, not all of them are so enhanced. Take chess, for example. It seems self-evident that clouding one’s mind with alcohol would take the the much-needed edge off your game. But I guess it’s not as obvious I might have supposed.

Reuters is reporting that French Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev, the 58th highest ranked player in the world, showed up drunk earlier today to play a match at an international chess tournament in Kolkata, India. According to Reuters, eleven moves into the game, “he could hardly sit in his chair and soon fell asleep, resting his head on the table.”

India’s Praveen Kumar was awarded the win on technical grounds, as Tkachiev was “unable to complete his moves within the stipulated time of an hour and 30 minutes.” I guess it’s hard to play chess when you’re passed out asleep. Although reprimanded for his, uh, performance, he will be allowed to complete the tournament.

When I was in high school, our chess team actually lobbied successfully to have their game declared a sport, with an eye toward having cheerleaders at the matches. The chess cheerleaders never materialized, but it occurs to me that they might have done wonders to keep Tkachiev awake through his match. Out of curiosity, do spectators at high level chess tournaments drink beer while watching the chess matches?

Asheron’s Call Brewing

August 16, 2009 By Jay Brooks

dice-2
Now don’t get me wrong. I am a geek of many stripes. So I mean no disrespect to my (possibly) geekier brethren who play online games in MMORPGs (which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), the most popular of which are probably World of Warcraft, Second Life, Civilization IV and Runescape, to name but a few of the literally hundreds of them. I confess I’m no stranger to D&D, but it’s been nearly 30 years since I picked up an 8-sided die. When such games went online, they left me behind. It wasn’t that they weren’t without interest, but I recognized that I needed another time suck like a hole in the head, and simply stayed away. These online worlds have since increased exponentially in terms of detail, sophistication and complexity.

Asheron's_Call

Which brings me to Asheron’s Call, a ten-year old MMORPG. Originally created by Microsoft, since 2004 it’s been maintained and expanded by Turbine that takes place in the land of Dereth and its surrounding islands. In addition to the “official” game site, there are several fansites that add additional dimensions to the game. One of these is called Asheron’s Call Vault. Like all of these games, your character (or Avatar) needs some kind of nourishment to survive so there’s food you can find or make to eat. But Asheron’s Call added another way to nourish yourself: brewing beer. Here’s an overview:

Serious Beer Drinking
(Brews that can make you stronger)
Break out the beer mugs, open up the pubs 24 hours a day, and get ready to drink some brew that can make you smarter, healthier, more coordinated, or more focused!
Up until the invention of these brews, tinker characters relied on those brave Olthoi Queen slayers, to bring them back eggs to bake up tasty treats that increased their attributes. The downsides to these were that first, the eggs were not terribly abundant, they were heavy, and the resulting effects only lasted 15 minutes. There did not seem to be recipes for all attributes, either.
Then an intrepid hunter found some Tusker Spit one day, and brought it to his cook, who went to Sanamar to shop for goods, and happened upon some wonderful recipes for brewing! Some time later, Moarsmuck was discovered, and cooks had additional recipes at their disposal.
The advantages to these brews over Olthoi Food is obvious. They are longer lasting, which means hunters can take them into the field and use them while hunting. The core ingredients of Tusker Spit and Moarsmuck are far easier to come by, and more abundant than Olthoi Eggs, so one needn’t save the brew for “Special Occasions”.
So, whether you prefer the hearty tangy bite of the saliva from a Tusker, or the more mellow, slightly slimy taste of the Moarsman’s remains, below you will find recipes for all six of the wonderful brews that you can take along with you on a daily basis, and shower on your favorite tinker character without reservation.

To brew beer, you need to go on a Quest for the Brewmaster’s Bible, pieces of which are hidden in four separate places. Once you acquire the Brewmaster’s Bible, you can learn “the arcane secrets of that most magical craft known to all Isparian-kind as Brewing!”

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of the bible:

There are four main ingredients in any good brew: barley, yeast, hops, and water. The color of your barley controls the color of your brew. Amber barley nets you an amber brew, dark barley gets you a nice stout, and plain barley will give you a clear lager.
Yeast is used to ferment your beer. The higher the quality of the yeast the better. Dried yeast tends to get you a much higher quality brew than liquid yeast.
As for hops, the greener the better! Hops provide that bitter taste that makes beer so deliciously delicious. But some beers can be too bitter – bordering on undrinkable (though no beer is truly undrinkable, truth be told). These beers are usually crafted from yellowish, nasty hops. Discerning beer drinkers prize only those beers made from the greenest of hops.
And the final ingredient – the one that ties it all together – is water. Many people ignore the importance that water plays in the brewing process, but those of us who have spent our lives mastering this craft truly understand that without this life-giving liquid, we would have no beer at all!
The basic process for brewing is simple: First you fill your Brew Kettle with Water. Then you add Barley to create a Wort. Once that is done, you add Hops to finish your Wort. Once the Wort is finished, you add your Yeast. At this point, you have a Fermented Brew.
Now, you can do one of two things with a Fermented Brew. You can keg it or you can add an additive. Kegging a Fermented Brew will get you a nice, tasty beer of which you can be very proud. But the truly spectacular beers obtain their unique flavors from those additives which set them apart from the rest of the pack. On Ispar, I had any number of additives in my possession that allowed me to create those beers which made my family so famous. So far, the harsh climate of these wintry islands has not allowed me to find many additives worthy of the great craft of brewing.

The process itself is nicely complex and reasonably accurate, for a RPG. Here’s a visual overview:

First, get yourself a brew kettle:

Fill it with (water) + (barley) = A Full Kettle.

There are even different kinds of barley you can use, including plain, amber and roasted. If you have a baking pan, you can even roast your own barley.

Then add (ultra green hops) + (yeast).

And depending on the recipe, you also add something called a “monster component” such as Moarsmuck or Tusker Spit:

There appear to be literally dozens, easily more than a hundred, different beers one could brew, such as Amber Ape Brew, Angree’s Angry Ale, Apothecary Zongo’s Stout, Distasteful Dark Wort, Duke Raoul’s Distillation, Glorious Lager or Putrid Tusker Spit Ale. Depending on the kind of beer, it can add to your character’s coordination, endurance, focus, quickness or strength; just like in real life.

These can either be put in a (keg) or (bottles) to create the final product = (beer).

And that’s just one infinitesimal piece of the world of Asheron’s Call. I have enough trouble keeping up in the real world, but I can’t help but be impressed by the beer in Asheron’s Call. I have to wonder, though, just what does Tusker spit taste like?

Brookston Beer Bulletin Fantasy Football Season 2008

August 18, 2008 By Jay Brooks

I tried this last year and it seemed to work out pretty well. I think everyone involved had a good time so we’re back again this year with some fantasy football.

NFL Football is pretty much the only major sport I pay much attention to these days. Of the arguably four major sports (baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey) it’s the only one I think that goes well with craft beer. Hear me out. I know you can get decent beer at most sporting events if you’re willing to pay a premium price and do some extensive searching around the park, stadium or whatever. But baseball is played in the summer months and both basketball and hockey are indoor sports so all three tend to favor warm weather light beers, the kind made in vats the size of Montana. Football, on the other hand, is usually played outdoors in the dead of fall or winter, in rain, sleet or snow, with the wind whipping through the frozen tundra turning everyone into human Popsicles. That’s the perfect time for a nice warming barleywine, doppelbock or Belgian tripel. Or perhaps a thick Imperial Russian Stout, an über hoppy Double IPA or even a nice Wee Heavy. Now those are football beers. Yum.

Despite having grown up in Pennsylvania, I’ve been a Green Bay fan my entire life. But after the Lombardi years, the Packers went through a twenty year drought that made my enthusiasm for the game pretty hard to sustain. It’s hard to keep rooting for a team that never wins, especially when all your friends are 49ers fans, it’s the Montana/Young era and they rub it in your face at every opportunity. But finally in the early nineties, Brett Favre joined the team and they finally started winning again. And ever since it’s been fun again to follow football. This year, with Favre at the New York Jets, I’ll have two teams to root for, though if they play Green Bay it’s no contest: Go Pack!

So I’ve set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool, and you’re invited to play along. Up to 50 people can play each game, so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to play.

Pro Football Pick’em

In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 29057 (Beer Bulletin Pick’Em)
Password: bulletin

Survival Football

In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 8612 (Beer Bulletin Survival)
Password: bulletin

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