Get sucked down the Vortex
Pisgah Brewing Company‘s Vortex II Russian Imperial Stout is now flowing freely. Bottles arrived this afternoon at the humble storefront. You know you want it.

Hops-n-Vines has benefit for Haiti tomorrow
In the spirit of beerlanthropy® and helping the people of Haiti, it our duty to tell you about a cool beer happening tomorrow at Hops & Vines. $5 raffle tickets for their Friday tasting tomorrow (5-7 pm) gets you samples of Bell’s HopSlam, the 2010 Bigfoot, and Victory Yakima Twilight. The person holding the winning raffle ticket gets a case of HopSlam! Ka-pow!

UK’s top beer writer tackles the neo-prohibitionist movement
Pete Brown, the UK’s “Beer Writer of the Year 2009″ is doing a little blog series on the Neo-Prohibitionist movement in the UK. Always a touchy subject, we’re happy to see such a prominent and respected scribe step up to the task. His musings are smart and thought out and the comments section provides some interesting insight to those on both sides of the issue. Our friend, Jay Brooks, of the Brookston Beer Bulletin is one of the biggest voices against the neo-prohibitionists in the United States and the UK. Both are well worth reading if you like your booze mixed with politics.

UPenn Gazette’s “Man, The Drinker”
The official ‘zine of the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania has a great read about biomolecular archaeologist and Penn Museum researcher, Patrick McGovern, called “Man, The Drinker.” McGovern is the guy who paired up with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head to create the Ancient Ale Series (among other breweries for various ancient recipes) and much of the story revolves around resurrecting old fermented beverages. It’s really fascinating stuff.

Stella Artois, Leffe and Hoegaarden beers run free again in Belgium
By now, if you follow beer news at all, the most major stuff happening currently revolves around the lay-offs of union workers at several Belgian breweries, mostly an effect of The Merger last year. The blockades caused many Stella Artois, Leffe and Hoegaarden beer wells to run dry. Union workers set up blockades at three breweries producing those major brands. Today they reached a deal to pay folks for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and resume talks without the layoffs. This proves that blocking doorways and setting stuff on fire will get the job done!