Long ago I had hope that this site could achieve a so-called "critical mass" of members such that it would thrive and prosper without my constant prodding and nurturing. Each time I thought the magic number of members was reached I'd cut back on the number of posts, and the message boards would just die. As soon as I'd jump back in and resume posting like a madman, other posters would pick up the pace and we'd have a lively little community again for a while. Eventually life got in the way, and I gave up posting at all to concentrate on all the various drama that had become my world. As expected, the message boards ground to a halt in my absence. People still sign up for the site, but most I expect are hackers or spammers looking for ways to hack the site, because very few of them ever end up in the message boards. At last count there were some 618 users, only 70 of which had ever ventured into the boards. So imagine my surprise when I noticed some new messages in the message boards in the last month or so. Could there be some life left in this community after all? I'll post a bit here and there, and see what transpires. If the traffic picks up, cool. If not, I guess I can let it die again.

My apologies for all the comment spam all over the site. The freaking spammers are putting it up faster than I can take it down, and they've apparently found a security hole that lets them post, even though I shut off commenting for non-registered users. Lovely. I so hate the scum on the Internet.

UPDATE: Through brute-force hackery, I think I've killed the ability to post comments at all. At least the porno spam no longer shows up. The comments were rarely used anyway, so I don't think it's that great of a loss.

Hi everybody!
Can you please help by taking part in a bit of fun?
I organise the annual Forever Bury Beer Festival ( www.fb-beerfestivals.co.uk ) and we have put the poster for our next Festival on the website. We want as many people as possible, all around the world, to download a poster, put it up in their favourite bar, take a photo of people having a drink and looking at the poster. then send the photo (e-mail) to Forever Bury at davegiffard@onetel.com with details about the bar and where it is. We want to put pictures on the website.

We'd like to take a moment to congratulate spiffle for being the 200th member of the International Brotherhood of Beer Drinkers! Cheers!

It's hard to believe, but IBBD membership has almost hit the 200 mark! Pretty cool. There was some interest a while back in doing local "meet & greets", and I'm all for it. I'll be adding a category in the message boards soon for folks to coordinate that kind of stuff, and report back on it. Can't wait to hear how they go!

Why doesn't this stuff ever happen to me? Check it out:

Haldis Gundersen turned on her kitchen tap on the weekend expecting water to gush out so that she could wash the dishes after dinner. Instead, she got beer.

A worker in the Big Tower Bar two floors below had accidentally connected a hose from a new barrel of beer to the water pipe leading to Gunderson's apartment in Kristiansund.

"We thought we were in heaven," the 50-year-old woman told Reuters.

Read the rest: http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2006/03/13/beer-water060313.html

Cripes, is it March already? Where has the year gone? I realize I've been horribly absent from the IBBD community, but surprisingly it has continued to grow slightly. There's not much posting going on, but people have signed up and that's nice to see. Personally, I must admit my absence is due to an addiction. After sucessfully ignoring MMORPGs for several years, I've finally been consumed by one. The bright side is, I can drink beer while I'm playing, so it's not a complete waste. In other news, I've started homebrewing again, and I'm really looking forward to tasting the results. So far it's looking good. Also, one of the new members has suggested those of us local to Tucson start a regular pub meeting and/or beer tasting. I'm all for it! If you're in the Tucson area, send me a private message so I can figure out how many of us there are, and we'll hammer out a place/time. For those of you not in the Tucson area, I encourage you to start your own local meet & greet. Should be fun!

-Charles

Here's to the Brotherhood, there a great drop called Bluetounge, just out in Australia. Very blonde and very tasty, you guys should try it

Cheers, woody

The International Brotherhood of Beer Drinkers would like to wish you and yours a happy and safe Holiday season. See you in 2006! Cheers!

Yesterday afternoon found me at one of the campus-area bars splitting a pitcher of Spaten Lager with my buddy. I hadn't had it in quite a while, and I'd forgotten just how damned good it is. I've always been a big fan of the Munich brews, but usually go with either Paulaner Hefeweizen or one of the Double Bocks. Some how the light lagers just fell off my radar for a while. The weather lately has been turning cool, and I usually turn to the darker beers but for some reason the tastebuds weren't in the mood for dark and the Spaten really hit the spot. Man it was good. Come spring when the weather warms back up (and here in Tucson it warms up EARLY), I usually hit the Hefeweizen but next year I'm going to make it point to drink a lot more Spaten Lager. Especially in campus-area bars filled with lovely little co-eds.