Greetings, my fellow brutes!  For those of you who didn't know, I am a huge unabashed geek.  I grew up the youngest of four brothers, of whom the eldest three were quite excellent at sports and ladies, which made me the black sheep of the family by nearly always having a 4.0 GPA.  Don't get me wrong, I had a .450 batting average the last year I played ball in high school, scored 16 points in a basketball game, and consider my verb-like nick-name of "Ride the Wild James" that I earned in college to be a nice start to my years as a Lothario to be unaccurately under-valued.  Still, my mainstay is, and always has been, geek-dom.

I am a mathematician/statistician by training and personality.  I can quote probably 90% of Monty Python skits.  I'm happy to soap box on movies/televison sci-fi, horror, action, or comedy (although some of that slowed once becoming a proud papa).  Hells, I was even a Dungeon Master for quite some time!

So when I talk about the extended Star Wars Universe for a brief moment, I hope you'll bear with me.  Han Solo is by far my favorite character in Star Wars.  There was a wonderful series, not my favorite but close, that dealt with him going back to Correlia (his home world) to deal with some stuff which takes place after Return of the Jedi.  It gives the theory that someone's home world, with that specific gravity, atmosphere, etc, makes someone feel the most comfortable.  That makes a lot of sense to me.

And on that note, at this moment I am enjoying an "Artic Panzer Wolf" by Three Floyds Brewery, out of Munster, Indiana, my home state.  It is an excellent double india pale ale in my opinion.

The thing that matches up with beer is this...

I love Indiana beer.  I don't know what it is, but I truly love beer brewed in the state I was born in.  It can't be just the water, since every township typically has its own water utility board, but there's something great about it.  Three Floyds, Upland (Bloomington where I went -- one of two -- to grad school), Barley Island, and the list goes on.

Between all the Indian breweries, there are few styles that aren't represented in my top beers.  Brown ale = Dirty Helen; porter = Three Floyds Alpha Klaus or Bad Elmers; Scotch ale = Robert the Bruce; and the list goes on.

The same goes for WV beers.  As an adopted home state, only the second state I've ever lived in, I'm naturally biased towards beers brewed here, too.  MBC and WVBC have/had wonderfully great beers that I've rated highly, partially due to their greatness and partillay due to my biased.  I'm not afraid to admit a regional bias, and I am theorizing that it's a "home" thing where beers brewed in places you're comfortable in taste better than places you're not familiar with.

I also wonder if it's genetic, as I highly rate beers from Ireland and Scotland, as compared to those brewed in Germany, for example, or Russia or Japan.

Anyway, this was written, my brutes, under the influece of a Guinness (Ireland) and 3F brew (Indiana) as well as Shipyard's Pumpkin Ale.  I'd apologize for the grammar mishaps but I honestly don't care at this point. So to you all, drink what you want, and if it's from someplace close to your heart, good on you!