The Brewery Babble

Reader, I quit the beer blog. I have abandoned the original theme of The Brewery Babble in exchange for photography. I have owned my own photography business for the past four years and it has become one of my biggest passions in life. There is something magical about capturing a moment in time, in being able to look at a photograph and see the past coming to life. Photography literally changed the world upon its invention. Before the first photograph was taken by a camera in 1826, there were paintings and sculptures and drawings—but there was no completely true-to-life way to document people, places, or things. For example, think of King Richard III. He was known as the ‘hunchback king' and many people believe he was grossly deformed, partly due to Shakespeare's description of the king in his play. Court paintings from the time, as seen below, don't show anything outlandishly wrong with the king. Court paintings were often perfected versions of people—have you ever see...

Memories I broke my nose when I was five. I remember running as fast as I could toward my parent's living room couch, staring at the faded green plaid. I wanted to jump onto the soft, buoyant fabric and feel it catch me. But, what I didn't realize, was that I was running right toward the middle section of the couch: the section that contained the wooden cup holder. I ran straight into the wooden center and immediately felt my nose get hot-- it also, somehow, felt like it was too big to fit on my face. My mom found me a few seconds later. I was on the ground, holding my nose, crying. I did not want to let go of my nose because, as a child, my knee-jerk reaction was to hide an injury from sight in the hopes that it would just disappear. This was not a successful tactic. Looking back, I am surprised that I wasn't bleeding. My mom took me to the doctor, muttering something about brain damage, while I happily hid my nose behind my hand, ignoring it out of existence. When...

 Imagine this: you are in a small town off a major interstate, where the main attractions are a concert venue and a McDonald's. You've come to this small, quaint town in search of a brewery. The brewery is called Coal Tipple Brewery, and it is located on a back road. The Brewery shares land with a greenhouse and bee boxes, creating a nice, homely atmosphere. You enter the building, admiring how the interior walls are comprised of recovered barn wood. As you walk through the building, smelling of apples via Yankey Candle, you mosey over to the window. You look outside, and then you see it: there is a bear attacking the bee boxes in the back! Black bears are one of the largest animals that live in Western Pennsylvania, and according to the  PA Game Commission  an "adult grows to an average of 50-85 inches in length with an additional tail length added on." Black bears generally weigh between 200 and 400 pounds, but they can get much larger. In fact, some rare ones ...