I’M HERE AT THE DOWNTOWN GRILL AND BREWERY, taking advantage of their free wireless internet to finish up my TechCentralStation column. (It’s savaging the Administration for their cheesy behavior with the Bioethics council, a topic I’ve hit on before. It’ll probably run tomorrow.)

They brew on Sundays, which is kind of cool. I used to be a homebrewer, but haven’t made any beer in several years. There’s less reason to, with the proliferation of excellent brewpubs with free wireless Internet!

I wonder if there were people who feared brewing technology when it was new? “They put in water and stuff, and out comes beer, which alters your consciousness. It’s evil magic!”

Actually, I’m pretty sure that there were people like that. Would Leon Kass have been one of them, had he lived back then? I’m just, you know, asking.

UPDATE: Several readers have noted that brewing was responsible for civilization. Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t opposed by small-minded people at the time.