The following material was developed in 2000 for the website of a Canadian microbrewery which, sadly, went under before the site was online for a month...and before I was paid, which essentially means that no one has claim on it but me. The material has been reworked, and is published here for entertainment purposes only.

NOTE: It has been suggested by more than one visitor that a fondness for the foam might explain the grotesque narcissistic expositions elsewhere on this site. Not so. Alas, while I am a drop-dead sucker for a quality Pilsner, I am allergic to barley, and I don't like alcohol. Bad drugs are responsible for the grotesque narcissistic expositions elsewhere on this site. Kids, let this be a lesson to you: if you don't want to wind up like me, then do yourself a favor...stick to good drugs.

This material was created in late 2000 for an ill-fated marketing campaign for an ill-fated brewery in western Canada. I was tapped at a very bad time in my life to play idea-bank for a self-styled marketing mage, and within two months had an affection for the company I hadn't felt since I played janitor at my father's printing plant in high school.

Within another two months, I believed I was part of what was about to become a beverage-industry legend...a key player in a company of people justly proud of what they produced, and justly proud of who they produced it with. Tree Brewing was poised to become western Canada's version of Sleeman's, one of two or three "power" microbreweries which I knew were about to emerge from a market overdue for a change in landscape.

Within another two months, I was out of a job, along with the marketing director who hired me and the CEO who hired the marketing director, and owner of a valueless share certificate bought with my last month's paycheck. The brewery didn't fail, and it wasn't "saved" by a buyout...I wish I didn't fear a lawsuit so much that I can't tell the real story. But I will say this much. The story floating around Kelowna that the CEO torpedoed his own company by hiring a wack-job marketing director and a screwy nerd (me) who spent the company into bankruptcy with worthless advertising is only one-quarter true...three-eighths if you consider me a screwy nerd.

Well it was their fault, you know...I told them from the beginning that more than 90% of the ventures I had ever been involved with ended up firing me or going broke within six months.

I love beer...I really do. But I was so toxic with Tylenol at that time that I couldn't touch the shit without fucking up my liver so badly that I itched for hours. I saw it as a tragic irony that I was employed by the coolest company that I'd ever been involved with and entitled to a free case per month of the best beer I had ever tasted...and I couldn't appreciate either the product or the people.

Thanks to R&B harpist and beer chef extraordinaire Peter Glockner for offering corrections and clarifications on many of these pages and for being patient with a total neophyte. When you sample a Tree product while traveling in Western Canada, you're very likely tasting one of his recipes.

(It wasn't one of my creations...)