Now that I've thouroughly confused you...

People that follow this poor little space of internet knew I messed up and posted this week's Time Machine here about 28 hours before I did.  That was an aberration; I am not planning on simulcasting TM on this channel or anything like that.  Somehow or another, I hit a wrong button.  Can't even blame Blogger this time... though I was about to when I finally sniffed out my culpability.

Anyway, I should have been here before this, as I had won a couple more caps on e-Bay.  One of them, however, was sent by a French-Canadian who not only added what I assume was someone else's merchandise (a packet of postage stamps) but packaged the caps in such a way that one of the many rollers the letter (not package, letter) that they were sent in went through ripped both my cap and a bonus cap they decided to send right out of the package.  Note to self- always send a note to Canadian suppliers to PACKAGE STUFF PROPERLY.  Perhaps the Canuck postal service kid-gloves their mail, but the USPS does not.

(Did I get any recompense?  What do you think?  The USPS said, "Not our fault, bitch at the dumb Canadian", and the dumb Canadian said, "Je ne peux pas vous entendre. Je ne parle pas anglais." (I can't hear you, I don't speak English) )

But I did get one, and then my work buddie Gary contributed one, and then a care package from Arizona arrived.  And that means I got all these:

Let's start with the solid green one in the ring and go clockwise.  This is from Twisted Pine out of that drunken town, Boulder, Colorado.  It came off of their flagship Hoppy Boy IPA.  I learned very little more there because their website takes a full minute to get to any link (at least today).  The purple one is from Nimbus brewing, whose info was also problematic since the Tuscon brewery went belly-up in late January If the angle had been better, you'd see the chimp face on it.

Next came two new colors from Alaska Brewing; the maroon one from their Amber Alt Ale, the green from an IPA.  Next is a Four Peaks Kilt Lifter Scottish type Ale out of Tempe.

Next is an Avery brewing, also from Boulder. Then comes one from Sudwerk Brewing, a local hangout of UC-Davis students.  The Shock Top is different from my other one in that the text is white rather than yellow.   The Bear Republic difference from the one I had is just as subtle- the website address is absent from the bottom of this one.  Following is a Woodpecker Cider, technically not a beer, but a pretty cap to an alcoholic beverage, so I bent the rules slightly for it.

The brew, which comes from the UK, they say is in "managed decline"; they've lost 1/3 of sales in the last 13 years.  Next is a third different New Belgium for me, this one Trippel Ale, brewed with a touch of coriander.  The last member of the ring is a Colorado Native, which is one of Coors' "craft brews", made with "Rocky Mountain water, Colorado hops, Colorado barley grown in the San Luis Valley, and Colorado yeast, and sold only in Colorado."

On the inside are the other two I got.  The Schlitz, with the reversed color pattern, was one of their last cork caps, used from 1960-65.  The other is the brand new Miller Fortune, which is basically Miller's way to eat into the growing wine and spirits market by upping the alcohol content of their normal beer to 6.9%.

And somehow missing the boat was this one:

This is an Orkney Brewing Skull Splitter.  Brewed by the Orkney Brewery on the Orkney Islands off Scotland, it is named for the 7th Earl of Orkney, a Viking ruler named Thorfinn Torf-Einarsson, nicknamed the skull-splitter, though I confess the facts and fictions of his story are such that I couldn't tell if he was a warrior, or just got really bad hangovers.


Once again, a tip of the hat to ST MCCarthy and Gary Williams.  And if you shop on eBay, beware of seller ly***v  from Quebec- you may have to specify how you want your stuff shipped if you want them to arrive.