Ben Griffis

Yeah, I was in IA when I researched this (unlimited ability to self-distribute), lived in OH right before (almost unlimited), then moved to VA. And it was wild to see the worse selection in VA, mainly larger brands or "craft" breweries owned by AB InBev or something lol, just a few small local ones

I read every state's laws in 2019, so it's very possible more states have changed their laws/removed 3-tier laws. When I collected this data, no states that had repealed the 3-tier system had then re-enacted it, I'd assume that's still the case

We kept it to 2 years in part because the sample size is already small with states (6) that had the 3-tier system and repealed it since 2013, as our data started in 2011 (and written in 2019)

Definitely possible to have noise or an initial bump!

Yeah 100%. In grad school I was working on research around when states do away with the 3-tier law, and it improved production & increased the number of new breweries. Which is obvious, but crazy that states continue to limit their own economy

(unpublished & unfinished, but key results in image)

For some reason, too many craft breweries in the US seemed to think that craft = pushing the boundaries

I really think that is playing a much bigger role than the health craze, because while beer sales are lower overall, craft is way worse off than the big brewers & imports

Prize quality please

Tastes change, and I used to know plenty of people that bought & tried all the latest Pineapple Basil IPAs, but not anymore. My dad used to do that all the time and has now settled on much less experimental stuff (still too hoppy for my tastes tho)

I do think that in several years things will even out. It's sad to see businesses close but very few very high quality places are closing. The NYT article mentions Atlas in DC expanding. Port City keep expanding production & distribution too. Both are fantastic, quality-first breweries without fluff

I also noticed fewer grocery stores having decent deals/prices on a "make your own 6-pack" which enabled me to find and try new beers, or the selection was poor and had virtually the same huge craft breweries that all ended up being owned by the mass-produced companies anyway. Defeated the purpose

This is why I think Import beer continues to increase despite craft beer sales and consumption falling

Virtually all the imports are "regular" beers, not hopped to the max, not sweetened, not including random experimental foods added in the brewing process

I've lived in 4 states as a beer-drinking adult and have seen most places go above and beyond with the additives. Yes, some people will like to try a Smores IPA I'm sure, but trying once isn't gonna keep the revenue flowing

It got so damn hard to find actual quality small-batch beer without adds

I am biased since my fave brewery, Port City in Alexandria VA, stays pretty pure with their lagers, and have few IPAs. They brew faithful representations of everything from Märzen, porter, pilsner etc to Tmavé Pivo & Rauchbier

They prize tradition & quality over experimentation and fluff; it shows

As a huge fan and proponent of craft beer, I feel like a few things are going on:

1) obv, less beer consumption to begin with

2) Too many microbreweries went extreme with the additives and/or over-hopping

3) At some point, experiments replaced quality

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/b...

It’s so sad 😭

Like, I don't have plans to leave Denmark, and am soon gonna start the language courses. I love my job, love my apartment. But the fact that I feel like my happy place is about to either go away or completely change, is beyond sad. I lament it more than any words I'll ever be able to say/write

I can't tell you how bad my mental state has been in the 6 months since moving away from ALX. I like Denmark and Kolding, but some days I hate it because I miss home. Then I love it because I feel blessed to have gotten out of the US. Then I'm sad the next day because I wanna be back

Fuck Trump. FU

I'd love nothing more than to live in my favorite place in the world, Alexandria VA, for the rest of my life whenever my time in Denmark is up

But I'm am genuinely fearful the US I grew up in and love, and even the Alexandria I lived in from 2020 to 2025, might actually be in danger of being gone

Limited to 2 minutes for each team would almost certainly change the way teams approach play though. Similar concept of the other team gets a chance though

The only downside to this is that it would lead to more excitement

This would naturally lead to more jobs in football. We'd have coaches specifically dedicated to overtime tactics, and players who are liabilities for 90 minutes but gods among men for 120 seconds would have big contracts

Free kick specialists wouldn't just be on YouTube, but the Champions League

NFL-style extra time: coin flip, winner decides who gets the ball first

First team gets 120 seconds to score, and if they concede that's the end of the game, other team wins. If they score, the other team gets 120 seconds as well.

If neither teams score, or if both teams score: old MLS-style pens

I don't feel any particular joy in Charlie Kirk getting shot. It's not the sort of thing I celebrate.

But I also struggle to care when someone gets the very thing they've wished for openly, on multiple occasions, in multiple iterations, for literal years, b/c they thought it would be someone else.

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

This must be what white noise looks like

Hopefully you enjoy this update for women's football! As always let me know if you encounter issues, or if there's things that are just really poorly done. Especially UI things. I will say I have a lot of intermediate 'Submit' boxes to help with processing time lol

Enjoy 😁

Then, weight your metrics! I personally like mine to all add up to 1, but it's not necessary. It's all the same calculation as the role ranks built into the app - normalized weighted z-scores in each metric. So the top player is always 100, the others based off their score

Finally, you can also create your own roles with metric ratings!

Choose what position(s) to include, then the metrics

There's some new features in the player search filters, again choosing between league/region/continent and then choosing seasons/tiers as needed. I tend to just use the League function but it could help to just say "Europe" and all 1st tier leagues for ease

There's no guarantee it'll be perfect, by the way. I will still be tweaking with the methods to try to make it better. But it could help you find some interesting players for now

The similarity is built on IDs. The league-season that the focal player played in has to be loaded... and to find the player's ID, head to the Player List tab, hover the table & click the magnifying glass to search, and copy the player's ID into the similarity search tab

You're also able to choose dimensionality reduction, which can come in handy. Definitely play around with the metrics & dimensionality yes/no to find players