To all the men and women who have served. To my brother, 82nd Airborne, 325th.  To my father in law, a Navy Corpsmen (ret.). Thank you. Thank you for all you have sacrificed. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do.

When you see a veteran or someone in active duty, shake their hand and say thank you. And make sure it's not just today that you do it. Today may officially be Veterans' Day, but in reality, every day is. 

Until everyone comes home safely. Thank you and God bless.

I had a dream today.  Four score and seven months ago, our forefathers played football.  When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one fanbase to intravenously inject beer until football season starts, a decent respect to the opinions of the polls requires them to declare the reasons for their excitement and alcoholism.  

Tomorrow, I will consider myself the luckiest fan on the face of the earth.  And so, my fellow Wolverines, ask not what this beer can do for you, but ask what you can do to attain this beer.  Some say that Denard can't play under center.  Still others say the defense is a patchwork quilt.  Well, I say to you, Mr. Hoke, tear down that wall.  Old beers never die - their labels just fade away.  And so, with malice toward only Buckeyes, and charity to all, let the football season begin!

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SBN's Conference Redraft is a fascinating exercise in  gauging perceived value and desirability of programs familiar to all fans of college sports thing to do because, hey, it's hot outside.  This got us thinking, as uninspiring as a lifetime of watching our team find conference-mates in the likes of Pitt, Oklahoma State, Cal and Memphis, it could be worse. We could be stuck with a lifetime of drinking Iron ("Ahrn") City, Leinie's Red and Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer.  So we at Maize n Brew have undertaken a truly important project, The Ultimate Brewery Portfolio Re-Draft!  This will tell us a great many important things, such as: which craft beers could we simply not do without; what breweries are most-loved; and, which of us are actually decent people. Because, after all:

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It's been a good couple of months here at Maize n Brew, so we decided it's about time we put together a guide to posting and commenting to would also go along with the rules of this community. In an effort to put this together I reached out to Al Yellon from Bleed Cubbie Blue (SBN's Chicago Cubs blog, perhaps the best sports blog out there) and Nestor from Bruins Nation asked him I could customize his post giving much more detail about this site, how to post here, what constitutes good formatting, etc., especially with the first spring training game tomorrow, which will once again ramp up participation here. So thanks to Al, Nestor, and our other SBN colleagues at South Side Sox, Lookout Landing and Red Reporter, those outstanding guides are responsible for what you see here. I tinkered it to adapt to our community and to what have become the norms here.

There are plenty of you who have hung around since I joined SB*Nation from blogger all those years ago, and more of you who stuck with us through The Great Migration to the new platform last year. For those of you who are new, or still not quite acclimated to the system, this post is meant to be a guide to new members and a refresher course for power users. First, for newbies to Maize n Brew, take a look at the basic SB*Nation Welcome Guide. After that, read below for a more in-depth guide to Maize n Brew.

I say this a lot. So please read this carefully. Maize n Brew is NOT a message board. It isn't a talk radio call-in show. It is not a texting platform for your cellphones. Maize n Brew itself is a blog, one which has built a community feel to it with exclusive emphasis on featuring an unabashed, partisan Michigan view point. While we welcome anyone and everyone who loves college football, basketball, hockey and other sports, we're not going to hide the fact that we see the world through Maize n' Blue colored glasses. Where we differ from other sites, blogs or online sports sites that talk at you, Maize n Brew offers FanPosts and FanShots where you can drive the conversation. Many of you have great insights and thoughts on Michigan athletics, and we want you to share them with us.

Follow me after the jump for an extended guide into FanPosts, FanShots and commenting.

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real life intervenes. content up tomorrow.

Apologies for the unannounced sabbatical everyone, if things go according to plan hopefully there will be some content provided on a more regular basis once the conference basketball season gets underway at Indiana on New Year's Eve.  If there's anything in particular you'd like to see as a more "regular" feature on the site over the course of the football offseason and the basketball/hockey season, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know in the comments.  Regardless here's wishing you and yours the best this holiday season and of course, Go Blue!

via product.images.fansedge.com

In case you haven't noticed, this here blog is affiliated with Sports Blog Nation, which until now has loosely meant - at least to you the reader - that it looked the same as some other blogs.  There is also a ton of behind the scenes stuff that SBN does to drive traffic, but that doesn't matter a whole ton to you the reader.

Well now it should.  Sports Blog Nation has just launched a swank new homepage that rivals any "mainstream" page I've ever visited.  To get the whole run down, check this out.  Add in the addition (add...in...the...addition...awesome wording there, huh?) of Spencer Orson Swindle Hall, and the College Football community on SBN has indeed gotten "scary good."  The old homepage of SBN just kind of directed you to the various team specific sites, but this new one looks like it'll be culling stories from the membership (read: us) and putting them on the main page, etc.  It's just like ESPN except awesome and real instead of saccharine and plastic.

Anyways, go check it out.  We'll return to our normally scheduled programming shortly.