• Mr. Beer  This is a really cool microbrewery to make your own beer at home.  It's inexpensive, easy and fun.  Once you get the hang of it, you can brew some great beer.  I've made a bunch of beer with it so if you have questions, contact me.  A word of advice: the all-malt combos make much better beer than the regular mixes with Booster.  The Booster seems to give the beer an almost "soapy" smell and an overly strong caramel taste.  My brother Rob uses the product and has noticed this as well.
• William's Brewing  Once you get completely obsessed with beer-making, you'll want to move on to making your own beer from scratch (instead of using mixes).  This is the place to go for everything you will ever need to make beer.  Order their catalog, it'll make you drool.
• Squatters Pub Brewery in Salt Lake City.  If you're ever here and want some excellent food and beer, this is one of the best in town (there are many good microbreweries in Utah, believe it or not).  The Captain Bastard's Oatmeal Stout is exceptionally good!
• Pyramid Breweries  I first drank Pyramid beer when Peg and I visited our dear friend Tasso in Seattle.  I enjoyed their Hefeweizen while we attended a Mariners game on my birthday a number of years ago.  Thankfully, Pyramid is available here in Salt Lake (although you have to buy it at the liquor store).
• Samuel Adams  This is, in my opinion, the best beer made in America.  Thanks to my good friend Kelly Dazet, I have had opportunity to drink some great German beer.  Sam Adams is the only American beer I've had that is as good as the German brews.  Their site is really cool, and features some neat wallpaper and screensavers for your computer.  Try the Boston Lager and the Cream Stout, you won't be disappointed.  They even have recipes using their beer.
• Welde #1 is probably my favorite German beer thanks to my friend Kelly and I have added this link at his suggestion (even though the site is in German you can still look at the pretty pictures!).  Don't forget to check out their current TV ad (grrr, pretty pictures indeed!).
• Finally, some hilarious parodies of those "inspirational" posters you see everywhere.  Fun for the whole family!  Maybe not.  Thanks to Chris Killillay for these.  Click here to check 'em out.

Cigars

• cheaphumidors.com is a good place to start if you're new to cigar smoking, need a new humidor or both.  Dave Sabot runs the site and has written an e-book which will teach you everything you need to know about buying, storing, cutting, lighting and smoking good cigars.  A quick registration on the site allows you to download the free e-book.  If you don't have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, get a free copy here to read the e-book.  Dave provides excellent customer service and always responds promptly to questions or comments.  On his site you'll find a huge assortment of humidors and accessories at great prices.  I have purchased two humidors from cheaphumidors.com and am very pleased with the quality of construction and overall value.

• CigarPrice.com is an incredibly useful search engine for finding the best cigar prices on the web.  Just locate the cigar you're interested in purchasing and the engine finds a list of online tobacconists that stock the cigar along with their prices.  Join their Cigar Price Club and you get even more benefits: "Club members can compare prices from many more stores, get faster searches, can configure email price notifications, and get priority customer service".  I purchased a one year membership and recouped the cost after just two purchases.  Sweet!

• General Cigar manufactures some of my favorite cigars, including Cohiba, Excalibur, La Gloria Cubana, Macanudo, Partagas, Punch and my favorite cigar for the money, Sancho Panza.  The Valiente and the Glorioso are my favorites and you'll always find them in my humidor.  Sign up for access to their members only area with reviews, an online forum and an opportunity to participate in free cigar tastings.  I did and got to sample three fantastic cigars!

• Altadis USA is another monster manufacturer that makes many brands.  Some of my favorites include Montecristo, Onyx Reserve, Romeo Y Julieta and Saint Luis Rey.  They also have cool screensavers and wallpaper available for download.

• Famous Smoke Shop  There are probably hundreds of online cigar suppliers but Famous Smoke in Easton, PA has by far the most useful, informative and easily navigated site of them all.  Create a free account on their site and you can set up your own quick links and favorites and be notified when they come back into stock.  I especially like the customer ratings and the smoker's reviews.  Check out their samplers and try several different cigars at a great price without having to buy a whole box.  Print a helpful ring & length guide and be sure to order their catalog.  Like their web site and customer service, the catalog is excellent.

• Lil' Brown Smoke Shack in Yakima, WA is a favorite of mine due to their excellent customer service and killer pricing on some of my favorite cigars.  This is where I get the Sancho Panzas I refer to above because their price is the lowest and I can get them from Washington in just two days.  If you order cigars as a gift, they even toss in a free premium cigar or two for the gift-giver.  How cool is that?

• Cigar Aficionado  A great online source for information, reviews, cigar forums and the like.  Order the magazine, it's informative, fun to read and features some great interviews.

• Cigar Weekly is another great "e-zine" with tons of information, forums and reviews.  They have a huge cigar database with reviews that can be very helpful when selecting cigars for purchase.