Back To Just About Now

It’s time!

Back to future clock COMP

Today, Marty McFly’s arrival in the future, our present, by hoisting a stein of “Doc Brown Ale” at Iron Hill Media in Newark, Delaware.

Head Brewer Andrew Johnston will introduce Doc Brown Ale, a medium-bodied ale, deep brown in color with smooth nutty and chocolate malt notes. According to Johnston, “Roads? Where this beer is going, it don’t need roads!”

Doc Brown Ale, clocking in at a very drinkable 5.5% ABV, will be on draft for a limited time exclusively at Iron Hill Media. The brewpub is also asking Back to the Future fans to dress up in movie-inspired attire for the occasion, so run to the thrift store – or into the far reaches of your closet – and dust off those old denim jackets, Guess jeans and Hawaiian shirts, unless you’re lucky enough to own a futuristic auto-drying jacket.

“Back to the Future is an all-time favorite of ours here at Iron Hill and we wanted to have some fun with this cult phenomenon,” says Johnston. “Consider the brewery my version of Doc Brown’s garage. I even ordered Marty McFly’s puffy red vest to add to the revelry. Would Doc actually drink this beer? Great Scott! We would like to think so.”

But don’t drink and drive the electric DeLorean to be unveiled today at Queen’s University Belfast.

Dr David Laverty, who leads the project, said: “This project was about modifying a car into an electric vehicle, but we wanted to do it in style.

“The DeLorean was the obvious choice because of its strong connection to Belfast and its starring role in the Back To The Future movies.”

How well did Back To The Future score in predicting technological innovations?

Still, the film did get some things right.

We do have flat screens, live video-calling, tablet computers, and portable up-to-the-minute weather apps.

Though not yet in full swing, we also have biometric technology for paying bills or unlocking doors with a fingerprint, and off-the-shelf smart glasses similar to those worn by Marty’s offspring.

– More sci than fi? –

“It was actually quite visionary of them to get so many things right,” said Thomas Frey of the DaVinci Institute, a futurist thinktank.

“They depicted it in kind of a comical, goofy way actually, but I think they did quite a phenomenal job back then of anticipating things that must have seemed fairly ludicrous at the time.”

back to the future past COMP

[Thanks to Will R., Martin Morse Wooster and John King Tarpinian for these stories.]

16 thoughts on “Back To Just About Now

  1. I knew I was living in the wrong future when I looked up in the sky back in 2001 and didn’t see any Pan Am space clippers rendezvousing with the space station. That was something like what George Clooney was talking about in Tomorrowland.

  2. We’re piling up futures that never were.

    Blade Runner’s 2017 is the next major one, isn’t it?

  3. Mike: It’s Iron Hill Brewing. “Iron Hill Media” is their press releases! Martin

  4. And now the Cubs will win four games in a row. Really, honest. (Oh well, BTTF couldn’t get everything right.)

  5. Alan: Not just four games in a row. Let’s go for eight!

    Signed, a Cubs fan who has distrusted the Mets ever since 1969. Darned Mets.

  6. I was a kid when this came out. There was a special on TV about the movie to hype it. Back in the day they used to do this with alot of big budget movies. I remember during the special they said that there were hover boards but a ‘parents group’ blocked it. I was young and dumb enough to believe the marketing BS on that one.

  7. Rough translation (apologies for inaccuracies and bad idioms):

    “Good Day ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to the news.

    Preparations for the state visit by Queen Diana in the US capital Washington are running high. Several streets have been closed, and British flags have been hung around the Capitol. Among other things, a meeting has been planned with the US President (feminine form of the word) in the White House.

    The price of seaweed has recently been rising. Experts see the global pollution, especially in the south Pacific, as a reason.

    In Hill Valley, California, there has been an incident that offers basis for conversation. The cause was a “ghost driver” on the highway. Eyewitnesses relate that the vehicle appeared as if from nowhere. The vehicle is said to have been a DeLorean.

    The Chicago Cubs have won the US Baseball Championships. The team from Illinois beat their opponents from Miami in the World Series of Major League Baseball clean in 5 games. For the Cubs this is their first title in over 100 years.

    That was the news, and with that, back to the future.”

  8. The Google Play Music subscription service has curated channels on the landing page. Today, one of several categories was “Music for Hoverboarding” which included “Marty’s 80’s Mixtape,” with the capsule description “If Marty ever gets home, these are the 80’s hits he’ll be hearing on the radio.”

    To which I would add, “and then he’ll turn around and head back to the future. II.”

    This does bring up an interesting question though: if you hear “Never Gonna Give You Up” in the context of an 80’s mix tape, does this count as being rickrolled?

  9. @Kyra: yeah, I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen the entirety of the sequels – I’ve watched bits of them when they turn up on TV and that’s been more than enough.

    I did enjoy the first one – I was 20 when it came out and I went with my mom, who normally doesn’t like movies but loved the parts in the 50s since she’d been a teenager then.

  10. @Christian Brunschen —

    Thanks for the link, I hadn’t seen that. It makes sense. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, so why limit it to the information currently available? They could go back to the Royal Library of Alexandria and grab scrolls before the fire(s). Or raid W. F. Bach’s[1] home and grab some of his father’s manuscripts.

    I wonder if Flux will be one of the new Alphabet companies.

    [1] Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was J. S. Bach’s oldest son. Many, if not most, of the manuscripts he inherited have been lost. Pity.

  11. @Rick K,

    Your second idea sounds like a good one – and it would indeed be well within the theme of Bach to the Future.

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