Considering the wealth of recent works that marry genre conventions with literary fiction, you might think that there’s little left in the way of potential surprises. No matter how rich the vein might be – and it has proven to be rich indeed – you’d imagine that it would be difficult to mine something new and fresh from that lode.

And then you read something like Claudia Dey’s “Heartbreaker” (Random House, $26) and realize that there are creative powerhouses out there continuing to strike literary gold. It’s a novel about coming of age and motherhood and sexual politics wrapped in a sci-fi dressing of alternate history and cult dynamics. It is powerful and thought-provoking and unrelentingly weird – both in the tale and in the telling.

It shines.

That’s right – situational beer enhancement. It’s a thing!

So, I often talk here about new beers, local beers and usually talk ill about drinking mass-marketed beer from giant corporations. Yeah, I’m one of those “fight the power/stick it to the man” types when it comes to my fermented beverages.

That being said, there is an exception to every rule; even I have my soft spots for some of the first beers I drank that turned me on to the world of “craft beer.”

So, in the next few paragraphs, I am going to shrug off my usual big beer cynicism and tell you why I always have, and always will love Guinness Stout.