Everyone's on edge, confused, filled with passionate intensity of some kind. The stakes are high and we'll believe anything.

Even about one of our favorite beers.

Surly Brewing contacted City Pages Friday evening to clarify a couple things, and help put their fans' minds at ease. Despite a recent tweet showing owner Omar Ansari after a "marathon" day hanging at Leinenkugel's in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, the edgy Twin Cities brand is not about to get into bed with Leinie's -- or its parent company, MillerCoors.

"Any rumors or speculative reports indicating otherwise have absolutely no merit," reads a statement from Surly. "Simply put -- Surly is not selling out."

Some more optimistic guessers had taken Surly's cryptic announcement to mean the two breweries might be collaborating on a libation in the near future. Not even that is true, according to the statement. The "brewery experience team" at Surly took a tour of the Leinenkugel's facility in Chippewa Falls. That's all. That's the extent of the meeting between Ansari and his staff in the Twin Cities with Dick Leinenkugel and his, in Wiconsin.

So what's the "big news" teased in that tweet? That much, we still don't know. Reading between the lines, maybe Surly's trying to learn a little something about the Leinenkugel's method that would be helpful for their brewing operation here.

Surly made the same point to their own followers in a much funnier way with a tweet posted Friday.

To be fair to Surly and its drinkers, we are talking about a brewery that calls some of its beers "Cynic," "Darkness," "Hell," "Abrasive," and, most popular of all, "Furious." Maybe we should expect them to be a little quick on the Twitter trigger for outrage.

For now, let's all settle down. Try drinking a beer. That sometimes helps.

Everything else these days feels like some kind of conspiracy. Don't let that paranoia spill over into your beer.