Willamette Week is running a poll on the “best of” in Portland. I’m surprised at how little I recognize in some of the categories. I’m also stalled out trying to decide on question 69:
69) Best Local Brewery
ALAMEDA
AMNESIA
BRIDGEPORT
FULL SAIL BREWING
LAURELWOOD
LUCKY LABRADOR
MACTARNAHAN’S
MCMENAMINS
NEW OLD LOMPOC
ROOTS
WIDMER GASTHAUS
Other (please specify)
Really – how do you choose?
From Al:
Kudzu extract reduce apetite for beer among heavy drinkers. From the New Scientist:
“In the study, people who were given kudzu extract for seven days drank about one beer less in a monitored 1.5-hour drinking session than people who took the placebo, say researchers at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School and New England Research Institutes in Massachusetts, US. Those treated also drank more slowly.”
Although this would be a perfect adjunct, it appears that breweries would be shooting their business model in the foot.
Lost Coast Brewery is being sued on behalf of hindus everywhere for its portrayal of Ganesh on the label of it’s Indica India Pale Ale. The label show’s Ganesh, remover of obstacles (bottle caps?), holding a beer in one of his many hands and a beer in his trunk.
Lost Coast is willing to change the label, but the lawyer bringing the suit is going to continue to seek grievances to the tune of 1 billion dollars. Grievances against people who didn’t even know the beer existed. Um…. I hope he doesn’t go after breweries everywhere asking for grievances from the term India Pale Ale – as it was the drink of choice for the Raj during Britain’s tenure there.
Troy sent me a link to the RUPissed BAC calculator this morning. Kind of fun to play with, especially to get your weight in metric. The hangover section is also somewhat illuminating. Cold pizza has sooo many uses.
I’m trying to find something on an old myth about a town under siege that decides to brew beer instead of making bread because it was the most efficient use of the grain. My dad and I were recently discussing the myth and couldn’t figure out why they would have made the choice and to what advantage brewing would be. Anyway, I’m still looking for it, but I did find an interesting article about the possibility that beer (or ninkasi) may have prompted early hunter-gatherers to domesticate rather than bread. The Sumerians had a lot of beer-related tradition and law, so its really an interesting, if unanswered question. One interesting revelation:
When the “Hymn to Ninkasi” was written, beer was made using bread. But bappir, the Sumerian bread, could be kept for long periods of time without spoiling, and so it was a storable resource. We also know, from various annotations on bappir and beer in the Sumerian and Akkadian dictionaries, that bappir was eaten only during food shortages. In essence, making bread was a convenient way to store the raw materials for brewing beer.
How peculiar.
The Campaign for Real Ales (CAMRA) is sponsoring a forum in which to ask your MP (representative) to reject legislation from the pub industry (many closely tied to the brewers themselves) that would define a pint as no less that 95% of a pint (or 16 oz).
The page also includes a full pints calculator to determine how much money you’ve been cheated out of depending upon your average pints of ale or lager consumed per week.
I love CAMRA and their reactionary fight to protect the sanctity of ales in the UK. But I don’t think their membership would fare as well here since so much of our beer consumption is in bottled form. I’m hoping that’s something we’ll be able to change in our own lives, even if those real ales are just my own.
Moira directed me to a story about a group of Danes that have released their beer Vores Ol recipe under the Creative Commons License. Its a great idea and I must admit I considered using it for my regular postings but not the recipes.
Now I’m tempted to follow suit with my recipes. I’m not sure if it would matter, but its more of a philosophy thing anyway. Sticking it to the man, so to speak, which is one of the founding tenants of home brewing.
The Northwest forum at BeerAdvocate.com has had some really interesting discussion surrounding some reviews and hurt feelings with a local drinker and brewer:
http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read.php?thread=408509
I know the reviewer and think highly of his opinions, so I’m fairly surprised by all this. But not as shocked as when the brewer responded directly.
http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read.php?thread=410603
I’m not really sure what the deal is, but it doesn’t really make me want to visit the guy’s place.
Tuesday night I met with Rich aka GreenCard, aka Project: Expatriated for a couple beers at my local. He’s been living in England for the last few months, and in Belgium for the year before that.
Beerwise and otherwise, it sounds like he enjoyed Belgium quite a bit more. Considering his stories of visiting farmhouse style breweries in the countryside, its hard not to. The beucolic scene of this old country brewing is really enchanting, not to mention the unique contribution it makes to the beer world.
We swapped some homebrew, including a barleywine that he brewed before moving to Belgium that has been aging all the while. I cracked one and it was delicious. Flavors of port, raisin and even orange peel mixed with the slightly spicey and generous body for a really excellent effect. I doubt the IPA I gave him will be nearly as good.
New evidence has surfaced that the Chinese may have been fermenting drinks up to 9,000 years ago. This is even earlier than was originally known about fermentation in Babylon. Many view the control of fermentation as the sign of civilization.
Judging from the bottle pictured in the article, they must have instituted a bottle return policy.
-thanks to Troy for link.