A Place to Gather and Talk
Earlier this month, beer-drinkers from around the world convened at Oktoberfest to celebrate their favourite bevvy. Associated with fights and bloated bellies, beer gets a pretty bad press these years. But the brew has been drunk for millennia, and it seems that the ancients had some surprisingly positive benefits for the drink.
Continue reading “The Good, The Bad, and the Belly: The Facts About Ancient Beer”
Topic: Moose in Beer?
A fellow brewer and BJCP judge, Tom Gentry, owns a homebrew store in Goodlettsville, TN called Rebel Brewer. He is about as dedicated to the craft as one could be without wearing a backwards jacket and living in a rubber room. I know this because he hasn’t recommended using one of his kids for an adjunct yet. Unless he has a secret Ceylon brewing something in some lab somewhere right now he hasn’t told anyone about.
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”
(Photograph courtesy of P. Kosty, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)
Drunkenness, hangovers, and debauchery tend to come to mind when one thinks about alcohol and its effects. But could alcohol also have been a catalyst for human civilization?
According to archaeologist Patrick McGovern this may have been the case when early man decided to start farming. Why humans turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture could be the result of our ancestors’ simple urge for alcoholic beverages.
Continue reading “Did a Thirst for Beer Spark Civilization?”
Gone are the days of waiting anxiously for your waitress to (finally) reappear to your table to bring you another cold brew.
Welcome to the world of serve-yourself beer taps. At Bull and Bear Bar, an upscale sports bar in Chicago, you can take advantage of the hot-spot’s best asset; pay-by-the-ounce beer taps that come with your table. Designated tables in the bar come equipped with two taps (one domestic and one imported) and a screen that tracks how many ounces you have left.
“Our tap system allows you to regulate and pour your own beer,” says Luke Stoioff, a partner of Twilight Traffic Control, the parent company who owns Bull & Bear, Stone Lotus and others.
Continue reading “Serve-Yourself Beer Taps: the Latest Bar Trend?”
A mapped human gene
Hi Ken,
I read your blog referenced in the AHA TechTalk and found it amusing, and informative. The one thing that was not mentioned in detail, although you commented on it, was what *exactly* is GM yeast? Or, more specifically, what are geneticists doing to modify it? That might be some followup information worth researching.
Here are a few things that I would consider “bad” ideas. I, like you stated, am not against or for any science. Science is generally neutral. How it’s used is where the ethics come in. Humanity has a long history of pushing Nature to do our bidding. Sometimes it works out well: domesticated animals; sometimes not: killer bees.
Continue reading “More on Genetically Modified Yeast: A Reader Responds”
I met Tom Vista: aka; Hop God, aka; Hop Tyrant, a year or two after I joined Music City Brewers, if I remember right. A bit tall, crew cut, slightly large ears and probably the only voice that can compete and win over my admittedly loud stage voice. That was shortly after we joined Music City Brewers. Back then Hop God wasn’t quite a deity yet. Maybe a semi deity. I suppose he didn’t have enough “minions” yet to worship his deity-ness, lick his deity toes, kiss his…
Should I stop there? I suppose I should.
But Tom is so much more than Hop God, but let’s cover our deity bases first.
So my readers may ask, “Hop God has ‘minions?'” After Hop God declared February 28th National Hop Day, which oddly coincides with what some tinfoil hats claim to be his birthday… (After all, aren’t gods eternal?) Hop God also declared…
Photos: Sarah J. Glover / Staff photographer for Philedephia Daily News.
Leigh Maida (above, left) and Brendan Hartranft, owners of three bars, including Resurrection Ale House, in Grays Ferry (below, left), and Local 44, in West Philly, call LCB raids “McCarthy-like.”
For the Philadelphia Daily News
It was Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops.
More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location.
The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board – a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.
Also, another raid…
As I reported on Monday, Duvel is an especially troublesome brand in the midst of all of this because it is clearly registered. It’s just that the brand name on the state’s list of registered brands is “Duvel Beer†and the label actually reads “Duvel Belgian Golden Ale†– a fact that the Daily News stressed in its first report, and which the BLE surely knows.
For further information this similar story…
If you’re passing through Saugerties, NY: south of Albany and north of NYC, this now private apartment building was built in 1873 as a brewery and a beer hall. Known as the Loerzel Beer Hall. One wonders if thirsty ghosts haunt the residents.
Make sure you are checking the calendar on the website once in a while to see all the upcoming events and details for each. http://www.escambiabayhomebrewers.org/
March 18th – Thursday of this week – Brewer’s meeting
March 20th – Saturday 10:00am – Wine Making group to rack wine at Shady Lady
March 27th – Saturday 1:00pm – Abita Brewery Craw-fish Boil
April 10th – Saturday 10:00am – Wine-making group to bottle & taste wine at Shady Lady
April 23rd – Friday 5:00pm – Hot Glass Cold Brew at the Belmont Art Center
Pat Johnson
850-261-9218
Just a reminder that this coming Saturday is the big Saint Patty Day shindig at Mark and Chris Robertson’s place. The details are on the web-site’s calendar and we will also be judging a sh—t load of great STOUT beers in the Homebrew Club’s STOUT homebrew competition. I think there will be nearly 50 gallons of various stouts to sample and vote on (People’s choice to determine the winner). So get you green on and don’t plan on drinking a bunch of transparent beers! Also, a reminder, this is an “adults only” party (21 years old or older).
Just roll down the windows when you get close and listen for the Bagpipe Band and the smell of Corned Beef!
Pat Johnson 850-261-9218
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