Professor Good Ales

Written by Martyn Cornell for Zythophile.wordpress.com

No, Hodgson didn’t “invent” India Pale Ale, and 18th century brewers before Hodgson were making beers that could survive a journey to India, and further.

A myth has developed that Hodgson, who brewed at the Bow brewery to the east of London, close to the Middlesex-Essex border, “invented a new style of beer, brewing it to a high alcohol level and using more hops than any previous beers.” There is no evidence whatsoever that Hodgson “invented” or “developed” a new beer especially for the Indian market: no record that he did so, no claim by Hodgson or his successors that he did so. India Pale Ale was not even, in fact, a particularly strong beer for the time, being about 6.5 or seven per cent alcohol, around the same strength as porter.

Continue reading “Hop Myth: George Hodgson Invented IPA to Survive the Long Trip to India”

Written by Steven Bertoni for Forbes.com

Christopher Bowen is making a 4,000-mile beer run. This July the 43-year-old financial planner will ride a BMW motorcycle from his house in Bethlehem, Pa. up to the Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic. Once there, he’ll set up camp and brew 100 gallons of beer using a 158-year-old recipe.

No, this wasn’t a plan dreamed up after a few too many cold ones. In 2007 Bowen watched a sealed 1852 bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale sell for $500,000 on Ebay. The final bid turned out to be bogus (Bowen thinks the bottle was worth $300,000), but the auction inspired him to find out more.

For more than two years Bowen researched the history of this rare beer. Commissioned by Queen Victoria for the aptly named Sir Edward Belcher’s 1852 Arctic expedition, Allsopp’s boasted a 12% alcohol content to resist freezing and was packed with 700 calories to nourish sailors. In 1854, when four of Belcher’s five ships became trapped in the Arctic ice, he was forced to abandon the expedition, along with hundreds of bottles of beer. Now, having reconstructed the recipe, Bowen aims to brew the ale in the same region where Belcher’s expedition came to a disastrous end.
Continue reading “Extreme Brewing”

Manor house on the corner of Tottenham Court and Oxford, 1813

Written by “Mary” at girlmeetsfood.com

St. Giles Rookery in central London, was the name of a crowded slum area where entire families lived in small rooms. It inspired the neighborhoods in many Charles Dickens’ novels.

It was also a notorious refuge for thieves, prostitutes and criminals.

In this downtrodden section of London, at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, stood the Horse Shoe Brewery, owned and operated by Meux’s Brewery Company.

In 1814, the Horse Shoe had several large vats of beer fermenting, the biggest one a 22-foot-tall tank holding over 135,000 gallons of beer, held together by 29 heavy iron hoops.

One sunny day, storehouse worker George Crick noticed a small crack in one of the hoops and let the vat builder Mr. Young know.

“It will be fine, George,” Mr. Young said. He explained that each hoop weighed 500 lbs., and there were 28 others to support it. (Mr. Young wouldn’t have said that if he knew what happened in The Boston Molassacre.)

After weeks of straining under extreme pressure, the vat exploded on the evening of Monday, October 17, the sheer force of the liquid slamming into the surrounding vats.
Continue reading “When Food Fights Back: Don’t Beer the Reaper”

“What do you get from a huge mug of Canadian IPA from Ontario? A lot of Canadian ‘I pee, Eh?'”

During the Civil War folks drank and played games, like the backgammon board below. But here at Professor Good Ales we’d rather….

…hear about THE BEER, right? What was called “beer” during the Civil War may have had a wider definition that what we call “beer” today. Here are a few recipes from…

From Civilwarinteractive.com

PINE-APPLE BEER

1 pineapple
Water
Sugar

Wash and then pare a pine-apple; if a good size, put the rind into about two quarts of water (in the quantity you must be guided by the size of the pine-apple); cover it for twenty-four hours; then sweeten to your taste, bottle, cork, and put it into the sun for five or six hours, cool it and it is then fit for use.

From The Carolina Housewife by Sarah Rutledge, 1847

SPRUCE AND BONESET BEER
Continue reading “Civil War “Beer””

Written by Lynda Waddington for The Iowa Independent

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican known for his blunt and somewhat “countrified” way of speaking, has taken a lot of national ridicule for his suggestion that a process associated with the fermentation of beer could be used to help clean up the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It seems, however, that such ridicule is misplaced.

On a conference call with reporters last week, Grassley suggested that the government — and specifically the Obama administration — has not attempted all available options to sop up the oil now present in the gulf.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were not impressed with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s idea on how to clean up the Gulf oil spill.

“There is a process for making beer that  –  I don’t know, yeast or what it is — but you can put those microscopic things on oil and it eats up the oil. And they die and all you’ve got is some Methane gas left that you have to clean,” Grassley suggested, and then added that corn cobs, hay or straw might also be useful.

Continue reading “Despite ridicule, Grassley May Be Right About Oil Spill Clean-up Options”

(Tasty news for many faithful Professor Good Ales readers!- Prof. GA)

Written by Eric Felten for online,wsj.com

Light beer is in a slump. Advertising Age reported this week that U.S. sales of the biggest brands are in an alarming slide, with Bud Light down 5.3% this year and Miller Lite off 7.5%. Is this but a recessionary blip or are we finally witnessing a great consumer revolt against shamefully bad beer, shamelessly promoted?

There are many possible explanations for the decline in light-beer sales. Advertising Age speculates that the dawdling of the economy has left 21-to-35-year-old men with pockets too empty to afford “premium” (which is to say, heavily advertised) beers. Old Milwaukee Light, here we come.

Or could it be the fault of the insultingly stupid ads themselves (campaigns on which the industry spends hundreds of millions). Miller Lite has been relying on skits yukking it up about how guys can’t commit to relationships with women, but sure do love their beer. Bud Light has used the genius tag-line “drinkablility.” No doubt high praise for a beverage.

The marketers don’t really know what the problem is. Maybe it’s just that the marginal caloric savings promised by these diet beers no longer seems worth putting up with lousy beer. After all, the elastic-undergarment maker Spanx is doing brisk business selling “compression undershirts” for men. Why should guys worry about calories and carbs when they can just wear girdles?

Associated Press

Continue reading “No Bottoms Up: Light Beer Sales Are Sagging”

* FIFA starts legal proceedings against beer company
* British TV pundit sacked for part in ambush stunt

Written by Mike Collett for Yahoo Sports

JOHANNESBURG, June 16 (Reuters) – Two Dutch women have been arrested and are due to appear in court in Johannesburg later on Wednesday, facing possible charges linked to a suspected ambush market campaign by brewer Bavaria at a World Cup tie.
Continue reading “Women Arrested in Brewer Advertising Scandal”

We welcome our newest writer here at Professor Good Ales…

Written by Mike Brunsfeld, THE Beer Guy

I have come to conclusion that Jim Koch SUCKS.

OK, hops are to beer like wine is to grapes? Uh, no and HELL NO. I was willing to forgive that one stupid slogan that ignores the loooooooooooooong history of brewing, like amongst the Scots, the English and the Welsh, without hops but now he claims…

“Some people think head on a beer is a ‘bad’ thing.”

Continue reading “One Bitchin Beer Blog”