Shed a tear for our bitter friend

Oh, man! I've seen around the internets (Boing Boing and NPR, even) that a 40,000 square foot warehouse in Yakima valley, Washington state burned down yesterday.

What was it storing? 4% of the US supply of hops.

Hopefully this doesn't raise the price of homebrewing, let alone commercial beer, too much :(

"If we're going to drink like the Germans, we're going to need a little help."

Mark your calendars, kids. There's a new Broken Lizard film at the end of August, Beerfest. This time, the premise is a secret international drinking competition.

It's not as cool as the idea of a mockumentary covering a beer festival, as I originally thought when I saw the poster on campus, but this one will do nicely.

Why Skunky Beer Stinks

From Science News:

A fairly decent overview of the chemistry of how at least 1000 chemical compounds interact to flavor beer, and how things named 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol contribute to that evil skunkiness.

“We live on brewing, but we do it so we can continue with our real business, which is being monks.”

A little insight into Westvleteren, the best beer in the world. I had this once in a restaurant in Brussels in 2001, and I've wanted to visit their little town ever since.

The home bar grows

I now own my first keg. It's a 5 gallon beauty, all ready for a batch of yumminess. This is the first step in my master plan to build a small kegerator that is suitable for moving to wherever the heck I go after UCLA.

We were thinking of just putting a tap on the kitchen fridge and forsaking half the bottom shelf. LA is weird about including fridges in apartments, so we do own that outright, but that's not as movable an option.

[edited to include the proper negation of fridge as movable in the last line.]

Caffeinated Beer

I'm all for new products and a little innovation in the beverage category, even if Pitch Black ended up being really horrible, but this is just plain wrong. Stupid name aside, this is going to suck purely because it's from the makers of Budweiser. Bleh!

CNN: Sweet! Caffeinated, ginseng beer
Anheuser-Busch's new brew created to compete with drinks popular in clubs.
October 5, 2004: 11:14 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brewer Anheuser-Busch says it will introduce a caffeinated, sweet-flavored beer for twentysomething club goers to compete with the flavored rums and vodkas gaining ground on the dance floor.

The new beer B(E) -- read as "B to the E power" -- will roll out in several phases starting in November.

(as /.ed)

Study Shows Beer Has Same Benefits As Red Wine

Study Shows Beer Has Same Benefits As Red Wine

Sep 14th, 2004

Beer drinkers can toast the news that their favourite beverage possesses the same benefits as red wine, the alcohol long celebrated for its antioxidant properties.

Researchers at The University of Western Ontario have found one drink of beer or wine provides equivalent increases in plasma antioxidant activity, which helps prevent the oxidization of blood plasma by toxic free radicals that trigger many aging diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and cataracts.

Biochemistry and kinesiology professor John Trevithick, one of the lead researchers and a long-time expert on the role of antioxidants in human health, says, “We were very surprised one drink of beer or stout contributed an equal amount of antioxidant benefit as wine, especially since red wine contains about 20 times the amount of polyphenols as beer.”

Polyphenols are the compounds in plants that help prevent UV damage from the sun and make the plant cell wall strong. They are believed to have antioxidant benefits when consumed by the human body. Even though red wine contains more polyphenols than beer, this study showed the body absorbs about equally effective amounts of bioactive molecules such as polyphenols from beer and wine. Beer, wine, stout, and matured spirits (rum, whisky, sherry and port), which extract tannins from the oak casks they are matured or stored in, all contain significant amounts of polyphenols.

While studies have shown one daily drink of almost any alcoholic beverage can help reduce the risk of many aging diseases, Trevithick cautions larger daily intakes (three drinks per day) actually increase the risk of these diseases. His study suggests the risk is increased because three drinks result in the blood becoming pro-oxidant. This phenomenon is known as “hormesis”, the concept that small doses of a toxic substance can have beneficial effects while a large amount is harmful

The study will be published in the journal Nonlinearity in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine this December. Trevithick is cross-appointed in the School of Kinesiology in the Faculty of Health Sciences and in the Schulich School of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.

For more information, please contact John Trevithick at (519) 661-3063 (office),
(519) 472-8518 (home) or trevjohn@uwo.ca; or Christine Roulston, Communications & Public Affairs, at (519) 661-2111 ext. 85165 or croulst@uwo.ca.

Note to broadcasters: Western has a VideoRoute service and can arrange live broadcast interviews. Please call (519) 661-2111 ext. 85165 for more information.

(as /.ed)

Drunken Monkey

The National Geographic Channel just prompted a Google Images search for "drunken monkey."

Though already sold by auction, this kickass beer stein is just dang impressive.

Homebrewing 101

Jen and I attended a free homebrewing class last night at the local supply store. They continue to be a really fun and knowledgeable bunch. Jen and I have technically brewed before, but that was at a Brew-on-Premises establishment where you used their their snazzy equipment. The equipment is different, but aside from the opportunity to make a big horrible mess in our own kitchen instead, the process of actually brewing is very similar to the BOP experience. Brew grain like tea...boil with hops...strain into fermenting container...add yeast...bottle...drink!

The easiest way to handle carbonation at home is to do bottle conditioning, where you add a small amount of sugar to the final product right before bottling. The little yeasties wake up and produce a little more alcohol and carbon dioxide in the closed bottle over a few weeks. I do fret a little that this might mean a higher chance of more exploding bottles in my future.

Thanks go out to whichever laymakers made brewing beer at home legal in 1977!

I Married a Beer Nerd

Jen made the mistake of pointing out her new blog before linking it elsewhere herself, so I'm debuting it here. It will be fun to watch the point/counterpoint from our beer making adventures together, especially when we make that requisite first big mess in the kitchen.