A 'Politics and Beer' Post

Haven't posted much lately, I know, especially about politics. I just can't seem to get beyond sputtering "bwa-huh-wha?" at the absolutely surreal outrageous lies that are repeatedly spewed by Willard R-money. I mean, I've been a political junkie for decades, so I'm not surprised when a politician lies. But most of the lies are based on some slant of reality; there's usually some sort of factual connection within the lie. The Willard unit seems to have no connection to reality when he lies, and yet he still has a very good chance of being elected President. I find this extremely confounding.
So I'd rather post about something that makes more sense to me: beer! Did you know that Sober Panda Time  stocks his campaign bus  with his own homebrew? It's true:

In perhaps the most startling revelation so far in Obama’s three-day bus tour across Iowa, it was revealed this morning that the White House brews its own beer, and that the presidential bus is stocked with bottles of that beer.
blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/08/14/revealed-the-president-brews-his-own-beer-and-brings-it-with-him-on-the-road/

So there's your choice, voters: the incumbent is a homebrewer, the challenger is a Mormon. Who would you (this is the most foolish political question to ever become a 'meme', but I'll ask it anyway) rather have a beer with?
(p.s. A brief personal note for those who care: I'm fine, on break from school. Solid 4.0 last semester, and next semester starts in two weeks. The ongoing life in poverty is getting to be a drag, so I really hope this education pays off in the end.)

I Knew It!

I was always certain of this, but now science confirms: beer makes men smarter. From a study at the University of Illinois, Chicago:

a recent study published by the University of Illinois in Chicago claims that drinking only a few beers may, in fact, make men more intelligent.

The results of the test were quite interesting to say the least. Participants who consumed two pints of beer finished their problems in a cool 12 seconds, compared to non-drinkers who required 15.5 seconds.

"We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks," psychologist Jennifer Wiley explained.

"We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving," she continued. "But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted."

The study participants who drank beer also solved 40% more of the problems posed to them compared to non-drinkers. "Sometimes the really creative stuff comes out when you’re having a glass of wine over dinner, or when you’re taking a shower," Wiley added.

.

Anybody who's ever hung out at a bar with me knows that I'm great at problem solving after a couple of pints. And my friends are, too. In fact, we can usually solve most any problem by the third pint.
(BTW: sorry about the paucity of posts. Life is trying to test me, but I'm still kicking.)

Beer History

File this under "jobs I wish I had":

The Beer Archaeologist

Really interesting for us beer fans.

White House Honey Ale

OK, it's easy to complain about that Obama guy, but he is doing a few good things. Like having the White House brew their own beer. The "White House Honey Ale" is being made with honey from on site bee hives.

Obama plans to serve his very own 'White House Honey Ale' for Irish night:

President Obama has officially declared March 2011 Irish American Heritage Month. More importantly the White House also announced that the president would be brewing his own beer called White House Honey Ale for St.Patrick’ Day.

Obama, who said he will pay for the beer making equipment himself, has made presidential history by being the first U.S. president to brew beer at the White House.

Last month the president and his wife Michelle served White House Honey Ale at their Super Bowl party. They are officially the first White House residents to charge their chefs with brewing, and White House curator Bill Allman says the chefs love it.

Historian for the White House Historical Association William Ushong agrees. He said, "I haven't heard of any beer brewing going on at the White House itself. President Jefferson would be your likely candidate, given his epicurean taste."

The staff confirms that White House home brewing is here to stay. According to the Obama Foodorama blog Semonti Stephens, a spokesman for the East Wing said, "It is very safe to assume that there will be more White House beer in the future.”

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/President-Obama-brewing-his-own-beer-for-StPatricks-White-House-bash-117392163.html

He's now assured of my vote in 2012.

Football and Beer

This post is further evidence that I am shallow and easily amused, but it's playoff time. For those who don't follow football, tonight's game between the reigning champion Saints and the Seattle Seahawks looks like a fluke. The Seahawks won the wretched NFC West with a losing record, which had never happened before.

But tonight, the Seahawks will be putting every ounce into the game:

"We received a copy of the YouTube video showing the quantity of liquid served in the 16 oz. beer cup is the same quantity that fits into the 20 oz. beer cup. This is the first time we have been alerted to this fact. Upon our internal investigation this afternoon, we discovered the cups that are marked 16 oz. hold 20 oz. of liquid.

"Fans who purchased a 16 oz. beer actually received 20 oz. of beer for the 16 oz. price. Fans that purchased the 20 oz. beer received the amount they purchased. We are working with Levy Restaurants to follow up with the cup vendor about the measurement and to determine how long this has been occurring at Qwest Field.

"We are determined to find a solution as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we will serve domestic beer in the 20 oz. cup at tomorrow's playoff game to ensure all fans receive the amount they purchase, and we will charge the 16 oz. price."

Here's the YouTube video exposing the difference -- or lack of difference.

Quite the oddity. As most regular bar patrons know, the standard bar "pint" holds 14 oz., not the 16 oz. of a true pint, making this is opposite of the standard practice. So Seahawks fans should have at least one reason to be happy.

Happy International Beer Day

Cheers!

International Beer Day, Aug 5th - A Celebration of Beer's Greatness

More Extreme Beer News

The High Alcohol Content Beer War Continues With 60% ABV Brew, called "Start the Future." The battle for the title of "most extreme beer" is getting crazy:

Hot on the heels of last week's news about the 55% alcohol content beer (which also happened to come packed in roadkill), a Dutch brewer has upped the ante with a brew purported to contain 60% alcohol by volume.

While the 55% beer had been dubbed the "End of History," this 60% ABV boozer has a more uplifting name in "Start the Future." It also does not come stuffed in a rodent carcass, which is a plus.

Additionally, Start the Future's price tag -- $45 for .333 liter -- is a huge savings over End of History, which sold out in spite of its $760/bottle price tag.

The battle over these high ABV beverages has seen a lot of good-natured ribbing between competitors. For example, when German brewery Schorschbrau unveiled a beer with 40% ABV, BrewDog, the Scottish company responsible for End of History, introduced a 41% ABV beer they called Sink the Bismarck!.

"It has become a little competition," said the Start the Future brewer. "You should see it as a joke."

http://consumerist.com/2010/07/high-alcohol-content-beer-war-continues-with-60-abv-brew.html

I love a good, strong beer, but I'm starting to wonder if at these alcohol levels, can it still be considered beer?

Strange Brew

The End of History - featuring dead animals - comes at £500 a bottle

This may be the strangest beer news I've ever read:

The End of History, made by BrewDog of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, is 55% and £500 a bottle.

The bottles have been made using seven dead stoats, four squirrels and a hare, said to be roadkill.

However, Advocates for Animals and Alcohol Focus Scotland both condemned the marketing.

BrewDog claims the beer is the world's strongest and most expensive.

Its co-founder James Watt said: "We want to show people there is an alternative to monolithic corporate beers, introduce them to a completely new approach to beer and elevate the status of beer in our culture."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-10725024

At 55%, it's even stronger than "Tactical Nuclear Penguin", but really; bottles covered in roadkill? That just seems too weird.

A Beer List

That I disagree with. GQ magazine put together a list of 50 beers from around the world all beer enthusiasts need to try before they die. Having tried over half the beers on the list, I'm unimpressed. The list does include some very good beers, but also a few that are rather mediocre. I can think of several that should be on the list, but aren't, starting with "Tactical Nuclear Penguin" (http://pygalgia.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-beer-news-tactical-nuclear-penguin.html). Also, Ska Brewing's "Decadent".

So, what beers would you suggest that a beer lover try before their drinking days are over?

A Label

If I had a brewery, this would be on the bottle labels.

(Found at Blackadder, where you can find many more amusing things.)

Celebrate!

75 years of canned beers:

Be sure to crack open a cold one on Jan. 24, the day canned beer celebrates its 75th birthday.

New Jersey's Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company churned out the world's first beer can in 1935, stocking select shelves in Richmond, Va., as a market test. The experiment took off and American drinkers haven't looked back since, nowadays choosing cans over bottles for the majority of the 22 gallons of beer they each drink per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100123/sc_livescience/cannedbeerturns75

While most American canned beers are tasteless yellow fizzwater (or worse), more and more craft beers are now available in cans (which is a great boon to us river runners). A few of my favorites include Ska Brewery's "Modus Hoperandi", Oskar Blue's "Gordon", and the local Mogollon "Wapiti Amber". Life is too short to drink cheap beer.

More Beer News - "Tactical Nuclear Penguin"

Beer "news" is my favorite kind of news. And when I read about a beer setting a new world record, with a name like "Tactical Nuclear Penguin", I must share it with you:

The BrewDog team have pulled off our most audacious and ambitious project to date, and smashed a world record in the process. We have today, Thursday 26 November 2009, set a new world record after creating the strongest beer in the world. Weighing in at an ABV of 32%, BrewDog’s ‘Tactical Nuclear Penguin’ beats the previous record of 31% held by German beer brand Schorschbraer.

This beer is about pushing the boundaries, it is about taking innovation in beer to a whole new level. It is about achieving something which has never before been done and putting Scotland firmly on the map for progressive, craft beers.

This beer is bold, irreverent and uncompromising. A beer with a soul and a purpose. A statement of intent. A modern day rebellion for the craft beer proletariat in our struggle to over throw the faceless bourgeoisie oppression of corporate, soulless beer.’

The Antarctic name inducing schizophrenia of this uber-imperial stout originates from the amount of time it spent exposed to extreme cold. This beer began life as a 10% imperial stout 18 months ago. The beer was aged for 8 months in an Isle of Arran whisky cask and 8 months in an Islay cask making it our first double cask aged beer. After an intense 16 month, the final stages took a ground breaking approach by storing the beer at -20 degrees for three weeks to get it to 32%.

For the big chill the beer was put into containers and transported to the cold store of a local ice cream factory where it endured 21 days at penguin temperatures. Alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water. As the beer got colder BrewDog Chief Engineer, Steven Sutherland decanted the beer periodically, only ice was left in the container, creating more intensity of flavours and a stronger concentration of alcohol for the next phase of freezing. The process was repeated until it reached 32%.

A warning on the label states: This is an extremely strong beer, it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.

You can buy yours here: http://www.brewdog.com/product.php?id=46

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article.php?id=214

If any of you were wondering what to give me for Christmas, well, a bottle would be much appreciated. I promise to drink it responsibly.
(added: they only made 500 bottles, so I'm being facetious in asking)
(dedicated to badtux the snarky penguin)

Extreme Beer News

Anybody who knows me knows that I love a good hoppy beer. But in reading about some of the new "extreme" beers, I encountered one that sound like an "extremely" bad idea:

But don't confuse "extreme" with "strong," Koch says. "Extreme is bringing something new to the brewing process. It's like creating a whole new genre of music, as opposed to just playing the same music louder."

Nanny State, an "imperial mild" from the BrewDog microbrewery in Fraserburgh, Scotland, is the anti-Utopias, but just as extreme. It measures 1.1 percent alcohol; you'd be hard-pressed to get tipsy on a case of it. But it is crammed with hops. The brewer's claimed level of 225 international bitterness units is the most extreme I've ever heard. (IBUs measure a beer's level of alpha acids, the primary bittering compound in hops. For purposes of comparison, Budweiser measures about 12 IBUs; Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, 37; a typical imperial IPA, 75 to 100.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/17/AR2009111700693.html

Just the name "nanny state" is enough to keep me away, but 225 IBU's for 1.1% alcohol? Why bother? Just drink unfermented hop juice.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Beer and Health Care

Tonight Obama will give his "really important" health care speech to congress, and the county democratic party is holding a viewing party at my favorite bar. Wednesday is also $2.00 pint special, so this might be an amusing time. The bar regulars include a number of political junkies of various stripes (I'm the one on the far left), and we've already had some great debates on health care. Throw the local democratic activists into the mix, and this could be as entertaining as a football game.
I don't actually expect all that much from Obama's speech, but I really hope he comes out strong on the public option. I fear he's already lost the momentum on health care, and to actually achieve meaningful reform is going to take more back room arm twisting than fancy speeches. But a good speech won't hurt. We'll see what we get.
I'll be getting the $2.00 Lagunitas Hop Stoopid; that much I know.

A Local Tragedy

OK, it's not really a tragedy, but it feels like one. My favorite local microbrewery is no more. Mogollon has been sold, and will be turning into a typical bar. It's a minor event compared to all the real problems in the world, but it's a real loss in my personal world.






For over ten years, Mogollon has been a fixture in my life. A friendly place where local folk debate politics over beer, and tourists from all over the world are welcome. All the co-bloggers here at Pygalgia are regular patrons. Mogollon always felt more like a community than a bar, having that "Cheers" sense of "everybody knows your name." The funky, rustic decor was a fitting home for a mixed clientele of river runners, laborers, aging hippies, professionals, veterans, artists, and musicians. And Mogollon had another special attraction:




The beer. Put simply, the guys at Mogollon make the finest of hand crafted ales. These are full-bodied brews that are meant to be appreciated. My personal favorite (and official beer of this blog), the "Horny Toad IPA", is about as good an India Pale Ale as you'll ever find. The aggressive hoppiness isn't for the faint of heart, but Zymurgian, Sweaterman, Gandhisxmas, and I are all fans of sophisticated brew. I'm still coming to grips with the very real possibility that this may be the very last batch, as between the changes and the world wide hop shortage, there are currently no plans to brew any more.
Changes happen in our lives. The bar has been sold to new owners who hope to attract a younger, more upscale clientele. The brewing operation is moving and becoming a subsidiary of a major distributor, and will be focusing on larger scale production of fewer styles.
There are other bars and other microbreweries in the neighborhood, and life will go on. But none will be a real substitute. Mogollon has been a special place for more than ten years; a haven of sanity in a time of madness. When the sign comes down at the end of this month it will be the end of a local fixture. I wont be alone in my grief.

More on the Hops Crisis

I've posted before on the world wide hop shortage, but there's more news today:

In the world of beer, you can't skip the hops -- even when the price goes up 400 percent in a year.

That jaw-dropping hike in the price of the twining vine flower -- an ingredient used to impart flavor to many brews -- is the result of market correction, bad crops and China, among other things. For beer lovers at the bar and the distributor, it may boil down to price hikes ranging from a quarter a glass to a few dollars a case in coming months.

''We use about 12 different varieties of hops, and they went up 350 to 400 percent, each one,'' said Dan Weyerbacher, president of Weyerbacher Brewing Co. in Easton.
That translates to a jump from about $4 a pound to about $23 a pound.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5beer.6174490dec09,0,3091573.story?coll=all_tab01_layout

This is a serious problem for my local brewery, Zymurgian, and all my friends who brew (I found out in the comments last time that a lot of our readers are also brewers), and there's no quick fix as hops take several years to grow.

Can we blame shrub?

The Upcoming Disaster

$100 a barrel for oil? Go read our pal monkeyfister for a ton of insight and information (and yes, Sweaterman, I'm glad I didn't take the bet). The falling dollar? No, I'm talking about a REAL disaster: The hops shortage:

A worldwide shortage of hops — a key beer-making ingredient — could have a big effect on the taste of specialty brews and force smaller microbreweries to hike the price of their products.The shortage can be blamed on a perfect storm of events — bad weather in hop-growing areas of the United States, Europe and Australia and a depressed U.S. dollar.

Brian Titus, president of Halifax's Garrison Brewing Company, said his brewmaster isn't sure he'll be able to make some of his beers in the new year because he hasn't been able to find some varieties of hops at all.

"It's bordering on disastrous actually. If you don't have hops then you don't have beer," said Titus.

The shortage has some breweries rethinking their brews and possibly changing beer recipes to cut down on the use of hops.

"So maybe you find something that smells similar but doesn't have the same taste profile and it doesn't have the same bitterness," said Titus.

Industry analysts speculate the shortage could force smaller breweries to hike the price of some beers by as much as 10 per cent.

Larger breweries are less likely to have to raise prices because they buy in bulk with long-term contracts.

Craft brewers don't have the means to hedge against rising prices, like their industrial rivals.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/11/01/hops-shortage.html?ref=rss

This is really hitting home. My local brewery had to make a hops substitution for their latest batch of IPA, and Zymurgian has altered recipes for his 2 latest batches of homebrew. As someone who likes "hoppy" beers, I'm really worried.

Added: Here are some links to the oil/dollar issue:

DOLLAR NEW LOW...

OIL NEW HIGH...

GOLD $850

Don't Tell Zymurgian

Because I like my kitchen, I don't want Zymurgian to click on this link.

Flickr user Cog_nate got into the Hallowe'en spirit by using a pumpkin as a
brewing vessel, documenting the process in a Flickr set. Link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cog_nate/sets/72157602400060222/

But I did post it anyway.

Today in History

Given the daily bad news, I ask you to pause for a moment to remember a tragedy that occured in 1814:

A flood of beer swept through the streets of St. Giles, England, on 17 October 1814. Caused by a rupture in a brewery tank containing 3500 barrels of beer, the tidal wave killed nine people and demolished two houses.

http://www.burp.com.au/beer_trivia.htm

Yeah, I'm not blogging very seriously today. Sorry.

Stupid Scientific Studies

OK, the study used mice, but the conclusion is flat out wrong. Titled: "Beer: Taste doesn't matter":

United Press International

A U.S. study suggests differing zests for beer might reveal more about alcohol's effect on the brain than inherent differences in taste sensitivity.

Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee -- led by Associate Professor Judy Grisel of Furman University -- are using a mouse model
to map genes responsible for differences in beer consumption.

In our preliminary study, we have two critical findings, said Grisel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience. There is no significant correlation between the drinking patterns and the allelic status of the taste receptor on Chromosome 2, and many strains of mice voluntarily consumed enough alcohol to become dependent.

By studying self-administration of beer, the researchers have been able to decrease the influence of taste sensitivity that's been a big factor in previous studies in which scientists measured the consumption of alcohol mixed with water.

The ongoing research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Furman Advantage Program and South Carolina independent colleges and universities.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/weirdnews/story.aspx?content_id=646eab47-bdb6-487e-8a3f-c4ed1a1a1a72

Mogollon used to have the slogan "coming out, all beer is pretty much the same. going in, there is a difference".

Added: But it would explain Budweiser.