Beer News

Brace yourselves. What you’re about to see is not pretty. In fact some of you may want to shield your eyes. This is real:

Excerpts directly from the BrewDog Brewery website: “This blond Belgian ale is infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and Fresh juniper berries. Only 12 bottles have been made and each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. The striking packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill. This release is a limited run of 11 bottles, 7 stoats and 4 grey squirrels. Each ones comes with its own certificate of authenticity.”

“The End of History: The name derives from the famous work of philosopher Francis Fukuyama, this is to beer what democracy is to history. Fukuyama defined history as the evolution of the political system and traced this through the ages until we got the Western Democratic paradigm. For Fukuyama this was the end point of man’s political evolution and consequently the end of history. The beer is the last high abv beer we are going to brew, the end point of our research into how far the can push the boundaries of extreme brewing, the end of beer.”

“This 55% beer should be drank in small servings whilst exuding an endearing pseudo vigilance and reverence for Mr Stoat. This is to be enjoyed with a weather eye on the horizon for inflatable alcohol industry Nazis, judgemental washed up neo-prohibitionists or any grandiloquent, ostentatious foxes.”

See the whole thing direct from the source:  The End of History

I ran across this great article on Discovery news, and thought I should share it with you.  In essence:

• Beer contains a nutrient that can strengthen bone.
• In moderation, beer can contribute to a healthy diet.
• Wine isn’t the only alcoholic beverage that does our bodies some good.

As always, MODERATION is the key.

UPDATE - Here’s practically the same article, word for word, on The Guardian:  Drinking beer can help prevent weak bones.  Interesting.  (Thanks, and a shout out to De McArthur)

I have reviews to post here.  Really.  I do.  But they’re on paper.  I actually have to type them out, which is why you’re not reading them.

In the meantime I thought some of you might like to see this:

Beer Calculus: homebrew recipe calculator.

I’m not a home brewer … yet … so I have no idea how good this thing actually is, but it impressed me enough to share it.  It’s an online beer brewing calculator.

Let me know if it’s any good.  I’ll probably be trying it next spring.

Here’s an excellent article with recipes about cooking with beer.

I used to BBQ steaks with beer – it tenderizes them.  I’ve also experimented with adding it to sauces, etc., with mixed results — but I’m not what you might consider a good cook.

With these recipes though, I just might be able to fake it.  (Thanks to Tim for sending this to me!)

via Cooking With Beer : NPR.

The brewing industry no doubt loves this unintended presidential endorsement.

Apparently scientists at Rice University have created a beer designed to extend your life.

We already know that beer is good for you, and also there is a very good chance that we owe our entire civilization to the discovery of how to make beer.  Now these brainiacs turn it into a wonder drug.

Are we living in the new Golden Age or what?

I hereby proclaim the Bio-Beer team at Rice, everyone on the project, as groovy.

This is a rather large chunk of news to swallow whole: Anheuser-Busch has been sold to the Belgian brewer InBev for $52 billion.

Deep breath…

Fifty-two BILLION dollars. Wow.

You know, a billion is a really large number. Try to get your head around it. If you were forced to spend a million dollars a month, it would take you over 83 years to spend a billion dollars.

Now times that by 52.

I don’t know, but it almost seems like you’d be able to buy an entire European country for that amount of money. Doesn’t it? And so who did InBev, makers of all sorts of wonderful (and some not so wonderful) European beers decide to buy? Monaco? Portugal? The State of Road Island?

No.

They bought the biggest, most bloated brewery that makes the worst beer on the face of this Earth.

One can only hope they dig deep into Anheuser-Busch and do something to improve the beer. I mean, even just a little!

One would hope, right? Especially after spending 52 BILLION DOLLARS for it.

There is, it seems, a beer called Rubbel Sexy Lager that features labels decorated with scantly clad sex kittens whom, with a coin and a bit of scratch-off effort, you can undress to reveal their stunningly desirable female naughty bits. Because of this, it’s been pulled off the market.

In a newspaper interview, the head of industry regulator The Portman Group said, “Some people might think this is harmless fun but there is a serious issue involved. The industry has set itself strict marketing rules and this drink has fallen short of those high standards.”

Excuse me? Hello? We are talking about the beer industry here, right? Or have I somehow stumbled off into an alternate dimension? Has the Portman Group ever seen a Superbowl ad? In the news reports they claim they fear the name of the beer and the scantily-clad model could lead drinkers to associate the product with sexual success. Is that not what just about every single TV beer commercial would have you believe?

I am calling this a case of out-and-out hypocrisy.

It’s perfectly okay to promote your beer with labels depicting demons, skeletons, and the occasionally busty barmaid, but not the exquisite artistry of a unclothed naked female? That strikes a nerve. What else can you expect, though, from a society that accepts death and violence as perfectly acceptable but sexuality is dirty, nasty, and bad bad bad.

If it weren’t for sexuality, and probably a good amount of beer, I’ll wager that no one at the Portman Group would ever have been born.