Posts Tagged: Beer and Science
That Persnickty Barley Carbon Absorption Rate Thing
Posted by on Monday, May 25, 2009 in - 7 comments
I spent the whole day thinking about this barley and carbon thing. Mainly because I am bad at science but it didn't distract me from the challenge. It just seems weird to me that someone can say that "the growing and processing of hops and malt into beer and whisky producing 1.5 per cent of …
I Knew I Couldn't Bear The Future For Some Reason
Posted by on Sunday, May 24, 2009 in - 1 comment
I caught most of the movie Brazil the other day. While I am hardly anywhere near the libertarian fringes politically once in a while I do find my betters somewhat lacking, their words foreshadowing a world like that in the movie, a world with committees of well suited people creating rules and …
A Brainiac At Guinness Helped Create Quality Control
Posted by on Monday, March 16, 2009 in - leave a comment
This article in the well-named "KalamaBrew" column of the Kalamazoo Gazette indicates that on this St. Patrick's Day eve we may want to pause to remember William Sealy Gosset, a chemist at Guinness who began his career a little more than a century ago. He created a couple of statistical theories …
Scientific Discovery Leave Us Asking Same Questions
Posted by on Saturday, December 27, 2008 in - 3 comments
I recall a George Carlin news item joke that I may have posted somewhere here somewhere before: "scientists have discovered that saliva causes cancer but, fortunately, only when taken over a long period of time in small amounts." That is the sort of reaction I had when I read today's beer and …
Yuck! That Yeast Is Flocculating Itself Again!!!
Posted by on Thursday, November 20, 2008 in - 2 comments
When I was a home brewer - as opposed to a person who has home brewing supplies and equipment in the house but never does anything with it all - I used to be concerned about flocculation. Flocculation is the word that describes the capacity of a yeast (or other stuff for all I know) to clump. It … read more »
Beer Science: Beer Which Emits Light.
Posted by on Monday, October 27, 2008 in - 2 comments
The BBC has an interesting story today about the lengths to which macro-brewers have gone to figure out how to attract customers: • Green beer. Blue beer. Beer with the frothy 'head' in the middle of the glass, rather than at the top. Beer which emits light..."We've done lots of things which are …
More Yeasty History, More Yeasty Science
Posted by on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 in - leave a comment
It seems like just a couple of weeks ago that I was learning about yeast history through science. Oh. It was just a couple of weeks ago. Now, instead of reaching back just four centuries, science is taking us back through over 400,000 centuries of yeastiness: • Trapped inside a Lebanese weevil …
Two Lager Yeast Strains, Two Homecaves
Posted by on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 in - 11 comments
I am sure I will get this wrong and that Ron will be able to clarify but it appears that two forensic yeast researchers have determined that lager yeast came into existence twice during two separate events: • ...the team discovered that it happened at least twice in two separate locations in …
Did Franklin Know That Much About Beer Goggles?
Posted by on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 in - 1 comment
I doubt not that moderate Drinking has been improv'd for the Diffusion of Knowledge among the ingenious Part of Mankind...drinking does not improve our Faculties, but it enables us to use them. • Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood, No. 12, 1722. • Franklin was 16 or 17 when he wrote that under … read more »
Why Don't They Study Slam Dancing And Health Anymore?
Posted by on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 in - 3 comments
Another day, another bunch of odd academic studies from labcoated laboratorians or policy documents from lobbyist trying to tell us all what beer does with you or what you do when you are with your beer: • From France we learn that "when the music gets loud, we tend to drain our mug of brew …
