Monday, May 14, 2012

News of the Beery World

A few stories that came across drinkdrank's wire this week caught my eye, so I figured I'd share them with you:

Message In a Bottle

Isn't this a Police song?
RedOrbit.com picked up a story from Reuters and is reporting that the VTT Technical Research Institute Centre of Finland is in the process of recreating a 19th century beer, of which an original bottle was recovered from a sunken ship in the Baltic Sea. In its best imitation of the recently cancelled CSI:Miami (Yeeeeeoooww!), VTT has pulled out all the stops to analyze the bottle and its contents, the article states that “The study involved an analysis of the physico-chemical properties of the beer and microbiological and DNA analyses of the beer, bottle and cork. In particular, the aim was to isolate any living microbes.” As super-cool and beer nerdy as that is, wouldn't it have been easier just to call Ron Pattinson? He'd have been able to tell them what's what and they could have cut out the mass spectrometer middle man all together.


Mola Ram's heart burns for you.
Oops

I find it best to err on the side of caution when it comes to politics and religion. Portland, Oregon's Burnside Brewery, however does not—at least not to the latter. KOIN Local 6, a Portland CBS news affiliate, reports the brewery has postponed the release of it's new wheat beer brewed with Indian spices. The beer is named Kali-ma and it's label sports a black, multi-armed, female deity beheading, what I assume to be, brewery staff. The brewery chose the name and iconography in homage to the second Indiana Jones flick, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the movie (yeah, like you haven't seen it) Indy fights a Thuggee cult, and it's leader Mola Ram, bent on child slavery, Sankara Stone theft and human sacrifice to their patron Goddess Kali-ma. That's where the name and the trouble comes in, for Burnside Brewery at least. Ya' see Kali-ma isn't some made-up, Hollywood bad-guy from the minds of Spielberg and Lucas—it's derivative of the revered Hindu Goddess Kali—the one worshipped by millions of people across the globe. Granted, naming a beer after a religious icon is not totally offensive to me, but I'm not Hindu or Indiana Jones. I do, however, see how that may have pissed a few folks off. Just a bit of advice to brewery owners—steer clear of Christ Kölsch.

That mug won't be empty for long.

Wyoming Tastes Like Beer

In my favorite news blip of the week—trib.com is reporting that fourteen breweries in the state of Wyoming have collaborated to create Wy-P-A, an IPA, to be dubbed Wyoming's State Beer. Brewers from across the Cowboy State met at the Wind River Brewing Co., in Pinedale, Wyoming—each bringing malt and hops to contribute to the beery effort. The intention was to create a hoppy, 6.5% ABV beer that, as Tim Harland of Snake River Brewing Co. in Jackson Hole said, "... is bigger than all of us."

The breweries will split the yield and the beer will be available today (er, uh, that is May 14)—so drink up Wyoming!

2 comments:

  1. _Message In A Bottle__
    1. I saw Police in concert in Denver circa 1984 [?am I cool or what?].
    2. While living in Salem, Ore., I attended a lecture/presentation at Willamette [ryhmes with dammit] University Antropologhy Club by Dr. Patrick McGovern. McGovern was promoting his book 'Uncorking the Past'. McGovern is a professor of Biomolecular Archaeology
    and by analyzing residue in shards of pottery has specified the formulate of wine-beer in 5k BCE Middle East and 7k BCE China. Dogfish Head Sam Caligone worked with McGovern to create Midas Touch Exixir and Chateau Jiahu to memic the antropological analysis.

    _Wyoming Taste Like Beer__
    My wife and I enjoy roadtrips in the American West. We have made several Colorado to Oregon roadtrip in the recent past. I check maps.google for brewpubs along our route. In the past year we have drank and dined at:
    - Suds Brothers Brewing Co, in Evanston, Wyo.
    - Bitter Creek Brewing Co. in Rock Springs, Wyo.

    We prefered Bitter Creek over Suds Bros. Albeit, neither were style-bending / breaking.

    Regardless, isn't it great that you can enjoy locally brewed, authentic craft beer virtually anywhere in this great nation.

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  2. I work with a couple of scientists—an archaeologist and a paleontologist—who performed similar tests on paleo-American clay vessels containing the "Three sisters"—corn, beans, and squash.

    Cool stuff.

    ReplyDelete