Flight attendant's beer exit draws charges
Flight attendant's grand exit draws charges
Aug. 10, 2010 03:50 PM
Associated Press
NEW YORK - No fed-up worker has ever said "I've had it" quite like Steven Slater.
Prosecutors say the JetBlue flight attendant flipped out over a fight with an agitated traveler Monday, cursing over the intercom before grabbing some beer from the plane's galley and making a grand exit down the emergency slide at Kennedy Airport.
He has been charged with felonies but elevated to folk-hero status by thousands who shrugged off allegations that Slater endangered others and praised him for his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment.
Slater, whose father was an airline pilot, wore a slight smile Tuesday as he was led into a Queens courtroom to be arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing, counts that carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. The judge set his bail at $2,500, which remained unpaid late Tuesday afternoon.
The 38-year-old airline veteran, who lives steps from the beach in Queens a few miles from the airport, had been flying long enough to see much of the gleam of the air travel experience tarnished by frayed nerves, rising fees, plummeting airline profits and packed cabins.
"One by one all of these niceties have been removed from the customer experience. I think subconsciously, it's causing passengers to be very angry," said Pauline Frommer, creator of the Pauline Frommer Guides and daughter of Arthur Frommer. "There's an us-versus-them mentality."
Sentiment online appeared to fall in Slater's court. By early Tuesday afternoon, more than 20,000 people had declared themselves supporters of Slater on Facebook, and the number was growing by thousands every hour. At least one fan set up a legal fund on his behalf.
"Overwhelmingly people said it should have been the passenger who was ejected from the plane," said George Hobica, founder of AirfareWatchdog.com, speaking about response to his site's blog on the incident. "I've never seen such an outpouring of support for a flight attendant."
Slater's attorney, Howard Turman, said his client had been drawn into a fight between two female passengers over space in the overhead bins as the Pittsburgh-to-New York flight was awaiting takeoff. Somehow, Slater was hit in the head, Turman said.
After JetBlue Flight 1052 landed in New York, one of the women who had been asked to gate-check her bag was enraged that it wasn't immediately available, Turman said.
"The woman was outraged and cursed him out a great deal," Turman said. "At some point, I think he just wanted to avoid conflict with her."
That's when he deployed the slide, Turman said. A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the airport, said Slater took at least one beer from the plane galley on his way out.
"Those of you who have shown dignity and respect these last 20 years, thanks for a great ride," Slater said over the plane's loudspeaker, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Slater's actions could have been deadly if ground crew workers had been hit by the emergency slide, which deploys with a force of 3,000 pounds per square inch. Turman said Slater had opened the hatch and made sure no one was in the slide's path before deploying it.
Passenger Phil Catelinet said he heard Slater's profanity-laced announcement over the public address system before he left the plane. He said Slater ended by saying, "I've had it." He described the announcement as "the most interesting part of the day to that point" but didn't see Slater use the exit slide or grab the beer.
It wasn't until he saw Slater on an airport train and overheard him talking about the escapade that he put it together.
"He was smiling. He was happy he'd done this," Catelinet told NBC's "Today."
Initially, authorities blamed Slater's blowup on a passenger refusing to sit down as the plane taxied to the gate. But after interviewing more witnesses, investigators confirmed the dispute had begun in Pittsburgh and resumed at the end of the flight, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. JetBlue spokesman Mateo Lleras said Slater had been removed from duty pending an investigation. Prosecutors said no criminal allegations had been made against the passenger.
Turman said Slater was under stress because his mother, Diane Slater of Thousand Oaks, Calif., has lung cancer. His father, a pilot for American Airlines, died more than a decade ago. Reached at home by phone, his mother declined to comment.
"He's not this type of individual at all," said Slater's former grandfather-in-law, Harry Niethamer. "He's always been a gentleman and he loves that job. He had opportunities to do other things but he always went back to that type of work and apparently was always good at it."
Niethamer, 82, of Downey, Calif., said his granddaughter was previously married to Slater and they have a son who is now in his mid-teens. He said Slater was a flight attendant for different airlines over many years.
With airlines responding to waning passenger demand by cutting flights and packing remaining ones to the gills, it's no surprise many people can see Slater's side of the story, said Thom McDaniel, a union president and flight attendant at Southwest Airlines for 18 years.
"The response has been amazing and that's probably in part because those people have been stuck on a lot of full, hot planes in the last three months," he said.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/08/09/20100809flight-attendant-altercation-with-passenger.html#ixzz0wkWOwoMS
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Drunken man breaks into bank to sleep
Drunken man breaks into bank to sleep
Jun. 10, 2010 10:37 AM
Associated Press
ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Police in Ellensburg, Wash., say a man looking for a place to sleep broke into the basement of a bank, and - yes - he had been drinking.
Surveillance video shows the man breaking a basement window about 3 a.m. Saturday and leaving before 8 a.m.
Police tracked down the 21-year-old by Tuesday and arrested him at his home for investigation of second-degree burglary and malicious mischief.
Capt. Dan Hansberry says the man was intoxicated and doesn't know why he went to the bank to snooze.
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/06/10/20100610washington-drunk-man-bank-to-sleep.html
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Sonic customer angered over wine
Sonic customer angered over wine
Jun. 14, 2010 02:20 PM
Associated Press
NAPLES, Fla. – Authorities arrested a 45-year-old man accused of kicking a fast food restaurant's door after employees threw away his wine.
Maurice Alfred Belmore faces charges of criminal mischief and trespass. He was jailed in Collier County on $3,000 bond. It was unclear if Belmore had an attorney.
According to deputies, a manager of a local Sonic Drive-In told investigators that an employee threw away wine that Belmore had left in the restaurant's parking lot. Belmore started kicking the restaurant's door after he realized the wine was missing.
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/06/14/20100614florida-sonic-wine-tossed.html
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Runaway parrot returns to London home for a tipple
Runaway parrot returns to London home for a tipple
By STAFF REPORTER
Published: Today
A WAYWARD parrot returned to home after going on the run — but only for some BOOZE.
Mischievous Reggie escaped through a window and was only tempted back when owner Hubbell Walker left out his favourite tipples — red wine and Pringles crisps.
Hubbell knew about Reggie's peculiar tastes and came up with the plan after the parrot fled in Brockley, south London.
Hubbell, 27, said: "I was devastated when I found out Reggie was gone - you can get quite attached to a pet parrot.
"I don't know where he got the taste for it, but if there is any alcohol around he's there in a flash.
"He's quite an unhealthy parrot really. It's such a relief to have him home."
Reggie was missing for more than 24 hours before Hubbell hit on the plan.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2963767/Parrot-Reggie-missed-booze.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
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Push to Legalize Home Beer-Making
Push to Legalize Home Beer-Making
Reported by: Douglas Clark
Last Update: 3/30
Home Brewing Could Be Legal
Oklahomans are one step away from being able to brew their own beer. A bill moving through the state legislature would allow people to brew beer at home. Fox 23’s Douglas Clark has details.
Desiree Knott and her husband enjoy brewing their own beer and co-own High Gravity, which sells beer and wine-making equipment.
“They legalized wine-making and cider-making. But because they left out beer-making, technically it can be considered illegal,” says Knott.
But that doesn’t keep her or four thousand of her customers from doing it anyway.
“Nobody enforces it, nobody cares.”
But now a bill in the Oklahoma legislature would allow people to get a permit to brew up to 200 gallons of home-made beer a year, for their own consumption. Critics say legalizing home breweries will make beer more available to minors. But Desiree says it’s up to parents to keep it away from kids.
“You can already make wine and cider legally and they have a much higher alcohol content. And you’re making it at home and sharing it with friends at home. So unless you’re really lenient with your kids, I think it would be difficult for minors to have access to home-brewed beer,” says Knott.
The bill has passed through a committee in the state senate and will soon go to the senate floor for a vote.
http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Push-to-Legalize-Home-Beer-Making/4UFEFY7NUE-ejLC2ueBuHw.cspx
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Beer Here: Belgian Barleywine from the Great Dane and Capital Brewery
Beer Here: Belgian Barleywine from the Great Dane and Capital Brewery
Robin Shepard on Friday 03/05/2010 3:00 pm
The Great Dane Pub and Brewery just released the highest-alcohol beer it has ever made. The downtown Madison brewpub has finally put its Belgian Barleywine on tap after more than a year of fermenting and conditioning. This is not your mainstream, light, bubbly golden brew. The term "big" is hard to avoid, with the beer's near 14% ABV, bold, sweet flavor and lots of mouthfeel. The alcoholic warmth can be felt on the lips even before a drop hits the tongue.
What is it? Belgian Barleywine from the Great Dane Pub and Brewing Company and Capital Brewery.
Style: Barley wines are bold, complex and high in alcohol. The English version features malty sweetness, while American versions are usually more hoppy. These beers are a rich dark brown to bold bronze, and full-bodied. The barley wine is a showcase of malt, sometimes with a sherry-like aroma and flavor, especially in the malty English version. With wine-like strength, barley wines can be quite high in alcohol, exceeding 10% ABV.
Background: This beer was collaboratively brewed in late 2008 by the Great Dane brewmaster Rob LoBreglio and Capital Brewery brewmaster Kirby Nelson. They made it as an attempt to break a record for the highest alcohol in a beer while still following the Reinheitsgebot (German Purity Law of 1516) that says beer should be made only with malt and no sugar adjuncts. Their goal was to approach or exceed 17% ABV. They ended up at 13.75% alcohol with this barley wine. Record or not, there's plenty of alcoholic warmth in this beer.
The Great Dane has a following among beer aficionados for its Old Scratch barley wines, with their rich caramel flavors and alcoholic kick that often exceeds 10% ABV. A few of them even have Great American Beer Festival medals to their credit. Various vintages of Old Scratch come on tap from the first winter snowfall until springtime. This version is the pinnacle of the Dane's releases this winter. A key difference for this beer was fermentation with a Belgian yeast strain, thus the name Belgian Barleywine.
LoBreglio and Nelson brewed the beer in December 2008, and other brewery staff watched over it and added fresh wort to keep the yeast active. It was kept in storage for nearly 14 months. While there is a limited amount, there's talk around the Great Dane that some of the Belgian Barleywine may find its way into bourbon barrels for release next winter in the series of vintages that begin to be released with the first snowflakes of the season.
The Great Dane always serves its high-alcohol barley wines in a snifter. They sell for around $5/glass.
Tasting notes:
• Aroma: Fruity, even a light sourness that seems out of place once the sweetness of the malt grabs the taste buds.
• Appearance: Hazy light copper with a thin, bubbly, tan head.
• Texture: Full-bodied, thick, round and warm. Initial texture is actually bubbly, probably from the carbonated serving. As it warms, expect it to soften and become thicker on the tongue.
• Taste: Strong caramel malty flavor with a raisin-like spicy background.
• Finish/Aftertaste: Warm and malty with lingering spiciness.
Glassware: This is a beer for a snifter. Take your time to sip, swirl, and allow it to warm slowly to bring out even more of its sweet, spicy boldness.
Pairs well with: As with most barley wines, finding a food companion is challenging. There is just too much sweetness and raw maltiness to match well with a main course. However, it does make a very nice after-dinner drink -- it's a dessert beer on its own.
Rating: Three Bottle Openers (out of four).
The Consensus: The Great Dane Belgian Barleywine has not received enough ratings to be evaluated at either Beer Advocate or Rate Beer.
The Verdict: Belgian Barleywine is a beer for those on a constant quest to find something they've never had before -- and may not have again. I admit, I'm one of those always looking for the next unique pint in a never-ending beer scavenger hunt. For that reason, I enjoyed this brew, and recommend that big beer lovers try it. It's pricey at $5 for half a brandy snifter. However, I might go back for another. Just not until after this month's credit card bill is paid.
I appreciate this beer for the collaboration from two breweries, their brewmasters and several brewery staff. All that just adds to the anticipation and hype of its release. If you gravitate to big barley wines, or even if you just want to know what they taste like, this beer offers some of what the style is known for, with assertive malty character and warmth.
What I felt was a bit much for a beer was an in-your-face syrupiness and thick, sticky mouthfeel that's more akin to spirits like Drambuie and B&B Cognac Liqueur. That being the case, such sweetness is accentuated by the beer's alcoholic strength -- and that half-a-snifter quantity seem just right.
http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=28380
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BottleHood turns glass trash into tumblers with a story
BottleHood turns glass trash into tumblers with a story
January 21, 2010 | 8:28 am
L.A. at Home, -- Susan Carpenter
BottleHood founder Steve Cherry describes his up-cycled bottleware company as "tree-hugger meets high-tech entrepreneur." The San Diego start-up reclaims bottles and employs local labor to repurpose the blue, green, brown and clear glass into tumblers, vases and other items. Even better, he does it with retail pricing that starts at $5 per piece, competitive with products made in China.
About 80% of wine bottles end up in landfills, Cherry says, because, unlike beer and soda bottles, they don't have a California Redemption Value. "When you realize that glass takes 4,000 years to decompose, burying it is not a sustainable solution," says Cherry. He got his start last year by turning a local restaurant's cobalt water bottles into votives, which were then used to decorate the restaurant (and sold to diners who asked for them).
"It's a whole circle of sustainability," he says. "I take his trash, I employ guys to turn it into useful products, I sell it to the restaurant that gave me the glass, and they sell it back to the customers that ordered the water in the first place."
The bottles are cut on diamond saws, ground on diamond polishing wheels and buffed with polishing compounds. It's "a more energy-efficient way of converting glass into glassware than torches and kilns," Cherry says. BottleHood operates only in San Diego, but Cherry believes the concept holds potential for "every city, state and country."
BottleHood's wares are available at www.BottleHood.com and locally at Lemmon Hill in San Marino and Rolling Greens in Hollywood and Culver City. All the pieces cost less than $25.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/01/bottlehood-steve-cherry-upcycled-bottle-glasses-cases.html
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It's Not a Hangover, It's an Allergic Reaction
It's Not a Hangover, It's an Allergic Reaction
FRIDAY, Jan. 1 (HealthDay News)
For people with allergies and asthma, toasting the New Year could result in more than a hangover; it could also set off a variety of unpleasant reactions, warns an organization of allergists.
"It is usually not the alcohol itself that produces the reaction. It is most likely ingredients, such as sulfur dioxide [metabisulfite], yeast and additives. Common allergic reactions include hives, skin rashes, flushing and warmth of the skin, bronchospasm or shortness of breath, especially in those with asthma," Dr. Clifford W. Bassett, chairman of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology's Public Education Committee, said in a news release.
Sulfur dioxide is naturally produced during the production of wine and can cause allergic reactions when people drink wine, the experts say. It has the same effects when allergic people eat foods in which it's used as a preservative, such as baked goods, condiments, shellfish and canned foods such as tomatoes and fruit juices.
Histamine, generated by bacteria and yeast in alcohol, can also cause allergic reactions and result in a runny or stuffy nose, itchy and watery eyes and worsening asthma symptoms. These symptoms can be worse in red wine as compared to white wine, the allergists noted.
Beer can also cause allergic symptoms because of ingredients such as barley, corn, wheat and rye, they added.
Copyright © 2010 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
http://www.wggb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11756250&nav=menu1460_10_2
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Samuel Adams(R) Offers Drinkers an Extreme Beer Experience
Samuel Adams(R) Offers Drinkers an Extreme Beer Experience This Holiday Season With the New 2009 Batch of Utopias(R)
Posted on : 2009-11-23 | Author : Samuel Adams
News Category : PressRelease
BOSTON, Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- As a craft beer pioneer and the brewer of the first American "extreme beer," Samuel Adams Founder and Brewer Jim Koch, is inviting drinkers to explore new beer drinking possibilities with the uncapping of the 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias, now available. Over the past 25 years, Jim has been committed to elevating American beer drinkers' appreciation for full-flavored beer, and changing people's perception of what beer can be. The 2009 batch of Utopias anchors the outermost boundary of beer and champions the respect this noble beverage deserves. Utopias is the ideal gift this holiday season for connoisseurs of fine beverages: beer, wine and spirits enthusiasts alike.
The 2009 Samuel Adams Utopias is a strong, rich, dark beer that, unlike most beers, is uncarbonated and is served room temperature in a snifter glass. The recommended pour is two-ounces meant to be savored like vintage port or a fine cognac. Samuel Adams Utopias is brewed in small batches, blended, and aged in the Barrel Room at the Samuel Adams Boston Brewery. Since its first release in 2002, Utopias has held the coveted title of 'world's strongest beer' in the Guinness Book of World Records with 25 percent alcohol by volume. Maintaining the record set by the 2007 batch for commercially brewed beers, the 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias weighs in at 27 percent alcohol by volume. The average beer is about five percent.
"When beer drinkers first tasted Samuel Adams Boston Lager® 25 years ago, it redefined their notion of what an American beer could be--full-flavored, brewed in small batches and delivered fresh right here in America," said founder and brewer, Jim Koch. "As brewers, we continue to challenge ourselves to experiment and explore new flavors and brewing techniques in the Barrel Room year after year, and what continues to energize us is that our beer quest hasn't changed. It's my life's work to elevate people's thinking about beer and to push the boundaries of traditional brewing in order to offer beer lovers an inspired drinking experience. Today, Utopias is our best example of that quest."
Samuel Adams Utopias is brewed with several different strains of yeast, including a variety typically reserved for champagne. A blend of two-row Caramel and Munich malts gives the beer its rich ruby-black color and the blend of three kinds of Noble hops; Spalt Spalter, Hallertau Mittelfrueh, and Tettnang Tettnanger give the beer its floral character and spicy note. The 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias is a blend of liquids, some of which have been aged in a variety of woods, including Scotch whiskey barrels in the Barrel Room at the Boston Brewery for up to 16 years. This longer aging gives the 2009 batch of Utopias a level of complexity not seen in earlier releases. A portion of the beer was also aged in hand-selected, single-use bourbon casks from the Buffalo Trace Distillery. The extended aging process enhances the distinct cinnamon, vanilla, and maple notes in the beer's flavor. This year's batch was finished in sherry casks from Spain and muscatel and port casks from Portugal. The sherry casks add nutty, oak, and honey notes, while the muscatel and port casks contribute slightly more elegant, dark fruit aromas and flavors.
With Samuel Adams® Triple Bock, first brewed in 1994, Jim introduced American beer drinkers to their first "extreme beer" drinking experience. At 17 percent alcohol by volume, it set the stage for future exploration in the extreme beer category. Triple Bock was followed by the commemorative Samuel Adams® Millennium Ale in 2000 weighed in at 21 percent alcohol by volume. In 2002, the first batch of Samuel Adams Utopias was introduced, with an incredible alcohol by volume of 24 percent. Samuel Adams Utopias was brewed again in 2003, 2005 and 2007 when Jim continued to push for more complexity and strength, producing astonishing brews with alcohol levels reaching 27 percent alcohol by volume.
The limited-edition 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias will be bottled in numbered, ceramic brew kettle shaped decanters. The small batch release comes from just 53 barrels all brewed, blended and aged at the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston. The exclusive, limited distribution brew will now be available at select specialty beer and liquor stores starting for a suggested retail price of $150.00 per bottle. For more information, visit www.samueladams.com.
THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY BACKGROUND:
The Boston Beer Company began in 1984 with a generations-old family recipe that Founder and Brewer Jim Koch uncovered in his father's attic. After bringing the recipe to life in his kitchen, Jim brought it to bars in Boston with the belief that drinkers would appreciate a complex, full-flavored beer, brewed fresh in America. That beer was Samuel Adams Boston Lager®, and it helped catalyze what became known as the American craft beer revolution.
Today, the Company brews more than 21 styles of beer. The Company uses the traditional four vessel brewing process and often takes extra steps like dry-hopping and a secondary fermentation known as krausening. It passionately pursues the development of new styles and the perfection of its classic beers by constantly searching for the world's finest ingredients. While resurrecting traditional brewing methods, the Company has earned a reputation as a pioneer in another revolution, the "extreme beer" movement, where it seeks to challenge drinkers' perceptions of what beer can be. The Boston Beer Company strives to elevate the image of American craft beer by entering festivals and competitions the world over, and in the past five years it has won more awards in international beer competitions than any other brewery in the world. The Company remains independent, and brewing quality beer remains its single focus. While Samuel Adams is the country's largest-selling craft beer, it accounts for just under one percent of the U.S. beer market. For more information, please visit www.samueladams.com.
SOURCE Samuel Adams
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Air Canada plane forced to divert to Kelowna after man steals beer
Air Canada plane forced to divert to Kelowna after man steals beer
KELOWNA, B.C. — Police took a man off an Air Canada Jazz flight in Kelowna, B.C., on Tuesday after a disturbance on the flight from Vancouver to Fort McMurray, Alberta forced the pilot to make an unscheduled stop.
Police say the man stole some beer from the beverage cart on the plane and tried to hide the evidence by flushing the empty can down the toilet.
Airport Communications Officer Jenelle Turpin says the pilot made the decision to land in Kelowna and call in the Mounties.
When the plane landed the RCMP took one man away in handcuffs, while questioning two others before releasing them.
The plane then continued on its flight.
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hqoUiQtv_Ln5AQY4DT3zhIx-FjoA
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Russia vows to take on vodka consumption
Russia vows to take on vodka consumption
By Fred Weir, 9-16-09
Alcoholism is a "national disaster," President Dmitry Medvedev said in a recent statement. But past efforts to curb abuse of vodka in Russia have proven politically unpopular.
At first blush, it might not seem like a good idea to copy the methods of a leader whom Russians regard as the most disastrous failure in living memory.
Yet President Dmitri Medvedev appears determined to tear a page from the playbook of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policies led to the collapse of the USSR, by attempting to force Russians to cut back on their catastrophically high consumption of vodka.
Experts say the problem has grown so dire that the Kremlin has little alternative but to attempt a crack down, even though history records that Mr. Gorbachev’s efforts to deprive Russians of their vodka led to an explosion of public outrage – at a moment when he needed to mobilize public support to back his perestroika reforms.
Rampaging alcoholism is a “national disaster,” Mr. Medvedev said in a recent statement. “The alcohol consumption we have is colossal. … I have been astonished to find that we drink more now than we did in the 1990’s, even though those were very tough times,” he said.
According to the Kremlin website, annual per capita pure alcohol consumption in Russia is about 5 gallons, which is twice the level the World Health Organization describes as the “danger level.” According to a recent study in The Lancet, a medical journal, half of all Russian deaths between the ages of 15 and 54 can be attributed to alcohol-related causes.
Overwhelming the system
According to Russia’s State Service for Consumer Protection, that translated into 75,000 premature deaths in 2007 alone.
“In our society, drinking has become the norm from top to bottom,” says Alexei Magalif, head doctor of the Magalif Clinic in Moscow, which specializes in substance abuse disorders. “Everyone drinks. No one drinks in moderation; they drink to get drunk, and it’s overwhelming the medical system,” he says.
Economic crisis has dampened the public mood and led to over 10 percent unemployment, a sure-fire recipe for increased drinking, say experts.
But wary of Mr. Gorbachev’s fate – polls show he’s still one of the most unpopular public figures in Russia – Medvedev is proceeding much more cautiously than the last Soviet Communist Party chief, who in 1985 simply ordered liquor shops shut down, distilleries closed and vineyards torn up.
While Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol drive may have contributed to his political downfall, public health experts look back on it more kindly than historians because, they say, it briefly succeeded in its primary mission: to wean Russians off the bottle.
“For a short period, Gorbachev’s effort was quite successful in lowering alcohol consumption and increasing life expectancy,” says Murray Feshbach a demographer with the Wilson Center in Washington, who specializes in the former Soviet Union.
“Gorbachev’s campaign saved over a million lives,” agrees Alexander Nemtsov, an expert with the official Institute of Psychiatry in Moscow. “Its defect was its lack of preparation and bureaucratic character. What’s needed is a more gradual and systematic effort.”
New regulation
Mr. Medvedev has given Prime Minister Vladimir Putin three months to regulate Russia’s out-of-control market for alcoholic drinks, including stiff criminal penalties for those who sell it to minors, tight restrictions on where liquor can be sold, big health warnings on all containers and tough new regulations for advertisers.
Experts say that more than 70 percent of Russian alcohol consumption comes in the form of hard liquor, especially vodka. Hopes that commercial promotion of new, lighter alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine would displace vodka have been dashed by evidence that Russians consume the new drinks in addition to their usual doses of vodka.
To deal with the problem, the Kremlin may be planning to reinstate the old state monopoly on production, instituted 300 years ago by Peter the Great but abandoned following the USSR’s demise in favor of an open market.
“Up to 60 percent of vodka consumed in Russia is produced illegally,” Gennady Onishenko, head of the State Consumer Protection Service, told the independent Interfax agency this week. “Restoring the state monopoly on alcohol,” would end counterfeit liquor production and enable the government to implement tougher regulations, he said.
But critics say that more draconian steps will be required if the Kremlin hopes to tackle Russia’s age old curse.
“Our surveys show that 85 percent of Russians want urgent measures to limit alcohol consumption, and half – mostly women – support a dry law,” says Kirill Danishevsky, co-chair of “Control Alcohol”, a public pressure group. “The alcohol business lobby has made enormous efforts to weaken strict measures,” he says. “Medvedev made a good start, but much more needs to be done.”
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/09/16/russia-vows-to-take-on-vodka-consumption/
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Beer Makes Women Straighten Up
Beer Makes Women Straighten Up
Kate Sikora, Health Reporter - August 14,2009
YOU might have trouble standing after a few beers but in good news for women, drinking beer could stop bones from going brittle, research has shown.
A study found that the bones of women who drink beer regularly are stronger, meaning they are less likely to suffer from osteoporosis.
But wine does little to protect against the disease, the journal Nutrition reports.
The high level of silicon in beer slows down the thinning that leads to fractures and boosts the formation of new bone.
Those classed as light beer drinkers - having less than a pint a day - fared just as well as those in the moderate bracket, suggesting that even small amounts can boost bone health.
Professor Howard Morris, from the Hanson Institute in Adelaide, said beer is rich in phytoestrogens, plant versions of oestrogen, which keep bones healthy.
"Oestrogen protects against bone loss in women," he said.
"The researchers are proposing that these oestrogen properties are found in beer."
Almost 1700 healthy women with an average age of 48 were asked about their drinking habits.
The women then underwent ultrasound scans, which showed the bones in the hands of beer drinkers to be denser, hence stronger.
"Silicon plays a major role in bone formation. Beer has been claimed to be one of the most important sources of silicon in the Western diet," said the researchers from the University of Extremadura, Caceres, in Spain.
Bones consist of fibres, minerals, blood vessels and marrow.
The women's hands were chosen because the bones in the fingers are among the first to show signs of osteoporosis, a disease that leads to an increased risk of fracture.
But before you guzzle another schooner, the researchers say they don't endorse alcohol for ``bone health."
"Nevertheless, we have been able to verify that beer ingestion, a common component within our area's diet, seems to provide bone mass with beneficial effects for those women who had moderate alcohol consumption,'' researchers said.
"The consumption of beer, apart from its alcohol content, favors greater bone mass in women."
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25927489-23272,00.html
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In a first, North Korea airs beer commercial on TV
In a first, North Korea airs beer commercial on TV
By Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press Writer | July 3, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea --In an apparent first, North Korea -- a country that struggles to feed its 24 million people -- has aired a beer commercial on state television.
The advertisement, which lasted nearly three minutes after a news program on Thursday, showed a grinning Korean man with sweat on his face holding a glass of beer, with a caption that read, "Taedong River Beer is the pride of Pyongyang."
The commercial said the beer relieves stress and improves health and longevity. It also showed images of a pub it said was in the capital of Pyongyang, filled with people drinking.
Normally, there are no advertisements on television in North Korea, an isolated, communist country that tightly controls its economy and is wary of capitalistic influences.
Programming consists of news, factory descriptions, some children's animation shows, and documentaries on leader Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung, interspersed with propaganda slogans and music, according to a South Korean Unification Ministry official.
The official, who has been monitoring the North's television for more than two decades, told The Associated Press that it was the first time he had seen any sort of advertisement for food, much less beer -- although he has seen programs on North Korean cuisine. He asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to media.
The commercial assured viewers of the beer's quality and nutritional value, saying it was made of rice and contained protein and vitamin B2.
It was unclear how much the beer cost and how many North Koreans could afford it. The country is among the poorest in the world, with an average per capita income of $1,065 in 2008, according to the South's central bank.
The North faces chronic food shortages and has relied on food aid to feed its population since a famine that is believed to have killed as many as 2 million in the mid and late-1990s.
Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, apparently enjoys beer.
Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese sushi chef for Kim, said in a 2003 memoir that he traveled the world for the leader, buying Czech beer as well as Chinese melons, Danish pork and Thai papayas.
Kim's wine cellar was stocked with 10,000 bottles, the chef said, and banquets often started at midnight and lasted into the morning.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/03/in_a_first_nkorea_airs_beer_commercial_on_tv?mode=PF
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Off-centered ales for off-centered people
Dogfish Head brewery tour offers look at making of unique ales
By Sara Smith, Times Staff Writer
MILTON, Del. — The Dogfish Head brewery is better than Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
Its offerings are more delicious than the famous fictional chocolate factory, but it’s certainly not for children.
Dogfish Head is a craft beer brewery in Milton, Del., northwest of Lewes. The brewery also operates a pub in downtown Rehoboth Beach, right on Rehoboth Avenue.
The company’s motto, “Off-centered ales for off-centered people,” captures the playful and inventive spirit of the brews. Dogfish Head uses some unexpected ingredients, including beet sugar, coffee, juniper berries, maple syrup, coriander and orange peel.
India Pale Ales, British-style brews defined by their hoppy flavor and high alcohol content, are Dogfish’s bread and butter, making up more than half of the company’s beer sales. But seasonal and occasional offerings are also popular.
Summer is the time for fruit beers, including Festina Peche, a tart peach beer inspired by German brews, and Aprihop, which, as the name suggests, combines apricots and hops. Those are available on tap at Dogfish Head’s brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, while bottles of the brews are available at the brewery and at well-stocked liquor stores.
On the brewery tour, a guide explains the origins of the company and how the first batches of beer were brewed in Rehoboth way back in 1995. The brew pub in Rehoboth is still brewing craft ales, but the majority of the beer comes from the Milton location.
After the history overview, the tour moves on to the current production methods and ingredients.
Of particular interest on the tour are the three massive handmade wooden barrels in which some of the brews are aged. Palo Santo Marron is a brown ale aged in Palo Santo wood from Paraguay, and Burton Baton is a blend of English ale aged in oak and Dogfish’s 90-minute IPA.
The best part of the tour is the end, when visitors get four beer samples. Here are my assessments of the beer I sampled:
• Midas Touch: Smooth, a bit tangy, almost like wine. 3 out of 4 stars.
It’s a golden color, although it’s not named for its color. It’s based on an ancient Turkish recipe taken from ingredients found in beer in the tomb of King Midas, according to Dogfish’s Web site.
• 60-minute IPA: Smooth, mild flavor; refreshing, cool and crisp with a hoppy finish. 3 out of 4 stars.
This is the company’s most popular beer, according to our tour guide. The brewery’s IPAs are made by adding hops to the brew continually for a set amount of time: 60, 90 or 120 minutes, depending on the beer in question.
• India Brown Ale: Dark roast, toasty finish, balanced, heavier than the Midas Touch. 2? out of 4 stars.
It’s kind of sweet and kind of malty/hoppy at the same time.
• Raison D’etre: Why drink anything else? 4 out of 4 stars.
It’s brewed with raisins, and it really is a good reason for being. My personal favorite, if you can’t tell.
If you go
What: Dogfish Head brewery tours
When: Tours are offered in the afternoon Tuesday-Saturday
Where: 6 Cannery Center, just off Chestnut St., Milton, Del.
Cost: Tours and registration are free, and registration is required. Tours are limited to 35 people per group.
To register: Visit www.dogfish.com or call 888-8-DOGFISH.
What: Tours of the downtown Rehoboth Beach brewpub
When: 4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday
Where: 320 Rehoboth Ave., Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Cost: Free. No registration required.
URL:http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2009/06/23/features/there_and_back/83dfh.txt
Reach staff writer Sara Smith at 410-857-7892 or sara.smith@carrollcountytimes.com
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A delicious blast of sweet and salty
A delicious blast of sweet and salty
Recipe adapted from the March 2009 issue of Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine.
For a delicious blast of sweet and salty, try chocolate-dipped potato chips as a snack or light dessert. Topped with crushed nuts, salt and cayenne pepper, these treats pair nicely with a bold red wine or beer.
CHOCOLATE-DIPPED KETTLE CHIPS
Start to finish: 45 minutes
(15 minutes active)
Servings: 6
4 ounces dark chocolate, brokeninto small pieces
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
9-ounce bag salted kettle-cooked
potato chips
Chopped pistachios, for sprinkling
Coarse salt, for sprinkling
Cayenne pepper, for sprinkling
Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper.
In a small microwave-safe bowl, combine the chocolate and vegetable oil. Microwave on high, stopping to stir every 30 seconds, for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the chocolate is melted and smooth.
One at a time, dip the chips into the melted chocolate and set on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with one of the toppings — pistachios, salt or cayenne. Repeat with remaining chips. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Recipe adapted from the March 2009 issue of Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine.
URL: http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2009/05/18/life/srv0000005350278.prt
© 2009 macombdaily.com, a Journal Register Property
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Organic Beer and Wine
Organic Beer and Wine
By Chris O'Brien
http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/beerandwine.cfm
If you consume alcoholic beverages, try organic beer or wine. They’re better for your health and the planet, and they taste good, too.
Historian Gregg Smith writes that fermented beverages have been nourishing body and enlivening spirit since the very dawn of civilization, dating at least as far back as when the ancient Mesopotamians began storing away “liquid bread” for later use. If you already consume alcoholic drinks, consider buying organic beer or wine for your social engagements and celebrations. There’s a growing number of refreshing offerings from the vine, the grain, and the orchard that contribute to restoring the environment, empowering workers, and protecting your health. Not only are organic beer and wine better for your body, but you may find they taste better than their non-organic counterparts, too.
Why Go Organic?
Choosing organic beverages means that the grapes, barley, hops, apples, and other ingredients used to make your fermented refreshment are spared the application of toxic insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers. These unhealthy chemical inputs pollute our water, air, and soil. Researchers at Cornell University estimate that at least 67 million birds die each year from pesticides sprayed on US fields. The number of fish killed is conservatively estimated at six to 14 million. And, many pesticides are toxic to humans, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Not only does chemically intensive farming devastate ecosystems and harm human populations, it also contributes to the crisis in family-owned farms. The US lost an estimated 650,000 family farms in the last decade. Organic farming, on the other hand, is proving to be small-farmer friendly-most organic farms are less than 100 acres.
Chemical-free organic drinks often taste better, too. Just ask Andrew Myers, dining room manager at Washington, DC’s Restaurant Nora, America’s first certified organic restaurant. “I recommend organic wines and beers to our customers because of their excellent quality, not just because it’s the right thing to do,” says Myers.
The Logic of Buying Local
Purchasing from locally based vintners and brewers helps support small, family-owned businesses that make our communities diverse and unique. On most days, when visiting a local craft beer or wine producer, you’ll get to meet the brewmaster or head vintner and witness part of the fermentation process. Many small vineyards or brewing facilities host tastings and other events, too.
Buying local helps keep profits circulating in your community, instead of heading up the food-stream to the coffers of remote corporations.
In addition, even when they are not certified organic, small-scale brewing and wine-making is good for the environment, because:
• In most cases, these “micros” are consumed locally, reducing the negative environmental effects caused by long-distance transportation.
• Many microbreweries also use large, refillable containers called “growlers.” Customers pop
into the brewpub facility and get a quick fill-up, thereby reducing unnecessary packaging-and they get a break on the price as well.
• The glass bottles and cardboard packages conventionally used to store craft beers or local wines are easily recyclable in most areas.
Expanding Selections
Another advantage to being an eco-minded imbiber is that you’ll enjoy an ever-widening array of sophisticated and tasty beers and wines to try.
Twenty years ago, there were only a couple dozen microbreweries in the US. That number has multiplied to nearly 1,500 in 2001, according to the Institute for Brewing Studies. What this increase in “beer-o-diversity” means is that you, the consumer, have a vastly growing selection of beer styles to suit your own individual tastes. Microbreweries are constantly pioneering new varieties of beer, and they are even saving some endangered beer “species” from total extinction. For example, Anchor Brewing rescued the last remaining “steam beer” (a unique American style of beer) brewery in California several years ago.
The same goes for wine-making as well-the more small vintners in existence, the more varieties of wine you have to choose from. Best of all, whether you buy local beer or wine, you’ll have even more opportunities to support local, eco-minded, community-oriented businesses.
Brews to Choose and Wines to Find
Here’s a selection of breweries and vintners that don’t fizzle when it comes to caring for people and the planet. All have products that are nationally available in stores and taverns near you.
• BeerTown.org - While not a retailer, BeerTown.org features a “brewpub locator” to help you find your local small-scale beer producer.
• Wolaver’s - markets three organic beers, as well as an organic hard cider. Although most organic hops come from New Zealand and Germany, Wolaver’s uses organic hops grown in the US.
• Dogfish Head Brewing Co. - The Chicory Stout, crafted by the Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewing Co., features organic coffee beans, adding to its robust and satisfying taste profile.
• Other organic beers - Other notable organic brews to ask for at stores and taverns include offerings from Butte Creek in Montana; NatureLand, by Pacific Western Breweries; and Golden Promise and EcoWarrior from England.
• Frey Vineyards - One of the best-known organic wine-makers is Frey Vineyards in Redwood Valley, CA. Their list covers the gamut of styles, from a dry Chardonnay to a hearty Merlot. In 1996, this winery became the first producer of certified biodynamic wines.
• Other organic wines - Also check out fine organic wines from: Chartrand Imports, Organic Vintages, the Organic Wine Co., and Silver Thread Vineyard (see resources).
For Spirits and Teetotalers
The harder stuff is going green, too, with recent entries into the market including organic vodka and gin. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for the rare hemp beers. Although the Drug Enforcement Agency is attempting to block hemp from being included in food and beverages, so far the products remain legal and safe.
For those looking for a softer alternative, natural sodas and non-alcoholic ciders are popular at many local establishments. Microbreweries like Dominion Brewing Company in VA offer all-natural root beer. Other microbreweries, like the Sprecher Brewery in Glendale, WI, feature a line of natural sodas. Meanwhile, wineries like Australia’s Robinvale Wineries offer non-alcoholic sparkling grape drinks.
Make Your Own
If commercially available drinks over-tap your pocket-book, why not try making some at home? It’s safe, legal, drastically reduces transportation impacts, and can be much cheaper. Home beer- and wine-making gives you the freedom to concoct a beverage tailored to your personal palate, allows you to reuse glass bottles over and over again, and often requires very little in start-up costs.
A good number of small companies supply this consumer market, including a number that offer organic ingredients, like the Seven Bridges Cooperative (see resources). For more on making your own beer and wine, Storey Books publishes excellent books on the subject, including The Homebrewer’s Garden, by Joe and Dennis Fisher, and The Home Winemaker’s Companion, by Gene Spaziani and Ed Halloran (Contact (800)441- 5700, www.storeybooks.com.)
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Beer Stew
Brewing up a winter stew - Flemish-style beef dish with beer, onions suits the season
By GREG PATENT
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/02/21/food/food94.txt
One effect wintery weather has on me is to get me into the kitchen to make stews. One of my favorites, made with beef, onions and beer and seasoned with thyme and bay, is the French-named classic Carbonnades a la Flamande. Carbonnades refers to meat cooked over hot coals or directly over flames, and “a la Flamande” means “in the Flemish style.” And what is the Flemish style? For one, beer, the typical liquid used in Belgian braises. Another is the stew go-withs: Carrots, cabbage and potatoes are typical, but buttered noodles are also an option.
This is a centuries-old dish, and it has survived the test of time because it is so darned delicious. Originally, the meat would have been browned in a fireplace. Today, we perform this step in a casserole on our stovetops. Some cooks slice the meat; others cut it into chunks. I prefer chunks. The cut of meat is important. You want beef that will cook up tender but not become stringy. Boneless chuck is ideal, but a rump roast works well, too. Trim away excess fat and proceed as the recipe directs.
The beer you choose will determine the underlying flavor of this stew, so use a light rather than a dark beer. A little brown sugar masks the beer’s slightly bitter taste and a touch of vinegar stirred in at the end adds character and rounds out the flavors.
I love this dish with kale, glazed carrots and buttered noodles. You’ll find directions to make all of them in the recipe that follows.
Carbonnades a la Flamande
I’ve adapted this recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1,” originally published in 1961. A word on the amounts of the accompaniments: If serving 4, use the lesser amounts. For 6, use the larger amounts. I can tell you from experience that four hungry eaters can devour this dish with no trouble at all.
For the stew:
3 pounds lean beef from the chuck roast or mock tender, or rump
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds yellow onions, peeled and sliced
Salt and pepper
4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 cup beef stock
2 to 3 cups light beer, Pilsner type
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 large herb bouquet: 6 parsley sprigs, 3 bay leaves, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, tied in washed cheesecloth
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons wine vinegar (sherry, red, or white)
For the accompaniments:
2 bunches kale
Olive oil and garlic
1 to 1 1/2 pounds carrots
Butter, sugar, lemon juice
8 to 12 ounces dried broad noodles
Butter
Salt and pepper
Cut the beef into 1 1/2-inch cubes and pat dry on paper towels. Add the olive oil to a heavy 5-quart casserole and set the pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, add about one-third of the beef pieces to the pan in a single layer, spaced apart. Brown well and remove with tongs to a side dish. Brown the remaining beef in two batches, regulating the heat as necessary to prevent the fat from burning.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions. Stir frequently, and cook about 10 minutes, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Stir to combine and remove onions from the pan.
Put half the browned beef on the bottom of the casserole and season lightly with salt and pepper. Spread half the onions over the beef. Repeat with the remaining beef and onions.
Adjust an oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
In a small bowl, combine the stock and brown sugar and pour over the beef and onions. Add enough beer to just cover the meat by about 1/2 inch. Push the herb bouquet into the meat and onions and bring the liquid to a simmer over medium heat. Cover the pan and put it in the oven. The liquid should remain at a simmer for about 2 1/2 hours, and the meat should be fork-tender. Adjust the oven temperature and cooking time as necessary. If the chunks of meat were larger than recommended, they’ll need longer to cook.
While the stew cooks, prepare the kale, carrots and noodles.
Kale, a member of the cabbage family, has a hearty flavor that complements the robustness of the stew. To cook it properly, cut away and discard the tough ribs and cut the leaves into 2-inch pieces. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and add the kale. Cook, uncovered, about 5 minutes until the kale is tender and bright green. Prolonged cooking, 8 minutes or more, will change the chlorophyll to a drab olive green, so watch carefully. Drain the kale in a colander and transfer it to a large pot of cold water to stop the cooking. When cool, drain again in the colander. (You can prepare the kale to this point well ahead of time). To serve the kale, heat a small amount of olive oil with 2 minced cloves of garlic in a skillet. When hot, gently squeeze kale to remove most of the water, add the leaves to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and give them a few quick tosses to heat through.
For the carrots, peel and cut them into chunks, and cook them, uncovered, in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, until almost tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain in a colander and cool them in a large bowl of cold water. Drain again until ready to serve. (May be prepared to this point well ahead of time). Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice. Cook a minute or so, and taste and adjust the sweet-sour flavor as necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add carrots, stir well, and cook a few minutes until glazed and heated through.
For the noodles, boil them in a large pot of lightly salted water until al dente. Drain in a colander and return noodles to the pot with 2 to 3 tablespoons butter. Stir well to melt the butter and coat the noodles. Cover the pot and keep warm until serving time.
To finish the carbonnade, remove and discard the herb bouquet when the meat is completely tender. Set a large strainer or colander over a large saucepan and add the contents of the casserole. Allow the cooking liquid to drain into the saucepan. Spoon any visible fat off the cooking juices. You should have about 2 cups of liquid. If more, reduce the volume over medium heat. If less, add more beef stock. Return the beef and onions to the casserole.
Blend the cornstarch with the wine vinegar in a small cup and stir it into the cooking liquid in the saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring gently, and cook 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce is slightly thickened. Taste carefully and adjust seasoning as necessary. Pour the sauce over the beef and onions.
When ready to serve, cover the casserole and heat slowly until the meat, onions and sauce are piping hot.
To present at the table, pile the buttered noodles in the center of a heated serving platter, spoon the meat, onions, and sauce over the noodles, and surround with the cooked kale and carrots.
• Makes 4 to 6 servings.
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St. Patrick's Day Cocktails
http://cocktails.about.com/od/cocktailrecipes/tp/st_pty_cktl_tp.htm
1. Everybody's Irish
Everybody is Irish, at least on St. Patty's Day. This delicious whiskey cocktail blends smooth Irish whiskey with the minty flavor of crčme de menthe liqueur and the herbs of Chartreuse. The recipe does call for an olive for the garnish, but if you're not hip to this idea and how it accents the crčme de menthe, use a fresh sprig of mint instead.
2. Emerald Isle
Go green. Hold the vermouth and add some crčme de menthe in your Martini on St. Patrick's Day. You'll have the Irish spirit in no time.
3. Nutty Irishman (shooter)
The Nutty Irishman is a smooth shot perfect for your St. Patrick's Day bash. Use your favorite Irish cream liqueur like Bailey's, McGuire's or St. Brendan's and a hazelnut liqueur such as Frangelico. This recipe also makes a good sipper when served on the rocks, making sure to keep the liqueur ratio at 1:1.
4. Irish Eyes
Irish whiskey is the base spirit for this creamy lowball that is similar to the vodka based White Russian. The crčme de menthe adds just a hint of mint and gives the finished drink it's light green color. Now that you've got the cocktail, here's the song When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.
5. Irish Pride
A drink that will last most of the night, an Irish Pride is a smooth, delicious highball that is a wonderful mix of flavors. This cocktail is light enough in alcohol content that it is a great choice for those who do not want a hangover in the morning. Because the recipe is so simple, even a novice bartender can mix it up when given the ingredients and ratio.
6. Irish Whip
No Irish spirits are used to make an Irish Whip, instead vodka and Cuban rum are the base spirits. However it is served in a beer mug and has a light green coloring thanks to the crčme de menthe, making this cocktail a great alternative to drinking green beer.
7. Irish Flag (shooter)
The spirit of Ireland comes to life with this shooter that simulates the Irish flag. It is not the best tasting shooter as the flavors of orange, mint and chocolate are a mixture that can take some getting used to but , as far as shooters go, it is much friendlier than an Irish Car Bomb.
8. Irish Martini
What would St. Patrick's Day be without some good Irish whiskey? For Martini enthusiasts, the coating of Irish Whiskey in the cocktail glass will add just enough of the Irish celebration without straying too far from your normal choice of cocktail.
9. Shamrock Smoothie
Get a little fruity on St. Patrick's Day with this melon flavored Margarita. For an extra touch rim the glass with green salt or sugar and garnish with a lime cut with a shamrock cookie cutter.
10. Shamrock Shaker
Smooth and creamy, the Shamrock Shaker is an absolute delight and is perfect for any St. Patrick's Day celebration. The Kahlua and Amaretto combine for a delicious after dinner drink and the green and gold garnish are perfect finishing touches.
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Watching The Wine With New Technology
ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2008) — Steeped in tradition, Europe’s vintners have found themselves hard pressed to compete with the modern processes used to produce New World wines. Now European researchers are offering the continent’s winemaking industry the opportunity to improve quality, save water and reduce pesticide use without giving up age-old practices.
How do your grapes grow? Data from the sensors developed by Manes' team are collected every 15 minutes and automatically analysed to provide winegrowers with detailed information about how well their grapes are growing, how much water they need and what risks are present from fungal infections and pests in light of the air humidity, soil moisture and temperature. (Credit: iStockphoto/Stephen Walls)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103090855.htm
An automated wireless precision monitoring system that uses sensors to check soil moisture, air temperature and humidity is being commercialised by Italian company Netsens, set up in 2005 as a spin-off from the EU-funded GoodFood project.
Currently in use in several Italian vineyards, Netsens’ Vine-Sense system allows vintners to accurately time harvesting, fight pathogenic attacks, cut water consumption and lower the cost of chemical treatments without even having to visit the vineyard.
“All the data gathered from the sensors is transmitted wirelessly via an internet gateway and can be accessed by the farmer from anywhere,” explains Gianfranco Manes, the head of the Multidisciplinary Institute for Development, Research and Applications at the University of Florence, Italy, and one of the GoodFood coordinators.
Precision monitoring systems have gradually become more accepted in the wine industry in recent years, but most have relied on planting sensors in the vineyards and then traipsing through the fields to manually check each one.
In contrast, data from the sensors developed by Manes’ team are collected every 15 minutes and automatically analysed to provide winegrowers with detailed information about how well their grapes are growing, how much water they need and what risks are present from fungal infections and pests in light of the air humidity, soil moisture and temperature.
Better for wine lovers, better for the environment
The system addresses three critical issues in particular, says Mane. First, it allows farmers to use water more efficiently – knowing that 80 percent of world water consumption goes on agriculture. Second, winegrowers know when they have to use pesticides, so instead of spraying chemicals on the vineyards every two weeks as is common today, they only do so when there is a risk to the vines. And third, they can monitor how well the grapes are developing in order to determine exactly the right time to harvest the wine.
Those production, cost and environmental benefits are immediate in the first year of the system being installed, but in the mid-term, closer monitoring also offers advantages by letting farmers identify different microclimates on their land. This helps them choose the vines best suited to different growing conditions – a procedure known as ‘microzonation’. The upshot is better wine.
“Winegrowers have told us that they are not interested in increasing the size of the harvest but in producing better wine, which evidently boosts their revenue. Consumers, logically, also appreciate it,” Manes says.
Cost-effective technology
Though Italian and European winemakers have traditionally been reluctant to incorporate new technology into their ancient practices, Manes says there has been considerable interest in the system being marketed by Netsens. One key factor is price.
Deploying the sensor nodes and communications infrastructure costs €500 to €1,000 per hectare, with three or four nodes – at a cost of €280 each – needed to provide accurate and comprehensive data.
That compares to the €400 to €600 per node that it costs to install rival systems currently being marketed by US firms, Manes says. He also notes that the rival systems are not well suited to European agriculture because they require a direct communications link to the farmers’ home.
Farmers in the USA tend to live on or near their farm, whereas in Italy and much of Europe, winegrowers can be far away from their vineyards. According to Manes, this makes the internet an obvious choice for accessing the data.
Even higher quality Chianti?
Vine-Sense is currently in use at the Castello di Ama and Montepaldi vineyards in the Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy. By the end of the year, Manes expects systems to be up and running at between 10 and 15 vineyards across the country. He notes that Netsens has had inquiries from winegrowers as far afield as Egypt and Jordan, where water use is a particularly critical issue.
Versions of the system are evidently not limited to use in the wine industry – though it is a particularly high-value sector – and could be used to monitor other crops. The GoodFood project, which received funding under the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme for research, also developed a range of other technologies for agricultural and food monitoring.
Among them are a range of portable devices to detect toxins, pathogens and chemicals in food, which allow tests that are currently run in a laboratory to be carried out on the farm or at the processing plant.
While these systems require further research before they will be ready to deploy commercially, Netsens is looking to rapidly expand sales of the Vine-Sense system and is seeking partners in other European countries and around the world to help it achieve that goal.
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Weird Drinking Laws of the
USA
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/05/30/170348.php
Written by Jenn
Jordan; Published May 30, 2007
The United States has its fair
share of weird laws (what is up with having to pay taxes?), but
there are few laws that achieve the level of oddness that certain
American drinking laws attain. Underage folks may find the “21 and
over” rule to be weird. People wanting to buy beer seven days a week
may find the fact that liquor stores are closed on Sundays in many
states to be strange. Those who like to stroll around a park with an
uncorked bottle of wine may find it bizarre that open containers of
alcohol aren’t allowed in many areas. But, the oddness that the
above laws emit is nothing compared to the peculiarities of those
below:
Don’t Use the “R” Word:
According to the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BAFT), the word “refreshing” can’t
be utilized when describing alcohol beverages. That forces us, the
alcohol consumers, to describe beer as brisk, gin as invigorating,
and wine as reviving. That’s right BAFT, we have a thesaurus.
When in Rome, Don’t Act Like
You Are:
Thanks to the Drug Free Schools
and Campuses Act, an underage student studying abroad is forbidden
from drinking alcohol, even if they are in a country where they meet
the drinking age requirements. Of course, this sort of defeats the
purpose of studying abroad altogether: what’s the point of drinking
in a different culture if you aren’t allowed to be drinking in a
different culture.
Bring Cash and Coins to Des
Moines:
In Iowa, it’s illegal to start a
tab at a bar. This is a concept that undoubtedly leaves out of town
patrons a-maized. Sorry, that was corny.
Texas Told ’em Not to Buy a
Reference Book:
In Texas, the complete
Encyclopedia Britannica collection is banned because one of the
volumes contains a homemade beer recipe. We aren’t positive, but we
think any Texan caught with this encyclopedia will probably get the
death penalty.
No Drinking with the Fishes:
In Ohio, the law states that it is
illegal to get a fish drunk. Apparently, the “drinks like a fish”
saying doesn’t apply to the marine life in this region. You can give
a carp or a trout the worm, but you better drink the bottle of
tequila all by yourself.
A Women’s Consent:
Pennsylvania law prohibits a man
from buying alcohol without a note of permission from his wife. This
has turned women’s liberation into women’s libation and, not
surprisingly, left many Pennsylvania men single.
Three At A Time:
The law of Texas states that no
person can consume more than three sips of beer at a time if they
are standing up. But, if they are falling over or stumbling around,
then that may be a different story.
Unfair for Fairbanks Moose:
In Fairbanks, Alaska, it is
against the law to give a moose any kind of alcohol. This could be
because moose don’t know when to say when or because they simply are
lightweights. For whatever reason this law exists, the Alaskan moose
consider it “bull.”
Obviously, the above laws are
rarely – if ever – enforced in the industry of wine and spirits.
This is for the better: those of us who love wine and beer would
never be able to adhere to the above regulations. A world of alcohol
that didn’t allow us to go out drinking with the boys, the girls,
and the Alaskan wildlife just wouldn’t be the same.
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Electronic
Tongue Tastes Wine Variety, Vintage
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804100254.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2008) — You
don't need a wine expert to identify a '74 Pinot Noir from Burgundy
– a handheld "electronic tongue" devised by European scientists will
tell you the grape variety and vintage at the press of a button.
Designed for quality
control in the field, the device is made up of six sensors which
detect substances characteristic of a certain wine variety.
Components such as acid, sugar and alcohol can be measured by this
detection, and from these parameters it can determine the age and
variety of the wine.
The tongue was invented
by Cecilia Jiménez-Jorquera and colleagues from the Barcelona
Institute of Microelectronics, Spain, and is reported in the Royal
Society of Chemistry journal The Analyst.
Wine industry specialists
told the researchers they lacked a fast way to assess quality of
wines – it takes a long time to send samples to a central laboratory
for processing.
This new tongue is not
only swift, but also portable, cheap to manufacture, and can be
trained to "taste" new varieties as required.
Jiménez-Jorquera says "the device could be used to detect frauds
committed regarding the vintage year of the wine, or the grape
varieties used."
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Bouncy
rubber sidewalk may foil beer keg damage
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZH3uED8sIHgrNCzbHjoFJG-0wMwD92KPO780
A sidewalk project means there may be a little
bounce to the beer kegs instead of dings in the pavement when
delivery trucks unload. The city is installing a rubber sidewalk at
a spot near the Iowa State University campus where beer distributors
unload hundreds of kegs from trucks for bars in the area. All those
heavy kegs hitting the ground have been cracking the concrete
pavement. So now city officials have decided to install sidewalk
pavers that a California company makes using shredded recycled tires
instead of concrete. The city tested the product. "The streets
supervisor took a sledge hammer to it," said Corey Mellies, a civil
engineer for the city. It didn't even dent. The project also has an
environmental plus — the sidewalk is using up about 675 tires that
otherwise would end up in a landfill.
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A nun with a wine making
skill
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20080727113741594C863509
By Nelson Dlamini
A nun from rural Mahlabathini makes wine from beetroot - much to the
surprise of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
The health minister and other officials tasted the wine at the
Richards Bay Agricultural Expo.
"She was with the late Zulu historian Reggie Khumalo and they were
both lost for words," said the nun.
The 69-year-old Sister Lydia Ngema OSB (Order of Saint Benedict)
joined the Thwasana mission in Mahlabathini, northern KwaZulu-Natal,
at the age of 14 to become a nun.
She was trained by German nuns, who were running the mission at the
time. They were self-sufficient and produced everything they
consumed. "I learnt a lot from the German nuns, but I have modified
everything they taught me. I now make what is truly my own recipe."
Sister Ngema grew up in Dumbe, Paulpietersburg.
"My parents loved farming. They used to sell mealies and sugar beans
and they bred livestock," she said.
She became a nun because she "admired their humility, compassion and
respect". Her parents were against it at first but eventually let
her go.
Sister Ngema started playing with fruit and vegetables while still
young and has since made juice, jam and canned fruit. She even
teaches youngsters to make juice and jam.
"I also learned to be a dressmaker and bake," she said.
Sister Ngema started making wine in 1977 as a hobby.
"Only in 2002 did I realise I could make it big because of the
response I got from people who tasted my wine," she said.
She believes nuns should not consume alcohol but the St Benedictines
do drink moderate amounts of wine during meals and on special
occasions in certain countries like Germany.
"Here, we are not allowed to drink any form of alcohol. I don't
taste my own wine."
Sister Ngema said her wine-making had been controversial because
people assumed she drank what she made. "I don't touch it. None of
us drink here," she said.
It was no random decision to make beetroot wine. "I was always
fascinated by the distinct taste of beetroot, especially in salads;
so I decided to include it in my wine production."
She said almost any fruit or vegetable could be used to make wine.
"I make seven types - from beetroot, plums, carrots, oranges,
grapes, grapefruit, and mixed-fruit wine. Virtually anything can be
turned into wine."
She has attended a number of expos in the province and has won
accolades for her impressive wine display.
"That encouraged me to try harder and seek assistance from the other
nuns and community members to make more wine and plant more
ingredients," she said.
A teetotaller, Sister Ngema cannot classify the wine accurately. "I
don't even drink it so I don't know what a semi-sweet tastes like.
It's a little sweet I presume."
One of her wines bubbles much like champagne, but she cannot confirm
if it is indeed a sparkling wine. "When the evaluations are done
they will tell me which wine is which and the alcohol content."
According to Sister Ngema, it takes five years to make a good wine,
but she said big companies had a way of speeding up the process.
"Which is what makes my wine so unique - it's made from ordinary
fruit and matures on its own."
She uses fruit and vegetables mostly from the mission's plantations
to make it. Since the climate in Mahlabatini is not suitable for
growing fruit such as grapes, she buys these.
"We will need an irrigation system if we go commercial and I have
not yet discovered a good place to buy in bulk. So I still buy from
the local market," she said.
Sister Ngema, is registering her business and is reluctant to give
out her recipes. "I once had visitors who begged me for my recipe.
They said they would pay me whatever I wanted.
I told them the aim of the project was to uplift the community and
it was not meant to bring me profits," she said.
The department of agriculture and Citizen Entrepreneurial
Development Agency are helping her get the business off the ground.
"Once the results come back, we can plan the logistics. If this
works, it will help the community a great deal," said Sister Ngema.
Her adviser from the Department of Agriculture, Dudu Buthelezi,
said, "Once the (evaluation) results arrive, we will take it
further."
"The evaluation is being done in the Western Cape by wine experts
from the Agricultural Research Council. The Mangosuthu University of
Technology is doing tests to establish the alcohol content. Once
complete, Ceda has promised to help the sister with labelling,
packaging and so on," said Hlengiwe Ngubane, another official from
the Department of Agriculture.
Sister Ngema said she hoped the business would flourish because it
could create jobs.
"Everyone will benefit, the educated and the uneducated. We will
need administrators, marketers, drivers and a lot of others," she
said.
She has yet to be licensed to make wine and sell alcohol.
Consumption is not yet legal either because the alcohol content has
not been measured.
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Kayaking
teens arrested in tiki bar beer theft
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-tikibartheft,0,6807844.story
AP, July 25, 2008
Associated Press 2:58 PM CDT,
July 25,
2008 PORTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. -
Two teenagers have been arrested after kayaking across a lake
and stealing beer and energy drinks from a man's beachfront tiki
bar. Lt. Bill Lux of the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office says
officers were dispatched Thursday morning to Porter Township in
western Michigan, about 60 miles south of Grand Rapids. Several
cases of beer and a case of Red Bull had been stolen from a tiki
bar on the shore of Cedar Lake. The owner said he saw two men
paddling away in kayaks. Lux says some cans spilled into the
water when one of the kayaks overturned. Police located the
suspects by following the cans. Five other teens were arrested
at the scene, one for marijuana possession and the rest for
underage possession of alcohol. All are 15 to 18 years old.
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Bootlegger sergeant made a bundle from beer sales
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/bootlegger-sergeant-made-a-bundle-from-beer-sales/1225411.aspx
LONDON 24/07/2008 12:00:00 AM
A British Army sergeant made a tidy 185,825 ($A381,000) in just 12
weeks by selling alcohol to thousands of soldiers in Iraq, a court
has been told.
Finance Sergeant Mark McKay, 35, set up his personal ''retail
facility'' when he was deployed to the war between February and May
2003, according to a report in The Independent.
Military police arrested him the following year when $205,380
allegedly stolen from a Special Air Services cash office was found
hidden in plant pots outside his home in Northern Ireland, where he
was posted after leaving the elite unit.
McKay denies stealing Ministry of Defence funds.
Defence lawyer John Mackenzie told McKay's court martial the profits
his client made from his alcohol shop were achieved by buying cases
of beer for $20.50 and selling them on to coalition troops for up to
$102.50.
The trial was told his takings quickly jumped from $3080 in his
first week of business to a $33,270 profit in week six, The
Independent report said.
"His estimate is that over the 12 weeks this venture made a $381,000
profit", Mr Mackenzie said.
The court has heard how McKay put $205,380 of his ''profits'' in a
safe before transferring it to a terracotta plant pot outside his
front door in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland.
The alcohol sales were not disclosed to McKay's unit quarter master.
The case continues. AAP
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Japan plans to brew 'space
beer'
AP, May 28, 2008
TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese
brewery Tuesday said it was planning the first "space beer,"
using offspring of barley once stored at the International Space
Station. Researchers said the project was part of efforts
to prepare for a future in which humans spend extended periods
of time in space -- and might like a cold beer after a space
walk.
Japanese brewery Sapporo
Holdings said it would make beer using the third generation of
barley grains that had spent five months on the International
Space Station in 2006. "We want to finish the beer by
November. It will be the first space beer," Sapporo executive
Junichi Ichikawa told reporters.
The company will have enough
space grain to produce about 100 bottles of beer but has no
immediate plan to make it a commercial venture, Sapporo
officials said. The company teamed up on the project with
Okayama University biologist Manabu Sugimoto, who has been part
of a Russian space project to explore ways to grow edible plants
in space.
Barley can grow in relatively
tough environments, such as high and low temperatures, and is
rich in fibre and nutrients, making it ideal for space
agriculture, the associate professor said. "In the future,
we may reach a point where humans will spend an extended period
of time in space and must grow food to sustain ourselves,"
Sugimoto said. As of now, scientists have not detected any
differences between Earth-grown and space barley, said Sugimoto,
who will present DNA analysis of his findings before a
conference in Canada in July. "In the long run, we hope
our space research will be not just about producing food, but
about enjoying food and relaxing," Sugimoto said.
It was the latest space
experiment with food. South Korea's first astronaut, Yi
So-Yeon, brought kimchi into space last month, while Japan has
previously sent noodles into orbit.
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New Zealand
Cafe Serves Dishwashing Liquid
AP, June 16, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jjcSNVCeP6RBfnftUTFAe6SXrJIAD91B82UO0
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The
owner of a New Zealand cafe that mistakenly served dishwashing
liquid as mulled wine has been fined for causing emotional harm to
two women, court officials said Monday.
Chico's Restaurant Ltd. in the
mountain resort of Queenstown on South Island pleaded guilty to a
charge of selling food containing extraneous matter — the chemical
sodium hydroxide — that caused injury.
Prosecutor Sarah McKenzie told
Queenstown District Court that the two women were taken to a
hospital after drinking the liquid last July. One victim was a
customer who ordered a glass of wine from Queenstown's Old Man Rock
Cafe, owned by Chico's Restaurant Ltd.
She spat out the liquid when she
experienced a burning sensation on her lips and mouth. A cafe worker
offered to test the drink and suffered a similar reaction, the
prosecutor said.
Managers at the cafe checked and
found that a mulled wine container had been filled with dishwashing
detergent.
A judge convicted the restaurant
of causing emotional harm to the women and ordered they each be paid
$752 in reparations. He also ordered Chico's Restaurant to pay
victims' costs totaling $766 and court costs of $772.
Under New Zealand's no-fault
accident law, victims do not sue for damages. Instead, treatment
costs and income loss are met by the nation's Accident Compensation
program.
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No Beer
at Barbershop, Attorney General Says
by The Grand Rapids Press Tuesday
March 25, 2008, 11:56 AM
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/no_beer_at_barbershop_attorney.html
GRAND RAPIDS -- The owner of
Jude's Barbershops, which had offered a free beer with a cut, is
disappointed in a state Attorney General ruling that says he needs a
liquor license if he wants to hand out beer.
"I'm glad we finally got clarity
on the issue," Thomas Martin said today. "Offering a complimentary
beer is not something that we created, it's an old-fashioned service
that was done years ago. We just brought it back with the other
old-fashioned services that we provide."
He said he would work with state
legislators to legalize the practice.
Police in Kent and Ottawa counties
had told him that handing out free beer violated local and state
laws.
An assistant attorney general, in
a five-page ruling, said only licensed businesses may offer beer.
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How To Cool
Your Beer Using A Jet Engine
by Dave Barry, a humor columnist for the Miami
Herald
http://www.sunherald.com/160/story/296289.html
We begin with this IMPORTANT
SAFETY ADVISORY: The activities described here are very
dangerous. These activities were engaged in by expert guys with
specialized experience in such fields as physics and accordion
repair. Do NOT attempt any of these activities unless you have a
signed statement from a medical doctor certifying that, in his
professional opinion, you are a moron who deserves to die. Do
not even READ this column without safety goggles.
Our first guy is Simon Hansen
of Auckland, New Zealand, where guys are called "blokes."
According to Simon's Web site (asciimation.co.nz/beer), brought
to my attention by many alert guy readers, Simon was in his
garage, when he realized that he had a very serious guy problem:
His beer was warm.
Now, many people, faced with
this problem, would solve it via some low-tech, unscientific
method such as putting the beer on ice, or in a refrigerator.
But Simon Hansen is not "many people." He decided to cool his
beer by - I am not making this up - building a jet engine. He
welded it together, largely from automobile parts, right there
in his garage.
To understand how a jet engine
could make beer cold, you need to know something about physics.
Fortunately, I studied physics under the legendary Mr. Heideman
at Pleasantville High School. Unfortunately, we frittered away
our time studying such topics as the fulcrum, and never got to
the part about cooling beer with a jet engine.
But if I follow Simon's
explanation, the whole purpose of his engine is to suck the fuel
- liquid petroleum gas - very rapidly out of a fuel tank. For
some reason, possibly involving molecules, this rapid sucking
action - in addition to being a good name for a rock band -
causes the fuel tank to get very cold. So when Simon wants to
chill a can of beer, he simply puts it into a tub of water, puts
the fuel tank into the tub, fires up his jet engine, and, voila,
he is deaf. That's because his engine has a noise level of 125
decibels. To give you an idea what that means: If you were
exposed to that many decibels, at close range and without ear
protection, you would be sitting in my son's car.
So, yes, it's noisy. But
there's an old saying among scientific guys: "You can't make an
omelet without breaking eggs, ideally by dropping a cement truck
on them from a crane." The bottom line is this: When Simon ran
his jet engine, his beer-can temperature decreased from 11
degrees C to 2 degrees C in just five minutes. This is very
impressive, and would be even more so if we knew what a "C" was.
The important thing is that
this guy, using science, has found a new, innovative and - above
all - loud way to cool beer. Perhaps this will inspire other
guys to come up with an even MORE scientific method, such as
shooting beer cans into outer space, or sending them backward in
time to the Ice Age. That's how your major scientific
discoveries are made, and that's why, in the interest of
progress, it is so very important, when a guy is in his garage,
never to interrupt him with petty requests that he mow the lawn,
take out the garbage, go to his wedding, etc.
For our other example of Guys
in Science, we go to San Francisco, where a guy named Kimric
Smythe - who makes his living in the field of accordion sales
and repair - recently attached several ordinary household vacuum
cleaners to a propane fuel line, then turned them on. As you
have no doubt realized, he had a scientific reason for doing
this: To see what happens.
It turns out that what happens
is very bad for the vacuum cleaners. I have some photographs of
the experiment sent to me by Kimric's proud father, Bill Smythe.
Some of the vacuum cleaners briefly transform into rockets, but
pretty soon, as Kimric informed me in a telephone interview,
they tend to suffer a major appliance malfunction, sometimes
involving shrapnel.
This is an important
experiment, because it proves, scientifically, that it would be
a big mistake, no matter how tempting it may be, for us to try
to build rockets using vacuum cleaners powered by propane.
Somebody should tell NASA immediately. Maybe you could do that,
OK? I'm going to have a cold one.
Dave Barry is a humor
columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him c/o The Miami
Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132.
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Man
Chugs Liter Of Vodka In Airport Security Line
New
liquid quantity rules prompt man's decision to drink entire
bottle
Associated
Press, updated 12:44 p.m. MT, Wed., Dec. 12, 2007
BERLIN - A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning
after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport
security check instead of handing it over to comply with new
carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.
The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on
Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his
way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt.
New airport rules prohibit passengers from
carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was
told at a security check he would have to either throw out the
bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as
cargo.
Instead, he chugged the bottle down — and was
quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.
A doctor called to the scene determined he had
possibly life-threatening alcohol poisoning, and he was sent to
a Nuremberg clinic for treatment.
The man, whose name was not released, is expected
to be able to complete his journey home in a few days.
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Doctors Save a Tourist's Life by Feeding Him A Case of Vodka
Doctors save poisoned tourist using vodka drip
with treatment, Italian visitor made successful recovery in
Australia
from AP, Oct 10, 2007
BRISBANE, Australia -
Australian doctors said they plugged a poisoned Italian tourist
into a vodka drip after running out of the medicinal alcohol they
would normally have used to save his life.
The 24-year-old Italian, who
was not further identified, was diagnosed as having ingested a
large quantity of ethylene glycol, a common ingredient in
antifreeze that can cause renal failure. Pure alcohol is often
given in treating such cases because it can inhibit the toxic
effects of ethylene glycol.
Dr. Pascal Gelperowicz at
Mackay Base Hospital where the man was taken for treatment said he
was given pharmaceutical-grade alcohol on arrival, but that the
hospital's supplies soon ran out.
"We quickly used all the
available vials of 100 percent alcohol and decided the next best
way to get alcohol into the man's system was by feeding him
spirits through a nasogastric tube," Gelperowicz said in a
statement. "The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks
an hour for three days in the intensive care unit," he said. "The
hospital's administrators were also very understanding when we
explained our reasons for buying a case of vodka."
The patient made a successful
recovery. The incident occurred about two months ago, though the
hospital just released information on the case.
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Boozy Bird Banned After Sticking
Beak In Beer
from The Australian, July 30 2007
AN alcoholic crow that sticks
his beak in people's pints of lager has been banned from his
favourite pub.
According to the UK's The Sun,
the boozy bird, nicknamed Carling by drinkers, swoops on customers'
pints whenever they turn their backs.
Sarah Wyatt, manager of the
David Protheroe pub in Neath, South Wales, told the newspaper: "At
first everyone thought it was funny. Then a bird expert pointed out
he's a carrion crow which feeds off dead animals.
"We've told all our customers he
is banned. If they see him, they should chase him off."
Regular Steve Morgan, 31, said:
"If you nip to the loo, you come back and find him supping your
beer. I'm glad he's been banned. You never know where his beak's
been."
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Pubs Bring In Freshly Mown Grass To Mask Sweat And Stale Beer Odor
from ANI London: Aug 6, 2007
Don't be surprised when you
find the stale whiff of alcohol and cigarette missing from the air
in pubs, for bar managers have found a way to mask the unpleasant
smell.
Mitchells and Butlers, that is
in charge of 2,000 pubs, has decided to bring in freshly mown grass
to beat the odor of beer, sweat and drains, that were earlier
covered by cigarette fumes.
The measure has been taken to get over the distasteful odor that
steals food appetite.
The aromas being tested include, ocean breezes, leather and tobacco
smoke
"Appetizing food smells have increased but others are less
attractive, such as stale food and beer, damp, sweat and body odor ,
drains and - how do you put this nicely - flatulence," the Daily
Mail quoted Oliver Devine, senior marketing manager at the Sizzling
Pub Company, a part of M and B. as saying.
"We are considering trialling the smell of leather, which suggests
luxury and indulgence, and cut grass, which is clean and domestic. I
am not ruling out the smell of tobacco smoke. It is not as silly as
it sounds," he added.
Devine also said that the aroma 'would remind people of their pub
experiences in the past'.
Rentokil-Initial, that provides Marriott hotels with bar perfumes,
is contemplating using the smell of mojito - the Cuban concoction
made of rum, mint and lime.
Marriott wants such aromas to fuel customers' appetites to ensure a
'brand' identity for the chain.
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Pizza Beer Coming to a Store Shelf Near You
from Chicago Tribune: Sept 19, 2007
First a novelty limited to the Western
Suburbs, pizza beer will soon be coming to Chicago store shelves.
The unlikely ale, heavy with tomatoes, garlic, basil and oregano,
will begin production at a Wisconsin brewery within weeks and
should be available by early November, said its creator, St.
Charles home brewer Tom Seefurth.
Formally known as Mamma Mia Pizza Beer, the brew will likely
retail between $7.99 and $8.99 per 6-pack at stores including
Binny’s Beverage Depot, he said.
“The feedback I’m getting so far, it’s going to be
gone fast,” Seefurth said.
Seefurth’s creation was featured on the front page of the Chicago
Tribune and garnered national attention (in the form of a joke at
its expense on “The Tonight Show”) after brewing ten barrels for
Walter Payton’s Roundhouse restaurant in Aurora.
Under the slogan, “Beer so good ... it deserves a wine glass,” 500
cases will be brewed at Sand Creek Brewing Company in Black River
Falls, Wis., Seefurth said.
Ted Sullivan, the corporate beer buyer for Binny’s, said he agreed
to stock the beer at the business’19 location without even trying
it.
“It fits our clientele who are looking for something different,”
Sullivan said. “I’d imagine the beer is pretty good. I know Tom and
he is a beer geek like I am.”
Seefurth said he has reached agreement with Franklin Park
distributor Wein-Bauer, Inc. to distribute the first 500 cases.
He said several restaurants and bars have also expressed interest in
serving the beer, including a pizzeria in New York.
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Doggie Beer? Pet Shop Owner Sees A Niche
Dutch brew is nonalcoholic and made with beef
extract and malt
from Reuters: Jan 22, 2007
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - After a long day
hunting, there's nothing like wrapping your paw around a cold
bottle of beer. So Terrie Berenden, a pet shop owner in the
southern Dutch town of Zelhem, created a beer for her Weimaraners
made from beef extract and malt.
"Once a year we go to Austria to hunt with our
dogs, and at the end of the day we sit on the verandah and drink a
beer. So we thought, my dog also has earned it," she said.
Berenden consigned a local brewery to make and
bottle the nonalcoholic beer, branded as Kwispelbier. It was
introduced to the market last week and advertised it as "a beer
for your best friend."
"Kwispel" is the Dutch word for wagging a tail.
The beer is fit for human consumption, Berenden
said. But at $2 a bottle, it's about four times more expensive
than a Heineken.
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Guinness-guzzling Camel Crashes Irish Party
Christmas comes early for ‘Gus’ after he
chomped his way through beer cans
from Reuters: 8:58 a.m. MT Dec 6, 2006
DUBLIN - Staff at an Irish riding school were
forced to postpone festivities after Gus the camel chomped his way
through 200 mince pies and several cans of Guinness intended for
their Christmas party.
Gus, starring in the riding school’s Santa’s Magical Animal
Kingdom show, helped himself to the feast while staff were getting
changed for the party.
"Gus found his way out of his pen and helped
himself," Robert Fagan, owner of the Mullingar Equestrian Centre
in central Ireland, told Reuters.
The 11-year-old camel, originally from Morocco,
cracked open six cans of Ireland’s famous stout with his teeth
after the door to his stall was left open.
Gus appeared well after Monday evening’s feeding
frenzy, Fagan said, adding: "We were all looking forward to it,
but you couldn’t blame him. He’s really a very gentle, docile sort
of camel."
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Thirsty German Sells Beagle To Buy Beer
Eager for a drink, customer sells his
step-daughter's pet for $53
Reuters: 9:20 a.m. MT Dec 29, 2006
BERLIN - A thirsty German sold his 6-year-old
step-daughter's pet beagle to the owner of a bar to pay for beer,
the Bild newspaper reported on Friday.
The unemployed man offered to take the dog for a
walk and then stopped at a bar where he convinced the owner to buy
the 3-year-old dog for $53 (40 euros).
The man spent the proceeds quenching his thirst
for beer. The bar owner has now returned the dog to its owner.
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Woman Shoots Husband Over Warm Beer
Warm beer led to killing,
police say
from St. Louis Today, 12/04/06
A St. Louis man was shot to
death Sunday night over a warm beer, police said.
St. Louis police say a woman
shot her husband, who was about 70 years old, four to five times in
the chest after he tried giving her a warm can of Stag beer.
Police said the wife admitted
shooting him about 5:40 p.m. in the kitchen of their home in the
5100 block of Terry Avenue. Police said the home had no electricity
at the time.
Homicide detectives would not
identify the man. The woman, whom police also did not identify, was
taken into custody.
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Pouring some bubbly? Treat it like a beer
Pouring some bubbly? Treat it like a beer
By Greg Keller, Associated Press
Posted: Friday, Aug. 13, 2010
PARIS French scientists say they have settled a question that has long divided Champagne lovers: How best to pour the bubbly?
At an angle, not straight down.
The scientists at the University of Reims say pouring bubbly at a slant, as you would a beer, preserves more of the tiny gas bubbles that improve the drink's flavor and aromas.
The study also found that the colder the bottle, the less gas was lost.
The study - "On the Losses of Dissolved CO2 During Champagne Serving" - appears this week in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a U.S. publication.
The researchers say they looked at two ways of pouring: the "traditional" method, with the liquid poured vertically to hit the bottom of the Champagne flute; and the "beer-like way," executed by tilting the glass and gently sliding in the Champagne.
They say the study - from the heart of Champagne country - matters not just to Champagne drinkers but to glassmakers. They note the industry is researching a "new generation" of glasses specially designed to control the release of carbon dioxide, the gas that gives the drink its sparkle.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/13/1618885/pouring-some-bubbly-treat-it-like.html#ixzz0wkT3T4Ar
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The Beer-Drinker's Cocktail
The Beer-Drinker's Cocktail
June 14, 2010
Zak Avery is a UK-based beer writer. British Guild of Beer Writers' Writer of the Year 2008.
"'Do you ever drink wine?' people ask me, as though beer was a prison rather than a playground. A day may pass when I do not drink wine, but never a week. Whatever is argued about other pleasures, it is not necessary to be monogamous in the choice of drink." - Michael Jackson's Beer Companion (2nd edition), p. 7.
I was hosting a World Cup-themed beer tasting last week, and someone asked me "Do you ever just go to the pub and have a pint of Carling?" The perhaps surprising answer is yes, I do - about twice a year, I have a pint of Carling, or Carlsberg, or Becks, just to keep my eye in. Most of the time, it's perfectly OK - not particularly exciting, but certainly not the hideous experience that many make it out to be. Ditto cask Tetley's, John Smith's and so on (although I can't remember the last time I had a pint of Guinness).
The truth is, I'm something of an omnivore (omnibev?) when it comes to drinks. I have maybe a hundred or so bottles of good wine (some of it very good) in the cellar, alongside a fair amount of beer - some of it sent to me for review, but some of it I actually paid for. I love beer, but I also think that to be a good beer writer, you need to experience lots of different flavours, sensations and textures in your drinks. So whenever I get a chance to try something new, I go for it, whether food or drink.
My last food adventure was in the Czech Republic, trying some cheese that had been aged in a jar for three months with onions and (I think) chilli peppers. The first mouthful was hideous - choking and almost overpowering - but, mindful that it was a new flavour sensation, I went back for another mouthful. That was also hideous, and I called it a day after two mouthfuls.
I first had a negroni at Harry's Bar in Venice about five years ago. I was there with half a dozen friends, and everyone else had ordered a bellini (Harry's Bar is famously where the bellini was invented). Being a contrary sort, and knowing that Italy was famous for its bitter aperitifs, I went for something different. The intense, herbal, peppery bitterness of the negroni nearly knocked me off my feet, but immediately I could see parallels with some of the bigger, more bitter beers (and we're talking fresh Sierra Nevada Bigfoot here).
Making a negroni is pretty easy, although chances are that you will have to go out and buy at least one of the three ingredients. Mix equal parts Campari, sweet vermouth (the red one) and gin, and serve over ice with a strip of orange zest. Easy peasy, but a study in complexity - earthy herbal bitterness combines with pithy orange zest character, with a sweetness mid-palate that moves into a peppery dryness. A classic essay in grown-up bitterness, sure to test the maturity of one's palate, but also sure to lure you back for another. The perfect beer-drinker's cocktail.
http://blogs.forbes.com/booze/2010/06/14/the-beer-drinkers-cocktail/?boxes=financechannelforbes
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BEER & CHEESE
BEER & CHEESE
Forget wine and cheese parties -- the true soul mate for fromage isn't made from grape juice
February 17, 2005|By Janet Fletcher, Chronicle Staff Writer
The crowds munching nachos at America's ballparks all summer don't need convincing that beer and cheese go together. It's the die-hard wine enthusiasts, myself included, who resist the notion that beer may in fact be cheese's better match.
As a longtime cheese aficionado, The Chronicle's weekly cheese columnist and a nightly wine drinker, I've reluctantly concluded that many cheeses give wine, especially dry wine, a rough time. But after several weeks of "research, " including two marathon tastings, I'm convinced that beer as a partner for cheese rarely stumbles. It takes some knowledge of beer and cheese to engineer the most harmonious marriages, but intolerable mismatches are rare.
Mark Todd, a Sonoma County consultant who leads professional workshops on pairing cheese with wine and beer, concurs. "Some wine and cheese pairings have really excited me, but a lot of them have been, 'Oh boy, where's the sink?' " says Todd.
Beer authorities offer several theories for their favorite beverage's superiority with cheese. For one, argues Todd, the two products grew up together, on the farm, with farm women making both. These women would surely have wanted their beer to taste good with their cheese and vice versa. Furthermore, experts say, both beer and cheese are based on grain, although cheese's link to grain -- via the grazing animal -- is more attenuated.
Theories aside, beer excels with cheese because of the harmonies and contrasts the beverage brings to the match.
"It's rare to find wines that echo any flavors in cheese," says Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of New York's Brooklyn Brewery and author of "The Brewmaster's Table" (HarperCollins, 2003). A nutty aged Gouda might find a complement in sherry, he admits, but dry table wines largely lack the nut and caramel aromas found in aged cheeses, aromas plentiful in malty beers like nut- brown ales, stouts and porters.
"With wine, you're almost always working just with contrasts," says Oliver. "That's not as satisfying as also working in some harmonies."
Harmonic convergence happens when a sharp, bitter, hoppy India Pale Ale meets a piquant, high-acid cheddar; or when a porter with its caramel and coffee notes encounters a smooth and sweet aged Gruyere.
But contrast underlies some successful matchups, too, especially the contrast that carbonation provides. Cheeses are high in fat, often creamy and almost always mouth coating. Beer, by virtue of its carbonation, is brisk and palate cleansing.
"It gets your mouth ready for another taste," says Tom Dalldorf, editor and publisher of Celebrator Beer News, a bimonthly national magazine based in Hayward.
With dense, sticky, fresh goat cheeses, the kind that clings to your tongue, a highly carbonated beer like a hefeweizen, a light-bodied wheat beer, acts as a palate scrubber. Among wines, only sparkling wine has that refreshing capability, and it typically comes at higher cost.
Strong, stinky washed-rind cheeses such as Munster and Livarot reliably demolish almost any wine. A concentrated and spicy Alsatian Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer can hold its own, but most other dry wines fall by the wayside.
What a surprise to discover how seamlessly these assertive cheeses meld with beer. Chimay Grande Reserve -- strong, dry and richly spiced -- meets the Munster on equal footing. At another tasting, I tried the beer with the pungent washed-rind Chimay cheese produced by the same Belgian abbey, a model marriage.
Lucy Saunders, a Wisconsin-based beer writer, maintains a Web site called www.beercook.com and frequently conducts beer and cheese tastings. For successful pairings, advises Saunders, "it's useful to think in terms of four things: hops bitterness; malt sweetness or breadiness; the level of carbonation, and extra flavors added to the beer."
Those extra flavors could be the cherries used in kriek (cherry beer) or the bitter orange peel and sweet spices used to flavor Belgian wheat beer (also called witbier). Oliver likes fruit beers with fresh cheeses, such as goat cheese, teleme and burrata; Todd prefers his kriek with triple cremes. Wheat beers tend to have higher acidity and a lighter taste profile, making them most appealing with young, delicate cheeses.
Although the experts generally agree that lighter-styled beers in the pilsner and wheat beer camp complement mild cheeses, an intense cheese with an intense beer can be calamitous. I discovered this unfortunate truth when I met Dalldorf at the Rogue Ales Public House in San Francisco for a lengthy tasting.
Point Reyes Original Blue, a tangy, salty, piquant cheese, paired with Rogue's robust, roasty Old Crustacean Barleywine -- a clash of titans -- was the only truly bad match of the day, a pairing that made me cringe. A much better partner, I thought, was the spicy, warm and mellow Chimay Grande Reserve, which took the edge off this potent cheese.
Oliver, the Brooklyn brewmaster, occasionally participates in cheese- pairing competitions with sommeliers and says his beer selection often vanquishes the sommelier's chosen wine.
"No one has ever brought a single red wine into competition," claims the brewer. "Your chances of getting away with it are extremely slim."
But even the sommeliers' sweet white wines, sherries and fortified wines can be upstaged, says Oliver. In one taste-off recounted in his book, the barley wine he poured with Stilton triumphed over the sommelier's dessert wine.
"Most people have the idea that this is one of wine's great strong points, " says Oliver, speaking of the beverage's supposed affinity for cheese. "They haven't given beer the benefit of the doubt, so they're surprised at what beer can do."
EXPERT MATCHES
The following pairings are based on suggestions from beer experts Tom Dalldorf, Garrett Oliver, Lucy Saunders and Mark Todd and have been tested at the table.
With: Young, fresh, tart cheeses such as fresh chevre, mozzarella and crescenza
Try: Wheat beers such as hefeweizen, Bavarian-syle weissbier and Belgian- style witbier; pilsners.
With: Humboldt Fog and other goat cheeses with a little age
Try: A Belgian-style saison such as Ommegang Hennepin or Saison Dupont.
With: Garrotxa and other aged goat cheeses with some caramel notes
Try: Sierra Nevada Stout or similar dry, creamy stouts with coffee and chocolate aromas.
With: Lamb Chopper and other mild, medium-aged sheep's milk cheeses with sweet, cooked-milk notes
Try: Fat Tire, Red Tail Ale or similar amber ales well balanced between malt and hops.
With: Ossau-Iraty, mature Pecorino Toscano and other aged sheep's milk cheeses with pronounced salty, nutty flavors
Try: Lost Coast Brewery Downtown Brown or other brown ales.
With: Soft-ripened triple creme such as Seal Bay, Pierre Robert or Mt. Tam
Try: A Belgian-style saison such as Ommegang Hennepin or Saison Dupont; a dry kriek or other fruit beer.
With: Aged Gruyere, Comte or other aged Swiss-style mountain cheeses
Try: Anchor Porter, Rogue Shakespeare Stout or other sweet, mellow porters or stouts with chocolate, caramel and roasted coffee notes; brown ales.
With: Montgomery cheddar or other classic English-style cheddar
Try: McEwen's IPA or other pale ales with abundant hopping; Anchor Steam.
With: Munster Gerome or other washed-rind cheeses with strong earthy aromas
Try: Chimay Grande Reserve (blue label), Red Tail Ale or French biere de garde, such as Jeanlain or La Choulette Ambree.
With: Saenkanter or other aged Gouda with pronounced caramel notes
Try: Anchor Porter or other gently sweet, mellow, rounded porters; or nut- brown ales or amber ales.
With: Stilton or other mild to moderately piquant blue cheeses
Try: Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale or Moylan's Barleywine Style Ale. Serve barley wine at cellar temperature.
PAIRINGS POINTERS
Although you'll find many happy matches that break the following rules, these guidelines are a good starting point for thinking about beer with cheese.
-- Pair delicate beers with young, fresh cheeses.
-- Pair malty beers with nutty, aged cheeses.
-- Pair highly hopped, bitter beers with tart, sharp cheeses,
especially cheddars.
-- Pair strong, sweet beers with blue cheeses.
EXPERT OPINIONS
Lucy Saunders on washed-rind cheeses: "I really like some of the darker ales, porters and stouts with those. I like that bready character that you get with a darker ale with a lot of chocolate malts in it, where the hops' bitterness isn't overwhelming. You want the aromas of the cheese to come through."
Mark Todd on triple cremes: "My personal favorite is cherry kriek, Belgian cherry-flavored beer with sour cherries. Or any of the decent Belgian tripels that are high in alcohol content but have bright crispness. Chimay Tripel does well with high-fat, mild-flavored cheeses."
Garrett Oliver on aged Goudas: "They tend to have a big caramel kind of flavor underpinning. They match up with brown ale or amber ale that has a lot of caramel flavor."
Garrett Oliver on brie de Meaux: "It can be tough. You've got to be careful not to use something with a lot of hops. I had a competition in Denmark with a sommelier, and I won the round with a stout that had some chocolate in it. It wrapped itself around the cheese very nicely and worked its way into the mushroom flavors."
Garrett Oliver on blue cheese: "I tend to go for stronger beers, beer with some residual sugar, like strong stouts and barley wines. I'm a big fan of port, but a nice aged barley wine and Stilton disappear into each other. It's a really beautiful match."
-- Janet Fletcher
http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-02-17/wine/17362098_1_cheese-beer-wine
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Grin and beer it
Grin and beer it
TIPSY TURVY By MICHEAL CHEANG
AH, beer! Sweet nectar of life, so great that Homer Simpson even made up a song about it! It doesn’t matter if you prefer lagers, ales or stouts, or whether you like to chug it all down in one go or sip it slowly to make it last – there is no denying that fact that there are few greater pleasures in life than kicking back at your favourite pub with a nice pint of cold beer after a long stressful day at work.
Beer in Malaysia now is a far cry from a few years back when the market was dominated by the usual Carlsbergs, Heinekens, Anchors, Guinnesses and Tigers. Step into a bar or pub today and you would be spoilt for choice. Besides the staple big commercial brands, you can also choose from a whole array of different imported beers on tap. Among these are wheat beers like Hoegaarden and Paulaner, ales like Kilkenny and Tetley’s, and ciders like Strongbow. We even have our own Malaysian-made brand of beer now – Jaz.
More about the specific brands of beers in later articles; today, let us find out a little bit about beer itself. And what better place to do that than at a beer-tasting session at Craft Brews in Mutiara Damansara, Selangor, a beer establishment that aims to bring beer-drinking to another level altogether with its specially brewed craft beers.
Beer brewing craft
Purported to be the “gourmet” side of beers, craft beers are basically beers that are produced in microbreweries using traditional brewing methods. They are usually brewed in small quantities, and use specialty ingredients, hops, malt and yeast in the brewing process.
According to Craft Brews deputy CEO Ben Chong, although the beer drinking culture in Malaysia is evolving rapidly with more and more Malaysians being aware of the different beer types out there and getting more adventurous with their beers, craft beers are still pretty much unknown in these parts.
“In the US, craft beers are considered ‘gourmet’ beers, and they have a very strong following. In terms of taste, craft beers are more delicate and distinctive, and can give you an array of very different flavours. You can get beers that smell of citrus or lychee fruits, juniper berries, even coffee. In short, craft beers give you something different to try, a new sense of adventure, and a whole new experience for a beer drinker,” said Chong.
Where commercial beers tend to be brewed in huge factories using machines that produce thousands and thousands of litres of beer a day using standardised ingredients and yeast, craft beers are made in small batches inside microbreweries, and require a lot of attention from their brewmasters because of the fluctuation in flavour and aroma.
“Craft brewers tend to be more traditional. They like to experiment with how they brew beers and the flavours that come out of it. They even develop their own yeast, and look for specialty hops and malts,” he said, adding that while most commercial beers can last roughly six months, craft beers usually only have a shelf life of two months.
Craft Brews’ beers come from two sources. They have four “house brews” on tap – English Ale, Czech Pilsner, Weizen wheat beer, and the distinctively-coloured Monster Green Lager – all of which are imported from Singapore’s Red Dot Brewhouse. They also have a wide range of bottled beers imported from the American breweries Flying Dog and Rogue.
Swirl it, smell it
Believe it or not, there actually is a way to appreciate beer, the same way one appreciates wine or fine dining. There is, however, no clear way to tell what is good or bad beer – it’s easier to determine what works best for each individual beer drinker.
“Just as not every wine works for every wine drinker, beer drinking is also very subjective. For instance, if you like something bitter, like our English Ale, then you might not like the sweeter taste of the Monster Green Lager,” said Chong, who added that the only way to find out what works for you is by actually tasting the beers. (At Craft Brews, you can figure out what to order by requesting samples of the beers beforehand.)
Our beer-tasting session turned out to be quite like a wine tasting, with a few slight differences – with wine, you smell it first before swirling the glass; with beer, it’s the other way round. As we sat there swirling and sniffing, I began to realise that there really is a lot more to beers than I thought.
The craft beers we tried were unlike any conventional beers I’ve tasted before (and believe me, I’ve tasted A LOT of beers). Flying Dog’s naughty-named Doggy Style Pale Ale, for instance, had a very distinctive lychee flavour, while the Rogue Juniper Pale Ale smelled of juniper berries and tasted a little sharp and even spicy.
For first-timers, Chong recommends Flying Dog’s Old Scratch Pale Ale, which is an approachable, smooth and easy-to-drink beer. It also goes very well with many of the food items served at the restaurant because of its full body.
“Even if you don’t like beer in general, when paired with the right food item, you’ll find yourself finishing both of them quite quickly!” he said.
Yes, like wine, different beers go with different kinds of food as well. Craft Brew’s beer menus even have little symbols next to each beer signifying what sort of food should be paired with the beer!
How to beer
Even the glass that the beer is served in plays a role. In Belgium, every different beer has its own unique glass; and if the beer is served in the wrong glass, the customer might reject it!
One strict no-no is serving beer in a dirty, oily glass. Other than the obvious hygienic reasons, the fat contained within the oil will destroy the protein that holds the beer’s foam.
“The four main enemies to beer are light, heat, oxygen and fat. When there is fat in the glass, it destroys the capability to hold the foam. And when you don’t have foam, it will appear flat and un-fresh,” Chong explains.
Speaking of foam, the next time you pour yourself a glass of lager, pour it at an angle so that you don’t get too much head in the glass. “The more head you have means that more carbon dioxide is being released; and as a result, the beer will taste flat,” he explained. “On the other hand, when you pour a stout or ale, leave the glass on the table and pour the beer directly into the glass to get more head, so that it doesn’t look flat.”
The temperature of a beer is also important. According to Chong, the darker the colour of the beer, the warmer it should be. “You should never allow beers to be too warm; but some do require warmer temperature – somewhere between 7°C and 10°C,” he explained. “When it is warmer, more of its character is revealed, you can smell and taste it better. If you drink it ice cold, the taste will be muted and locked.
And putting ice into beers?
“That is something that is frowned upon and not encourage. If you want to, you can; but if you really want to taste the beer and appreciate it, then don’t do that at all!” he said.
All these “rules” may make beer drinking seem like a chore or as formal as wine-drinking, but rest assured, beer is still a very social drink. In fact, according to Chong, the first rule of thumb for beer drinking is this: Keep it casual.
“Beers are supposed to be enjoyed casually. Some people like to chug it all down, some prefer to sip it slowly … it doesn’t matter; just don’t make it too formal or strict. Drink your beer any way you want to!” he concluded.
- Michael Cheang does not claim to be an expert on beer, but likes singing Homer Simpson’s beer song after having more than three pints.
http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/5/6/lifeliving/6188720&sec=lifeliving
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It's more like beer than wine, so sake to me
It's more like beer than wine, so sake to me
By Joe Sixpack
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Beer Reporter
I'M WAY too busy with my beer to pay attention to other breeds of booze. But recently it has been brought to my attention that, because of its similarities to beer, I oughta write something about sake.
If it hadn't been a pretty public-relations agent who advanced this dubious line of reasoning, it would've landed in my Deleted Items folder, because:
a) Sake is made with rice, which is fit for breakfast cereal and wedding parties but not beer; and b) How can you take something seriously when you sip it out of Barbie's teacup?
Nonetheless, in the spirit of leaving no bottle unopened, I offer Six Reasons Why Sake Is Like Beer:
1. "Rice wine" is a slanderous misnomer.
Wine is made with decaying fruit. It's basically nature's way of disposing of the grapes not needed for Raisin Bran.
Sake is made with a grain, just like beer. Instead of barley, rice is used. It's boiled or steamed into a mash, like beer, and then treated with a mold called koji to spark the fermentation process.
Like beer-making, making sake is an incredibly ingenious process requiring painstaking craftsmanship and a high level of human intelligence - unlike wine, which can be made by monkeys.
2. There's bad sake and good sake.
Like beer, the bad ones come from factories where they add cheap adjunct ingredients; the good ones are made by small, regional brewers (jizake) with just four main ingredients: water, rice, yeast and that mold I can't pronounce.
Some sake makers add copious amounts of distilled alcohol during the final stage of fermentation; it's the equivalent of malt-liquor brewers who add corn syrup to boost alcohol.
3. There's a bunch of lingo you need to learn.
You'd be lost if you didn't know a double IPA from a double bock. The same goes with sake, which is made in different styles and varying grades. There are four main types:
Daiginjo: the lightest and often most expensive; fruity and fragrant.
Ginjo: fruity, beefier and complex.
Junmai: full-bodied; goes well with food.
Honjozo: dry and fortified with a small amount of alcohol during fermentation.
4. The best domestic sake comes from the West Coast.
Actually, the only U.S. sake comes from the West. Just as in the early years of the craft-beer revolution, California and Oregon are leading the way with small sake production.
I'm particularly fond of the varieties made by Sake One, the only U.S.-owned sake maker, in Forest Grove, Ore. Its G Joy, served from distinctively heavy black bottles, is fruity (cantaloupe) with a bite of cinnamon. They also make an unfiltered Nigori style that is organic and as cloudy as witbier.
5. It's tasty either cold or at room temperature.
The brands they serve piping hot at your favorite sushi restaurant are often lower-quality varieties whose flavor (and alcohol) are enhanced when heated up.
But, just as the flavor of some beer styles improves with changes in temperature, some sake - especially Daiginjo - is best when served cold or even on ice.
Don't get too tied up on the temps, though. As with beer, drink it the way you enjoy it.
6. It's best when it's fresh.
Most bottles come with a Budweiser-like born-on date. Other than the specialty Koshu aged variety, sake is meant to be enjoyed within a year of bottling - not cellared like that stuff made by monkeys.
Addendum: Earlier, I foolishly disparaged rice as a grain for beer. I apologize and offer the delicious exception of Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale, made with rice fermented like sake, then mixed with malt and further fermented. The result is as if Pilsner Urquell made a red ale flavored with strawberries.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/20100402_Joe_Sixpack__It_s_more_like_beer_than_wine__so_sake_to_me.html
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Manager pulls Pub-Corn off of store’s shelves
Manager pulls Pub-Corn off of store’s shelves
By Justin Willett, Saturday, March 6, 2010
University of Missouri graduate Cary Silverman’s alcohol-flavored Pub-Corn snack didn’t last long on the shelves of the Nifong Boulevard Hy-Vee gas station.
Last week, Street Talk reported that Silverman’s nonalcoholic popcorn snack was being carried by 28 Break Time stores and the two Columbia Hy-Vee gas stations.
Pub-Corn was yanked from the Nifong Hy-Vee gas station shelves less than a week after it was stocked. Gas station manager Mike Miller directed calls to Matt Off, manager of the adjoining Hy-Vee grocery store.
Off said he had Pub-Corn pulled because he didn’t think selling it was the right thing to do. “I didn’t realize it was out there,” Off said. “I think it was on the shelf for maybe a week.”
Daryl Dudley, manager of the West Broadway Hy-Vee gas station and a Fourth Ward Columbia City Council candidate, said he didn’t order Pub-Corn for his store, and Tom Klucking, manager of the West Broadway Hy-Vee grocery store, said he didn’t order it, either.
Klucking said the first and last thing he heard about the snack was from a local representative of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who called him after reading the Street Talk item. Klucking said he told her that he had never heard of it and it wasn’t a product that he would put in his store.
Klucking said he called Off to make sure he knew about the product.
“I just don’t think it’s the right thing to sell if it’s supposed to be flavored like beer and kids can buy it,” Klucking said. “It’s a gray area. For me personally as a retailer, I just don’t think it something we should offer for sale.”
Last week, Silverman said Pub-Corn was ordered by both Columbia Hy-Vee gas stations. Yesterday, he said he was checking with the Iowa factory that handles the orders to clarify the situation. The Break Time stores continue to carry the product.
Silverman said the whole situation has caught him off guard. He said he doesn’t understand the hubbub and never has been contacted by MADD.
Silverman said he doesn’t understand how Pub-Corn is different than rum raisin ice cream or other similar treats that could appeal to children. The popcorn has an alcohol-flavored coating but contains no alcohol.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/mar/06/manager-pulls-pub-corn-stores-shelves/
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When Was Beer Invented?
When Was Beer Invented?
Just before the hangover. Okay, actually beer likely dates back to the dawn of cereal agriculture, loosely pinpointed at 10,000 B.C.E. in ancient Mesopotamia, the region of southwest Asia currently occupied by Iraq.
The alcoholic inception is reckoned to have occurred when some early farmer sampled water in which bread had been sitting (and fermenting) for a day or two. The first brews would have been concoctions of crushed or malted grain steeped and heated slowly in water, and then baked and submerged again. The oldest recorded evidence of brewing is in the epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500 B.C.E. or 3500 B.C.E by differing accounts), related by the Sumerians on clay tablets. By 2000 B.C.E. the Sumerians had concocted recipes for eight different beers made from barley and eight from wheat. These syrupy, nutritious beers ranged from "strong" to "red brown" to "good dark"—and they soon caught on elsewhere.
The ancient Egyptians loved their suds, preferring beer to water (which was often contaminated). The Egyptians in turn spread beer to the Greeks, who, as you might have guessed, preferred wine as their Dionysian drink.
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/060929_beer_invented.html
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Pairing Wines & Chocolate
Pairing Wines & Chocolate
By Stacy Slinkard, About.com Guide
Some say it can’t be done, pairing wine with chocolate, but if you have the right wine to complement the right chocolate it can be a match made in heaven! Whether you are pairing a delicate white chocolate or a lively dark chocolate with wine, there are a few pairing tips to keep in mind.
Tips for Successfully Pairings Wines with Chocolate
Rule #1, typically the wine should be at least as sweet, if not a touch sweeter, than the chocolate you are serving it with. Otherwise, the taste may quickly veer towards bitter or sour.
When pairing wines with chocolate, your best bet is to match lighter, more elegant flavored chocolates with lighter-bodied wines; likewise, the stronger the chocolate, the more full-bodied the wine should be. For example, a bittersweet chocolate tends to pair well with an intense, in-your-face California Zinfandel.
Similar to “formal” wine tasting, if you will be experimenting with several varieties of chocolates, work from light to dark. Start with a more subtle white chocolate and end on a dark or bittersweet chocolate.
White Chocolate Wine Suggestions
White chocolate tends to be more mellow and buttery in flavor, making it an ideal candidate for a Sherry (consider the Osborne Pedro Ximénez Sherry $20), for a Moscato d'Asti (try Saracco Moscato d'Asti 2006, $13), from Italy’s Piedmont region offers subtle, sweet bubbles, or an Orange Muscat (try Ventana Vineyard's Muscat d'Orange for $18). The Sherry and Moscato d’Asti will pick up the creaminess of the chocolates and the Orange Muscat will pick up any fruit tones on the scene. Another route, for pairing wine with white chocolate is going for the contrast pairing approach, this is a little riskier, but when you find a match it can be exceptional. For example, taking a wine like a Zinfandel which tends to have a heavier tannic content and often a higher alcohol level and partnering it with a creamy, buttered white chocolate can have an unusual "melding" affect. It's like the tannins get softened out by the fat content and make for a remarkable potential for pairing.
Milk Chocolate Wine Suggestions
Pinot Noir (you might consider Mark West Pinot Noir $10) or a lighter-bodied Merlot (try Hogue or Columbia Crest) will complement a bar of milk chocolate, a creamy chocolate mousse or chocolate accented cheesecake. Rieslings, Muscats (try Bonny Doon's Muscat Vin de Glaciere or the Bonny Doon "Vin de Glaciere" Muscat for $15) or dessert wines tend to hold up well to mild milk chocolates. Also consider a sparkling wine or Champagne for pairing with milk chocolate dipped strawberries. Last, but not least a classic milk chocolate pairing to consider is a nice Ruby Port - a very safe bet when looking for a perfect wine to accent milk chocolate.
Dark Chocolate Wine Suggestions
Dark or bittersweet chocolates need a wine that offers a roasted, slightly robust flavor itself, with perhaps a hint of its own chocolate notes. Cabs and Zinfandels have a history of perfecting the dark chocolate match, resulting in an unparalleled tasting combination. A Cabernet Sauvignon or a Zinfandel (try Ancient Peaks Zinfandel 2006, $30) will more than fill your chocolate pairing expectations. Also consider a Pinot Noir or a Merlot to handle dark chocolate around the 55% cocoa mark. Finally, give a Tawny or Vintage Port a go to offer a very well balanced pairing approach to a dark chocolate dessert or truffle.
The Do-it-Yourself Approach to Pairing Wines and Chocolate
If you are looking for an easy and inexpensive, Do-it-Yourself way to experiment with wine and chocolate pairings, simply picking up a few bars of Green and Black's premium chocolate is a good way to start. By taking a "mix and match" approach to finding your own personal palate preferences when it comes to pairing wine and chocolate, you'll gain "hands-on" knowledge of which wines really complement which chocolate combinations. By opening eight bars of Green & Black's chocolate along with a few bottles of wine we were able to take each chocolate through a series of wine pairings to see which combinations rose to the top. This is just a starting point, the combinations could be almost unlimited when you start to shake up not only varietals, but vintages and producers with the more than a dozen chocolate bars made by Green & Black's. Check out our Green & Black's wine and chocolate pairing results here.
http://wine.about.com/od/winerecommendations/a/winechocolate.htm
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Wine Sales Lush Despite Recession
Wine Sales Lush Despite Recession
Posted : Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:04:22 GMT
Author : Mintel
The wine market has grown 20% from 2004-09 despite the recession; however, shattered consumer confidence caused a 3.2% decline during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. As consumers begin to see signs that the worst of the recession is behind them, Mintel forecasts the wine market will stabilize and increase by 2.1% in 2009.
How does wine chalk up next to its alcoholic beverage counterparts? So far in 2009, nearly half of survey respondents say they drink beer compared to just more than one-third who drink imported and domestic wines (47% vs. 35%). Only 17% claim to enjoy champagne and sparkling wines and even less drink port, sherry and dessert wines (7%).
Sarah Theodore notes: “As wine finds its way out of the recession, it might be taking on a new form. The down economy has given impetus to boxed wine. Marketers have an opportunity right now to really play up the benefits of this type of packaging and finally eliminate its ‘cheap’ image.”
Nearly one in five respondents appears to be status-conscious when it comes to drinking boxed wine. Consequently, 35% of those aged 21-24 say they would drink boxed wine at home, but not serve it to guests, compared to 19% of all ages. In addition, 35% of 21-24 year old wine drinkers believe the wine brand they choose reflects their status to friends, compared to only 14% of all ages.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/wine-sales-lush-despite-recession,1059934.shtml
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What Wine Tasting Can Teach You About Mindful Eating
What Wine Tasting Can Teach You About Mindful Eating
By Michelle May, M.D.
On a recent trip "down under" to visit my husband's family, we experienced the powerful connection between wine tasting and mindful eating.
New Zealand and Australia are known for their outstanding "new world" wines. Although we weren't in the heart of wine region in either country, we managed to find some interesting tasting rooms. One was housed in an old mortuary. I know; that should have been our first clue. They served old (and I don't mean aged) wine in little plastic communion-style cups. The wines had creepy names that bore no relation to the grapes that gave their life for us.
The wine maker, a retired chemist, bragged, "Making wine is easy." I whispered in my husband's ear, "Making good wine--now that's the hard part!"
It dawned on me that sometime during the 15 years since I quit drinking white zinfandel from a box (not that there's anything wrong with that), I had actually learned to appreciate decent wine. I'm no expert but I know what I like (and it isn't usually served in plastic). I had to ask myself, how did I become a bit of a wine snob?
The same way I became a foodie: one taste at a time.
By simply deciding to be attentive to what I eat (and drink), I've become much more aware of the aromas, flavors, and textures of food. More importantly, I've become much more connected to the experience and its affect on my body.
Just as I know that there's an invisible but very real line between enjoyment and abuse of wine, there's a similar line that many people cross with food. The more mindful you are, the less likely you are to cross that line.
This simple but profound lesson has allowed me to enjoy food more while eating less. I'm no longer dazzled by large portion sizes or distracted by packaging, health claims, or other attempts to lure me into eating marginal food (any more than the wine cellar viewed through the hole in the floor where they used to raise the casket could distract me into believing that wine was worth drinking!).
I'm certainly no sommelier, but I am grateful to have discovered the similarities between the enjoyment of both wine and food in moderation. So here's my take on...
The Basics of Wine Tasting and the Mindful Eating Corollaries
SERVE
Wine Tasting: Pour your wine in a clear, stemmed glass, filling it only halfway or less so there's room to swirl.
Mindful Eating: Serve your food on a plate rather than eating it out of cartons, bags, or other containers that are destined for the dump or that prevent you from fully seeing what you're putting in your mouth. And if you've got so much food that you can't even see the plate, you've probably got more than you actually need.
SEE and SNIFF
Wine Tasting: Notice the color and viscosity of the wine. Swirl it gently in the glass. Put your nose in and sniff deeply to appreciate the aromas that hint about the terroir (the climate, soil type, drainage, wind direction, humidity and other factors in a particular vineyard) and the winemaking process used.
Mindful Eating: Notice the colors, textures, and aromas of your food. Take a moment to consider and express gratitude for the food on your plate and everything and everyone that contributed to getting it there to nourish you-from the sun, the soil, the water, the farmer or rancher, the truck driver, the clerk, the chef...
SENSE
Wine Tasting: Sip a small mouthful of wine. Swish the wine over your tongue and open your mouth slightly as you inhale, bringing the aromas into the back of your nose.
Mindful Eating:Put a small amount of food in your mouth and set your fork down so you can focus on the bite that is in your mouth rather than the next one. Chew your food thoroughly as you breathe to bring the flavors up to the back of your nose where much of the "taste" of food actually comes from.
SAVOR
Wine Tasting: Mentally describe the flavors, identifying subtleties, similarities to other familiar flavors, and noting how the wine complements or detracts from any food you're eating.
Mindful Eating: Be aware of the flavors, textures, and temperatures of your food. See if you can identify the ingredients and notice how they layer to create new flavors.
SPIT (or SMALL BITES)
Wine Tasting: Spit out the wine if you'll be tasting several wines in a row so you don't dull your senses or cross that invisible line between enjoyment and intoxication.
Mindful Eating: DON'T spit out the food! Instead, take small servings and small bites so you can pace yourself. This will help you keep from crossing that invisible live between enjoyment and misery.
Like tasting wine, the basic tenets of mindful eating are to eat with attention and intention: attention to the experience and the intention of enjoyment without having to pay the price of excess.
That is what it means to eat what you love, and love what you eat. Now, that is something to toast!
http://www.amihungry.com/wine-tasting-mindful-eating.shtml
Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat - http://www.amihungry.com/eat-what-you-love-book.shtml
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Can Pumpkin Beer Be Serious Beer?
Can Pumpkin Beer Be Serious Beer?
Posted by Maggie Hoffman, October 8, 2009
We tried seven pumpkin beers. And the real discovery? How much better they tasted with food.
Before this week, I'd never acquired a pumpkin ale on purpose. I knew some people liked them. And I love the idea of fresh beer crafted specially for the season. Sure, make a beer to celebrate autumn—the scent of crisp leaves, the arrival of brisk breezes—but isn't that what Oktoberfest's märzenbier is for? Surely jack-o-lantern flavored, cinnamon-perfumed beer isn't serious beer.
I stand (somewhat) corrected.
After tasting seven pumpkin brews, I must say a few of them are pretty tasty. Some really are beers with good balance and a hint of squash flavor. Some brewers add shredded raw or roasted pumpkin to the mash along with roasted pumpkin seeds, while others add pumpkin puree (or pumpkin flavor extract—yes, we disapprove) later in the process. Skillful brewmasters manage to introduce a hint of spice, adding nutmeg, cinnamon, and even a sprinkling of brown sugar, without turning their beers into liquid dessert. Others, I'm sorry to say, cross that line. It could be what you're looking for, but I'll stick with pie.
The real surprise here was discovering how perfectly a pumpkin beer can pair with food. Straight from the bottle, some pumpkin ales might seem a little too sweet, a little too vanilla-scented. But the right pumpkin beer turned out to be an amazing match with my latest batch of this spin on Cincinnati-style chili.
the pumpkin beer accented those flavors: the aromatics in the beer resonated with similar spices in the chili. Not all beer styles could stand up to this dish and really complement it, but the pumpkin, clove, and malty notes in the full-bodied ale deepened the chili's flavors instead of covering them up or just erasing them from our mouths.
Serious Beer Ratings
***** Our new favorite
**** Awesome, worth remembering
*** We'd consider buying this again
** There are probably better options
* No, thanks, I'll have water.
Ratings are subject to personal taste.
Chili's Perfect Partner
Elysian Brewing Night Owl Pumpkin Ale (Washington, USA) 5.8% ABV
The scent of pumpkin and cloves struck us before we even took a sip of this Seattle brew. When unaccompanied, we found it a little too sweet, and vanilla slightly overpowered the other flavors. When paired with food, though, the toasted malt and pumpkin notes came through. This full-bodied beer has a prominent brown sugar and nutmeg flavor that's balanced with hoppy brightness. If you're looking for a once-a-year true beer-full-of-pumpkin experience, find yourself one of these. Just be sure to bring the chili and the sharp cheddar.
**** when paired with food
*** when unaccompanied
Delicious Straight from the Bottle
Wolaver's Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale (Vermont, USA) 5.35% ABV
This organic pumpkin ale tastes more like beer than pumpkin. It's well-balanced and not too sweet with a hoppy crispness. A cinnamon and nutmeg flavor lingers, but this is a refreshing beer with light to medium body.
***1/2
Sippable
Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (New Hampshire, USA) 5.1% ABV
This medium-bodied beer had a hazy appearance. The malt and hop flavors aren't overpowered by pumpkin or spice—in fact, you had to look for the subtle pumpkin flavor. Some tasters enjoyed the citrusy hops in this beer, while others found it too bitter.
***
Dogfish Head Punkin' Ale (Delaware, USA) 7% ABV
This beer veers slightly into sweeter territory, with a hint of pumpkin on top of caramel malt flavors. Allspice and cinnamon add to the pie-like taste, but this is pretty well balanced. You probably wouldn't drink many of these in a row, but this warming ale was appealing to some of our tasters.
***
Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout (Massachusetts, USA) 7% ABV
This was the only pumpkin stout we tasted, and while we liked it, we were not convinced that stout is the best beer style to carry pumpkin flavor. If you handed someone this beer in a glass, they might not suspect it had any pumpkin at all. That said, it was a nice beer for fall, with coffee flavors and a touch of vanilla. Crisp hops and lively carbonation balance out the nutmeg and cloves.
**1/2
Don't Trade Your Caramellos for These
Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale (Maine, USA) 4.5% ABV
This beer was the lightest in color of any we tried, perhaps due to the inclusion of wheat. It had a prominent honey flavor and scent, and the sweetness caused some tasters to compare it to apple cider. This was slightly less complex than others we tried.
**
Southern Tier Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale (New York, USA) 9% ABVi>
Don't be fooled by the cream soda taste of this one—this smooth, vanilla-scented ale is potent! While some tasters praised its "pie in a glass" flavor, most found it too syrupy sweet. This is probably worth trying on draft, but we recommend skipping the bottled stuff.
*1/2
http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/10/what-is-the-best-pumpkin-beers-ales-fall-tasting.html
Serious Eats
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Game day grub: Savory BBQ Buffalo wings
Game day grub: Savory BBQ Buffalo wings
‘The Wing King’ shares his easy-to-make, award-winning finger-food recipes
TODAY recipes
updated 8:34 a.m. MT, Wed., Sept . 9, 2009
Who better to share Buffalo wing recipes than Drew Cerza, also known as “The Wing King”? Fresh from this year’s National Buffalo Wing Festival — which draws more than 78,000 wing aficionados — Cerza explains how to make the ultimate in game day food:
Wing King's BBQ Buffalo wings
Drew Cerza
Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes
INGREDIENTS
• 2 T. butter
• 1 large shallot
• 2 garlic cloves
• Dark beer 2 oz.
• Chili sauce 1 cup
• BBQ sauce 1 cup
• (Stir up for 1 minute)
• Ancho pepper 1 1/2 t.
• Brown sugar 1/2 cup
• Honey 1/2 cup
• Cayenne pepper sauce 4 oz.
DIRECTIONS
Chop up and sauté butter, shallot and garlic cloves. Add dark beer, chili sauce and BBQ sauce — stir up for 1 minute. Add ancho pepper, brown sugar, honey, cayenne pepper sauce — stir for 2 minutes.
As you create the sauce, drop 50 chicken wings (the amount you drop in at one time will depend on the size of your fryer) in your table-top deep fryer.
Once wings are fully cooked, sauce the wings in a large mixing bowl. To plate the wings: Garnish the plate with celery and carrots and serve with a side of blue cheese dressing.
TIPS
Serve with celery and blue cheese dressing. For equally crispy wings: Deep-fry wings at 375° F (High) 10 minutes until cooked and crispy; drain and serve.
Original Buffalo wing recipe
Drew Cerza
Makes 24-30 individual pieces
Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
• 2 1/2 pounds chicken wings
• 1/2 cup hot sauce
• 1/3 cup melted butter or margarine
DIRECTIONS
Split wings at each joint; discard tips. Place wings on rack in foil-lined pan.
Bake 20 minutes at 500° F until fully cooked and crispy, turning halfway.
Combine hot sauce and butter. Dip wings in sauce to coat completely.
TIPS
Serve with celery and blue cheese dressing. For equally crispy wings: Deep-fry wings at 375° F (High) 10 minutes until cooked and crispy; drain and serve.
© 2009 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32736449/ns/today-today_food_and_wine/
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Experts Say Drinkers Should Know Their Alcohol IQ
Experts Say Drinkers Should Know Their Alcohol IQ
Kellye Lynn -BALTIMORE (WJZ)
Whether you drink beer, wine or hard liquor experts say it's important to know your alcohol IQ.
If you drink alcohol, here's a question for you. What's your alcohol IQ?
Healthwatch reporter Kellye Lynn has information everyone who drinks should know.
Whether you drink beer, wine or hard liquor, it's important to know your alcohol IQ.
Anyone who likes to drink needs to know what they're consuming.
Nutritionist Natalie Webb says most people think they know more about alcohol than they actually do.
Question number one: Which contains the most alcohol, a standard drink of beer, wine or distilled spirits?
"They actually all have about the same. Each of these is a standard serving of alcohol. It provides about a half an ounce of ethanol," said Webb.
Question number two: How many drinks a day is considered moderate alcohol consumption?
"I would think it would probably be maybe two," answered one person.
"I have no clue," answered another.
Drinking in moderation is defined as up to one drink a day for women and no more than two drinks a day for a man.
Question number three: Are the potential benefits and risks the same for spirits, beer and wine?
"Wine is better for you and has health benefits better than any of the others," said one respondent.
"They're actually all the same because they all provide ethanol when in the standard serving," said Webb.
When Natalie's not doing media interviews, she teaches nutrition on a college campus and says most of the young people she encounters have a very low alcohol IQ. That leads to the final question: Which drink has the most calories?
"Shot of whisky?" guessed one person.
"This is actually the least. The distilled spirit only has about 95 calories," Webb said.
The glass of wine has 105 calories and the beer has 144 calories.
Natalie says with hard liquor the calories are in the mixer. You can cut calories by choosing a diet one.
The main message is to drink sensibly and in moderation. Since too much alcohol can lead to health problems, the American Heart Association says if you don't already drink, don't start.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
http://wjz.com/health/drinking.health.alcohol.2.1127478.html
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Knob Creek drinkers up the creek until November
Knob Creek drinkers up the creek until November
The Associated Press, Posted on Tue, Jul. 07, 2009
Pour the Knob Creek sparingly. The distiller's warehouses in Clermont have no more of the aged bourbon to ship until November.
Since Knob Creek is aged longer than many bourbons, its supply must be predicted years in advance. The Courier-Journal quoted Kelly Doss of Beam Global Spirits & Wine, saying it's difficult to forecast a nine-year demand.
Doss said Beam sells about 150,000 cases of Knob Creek each year.
The company recently sent T-shirts proclaiming "The drought of 2009" to 16,000 people who registered on the brand's Web site.
Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com
http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/855014.html?storylink=omni_popular
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Buying Wine Gifts
By: Fiona Muller
When looking for gifts for relatives and friends, it can sometimes be difficult to find something that they will enjoy. After all, it is hard to buy things for a home or an individual if you are not quite sure that a gift will be to their taste.
That’s why it is good to look at wine gifts. Most people will appreciate a bottle of wine especially if it is not the sweetest or the driest one (depending on the tastes and preferences) and be delighted if it comes with something else which is a little luxury or just a beautiful set of glasses to serve the wine in.
For a special present there are a whole range of champagnes and gifts. These are fantastic for a special occasion such as a birthday, anniversary or wedding. However it is also a great gift for a partner, just to say how much you appreciate them being there for you. When you buy online you can also guarantee that the gift will be sent beautifully presented to the person, ensuring that they are delighted with their gift.
Champagne is often twinned with chocolates for that sensuous gift, and it can be twinned with a whole range of gifts, making it a great present whatever the occasion.
Alternatives to champagne are also available, so if you want to be less predictable, or are dealing with a more difficult person to send a gift to, why not think about sending claret with pate, or a lovely bottle of white wine with a set of crystal glasses.
There is also the option of sending fine wine. A gift of exceptional taste like this will always be appreciated by connoisseurs and people with sensitive palates alike. Buying someone a bottle of their favourite wine or even a vintage wine is something that gives a personal touch to a gift that could otherwise be seen as being an easy way out.
Buying a wine gift online makes a perfect present easily obtainable. There is no worry that you will end up with the wrong thing and you can choose your gift without being harassed by over eager shop assistants. Wine gifts are also a great present because they are sent to the recipient in a stylish gift box and are delivered directly to their door, so there is no need to worry about breakages or gifts not arriving on time for that special occasion.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Fiona Muller has been writing for over 20 years. She is a qualified journalist and has worked in food and drink writing for the last few years. For more information and a range of wine gifts available please visit www.laithwaites.co.uk
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Beer tax may be imposed to support health care
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON — Joe Six-Pack may have to hand over nearly $2 more for a case of beer to help provide health insurance for all.
Details of the proposed beer tax are described in a Senate Finance Committee document distributed to lawmakers before a closed-door meeting Wednesday. Senators are focusing on how to pay for expanding health insurance for an estimated 50 million uninsured Americans, a cost that could range to some $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
You can't raise that from beer money alone.
Lawmakers are looking at an extensive list of spending cuts and tax increases, including a new levy on the value of job-based health insurance. The latter proposal seems to be gaining ground. It could lead to higher income taxes for some people with particularly generous job-based health care.
No decisions were expected at the meeting, but Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., will use the feedback to shape legislation he intends to introduce in the next few weeks.
While many of the revenue raisers involve obscure provisions of federal law, most consumers can relate to a beer tax.
Taxes on wine and hard liquor would also go up.
And there might be a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks blamed for contributing to obesity. A tax of 3 cents per 12-ounce drink would raise about $50 billion over 10 years, according to congressional estimates. Diet drinks, however, wouldn't be taxed.
The idea behind the proposed increases is to tax lifestyle choices that contribute to rising medical costs. Obesity puts people at risk for diabetes and heart problems. Alcohol abuse is a risk factor in several types of cancer, liver disease and psychological problems.
The soft drink industry and beer and wine producers are already lobbying to stop the proposals before they gain traction. The tax increases would lead to job losses for workers and higher costs for recession weary consumers, say the industries. Wine makers are also pointing to studies that suggest a glass a day can be good for health.
"Singling out wine for higher taxes to reform health care is misguided because wine is part of a healthy diet and lifestyle for millions of Americans," said Robert P. Koch, president of the Wine Institute, which represents California's industry.
Under the proposal lawmakers are considering, beer taxes would be increased by 48 cents a six-pack, from the current 33 cents. Beer is still the favorite choice of Americans who drink alcohol.
Wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, from the current 21 cents.
And the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth, from the current $2.14.
Percentage-wise, wine drinkers would take the biggest hit, a 233 percent tax increase per bottle. Hard liquor would see the smallest proportional increase, 19 percent per fifth.
The beer tax would rise by 145 percent per six-pack.
Proponents of the idea say it would equalize the tax treatment of alcoholic drinks, by charging the same tax rate based on alcohol content to all. But that would put an end to the current tax advantage enjoyed by beer and wine.
The higher alcohol taxes would bring in nearly $60 billion over 10 years.
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2009/05/20/news/breaking/doc4a144c218cd7f327055721.txt
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Beer's best friend: Family business in Bloomington makes sure Beer Nuts remain fresh
RYAN DENHAM
Lee News Service Writer- 3/23/2009
http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2009/03/23/money/1040047.txt
BLOOMINGTON - From the half-ounce bags of tasty peanuts to the big plastic jugs of candy-nut mix, one thing is clear from a quick look at Beer Nuts' product line: "Customers have great imaginations for the things they want to do," said Beer Nuts managing director Jim Shirk, whose family founded the iconic snack more than a half-century ago in Bloomington.
And with such an increasingly diverse slate of Beer Nuts products, Shirk knows what the financially "ideal" production process might look like these days: Long production runs, warehouses full of product and orders filled as needed.
Just one problem: "Our product won't stand up to that," he said. "Our product is a great product, but it's best when it's served fresh."
During a recent tour of the Beer Nuts plant at 103 N. Robinson St., Shirk showed off the nonsecret parts of the process, a sort of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"-style tour without the Oompa Loompas. (Public tours stopped in the 1980s, said company spokeswoman Georgia Dawson.)
At nearly every step, there are tedious, human-driven but very important steps, aimed at maintaining freshness and consistency, steps that keep Beer Nuts fans from biting into a bad nut or a stale product.
Beer Nuts, a family-owned company that employs about 55 people at its Bloomington plant, also has a large sales team around the United States, its largest human component, that fulfills a key part of the freshness mantra: Everything should be made to order.
Receiving
The roughly 100,000-square-foot plant, which also processes almond and cashew products, receives its peanuts in 2,000-pound sacks, about 20 per truck. Because of crop variations where the nuts are grown - Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama - they are sent straight to giant bins that blend together different batches, aiming for consistency.
"The mixing is ¦ pretty much a seat-of-your-pants, visual thing," Shirk saids about dialing up or dialing down the blending.
Next up, the nuts go through a gravity separator, a big machine that gives the nuts a good shake to weed out any rocks or even small animal bones that somehow made it through the combine, de-shelling and mechanized sorting operations.
They travel down a conveyer belt - think "I Love Lucy" - where two hunched-over workers in the sorting room pull out any darkened or visibly deformed nuts.
It's tedious work, so much so that workers are rotated in and out by the hour, often rotating jobs, if possible, Dawson said.
But switching to a more mechanized version of the process comes with its own quality-control problems, Shirk said.
"It's a double-edged sword for us, because the benefits you gain by picking out more product ¦ you've knocked off more skins and caused more (peanut) splits. We're not sure there's a net gain there," Shirk said.
Processing
Now, the product is "about as clean as we can get it," he said. The nuts head upstairs to processing and cooking, where the family's super-secret, sweet and salty coating recipe goes to work. Not surprisingly, the Beer Nuts folks don't like talking publicly about this part of the process.
Around the corner in packaging, the nuts return to the ground floor via pipes straight to one of the many biometrically measuring machines that do anything from pouches to 12-ounce cans.
The latter is a tasty indicator of the decades-long trajectory of Beer Nuts: Away from single-serve baggies - "the item that got us started" - that were popular in taverns, and toward convenience and grocery store items.
And, in a nod to the freshness mantra, its newest package - a 7-ounce, sealed, cylindrical "beer can," launched two years ago - has an 18-month shelf life for customers, up from one year for the company's flexible packaging, Shirk said.
Next up is shipping, then to your family's Christmas shopping list, then your stomach.
Shirk said keeping Beer Nuts a privately-held business over the years has allowed the company to keep overhead down and stay nimble during tough times, like during the 1979-80 peanut shortage.
But their product's freshness needs mean they can't just draw from a warehouse like "the big boys" when a new order comes in. It's not perfect, but after five decades in operation, it seems to be working just fine.
"We're kind of running against the flow here a little bit in that regard," Shirk said, "but it's important to us."
sidebar
A quick look at Beer Nuts history:
1937: With some help from his father, Arlo Shirk purchases the Caramel Crisp Shop, a confectionary business in downtown Bloomington, where he worked while in high school. One of the shop's signature products is a red-skinned peanut with a caramelized coating.
1953: The Shirks are now also operating a short-order restaurant while making the nuts only in the off-hours. Then, a local potato-chip distributor, Eldridge Brewster, who is a supplier for the restaurant and a patron, tells Russell Shirk that he'll distribute the peanut on his routes if Shirk packages them.
1955: After the family sold the restaurant to focus on their growing nut business, the Shirk Products Inc. operation moves into a new Bloomington facility. Their product is now known as Beer Nuts, as the nuts went so well with beer, and taverns were already part of Brewster's distribution network.
1960: Another Shirk brother on the West Coast joins the family business, which means Beer Nuts now has a distribution network that covers the entire United States.
1974: Beer Nuts moves into its current plant, 103 N. Robinson St., which was originally built as a dairy building in 1940. After some expansions, it operates today at about 100,000 square feet.
SOURCE: Beer Nuts and Lee News Service archives
More than just nuts
A quick look at Beer Nuts' product line:
Original peanuts: Sweet and salty taste.
Glazed peanuts: Stripped of its red skin, then coated.
Kettle-cooked peanuts: Hit with a "supreme salter."
Spicy and hot peanuts: Not over-the-top hot.
Cashews: Perfect with a glass of wine (or beer).
Almonds: For health nuts.
Pecans: Sweet and salty coating has plenty of places to hide.
Macadamia nuts: Covered with original coating.
CrunchNuts: Nuts, plus crunchy coating, plus flavoring.
Insane Grain: A roasted corn snack.
Mixed Nuts: Can't decide?
Bar Mix: Original peanuts, Insane Grain, pretzels, cheese curls and sesame sticks.
Jalapeno Mix: Cheese curls, almonds, sesame sticks, pretzels, and peanuts.
Party Mix: Original peanuts combined with chocolate-coated candies and yogurt raisins. Shipped only from September through May because of melting chocolate concerns.
Source: Beer Nuts Web site
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Proposal would allow stores to sell wine by glass
Sean Markey
National Geographic News
http://www.newstribune.townnews.com/articles/2009/02/26/politics_and_elections/news/308news53wine.txt
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Kansas City liquor stores could soon begin selling wine by the drink under an idea now before city officials.
If approved, liquor stores could apply for expanded liquor licenses that would allow them to sell single servings of wine of up to 5 ounces to be consumed inside the store. It would apply only to wine and not beer or hard liquor.
Supporters say the change would allow wine retailers to let potential customers sample their products without having to give out lots of free samples to people who don't buy.
The proposal would not apply to grocery stores, convenience stores or drugstores. Also, the liquor store would have to get approval from a majority of nearby property owners. They also would not be allowed to provide entertainment.
---
Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com
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St. Patrick's Day Fast Facts: Beyond the Blarney
Sean Markey
National Geographic News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0315_050315_stpatricksday.html
On St. Patrick's Day, some revelers will raise a pint of
stout and wish their companions "Slainté!"—the Irish
word, pronounced SLAN-cha, for "health."
The toast may brim with scientific truth. At a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, three years ago, researchers reported that Guinness may be as effective as daily aspirin in reducing the blood clots that cause heart attacks. (The benefit derives from antioxidants, which the researchers said reduce cholesterol deposits on arterial walls. The compounds are found in dark Irish stouts but not their paler cousins.)
In the spirit of the holiday, National Geographic News rustled up other facts related to St. Patrick's Day festivities. Take heart—we skipped the blarney.
• St. Patrick's Day marks the Roman Catholic feast day for Ireland's patron saint, who died in the 5th century. St. Patrick (Patricius in Latin) was not born in Ireland, but in Britain.
• Irish brigands kidnapped St. Patrick at 16 and brought him to Ireland. He was sold as a slave in the county of Antrim and served in bondage for six years until he escaped to Gaul, in present-day France. He later returned to his parents' home in Britain, where he had a vision that he would preach to the Irish. After 14 years of study, Patrick returned to Ireland, where he built churches and spread the Christian faith for some 30 years.
• Many myths surround St. Patrick. One of the best known—and most inaccurate—is that Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland into the Irish Sea, where the serpents drowned. (Some still say that is why the sea is so rough.)
But snakes have never been native to the Emerald Isle. The serpents were likely a metaphor for druidic religions, which steadily disappeared from Ireland in the centuries after St. Patrick planted the seeds of Christianity on the island.
• In the United States, it's customary to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. But in Ireland the color was long considered to be unlucky, says Bridget Haggerty, author of The Traditional Irish Wedding and the Irish Culture and Customs Web site.
As Haggerty explains, Irish folklore holds that green is the favorite color of the Good People (the proper name for faeries). They are likely to steal people, especially children, who wear too much of the color.
• Colonial New York City hosted the first official St. Patrick's Day parade in 1762, when Irish immigrants in the British colonial army marched down city streets. In subsequent years Irish fraternal organizations also held processions to St. Patrick's Cathedral. The various groups merged sometime around 1850 to form a single, grand parade.
• Today New York's St. Patrick's Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world. This year nearly three million spectators are expected to watch the spectacle and some 150,000 participants plan to march.
• Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade is little more than 75 years old. This year festival organizers will launch 15,000 pounds (7 metric tons) of fireworks to cap their celebration, which is expected to draw 400,000 spectators.
• By law, pubs in Ireland were closed on St. Patrick's Day, a national religious holiday, as recently as the 1970s.
• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 34 million United States residents claim Irish ancestry, or nearly ten times the entire population of Ireland today, which stands at 3.9 million. Among U.S. ethnic groups, the number of Irish-Americans in the U.S. is second only to the number of German-Americans.
• Since 1820, 4.8 million Irish have legally immigrated to the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency reports that only four countries—Germany, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom—have sent more native-born residents to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
• Chicago is famous for dyeing the Chicago River green on St. Patrick's Day. The tradition began in 1962, when a pipe fitters union—with the permission of the mayor—poured a hundred pounds (45 kilograms) of green vegetable dye into the river. (On the job, the workers often use colored dyes to track illegal sewage dumping.) Today only 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of dye are used, enough to turn the river green for several hours.
According to the Friends of the Chicago River, a local environmental group, more people are likely to view the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day than on any other day.
• Guinness stout, first brewed by Arthur Guinness in Dublin, Ireland, in 1759, has become synonymous with Ireland and Irish bars. According to the company's Web site, 1,883,200,000 (that's 1.9 billion) pints of Guinness are consumed around the world every year.
• Robert Louis Stevenson, the 19th-century Scottish author of Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and other novels, brought a store of Guinness with him during a trip to Samoa in the South Pacific, according to the Guinness Web site.
• Ireland is about 300 miles (480 kilometers) long and 200 miles (320 kilometers) wide. Those facts, along with other features, led Swedish geographer Ulf Erlingsson to recently conclude that the Atlantic Ocean island is the same one identified by ancient Greek philosopher Plato as Atlantis in his famous dialogues Timaeus and Critias.
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Valentine's Day Getaway
We have brought you a list of romantic getaway ideas and superb vacation destinations for this Valentine's Day. Some of them may be just by the corner of your street or even in your own backyard, while some of the other ideas are more elaborate and you will need some big money and at least a week's time to travel:
• Plan a second honeymoon at the same place, same hotel and same room where you went for your first honeymoon. You may get some extra complimentary services too. Go to the same sites and re-enact the events that had happened on your first honeymoon.
• Plan a random hippy drive for a mini-vacation. Ask your partner to pick a direction and number of miles for the first leg of the drive and then another one for the second leg of the drive. Just enjoy the scenery and togetherness during the drive and enjoy what comes in your way. Before starting off on the second leg the drive, pick the direction and number of miles beforehand. Eat anywhere and stay anywhere, where you may find a place. The whole idea is Not To Plan. Do not use the map until you have to return. You will be surprised by the excitement and thrill of the moment. If there is any problem, of course you can improvise to make the situation better.
• Many hotels and resorts offer romantic setting and special packages for Valentine's Day that include the suite with a hot bubble bath, rose petals on bed, a complimentary bottle of Champagne with sparkling crystal glasses, strawberries and scented candles.
• Make a bonfire in your own backyard and have a special bar-be-cue party with soft music with your best friends.
• A night on a nearby beach or a stroll in a soft gentle trail, which is not overcrowded, is a perfect place for two in love on Valentine's Day.
• A romantic cruise with wonderful island destinations and brief stay in log homes is absolutely fairy-tale like.
• The most wonderful romantic views that you can share together are:
» From top of the Eiffel tower in Paris
» Moonlit Beach in Goa, India
» Niagara Falls from aboard the Maid of the Mist
» Sunrise in Sam Sand Dunes of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India
» The canals of Venice, Italy, viewed from a gondola
» The Carribean Islands from the deck of a cruise ship
» The Golden Gate Bridge at sunset
» The Grand Canyon at sunrise
» The moon rising over the Fiji Islands
» The Pacific ocean from a Hawaiian hut
» Views of River Ganges at 7 PM in Haridwar, India when the river sparkles with innumerable lit lamps floating in the river
http://festivals.iloveindia.com/valentines-day/valentine-day-celebration/valentine-day-getaway.html
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Turkey: Food & Wine Pairings
Turkey is one of the most difficult foods to pair with wine. This,
of course, is why every year, beginning in early November, wine
writers all over the United States begin publishing their annual
articles about what to drink at Thanksgiving dinner. The consensus
is this: Beaujolais is excellent: Its lively, fruity flavor
is excellent with turkey, and can liven it up in ways very few wines
can. You can also go with a tempranillo - based red wine, like a
Rioja, or even a California zinfandel, which, while it may overpower
the turkey, may not be a bad thing, depending upon who's doing the
cooking. Whites work well, too. Just try to stick with either French
or Californian Chardonnay. Though they are totally different, they
both bring out different aspects of the turkey quite well.
Wine Recommendations
1.
Cabernet Franc
2. Pinot Noir
3. Zinfandel
4. Chardonnay
5.
Gewurztraminer
6. Pinot
Blanc
7.
Pinot Gris/Grigio
8. Riesling
9. Pink
Sparkling
Top 10 Wines for Thanksgiving
Here is a list of wine recommendations to enjoy with
your family during the Thanksgiving holiday celebration. These are
only American wines for this list in order to highlight the
creativity of our regional winemakers.
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Now, Beer
Made From 45 Million Year Old Yeast
http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-26095.html
According to a report by ABC News, Emeritus
Professor Raul Cano of the California Polytechnic State University,
originally extracted the yeast a decade ago, along with more than
2000 different kinds of microscopic creatures.
Today, Cano uses the reactivated yeast to brew
barrels of pale ale and German wheat beer.
"You can always buy brewing yeast, and your product
will be based on the brewmaster's recipes," said Cano. "Our yeast
has a double angle: We have yeast no one else has and our own beer
recipes," he added.
The beer received good reviews at the Russian River
Beer Festival and from other reviewers. The Oakland Tribune beer
critic, William Brand, said that the beer has "a weird spiciness at
the finish," and The Washington Post said the beer was "smooth and
spicy."
Part of that taste comes from the yeast's unique
metabolism. "The ancient yeast is restricted to a narrow band of
carbohydrates, unlike more modern yeasts, which can consume just
about any kind of sugar," said Cano. Eventually, the yeast will
likely evolve the ability to eat other sugars, which could change
the taste of the beer. Cano plans to keep a batch of the original
yeast to keep the beer true to form. "We think that people will
drink one beer out of curiosity," said Cano. "But if the beer
doesn't taste good, no one will drink a second," he added.
--- ANI
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The Strongest Beer in the US
http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/11/strongest-beer-in-us.html
How much would you pay for an exceptional brew? $10
a six-pack? $20 a six-pack? How about $5 an ounce?
That's the minimum going rate for Boston
Beer's Samuel Adams Utopias, which retails starting at $120 per
24-ounce bottle.
The country's most expensive beer is also the
strongest. The 2007 edition of the vintage-dated biennial release
clocks in at 27 percent alcohol by volume, more than five times the
proof of the average American golden lager.
The Utopias container, a ceramic bottle molded to
resemble a brew kettle, is a collectible in and of itself. The
copper-colored liquid inside hasn't a bubble of carbonation. The
first sensations are a viscous mouth feel and a sweet sherrylike
flavor with nuances of toffee and maple. There are notes of vanilla
and plum and a hint of charred wood. A long, lingering alcohol burn,
more reminiscent of a cognac or brandy than a beer, is followed by a
sweet burned-caramel aftertaste.
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Wine Spectator Magazine Gives Prestigious Award to Fake Restaurant
http://www.gogirlfriend.com/reviews/wine-spectator-magazine-gives-prestigious-award-fake-restaurant-12690
Last week, Osteria L'Intrepido, in Milan Italy, won
Wine Spectator magazine's award of excellence, even though the wine
list included a 1993 Amarone Classico Gioe S. Sofia, which the
magazine once compared to "paint thinner and nail varnish.
Trouble is, the restaurant doesn't exist - except
online.
Robin Goldstein, a wine critic, created a website
for his bogus restaurant and submitted an application for the Wine
Spectator Blushing with Embarrassment?award along with the $250 fee
and a copy of his menu and wine list. He described the menu as "a
fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes," and
included wines the magazine previously reviewed negatively.
Goldstein set out to prove that the magazine cared
more about the entry fee than honoring restaurants. "I am interested
in what's behind all the ratings and reviews we read. ... The level
of scrutiny is not sufficient," said Goldstein, who revealed the
prank while presenting a paper at an American Association of Wine
Economists meeting in Portland, Ore.
Wine Spectator Executive Editor Thomas Matthews
said in a posting on the New York-based magazine's Web site: "We
called the restaurant multiple times; each time we reached an
answering machine and a message from a person purporting to be from
the restaurant claiming that it was closed at the moment."
While the award isn't exactly a gold medal, it can
be the lifeblood of a restaurant struggling to establish a solid
reputation. But this year, nearly 4,500 restaurants spent $250 each
to apply or reapply for the Wine Spectator award, and all but 319
won some kind of award. That's more than $1 million in annual
revenue.
The fake restaurant has been removed from the Wine
Spectator's website, but you'll still find it in the print edition
of the August issue.
"This gets down to what the Wine Spectator is all
about," said Tom Priko, a Santa Barbara industry consultant. "It's
not exactly Wine for Dummies; it's more Wine for the Gullible."
The magazine has been awarding "prestigious honors"
for more than 20 years. Obviously they don't visit all of them -
which make their awards completely useless. Reviewing a menu online
should never replace a visit to the restaurant.
My vote is on restaurant review sites that rely on
people who actually eat at the restaurant to tell it like is without
the sugar-coating.
Restaurantica, our sister site, doesn't allow
restaurant owners to manipulate ratings or have negative reviews
removed. No matter what kind of experience you have, your opinion
counts. Granted, you'll still have to filter and weigh each review,
but at least you'll know they aren't there because of an advertising
campaign thinly veiled as a legitimate contest.
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Wines becoming liquid assets
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzcov0113,0,6714269.story?coll=ny_entertainment_movies_util
BY MICHAEL S. ROSENWALD | The Washington Post
Not long ago, Stephen Bachmann, a private-equity investor turned
online wine store owner, posted a chart on his widely read blog
about wine collecting. The dots on the graphic charted an
investment starting at around $1,000 in 2003. They continued on
a sustained northerly path -- up 100 percent, up 200 percent --
peaking above $4,000 in 2007.
If the average investor's E-Trade account looked like that
chart, he would be popping bottles of Champagne. But the chart's
subject did not concern the latest hot tech stock. It certainly
was not charting the performance of a 401(k) retirement fund.
The liquid asset in question was literally liquid: a single
bottle of 1990 Petrus, a Bordeaux blend.
"If you didn't know what that was, most people would look at
that chart and say that looks like a pretty good investment,"
said Bachmann, the founder of Vinfolio, based in San Francisco.
Wine is so hot, with demand growing from new wealth centers and
palates in China and Russia, that the prices of even some
second-tier wines are rising at rates that make the Dow Jones
industrial average look as if it's measuring the performance of
low-risk municipal bonds.
The jump in prices is causing collectors to liquidate parts of
their cellars. There are wine investment funds, and there is
even an electronic trading exchange in London for fine wine.
It's up 39 percent this year, trailing gains in oil by only 7
points.
For many, all this sounds too much like the legendary -- and
popped -- tech bubble that cost investors millions of dollars
earlier this decade. For others, who don't see demand ebbing any
time soon, wine has become a surprising, though highly risky,
way to produce returns from an urbane hobby.
"When one sees an opportunity, one would be a fool to let it
go," said California attorney Dan Bailey, who has emptied his
cellar of his Bordeaux. He sounds almost surprised at what he's
doing: "I guess I invest, yes."
And it hasn't been exactly difficult. Last month, Bailey spotted
10 bottles of some rare Burgundy at a local wine store. He liked
the price: about $3,500 for them all.
The thought of drinking the wine never even crossed his mind. He
said he sold them for $10,000 two weeks later. "The demand is
just flat-out crazy," Bailey said.
How this all happened is primarily a story of supply and demand.
Good wine is extremely limited: It's not as if most vintners can
magically increase their output, and sometimes years can go by
between super-quality vintages. But the wine boom is also a
lesson in how the Internet creates fluidity in a fractured
market, connecting buyers, as Bailey put it, "way out there in
the world on the demand curve."
Wine can now be bought and sold over the Internet, particularly
at auction through well-known wine stores such as Acker Merrall
& Condit in New York or through WineBid.com, one of several
popular wine auction Web sites. With demand so strong, even
owners of below-first-tier wines can fetch big premiums for the
stuff.
Jerome Zech, chief executive of WineBid.com, remembers buying a
bottle of 1990 Pichon Lalande for $29.95 in 1994. Now that wine
is selling on his Web site for $140. That's a 367 percent
increase in value.
"Things are really different in the wine business than 10 years
ago, when most of the auctions were closed and they were in New
York or London," Zech said. "The Internet has allowed people to
see pricing globally and to access wines they wouldn't have been
able to. A closed, clubby environment has really opened up."
But that certainly doesn't mean that investors should dive right
in. The risks and challenges of wine investment are many.
For starters, much of the value of wine is determined by the
opinions of a handful of influential critics like Robert Parker.
Bachmann, on his blog, wrote: "Should a major wine critic later
downgrade his rating of a wine you own, you'll see the value of
your wine fall. Conversely, upgrades raise the value. The only
problem is that this volatility is completely out of your
control." Also, because wine investing is not regulated, novices
can easily become victims of fraud. And the start-up costs are
high because of the difficulty of properly storing fine wine.
Paul Hart, president of Hart Davis Hart, a Chicago wine
auctioneer, said the typical investor narrative he sees -- and
thinks is appropriate -- is that of wine connoisseurs who
nurture a collection over time, then sell some of their wine
either to make room for a new interest or cash out of something
when it becomes worth more to sell than drink.
"A case of wine is 38 pounds, and it takes a lot of space to
store, and when you have 700 bottles, it becomes a matter of, 'I
can never drink all these bottles,'" Hart said. "Most people
don't come into this as an investment. But I'd say for anyone
who has been in it for five years or longer, it comes up."
Bachmann of Vinfolio has provided a number of tips to potential
wine investors on his blog. His first bit of advice is somewhat
obvious: Buy investment-grade wine.
"To be a candidate, the wine should have been rated well by
recognized critics, preferably 95+ points by someone like Robert
Parker, Stephen Tanzer or Allen Meadows," he wrote. "It also
helps if the producer's wines have a proven track record for
improving in the cellar."
Another bit of advice is to pay close attention to supply and
demand factors: "If a wine is close to its peak drinking window,
it's time to sell as it won't get any better and demand is
likely to fall."
Perhaps his most prescient advice is, "Buy wine you'd be glad to
drink so you can convert your losses into gains!"
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Top 10 Vineyard Stays
http://winecountry.com/about/experience/top10/032707_top10picks.html
It is the essential element in your
dream vacation to wine country. Awaken each day to view beautiful
vineyards from the balcony of your luxury suite. Dream? Or Reality?
With the wonderful web, it is now feasible for you to locate these
once in a lifetime vineyards stays for your next dream getaway. And
WineCountry.com gets you one step closer to reality with these
recommendations:
1. Inman Family Wines & Olivet Grange
Vineyards
Why just visit the vineyards when you can stay in the vineyard?
Olivet Grange Vineyards and Inman Family Wines now offers the
Ultimate Wine Country Exclusive Experience with a 2 night/3 day
getaway for wine adventurers. This wine experience also includes
touring the vineyards with owner Kathleen Inman and a spectacular 5
course dinner menu paired with the wines.
Read more
2. Grape Leaf Inn
Indulge yourself in this one-of-a-kind opportunity to savor a
relaxing Sonoma Wine Country Experience. Stay in their luxurious,
fully equipped cottages surrounded by 80-year-old Zinfandel vines.
Enjoy the most spectacular view in the Northern Sonoma Wine Country
and stroll through the vines at your leisure soaking up the peaceful
ambience.
Read more
3. King’s Hill Cellars
Enjoy the ultimate insider wine country adventure – make fine wine,
tutored by a master winemaker with 30 years experience using
state-of-the-art equipment. Kings Hill Cellars is a private "members
only" winery dedicated to making the best wine possible, while
sharing the experience with its members and having fun in the
process. In addition, you will be their special guest for a weekend
while staying in our elegant guesthouse over the winery.
Read more
4. Vintners Inn & Ferrari-Carano
Winery
The exclusive Vintners Inn is a 92-acre wine country resort
featuring lush grounds, surrounding vineyards and European-style
charm. Your room displays a view of the sumptuous vineyards or
flower filled central courtyard with bubbling fountain. Enjoy dinner
at their elegant John Ash & Co. restaurant just steps away from your
room. You will also be guests at the Ferrari-Carano Winery where
you’ll experience a private tour and exclusive private tasting at
the ultra premium "Prevail" tasting room.
Read more
5. BeautifulPlaces: Sonoma Valley
Tuscan Retreat
Escape to the wine country with fellow food and wine enthusiasts for
a 5 night/6 day wine country gourmand extravaganza created for you
by BeautifulPlaces, Vacation Homes of Distinction. Miraval is an
elegantly appointed 4 bedroom Tuscan retreat, perched high above the
heart of Sonoma Valley vineyards, complete with a pool, expansive
terraces, and a gourmet kitchen imported from England.
Read more
6. La Résidence Inn Napa Valley
Rekindle your romance at the luxurious La Résidence property in Napa
Valley. The elegant French-country barn rooms provide verandas with
views of the vineyards as well as fireplaces and private baths.
WineCountry.com provides an Exclusive Experience which includes a
romantic stay with La Résidence plus private access to HALL
Rutherford’s stunning hilltop winery with an intimate tour and
sommelier wine tasting for two.
Read more
7. Inn at the
Pinnacles: Monterey
Located in the Gabilan Mountains of Monterey County, Soledad,
California, the Inn at the Pinnacles offers luxury accommodations in
the peaceful, serene setting of beautiful Steinbeck Country. It is
nestled at the heart of a working vineyard, offering romantic views
from every direction. The Inn is just a short drive to Monterey
County's finest wineries, world-famous Carmel and Monterey Bay.
Read more
8. Poetry Inn:
Silverado Trail Napa Valley
The Poetry Inn is an extraordinary new sanctuary perched on a
hillside in the Stags Leap District offering staggering views of the
Napa Valley and a place to rest among the vines. Guests can live the
life of a Napa Valley vintner, if only for a night, enjoying a
massage in the open air, sipping sparkling wine on a private terrace
or just lounging by the pool. Each suite boasts wood-burning
fireplaces, soaking tubs and outdoor showers.
Read more
9. Santa Ynez
Valley Marriot
With tranquil views of the Santa Ynez Valley, the premium hotel is
surrounded by rolling hills dotted with horse, ostrich, and llama
ranches, ancient oaks, and thousands of acres of some of the world's
greatest vineyards. Every suite has been decorated and named by a
local vineyard and some boast Jacuzzi tubs and dining room areas. It
provides the perfect stay for a wine tasting weekend in this popular
Sideways setting.
Read more
10.
Farmhouse Inn: Russian River Valley
Located in the small town of Forestville, California in the stunning
Russian River Valley Region of Sonoma County's famed wine country,
Farmhouse represents the finest level of Sonoma Inns, Restaurants
and Spas - where sublime guestrooms, farm-fresh food and seasonal
body treatments come together in one unforgettable experience. Their
restaurant received the prestigious Michelin Star and rated by
Zagat’s at a top 3 Wine Country restaurant for Northern California.
Read more
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ECO-DILEMMA:
How green
is wine in a box?
Experts disagree on how much of a
Tetra Pak can really be recycled
May 28, 2008 04:30 AM Nancy J. White Living
Reporter
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/431834
While shoppers at Ontario's liquor
stores may soon be toting their own reusable bags, they still have
an eco-dilemma: is it greener to buy wine in a glass bottle or in a
Tetra Pak carton?
The latter, according to the Liquor
Control Board of Ontario, which introduced wine in the cartons –
generically known as aseptic containers – in 2005. It was part of
LCBO's environmental strategy, which includes yesterday's
announcement nixing plastic shopping bags when the current inventory
runs out.
The wine and coolers in aseptic
cartons are significantly lighter to ship, saving on greenhouse gas
emissions and take up less space in landfills, says Lyle Clarke,
LCBO manager of corporate policy and environmental initiatives.
Not so fast, counter
environmentalists, saying the Tetra Pak cartons are made with virgin
pulp, plastic and aluminum, and are difficult to recycle.
"To say Tetra Paks are recyclable is
to use a loose, broad definition of recycling," says Franz Hartmann,
executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance.
So Tetra Pak carton or glass bottle?
It's a loaded question, says Joanne St. Godard, executive director
of the Recycling Council of Ontario.
In terms of shipping and fuel
efficiency, especially over long distances, the lighter cartons are
more environmentally friendly. "End of life management is where it
has its struggles," she says.
In Ontario, the cartons have a
dismal blue box recovery rate, about 15 per cent.
That's because much of the packaging
is used for on-the-go items, such as juice boxes, which just get
dropped in the garbage, explains Jaan Koel, communications and
environment manager with Tetra Pak Canada Inc.
And about half of Ontario
municipalities don't include aseptic cartons in their blue box
programs.
In the LCBO's deposit and return
program, about 44 per cent of the liquor cartons are brought back,
he says.
Returned Tetra Pak cartons are sent
by container ship to mills in China and Korea.
(A Michigan mill recently closed,
and the Tetra Pak company is looking for recycling options in
Canada, says Koel.)
At the mill, about 65 to 70 per cent
of a carton is recycled, most of the paper fibre separated out and
reused in tissue products, such as napkins and paper towels.
About 30 to 35 per cent of a carton
is by-product, says Koel. That may end up in landfills or, in some
countries, incinerated for energy.
Some companies are starting to use
the residuals for plastic resin products, he adds.
"Environmentalists have been
critical of our recycling performance," says Koel. "We've taken it
to heart and are working hard to improve."
The best eco-solution, say
environmentalists, is a glass refillable bottle, such as those for
domestic beers.s
For the confused imbiber who wants
to be green, St. Godard has some advice: buy local brands. "If
you're looking for environmental impact, local will probably always
win out."
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Higher Wine
Prices Boost Drinking Pleasure
By Clare Baldwin
from UK Reuters, Jan 15 2008
STANFORD,
California (Reuters) - The more
wine costs, the more people enjoy it, regardless of how it
tastes, a study by California researchers has found.
Researchers at the Stanford Graduate
School of Business and the California Institute of Technology
found that because people expect wines that cost more to be of
higher quality, they trick themselves into believing the wines
provide a more pleasurable experience than less expensive ones.
Their study, published on Monday in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that
expectations of quality trigger activity in the medial
orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that registers
pleasure. This happens even though the part of our brain that
interprets taste is not affected.
While many studies have looked at how
marketing affects behaviour, this is the first to show that it
has a direct effect on the brain.
The researchers said that when 20 adult
test subjects sampled the same wine at different prices, they
reported experiencing pleasure at significantly greater levels
when told the wine cost more. At the same time, the part of the
brain responsible for pleasure showed significant activity.
"We have known for a long time that
people's perceptions are affected by marketing, but now we know
that the brain itself is modulated by price," said Baba Shiv, an
associate professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business,
and one of the authors of the study.
"Marketers are now going to think twice
about reducing the price," Shiv said.
According to the study, if an experience
is pleasurable, the brain will use it to help guide future
choices. That conclusion has important implications for
marketing that aims to influence perceptions of quality such as
expert ratings, peer reviews, information about country of
origin, store and brand names and repeated exposure to
advertisements.
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Eric
Walsh)
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Riedel Glassware - Getting Wine In
Sip Shape
Different Designs
Bring Out The Best In Different Varietals
Richard Carleton Hacker, Special to The San Francisco Chronicle,
Friday, October 20,
2006
In a pivotal scene near
the end of the cult wine movie "Sideways," actor Paul Giamatti
succumbs to the cloud of despair that has been hovering over him all
through the plot by drinking a cherished bottle of 1961 Chateau
Cheval Blanc from a Styrofoam cup. This is an especially poignant
moment, because Giamatti's character, a self-obsessed wine geek
named Miles, obviously knows better.
Indeed, just as all wines
are not created equal, all wineglasses are not the same. That's why
there are two glasses placed at the table settings of most fine
restaurants -- one for white wine and the other for red. And
depending on which wine you order, the other glass is taken away as
being inappropriate.
Clearly -- a word to be
taken literally -- the shape of a glass affects the taste of the
wine. As proof, try this experiment the next time you dine out. If
you are drinking red wine, have the waiter leave the white wineglass
on the table. (Don't let his befuddled look intimidate you.) Then,
when your wine is poured into the red wineglass, give it a swirl,
smell its bouquet and taste it, noting the aroma and flavor. Next,
pour some red wine into the white wineglass, give it another swirl
and taste it again. You will find that the bouquet is not as
pronounced and the flavors are slightly more muted than they were in
the red wineglass.
"The shape and size of the
glass definitely affects the taste of the wine," says Mark Bright,
sommelier at Michael Mina restaurant in
San Francisco.
"Different tannins, the acidity levels, whether a wine is fruit
forward or has more earthy tones -- all these characteristics can
either be accented or played down by the glass. And that's just in
an aromatic sense. As far as taste, the shape of the glass can
determine how the wine affects the palate. For example, a
tulip-shaped glass can place wine more to the front of the tongue
and downplay a Riesling's acidity. A more straight-lipped glass will
put the wine more to the center of the tongue, which is what you
want for most reds. At Michael Mina, we use Riedel glasses for white
wines, and Spiegelau for reds."
To be sure, no one has
explored and analyzed the wine-to-glass relationship more than
Riedel Crystal (which purchased Spiegelau in 2004), a glassmaking
dynasty that began in 1756 and celebrates its 250th anniversary this
year as the largest family-owned glassmaking company in the world.
It was Claus Riedel, ninth generation of the famous glassmaking
family, who came up with the concept of developing a glass
specifically for Burgundy Grand Cru in 1958. Its success led to his
creating an entire series of glasses in 1978, the mouth-blown, lead
crystal Sommelier Collection, which has since expanded to more than
40 different shapes, encompassing everything from Alsace to XO
Cognac.
Riedel's current
president, Claus' son Georg, broadened the company's line with
non-lead glasses in the 1980s. He also embarked upon a series of
worldwide seminars to demonstrate the family's philosophy that the
contents of a glass should determine the shape of the bowl.
The glass menagerie
Obviously, one of the
first questions that come to mind is, do we really need a different
glass for every spirit and wine? Or is this simply another way to
sell us more glasses? But it goes beyond that for those who wish to
further develop their palates and appreciation for wines. For
example, the soft spiciness of a Cabernet Franc might be lost in the
cavernous space of a
Bordeaux glass. On the other hand, a buttery, oaky Chardonnay could
become overwhelming in a smaller glass meant for Chablis.
"There are many important
factors when selecting the shape of a glass," says Maximilian
Riedel, Georg's son and CEO of Riedel Crystal USA. "The ideal shape
reveals all the aromas and taste components in a particular varietal;
it ... creates a balanced interaction between fruit, mineralogy and
acidity while de-emphasizing the evidence of alcohol.
"A Riedel Sauvignon Blanc
glass, for example, with its narrower bowl, lifts the typical aromas
of grass, apple, herbs and citrus, while keeping the acidity in
balance. When served in a much bigger, wider-bowled glass meant for
a heavier wine, the Sauvignon Blanc seems thin and acidic, as its
more subtle aromas cannot collect in such a large space. The proper
glass also affects how you hold your head when you drink and where
the wine is delivered on the palate."
As Georg and Maximilian
both point out, the tongue is comprised of four "flavor zones,"
which work in harmony with the shape of the glass. The tip of the
tongue senses sweetness, the sides are susceptible to acidity, the
center of the tongue picks up saltiness, and the back of the tongue
detects bitterness. These four elements play a varying part --
depending on the varietal of wine -- in how the taste of that wine
will be perceived. And as Claus Riedel discovered, the glass is the
final arbitrator.
"I'll admit I was a bit
skeptical at first," says Tom Mackey, director of winemaking for St.
Francis Winery in Santa Rosa, "but I did a blind tasting (with
different wines in different glasses) and could detect a difference.
Having said that, I think a lot of wineglass shapes are determined
by style and tradition. Bordeaux glasses are narrower than
Chardonnay or Pinot Noir glasses. It's interesting that Bordeaux
barrels are longer and narrower than Burgundy barrels. Don't ask me
why -- I'm not sure it affects the wine in the barrels, but I think
the shape of the glass can affect the taste of the wine. And size is
important. The bowl has to be big enough to aerate the wine. You
need room to swirl the wine to agitate and free up some of those
volatile aromas."
Origin of the stem
Interestingly, even though
wineglasses are often called "stemware," the stem affects taste the
least. Originally, the stem was created to observe the wine's color
by keeping the bowl elevated above the table, as well as to keep the
wine within the glass from being warmed by the hands that hold it.
By comparison, the traditional brandy snifter -- as well as Riedel's
bourbon and malt whiskey glasses -- have short, stubby stems so the
hand can cup the bowl, thus warming the spirit and accenting its
aromas. But stemmed glasses take up room, and are susceptible to
breakage. That, in part, was the inspiration behind Riedel's
stemless "O" glasses, which were invented by Maximilian.
"The O glass came about
because I was moving from a bigger house in
Long Island to a small apartment in
Hoboken, New Jersey," he
said, "and was faced with the typical
New York life. You deal with (the lack of) kitchen cabinet space, and
with the problem of getting home from work late and not willing to
wash glasses by hand, so you need something you can put in the
dishwasher. And again, due to space problems, you need glasses you
can stack in the cabinet. The O glasses without a stem can be
stacked on top of each other ... they use the exact same bowl (as
our regular wineglasses), but without a stem. So there is no
difference in the function (taste quality) of the glass, although
they look and feel different."
Inexpensively made
wineglasses often have "rolled" rims, which do not permit the mouth
and tongue to interact directly with the wine or spirit. Rather, the
liquid will hit the rim, which acts like a mini-dam and causes the
liquid to spill into the mouth without any direction onto the
tongue. That means you could have an otherwise perfectly shaped
glass, but if it has a rolled rim, it will defeat the purpose.
However, a machine that removes and polishes a rolled rim costs in
excess of $1 million -- which is why many companies making less
expensive glasses have opted not to include this all-important step.
But no matter what the
design or brand, all quality wineglasses are made using a basic
glassblowing process that has not dramatically changed in more than
2,000 years.
First, glowing, golden
grapefruit-size hollow globs of molten glass, heated to more than
2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, are dropped into molds. Then the glass
ball is gently inflated -- by a glassblower's breath for handmade
glasses or pneumatic pressure on machine-made versions -- so that
the liquid glass fills the mold, thereby forming the bowl. On the
more expensive mouth-blown glasses, the stem is then drawn out from
the molten bottom of the bowl, thus remaining a part of it, and is
fused with separate glob of molten glass that becomes the base of
the glass. On machine-made glasses, a separately molded stem and
base are fused onto the bowl.
Once the glass has cooled,
the "flow-over," an irregularly shaped bulbous cap attached to the
rim of the glass, is removed with lasers or a diamond cutter.
Machine-made glasses are then finished with mechanical grinders and
polishing compounds. Handcrafted glasses are fire-polished inside
and out with white-hot jets of flame. This produces a smoother, more
flowing contour on the finished product.
Detecting flaws
Whether made by
computer-regulated machinery or a talented artisan, every glass is
inspected by skilled workers virtually every step of the way.
Wearing white gloves, each inspector holds the glass in front of a
black-and-white vertically striped board, which enables the tiniest
ripple or bubble to be detected. If a flaw is found at any point,
the glass is smashed and put into a bin, to be remelted and molded
again. Once the finished product passes inspection, it is polished
in a mixture of hydrofluoric and sulfuric acids, or a polishing
wheel. Then each glass is washed and inspected again, before being
packed and shipped.
Aside from shape and
method of manufacture, the only other significant variable for a
wineglass is whether it is made of lead crystal or lead-free glass.
Lead crystal is glass that contains approximately 24 percent lead.
The California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of
1986, or Proposition 65, as it is more commonly known, requires the
state to publish an annual list of cancer-causing chemicals, and
lead is on this list. But the maximum allowable amount of lead for
tableware is 0.100 parts per million, and lead crystal wineglasses
are well under this amount.
"A bottle of wine contains
more lead oxide in the wine than what would leak out in a carafe,"
says Johann Georg Schonberger, assistant manager in charge of
environmental control for Nachtmann, a Riedel-owned glass factory in
Germany that manufactures lead crystal glasses for firms such as
Waterford, Villeroy & Boch and Alessi.
Lead adds strength
Although significantly
more expensive than non-lead glass, the addition of lead to the sand
(silica), potash, soda, and zinc oxide formula for glass results in
greater light reflection, which translates into brilliance that
showcases the color of the wine. Lead crystal also produces that
distinctive, elegant "ping" when tapped. By the same token, lead
strengthens the glass.
Lead crystal has no affect
upon the wine's taste, but the thickness of the glass does. It is
also a factor in the cost. Machine-made glasses, the least expensive
to manufacture, normally have the thickest bowls. Mouth-blown
glasses -- the most labor intensive and consequently, the most
expensive -- have the thinnest bowls. Thin-walled glasses enable you
to better "feel" the wine and impart a physical sense of elegance
that psychologically enhances the wine. Thicker wineglasses, on the
other hand, are less likely to break.
"We use Riedel Sommelier
glasses exclusively for tasting at the winery when we entertain wine
distributors and guests," says Austin Hope, president/winemaker of
Treana Winery in Paso Robles. "The thinness of the glass actually
makes it possible to taste all the different flavors in our wines;
it changes the wine dramatically. A thick-walled wineglass can make
the wine chunky and one dimensional, but thin wineglasses really
make a big difference for us. However, at home we've got stacks of
Riedel O glasses in our cabinets, because I always have problems
with breaking stems."
Quality relates to price
With wineglasses, as with
most things in life, you get what you pay for. It all depends on how
much you want to get out of your wine-drinking experience, and
whether the wine deserving of the glass you are pouring it into. For
example, if you buy bargain-priced wines for everyday drinking, it
is hard to justify a glass that costs substantially more than the
bottle. On the other hand, the proper glass can often make even a
mediocre wine taste better.
One solution is to
purchase an inexpensive set of machine-made, non-lead glasses in
"red wine" and "white wine" shapes for everyday use. But special
bottles reserved for special occasions deserve quality machine-made
or handmade lead crystal wineglasses. Obviously, the height of
hedonistic wine appreciation is to have a glass for every varietal,
but for most of us, this is neither cost effective nor practical.
The fact is, one can get
by with just a large-bowled, 20-plus-ounce Bordeaux glass for most
reds (to aerate and open up the heavier berry and tannin nuances),
and a smaller, narrower-bowled Chablis glass that holds a minimum of
11 ounces to concentrate the lighter, more floral aspects of white
wines. But whichever glass or glasses you select, get the best you
can afford.
Just don't emulate the
"Sideways" character portrayed by Paul Giamatti. The only good thing
about drinking wine from a Styrofoam cup is that it won't break if
you drop it.
Wineglass tips
Never fill a wineglass
more than halfway, to leave room for swirling the wine without
spilling it, and to capture the wine's bouquet in the top portion of
the glass. This does not apply to sparkling wine, which should never
be swirled, lest it go flat.
Wash wineglasses the
morning after, when you're not tired and less likely to crack the
glass against the sink or snap a chunk off of the bowl while drying
it (especially common with thin-walled glasses).
Always wash wineglasses in
hot water and dry them with a lint-free towel, to eliminate residual
odors that could taint the bouquet of your next pour.
Never use soap to clean
lead crystal wineglasses. The lead crystal has microscopic pores
that can trap soap residue.
- Richard Carleton Hacker
Richard Carleton Hacker is
a freelance wine and spirits writer. E-mail him at
wine@sfchronicle.com.
<back to top>
Hitting the Bottle With Style: Wine Labels Dress Up
Winemakers Try Outlandish Names
and Bold Labels to Break Out of a Crowded
Market
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ ABC NEWS Business Unit ,
Sept. 11, 2007
Next time you are in a liquor store looking for a nice bottle of
chardonnay, or maybe a merlot, think about what drives your
selection.
Is it price? Is it name recognition? Or, is it the pretty picture on the
label?
More and more winemakers are counting that it is the label.
Wines in recent years have taken on new and creative names and funky
labels as a way to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace.
"That's the whole idea," said Katy Leese, a spokeswoman and partner in
Red Truck, a California wine producer.
Red Truck, which started in 2002, took a very simple approach to
marketing: a painting of a big red truck on their bottles.
The winery founders bought a painting of a 1947 Dodge truck, set against
a typical Sonoma landscape, at
an auction, and thought it would make the perfect wine label.
"It was to have something that was a little bit more kind of fun," Leese
said. "The whole brand is about fun. One of our mottos is that we
take making great wine seriously, but we don't take ourselves too
seriously."
Like many other wines that use bold labels, Red Truck hopes to draw in
new customers with its design, and then win them over as repeat
buyers with their taste. Also, with a name like Red Truck, customers
are more likely to remember the winery next time they hit a liquor
store.
The strategy worked, and Red Truck now also has White Truck and Pink
Truck wines.
Don't like trucks? Well, then, consider a bottle of cabernet sauvignon
with Marilyn Monroe on the label.
Marilyn Wines, part of Nova Wines, Inc. of
St. Helena, Calif., holds an exclusive
agreement with the estate of Marilyn Monroe for the use of the name
and the images. The vineyard started production in 1987 of Marilyn
Merlot, and has since expanded its line to include other
Marilyn-themed wines. For instance, there is Norma Jeane A Young
Merlot.
"We do try to make sure that at typical browsing range — the range
between the browser and the wine on the shelf — that our label is
very noticeable. So, Marilyn is prominent, and we always hope, is
eye-catching," said Bob Holder, president of Nova Wines.
Holder said that, even with great packaging, you still need a good
product that is at least equal — and, hopefully, better — than the
competition. Without good wine, there won't be repeat consumers or
recommendations from wine store owners.
Still, packaging helps.
"Not everybody who sees it is going to buy it. Some people are going to
think it's silly, obnoxious, or even worse," Holder said. "But,
apparently, enough people are attracted by it, by the cleverness of
it ... or because they are Marilyn fanatics, who will buy it just
because it has the picture on it."
So, why are there so many unusual, offbeat labels and names now?
Peter F. May, author of "Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape: Odd Wines
from Around the World," said, in an e-mail, it is a mix of reasons.
Part of it is that such names are distinctive and easy to remember. Also,
many names have already been taken. Just think how many wines use
hill, ridge or river, already.
May said wineries have also taken note of the success of others,
especially Fat Bastard, which features a hippopotamus on the label.
"People were coming into wine shops and asking for the wine with the
hippo," said May. Fat Bastard is the biggest-selling French
chardonnay in America, and
Goats do Roam, the largest-selling South African wine in the U.S.
May added that many well-established wine producers are following the
trend, and jazzing up their labels. "Change or die," he said.
Even France, known for its long wine
tradition and strict rules, has loosened its standards in the last
year.
French wines have always been known by their region. But, that has
changed with some wine producers who now blend various regional
wines and sell them under a catch-all "France"
label. Some of the labels are splashier, and are aimed at making
French wines more competitive on liquor store shelves.
The change occurred because French wines were losing market share to
wines from Argentina, Chile,
New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere.
Take Fat Bastard, a wine from the south of
France. It does not exactly have the
most traditional French name for a wine.
But, its catering to American marketing goes beyond the brand name. One
of its red wines is called Shiraz, even though the French
typically call the same wine Syrah. Shiraz is more commonly used in
wines from Australia and South America — wines that have flooded the
American marketplace.
Having a name like Fat Bastard also helps. The company says, on its Web
site, that, at first, "most people bought a bottle because of the
name and returned to buy cases because of the quality."
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/popup?id=3580913
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=3580526&page=1
<back to top>
7 Ways of Handling Your Hangover
Tips for avoiding the worst consequence of holiday overindulgence.
From Harvard Health Publications
Hangovers seem to be the body’s way of reminding us about the
hazards of overindulgence. Physiologically, it’s a group effort:
Diarrhea, fatigue, headache, nausea, and shaking are the classic
symptoms. Sometimes, systolic (the upper number) blood pressure goes
up, the heart beats faster than normal, and sweat glands overproduce
— evidence that the “fight or flight” response is revved up. Some
people become sensitive to light or sound. Others suffer a spinning
sensation (vertigo).
The causes are as varied as the symptoms.
Alcohol is metabolized into acetaldehyde, a substance that’s toxic
at high levels, although concentrations rarely get that high, so
that’s not the complete explanation.
Drinking interferes with brain activity during
sleep, so a hangover may be a form of sleep deprivation. Alcohol
scrambles the hormones that regulate our biological clocks, which
may be why a hangover can feel like jet lag, and vice versa. Alcohol
can also trigger migraines, so some people may think they’re hung
over when it’s really an alcohol-induced migraine they’re suffering.
Hangovers begin after blood alcohol levels
start to fall. In fact, according to some experts, the worst
symptoms occur when levels reach zero.
The key ingredient seems to be “drinking to
intoxication”; how much you drank to get there is less important. In
fact, several studies suggest that light and moderate drinkers are
more vulnerable to getting a hangover than heavy drinkers. Yet
there’s also seemingly contradictory research showing that people
with a family history of alcoholism have worse hangovers.
Researchers say some people may end up with drinking problems
because they drink in an effort to relieve hangover symptoms.
Dr. Robert Swift, a researcher at the
Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Rhode Island,
coauthored one of the few review papers on hangovers in 1998. It’s
still one of the most frequently cited sources on the topic. The
rundown on hangover remedies that follows is based on that review,
an interview with Dr. Swift, and several other sources.
Hair of the dog.
Drinking to ease the symptoms of a hangover is sometimes called
taking the hair of the dog, or hair of the dog that bit you. The
notion is that hangovers are a form of alcohol withdrawal, so a
drink or two will ease the withdrawal.
There may be something to it, says Dr. Swift.
Both alcohol and short-acting sedatives, such as benzodiazepines
like diazepam (Valium), interact with GABA receptors on brain cells,
he explained, and it’s well documented that some people have
withdrawal symptoms from short-acting sedatives as they wear off.
Perhaps the brain reacts similarly as blood alcohol levels begin to
drop.
Even so, Dr. Swift advises against using
alcohol as a hangover remedy. “The hair of the dog just perpetuates
a cycle,” he says. “It doesn’t allow you to recover.”
Drink fluids.
Alcohol promotes urination because it inhibits the release of
vasopressin, a hormone that decreases the volume of urine made by
the kidneys. If your hangover includes diarrhea, sweating, or
vomiting, you may be even more dehydrated. Although nausea can make
it difficult to get anything down, even just a few sips of water
might help your hangover.
Get some carbohydrates into your system.
Drinking may lower blood sugar levels, so theoretically some of the
fatigue and headaches of a hangover may be from a brain working
without enough of its main fuel. Moreover, many people forget to eat
when they drink, further lowering their blood sugar. Toast and juice
is a way to gently nudge levels back to normal.
Avoid darker-colored alcoholic beverages.
Experiments have shown that clear liquors, such as vodka and gin,
tend to cause hangovers less frequently than dark ones, such as
whiskey, red wine, and tequila. The main form of alcohol in
alcoholic beverages is ethanol, but the darker liquors contain
chemically related compounds (congeners), including methanol.
According to Dr. Swift’s review paper, the same enzymes process
ethanol and methanol, but methanol metabolites are especially toxic,
so they may cause a worse hangover.
Take a pain reliever, but not Tylenol.
Aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin, other brands), and other nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may help with the headache and the
overall achy feelings. NSAIDs, though, may irritate a stomach
already irritated by alcohol. Don’t take acetaminophen (Tylenol). If
alcohol is lingering in your system, it may accentuate
acetaminophen’s toxic effects on the liver.
Drink coffee or tea.
Caffeine may not have any special anti-hangover powers, but as a
stimulant, it could help with the grogginess. Coffee is a diuretic,
though, so it may exacerbate dehydration.
Vitamin B6.
A
study published over 30 years ago found that people had fewer
hangover symptoms if they took a total of 1,200 milligrams of
vitamin B6 before, during, and just after drinking to get drunk. But
it was a small study and doesn’t seem to have been replicated.
Artichoke extract.
Supplement makers have promoted artichoke extract for a variety of
ills, including hangovers, because it supposedly has beneficial
effects on the liver. But a small study published in the
Canadian Medical Association Journal
in 2004 concluded that it isn’t effective for hangovers.
<back to top>
10 Things Your Bartender Won't Tell You
By SmartMoney
Bartenders may have a
knack for telling jokes, but there may be a few things they’re
keeping mum about.
1. "It's my world;
you're just drinking in it."
Back
in the day, bartending was all about consistency and service. From
the humblest watering hole to the fanciest hotel bar, bartenders
knew how to mix a repertoire of classic cocktails just right every
time, and the customer came first. Today, not so much. Ray Foley,
author of Bartending for Dummies, says a growing number of the
500,000 working barkeeps in the U.S. are following the lead of
celebrity chefs, hoping to make their mark with their own signature
drinks. Sure, that means an explosion of creative cocktails dressed
with such exotica as cucumber shavings or lavender foam. But good
luck if you're in the mood for an old standard such as a sidecar.
The upshot? A lack of consistency, for one, says Tony Abou-Ganim,
who created the Bellagio's cocktail program in Las Vegas. "I can go
to the same bar, order the same thing from three different
bartenders—and get three different drinks," he says. Even worse is
customer service. Some bartenders have flipped the old equation,
Foley says, putting 30% into pleasing customers and 70 into
showcasing their personality: "The prime thing we're losing in the
bar business right now is service for the customer."
2.
"Your top-shelf pretensions are money in my pocket."
From
wild-berry-infused vodka to the latest in Herradura tequila, liquor
companies continue introducing high-end spirits as the consumer
thirst for luxury goods trickles down to beverages. Last year sales
of the most expensive brands of vodka, rum, tequila and scotch rose
18%, while those of the cheapest grew by less than 1%, according to
the Distilled Spirits Council. But Tony Abou-Ganim warns, "A higher
price doesn't always mean better quality." He notes, for example,
that many bars now use lime-flavored powder in their cocktails,
which can dilute subtler notes in an expensive spirit.
Another concern: scams involving "short pouring" and brand
substitution that have ridden the luxury-spirits wave, according to
Robert Plotkin, a beverage-management consultant. Say you order two
premium cocktails. The bartender might pour only half a shot of
alcohol into each — but he'll charge you for two, ring up just one
and pocket the difference. Or you might be charged for a premium
Cadenhead's rum that's actually a basic Bacardi. Your best defense:
Sit at the bar, where you can see your drinks being made.
3.
"Tabs are for suckers."
While
visiting New York City two summers ago, Chris Romanowski started a
tab at ESPN Zone for his family and friends. But once the air hockey
ended and they paid the bill, they saw they'd been charged for 21
drinks despite having ordered only 13. Romanowski contested the
charges and eventually got his money back. (Susan Abramson, regional
marketing manager for ESPN Zone, says the Times Square establishment
is under new management and that "we try to make sure [our guests]
are satisfied at all times.")
"My advice would be to not run a tab," says Plotkin, who after 20
years behind the bar notes, "it's really easy to inflate tabs." For
example, a bartender might give a buddy a free bottle of Heineken,
then bury the charge in your bill, especially if you're with friends
and not keeping track of who's ordered what. One of the most common
ploys, according to Elizabeth Godsmark, author of "Controlling
Liquor, Wine and Beverage Costs," involves billing you for a round
without breaking it down into separate charges. If you'd still
rather run a tab than pay for drinks one at a time, be sure to get a
receipt that specifies the number and cost of each drink.
4.
"It's all about the bottom line—down to our choice of glassware."
Between 20% and 30% of booze served in a bar never gets paid for,
due in large part to bartenders' overpouring their spirits. But
management is cracking down and working every angle to curb this
practice. In 2005, for instance, a study published in the British
Medical Journal found that when bartenders were asked to free-pour a
shot of liquor, they dumped an average 20% more into a short, wide
tumbler than into a tall highball glass—even though they knew each
held 12 ounces. And these weren't amateurs; they had, on average,
nearly six years of experience. According to Brian Wansink, the
Cornell University professor behind the study, bartenders are
subject to an optical illusion that makes them gauge volume based
more on the height of a glass than on width.
The industry jumped on the data: Immediately after the study was
released, many bar owners and industry publications began advising
managers to choose taller barware to save money while giving guests
the impression they were getting more. So next time you want a
stiffer drink at no extra cost, ignore what your eyes tell you and
insist on a short glass.
5.
"Fast service doesn't necessarily mean good service."
Much the way fast-food places use the three-minute rule, some bars
now require that drinks be mixed, poured and at the table within a
certain time frame. And while you might enjoy faster service that
way, it doesn't guarantee great-tasting drinks. In fact, it could
mean the opposite. Clear cocktails, like the classic martini, should
always be stirred carefully to achieve the right level of chill,
says cocktail specialist Ted Haigh. But "bartenders are under
pressure to make things faster," which is why "shaking has become
ubiquitous."
Some drinks take so long to make that bartenders try to deter
customers from ordering them. When Heather Leonard, a former
bartender from New York City, used to muddle lime juice, mint and
sugar for a mojito, she'd often hide it below the counter. "Once
everyone sees you're making a mojito, they want one," she says. "And
after 30 minutes you're four customers deep." The emphasis on speed
can also lead to carelessness. In a rush, bartenders sometimes skip
the tongs and jam barware into the ice machine — risking broken
glass in your drink. So when a bar seems busy, you might want to
order your liquor neat.
6. "This bar is
filthy."
Most
bars offer dim lighting for atmosphere—but it can also hide a lot of
hazards. Slippery floors, sticky countertops and lemon wedges strewn
about the floor are among the most common problems undercover
investigators find in bars, according to Gwen Lennox, CEO of Keeping
Tabs, which conducts independent evaluations for bar owners.
Nightclubs frequented by twentysomethings tend to be the worst, she
says, but it's not always easy to spot problems, such as open
bottles of alcohol that haven't been cleaned or covered between
shifts, thus encouraging the buildup of dust and germs.
Bars and taverns are just as susceptible to spreading food-borne
illnesses as restaurants, warns Dean Peterson, director of
environmental health for San Mateo County in California. Indeed,
health-inspection reports for establishments connected to a bar cite
all sorts of violations, ranging from dirty floors to lip-stained
tumblers. One North Carolina inspector even found black-slime mold
in an ice machine—though it might not make you sick, it "would be
kind of repulsive to have in your drink," says Frances Breedlove,
food sanitation section chief for Wake County.
7.
"Restaurants are a terrible place to get a good drink."
Restaurants are a tough business. The majority of new establishments
close their doors within the first three years, and only 30% last 10
years. One way to up the chance of turning a profit and running a
successful restaurant is to secure a liquor license as soon as
possible, since owners can expect to earn up to 40% of their profit
from liquor. To further milk every drop of their drink sales,
restaurants are micromanaging and automating their bartending
wherever possible. By using so-called liquor-control systems, all a
bartender needs to do is push a button to fill up, say, a pitcher of
beer, thus saving time and controlling the pour to the letter; it
even allows workers to serve another customer while the machine
pours the next drink.
In a climate like this, "anyone can pretty much bartend," says Tara
Clark, general manager of a restaurant and bar located just outside
Atlanta, as long as they have a friendly personality. "If people
don't get a great martini, as long as you can hold a great
conversation, they'll forget about the drink," she says.
8. "I don't know
diddly about wine."
You'd
think a bar would be the perfect place to order a crisp chardonnay.
Think again. Experts say bars tend to minimize their wine offerings
because the bulk of their sales come from spirits or beer. Some bar
managers and their staff know so little about wine that they leave
it up to distributors to develop their menu, even though these
salespeople might get rewarded with free trips or other incentives
to push certain brands, says Ty Wenzel, author of "Behind Bars: The
Straight-Up Tales of a Big-City Bartender." That's why it's not
uncommon for bars to limit their list to a single red and a single
white offering. In fact, Wenzel says one trick she used to clear out
old stock at her own bar was to pass off the house wine—a cheap
cabernet—as a more exotic shiraz or syrah. "I couldn't believe they
couldn't tell the difference," she says.
One way around the issue is to ask your bartender to show you the
bottle and pour the wine in front of you. Also, keep in mind that if
bottles are stored near a hot kitchen or displayed on a shelf where
natural light can strike them all day, their contents can oxidize or
begin to spoil, rendering even a decent wine undrinkable.
9.
"Your drink costs whatever I say it costs."
When
Alexandria Steppe wants a Corona from one of her favorite clubs in
Asbury Park, N.J., she doesn't always know how much it's going to
cost: During a recent visit, her beer was $4 when her boyfriend
ordered it, then $6 when Steppe ordered one from the very same
bartender later that night. What's more, there are three different
bars in the club, and she's discovered that the bartenders in the
back charge less for drinks than those who work closer to the front
of the house. "I don't think it's fair, but there isn't much I can
do about it," Steppe says.
While it's not uncommon for bars to feature certain specials like
"ladies drink free," many bartenders will go one step further,
charging different rates to different people, particularly if a
patron appears drunk. "What it usually means is that the bartenders
are playing fast and loose, and they're probably not putting all of
the money into the register," says Lennox. The best way to avoid
getting overcharged is simple: Ask for a receipt, and let the
manager know if you note a discrepancy.
10.
"Unless you're using a walker, expect to be carded."
There's little logic when it comes to getting your I.D. checked
these days. Some bartenders seem to have no qualms letting underage
drinkers run rampant, while others wait to see what a person orders
before they ask for identification. A toasted-almond cocktail, for
example, is often popular among teens, while folks who order a
scotch on the rocks are typically assumed to be of drinking age.
Then there are the places with tougher rules, where no one who
appears under the age of 40 is allowed a drink until they've flashed
their license. So no matter how old you are, or appear to be, carry
your card at all times.
Even so, policing has become so strict at some places that even a
valid I.D. isn't good enough. While waiting for a pool table to open
up at a Dave & Buster's in Arcadia, Calif., last year, 29-year-old
Jason Flores ordered a few rounds of vodka tonics with his friends.
Once a table opened up and the optometrist started carrying his
drink toward it, he was stopped and accused of having a fake I.D.
Flores spent nearly half an hour trying to convince the management
otherwise—going so far as offering to have the police come over and
authenticate his I.D. In the end, the group was given permission to
stay at the pool table, though no one was allowed to order or drink
any more alcohol. Flores says this was after they had already paid
for their drinks and tipped the bartender. Manager Steve White says
he doesn't recall the situation, but notes that the bar hews close
to the letter of the law, "which is extremely strict" when it comes
to checking I.D. Cards can be considered suspect if they are cracked
or torn or if the laminate has been peeled back.
<back to top>
Americans Now Prefer
Wine To Beer
Sales are flat. Wine is ascendant. How did
this happen?arm beer led to killing, police say
By Field Maloney,
Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007, at 6:19 PM ET
Last year, a grainy
video appeared on YouTube. In the clip, three
scraggly-looking men in a scraggly yard shoot full cans of
Milwaukee's Best Light beer out of a homemade cannon. They shoot at
a bottle of what they call "fancy-pants wine," which they've placed
at the bull's-eye of a giant white target. On their first shot, they
miss. The second shot sends green glass and red wine flying, in the
kind of glorious mess that would please Jackson Pollock. The men
hoot.
As it happens, the
video was made by a beer company—SABMiller, which owns Milwaukee's
Best—and while it plays class warfare for laughs, it also represents
the ultimate fantasy of American beer executives, who have been
jittery for years. For one thing, wine consumption in this country
has nearly doubled in the last decade, while beer sales have been
pretty much stagnant, growing less than 1 percent since 2000. Even
more galling, in 2005 a Gallup poll revealed that, for the first
time ever,
Americans preferred wine to beer. This was an astonishing
development, akin to Americans jilting baseball for bocce.
Soon after, Lew
Bryson, a columnist for a beer-industry trade magazine called
Cheers,
lamented that beer had "lost its way." Bryson summed up beer's
predicament: "Wine overcame beer's lead in the hearts and minds of
American drinkers," he wrote. "Forty years ago, wine was mired in a
swamp of low-margin jug sales. Drunks were called 'winos.' Now wine
has cleaned itself up, with a freshly shaved face and a fashionable
suit of casual clothes, and is headed uptown."
How, exactly, did
wine become so dominant? The shape of American aspiration—our sense
of connoisseurship and the good life, the character of our
nostalgias, even the thirst imperatives of a nation of office clerks
rather than line workers—has changed radically over the last few
decades in ways that have helped wine and hurt beer.
Of course, the rise
of the American fine-wine industry has spurred the broader
acceptance of wine here. But who'd have guessed wine would join beer
at the football game? Watching last winter's Giants-Eagles NFL
playoff, I saw an ad for a cell-phone plan featuring a graying,
rugged-looking man strolling through his vineyard and examining
dusty bottles of older vintages in his cellar. Winning over football
fans with wine! It was as if the "But of course!" Grey Poupon man of
the '80s TV ads had become an unironic icon for the WWE. Somehow,
wine had become manly.
Part of beer's
populist appeal—and its edge in the beer vs. wine war—has always
been its absence of cant about its main point: to provide a little
(or a lot of) happy intoxication. You can appreciate wine, but you
drink beer, the saying goes. Wine's cult of connoisseurship has
always had a specious edge. Like the Victorian obsession with the
"grace" of the nude female form, the high-flown language and
ceremony of wine-drinking can seem like a fig leaf of sorts, a cover
for fancy-pantses who like to get buzzed.
Wine connoisseurship
became more palatable to Americans, though, when wine talk changed.
As Sean Shesgreen
pointed out in the
Chronicle of Higher Education
(subscription
required), the old vocabulary of wine, passed down to us from the
English squirearchy, graded wines in class terms, privileging
pedigree and refinement. The ultimate parody of
this kind of wine talk is James Thurber's cartoon line: "It's a
naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be
amused by its presumption."*
The new wine grammar, popularized foremost by the American critic
Robert Parker, sounds like a really weird grocery list, privileging
flavor over domain:
notes of
blackcurrant, eucalyptus, tobacco.
As annoying as this new pastoral language of wine can be, it's
certainly more democratic-sounding, less forbidding. It trades one
set of referents that Americans view suspiciously and uneasily—class—for
another that, even when we haven't the foggiest notion of what it
signifies (Chokecherry, anyone? Lychee?), sure sounds nice.
Call it the consumer pastoral.
Meanwhile, the
American middle classes have fast become connoisseurs of
everything—coffee, '80s Japanese garage-rock bands, environmentalist
toilet paper. Now, Americans who want the exclusivity that
connoisseurship offers but didn't want to seem like snobs can have
it both ways. Beer's approachability became less of a virtue.
Ironically, in the ultimate about-face, craft-brew drinkers lifted
the language of wine. (Tasting notes for a pale ale from the Web
site BeerAdvocate: "Nose is floral, like orange blossoms, with some
citric rind and soft apple.")
At the same time,
Americans, who had traditionally looked to a French and upper-class
English model of the good life, one that emphasized refinement and
formality, began in the 1980s to look farther south, to the
Mediterranean, and particularly to an Italian ideal of good living,
one that emphasized passion, spontaneity, and bounty; in other
words, we went from Julia Child to Mario Batali. This American
embrace of the Mediterranean spirit loosened things up—and the
foodie tent got immeasurably bigger when food culture became better
suited to the American temperament. Our fundamental attitude about
the ceremony of food and the pleasures of the table changed: What
counted was passion, which anyone can have, not refinement, which
you must be born into, or cultivate very deliberately.
Wine had a prominent
place at this new Mediterranean table—it was now part of a
"lifestyle," while beer remained just a drink. The power of these
linguistic associations can be measured: A Google search of
beer
and
passion
yields 1.48 million entries, while
wine
and
passion
yields four times that; a search of
beer
and
lifestyle
yields 1.6 million entries;
wine
and
lifestyle
turns up 13 million. The explosion of
lifestyle
in America is such a recent phenomenon, in fact, that my 1987
Compact
Oxford English Dictionary
doesn't even have an entry for the word. But marketers know what it
means: intangible values attached to material goods. Or: serious
bank. Beer executives are in the process of trying to limit their
product's associations with certain lifestyles—"frat-boy animal
house," for example, or "devotees of the brown bag Bud
lunch"—without alienating those core audiences; beer marketers seem
torn between broadening their appeal and energizing their base. But
brand repositioning has to be at least somewhat convincing: In 2005,
Anheuser-Busch released a malt liquor called Bistro 8, a "new
fermented beverage created in collaboration with Master Chefs to
complement Bistro Fare. Bistro 8 features the aromas of exotic
fruits, spices and citrus. … " Bud executives pulled it.
Wine marketers have
it comparatively easy. They merely summon a picture of a bucolic
vineyard or people raising their glasses around a table full of
food—they don't have to
sell
their selling
points. This is why brewers have been frantically pushing
beer-and-food pairings lately. Beer—which can be great with food, by
the way—is in danger of being left out of the American mealtime,
banished to the den (only when pro sports are on) or to the back
porch (only for the early rounds of grilling).
The boom in foodie
connoisseurship in this country has dovetailed with the rise of
pastoral chic. Both trends work in wine's favor. Wine, even when
it's made at oil-refinery volume, can trade on pastoral
associations; beer seems somewhat industrial, no matter how
handcrafted the brew. This is a serious handicap.
Cheers
columnist Lew Bryson, in his beery lament, acknowledges as much when
he calls for "a change in beer's culture: Scotch whisky people don't
talk about 'moving units' of 'the liquid'; they talk about 'selling
cases of whisky.' "
But it's more than a
question of switching terminology. Wine is basically an agricultural
product (fermented grapes), while beer is the result of a
complicated process of manufacture (boiling barley to extract
sugars, adding hops and yeast, fermenting the wort that results).
This holds true whether the brewer is a medieval English villager or
Anheuser-Busch. The hallmark of beer is consistency: A brewer
strives to make batch after batch of Pilsener so it tastes the
same—and often succeeds without much difficulty. Wine is more
variable: The sugar levels and tannins and acidity of the grapes
fluctuate from year to year, and so does the character of the
resulting wines. This explains why the whole concept of vintages is
so central to wine but largely absent from beer.
In fact, you can
trace the United States' shift from an agrarian society to an urban,
industrial one through beer. In the Colonial era, settlers drank
mostly hard cider (the rural drink of choice), rum, and whiskey. It
wasn't until the mid-19th century, when German immigrants
came over in large numbers to man the new factories and brought
their brewing skills with them, that beer really took off. When beer
became more popular than cider around the time of the Civil War, it
signaled an altered American landscape as much as altered tastes.
Mass-market beer arose out of two key innovations of the industrial
revolution: refrigeration and pasteurization. Suddenly, beer could
travel long distances, and lager slowly took over countryside as
well as town.
But in America today,
beer has lost its grip. In a column on brown ales, Eric Asimov, the
drinks writer for the
New York Times,
wrote a line that could serve as a beer elegy: "Mild
brown ales, the knock-back drink of thirsty coal miners and dock
workers, are not so appealing to post-industrial office workers, who
are less thirsty and more aspirational."
But who knows?
Pastoral nostalgia fueled the wine boom—after all, we long ago
became a mostly urban and suburban nation. Maybe industrial
nostalgia will be next, now that our factories are gone.
Cubicle-dwellers, raise your pints!
<back to top>
Common Alcohol Myths
Revealed
By:
Sean Cash
Do You think you
know everything about Alcohol? Well, here are the facts behind
some common misconceptions about alcohol.
1.
Champagne bubbles
make you more drunk.
TRUE. Champagne
bubbles open your pyloric valve through your intestines and move
the alcohol into your bloodstream quicker. The carbon dioxide in
the bubbles helps alcohol flow through the body at an accelerated
pace. This in turn helps you get intoxicated much quicker.
2. You lost
inhibition after a few
drinks.
TRUE. Alcohol
relaxes your blood vessels. Alcohol also can dilate your blood
vessels.
3.
Wine is the only good
drink for the heart.
FALSE. While
wine is known to relax the heart and help lower
cholesterol levels,
it has also been proven that
beer helps reduce the
risk of cardiovascular disease. Three glasses of beer a day reduce
the risk of heart disease by 25 percent.
4. Beer gives
"Beer Bellies".
FALSE. There is
no fat in beer. Beer is even 93 percent water. There is no
evidence that beer consumption promotes a belly more than any
other source of calories. Beer bellies are caused by high levels
of body fat, not high
alcohol consumption.
5. Beer makes
you dehydrated.
TRUE. Beer
causes you to become bloated, thus not giving you enough room to
stay hydrated. Beer also causes you to urinate more, thus becoming
more dehydrated.
6. Alcohol kills
brain cells.
FALSE. Alcohol
only damages the neurons. The body can repair neurons but not back
to their natural state. Studies have shown that alcohol
consumption can even help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
7. Alcohol
ages.
TRUE. Alcohol
dehydrates your skin, which causes wrinkles. While the alcohol is
in your body it’ll stimulate water retention, however line
formation can come from the absence of that water.
8. Mixing drinks
makes you drunk faster.
FALSE. The blood
alcohol content of drinks makes you drunk, not how many. So you
may mix whatever drinks you like, the alcohol content will get you
drunk not how much fluid there is.
9. The more you
drink, the greater your tolerance.
TRUE. The more
your liver is exposed to alcohol, the harder it works against it.
Your liver can be damaged by alcohol, thus reducing it’s ability
to breakdown alcohol before it enters your bloodstream.
10. Alcohol only
helps your heart.
FALSE. Alcohol
also strengthens your bones and prevents against osteoporosis,
gallstones, ulcers, kidney stones, cancer, and diabetes. Alcohol
also can helps reduce stress in most cases.
Article
Source:
http://www.articlewheel.com
<back to top>
Is Drinking Red
Wine Really Good For You?
Submitted By:
Gregg
Hall
Many of us have heard the claim that drinking
red wine can actually be healthy, but how much is healthy? This claim
first came to light a decade or so ago when a prominent doctor
espoused the use of red wine to reduce heart disease giving the
example of the low incidence of heart disease in people in France even
though they eat very high fat diets but drink red wine with many
meals.
First let’s look at what is at the root of hear disease in the first
place. The disease is created by cholesterol building up in the
arteries. This cholesterol comes from two places, our diet and from
our own bodies. Some people have a natural predisposition to creating
more cholesterol than others. When the arteries experience this
blockage the heart is robbed of needed oxygen and can be damaged.
So how do red wines help with this problem? Well, according to many
medical studies it has been shown that a moderate intake of no more
than two glasses of red wine a day can actually reduce the risk of a
heart attack by as much as fifty percent. The studies also indicated
that he consumption of moderate amounts of the beverage can even help
to circumvent future heart attacks even after you have already had
one.
To understand how wine helps in this area it is necessary to know the
difference in types of cholesterol. Low density lipo-protein the
so-called “bad” cholesterol or LDL for short is the one that blocks
arteries and causes us all the problems. The presence of high density
lipo-proteins or HDL cleans the bad out and reduces the instances of
blockage. The way red wine helps in this area is by increasing the HDL
and creating more of a balance as well as having a blood thinning
effect similar to the intake of aspirin.
It has been known for quite some time in the nutritional community
that wine is rich in vitamins and minerals as well as in natural
sugars that have been shown to be of importance in maintaining good
health. Wine is also high in potassium which has been shown to be good
for the heart as well as being rich in Vitamin B. The main reason that
red wines have more of these nutrients than other wines is due to the
process of making red wine which requires the grape juice to remain in
contact with the skins of the grapes longer which is where the
majority of the nutrients are.
Wine is also known to have a calming effect on the body when taken in
moderation and can aid in sleeping which is also beneficial to overall
health.
Submit
Articles: http://www.articleblotter.com
Gregg Hall is a consultant for online and offline
businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. Find out about
personalized wine bottles at
www.winebottlespersonalized.com
<back to top>
Drink Wine, Help Dogs
November 19, 2007
(Hound
Around Weblog:
http://houndaround.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/drink-wine-help-dogs/)
Toast to the Dogs!
America’s love affair with pets is stronger than ever before. In
fact, pet spending in the U.S. is expected to surpass $40 billion
this year. So, when Ileen Kaufman of Boca Raton, Florida wanted a
one-of-a-kind way to celebrate the “woman’s best friend” in her
life, she surprised her family and friends with a very special wine.
It’s a “tail” unlike any other.
Kaufman
contacted Dog Lovers Wine Club and “Molly’s Merlot” was created. The
custom wine labels, featuring the family’s 9-year-old Boxer, were
beautifully illustrated from an original photograph of Molly.
Kaufman marked the arrival of the bottles by throwing an intimate
dinner party, featuring “Molly’s Merlot” as the main attraction.
“You buy the wine for a dual purpose,” says Kaufman. “I love wine
and I support animals.”
Dog Lovers Wine
Club is a boutique winery, based in California, that supports The
Humane Society of the United States.
The Dog Lovers Wine
Club mission is to blend wine with philanthropy. “It’s a win-win
situation for everybody,” adds Kaufman. “To be honest, we didn’t
know what to expect with the wine. But, it actually surpassed our
expectations. Every single dinner guest loved it.”
Aside from offering
custom wine labels and beautiful art images, Dog Lovers Wine Club
has a very special and unique wine club with monthly, bi-monthly or
quarterly premium wine shipments sent to club members. The wine club
shipments are accompanied by inspirational stories of families and
their life with dogs. Each month the wine club labels are
illustrated from select photos received from dog lovers around the
country. There are even tips about life with dogs, tasting notes
about the featured wine, the source of the grapes and recommended
food pairings.
Visit this wine clubs website at
http://www.dogloverswineclub.com/
<back to top>
Bionade:
The health drink that looks like beer
It looks like beer and tastes like fizzy pop –
but will it catch on here? Josh Sims reports on the family-brewed
health drink that's taken Europe by storm
Published: 27
November 2007 (The Independent
Newspaper (UK):
http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3199343.ece)
When Bionade launches in the UK
next month, the makers of the German health drink may be thankful
that we are a nation of beer-drinkers: that way, at least they won't
have to explain what fermentation is. That fermentation has anything
at all to do with a health drink may take some explaining, as might
the fact that Bionade is made by a brewery. "We have had people
assume that Bionade must be some low-alcohol beer, especially
because it comes in what looks like a beer bottle," concedes Peter
Kowalsky, the company's managing director. "And in Germany we do
have a lot of beer drinkers that drink Bionade when they can't drink
beer, because it has that similar malty, tangy taste they recognise.
But it is a health drink."
And something of an unexpected hit.
When Bionade was relaunched in 2005, first year sales were just 20
million bottles. Last year it sold 70 million. This year, with
distribution having rolled out to Scandinavia, Italy, Switzerland
and Spain, it will sell 250 million bottles, and that is before it
launches in the US, where health drinks are a boom market.
Indeed, Bionade might well claim to
have invented the market, given that the drink was first sold in
1995. It was also the product of desperation. The Peter brewery was
a small Bavarian family business that was being squeezed towards
closure by major beer brands. Dieter Leipold, Kowalsky's
step-father, was its master brewer and he spent five years, and
almost the company's last pfennig, finding a way in which the
fermentation process with which he was so familiar could be used to
turn sugars into something drinkable but alchohol-free. The
breakthrough came when he experimented with the bacterium kombucha,
using it to convert sugars into gluconic acid. The result was
Bionade, a naturally-flavoured soft drink made to the same ancient
and exacting purity laws as German beer.
The whole idea was ahead of its
time, never mind the method – there was no health drinks market,
consumers were used only to big taste, high-sugar products and more
educated attitudes to nutrition and diet were yet to develop. Now
Bionade could hardly be more timely: last year juices, fruit and
health drinks accounted for nearly 41 per cent of the entire soft
drinks market, having grown some 31 per cent over the past four
years alone, according to Key Note, the market research company. The
health drink market is worth Ł2.8bn a year.
And no wonder, perhaps: last year a
study by the Federal Drugs Administration in the US found some soft
drinks containing benzene above the safe limits for tap water, while
in Britain irritability in children has been attributed to their
fondness for fizzy drinks.
"When we launched we didn't think
there was a market for a health drink at all. You already had water,
juices, mixtures of the two, products that came out of nature. And
then you had typical sugary soft drinks that so many people liked.
But nothing in between," says Kowalsky. "Even now launching a health
drink is a high-risk venture which is why most play safe and tend
not to have either a distinctive taste or content."
That certainly couldn't be said of
Bionade. Its premise was a health drink in the sense that nothing
unhealthy went into it, but one that was closer in taste and impact
to a can of pop. This was a radical new take on what a soft drink
could be. Many soft drinks are packed with stabilising and flavour-enhancing
chemicals. Bionade has none. It is very low in sugar but because
gluconic acid shares a similar molecular structure to glucose,
drinkers are fooled into tasting sweetness. And while soft drinks
are often loaded with cheap, aggressive acids, Bionade's is a
product of natural micro-organisms at work. "And the presence of
micro-organisms is a good indication of a healthy product," suggests
Kowalsky. "Put these in a cola and they'd die."
Bionade does have plenty of good
stuff in it: calcium and magnesium, for instance. A litre of Bionade
will supply half the daily requirements of these minerals. The drink
contains the right balance of the two minerals so that one doesn't
cancel out the other (magnesium uptake inhibits the body's uptake of
calcium, and vice versa). They will even take effect faster than if
delivered in tablet form because Bionade is isotonic, which is to
say it has a chemical resemblance to blood and so can be easily
absorbed. But Bionade is not one of the drinks in which lots of
supposedly healthy things have been crammed. Instead it takes all
the bad stuff out, so it's low in sodium and phosphorous-free.
Bionade was originally targeted at
children, "who, unlike adults, have no lobby to influence the
quality of the drinks they're given," Kowalsky notes, "most of which
are created just to make a lot of money". Getting parents to buy a
health drink from a brewery, or one made from the scary-sounding "gluconic
acid", however, proved tricky. Explaining the science seemed to make
matters more complicated. Sales improved when it was switched to
health food stores but still there was difficulty in conveying just
what Bionade was.
"We had to change our approach,"
says Kowalsky. "We sold it as a health drink and nobody understood
it. The day we sold it simply as a distinctive-tasting drink made
from the best raw materials – as the best soft drink ever – everyone
got it. In the end the fact that it wasn't in any way bad for you
became just a kind of insurance."
Ironically, perhaps, given the
challenge in promoting the idea of a fermented drink that had
nothing to do with alcohol, Bionade has recently rocketed in
popularity thanks to being picked up by the more stylish bars as an
urban sophisticate's alternative to some fizzy, syrup-based sugar
rush or an unexciting alcohol-free beer. Unusually for a healthy
drink, which tend to be strongly favoured by women, sales are evenly
split between the sexes.
The market for healthy drinks that
make all sorts of claims is certainly growing. But some of them
aren't very healthy at all, says Kowalsky. "Many, for instance, are
full of chemicals. I think the new market is simply for healthy
products that are healthily made. People are increasingly looking
for products of substance. Manufacturers need to watch out – these
days people actually read the list of ingredients."
Drink up: healthy alternatives
* Smoothies and juices
Antioxidants in fruit juice appear
to reduce free radicals, a major cause of disease and ageing.
However, smoothies and juices are not as good as fresh, whole fruit
because the molecules get broken down in the blending process.
* Probiotic
"Tops up" friendly bacteria, such
as Lactobacillus casei, which occur naturally in the body. Some
studies have shown that drinks such as Yakult can help boost the
immune system and shorten the effects of minor ailments.
* Omega-3
Derived from fish oil, omega-3 is
thought to have many health benefits. There are claims that it
improves brain power and functionality, helps prevent heart attacks
and strokes, and it is said to alleviate depression and help prevent
breast, colon and prostrate cancer. Now available in special drinks
but you can also get your omega-3 by eating two portions of oily
fish a week.
* Isotonic
Originally intended for endurance
athletes, isotonic drinks are intended to replace some of the water
lost through sweating. Studies have shown they are more effective at
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Miranda Bryant
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Beers Brewers Were First To Discover the Goodness of Chocolate
22:00
12 November 2007,
NewScientist.com
news service,
Jeff
Hecht
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12910-ancient-beer-pots-point-to-origins-of-chocolate.html
New archaeological evidence suggests that
primitive beer brewers were the first to discover the goodness of
chocolate.
Pots
with shorter, wider necks were used for making the frothed chocolate
drink after 900 BC (Image: PNAS/National Academy of Sciences)
Chocolate was first
produced by the ancients as a by-product of beer, suggests a new
archaeological study. And evidence from drinking vessels left by the
Mesoamericans who developed chocolate suggests that the source of
chocolate, cacao, was first used 500 years
earlier than thought.
Mesoamericans – who flourished in central America
before it was colonised by the Spanish – developed chocolate as a
by-product of fermenting cacao fruit to make a beer-like drink
called chicha still brewed by South American tribal people.
The Mesoamericans before
Columbus’s time, developed a taste for the chocolate, but their
cousins down in South America stuck with the beer, says
Cornell
University
archaeologist John Henderson, who led the new study.
Unsweetened chocolate drinks became a central
element of Mesoamerican cultures including the Aztecs, from whom
Europeans learned of chocolate in the 16th century.
Archaeologists have found pottery made to serve
the frothed chocolate drink preferred by the pre-Columbians in
earlier sites, and have found traces of chocolate in pots dating
back to 600 BC. But the origins of the drink had been unclear.
Chemical clues
Chocolate's unique flavour develops only when the
watery pulp of raw cacao fruit and seeds are fermented together,
colouring the seeds purple. Grinding the seeds yields the chocolate.
"It struck us that it wasn't obvious how to do
this," says study co-author
Rosemary Joyce at the
University
of California at Berkeley. The involvement of fermentation led her
and Henderson to speculate that cacao beer might have been the
originating process
Only now has hard evidence come to light in the
form of pot sherds dating from 200 BC to before 1100 BC that they
found in the ruins of an ancient village called Puerto Escondido in
the
Ulúa
Valley in Honduras.
Harnessing a technique developed by Patrick
McGovern at the
University
of Pennsylvania, they were able to extract chocolate residues from
the pores in the pottery. Tests found theobromine – a chemical
signature of cacao – in 11 of 13 fragments, including one that Joyce
estimates dates from 1100 to 1200 BC.
'Smoking gun'
That pushed evidence for cacao drinking back 500
years. That pot, and others older than about 900 BC, also lacked any
traces of the chilli pepper Mesoamericans used to spice up their
chocolate. Pots designed for making a frothed chocolate first
appeared after this date, the researchers report.
The oldest fragment was the long neck of a bottle
that could have held beer, but could not have been used to make the
frothed chocolate beverage that became popular later. Joyce called
that "the smoking gun" showing that beer had come first.
She suggests that the key step in switching to
chocolate came when ancient brewers ground up the cacao seeds
remaining after fermentation and added them to thicken the beer –
giving it a chocolate taste.
Journal reference:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI:
10.1073/pnas.0708815104)
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