musing

Here’ the scientific study.

Here’s the key finding:

Water consumption had no effect on human attractiveness to An. gambiae mosquitoes, but beer consumption increased volunteer attractiveness. Body odours of volunteers who consumed beer increased mosquito activation (proportion of mosquitoes engaging in take-off and up-wind flight) and orientation (proportion of mosquitoes flying towards volunteers’ odours). The level of exhaled carbon dioxide and body temperature had no effect on human attractiveness to mosquitoes. Despite individual volunteer variation, beer consumption consistently increased attractiveness to mosquitoes.

No, seriously. Because “these results suggest that beer consumption is a risk factor for malaria and needs to be integrated into public health policies for the design of control measures.”

But moving on to a bit of whimsy. What if mosquitoes have some form of quick communication, à la Twitter? You think one might buzz his or her fellow biting buddies that “the one is the red shirt is balanced toward malt” or the “arms of the one nearest the beer cooler taste of citrus and pine”?

And, from a public health standpoint, wouldn’t it be good to know of mosquitoes prefer hoppy beer drinkers, extreme beer drinkers . . .

Some people will actually tell you they hate New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale. It’s complicated, and I really just want to pass along a few numbers, so I’ll simply says it seems silly to me, but it’s their energy.

Fact is that as New Belgium drives deeper into the East Coast this year it will be Fat Tire drinkers ask for first. (Witness this photo taken in South Carolina before New Belgium entered the state. The owners posted the sign in self defense.)

Some interesting figures emerged last week in the run up to the brewery’s twentieth anniversary on Tuesday. Although overall production increased 13% last year, to 661,000 31-gallon barrels, Fat Tire sales grew only 2%.

According to Impact Databank, Fat Tire accounted for 70% of New Belgium sales in 2008, 67% in 2009 and 60% in 2010. The biggest change last year was the introduction of Ranger IPA. New Belgium sold more than 50,000 barrels in 2010, 8% of production, more Ranger IPA than its well known neighbor, Odell Brewing, made in total.

“Everything’s going up.”

Bill Night updates his Portland Beer Price Index. “Two pubs raised their draft prices this quarter, and the six-pack and bomber prices are not surprisingly continuing an upward trend.”

I’m pretty sure it’s not just happening in Portland,Oregon.

* Speaking of beer prices, SaveOnBrew.com is an interesting notion but right now appears to be more useful when shopping for a deal on Stag rather than where to find Goose Island IPA and how much it might cost. What direction will it grow?

* The neighborhood pub. Several worthy ideas at the KC Beer Blog and one comment that I have to pass along: “I haven’t met a bar that managed to infect the bottles yet.” But they can subject them to lighting that skunks the beer inside (even brown bottles) or fail to rotate stock or otherwise keep it fresh.

* The Farmery will be Canada’s first estate brewery. Challenges ahead, as nicely summarized in the Winnipeg Free Press: “They’re betting the farm on estate brewery.”

* A press release announcing a new brewery for Los Angeles, Golden Road Brewing (actually in North Atwater Village), explains it will be laid out in a three-building campus. “The distinctive primary colored buildings are easy to spot, just off Interstate 5 and Highway 134. The blue building will be production, the red building will be barrel room & storage and the yellow building will be for offices, on-site sales, and eventually a pub and beer garden.” It’s supposed to open in the fall. Personally, I figure if you are going to go to the trouble of color coding your buildings you might as well have them change with the seasons.

*Merchant du Vin, one of the first distributors of specialty beers to launch a web site (like maybe pre-Google), has redesigned its site. Pretty easy to find the basic specs on any of it’s beers. More impressive: “Find Our Beer” actually works.

* Yuengling wasn’t already in Ohio? That’s a bet I would have lost. Apparently Ohio residents still drive to the Pennsylvania border to buy the beer.

* Just plain stupid. Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Ontario claims Alpha-fornication contains “2500 IBUs (International Bitterness Units) and 13.3% ABV.” That’s about 2,400 bitterness units beyond possible.

Chippewa Falls, Wis., is a town with about 13,000 residents. Drive in from the north, taking County Highway S to county Highway Q, turning south and driving past a couple of big parks and it doesn’t look that much different than Cameron on Bloomer or one of the other towns along U.S. 3. Maybe a little bigger.

Next, boom, a brewery complex, Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co.

It’s a tourist attraction, for sure, and good for the town’s business. However it feels perfectly appropriate that the gift shop/museum may be new (much newer than other parts of the brewery) but is designed to look like a cabin from the nineteenth century and called Leinie Lodge.

Saturday Leinenkuegl’s hosted its eighth annual Leinie Lodge Family Reunion. Thousands attended. I expect many spoke with a distinctive northern Wisconsin/Minnesota accent (think Frances McDormand in “Fargo.”) And a PR person sent along this photo of Jake Leinenkugel autographing one attendee’s head.

You think it was staged? I don’t.

But I’m pretty sure that the man did not immediately tweet, “@jakeleinenkugel just signed my head. I may never wash it again.”