MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 03.06.17

Sometimes when hyperlinks start firing around here on Monday morning it might appear I have an attention problem. So here a road map. Jeff Alworth writes about the failure of a cloudy, murky beer in transit, JR Shirt about CloudyMurky and the line life, leading us to who’s looking out for beer quality (parts I and II), and back to Heady Topper, which may or may not be to blame for the accession of CloudyMurky. But that’s not the rabbit hole. Authenticity is the rabbit hole.

Granted, CloudyMurky is as well. I was in Minnesota last week, primarily to talk to the Minnesota Hop Growers at their annual meeting and workshop, where I heard the words “downy mildew” more often than you might in your lifetime. But en route I also had the chance to ask several people who know lots about brewing science the question that will soon have people running the other way when they see me coming: “How cloudy-murky, if at all, must these beers be to retain the magical flavors and aromas attributed to them?” Sometimes I use less polite language. My question is focused on the hop component although I know there is more, but that is the gist of it. I’ll get back to you when I find what looks like an answer.

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MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 02.27.17

“It’s a Shopping Mall for Alcoholics Out There”
Beer in context and the context is life. As the following links will suggest I already had storytelling on my mind when I read these 412 words Saturday morning. When you start looking for subliminal messages or find yourself noticing how similar the stories within the stories really are – well, 412 words like these will shake the cynic right out of you. [Via A Good Beer Blog]

STORYTELLING

– Does Your Historic Site Communicate A Subliminal ‘Make American Great Again’ Message? [Via Peak experience Lab]
– The art of wine storytelling. [Via Meininger’s Wine Business International]
– Let me tell you a story… [Via Sediment]

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Courtesy of CityLab (with a h/T to Tim Holt) a terrific map of “Liquordom in New York City” in the 1880s and these numbers:

– One 32-block section of what’s now the Lower East Side had 242 “lager-beer saloons” and 61 “liquor saloons.”

– There was one saloon to every twenty five families in the city.

– 63% of all the criminal arrests were for intoxication and disorderly conduct.

– Food sellers — butchers, bakers, and grocers — totaled 7,197. Liquor sellers totaled 10,075.

– Twelve of the 24 aldermen of the city were liquor dealers.

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 02.20.17

We spent our weekend in Death Valley National Park (too early for wildflowers; great for exploring canyons) but here’s what hit my radar before we left the Midwest. Or I rushed to add Sunday evening with a minimum of musing.

Chris White of White Labs and Sequencing Yeast Genes.
A discussion of genetically modified (GM) yeast appears well into the story. Not likely happening short term, but White suggests it may eventually. About three years ago, when the project was just getting rolling, a scientist in one of the Belgian labs involved said, “Right now we have a few hundred genetically modified yeast strains patiently waiting in our laboratory’s freezer.” Having taken the temperature of brewers around the world, the Belgians changed their approach, working at breeding new strains just as other scientists have cattle and peas in the past. (In the current “Future of Beer” issue of All About Beer I compare and contrast this with Bootleg Biology). Putting aside the not so civil war that spins around genetic modification, it all makes me pause. Brewing science marches ahead all the time, whether it is a matter of finding more efficient ways to lauter or breeding higher alpha hops. But how “easy” should scientists make it to brew beer?

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