I started playing with Google’s new Fusion Tables application, and it’s surprisingly easy to make those colorful “heat map” charts you see in The Economist all the time. I made this chart showing annual beer consumption per capita by country. It’s nothing original, but why not: Units are in liters per year.
American Craft Beer Week begins next Monday, May 16th. It’s being sponsored by the Brewers Association and CraftBeer.com and, as indicated on the website, “offers an exciting opportunity for small and independent craft brewers and the community of better beer retailers to feature craft beer in their community.” This craft beer celebration week has been around since 2006, but for the first time ever, events will be sponsored in all 50 states, making this the first truly national event. This is a great trend, as the craft beer industry seems to be right on the verge of becoming more than a minor nuisance to the commercial beer giants. US sales reached $7.6 Billion last year, representing just over 7.5% of total beer sales.
Heineken has a great new beer commercial, giving the Does Equis most interesting man a run for his money: James Fallows thinks “the Most Interesting Man in the World crown has passed from Mexico’s control back to Western Europe.” I think Johnathan Goldsmith keeps the crown. And while I do agree with James that I would take a Dos XX over a Heineken, I’d prefer a craft beer over either of those any day. Regardless, Heineken did a nice job with this. And if you liked the song, it’s by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour from Denmark. Check them out.
I previously wrote a post about my first time experimenting with vanilla beans in a beer recipe. After about two months of aging, the Vanilla Cream Ale is ready for drinking. And the verdict? It’s delicious. There are, however, a couple things I’d change for the next batch. It has a strong vanilla aroma, but the flavor competes a bit with the hops. Rather than use a distinctive hop like Cascade in the boil, in the future I’d replace it with something a bit more mild, such as Willamette or Kent Golding to compliment the vanilla flavor. It’s also a bit darker than I anticipated, so I’d probably replace the Caramel 60 malt with a Caramel 20 or 40. I’m
I went to the grand opening of Meadhall last night. It’s a great new restaurant and bar in Kendall square, with an unbelievable draft selection of 110 beers. I tried two new beers that I highly recommend. The first was the McChouffe Brown Ale by d’Achouffe out of Belgium. It was strong with some maple overtones, but wasn’t too sweet. One of the better browns I’ve had in a while. Oddly, I can’t find it on BeerAdvocate. The second was the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale from the Lexington Brewing Company in Kentucky. It was beer, but it tasted like whiskey. Absolutely delicious. Judging by Meadhall’s impressive tap selection, I’ve still got a lot of work to do. And the food was great
From Science Daily: Drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better, says a new study from the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin. The common view that drinking is bad for learning and memory isn’t wrong, says neurobiologist Hitoshi Morikawa, but it highlights only one side of what ethanol consumption does to the brain. “Usually, when we talk about learning and memory, we’re talking about conscious memory,” says Morikawa, whose results were published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience. “Alcohol diminishes our ability to hold on to pieces of information like your colleague’s name, or the definition of a word, or where you parked your car
Pretty Things has just released their first Spring seasonal. They call it a hoppy tripel. It’s strong, smooth, and is loaded with aroma hops. It’s absolutely delicious. From their website: Our first Spring, we brought you a magical tree full of waving babies… and the Baby Tree has stuck around, we’re happy to say. So the past two years we’ve made a pale gold, hoppy triple called Fluffy White Rabbits. We say White Rabbits in Yorkshire for luck, so here’s a good way to drink some lucky beer and here’s to a fabulous warm season for all of us! The beer is 8.5% abv, with Saaz, Styrian Goldings and Amarillo hops added aplenty. Look for a fluffy mouthfeel, faint sweetness with
For anyone wondering what happens on St. Patty’s day in China, it’s not so different from St. Patty’s day in the States. This is where I am planning to be this evening: I have yet to visit a large city that does not have a cliché Irish Pub.
I’m in mainland China for the first time, and the first six hours have been a very interesting experience. All positive things, just very interesting. I’ll be spending the next two weeks the Gold Coast Marina Club, a state-owned hotel located on the banks of the Pearl River in Guangzhou. This place has embraced a strange variety of styles, including wood paneled walls decorated with model sailboats that remind me of old US beachclub hotels out of the late 70s, giant romanesque pillars spread throughout the lobby, and a dome shaped ceiling that is painted to look like a replica of the cloud ceiling at the Venetian. All things considered, it’s a very comfortable place to stay. Also, before I get to
And it’s too bad, because I usually really like The Economist. They’ve published an article this week titled “Coming to a head: Mathematicians invent a new way to pour stout.” It’s mostly a useless article about how a scientist claims that Guiness wouldn’t need to add those little nitrogen gas spheres to their beer bottles if the bottles were lined with — wait for it — coffee filters. I won’t even comment on why someone thought this might be interesting and relevant news. But the worst part is what the article gets wrong: ON MARCH 17th, St Patrick’s day, countless pints of Irish stout will be poured in pubs and homes around the world. As they sup their beer, revellers might do well