Posts Tagged ‘Beer’
“He was a wise man who invented beer”*…
In the age of Amazon, when much of the world is but a click away from having any product they can imagine shipped to their doorstep in just two days, beer is stubbornly anachronistic, a globalization holdout that’s subject to the physical locations of breweries, along with the regional patterns of alcohol distributors.
It’s a picture painted well by the team from Floating Sheep, who compiled a million tweets, scanning for words like “beer” and “wine” to plot the alcoholic preferences across the U.S. What they uncovered is essentially the United States of Cheap Beer–a map of the generic, though perfectly tasty, lagers and pilsners that we loyally drink region by region…
Read more at “The Cheap Beers People Drink Across The U.S.”
Special Spring bonus: how adding beer to one’s barbeque slashes the risk of cancer…
* Plato
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As we pour into a canted a glass, we might recall that it was on this date in 1953 that Man in the Dark was released. In November, 1952, United Artists had released an independent production, Bwana Devil— the first full length color film released in English in 3-D. A surprise hit, Bwana Devil spurred the major studios to scramble to field their own 3-D flicks. Man in the Dark, from Columbia, was for to the screen. A film noir thriller starring Edmund O’Brien and Audrey Trotter, the film sank like a stone… leaving House of Wax, from Warner Bros., released two days later, a default claim to be “the first feature produced by a major studio in 3-D.” These three films kicked off the first period of enthusiasm for 3-D films; the second was a year-long period in the 70s. We are, of course, currently in the third.
The mother of all tongues…
The spread of Indo-European, the product of Proto-Indo-European, 4,000-1,000 BCE
By the 19th century, linguists knew that all modern Indo-European languages descended from a single tongue. Called Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, it was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 B.C., and left no written texts. The question became, what did PIE sound like? In 1868, German linguist August Schleicher used reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary to create a fable in order to hear some approximation of PIE. Called “The Sheep and the Horses,” and also known today as Schleicher’s Fable, the short parable tells the story of a shorn sheep who encounters a group of unpleasant horses. As linguists have continued to discover more about PIE, this sonic experiment continues and the fable is periodically updated to reflect the most current understanding of how this extinct language would have sounded when it was spoken some six thousand years ago. Since there is considerable disagreement among scholars about PIE, no one version can be considered definitive.
More of the story– and another cool fable in PIE– at “Telling Tales in Proto-Indo-European” in Archaeology.
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As we practice pronunciation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1814 that London suffered “The Great Beer Flood Disaster” when the metal bands on an immense vat at Meux’s Horse Shoe Brewery snapped, releasing a tidal wave of 3,555 barrels of Porter (571 tons– more than 1 million pints), which swept away the brewery walls, flooded nearby basements, and collapsed several adjacent tenements. While there were reports of over twenty fatalities resulting from poisoning by the porter fumes or alcohol coma, it appears that the death toll was 8, and those from the destruction caused by the huge wave of beer in the structures surrounding the brewery.
(The U.S. had its own vat mishap in 1919, when a Boston molasses plant suffered similarly-burst bands, creating a heavy wave of molasses moving at a speed of an estimated 35 mph; it killed 21 and injured 150.)
Meux’s Horse Shoe Brewery
The end of an era…
Bread is the staff of life, but beer is life itself.
-Anonymous
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, snacking
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill that officially classifies beer as alcoholic. Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has been considered a foodstuff.
The full story at BBC.com
As we revisit our food pyramids, we might spare a sweet thought for William A. Mitchell, the food scientist who invented Pop Rocks candy, Cool Whip, the orange drink mix Tang, quick-set Jell-O Gelatin, and powdered egg whites; he died on this date in 2004. In his 35 year career at General Foods he received over 70 patents.
Hair of the dog…
source: STV
STV reports that a Scottish brewery has created the world’s strongest beer:
A controversial Scottish brewery has set a new record with the release of the world’s strongest beer.
Fraserburgh-based BrewDog have released the 32% Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which they claim is higher than the German beer brand Schorschbraer (31%)…
Read the whole besotted story here.
As we reunderstand the phrase “Holiday cheer,” we might hail all the ships at sea, as it was on this date in 1901 that Gugliellmo Marconi (and colleagues) confounded the prevailing scientific wisdom (that the curvature of he earth put a limit of 200 miles on radio transmissions) by sending/receiving the first trans-Atlantic wireless broadcast…
Marconi at his set, circa 1896 (source: American Radio Relay League)
Fluid dynamics…
Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm?
Norm: No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one.
Readers may have recognized that your correspondent has a weakness for nifty info-graphics. In browsing recently, he came across a wonderful series created by Wallstats for (Roughly Daily’s old favorite) Sloshspot…
…and in that series, a striking juxtaposition. Consider that:
And that, at the same time:
As we plan to monitor our water use and tithe from our beer allowances to RDI, we might recall that it was on this date in 1870 that Professor Edward Joseph De Smedt of the American Asphalt Pavement Company, New York City, received two patents for the invention known as “French asphalt pavement”– the first practical version of sheet asphalt. Later that same year (on July 29), the first road was paved with sheet asphalt: William Street in Newark, New Jersey.
early asphalt paving (source)
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