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When I was a home brewer - as opposed to a person who has home brewing supplies and equipment in the house but never does anything with it all - I used to be concerned about flocculation. Flocculation is the word that describes the capacity of a yeast (or other stuff for all I know) to clump. It is a fancy pants word for clumpiness - but is more about the propensity to clump as opposed to the clump itself. I think. If a yeast strain floucculated too much it could cause precipitation leading to poor attenuation due to separation of yeast and wort. Yet if the yeast was under flocculating there would be difficulty in settling out and creating a bright beer. I think.
So, it is comforting to know that all my half baked understanding of yeast clump-a-bility is actually related to a massively important scientific moment:
A team of scientists at Harvard University reported last week that they isolated the single gene that allows yeast to stick together. That gene allows the normally solitary yeast cells to shield themselves from toxins in their environment by banding together in protective balls. Since one of those toxins is the ethanol that the yeast themselves produce, grouping together allows the yeast to survive in the alcohol-rich environment that results from brewing. What's more, the gene has a built in social value system that prevents yeast cells without the gene from taking advantage of the yeast flock's protective sphere. That social control mechanism is an example of how single cells can regulate function in larger units.
Excellent! I knew that something about beer was out there promoting social values...or is it promoting socialism!?!?¹
The point? As Kevin Verstrepen, one of the eggheads in white lab coats² - a Haavaad man no less - notes: "You can look at it as a model of how single-cellular organisms can cooperate, taking a small step toward multicellular life." A-ha! No, not the Norwegian 80's band...I mean "a-ha" as in light-klicky-on, as in "EUREKA!!!" So not only was the creation of civilization dependent on beer but the core zymurgystic fact of beer is also the same core fact of complex life as we know it. See? Without the making of alcohol, we are all single cell amoeba... amoebae... amoebas. I think. Which leads me to my amoeba joke: "two amoeba leave a bar and look up at a bright light. One says to the other 'is that the sun or the moon?' to which the other replies 'I dunno. I don't live around here.'" Get it? That is what we would have to put up with were it not for the flocculating powers of yeast. And nobody wants that.
¹Cue the theremin music!
²...and let's not have a repeat of the whole "sensitive yeast scientist" thing this time, ok?
You know, there was a time when I wrote posts about the history of beer. Then I got in a bit of a dust up with Ron Pattinson which then became quite civil when I said something like "if you are so clever about all this history stuff you should write a blog" which, we all know, he then did and now we are like two houses on fire. Without, you know, the skin grafts and reading of the life insurance policies.
If saying ?the generally accepted story about the birth of IPA is almost entirely wrong? is nit-picking, that?s a bloody big nit. Someone else complained that...
?this guy is just going out of his way to poke holes in the common story about the ipa style ? The point is that Hodgson was the first to brew ?india pale ale? (from everything i?ve read) and therefore brewed the first of the style?
which is entirely not grasping my own point, or points. The first is that the ?common story? already has huge holes in it, and I?m not poking them, I?m just holding them up and saying: ?Look ? big holes!?.
Wow - real research and analysis presented without bias or the compromise of populism. What I think is most interesting is that the two focus on different sources. Martyn seeks his information from primary sources like beer ads, books of an age and other contemporary writings. Ron seeks his wisdom mainly through review of brewery archives and the actual brewing logs kept by those who made the beer at the time. When the power of their combined research is read side by side it is quite impressive - not to mention detailed and not to mention authoritative.
It boggles my mind that each of these gents are not subsidized to the full extent of the necessaries of their lives by brewers associations of one sort or another. Boggles my mind.
Let's see, we announced on Sunday and this is Tuesday so, yup, this is day three of the Christmas 2008 Beer Blog Photo Contest and so far, in addition to the six prize givers announced at the launch, we are now able to announce that we have added the following prizes to the swag bag:
It's prize giving pandemonium these days! On my count that adds nine more individual prizes added to the ten separate prizes offered by six fine beery sources at the launch. We are well on our way to living the dream of a prize for every participant. If you want, send your precious jpegs to both me at beerblog@gmail.com and also Jeff at stonchblog@gmail.com before Sunday 14 December 2008 at 4:00:00 pm eastern Lake Ontario, North America time.
That is all it takes. Mike Stich of Toronto, Ontario did last year and sent the great shot above in. It is all so amazingly fulfilling.
Following up on a story we discussed last May, tomorrow's edition of The Independent tells the sad tale of how both BrewDog and the Orkney Brewery, makers of Skull Splitter, have had a ruling made against them by the shadowy Portman Group - described by The Independent as a self-regulating industry body. Which sounds a lot like another way of saying their competition. Their larger duller competition.
It decided Rip Tide's description as a "twisted merciless stout" would be associated with antisocial behaviour, while the claim that Hop Rocker was a "nourishing foodstuff" and that "magic is still there to be extracted" implied that it would enhance physical and mental capabilities.
The wisdom did not stop there. Apparently, Orkney's Skull Splitter "was associated with violence and also could be a reference to its effect on the drinker's head." However silly, these macro-saft makers with gavels actually have the power of persuasion and can use that power to affect the marketplace they and their powerless competition work within. Can you see a problem with that? Orkney has issued a press release that says this turn of fate may lead to the brand being pulled even though it is a former Champion Winter Ale of Britain. The BBC has more on the Skull Splitter story.
BrewDog is taking the even higher moral ground by calling for the shadowy Portman Group to be scrapped, according to this story. James Watt, managing director of BrewDog is quoted as saying '"[i]t is alarming that an unelected, unrepresentative industry cartel can simply crush the foundations on which our democracy is built." Can I have an amen? I believe reference to the Declaration of Arbroath is of comfort to we Scots in moments like this.
Full disclosure: James Watt writes me emails once in a while, is named after my Dad's hometown's favorite son and is giving prizes for the photo contest. And I like him and his company more than the shadowy Portman Group.
Hear Ye Hear Ye! Oyez Oyez!!! Ladies and Gentlemen and children of all ages! May we have drum rrrrrrrollllllllll if you please!!! Can I get a witness??? Bang the Gong, Get it On!!!
Once again this year, I am happy to declare the beer blog Christmas photo contest is on. Real on. Real on right now and it's the third annual. And for the second straight year, we are sharing oversight duties for the Christmas beer blog photo contest with our pal and co-master of ceremonies Jeff from Stonch's Beer Blog based in London England. Here is Jeff's post on the start of the contest. And that's last year's grand winner up there, from John Lewington. Called "Two Pints of Bitter" it's a candid photo John took of two old boys enjoying their Sunday afternoon ale in a 17th century pub in Aldbrough, Suffolk. Gorgeous. Here are all the entries from last year - Jeff's are available through a link at the bottom of the page. We are going to try to be more unified and centralized this year.
And the range of prizes gathered so far for the 2008 version of the contest are, I have to admit, already simply stunning. As in the past, remember the rules of beer are so weird that you can only get it shipped to certain places (where you are) from certain other places (where the people of the beer are) so you may not qualify for each of these but here is what we have so far:
Fabulousness incarnate! What generosity and - be warned - we are on the hunt for more prizes and hope to have more announcements soon. Have no fear. I have every intention of wringing as much happiness out of this contest for each and every contestant so as to make your Yule (...and your Yule, too) as fantastic as possible. Jeff and I get nothing our of this but the warm glow of a good deed well done and a way to thank you all, our readers, as well as to thank the great brewers out there who do so much for all of us.
How does one enter? You may well be asking this very question as you read this. Just email photos to both me at beerblog@gmail.com and also Jeff at stonchblog@gmail.com. The announcements should start flying with your entries and hopefully even more great prizes. The deadline is Sunday 14 December 2008 at 4:00:00 pm eastern Lake Ontario, North America time. Well be figuring out a means for posting them on the web, maybe at Flickr and maybe even ClusterShot so that your work may itself give you something back. And remember - if you are a brewer, pub, author or purveyor of any other beer related stuff, join us by emailing your idea for more prize for the winners. It's all about giving...and taking photos...and beer...and, ok, having a happy happy Yule!
The difference between America and Canada is that Americans don't care what the difference between America and Canada is.The second concerns a point that Adams is trying to make:
Adams' method was established in Fire and Ice: he notes at one point that in the U.S. SUVs outsell minivans by two-to-one, whereas in Canada it's vice versa. That's a fact. The fancy is in the meaning he appends to it. "This is a stark difference," he writes, "whose roots can be traced directly to the differing values of our two countries." This assertion seems to have no basis other than a casual assumption that Canadians are more environmentally responsible and thus more concerned with "excessive gasoline consumption, pollution and safety violations."Dhaliwal as a Hamas warlord in a three-ton Cadillac Escalade. Mint.
Isn't there a more obvious correlation? Minivans are cheaper than SUVs, and Canadians have less disposable income than Americans. It's easy to be "socially responsible" if you've got no choice in the matter. On the Continent they're driving around in things the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger's cup holder, so presumably they're more "socially responsible" still. In Canada those who can afford SUVs buy them, it's just that their numbers are smaller. Remember Herb Dhaliwal? Well, no, you probably don't. But a couple of years back M. Chrétien made him minister of natural resources, and he certainly got through a lot of them. He drove around like a Hamas warlord in a three-ton Cadillac Escalade. That's bigger than my SUV and I'm in favour of global warming. The difference is that the high living of a Liberal cabinet minister is confined, north of the border, mainly to Liberal cabinet ministers while down south it's more widely available.
I don't often cross post on Pownce and here on my blog, but this is worth an exception I think. A few minutes ago, a friend reminded me of the Barenaked Ladies' cover of Lovers in a Dangerous Time. I hadn't heard it in years and I'd never seen the video. The song is as good or better than I remembered. I don't care what you think of what the band's done since the famous (at least in Canada) and elusive Yellow Tape, this cover stands on its own.
The fantastic Canadian Design Resource has an article today about the historical flag of Canada's Metis people. I've made several posts in the past about flags and the Metis flag fits well with the other standouts I've mentioned previously. According the description, the Metis flag "represents the coming together of two distinct and vibrant cultures, European and indigenous, to produce a distinctly new culture, the Metis... the infinity symbol suggests that the Metis people will exist forever."
I've been spending many of my recent weekend days working from cafes near my apartment in San Francisco. There's a new one called On the Corner on Divisidero about two blocks from where I live and it gives me a nice break from my small apartment to go down there to write email and work on Pownce stuff — plus their coffee is very drinkable.
However, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels guilty throwing down a couple of bucks for a coffee and then mooching wifi, power, and a comfy chair for a few hours. I try to get up every once in a while and grab a snack or a coffee refill. I hardly need the extra caffeine and I especially could handle eating fewer pastries, but I feel obliged to support the cafe.
In many ways, cafes serve a very similar purpose as co-working space. Many people come much more often than I do and stay longer, essentially using the cafe as temporary office. For co-working space, like the Queen Street Commons, people pay a decent sum for the convenience.
I'm curious if anyone out there has seen cafes experimenting with alternative payment schemes? I could imagine either a subscription scheme or something as simple as special tip jar clearly indicated as a 'thanks-for-the-wifi-comfy-chair-music-bathroom' donation. I know I'd be willing to pay — and my body would thank me for the reduced consumption of guilty pastries and extra cups of coffee.
I'm currently in Toronto at the Mesh conference taking place at the MaRS centre on College Street. Today was the MeshU day of workshops, including great presentations by John Lax, Leah Culver, Ryan Carson, John Resig, and a bunch of others. I presented in the morning and promised that I'd stick my slides online, so here they are. If audio is available later, I'll try to add it on, but I promised to get them up there at least in a basic way. Thanks to anyone/everyone who came out!
As I've talked about at a few conferences recently, one of the exciting/difficult things about working in-house, on a project with the scope of something like Digg, is the luxury/challenge to adapt your own work. The comments system on Digg is a perfect example. Just this past week, we rolled out the latest iteration of the comments system, which is the fourth major adaption of the system since the site launched over four years ago. It's a project that's been a long time coming and has been under development for a fairly long period. What a relief to finally see it out in the wild.
In his blog post about the release, Micah described several of the important changes that we made from both a design and performance standpoint. From the design side, we've made the comments visually lighter, reduced the metadata around each comment, improved the visual flow down the comment threads, added subtler functionality, and significantly improved the interaction design. When I say we improved the interaction design, I mean that as you interact with the comments (e.g. digg a comment, write a comment, edit your comments, etc) all of the pieces fit together more naturally.
The next step will be to iterate on the comments system once we've seen how people use, abuse, and break the one we just built. We certainly plan on doing more small adaptations over the next months as opposed to waiting to perform a large revision. As always with Digg projects, it's pretty exciting to watch a few million people use a feature that, up until launch, had only been seen or used by a few people... it'll be interesting to see what they do.
What happens if all value becomes valueless. If the stock market goes to zero. So far this year the S+P and the Dow Jones is about half way there. It is so important it is meaningless. Will there be an abstration? A separation of stock value from production? Money will still exist and there will still be demand. So will there be production, too? It's as if we all forgot that if we click our heels and say "there's no place like home" three times it'll all be better.
That's it today. Short and gloomy. Maybe I will find some cheerier news through the day.
I don't know about you but isn't going after pirates like going after Nazis? Isn't it something we can all agree upon? I mean, is there not a child on this planet who did not clap their hands with glee at the new of India taking out a mother ship this week? Who isn't thrilling to the determination of UK PM Gordon Brown:
A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "We have ensured that the Navy has the means and the authority to deter and disrupt acts of piracy and we are introducing legislation to strengthen powers for the armed forces to detain ships and arrest suspects."
It's all very Master and Commander all of a sudden. Look to Mr. Taylor for good coverage on this one.
The question of the day is simple: what is Canada's position on the war on pirates?
Gmail is the best thing ever. Remember when you had to pay for email? That sucked. Gmail changed that and most of you know that the dumb stuff you email back and forth really gives rise to no privacy issues even if Google turned out to be like the bad guys in The Matrix like you all thought it would. But fear not. Fear not and put on your pre-"Tonight's The Night" Rod Stewart lps because Google has reminded me of 1974: shag carpets, Mopar cars and that Houston Astros uniform.
Up in the middle of the night, I caught Chris Carlin on WFAN 660 going off his rocker at 5:00 am over the idea that the Yankees and Red Sox going after A.J. Burnett. Why? Look to his stats:
But I hope the Sox are just winding up the Yankees and inflating the price that might be paid by pretending they are in the market. I wouldn't mind a return of Derek Lowe, however. That would be interesting.
An interesting quandry from the world of beer labeling over at A Good Beer Blog. It appears the makers of all the crappiest beers in the UK have gotten together to create a "good taste" arbitration panel that just happens to focus on their smaller smarter competition. What do you think? Sounds like an reason for invoking anti-combines law to me but apparently acceptable in Britain.
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