Anna Kendrick: Actress, Beer Lover

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acting
Maybe it was starring in Drinking Buddies, or doing a recent non-Super Bowl ad for Newcastle Brown Ale, but actress Anna Kendrick loves her beer. The actress, who’s best known for her roles in Up in the Air, Pitch Perfect and the Twilight film series, admitted her love of beer in a recent interview. Having done two musicals recently, and now working on the Pitch Perfect sequel, she’s done with singing for the very understandable reason that’s she’d rather drink beer, and apparently it’s one or the other: singing or beer. Easy decision. Here’s what Perez Hilton is reporting she said.

I never want to sing again, honestly. It’s hard as fuck. The Pitch Perfect [sequel] is going to be fine, ten girls have to be able to sing the songs so it’s going to be fine, but doing The Last Five Years and then Into the Woods straight away, I was like, I don’t want to have to think about my voice so much. I want to be able to drink beer whenever I want.

I’ll drink to that.

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Top Beers In The US By State 2008-2013

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maps-usa
Here’s an interesting piece of data. There’s not a lot of background for it, but from what I can tell it’s an interactive map showing the “Top Beers In The US By State 2008-2013,” by Perlinnoise. Since it was tweeted by RateBeer, I can only assume it’s based on their ratings over that six year period of time, from their top 100 list. Only 18 states had beers that made the list, and from the interactive map, holding your cursor over a colored state brings up a list of the beers that made their list. It also includes the number from each state. California has the most, by a wide margin, at 128. Second is Michigan, with 46, followed by Indiana (24), Florida (19), Colorado (18) and Oregon (17). Unfortunately, one glitch with the interactive map is that you can actually scroll down and see the whole list of beers from California.

perlinnoise

Beer & Hieroglyphics

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brewer-hieroglyphic
Perhaps it’s why I became a writer, but I’ve always been fascinated by languages, and especially different alphabets. They always seemed like secret codes, and few more so than Egyptian hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics are, of course, one of the earliest forms of written communication. They were once thought to be the oldest form, but more recent evidence seems to suggest that Sumerian writing most likely predates the Egyptian writing, and that they probably developed independently.

Not surprisingly, since beer was so important at the dawn of civilization, even though the number of individual hieroglyphics was limited (compared to modern vocabularies) there were several beer-specific hieroglyphics. How many there are is uncertain. E.A. Wallis Budge compiled a list of over 1,000 that was published in various forms between the late 1890s and 1920. But the standard reference is generally thought to be Gardiner’s Sign List, created by British Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner in the 1950s, containing around 750 common form hieroglyphics from the Middle Egyptian language.

Gardiner’s Sign List is organized into 26 categories that are assigned a letter and then a number to keep them straight. For example, “E” is for “mammals” and E6 is a “horse.”
E6-horse

So here are the Egyptian hieroglyphics that have to do with beer and brewing, at least from the Gardiner’s Sign List. I’ve also included different views of the same hieroglyphic, that is different ways that it was written or expressed. The Letter and Number is, of course, how each is classified in the Gardiner’s Sign List.

A36: Brewer

A36-brewer

Alternative Images:
A36-brewer-1 A36-brewer-2 A36-brewer-3 A36-brewer-clay A36-brewer-color

A37: Brewer (Variant)

A37-brewer

Alternative Images:
A37-brewer-1 A37-brewer-2 A37-brewer-3

M39: Basket of Grain

M39-basket-of-grain

Alternative Images:
M39-basket-of-grain-1 M39-basket-of-grain-2 M39-basket-of-grain-3 M39-basket-of-grain-4 M39-color

O50: Circular Threshing Floor Covered with Grain

O50-grain-floor

Alternative Images:
O50-grain-floor-1 O50-grain-floor-2 O50-grain-floor-3 O50-grain-floor-4 O50-grain-floor-color

O51: Heap of Grain on a Raised Mud Floor

O51-heap-of-grain

Alternative Images:
O51-heap-of-grain-1 O51-heap-of-grain-2 O51-heap-of-grain-3 O51-heap-of-grain-color

W22: Beer Jug

W22-beer-jug

Alternative Images:
W22-beer-jug-1 W22-beer-jug-2 W22-beer-jug-3 W22-beer-jug-4 W22-beer-jug-color

W23: Beer Jug (Variant)

W23-beer-jug

Alternative Images:
W23-beer-jug-1 W23-beer-jug-2 W23-beer-jug-3 W23-beer-jug-4 W23-beer-jug-5 W23-beer-jug-6 W23-beer-jug-7 W23-beer-jug-color

More On Brewery Caves

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cave
I’m not sure what my fascination with spelunking is, apart from enjoying it as a kid, but the number of brewery caves certainly adds a new dimension of interest. Last year, my post Brewery Caves dipped its toe into the subject, and recently I noticed there’s even more out there about it. For example, the James River Steam Brewery in Richmond, Virginia was built in 1886, right along the bank of the titular James River. The brewery also included a brewery cave and remnants of it can still be seen. The brewery only lasted thirteen years, closing in 1879, falling prey to a post-civil war depression “caused by the railroad credit crisis.” Interestingly, it was “was founded by David G. Yuengling Jr., son of the founder of the D.G. Yuengling and Son Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.” Earlier this month, the site of the James River Steam Brewery was added to the register of historic places, meaning at some point it may be open to visit or perhaps a museum will be built around it. Drinks Business has more on the story.

james-river-steam-brewery

Perhaps more interesting is that the British publication Brewery History devoted an entire issue to American brewery architecture. It’s the current issue and you can order a copy from the website. Issue 155 contains five articles spanning lagering caves, preeminent architects and the redevelopment of redundant breweries. To get a flavor for the issue, you can download a pdf of the Introduction by guest editor Susan K. Appel. The other articles include “Stahlmann’s Cellars: a large American lagering cave from the 19th-century,” and “An examination of the Lemp Brewery Cave.” See the Table of Contents for a full list of the articles.

brewery-history-155

Beer In Film #51: Malting Barley, The Malting Process

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brookston-film
Today’s beer video is a nice overview of the malting process by which raw barley is turned into brewing malt to make beer. Malting Barley — Malting Process walks you through the malting steps. It was created by the Malt Academy, which is part of the “Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, a non-profit, independent organization that was set up to provide technical assistance to the malting barley and brewing industries.” If you want to see more or go father in depth, they have even more videos on YouTube.