Today in 1948, Sri Lanka gained their Independence from the United Kingdom.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka Breweries
Sri Lanka Brewery Guides
Other Guides
Guild: None Known
National Regulatory Agency: None
Beverage Alcohol Labeling Requirements: Not Known
Drunk Driving Laws: BAC 0.06% — Breathalyzer testing is not used routinely. If suspected by police the driver is produced before the closest government medical officer who examines and determines whether the driver is under influence. If the driver refuses examination by the medical officer he is considered to have been under influence by default. [Note: WHO lists BAC at 0.08%]
- Full Name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (f.k.a. Ceylon)
- Location: Southern Asia, island in the Indian Ocean, south of India
- Government Type: Republic
- Language: Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%, other 8%; English spoken by 10%
- Religion(s): Buddhist 69.1%, Muslim 7.6%, Hindu 7.1%, Christian 6.2%, unspecified 10%
- Capital: Colombo
- Population: 21,283,913; 57th
- Area: 65,610 sq km, 122nd
- Comparative Area: Slightly larger than West Virginia
- National Food: Rice and Curry
- National Symbol: Blue Lily, Jungle Fowl, Mesua Ferrea tree, Lion & Sword
- Nickname: Teardrop of India, Island of Dharma, Pearl of the Orient, Pearl of the Indian Ocean
- Affiliations: UN, Commonwealth of Nations
- Independence: From the UK, February 4, 1948
- Alcohol Legal: Yes
- Minimum Drinking Age: 21
- BAC: 0.06% or 0.08% (sources differ)
- Label Requirements: N/A
- Number of Breweries: 4
- How to Say “Beer”: Bire (Sinhala); Madhubaanam or Oru vakai cārāyam (Tamil)
- How to Say “Cheers”: Seiradewa (Sinhala)
- Toasting Etiquette: N/A
Alcohol Consumption By Type:
- Beer: 6%
- Wine: <1%
- Spirits: 94%
Alcohol Consumption Per Capita (in litres):
- Recorded: 0.35
- Unrecorded: 0.44
- Total: 0.79
- Beer: 0.02
WHO Alcohol Data:
- Per Capita Consumption: 0.4 litres
- Alcohol Consumption Trend: Stable
- Excise Taxes: Yes
- Minimum Age: 21
- Sales Restrictions: Time, location, specific events, petrol stations
- Advertising Restrictions: Yes
- Sponsorship/Promotional Restrictions: Yes
Patterns of Drinking Score: 3
Prohibition: None.
Today is the birthday of Fal Allen, who returned to Anderson Valley Brewing last year, after living for four years in Singapore, where he built and ran a craft brewery for Archipelago Brewery, a division of Asia Pacific Breweries. He blogged about his exploits there on his Brewing in Singapore blog, but since returning stateside, he’s been blogging at The Goat Rodeo. Join me in wishing the ageless Fal a very happy birthday.
At the Oregon Brewers Festival.
Also at OBF, with Daniel Bradford of All About Beer Magazine and Dave Buehler from Elysian Brewing in Seattle.
Fal participating in the swimsuit contest at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego several years back.
While still GM at Anderson Valley, launching Brother David at the Toronado in San Francisco. Clockwise from left: Fal, Mark Cabrera, David Gatlin, me and Dave Keene, the beer’s namesake and Toronado owner.
For a long while Europe has led the world in beer consumption by continent and also by nation since the EU has increased in economic prominence as a single entity. According to new data by Credit Suisse, China now leads the world in terms of beer consumption, growing at a pace of about 10% per year. The Economist has more details in All Pints East.
Most people have probably heard of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. But the Japanese propensity of coming up with unusual hobbies knows no boundaries. One of the tamer examples is the related art of making 3D paper models. Using vector software like Pepakura, 3D models are created in 2D and then sheets are created to cut out and build the paper models. I stumbled on one of these while searching for another image. It’s of a waitress serving beer to a bar patron. The title of it is Bunny Beer Maiden because the waitress is dressed in a bunny costume, a popular Japanese fetish theme. Instructions and more photos are also at Papercraft and also at Paperworks’ And Wind Until, which has even more views of the component parts of the paper models.
First a vector drawing is created on a computer, and then individual pieces like a dress pattern are created that must be carefully cut out for assembly.
After being put together, the server in bunny costume looks like this. See many other angles here.
Here’s a close-up of the glasses of beer.
And the customer with his beer. See many other angles here.
And here’s the entire scene with the server, the customer and tables and chairs, all of which are made out of paper.
The English version of the Chinese newspaper, The People’s Daily, had an interesting article about international breweries investing heavily in the world’s biggest beer market: China. Entitled, Big Brewers Fermenting Deals in Southwest, it details, for example, how MolsonCoors has “recently spent $40 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a new joint venture with the Hebei Si’hai Beer Company.” Coors Light “now accounts for 10 percent of China’s premium beer market.” Carlsberg is making similar investments, and Anheuser-Busch InBev “started work on a new brewery in Ziyang, Sichuan province, this year.” And that’s just in the southern part of China. It’s a big market.
Thursday’s ad is from Japan, and is for Sapporo beer. The ad is from 1934 and pictures a woman sitting and enjoying a beer, presumably at a dance watching the other couples cut a rug. One oddity; is it just me or does that glass in her hand look pretty small? Or is she perhaps a giant? Either way, it seems a little out of proportion. It’s also interesting that apart from the kanji writing and the woman’s obvious ethnicity, it could be any western ad for beer.
