Today’s beer video is part 1 of 5, from a episode of the History Channel show American Eats, which aired for one season in 2006. The episode entitled “Beer” was number eleven of fifteen shows.
Beer In Film #58: A Chat With Ron Pattinson
Today’s beer video is a short interview of beer historian Ron Pattinson, the description for which reads. “Ron talks old beers with Bocky whilst sitting next to a very bad gnome. Find out about the latest Once Upon A Time Beers as well as Ron’s pursuit of the truth about porters.”
Anna Kendrick: Actress, Beer Lover
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.
Beer In Film #57: Craft Beer Tasting At Home
Today’s beer video was created by the Brewers Association and is entitled Craft Beer Tasting at Home and Beer Whispering Too! It’s a nice little “how to” for newbies on how to have a tasting in your home.
Beer In Film #55: Craft Beer
Today’s beer video is another animated film about Craft Beer, done as a student project by Michael Jolly, from St. Louis.
Craft Beer from Michael Jolly on Vimeo.
Top Beers In The US By State 2008-2013
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.
Beer In Film #54: The American Beer Revival
Today’s beer video is essentially an animated version of an infographic entitled the American Beer Revival, created by Visual.ly.
The American Beer Revival from visually on Vimeo.
Beer & Hieroglyphics
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.”
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
Alternative Images:
A37: Brewer (Variant)
Alternative Images:
M39: Basket of Grain
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O50: Circular Threshing Floor Covered with Grain
Alternative Images:
O51: Heap of Grain on a Raised Mud Floor
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W22: Beer Jug
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W23: Beer Jug (Variant)
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Beer In Film #53: One More Beer
Today’s beer video is a short little animated film by Pedro Conti entitled One More Beer! Shot and sweet, and pretty funny.
One More Beer! from pedro conti on Vimeo.
Beer In Film #52: Ten Biggest Beer Drinking Countries
Today’s beer video is a cute little film showing the 10 Biggest Beer Drinking Countries, produced by All Time 10s. I’m not sure where their exact data comes from, but it’s the usual suspects that make the list.