Here’s an interesting infographic on beer — both history and factoids — created by Online Bachelor Degree Programs, presumably to drive traffic. But as I’m a sucker for infographics, I’ll happily fall for it. At least they listed their sources at the end. Enjoy!
To see it full size, go to Online Bachelor Degree Programs.
My friend and colleague Lew Bryson is promoting a new holiday, to take place on April 7. Session Beer Day was created to bring awareness to the idea that low-alcohol beers can be every bit as flavorful as their more spirited cousins, beers of average or high alcohol. Lew’s Session Beer Project has been a pet project of his for a few years now, its purpose likewise is “to popularize and support the brewing and enjoyment of session beers.” You can read more about Session Beer Day on Lew’s blog Seen Through a Glass.
While there are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes a “session beer,” for purposes of the holiday, the focus will be on beers that are 4.5% a.b.v. and below. If you’re a beer lover, on April 7, consider drinking only session beers and making a special point to ask for session beers at your favorite watering holes. Many places don’t even carry any beers that would fit the working definition and this holiday is an opportunity to educate places that aren’t stocking at least one session beer.
If you’re in a position at a bar, pub, brewery, restaurant, etc., consider offering session beer on April 7, perhaps even making a special promotion for the day (or week surrounding) Session Beer Day. You could even really step up and serve ONLY session beers and see how many you can find from your local brewers.
Here’s how Lew describes what to do on Session Beer Day:
If you work at a bar (or manage one, or own one), please consider throwing some under-4.5% beers on for April 7th, and making a special price or promotion for them. Tell folks it’s Session Beer Day, and encourage them to see how good lower alcohol beers can be. (Good day to get a “We Support” window sticker, too!) If you’re a brewer or wholesaler, encourage your accounts to pick up your under-4.5% beers for that day; it’s a great chance to promote those beers! If you’re a beer blogger/tweeter/writer, please consider spreading the word about Session Beer Day: use the hashtag #sessionday . And if you’re a session beer drinker…get out there and ask for it!
If you don’t recognize the significance of April 7, that was the day in 1933 when the Cullen-Harrison Bill, signed into law by FDR on March 23, took effect. Here, I’ll let Bob Skilnik take up the rest of the story:
Congressional events leading up to April 7, 1933 allowed only the resumption of sales for legal beer with an alcoholic strength of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight (abw), weak by today’s standards. Congress had earlier passed the so-called Cullen-Harrison Bill which redefined what constituted a legally “intoxicating” beverage. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill on March 23, 1933. The bill’s passage took the teeth out of the bite of the Volstead Act of 1919 and raised the Prohibition-era legal limit of alcoholic drinks from .05% abw to 3.2% abw.
Bringing breweries back online on April 7, 1933 in states whose legislatures agreed to go “wet” again gave a tremendous shot in the arm of an economy in the throes of the Depression. In just forty-eight hours, $25,000,000 had been pumped into various beer-related trades as diverse as bottling manufacturers to the sawdust wholesalers whose product lay strewn on the floors of saloons. For the first day of nationwide beer sales, it was estimated that the federal tax for beer brought in $7,500,000 to the United States Treasury.
To learn more about this period of history, read Skilnik’s New Beer’s Eve, April 7, 1933. So it seems an appropriate day to celebrate session beers, the day when only session beers were available after thirteen years of no (legal) beer of any kind.
So now you know. April 7 will be celebrated as Session Beer Day. Won’t you you join us?
If you’re asking yourself if we can just declare any day a holiday, the answer is “yes.” If you’re a regular reader of the Bulletin, you know I’m a holiday geek and list many obscure holidays for every day of the year. Almost all of those are legitimate. Apart from “official” holidays which are voted on by Congress, anyone can declare any day a holiday. The trick is to get others to recognize it. So there are lots of small holidays. Some are self-serving holidays by industries to promote their products. Some are by non-profits hoping to build awareness for their cause. Some are wacky ideas by goofy people (like me) who just want to have some fun. Some are rooted in old traditions and others are just completely made up. Some succeed while others are relegated to the scrap heap of forgotten holidays. Many of the holidays we take for granted, such as Thanksgiving or Mother’s Day, were simply thought up by individuals hoping to promote a good idea and only gained wider acceptance over time. Thanksgiving has only been an annual event since 1863 and Mother’s Day, in its current form, wasn’t made an official holiday until 1914. So any holiday has a chance of becoming a big holiday with Hallmark cards and special traditions to celebrate it as long as enough people buy into it and observe it as a holiday. So Session Beer Day is a holiday if we say it’s holiday. It’s that simple. So this April 7th, make Session Beer Day a reality simply by drinking some session beers. Oh, and don’t forget to celebrate International Brewers Day on July 18.
So I’m walking through the grocery store the other day; and I’m hungry, which is never a good combination. I’m perusing the frozen food section, when something catches my eye. It’s Cheddar Bites, or more specifically “Crispy Beer Battered Aged White Cheddar” by Alexia. Now it’s not that they’re beer-battered — which I’m pleased about — but it’s nothing new. That’s not what caught my attention. On the box is a small tri-colored square, at an angle, to the right of the main label, declaring that these cheddar bites aren’t made with just any old beer, but are “Craft Beer Battered!” Woo Hoo! We’ve come a long way, baby, when that becomes a selling point. It made me laugh a bit, and naturally there’s no information about what craft beer was used for the batter. The company’s in Washington, so that’s a clue, I suppose.
Still, I find it interesting that a food company thought it was enough of a selling point to include it as a separate element on the packaging. That certainly suggests that they believed it would appeal to a certain type of consumer, and specifically one for whom the fact that the beer was “craft beer” had some meaning. That’s an interesting development. And it worked, I suppose, since I bought them. The family verdict was mixed. My wife thought they were just “meh,” whereas I liked them just fine; though in fairness my tastes run toward anything that’s not too good for me and can be considered comfort food.
Has anyone else seen similar labeling on packaged foods? It’s the first time I’ve noticed it, but I’m curious if this is happening enough to be considered the beginning of a trend.
Anchor Brewing today posted a new video about the history of California Lager, and their new Zymaster series which attempts to recreate the beer brewed by Boca Brewing in the 1870s. You can read more about that history on their blog, too, in Part 1 and Part 2.
The age old debate about whether the beer glass is half full or half empty is no longer a matter of individual mood or personal philosophy. Once and for all, the riddle has now been solved, since as SnorgTees reveals, Technically, The Glass Is Always Full.
This is one of the coolest, albeit nerdy, songs I’ve heard since Tom Lehrer was doing the Vatican Rag and singing about the Elements. And thanks to Peter H. for sending me the link. It’s a St. Patrick’s Day song by a biologist, known only as Cadamole, who apparently lives in Washington, D.C. He sings about the biology of beer and … well, just listen to it for yourself. Enjoy!
And below are the lyrics so you can sing along:
In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eleven
On March the seventeenth day
I will raise up a beer and I’ll raise up a cheer
For Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Here’s to brewers yeast, that humblest of all beasts
Producing carbon gas reducing acetaldehyde
But my friends that isn’t all — it makes ethyl alcohol
That is what the yeast excretes and that’s what we imbibe
Anaerobic isolation
Alcoholic fermentation
NADH oxidation
Give me a beer
[CHORUS]
My intestinal wall absorbs that ethanol
And soon it passes through my blood-brain barrier
There’s a girl in the next seat who I didn’t think that sweet
But after a few drinks I want to marry her
I guess it’s not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I’d surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgment is impaired and my confidence is not
Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer
[CHORUS]
When ethanol is in me, some shows up in my kidneys
And inhibits vasopressin by degrees
A decrease in aquaporins hinders water re-absorption
And pretty soon I really have to pee
Well my liver breaks it down so my body can rebound
By my store of glycogen is soon depleted
And tomorrow when I’m sober I will also be hungover
Cause I flushed electrolytes that my nerves and muscles needed
Diuretic activation
Urination urination
Urination dehydration
Give me a beer
[CHORUS]
It’s hard not to get a chuckle from this Guinness advertisement from the UK, especially on St. Patrick’s Day. Enjoy.
The March issue of Science, touted as “the world’s leading journal of original scientific research, global news and commentary, included an article entitled Sexual Deprivation Increases Ethanol Intake in Drosophila. Which may not mean much, until you realize that in plain English it’s essentially “fruit flies who’ve had their sexual advances rejected drink more alcohol.” Here’s the abstract:
The brain’s reward systems reinforce behaviors required for species survival, including sex, food consumption, and social interaction. Drugs of abuse co-opt these neural pathways, which can lead to addiction. Here, we used Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the relationship between natural and drug rewards. In males, mating increased, whereas sexual deprivation reduced, neuropeptide F (NPF) levels. Activation or inhibition of the NPF system in turn reduced or enhanced ethanol preference. These results thus link sexual experience, NPF system activity, and ethanol consumption. Artificial activation of NPF neurons was in itself rewarding and precluded the ability of ethanol to act as a reward. We propose that activity of the NPF–NPF receptor axis represents the state of the fly reward system and modifies behavior accordingly.
Science Magazine’s News Blog featured the article in more layman’s terms as Sexually Rejected Flies Turn to Booze, and described the results as follows.
Offer a male fruit fly a choice between food soaked in alcohol and its nonalcoholic equivalent, and his decision will depend on whether he’s mated recently or been rejected by a female. Flies that have been given the cold shoulder are more likely to go for the booze, researchers have found. It’s the first discovery, in fruit flies, of a social interaction that influences future behavior.
Apparently that’s not the outcome the scientists expected.
The researchers expected all of the flies to prefer alcohol, but that’s not what they found. “You see that the mated males actually have an aversion to the alcohol-containing food,” Shohat-Ophir says. “And the rejected males have a high preference to that food with alcohol.” On average, the rejected males drank four times more alcohol than the mated ones, her team reports.
In the New York Times’ coverage — Learning From the Spurned and Tipsy Fruit Fly — they make the leap to human addiction, which I find a little troubling. “Fruit flies apparently self-medicate just like many humans do, drowning their sorrows or frustrations for some of the same reasons.” Which is okay, so far, but then they quote an alcohol addiction researcher who was not involved in the study, Dr. Markus Heilig, who believes the study “also supported new approaches to treating alcohol dependence,” including the investigation of “several compounds aimed at blunting alcohol urges.” And earlier in the Times’ reporting, they state that the study “suggests that some elements of the brain’s reward system have changed very little during evolution, and these include some of the mechanisms that support addiction.”
But that presupposes that the urge to drink alcohol is always bad, something that people should never do, and that it necessarily leads to addiction. And that, of course, it not the least bit true. Once upon a time, it meant the difference between living long enough to procreate and dying without issue. When it was safer to drink than the water, those humans with a greater tolerance for alcohol survived while those that couldn’t did not. If you’re reading this right now, it’s likely you can thank your ancient ancestors’ ability to handle their drink.
Even today, people who drink moderately tend to outlive those who never drink alcohol. Even those that drink heavily still tend to outlive those who never drink alcohol. It’s just that small fraction of the population that cannot handle alcohol and can be considered alcoholics, whether genetic or social or simply weak-willed. And for their failings, the world is cursed with neo-prohibitionists hell bent on the idea if even one person can’t handle alcohol, then dagnabbit no one should be able to enjoy it.
But so much of this type of research seems to play into their hands, making the assumption — very, very wrong in my opinion — that alcohol is bad for people, and bad for society, and that drinking alcohol always leads to alcoholism. It’s usually the starting premise. But it’s a false premise, because the majority of people who drink alcohol do so responsibly and in moderation and do not fall prey to alcoholism after their first (or tenth, or 100th or 1000th) sip.
And like the rejected fruit fly, sometimes a beer is just the thing to help get over a bitter rejection, or just a long, tough day at work. The calming effect of a beer after work or with dinner is part of a healthy lifestyle for many, many people. For a majority of people, there’s nothing wrong with that, and it does not signal the onset of addiction or any sort of problem whatsoever. And that’s my takeaway from the fruit fly, too. Sometimes you just need a beer to drown your sorrows.
Here’s an interesting infographic, though for most craft beer drinkers it won’t be of much use. It’s a pyramid — or beeramid — showing many of the most popular mainstream beers with their calories and carbohydrates shown, ranking them with the lowest in both at the top of the beeramid and the beers with the most calories and carbs as the foundation on the bottom.
It’s hard to read at this size, but you can see it full size at HellaWella.
It was created by HellaWella, a health-oriented website. And while I realize they mean well, I’ve never been convinced that calories or carbohydrates should ever be part of the decision-making process for choosing a beer. I realize other people feel differently, but watching the caloric content necessarily means sacrificing flavor so you can drink more. I say drink less, but better.
They believe that with their chart “you can figure out ahead of time how to keep the calories and/or carbohydrates to a minimum.” But by that criteria, Budweiser’s Select 55 is the best choice. The Top 10 include two non-alcoholic beers (which frankly shouldn’t even be here) and the other eight are low-calorie light beers, not one of which would I voluntarily drink or ever order at a bar or restaurant. But that’s the problem with these health suggestions. When you stick to the numbers, health means giving up what makes beer a great choice in the first place: flavor. If I have to give up beer that tastes of anything to be healthy, to my way of thinking there’s just no point. Except that beer is already healthy (even though the anti-alcohol folks have seen to it breweries aren’t aloud to say so) and since moderation is already the best course to take, why anyone would ever choose a beer with the lowest calories is beyond me.
So I’m a sucker for infographics, and this one is very well done, but in the end its flaw is in the intention, which is to steer people to the blandest possible beers imaginable, supposedly in the interest of health. That’s a mistake, I believe, and not part of a healthy lifestyle. Health also includes mental, as well as physical, health. If drinking responsibly and moderately means (according to the most recent dietary guidelines) having no more than 4 beers in a singe day (3 for a woman) and no more than 14 in a week (7 for women) then you should make them count. Choose the most flavorful, best-tasting beer you can. The difference in calories or carbs just isn’t worth the sacrifice. Skip the piece of cake and go for the better beer. To me, that’s a healthy choice.
With the first tip-off tomorrow, today is the last day to sign up to try to pick the winners for this year’s March Madness. I’ve again set up a bracket game through Yahoo which I call “Märzen Madness.” It doesn’t look like there’s a limit to the number of people who can play, so sign up and make your picks before March 15, which is when the first games take place. I’ll post and update standings each day there’s games played until a winner is declared.
To join Märzen Madness and play the Yahoo! Sports Tournament Pick’em game, just follow this instructions below. You’ll also need a Yahoo ID (which is free if you don’t already have one).
To accept the invitation, just follow this invitation link. For reference, here’s the group information.
Group ID#: 10019
Password: beer
Good luck everybody.