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Beer In Art #91: Andriy Khomyk’s Drinking Beer

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art-beer
Today’s painting is done using a unique technique, reverse painting on glass. It’s an ancient process, and today’s artist, Andriy Khomyk, is from the Ukraine where at one time it enjoyed more popularity. According to his website. “No other medium allows for the creation of such deep and energetic color! Painting is done on the reverse side of the pane — the work is viewed through the layer of glass, which produces amazing effects!” You can also read more about painting on glass on Khomyk’s website. The title of the painting below is Drinking Beer.

Andriy_Khomyk-beer

A short biography is on his website:

Andriy Khomyk was born in Lviv, Ukraine, on May 28, 1962. He graduated from the Faculty of Design of Lviv College of Applied end Decorative Arts in 1981, and from the Faculty of Decorative Ceramics of the Lviv Academy of the Arts in 1986. He has worked in the fields of easel painting and book printing art, and since 1991 in the field of easel painting on glass. He has participated in international and national exhibitions, and has had personal exhibitions of paintings on glass in Lviv, 1993, USA, 1995, Kyiv, 1996, Lviv, 1996, Krakow, 1997, USA, 1997, Lviv, 1998, Lviv, 1999, and USA, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004.

He’s also done one more beer-themed painting that’s in his Folk Arts section under crafts, entitled The Brewer.

Andriy_Khomyk-brewer

You can see many more of his painted glass artwork at the gallery on his website.

World Drinking Age Maps

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earthday
In a similar vein to yesterday’s hangover infographics, here are several more that show the minimum age that people can drink across the nations of the world. They show just how out of whack we are with the rest of the world, having one of the highest ages where people are permitted to drink: 21. The majority of the world is at 18 or below, with only a very few above eighteen (of those countries that permit their citizens to choose for themselves whether they want to consume alcohol).

infograph-drinking-age
For a larger view, click here.

One odd feature of this one is it shows India as a solid 21, whereas it’s actually 18-25 depending on the state. But it’s still pretty obvious that the world average, where drinking it allowed at all, is 18.

drinking-age-map
For a larger view, click here.

This one, too, shows a proliferation of 18 and under, where legal.

infograph-drinking-age-3
For a larger view, click here.

The last one, from Charts Bin, lumps together many of the ages of majority, which seems a little misleading. For example, it lumps 19-21 together making it seem like there’s many more that are on the high end whereas only five countries are as high as 21, including the puritanical U.S.

There are also a few decent lists of drinking ages, at the International Center for Alcohol Policies, Wikipedia and Alcohol Problems and Solutions.

Beer In Ads #182: Art Nouveau Beer Lady

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ad-billboard
Friday’s ad is one of my favorite beer posters of all time, though I’ve never seen it with any text so I don’t know if it was ever actually used as an advertisement at all and, if so, for what brewery. I’ve never seen any information about the artist or even where it’s from precisely, though I suspect it’s French. Still, it’s beautiful.

beer

NFL Football: Pick The Winners At Brookston Fantasy Games

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football
This is the fourth year for the Brookston Fantasy Football Games. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last three, so if you love football and beer, consider joining us again this year. The NFL season begins on Thursday September 9, so you’ve got about a dozen days to sign up.

I’ve again set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool. Up to 50 people can play each game (that’s Yahoo’s limit), so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up for one or even both. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to join each league and play.

Standings for both leagues will be listed at the bottom of the Bulletin’s right column.

Pro Football Pick’em

In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. I’ve added a new wrinkle this year. Since we’re all very busy, and you (or I) might screw up at least one week, you can now throw out your lowest week. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.

Also, a new feature Yahoo added is the ability to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…

Group ID#: 37001 (Brookston NFL Pick To Win)
Password: brookston

Survival Football

If picking all sixteen football game every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Actually this year they added a new feature and I changed the game so to be kicked out you have to be wrong twice. In that way more people stand a better chance of lasting longer into the season. So get one wrong, and you’re still okay, get a second wrong, now you’re gone for the season. Last man standing wins.

Yahoo also added the new feature to this game, too, where we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.

In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…

Group ID#: 15291 (Soused Survival League)
Password: bulletin

With 50 players allowed in each game, there’s plenty of room, so don’t be shy. Sign up for one or both games. Beginning after the first weekend of the regular season I’ll post the standings on the home page (at the bottom of the right-hand column) and then each Monday after that through the season. Won’t you join us?

Craft Breweries Have Tipped The Dominos

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australia
An interesting international perspective was expressed in The Shout, an Australian trade publication covering “hotel, bar, club & liquor industry news.” The short piece, entitled “… as Specialist Hails Craft Beer Revival,” is about the International Beer Shop, a specialty beer store in Perth that carries 850 beers from around the world.

The shop’s manager, Cameron Stewart, has some great quotes about American craft beer’s influence on the rest of the world, to wit:

“Experimental US Craft Breweries have tipped the dominos, and they are falling throughout the Western World.”
…

“Cutting-edge modern breweries constantly expand their ranges, developing and reinterpreting various beer styles to provide beer lovers with their next beer experience,” he said.

“These guys are constantly refining their art. They are the magicians of the beer world.”

Nice.

Beer In Ads #181: Hurlimann Bier

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ad-billboard
Thursday’s ad is for the Swiss brewery, Brauerei Hurlimann. It was founded in 1836, and moved to Zurich thirty years later, in 1866. They’re still brewing beer today, though I don’t know when this ad was done, though I suspect it was shortly after World War 2 ended, as “Kriegs Zeit Friedens Zeit” translates roughly as “postwar peace time period.”

hurlimann-bier

Brewers Association Power Hour Reveals New Craft Numbers

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ba
If you’re a member of the Brewers Association, a trade organization for small breweries, you have the opportunity to listen in on the bi-monthly Power Hour, an on-line, interactive teleconference series. This morning’s topic was “Craft Brewing & Mid-Year Category Sales Review.” I didn’t listen in to this one, but happily Ray Daniels, he of the Cicerone program, was kind enough to tweet a number of the statistics quoted in the talk by Dan Wandel, with the Symphony IRI Group, and better still, Todd Alstrom, posted Ray’s tweets on Beer Advocate where they can live forever instead of being lost in the ether. Below is just a few of the more interesting tidbits.

  • First half of 2010 sales data — Craft volume up 11.9%!
  • Symphony IRI Group show craft beer being 8.7% of the total beer market in H1 2010
  • Sales of craft beer 22 oz bottles up 28% in 2010 vs. 2009 in supermarkets.
  • 3 of top 10 new brands are IPAs
  • 8 of the top 15 new craft brands this year are IPAs.
  • What recession? First half craft sales showing best growth of any year since 2007.
  • Top 10 major brewer brands DOWN more than 5 million cases so far this year.
  • 511 craft beer UPCs (products) being sold in California.
  • More households in the US now purchasing craft beer versus a year ago—better than any other segment.
  • Dan Wandel from SIG says craft beer the “shining star” of US beer market, on track for 6th (I think he said) year of >10% growth.

You can see the rest of Ray Daniels’ tweets here. Thanks again to Todd for saving me the trouble of having to go back and grab Ray’s tweets individually.

Red Lobster On Beer

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red-lobster
This was originally mentioned in a Beer Advocate thread, started by Will C. of Virginia, and then spread out via Twitter as a worthy topic by Todd and Jason. I found it interesting, as well, as it concerns one of the national restaurant chains attempts to promote beer to their customers. The chain is Red Lobster, a seafood restaurant I haven’t eaten at since maybe the early 1980s, and even then only once or twice. I’m not a big chain restaurant patron, less so when it’s seafood, which I’m also not a great fan of.

But I have to at least give kudos to Red Lobster for trying to educate their customers about beer. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but my sense is that regular Red Lobster customers are generally not hardcore beer geeks. Most of the people I know who love great beer, are at least somewhat passionate about the food they eat, too. So that suggests that the average Red Lobster patron could probably use a little beer edumacation. So they’ve set up an interactive Beer Tasting Guide showing each of the main year-round beers they carry on a chart with beer color on one axis and “flavor” on the other. When you move you mouse over each of the beers, a window pops up with additional information about that beer. It’s one of the better uses of Flash technology I’ve see involving beer.

redlobs-beer-guide

The downside, of course, is that of the seventeen beers on the chart, only the five Samuel Adams beers, and possibly the Guinness (depending on which one it is) are worth ordering, at least to my taste. The biggest blunder, though, is equating flavor with IBUs as the Y-axis seems to suggest. Obviously, they’re not remotely the same thing, and none of the beers on the list could really be considered hoppy by any stretch. There would obviously be numerical differences between the beers, but from a taste point of view, not so much. They also seem to suggest all dark beers are malty and light beers are also “crisp,” which is likewise not exactly true, at least not all the time.

Red Lobster did, however, buy the new proprietary Samuel Adams beer glass and put the Red Lobster logo on them for all their restaurants, which is a plus. And according to their beer page, they have some regional beers in select areas, though those choices, too, are nothing out of the ordinary. Still, this is the sort of thing that’s to be encouraged, I think. I’m not a great fan of misinformation — of which there is certainly some here — but it’s a start. Perhaps it will at least inspire Red Lobster’s customers to ask more questions, a move which could ultimately lead them to better beer.