Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Fact: Geologists Love Beer

By

geology
Beginning with the bold pronouncement, “Fact — Geologists Love Beer,” Wired magazine explains Why Geologists Love Beer.

This week in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union is having their annual convention at Moscone Convention Center. According to Wired:

“Every other convention assumes that if you have a beer, your brain goes soft,” said Kathy Sullivan, who has been serving beer at the AGU meeting for 26 years. ”But not the geophysicists. They think if you have a beer, you can still learn things. So they do.”

At the Thirsty Bear, the closest brewpub to the Moscone Convention Center where the annual meeting is held every December, the waitstaff claims this is the busiest week of the year for them. I heard from the Borehole Research Group at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory that one server at the Thirsty Bear said the staff can’t take vacation days during the AGU meeting ”because the geologists are coming.”

earth-beyond
Betsy Mason, the author of the article — and a geologist and beer lover herself — polled the 16,00 convention attendees to try to figure why a love of rocks translates to a love of beer. Her results make entertaining reading. And, this insight is personally good news, because it explains yet another one of my own peculiar obsessions. I, too, love rocks. From childhood, I’ve been fascinated by them and to this day always pick up interesting rocks during vacations to bring back home as souvenirs. Throughout my house, I have jars and plates displaying the rocks I’ve found all over the world. Before now, I just thought it was another one of my odd obsessions, but I’m happy to learn it’s just part and parcel of my love of beer, the two apparently go hand in hand.

Watch the video below, bartender Kathy Sullivan is my new favorite person. Listen to what she has to say about the geologists drinking beer at their convention.

“It’s the only convention that thinks adults know whether they can drink and pay attention or not. Every other convention assumes that if you have a beer your brain goes soft, but not the geophysicists, they think if you have a beer you can still learn things … It’s treating people like adults as opposed to children.”

British Hypocrisy On Beer & Health

By

uk
I take no pleasure, though a certain perverse comfort, in the fact that America is not alone in its hypocrisy when it comes to alcohol policy and its government heath organizations. Today in the BBC News is another example of this phenomenon. (Thanks to Pete Brown for pointing this one out.)

In a title no doubt intended to inspire fear and paranoia, Parents Giving Children Alcohol Fuels Binge Drinking, Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s chief medical officer, warned parents that “letting children taste alcohol to ready them for adulthood was ‘misguided'” and claimed “[e]vidence showed that this could lead to binge drinking in later life.” Curiously, he offered no support whatsoever for this so-called evidence apart from saying it. You’d think the reporter might have asked him for that evidence, but no. Way to probe for the story, Marty.

Donaldson also claimed, again without any support, that “[t]he science is clear – drinking, particularly at a young age, a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fueled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country’s serious alcohol problem has developed.” The problem with that statement is that what he’s complaining about is that some parents give their children alcohol in a controlled environment, specifically NOT with a “lack of parental supervision,” etc. that he then claims is the problem. That makes it a problem that’s effectively the opposite of the one he starts out fomenting about and is indicated in the article’s headline. I should also mention that unlike most U.S. states, UK parents can legally “give their children alcohol at home from the age of five onwards.”

But, they continue, “[r]ates of teenage drunkenness are higher amongst both the children of parents who drink to excess and the children of parents who abstain completely.” So read that again. Kids drink more later in life if their parents either drink too much or not at all. That suggests that children of moderate drinkers do not, and the only way those children would know their parents are moderate drinkers if if they actually saw them drinking, something neo-prohibitionists are decidedly against.

Then again, as if forgetting that he began with the premise that parents giving their kids alcohol was the problem, he acknowledges. “Whilst parents have a greater influence on their children’s drinking patterns early on, as they grow older their friends have a greater influence. It is therefore crucial for parents to talk to their children about alcohol and its effects.” Talk, apparently, but not model responsible behavior or educate their children about alcohol.

But the upshot at the end is another opinion altogether, and one that contradicts everything that’s come before it.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said: “We know that adults who drink sensibly tend to pass these habits on and that some families choose to introduce alcohol to their children younger than 15 in a supportive environment.”

Well, if moderate drinking parents pass their responsible habits to their children — which I also believe they do — and some accomplish that by introducing alcohol to their kids successfully, then how exactly is this the problem that Dr. Donaldson seems to think it is? I tend to put my faith in the doctor who specializes in alcohol and health — Gilmore — rather than the administrator at the top, but perhaps that’s just me. I may simply be responding to the most reasonable position, and the one I happen to agree with.

So essentially, this article starts out with a bold headline and scary quotes from one of the country’s top docs, offered with no support whatsoever, and yet it turns out if you read all the way through it, that what they started out trying to scare people about isn’t even really true, settled or consistent. Of course, I learned in my college journalism classes that many readers tend to read the headline and maybe a paragraph or two, before their interest wanes and they move on. That’s why I was taught to put all the pertinent information in the early paragraphs and not leave it for a trick ending that contradicts the premise. (To be fair, I often ignore that advice, too, but not when I’m writing for a newspaper.) To me, that suggests an agenda on the part of either the author or the publisher. Surely an editor would have noticed the article wasn’t even internally consistent. But whatever the reason it was written this way, it certainly did beer or the truth no favors.

Bone Density & Beer Redux

By

skeleton-2
Just yesterday I wrote about beer and bone density and a recent study confirming the positive benefits in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Today yet another unrelated study appears to confirm the findings of the first, as reported in today’s Burton Mail. In the article, Dr. Jonathan Powell, head of a bio-mineral research department in Cambridge, said the “key to beer’s benefits is silicon — a chemical more commonly associated which enhancing chests than fattening stomachs. Historically, silicon has not been seen as an essential nutrient, but our research suggests that it could play an important role in bone health. We have shown that silicon appears to have a beneficial effect in increasing bone mineral density.” Beer of course, is rich in silicon. “The combination of the silicon and alcohol intake from moderate beer consumption appears to promote both bone and connective tissue health.” This study’s results will be presented at a conference here in California. The article goes on to mention a third study, “published earlier this year which showed that moderate ethanol consumption has an acute, specific effect in reducing bone loss.” It seems pretty clear at this point that all the science is indeed finding a positive correlataion between moderate beer drinking and increased bone density. I’ll drink to that.

Beer In Ads #10: Boris Vallejo’s Michelob Man

By

ad-billboard
Today’s ad was painted by one of the most famous science fiction/fantasy artists of all time, Boris Vallejo. If you don’t know who he he is, then you’ve never read the genre, because he’s worked for nearly everybody and has also done a number of album covers. His most famous characters include Conan, Doc Savage and Tarzan.

According to the biography at his home page:

Born in Lima, Peru, Boris attended the National School of Fine Arts in his native country before immigrating to the United States in 1964. He has since done a great volume of work for the Fantasy field, having worked for virtually every major publishing house with a science fiction/fantasy line. Boris has also illustrated for album covers, video box art and motion picture advertising.

You can also see a lot of his art at his official website (along with his wife, artist Julie Bell) and chronologically at the Boris Vallejo Gallery.

If I had to guess, I’d say this may have been for something internal at A-B because notice that the man in the painting, who may or may not be August Busch III, is crushing a can of Heineken, undoubtedly a primary target of Michelob’s marketing efforts. There’s also a strange triangular-shaped object between the two beers that resembles a Toblerone package, but I can’t figure what that might be. Anybody have any ideas?

Boris_Valejo-michelob

Brewing Network Announces Winter Beer Fest

By

bn
The Brewing Network has just announced their first beer festival next month. It’s going to be a Winter Brews Festival and will take place January 30, 2010 from 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Linden Street Brewery in Oakland.

From the press release:

While Bay Area residents commiserate in a collective shiver at current winter temperatures, the East Bay based craft beer radio company, the Brewing Network, is finalizing plans for its first annual Winter Brews Festival to revive listeners, locals, and brewers from their wintery slumber to enjoy seasonal brews from more than 30 world class breweries.

The Brewing Network Winter Brews Festival will be held at the newly opened Linden St. Brewery in Oakland on Saturday, January 30, 2010, and will feature a wide variety of winter warmers and unique innovations from some of the best brewers in the Bay Area and beyond.

Partnering with Linden St. Brewery in Oakland, this festival combines the love of seasonal beers with the enthusiasm of the local craft beer scene. With barrels from breweries such as Russian River, Firestone Walker, the 21st Amendment, Speakeasy, Linden St., Moonlight Brewing, Magnolia, and many more, this Winter Brews Fest promises to provide big, malty beers to ignite the taste buds of beer lovers, new and experienced.

Hot food (will be available for purchase) and live music will round out the festival, which will run from 1pm to 8pm. For more information on the event, please visit www.brewingnetwork.com/ontap.

Tickets will most likely be $25, which will include a commemorative glass and five tastings, with more available for purchase. Details are still being worked out and the price is subject to change.

bn-winterfest10

Bud Light Wheat Vs. Blue Moon

By

bud-light-wheat
I confess that when Bud Light Golden Wheat first appeared in the market, I gave it almost no notice. It was yet another line extension in an increasingly crowded portfolio. If I had noticed that it also included citrus and coriander it might have been more apparent that it was conceived, at least in part, to attack Coors’ Blue Moon. Given Anheuser-Busch’s track record of going after literally every product on the market — no matter how small the niche — what’s more surprising in hindsight is that it took so long. Blue Moon first debuted in 1995.

Crain’s Chicago Business had an interesting article on Monday about the battle, entitled Budweiser Takes On MillerCoors’ Blue Moon In Craft Beer Brew-Haha.

crafting-a-plan

But since its debut last October, Bud Light Golden Wheat has made significant progress, showing just how important distribution and access to market can be.

Anheuser-Busch showed last month that it has the marketing muscle and distribution wingspan to make up lost ground quickly. It sold 263,000 cases of Bud Light Golden Wheat in November, nearly equaling Blue Moon’s total, IRI data show.

It’s an interesting read, and to me the takeaway is Harry Schuhmacher’s thoughts, as quoted in the article:

“It’s very important because craft beers are the only growing part of the business,” says Harry Schuhmacher, editor of San Antonio-based trade publication Beer Business Daily. “This is where the future of beer is going, and they want to make sure they are well-established in the category.”

Bone Density Strengthened By Moderate Beer Drinking

By

skeleton-2
Although Reuters only recently wrote about this new study, Moderate Drinking May Help Build Bone Density, it’s based on a study published in February in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. According to the journal abstract:

Goal: Our aim was to determine the association between intake of total alcohol or individual alcoholic beverages and bone mineral density.

Design: Adjusting for potential confounding factors, we examined alcohol intakes and BMD at 3 hip sites and the lumbar spine in 1182 men and in 1289 postmenopausal and 248 premenopausal women in the population-based Framingham Offspring cohort (age: 29–86 yrs.).

Results: Men were predominantly beer drinkers, and women were predominantly wine drinkers. Compared with nondrinkers, hip BMD was greater (3.4–4.5%) in men consuming 1–2 drinks/d of total alcohol or beer, whereas hip and spine BMD were significantly greater (5.0–8.3%) in postmenopausal women consuming >2 drinks/d of total alcohol or wine. Intake of >2 drinks/d of liquor in men was associated with significantly lower (3.0–5.2%) hip and spine BMD than was intake of 1–2 drinks/d of liquor in men. After adjustment for silicon intake, all intergroup differences for beer were no longer significant; differences for other alcohol sources remained significant. Power was low for premenopausal women, and the associations were not significant.

Conclusions: Moderate consumption of alcohol may be beneficial to bone in men and postmenopausal women. However, in men, high liquor intakes (>2 drinks/d) were associated with significantly lower BMD. The tendency toward stronger associations between BMD and beer or wine, relative to liquor, suggests that constituents other than ethanol may contribute to bone health. Silicon appears to mediate the association of beer, but not that of wine or liquor, with BMD. Other components need further investigation.

There was nothing ambiguous about the results of the study, “it’s very clear,’ said Dr. Katherine Tucker of Boston’s Tufts University that the positive effect on bone density from beer and wine is “larger than what we see for any single nutrient, even for calcium.”

From the Reuters article:

Men who had a glass or two of wine or beer daily had denser bones than non-drinkers, the researchers found, but those who downed two or more servings of hard liquor a day had significantly lower BMD than the men who drank up to two glasses of liquor daily.

The women who drank more than two glasses a day of alcohol or wine had greater BMD than the women who drank less. Nonetheless, this finding shouldn’t be seen as meaning that the more a woman drinks the better it is for her bones, Tucker noted; there were simply not that many women in the study who drank much more than this.

Beer is an excellent source of silicon, a mineral needed for bone health that has become increasingly rare in the modern diet, the researcher noted. Beer’s silicon content accounted for at least some of its bone-building effects in men, she added; there were too few women who drank beer to draw conclusions about how the mineral affected female bone density.

Sounds like you your bones will thank you for drinking beer moderately. A beer a day keeps the bone doctor away?

Brookston Beer Quiz #1

By

quiz-can
Here is the first of what will most likely be many beer quizzes. I’ll probably do a new one every few weeks. I have tons of similar graphics I’ve been collecting for another project and figured I’d put them to good use in the meantime.

This first one is pretty easy, though I think having multiple choice answers makes them all easier. For each question you’ll be show the first letter of a brewery or beer brand’s name from their logo or label and you have to identify which one it is. Good luck. Let me know how you did.

Help Choosing Your Beer

By

humor
This is a very fun little chart, though it must have taken quite some time to actually put together. Over at Eating the Road, they’ve assembled a flowchart to help you choose what beer to drink.

Here’s how they describe it:

In conjunction with the amazingly useful, humorous and insightful Sloshspot.com we’ve put together another flowchart to make your decision making that much easier. Just in time for those wonderful Holiday parties, Eating The Road to the rescue. We figured you may need this one a bit more than the others seeing that you may be a little…ahh, under the influence. Due to that, please use this chart with caution and responsibility.

I ended up with Utopias and Cantillon, so in my case it worked pretty well. Enjoy. At Eating the Road, you can also find links to other flowcharts, including ones for Fast Food, Chain Restaurants and cereal.

NOTE: If you find it hard to read at this size, you can view it full size here.
what-should-i-drink-beer

Beer In Art #56: Mark Blanton’s Bohemia Pin-Up

By

art-beer
This Sunday’s work of art is decidedly adult in nature, as much art often is, and is by Mark Blanton. Blanton is a modern artist, a hyper-realist it appears, and also has done a series of pin-up art, which he “created as a tribute to the Sixties’ art movement known as Pop Art and the work of Pop artist Mel Ramos, Pin-up artists Alberto Vargas and George Petty.” The highlighted work today, featuring Bohemia beer, is channeling Mel Ramos so much that for a long time I actually thought it was by Ramos.

Blanton_Mark-Bohemia

Looking through Ramos’ oeuvre revealed, as expected, many, many paintings of nude women with a commercial product of similar size, a pop art style that Ramos pioneered. But as many different variations as Ramos painted, I could not find one featuring a beer. You can see his work at Modernism, Art History, or the Ro Gallery .

Not finding it among Ramos’ works, I started looking elsewhere to identify it eventually finding Mark Blanton, many of whose works are strikingly similar to Ramos.

Given the obvious phallic symbolism of a beer bottle it seems strange that Ramos never did a painting with beer, although he did paint one with a wine bottle. Luckily, Blanton stepped in to fill the void.

You can also see more of Blanton’s Ramos-inspired pin-ups at his website, and also at Pin Up and Cartoon Girls and at the History of Pin Up Art.