Back in May I mentioned that Sapporo Breweries was “planning to brew a beer made from barley descended from seeds grown in space, specifically in the Russian section of the International Space Station two years ago.” Back then I wrote.

According to Reuters, Sapporo said in a statement. “By pursuing the infinite possibility that space has, we wish to present our customers with rich and enjoyable proposals to enjoy a new beer culture.” Sapporo will not sell the initial results, but instead will sample select consumers on the new space beer, which should be — ahem — launched this November. Working with Okayama University scientists, they will produce just over 166 gallons of beer (630 liters). I doubt anyone will be able to taste any difference, but I’d still like to be one of the lucky ones chosen to try it.

Well, it’s December now and still no sign of a tasting. But wait, there’s more news. Sapporo announced yesterday that in January the tasting will take place. According to Japan Today, “[a] total of 30 couples, who have been selected through a lottery, will be invited to the events at the company’s six plants from Hokkaido to Oita Prefecture.”

Presumably the barley she’s holding is the third-generation space barley they used in making the beer, named Sapporo Space Barley. The original plants were sent into space and grown in the International Space Station for five months.

Showing off the bottles at yesterday’s press conference.

Only 100 liters of the beer was made, far less than originally announced, and initial reports say — not surprisingly — that it tastes the same as any other beer.

My favorites quote from the press: From Technovelgy, “I’m guessing “out of this world” will be the most common response.” And from Dvice, “[u]ntil then we’ll stay tuned to see if the space grown beer microbes yield any gamma ray-like super powers.”

My friend Pete Slosberg noticed something different in a comic strip and sent it to me yesterday. It’s a recent Non Sequitur cartoon by Wiley Miller. Read it all the way down the last panel. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Meet you at the end.

 
That’s the first I know of a craft beer being mentioned in a nationally syndicated comic strip, in this case specifically Shipyard Ale from Shipyard Brewing in Portland, Maine. That’s pretty cool, in my humble opinion.

In case you missed this, a new brewery opened yesterday in Gresham, Oregon. The 4th Street Brewery will have five regular beers on tap, including Gresham Light, Demented Duck Amber, Black Roots Blonde, Powell Porter, and Eager Beaver IPA. John Foyston had the story in the Oregonian.
 

I don’t know who Neil Hamilton is, apart from a former British Member of Parliament — a hardcore Thatcherite Conservative — who’s been embroiled in one scandal after another for many years. He doesn’t appear to be the sort of politician I’d normally side with; he even once “strongly” supported lead in gasoline and opposed removing it, not to mention being anti-trade union, anti-immigration anti-child benefit, pro-free market and supporting capital punishment, privatization, and the right of people to sell their organs. So to say we’re polar opposites might be something of an understatement.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t find any common ground. He does have some interesting things to say about drinking and the economy. In an Op-Ed piece in the UK’s Daily Express entitled Why We Have To Save the Great British Pub, Hamilton says things that no politician in America would dare say. And despite everything else he stands for, I have to admire that about him.

You should read it all in context, as it’s about what the UK government is doing with regard to alcohol laws, many of which mirror our own foolhardy efforts. But with so many choice bon mots, it’s hard to resist listing some of my favorites.

We all need something to cheer us up. So, what does our killjoy Government plan to do? Ban happy hour in pubs, that’s what.

And here’s a question that American politicians are loathe to ask.

Quite apart from the obvious uselessness of this measure, what business is it of these interfering busybodies anyway?

And none will admit this truism.

We all know alcoholics can wreck their health; so can madcap drivers but we don’t require signs on all cars saying, “Warning: Death Trap.” There is no “drink problem” in this country; only a small minority of “problem drinkers.”

U.S. alcohol policy is also quite focused on punishing everyone, too.

Why should the rest of us be denied early evening happy hours after work just because a few idiots can’t control themselves in completely different circumstances?

Penalizing everyone because they can’t police a few bad apples.

If a pub or bar habitually serves drinks to drunks, it should lose its licence. If youngsters scream and vomit in the streets, they should be arrested and punished. Why penalise sensible drinkers by raising prices and restricting hours?

And it doesn’t work here, either.

That will do nothing to reduce alcohol abuse or smoking. Addicts of either will just stay in, drinking and smoking more cheaply in front of the TV. Youngsters will tank up at home on cheap vodka before sallying forth for a night on the pull in some raucous bear-pit bar.

So instead of praising beer consumption over higher alcohol drinks like cocktails or wine, our neo-prohibitionists target beer and leave the rest alone.

The paradox of this is that beer is a low-alcohol drink and pubs are a controlled environment, tailor-made to prevent alcohol-related problems.

I presume what he’s saying is perhaps part of normal conservative rhetoric in Great Britain, or he wouldn’t be saying it in a general circulation mainstream newspaper. But over on this side of the pond, it would be positively extreme and radical, the kind of opinions that almost never grace our media outlets, print of otherwise. If one of our conservative politicians said even some of this, they’d be hounded by religious, conservative and neo-prohibitionist groups from now ’till doomsday.

Personally, I just like hearing them from someone other than myself.

Not necessarily everything to come out of Belgium is as wonderful as their beer. Witness The Smurfs, which were created by Belgian artist Peyo in 1958. Yup, you read that right. The Smurfs are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. They made our way to America in 1981, when NBC debuted that annoying Hanna-Barbera animated series.

But I may have to rethink my dislike of the Smurfs based upon this collectible figure that was made in 1974, well before the U.S. TV series. According to the Mushroom Village, a website about collecting Smurf stuff, the Smurf holding a mug of beer is designated “20078 Beer” and the “mold was introduced in 1974.” They describe it as follows. “Big smile with hands out, frothy beer mug in his right hand.” It’s considered only slightly uncommon, garnering a 2 (out of 5) rarity rating. It was available only in Hong Kong and West Germany, as far as I can tell, though I found one on eBay from Canada. (Yes, despite my hatred of the little blue people, I ordered myself one just because he’s holding a beer mug.)

It was just too completely weird not to, especially with that shit-eating wide grin. I can only assume that this particular one was never sold in the United States. Can you just imagine the hue and cry from certain parents upon finding this one in the toy bin? That fact alone makes me want one. According to Wikipedia:

From 1959 on until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by British Petroleum in the 1970s and McDonald’s in the 1990s) are made by Schleich as well. New Smurf figures continue to appear: in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.

Okay, somebody took the idea of “beer goggles” to another dimension. Here’s a company, Urban Spectacles, that figured out a way to make actual “beer goggles,” that is prescription eyewear in which the frames are made from used, recycled beer bottles. They’ll even make them out of whatever beer bottles you want. They may not make the people in a bar look more attractive, but they are pretty cool looking all the same.

Here’s the description from the website:

Made by reusing empty beer bottles, these goggles are a playful take on eyewear. Pick out your favorite beer, or even make the selection based upon and interesting glass (think Delirium), then either drink it down or send it to me and I’ll take care of it, and the construction of Beer Goggles will begin. Then I will fit any prescription or tint of lenses into the frames and they will be ready to wear out to your local pub.

And beyond the beer goggles, the main website, Urban Spectacles, has some very unique, one-of-a-kind, frames, many hand-carved wood.

This one still has the label from Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale on it, and the pair below has the etched Stone Arrogant Bastard and Rogue’s Dead Guy on it.

One warning though: “beer goggles come with disclaimers as they are made of glass and rest near your eyes. While I have worn them out on the town and will be doing so fairly often, I am claiming Beer Goggles to be novelty items that should be worn with caution.”