About a month ago, you may recall a Santa Cruz graduate student in chemistry was arrested for homebrewing with poppies.

To update this story, on Friday the student, Chad Renzelman, was given a sentence of “drug diversion,” essentially parole, meaning if he “stays out of trouble for the next 18 months, the drug conviction will be taken off his record, according to his attorney.” The Santa Cruz Sentinel has the full story.

Remember those iconic “whassup” Anheuser-Busch ads from almost a decade ago? Advertisers love it when a catch phrase works its way into public use outside the original advertising because it spreads the meme far wider than advertising alone can ever manage. Whassup was one of those catch phrases that captured public attention for a brief period of time and spread itself all around popular culture, and was used referentially in a variety of contexts. You don’t hear it that often these days, but its memory still lingers in the public conscious.

The Whassup ad campaign, officially called True, ran from 1999 to 2002. The first spot aired during Monday Night Football on December 20 1999. It was actually based on a short film called True by “Charles Stone III, that featured Stone and several of his childhood friends – Fred Thomas, Paul Williams, Terry Williams, and Kevin Lofton. The characters sat around talking on the phone and saying “Whassup!” to one another in a comical way. The short was popular at a number of film festivals around the country and eventually caught the attention of Vinny Warren, a creative director at the Chicago based ad agency DDB, who took the idea to August A. Busch IV, vice president of Anheuser-Busch, and signed Stone to direct Budweiser TV commercials based on the film. Scott Martin Brooks won the role of “Dookie” when Kevin Lofton declined to audition. “Whassup!” won the Cannes Grand Prix award and the Grand Clio award, among others). In May 2006, the campaign was inducted into the CLIO Hall of Fame.” The phrase spread like wildfire and Wikipedia has a good list of where “whassup” appeared as a pop culture reference.

On Friday, a new Whassup political ad appeared on YouTube, using actors who resembled the original Whassup guys, showing where there are eight years later, thanks to current administration policies. It was created by 60 Frames, a film company that creates internet content. Whatever your political leanings, it’s a great use of satire in casting archtypes in specific light to make a point. Really, it’s as poignant and sad as it is funny. The version below was added to YouTube on Saturday and begins with the original Whassup ad, which I think gives better context to it, since you can compare and contrast the original with the newer satirical one. Genius — True.

As I wrote about last week, one of the biggest sponsors of the presidential debates via the Commission on Presidential Debates was Anheuser-Busch. The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank does both columns and video for his Washington Sketch. He made a funny video about his experiences at the last debate, and especially at the Budweiser Beer Tent, where journalists can find free food and beer. Apparently this is the fifth year that there’s been a beer tent at the debates.

I don’t have a lot of specifics, but this was too cool not to share. According to the Green Upgrader and few Asian news websites, a “Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to reach nirvana, using discarded bottles to build everything on the premises from a crematorium to toilets.”

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in Sisaket province, roughly 370 miles northeast of Bangkok, is better known as “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” because of the glittering from countless glass containers on the walls. The temple first started using discarded bottles in 1984 to decorate the monks’ shelters. This attracted more people to donate more bottles to build other buildings such as a pagoda, ceremony hall and toilets. Bottle tops were also used to decorate murals.

According to Abbot San Kataboonyo, “the more bottles we get, the more buildings we make.”

Thai monks from the have used over one million recycled glass bottle to construct their Buddhist temple.

There are a dozen more photos at the Green Upgrader and you can see the amazing ways in which the monks used the bottles to create some pretty spectacular structures.

Surprisingly, there are at least two buddha breweries in the world. The Laughing Buddha, in Seattle, and Lucky Beer, in Australia, with a very cool Buddha-shaped bottle.
 

Scientists at Rice University in Houston, Texas are hard at work trying to create a beer that can fight cancer and heart disease. A student research team of six is trying to genetically engineer a beer to include higher levels of resveratrol, the chemical found in red wine that’s believed to fight diseases. It’s the key ingredient that has led to what has been dubbed the “French paradox.”

Last June, scientists at the University of Wisconsin found that giving resveratrol to middle-aged mice makes them age more slowly and has the further advantage of strengthening their heart, even when given a high fat diet. In addition, recent breakthroughs in nanotechnology at Stanford, UC San Diego and Texas at Austin with regard to heart conditions made what the Rice students are trying now possible.

So far, they’re in the “process of developing a genetically modified strain of yeast that will ferment beer and produce resveratrol at the same time.” They quickly discovered that the yeast used in the Rice lab is not particularly good for making a decent-tasting beer. So this summer, the team asked local craft brewer Saint Arnold Brewery for some of their own yeast. Apparently, resveratrol is tasteless and odorless, much like iocane powder, that poison used in The Princess Bride.

“We’re now putting these genes into the yeast,” Taylor Stevenson, one of the team members said. “We’re fairly confident it will work because all the components have worked separately.” The plan is that hopefully the genetically modified yeast could be sold to commercial breweries so that they could make healthy beer, though at this phase of the work it will likely be at least five years before a commercially viable strain is developed.

The team’s immediate plans are to enter their BioBeer in the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine Championship Jamboree next month in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rice’s news staff also has an article about the team’s efforts entitled Better beer: College team creating anti-cancer brew.

Despite the obvious advantages of a beer that’s indisputably healthy — though in truth beer today is plenty healthy, regardless of neo-prohibitionist propaganda to the contrary — my initial reaction is one of skepticism. Perhaps that’s because I don’t understand genetic engineering all that well. But the idea of a genetically modified beer or Super Beer does not strike me as the best idea to come along. I guess that makes me more of a traditionalist when it comes to food. I’m not a fan of GMOs and I don’t see how this is appreciably different. If GMOs are generally a bad idea, why would genetically modified brewer’s yeast be good?

Up, up and away. It’s Super Beer!

Although written in 2003, I just happened upon a lengthy analysis of the Simpsons’ use of Duff Beer at the Simpsons Archive to critique the then big three American beer companies on Fox’s animated television series.

It’s this sort of advertising which has, in my opinion, done much to taint the beer industry and has given the general public a quite incorrect view of what exactly beer is or could be. This , in turn, has done much harm to craft brewers’ efforts to show beer as something different and, more importantly, as a sophisticated, diverse, and flavorful beverage worthy of as much respect as other gourmet products.

From near the end of the article:

The writers effectively depict Duff as a media-crazed beer company. Duff advertises on TV and in society using similar techniques to America’s beer companies; they use political figures, athletes, humorous commercials, stuntmen, and the superhero-like Duff Man. These methods clearly appeal to the youth market, in which viewers with in the market are proved to be more susceptible to consistent drinking habits.

It’s a worthwhile read if you have the time and/or love the Simpsons and good beer.

The decline of the British pub has been much lamented in the UK press recently, with statistics thrown about on the order of 36 pub closings each week. A British publican friend tells me, however, that he thinks those numbers are overblown and that it’s the badly run ones that are closing — and then reopening a month later under new ownership. Whatever the reasons, the English pub is certainly in decline, with many reasons given for the current state of affairs.

“Tax hikes, combined with the ban on smoking in public places and supermarkets selling beer as a significant lost leader — to the extent that it is cheaper than bottled water — have all had a negative impact on a struggling industry.

“While pubs have served a historic role, off-trade has always existed alongside, providing consumer freedom of choice. However, economically, off-trade — thanks to the supermarkets — is now clearly a serious challenge with an annual turnover of about £13 billion almost matching pub sales. The Government must address these issues before further harm is done to the battered pub trade.”

More than 50 MPs have backed a Commons motion criticising supermarkets for selling alcohol cheaper than bottled water.

If American bars were closing at a similar rate, I doubt very much our government would lift a finger to do anything. But unlike on our side of the pond, the UK government actually seems to care what happens to English pubs. Some 400 MPs of all parties belong to the APPBG, with another 60 honorary MEP members. The APPBG is the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, and has been in existence for many years. It’s somewhat similar to our recently formed Small Brewers Caucus (which boasts only 34 members). The chair of the group is John Grogan, a member of the Labour party. The APPBG’s charter states the group’s purpose is as follows.

To promote the wholesomeness and enjoyment of beer and the unique role of the pub in UK society; to increase understanding of the social, cultural and historic role of brewing and pubs in the UK, and their value to tourism; to broaden recognition of the contribution of brewing and pubs to employment and to the UK’s economy; to promote understanding of the social responsibility exercised by the brewing and pub industries; to support the UK’s brewing industry worldwide, and to promote a positive future for beer and the pub.

Yesterday, the APPBG published the results of their Community Pub Inquiry, a two year study of pubs in the UK. Effectively, they discovered what everyone already knew; that “the ability of big stores to offer beer or lager for as little as 90p for four cans — while a pint in a pub often costs drinkers seven times as much — [is leading] to a decline of the pub as a social center where drinking [can] be controlled.”

The panel is recommending that the UK government change the tax structure on alcohol, lowering it significantly for draught beer in order to protect the pub trade, which they characterized as “national icons.” Taxes currently constitute at least a third of the price of a pint, giving supermarkets a big advantage because they can absorb the taxes in other high profit items they sell, using beer as a loss leader to get people into their stores.

Other suggestions the panel made included “legally enforceable minimum prices for beer,” which many U.S. states have. In California, for example, it is illegal to sell beer at below cost precisely to avoid the problem the UK beer market is experiencing.

In the UK’s Guardian newspaper, they elaborated on the panel’s goals.

“This side of the pub trade has been largely overlooked in media coverage of licensing hours, law and order and binge drinking, and other problems more typically associated with large town centre pubs and bars… action taken in response to problems with perhaps 5 or 10% of the trade have caused further problems for the other 90 or 95%.”

Nigel Evans, the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley and co-chair of the inquiry, said: “We cannot sit back and let these gems disappear. They are the heart of the community. It is where all community life in some rural areas takes place.”

CAMRA endorsed the study’s findings and suggestions, adding.

A cut in tax on draught beer would reduce the price gap between pubs and supermarkets leading to more people enjoying a drink in the regulated environment of the community pub and not at home or in the street,” said Camra chief executive Mike Benner.

“The report is a big step forward and has many positive suggestions for Government. I hope it will be the catalyst for a change in approach, which struggling community pubs so desperately need.”

It’s nice to see a government actually embrace the positive aspects of alcohol in people’s lives instead of the incessant attacks we get here in the U.S. It’s obviously a complicated issue and it’s hard for me to say whether their recommendations have a chance of being implemented or not, or even if they are, whether they will do any good. But I certainly appreciate the effort, and more importantly that politicians can see pubs as more than something to simply demonize. I’d love to see some of our politicians be brave enough to do the same, but in our climate of zealotry and fanaticism, I imagine coming out in favor of alcohol, even the responsible kind, would be political suicide.

I know it’s incredibly unfair of me, but I don’t normally think of Nebraska as having more common sense than my own liberal state, but the proof is right there in a decision handed down today by the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Of course, my only experience in Nebraska was driving through it on a cross-country trip over twenty-five years ago, but it’s clear to me I have to rethink my left coast bias.

The neo-prohibitionist group Project Extra Mile had petitioned the state to reclassify alcopops as spirits in an effort to raise the taxes on them 1200%. California did the same thing earlier this year, though they were successful in lying to our state Congress and misleading them into believing that there is any appreciable amount of spirits in alcopops. They are now, and always have been, malt-based beverages and properly considered a part of the beer family. Any other story is pure propaganda. That’s the way the federal government classifies them, and that’s who Nebraska cited in refusing to bow to the neo-prohibitionist group’s demands to reclassify them in their ruling released today.

Congratulations to reason. Score one for common sense.