Today’s infographic shows the stages of the brewing process graphically. It’s called simply The Process of Brewing Beer.
Beer In Ads #782: Die Drei Von St. Pauli
Tuesday’s ad is for, I think, St. Pauli Girl. The ad’s text, “Die Drei Von St. Pauli,” translates roughly as “Three of the St. Pauli,” at least according to Google Translate. I’m not sure, but it appears to be three different beers from the Bavaria St. Pauli Brauerei. But at the bottom of each label, it also reads Brauerei Abzug, so who knows. I don’t much history of the St. Pauli brand before they introduced the eponymous girl in 1977, though it was 1982 when they started choosing a model each year to represent the brand. More importantly, who the hell are those three character standing in front of each bottle?
Anchor Zymaster Series #3 Is Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout
Anchor Brewing announced today the release of the third beer in their Zymaster Series, a stout to be called Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout.
From the press release:
Named after a San Francisco sailing legend from a time when stouts were first exported to the West Coast, Zymaster® No. 3: Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout will be released in selected Anchor markets in January 2013.
Our Zymaster® Series No. 3 (7.4% ABV) is a dry, Irish-style export stout akin to those brewed in the 1800s for the long voyage to San Francisco. Black as night, this high-gravity, malty brew offers intense but well-balanced flavors and aroma, with hints of dark chocolate and roasted coffee.
The arrival of a clipper ship in gold-rush San Francisco brought mail and news of “the States,” would-be miners and entrepreneurs, boots, shovels, pickaxes, butter from New York, cigars from Havana, and stout from as far away as London and Dublin.
The stouts that San Franciscans imbibed in those days were no ordinary ales. They were export stouts—dark, intense, high-gravity brews created especially to survive a long voyage like those around Cape Horn.It took the average clipper three to four months to sail from New York to San Francisco. But not the Flying Cloud, which, in 1851, made the trip in 89 days and 21 hours anchor to anchor. With the exception of its own 89 day and 8 hour voyage three years later, its record remained unbroken until 1989. Thanks to this clipper’s “extreme” design and the savvy of its captain, Josiah Creesy, and his wife and navigator Eleanor, the Flying Cloud quickly became a San Francisco sailing legend. We celebrate it and a legendary brewing tradition with our Zymaster® No. 3: Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout.
That sounds tasty, I can’t wait to give their new stout a try.
The beer will be in stores and select bars any minute now. Here’s where it will be available.
Zymaster® Series No. 3: Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout will be available in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Georgia and Florida.
Where Do Beer Nuts Come From?
These are pretty funny. Terry Border runs a website called Bent Objects, where he creates funny dioramas using everyday objects and bent paperclips. In these two, apparently St. Pauli Girl isn’t the wholesome gal everybody thinks she is. Instead she’s terrorizing some colleagues for their nuts … beer nuts, that is.
The first is from 2008, and is titled Yeah, This is Where Those Come From.
The first one also includes these puns.
It’s also how light beers are made here in the U.S., but personally, I only like a full bodied beer.
She had often been described as a little bitter.
She was cold one, that’s for sure.
And this one’s from Valentine’s Day, 2011.
If you want to see a selection of other ones, check out Bent Objects, the Return of Bent Objects or the official Bent Objects website.
World’s Strongest & Strangest Beers
Today’s infographic showcases the World’s Strongest & Strangest Beers, at least as of last year. Who knows what stronger or stranger beers have been released since then.
Beer In Ads #781: A Harvest Of Rich, Ripe Oats
Monday’s ad is for the Australian beer Tooheys Oatmeal Stout. It looks to be an older ad, pre-WWII possibly, but I’m not sure. Since it refers to the Oatmeal Stout as building “radiant health,” I suspect that it’s from a time before the age of television. It seems to me that such health claims tend to be in ads from before the 1940s.
Megan Fox For Brahma Beer
Today I saw in the UK Sun that American actor Megan Fox is doing ads for Brahma, the Brazilian Budweiser, an especially accurate association since Brahma is part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Why do we care? We don’t, but I’m game to look at a couple of ads with Megan Fox in them. Isn’t that why advertisers chose her? Of course, it’s still a tasteless, flavorless beer.
As Mais Gostosas do Carnival (The Hottest Carnival)
Is it just me, or does that beer have his arm around Fox? Is the beer wearing sunglasses because he doesn’t want to be seen with Megan Fox?
Convidando Megan Fox Pra Uma Brahma (Inviting Megan Fox for a Brahma)
And here she is going off to have a picnic. According to the Sun, she’s flying down to Rio to do a commercial and pose for some more ads.
Although humorously enough, a few years ago the hipster appeared more partial to Pabst Blue Ribbon. This was taken by paparazzi in 2009. Ah, sex and beer. What’s not to love. It seems to me, the big brewers follow a variation of the old lawyer’s adage. “When the law is on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither the facts nor the law are on your side, make an ad hominem attack.” In the brewer’s world it’s more along these lines. “When the beer tastes good, promote the beer. When the brewery has personality, promote the brewer. When the beer has neither, promote a celebrity, a cartoon, or both.”
Renaissance Faire Beer Song
Hat tip to Mirella Amato for this one, it’s a fun little ditty, a song about beer entitled I Love You, Beer performed on May 21, 2011 by the Poxy Boggards at the 49th annual Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale California. Enjoy.
The Science Of Beer Color
Popular Science’s BeerSci series had another interesting post last month on How Beer Gets Its Color, this time addressing “the two chemical reactions that most influence the malt character and color of your brew.” It’s wonderfully geeky, and goes into the Maillard reaction, named for French chemist Louis Camille Maillard, which is also known as “browning,” and is essentially how “amino acids react with a reducing sugar.” Between that, and caramelization, the various colors in beer are created.
Brewers used to use the Lovibond scale — expressed as “Degrees Lovibond” — when referring to color, but it’s largely been replaced by SRM (Standard Reference Measurement) or the EBC (European Brewing Convention), which is similar but has a different numbering system. Here’s what the SRM range looks like:
For more infomation, check out the terrific Beer Color Laboratories. I keep their wallet size color reference guide in my wallet at all times, and have the larger one in my office. They’re great if you don’t have a spectrophotometer lying around.
Another interesting expression of beer color is coming out of Switzerland. Beertone is essentially a playful spoof on or homage to the Pantone color system used by design professionals. Beertone is taking individual beers and making a beertone card for each, with information about each beer on it. Here’s a sample mock-up of what the cards will look like.
- The Beer Color: The concept from Beertone. Each beer has been shot in a special glass, to avoid reflexes and extern influences. The results are amazing.
- The Beer Bottle: There’s so many cool Beer Labels that we thought, we must have the bottle on each page.
- Alcohol by Volume: The percent alcohol by volume (% alc/vol). It’s a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in an alcoholic beverage.
- Brewery: it’s important to know who produced the Beer. Big and small companies have their places on Beertone.
- Beer Name: That’s most important thing to remember when the barkeeper asks what do you wanna drink.
- The Color Information: As part from Beertone concept, we present the color references from different color models. With the best values compared to the Beer color.
- Brewery Site: If you want to know more about the Beer and its Brewery, here you will have their official site.
- Beer Description: Here the Beer enthusiasts will have a description about each Beer. Useful information is always relevant. What a better way to start a good conversation at the bar?
So far, only Swiss beers are available for pre-order — and they’re pretty pricey — with plans for German beers and Brazilian beers to be released later this year.
It certainly seems like a cool idea, if a little unwieldy. I think they should sell them like trading cards and sell packs at bars. But I’d certainly like to see them expanded into the U.S., Great Britain, the Czech Republic, et al., and see what a wider geographic range of beers would look like.
Periodic Table of Beer Styles
Today’s infographic is one of several versions of the Periodic Table of Beer Styles. It looks similar to the one hanging in my office, though mine has some color on it, while this one is strictly black and white.