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The Beer Vault

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I’m not quite sure what to make of this gadget. It was created by a design firm in Australia, JonesChijoff, working with Edwin Koh and Iqbal Ameer for their Melbourne bar, Biero. It’s called a Beer Vault, and takes bottled beer and transfers it into a draft environment, cooled by glycol and kept under pressure to preserve it using carbon dioxide which they claim maintains its freshness as if it was still in the bottle. It was also designed so the bottle itself can be displayed just below a clear UV-protected tube that stores and dispenses the beer. (Thanks to Andrew M. for sending me the original link.)

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And here’s the finished product, behind the bar at Biero bar.

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The website at Biero has some additional information.

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And there’s also a blueprint there, too.

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The website anthill, where ideas and business meet, describes the project like this:

Be able to offer premium beer to punters in a way that hasn’t previously been done. Any beer is now available on tap! But not displayed in an industrial tin-can hidden away, but out ‘n’ proud, showcasing the varying hues of amber.

Syphoning the bottled beer into the BeerVaults and keeping it under the same pressure as was in the bottle before the lid was cracked. It is also chilled via a clear volume of liquid glycol surrounding the beer, which reticulates through a chiller. At JONESCHIJOFF we put simplicity above all else, and this was the simplest yet most effective solution.

Apparently it will keep the bottled beer fresh for about three days, meaning more people could theoretically buy a small amount of a rare beer, without having to open and potentially even waste a whole bottle. So maybe it’s a good idea? I guess time will tell.

And here’s a wider shot of the Biero bar.

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Craft Breweries Have Tipped The Dominos

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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.

SABMiller May Buy Foster’s

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London’s Sunday Times is giving credence to the rumors and is reporting that SABMiller is seriously considering buying Carlton & United Breweries from the Foster’s Group, the makers of Foster’s, for $10.9 billion.

Earlier this year the Foster’s Group announced that next year that they would split their wine and beer divisions, and rumors began of potential buyers. Since SABMiller already owns the rights to Foster’s in the U.S. and India, speculation naturally centered on them, and now it looks likely they will make a bid for it. This would also give SABMiller Australia’s best-selling beer, Victoria Bitter, and a stronger presence throughout southeast Asia.

SABMiller Eyeing Foster’s?

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With merger mania and big business dealings heating up lately — with Pabst, ABI’s British Brands & China investments — I almost forgot about Foster’s. But the Foster’s Group said Tuesday that it’s splitting up the divisions of the company and is looking for a buyer for the brewing portion. Business Week is now speculating that MolsonCoors is a likely candidate to buy Foster’s, given their desire to “become a top global beer producer.” MolsonCoors currently owns a 5% share of the Foster’s Group.

Beer In Art Special: Lefebvre’s Chloe

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This Saturday edition of my Beer In Art series is a little different, which is why I’ve decided to call it a series “Special.” The work of art itself does not depict beer but its story is inseparably connected to beer. Thanks to Australian Bulletin reader Geoff (Thanks, Geoff!) who sent me the story of Chloe, a painting in search of a home, who finally found it in a Melbourne pub, the Young & Jackson.

The work was painted by the famous French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre in 1875, and it’s title is Chloé

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The painting quickly won Lefebvre fame and numerous awards including “gold medals in the Paris Salon in 1875, the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880.”

But the story of the painting was far from over. Here Doomed Damsels picks up the story:

In 1883, after three weeks of exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, scandalized citizens objected to this unseemly display of the naked female form and Chloe disappeared from public view until 1908, when she was purchased by Henry Figsby Young, an ex-digger turned hotel proprietor, for £800, a very large sum in those days. Henry took the painting back to his home above Young and Jackson’s Hotel and his outraged wife banished it to the public bar, where it charms the patrons to this day.

The fate of Chloe’s model, a young Parisian artist’s model named Marie, did not, sadly, have a happy ending. Little is known about Marie, “except she was approximately 19 years of age at the time of painting. Roughly two years later, Marie, after throwing a party for friends, boiled a potion of poisonous matches” (made at the time with phosphorous) — drank the concoction and died. The reason for her suicide is thought to be unrequited love. Some accounts speculate that she had a love affair with Lefebvre which he ended, others say she developed a crush that he refused, while still others suggest that “he seduced both her and her sister.” There are various stories about Chloe — the painting and the girl — at Australian Beers, the BBC’s h2g2 and at Young & Jackson’s website.

In 1973, John Larkins wrote of Chloe in Australian Pubs. “[D]ear Chloe, soft and naked, withholding nothing and temptingly virginal.” And beer historian Rafal Zakrzewski wrote in 2001, “Sweet things do not go well with a bitter Aussie lager — Chloe is an exception.”

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Young & Jackson’s is one of Melbourne’s oldest pubs, having opened in 1861, though it’s only been known by its present name since 1875, when new buyers, Henry Young and Thomas Jackson, bought it. You can read about the history of Young & Jacksn’s at Wikipedia or the Chicago Bar Project.

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Outside the Young & Jackson, in Melbourne, Australia.

You can also see more of Lefebvre’s art at Jukes Joseph Lefebvre: The Complete Works, and also at ArtMagick.

In addition, to serving local and imported beers, the Young & Jackson also has a beer contracted for them in honor of Chloe. The beer is called Naked Ale.

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Beer In Art #49: Sharon Hammond’s Belgian Beer Cafe

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For today’s artwork we’ve gone almost as far away from the U.S. as possible, to Adelaide, Australia. Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, and is fairly large, with a little over 1.1 million people. It’s also home to the Belgian Beer Cafe Oostende, the interior of which is the subject of today’s work of art by local artist Sharon Hammond.
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Although it initially fooled me, the work is actually a photograph that’s been processed to look more like a painting. The photograph is called Belgian Beer Cafe Adelaide and is the interior of what looks like a very large bar.

On the cafe’s website, they describe the bar:

The Belgian Beer Cafe – Oostende is designed to take you back to a simpler time. Belgian Cafes circa 1930 to 1955 to be exact. As you look through the venue you will notice decorative items typical to this period are cleverly displayed. Not drawing attention to themselves per se, but adding to the unique atmosphere as a whole. Clocks, posters and lighting fixtures are all reminiscent of the era.

Consider the panelling and seating made of specially imported European oak, tastefully combined with numerous vintage pieces dating back to the beginnings of last century, and you’ll begin to see why the Belgian Beer Cafe – Oostende is fast become one of Adelaide’s favourite venues. Of course the magnificent Belgian beers and cuisine, along with the service that won the 2002 & 2004 AHA Best Bar Presentation & Service awards certainly helps.

As for the artist, Sharon Hammond, there’s not much biographical information, apart from some mildly revealing journal entries. She lives in Adelaide, as far as I can tell, and she has more of her works on Red Bubble and on Kiss the Frog.

The Next “Session” Heads East

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Girl Likes Beer, who is hosting our next Session, has a personal goal to sample a beer from every country with their own brewery. She’s had quite a few west of her native Poland, but the east is still largely unexplored. So she’s invited us to go east with her. She explains:

I would like you to pick your favorite beer made east from your hometown but east enough that it is already in a different country. It can be from the closest country or from the furthest. Explain why do you like this beer. What is the coolest stereotype associated with the country the beer comes from (of course, according to you)? And one more thing. If you do a video or picture of the beer (not obligatory of course) try to include the flag of the country.

Well, this could be fun. Get out your maps, compasses and orienteering gear. And head east in search of beer.

Prayer and Pale Ale

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Apparently, there won’t be any Southern Baptists attending the Highland Vineyard Church of Louisville, Kentucky any time soon, as we’ve recently learned that some of them are literally afraid of beer. That’s because Highland Vineyard’s pastor, Robert Pitman, has been holding “Sunday Nights on Tap” services, which are held at Flanagan’s Ale House, a local Irish-style pub with a great beer selection and pub food.

As Pastor Pitman tells it, in a recent Louisville Courier-Journal article:

“I think there’s a lot of people that want to get close to God, but they don’t connect with the church today,” said Robert Pitman, Highland Vineyard’s lead pastor. “Maybe they either just have never been or they’ve been and had bad experiences, but it just doesn’t seem to connect with them.”

Last Sunday the church held the second of its Sunday Nights on Tap at Flanagan’s. Like the first, it drew about 35-40 people ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s. The events start out with live music — some original, some covers — followed by a message from Pitman and time to hang out and socialize.

For now, the church will be holding these beer bar revivals only once a month, but if successful, who knows? It’s nice to see not every religion is against beer. I certainly know plenty of religious beer-drinkers, but a church that embraces it and even makes it a part of their worship? Now that warms the soul like a good barleywine-style ale.

 

A Bender That Brews Beer

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Remember the television show Futurama? It was the Simpsons’ Matt Groening’s other animated series that ran on Fox for four seasons beginning in 1999.

There was a robot — or perhaps more accurately a “foul mouthed, cigar smoking, booze drinking, shiny metal arsed, bending robot” — in the show whose name was Bender. Besides his name and the character’s predilection for going on one, you may be asking yourself what that has to do with beer? Well, even though the show was canceled, like many such shows it has a pretty good cult following. There are fans, of course, and then there are fans.

One such uber-fan, Simon Jansen, in New Zealand, if not an engineer by trade then one of the most impressive hobby engineers I’ve encountered. He’s also a sci-fi fan generally and it appears he started his website with the extremely impressive Star Wars Asciimation, which is the entire Star Wars movie done in Java using nothing but ASCII art. For those of you new to the web, ASCII art is pictures created using nothing but the characters that can be found on an ordinary keyboard, which were used in early e-mails before graphics became ubiquitous throughout the internet.

Those emoticons, like 😉 for example, are a simple, though enduring, form of ASCII art. But they can get extremely complicated and detailed, too. Check out the Great ASCII Art Library for hundreds, if not thousands of these.

Okay, so as usual I’m veering off on a tangent, back to the Bender. Last summer (his winter) Jansen was challenged by a friend to make an actual Bender robot. Jansen also took as inspiration a third season episode, The Route of All Evil, in which while the main plot was going on, there was a subplot involving the two characters, Fry and Leela, along with Bender himself where they undertook to “brew beer inside Bender, treating the robot like an expectant mother.” Jansen reasoned that “just having a Bender that doesn’t do anything would be a waste of time so mine shall be used for a practical purpose. One Bender himself would be proud of. I’ll use him to make beer!”

The Bender Brewer Project, as it’s known, took over six months to complete and yielded its first brew last week. The website includes four pages of detailed information showing every step of the way with copious photographs of the various stages along with diagrams and source code. But for my purposes, it gets really interesting in mid-December on page four when the brewhouse went online, so to speak.

Basically, it’s only a rudimentary homebrewing kit but you have to admire the sheer amount of work and effort to take this project from drawing board to actual robot that produces beer. His initial specific gravity was 1.034. In early January, the beer was ready to bottle and he had his first taste f it, describing it like this.

By the way I did have a little taste of the beer before I bottled it. It wasn’t totally unpleasant. It tastes very green but it had a fair amount of body. Yeasty with maybe just a hint of Mom’s Old-Fashioned Robot Oil!

How odd and cool is that?

 

Bender with brewing system inside. Reminds me a bit of the Wizard of Oz’s Tinman, but this time he’s wishing for something different. “If I only had a beer!”

 

Bottled on January 2, the new robot-brewed Bendërbrau, with labels designed by Jen, one of Jansen’s friends.

 

SABMiller Gets A Blue Tongue

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SABMiller announced yesterday that they are purchasing Australia’s Bluetongue Brewery in a joint venture with Coca-Cola Amatil Limited to be known as Pacific Beverages Pty Limited. The purchase price was not revealed though it is estimated to be around $20 million USD. It has also been reported that they are considering building a greenfield brewery to brew additional brands for distribution by Pacific Beverages in region including Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Pilsner Urquell, Miller Genuine Draft and other Miller brands.

Bluetongue was founded in 2003 in Newcastle, New South Wales. They have an annual capacity of over 50,000 hectolitres and make five different beers: Bluetongue Premium Lager, Bluetongue Premium Light, Bluetongue Traditional Pilsner, Bluetongue Alcoholic Ginger Beer and Bondi Blonde (a low-carb beer). In their four-year history, Bluetongue has shown remarkable growth including 70% over the past year. Earlier this year they even hired Paris Hilton as a spokesperson for Bondi Beer. And Bluetongue is Whale Safe Beer.

 

According to the press release, here’s the story of the brewery’s name:

Bluetongue’s name originates from the blue-tongued lizard, one of Australia’s favourite native creatures. They are about 30cm long, have a large fierce looking head and are easily recognised by their bright blue tongue which they stick out to warn off predators. Blue-tongues are often found basking in the sun in the Australian bush and in backyards across suburban Australia.