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Flying Beer

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flying-beer
Here’s an interesting little tidbit from David Bonneywell, a professional special effects artist from Great Britain, who’s worked on such shows and films as Dr. Who and Clash of the Titans. For a television show he was working on several years ago, he had to create a special effect of beer flying out of a glass in slow motion, with the results pictured below.

Flying_beer_by_Kaduflyer

Here’s how Bonneywell describes the process he used:

For an episode of the TV series ‘Keen Eddie‘ they wanted a Matrix style ‘bullet time’ shot of a bar room brawl. However, these type of shots normally require dozens of cameras and lots of time and money, things sorely lacking in TV productions! The answer?? Suspend tables and chairs on wires, get your actors to stand VERY still in mid punch etc and get some FX guy to make plastic, freeze frame beer!!

Using photos of real beer in flight I cut a shape from clear sheet plastic and shaped it by heating and bending it. I stuck this into a real beer glass and then built up the ‘beer’ with epoxy glue coloured with brown inks. Considering it’s not the sort of thing I normally do (no boobies, monsters or blood!!…lol) I thought it turned out quite well.

For the same series I also made some over head rubber masks of Duran Duran (the group not the film character) used in an episode as disguises by some bank robbers!!

The series was an American show but for some reason was made in the UK…I’ve never actually seen it. If anyone here has I’d be interested to know how well this worked in the show!!

Kinda nailed it, I’d say.

Daily Brewery Porn Returns

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A while back I had a photoblog up that featured my favorite beer-related pictures that I’ve taken over the years, Brookston Beer Pix. It got lost in the internet migration last year but it’s now been rechristened as a Tumblr blog. Each day I’ll post a new fave picture from my photo archives, of which I have literally thousands. Quite a few of them are brewery porn, which is what I call photos of brewing equipment in all their naked glory. I also have a thing for photographing hoses in the brewery, so you may see a few of those along with many more of my visual obsessions.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll automatically be notified when a new photo is posted. Or you can, of course, follow along on Tumblr, which is especially easy if you already have an account there.

Celebrator Anniversary Party 2010

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The last big event during SF Beer Week was the Celebrator Beer News 22nd Anniversary Party, which was held at Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley, California. It felt good and appropriate being back in a brewery for the event, after two years in the cavernous Marriott Convention Center. There was a great turnout, all in a celebratory mood. Over thirty breweries were pouring their finest beers for four hours on a beautiful February Sunday evening.

Lars Larson (Trumer), Homer Smith (Oak Barrel) & Shaun O'Sullivan (21st Amendment)
Lars Larson, from our hosts, Trumer Brauerei, with Homer Smith from the Oak Barrel and Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment.

It felt like a fitting end to ten days of events for what to all accounts seems like a very successful 2nd SF Beer Week. Although a lot of hard work by quite a large number of people went into the festival this year, it feel like it ran far smoother too, thanks to great work by everyone, and especially Rich Higgins, Meg Gill and Dave McLean, who spearheaded a lot of the effort this year.

Me and Tom Dalldorf
Me and Tom Dalldorf (photo by Mike Condie).

Below is a slideshow of the Celebrator anniversary party. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Below are a few videos of random happenings at the party.

The acapella group breaks into song
One interesting impromptu phenomenon that occurred Sunday night was that I kept noticing a seemingly random number of people who had dressed more dapper than most (excluding the people in costumes). At some point in the evening, they all came together and broke into song with the Trumer brewery as a picturesque backdrop. Below is a video of one of their acapella numbers.

Late in the evening, with less than an hour to go before closing time, someone started throwing coasters high into the air and it became epidemic with almost everyone there joining in. I felt sorry for the clean-up crew, so I didn’t participate, but I did capture a few minutes of the melee on video.

Brewery Porn From Schlafly

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I just saw this Re-Tweeted and I can’t pass up brewery porn. The photographs are of the St. Louis Brewery a.k.a. Schlafly Beer and were taken by a woman calling herself Truckey. The slideshow below is from her Flickr account and all the photographs can be purchased. According to her Flickr gallery page, “prices range from $10-$200, and range in size from 5×7 to 24×36. I can do matte, lustre, glossy or pearle paper, or even print on canvas!” There’s some beautiful shots there. They’d look great framed on your wall. But for now, enjoy the porn!

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.