In case you’re looking for another reason to go organic when it comes to beer, consider this: additives in beers are not strictly regulated in all countries.
And when I say additives, I mean, oh, say, carcinogens.
The Chinese beer industry, one of the top beer producing countries in the world, was found to include formaldehyde in 95% of beers brewed in the country as recently as 1995. Yep, formaldehyde.

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Frat boys everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief: it’s not just them. According to a new study conducted at Bristol University, people really do appear more attractive when they’ve had a drink or two. In fact, researchers have found that as little as a pint and a half of beer is enough to make everyone seem more desirable.
The effect – wherein your vision is distorted with alcohol – is often referred to jokingly as “beer goggles.” But researchers aren’t laughing. They claim that it’s a real occurrence.
In the study, researchers randomly assigned …read more

All summer long, I’ve beaten myself up about not planting hops. I had previously posted a quick primer on hops vines that got me to thinking about planting some in the garden. And I didn’t. I had already planted three clematis vines, only one of which has taken off, leaving my garden with an ugly bare spot. Serves me right, I guess.
Next year? There will be hops.
Hops are pretty vigorous growers and not particularly picky. Today, on twitter, the enjoyable Jeff Louella posted that he had photos of his hops garden on his blog. …read more

Wow, I knew there were a lot of different kinds of hops, but this list really puts it into perspective. Keeping in mind that hops are the spice of beer, knowing the difference between a Saaz and a Cascade is like knowing the difference between sage and oregano. It’s particularly interesting to note how many of these are US varietals.
image from Wikipedia, public domain

I hate it when I read the description of a beer and I don’t know what it means. I figure this is usually the result of one of two things:
1, the person who wrote the description likes confusing me by using words to describe the beer that no one else would actually use because it makes them feel important; or
2, I still have a lot to learn about beer.
Part of the fun in appreciating wine or beer is understanding why drinks look or taste a certain way. Once you’ve figured this out, you can make good choices about …read more

Check out this great video from NPR’s Science Friday series…

Chemists Richard Zare of Stanford University in California (USA) and Andy Alexander of University of Edinburgh (Scotland) explain the science behind the bubbles in beer.
(Hat tip: What’s On Tap)

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The new food industry blog Daily Blender gave me an idea with a post on the carbon footprint of bottled water. Having recently switched from delivered water to Philly’s finest tap water, I began to wonder what the most environmentally responsible way was to enjoy my beer.
Fortunately for me, others have already addressed the details. Apparently, reusable bottles which are refilled have the smallest carbon footprint, as is still common in Germany if not the rest of Europe. According to this post (mixing Green beer with green beer – in the St. Patrick’s sense of the word) returnable bottles are …read more

There are a lot of jobs I think I’d like. I’d like to be a brewmaster, but ultimately I’d rather be someone like Ed Stoudt of the Stoudt’s brewery, who seems to do more tasting than he does brewing. Also on the tasting side of things, there’s always beer journalist, a la Michael Jackson, although I suspect he’s one of the few who actually made any money at it. In short, there are a number of people in this world who work with beer, and for the most part they are jobs I’d be interested in having, at least in …read more

Unfortunately for the less technically inclined reader, I’m a bit of a geek for the science of beer and brewing. Even those of you who aren’t interested in science should find this website interesting. The image above? A microscopy view of Grolsch (which I chose over Pilsner Urquell and Samuel Smith Taddy Porter). If you don’t know what microscopy means, check out the site, and if you like the patterns you can also buy a poster. Pretty cool, that.