Here you'll find things that we think are amusing, quirky, or weird and somehow beer related. Other things we'll put here just for the hell of it.
April, 1997
DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuter) - If you drink beer straight from the bottle, Ireland's Southern Health Board has a couple of words of warning for you: Rat's Urine. The board issued a statement Friday warning drinkers to be aware of Weil's disease or Leptospirosis, which starts with symptoms akin to influenza but can kill. It said the disease is spread mainly by rats' urine and warned that crates of beer stacked in Irish pubs could be a target for the rodents. Ireland, like many European countries, has seen a boom in sales of bottled beers, mainly American brews which are drunk ``by the neck'' as an alternative to the traditional pint glass.
May 13, 1997
In one of the brewing newsgroups on the internet, Paul Sovcik related the following excerpt from the abstract of a paper recently presented at the American Society for Microbiology Convention:
Use of common yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for home baking and brewing may be contributing to yeast infections in women. One commercial strain was isolated from three of 16 patients with vaginitis in a study performed atthe California Institute of Medical Research.
This finding may shed some light on why it seems the brewing hobby and industry is so dominated by men. It may also provide potential inspiration for those adventurous lambic brewers who are looking to push the envelope even farther.
Politicians Vie For Drinker's Vote
By Dirk Manuel at BeerScene - March 1997 report.
As the General Election looms ever closer in Britain, the main two political parties are typically falling over each other to win votes. Both Labour and the Conservatives have declared themselves to be the champion of the beer drinker. Labour have said that, should they win the election, they will force all pubs to sell pints in oversize glasses, making sure that drinkers are given a full pint. The Conservatives have hit back by saying that this would put 10p on a pint (despite refuting the same claim when made by the brewers last year). The Conservatives said that the cost of the law would be "disproportionate to the consumer benefit" (i.e. the amount of work they would have to do is not enough to warrant the extra votes they'd win!). They also knocked Labour's threat to impose a minimum wage rate of £4 an hour, saying that this, too, would push up beer prices. Instead, the Conservatives point at a minimum wage of £3.50, insisting that this is being done for the benefit of the drinkers. Somehow, I doubt that either of them could be trusted to hold their promises once the election is over.
South African Builds Pub in Baobab Tree
Courtesy of Rob Moline's "Jethro Gump Report" in HBD #2380 (3/21/97)
Doug van Heerden of Duiweskloof, in the Northern province has built a pub inside a 152 foot girth baobab tree. "It has a bar, beer on tap, a sound system, seating for 15, standing room for many more and a wine cellar."Hugh Glen, of the Tree Society of South Africa, says the baobab trees bark can be used for making tea and beer, "but you have to be desperate to drink either."
At a recent birthday party, "We had 57 people dancing inside the tree," said Mr. van Heerden. The hollow in the tree, which has existed for centuries, was enlarged somewhat when workers started a fire inside to drive off snakes. Mr van Heerden squared off the entrance with a chain saw,shoveled out centuries of bat guano, installed a tile floor, electricity, plumbing, and lighting. He rents out the tree for 55 USD per night for parties and weddings, and opens the tree to the public now and then. The hardest part of the renovation was to drill the 7 foot thick walls. This took 2 days.
This apparently hasn't harmed the tree, which is in full bloom, and has new shoots growing from the interior walls. (Source-WSJ, 3.20.97)
The following are excerpts from Chazz's BrewNewz archived at this site:
An award winning campaign touting Bass as "the thinking man's beer" featured posters of Virginia Woolf and Albert Camus next to glasses of Bass. Unfortunately, a more recent ad described Admiral Horatio Nelson as defeating the Spanish Armada when in fact it was Sir Francis Drake that performed that feat. Bass's advertising agency is reported to be correcting the mistake.
As reported by First State's Oliver Weatherbee and verified by GABS members who were present, A-B was loudly booed when it showed up [at the Great American Beer Festival] with two semi's housing a "Beer School" touting their new craft brews. One individual personally invited to "school" by A-B's pitchperson elicited cheers from bystanders when he responded "I wouldn't drink your beer if you paid me."
 | CALCUTTA, India, Oct 8 (Reuter) - A herd of thirsty elephants in search of a drink destroyed several illegal breweries southwest of Calcutta, Indian forest officials said on Tuesday. The 45-strong herd charged out of the hills in search of water but dropped into the illegal breweries instead, the officials in India's west Bengal state said.
"The elephants destroyed six illegal breweries in two days," said Mahendra Pande, a district forest officer. "They are notoriously famous for their fondness towards liquor and are great guzzlers." |
* Dale L. Larson's $41,000 trial-court award was upheld by a Wisconsin appeals court in October, which agreed with the trial court that the Indianhead golf course in Wausau was 51 percent responsible for Larson's needing nine root canals and 23 dental crowns. Larson tripped on his golf spikes and fell hard on his face on a brick path outside the clubhouse, and he argued that he wouldn't have fallen if it had been a smooth concrete sidewalk rather than a brick path. The trial court had found that only 49 percent of the accident was due to Larson's having consumed 13 drinks that evening, which left him with a blood-alcohol level of 0.28 90 minutes after the fall.
* Ronnie Wade Cater, 39, was arrested in Hampton, Va., in October and charged with calling in a bomb threat. According to detectives, he was sitting at a bar, drunk, and had the idea to tell police there was a bomb at another bar, hoping to divert enough officers to that bar so that he might drive home undetected. However, probably because he had been drinking, he lingered on the phone a little too long while talking to the dispatcher, and the call was traced.
* Rodney L. Turner, 55, called his office on October 2 in Kansas City, Kan., and said he wouldn't make it to work that day, as a result of his 2 a.m. arrest for DUI that resulted in his detention until 5 a.m. Turner, a lawyer, is a part-time municipal judge and on October 2 had been scheduled to hear a full day's docket of DUI cases.
* A 21-year-old, allegedly intoxicated man was spotted by police on an Austin, Minn., street in January urinating on a car but was let go with a warning when he persuaded police it was his own car. A few minutes later police returned and arrested the man for DUI, having figured out that he was urinating on the car's door lock to melt the ice so that he could get in and drive away.
News of the Weird - Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate
From All About Beer:
Ken Allen, owner of Anderson Valley Brewing Co. in Boonville, CA, has discovered a new meaning for "one more for the road." According to American Breweriana Journal, Allen was returning home from a trip to Los Angeles to buy some used brewing equipment when the company van's radiator hose blew, and the engine overheated. Traveling companion David Norfleet provided a quick solution. Since there were several kegs of beer in the van, Norfleet filled the radiator with hop-enhanced coolant, and the truck was back on the road.
From Chris Shenton on the DC-Beer List.
It's used similarly to how WhetStone and DhryStone are used to measure CPU performace, WinStone to measure Windoze, and Xstone to measure X11 performance.
I believe the International scale is linear and open ended. Some samples I've collected in my research include:
BeerStone Brewery Rating
and Beer
--------- -------------------
0 Bud lite
1 Bud
5 Rolling Rock
65 Czech Budvar
92 Schneider Aventinus
98 Boone Gueuze
The author invites the contribution of other measurements.
Hey there brew fans! Are you tired of struggling to bring your wort to a boil? Is that 200K BTU jet engine burner of yours just not up to snuff? Maybe you're ready to take the next step in advanced brewing. Tired of waiting 15 to 30 minutes for your wort to boil? Now you can bring 5 gallons of wort to a raging boil in just 3 seconds! That's right, friends, 3 seconds! All you need is access to a steady supply of liquid oxygen, brewpots, and barbeque stands to achieve the results seen here.
Disclaimer: wort evaporation rates have been known to exceed 5 gallons/second.
To find out more, follow this LINK to those wacky guys out in Purdue.
| Hey guys, you ever found yourself out on a pub crawl or just at your favorite local brewpub with the undeniable urge to relieve yourself. Of course you have, who hasn't. Its only natural, but please, before you make that trip to the mens room and potentially embarrass yourself and others, make sure you read The Online Guide to Urinal Etiquette. Once you bone up on the rules, you'll be ready to take the Choose-A-Urinal Challenge. By the way, please don't eat the big white mints. |
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In their mad rush to fill the shelves with as many different "styles" of beer as possible the master brewers of Pete's Wicked (fill in the blank) apparantly weren't happy with the performance of Pete's Wicked Lager or Wicked Red.
Obviously the problem wasn't the beer, I mean who cares about that, the problem must be in the marketing. How to fix the problem? Easy, change the names and labels. Wicked Lager is now Pete's Wicked Bohemian Pilsner and Pete's Wicked Red is now Pete's Wicked Amber!
Red beer is dead, long live Amber. I can't wait till next year when we get an oppurtunity to try Pete's Wicked Burnt Sienna - "Hmm, interesting. Tastes a lot like that Red beer I had years ago."
This tirade has been brought to you by Oliver's Wicked Rants TM. We now return you to your regularly scheduled life.
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