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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  RE:  New Beer Taxes (Mike Fertsch)
  India Pale Ale recipe request (Ken Johnson)
  Re: Belguim (Todd Koumrian)
  re:Baltimore Brewpubs (durbin)
  Re: Head Retention (Mike Charlton)
  Fermenting Weiss (Michael J. McCaughey)
  New Amsterdam Ale (Steve M. Cohn)
  IPA, oxygen-absorbing caps (Paul L. Kelly)
  Baltimore Brewpubs (Tom Nolan)
  vexing vortices (R. Bradley)


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Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu


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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 09:26 EDT
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH at adc1.adc.ray.com>
Subject: RE:  New Beer Taxes

Rick Noah Zucker has a good comment on A-B's commercials against the beer tax:

> What is interesting is that they say that this tax already costs beer
> drinkers in the US $3 billion/year and that it is the single most expensive
> part of the beer (I assume they mean theirs).  However, they never say how
> much it is per beer.  They probably don't want people to find out how cheap
> their ingredients (including corn) really are. Isn't it great that we buy
> these products without knowing how much tax we are paying? 

Based on data in Michael Jackson's book (World Guide to Beer, 1977), the US
consumes 82 liters of beer per person per year (240 12-ounce containers per
person per year).  With a population of 250 million, this makes total US
consumption around 60 billion bottles per year. Taking Jackson's and A-B's
numbers as truth, this equates to 5 cents per bottle. 

Based on other numbers I've seen, a nickel a bottle is more than big brewers
spend on ingredients.  I recall that packaging costs more than the beer 
ingredients.  Labor is the big ticket item in breweries.

Mike Fertsch

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 10:05:51 PDT
From: kjohnson at argon.berkeley.edu (Ken Johnson)
Subject: India Pale Ale recipe request

Does anyone have a good recipe for an India Pale Ale using mashing techniques?
Also, I'd love to get my hands on a recipe for a Bavarian wheat beer.  When
I was in Germany many years ago, I fell in love with the local Hefeweizen.
Extremely tasty brew.

Ken

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 1990 10:14:40 PDT
From: todd at NISC.SRI.COM (Todd Koumrian)
Subject: Re: Belguim

In response to that other soul out there comtemplating a beer-oriented
trip through Belgium and who was curious about languages, I just thought
I'd share what I gleened thus far.  Belguim has 3 major ethnic/cultural
groups, with its own language, and apparently they like to stake their own
turf by sometimes refusing to communicate in anything but their language,
despite the fact they know others.  I believe these languaes are French,
Flemish (Dutch?) and German.

You know some German, so that's good.  French might be a great help as
well.  Certainly English is going to be a good fallback for touring
anywhere in Europe.  I took French in high-school some years back, so
my plan is to get back up to speed in French before departing and make
my way with French and English.  Some folks I know are touring Belgium
now, and though they didn't know or care about Belgium's beer
relevance, I should be able to find out from them what the language
situation is when they get back.

Todd Koumrian

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 13:21:59 EDT
From: durbin%cuavax.dnet at netcon.cua.edu
Subject: re:Baltimore Brewpubs

I know of two brewpubs offhand. One is the Baltimore Brewing Company; it
is located right next to Little Italy. The other is Sissons by the Science
Center. I don't know the adrresses offhand but  you can look them up. The 
BBC has a good pils and a good dark beer. Sissons has a weizen beer on tap,
but only till the end of the summer.
 prosit!
Phil

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 12:43:47 CDT
From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: Re: Head Retention

Thanks for all the good advice.  My brewing partner and I are going to
make a Weizen on Saturday and have decided to do a higher temperature
protein rest.  I think we did a 126 degree rest for the stout (I don't have
my notes here, though).  Also, we've changed where we've bought our hops.
Previously our hops weren't in very good condition and had alot of other
debris in them (like twigs, etc.).  I suppose the extra tannins could affect
the head retention in an adverse way.  Hopefully these two changes will help
a bit.
                 Thanks again,
                    Mike

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 13:25:01 PDT
From: mrmike at uigelf.ece.uiuc.edu (Michael J. McCaughey)
Subject: Fermenting Weiss

    I'm making a Weiss beer similiar to the one described in TCJoHB. As
this is my first attempt at a wheat beer, I'm not as familiar with the
details of its fermentation. Basically, what I did was this:
   I pitched the yeast (Wyeast liquid) when the temp in my 5 gallon
carboy hit 75. I waited about 36 hrs for the onset of fermentation...as
the ambient temp went up (courtesy of a heat wave here in IL), I refrigerated
the carboy ( at  60F) even though there had not been much blow off. That was
17 days ago. I've checked s.g. twice in the last 72 hrs, and it remains
as 30 ( I forgot to take an initial - stupid!). There is still some
evidence of slow ferementation, but ferentation lock activity is low.
   I would expect the final s.g. to be around 17...and there was much
less blow-off then I usually get from similar volumes of ales, etc.
Is my fermentation stuck? If so, what should I do about it? Or am
I worrying too much?
mrmike (Can't relax - no homebrew at work!)

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 11:38:55 PDT
From: delaware.desktalk.com!smc at desktalk.desktalk.com (Steve M. Cohn)
Subject: New Amsterdam Ale

In Homebrew Digest #483, Russ Gelinas mentions New Amsterdam Ale:

>On a better note, I tried a new? beer out of Utica, NY called New Amsterdam Ale
>(and beer, but the ale is better).  Pretty standard for a small-batch brew, but
>it is dry-hopped, and has a very nicey, spicey flavor and aroma.  A pleasant
>surprise.

Well, if this is the beer I am thinking of, it is neither new or from Utica.
When I lived in New York City (1986), the beer was widely available, and the 
ale somewhat more difficult to find.  I do remember that it had the most 
remarkable aroma of hops I have ever encountered in a commercial brew.  VERY
flowery.  The reason I am relatively sure it is not from Utica is that it
was marketed as the only beer brewed in the borough of Manhattan.  I don't
know if this is still true, but it certainly suprised many of my friends.

Has anyone seen this beer in Southern California?  Russ' posting reminded 
me of how much I enjoyed it, and I would very much like to get some.

Thanks,
Steve


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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 14:03:13 EST
From: pkel at psych.purdue.edu (Paul L. Kelly)
Subject: IPA, oxygen-absorbing caps


Wandering through one of the local liquor stores the other day, I spotted a
section of the "import" shelf that had several six-packs of an India Pale Ale.
I'm not really sure, but I think the brand name was "Ballantine" or something
that began with a B (no flames if I got the name wrong, please).  Anyway, when
I got home, I was pretty pleased with the quality of the product, and started
reading the label.  The company that makes it is the oft maligned Falstaff
Brewing Company!  Needless to say, I was quite shocked, and this probably can 
explain the fact that I can't remember what brand name the beer was sold by.
I definitely recommend giving this beer a try -- and perhaps even a letter
to the brewer to congratulate them for making something other than a weak-pee-
pilsner.  BTW -- the underside of the caps are worth a look -- kind of a beer-
drinker's gameshow.  Also BTW -- I don't work for any commercial breweries.

And speaking of caps, recently on CNN there was a report of a company that is
now producing a cap that has a liner designed to absorb the oxygen out of the
airspace in bottles.  Now that would be something nice for our suppliers to
provide to homebrewers.  Anybody out there heard anything about this new pro-
duct, and whether it will become available for the amateur zymurgist?  Anything
that will make relaxing a little easier will make not worrying a little easier,
too.

Zymurgically yours,

Paul

pkel at brazil.psych.purdue.edu    
Paul L. Kelly                   
Dept. Psych. Sci., Purdue Univ. 

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 15:06:09 EDT
From: nolan at lheavx.DNET.NASA.GOV (Tom Nolan)
Subject: Baltimore Brewpubs

To Kim Mills, who inquired about Brewpubs in Baltimore, I can highly
recommend both Sisson's on East Cross Street and the Baltimore
Brewing Company at Pratt & Albemarle. Sisson's has great food
with a Cajun theme (best price on weekday nights when they have 
dinner specials). BBC is a German-style Beergarden with a menu to
match. Both have good brewpub-style beer. Sisson's seems to stress
the ales, BBC the lagers. You'd probably want to drive to Sisson's,
about a mile down Light Street from the Inner Harbor. BBC is 
walking distance, right where Little Italy starts. Look for the
purple neon.

To Cher Feinstein, the Coriolis force is sometimes mentioned as
the cause of the vortex if the plug is pulled on a completely
still bathtub (and according to this theory bathtubs in the 
Southern Hemisphere would drain in the other direction). In
reality, the Coriolis force is many orders of magnitude smaller
than other effects such as residual motion in the water, the
shape of the tub and drain, etc. and doesn't have much to do
with bathtubs, beer bottles, or anything else on a human scale.

Tom

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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 14:55:54 CDT
From: bradley at dehn.math.nwu.edu (R. Bradley)
Subject: vexing vortices

In Digest #492, Forrest Cook observes:

> When draining the soap or chlorine out of a bottle, make a few rotary
> motions with your hand ... The bottle will drain about twice as fast as
> it would if it were going glug-glug-glug.

I've been using that trick for years now (can't remember where learnt it)
and only a couple of weeks ago did the empirical side of my brain convince
me to test the claim of quicker draining.  With Gallileo's ghost looking
on approvingly, I simultaneously inverted two full bottles.  I held one
steady and spun the other.  The result: the spun bottle did drain faster.
A little faster.  It had little more than a neck-full left in the still
bottle by the time the spun bottle was empty.

Time savings: about one second.

Was it Ben Franklin who said "a second saved is a second earned"?
Or was that "time is money"?

One thing is indisputable: it's a lot more fun to spin the bottles!

Then in #493, Cher Feinstein observed:

> The Coriolus effect, btw, is affected by latitude.  So, you'll probably 
> find you get a better vortex spinning the bottle in one direction or the
> other, but not both. 

Much ink has been spilled over the years on the Coriolus effect, in partic.,
how the vortices in bathtub drains go in opposite directions in the northern
and southern hemispheres.  I heard (on CBC's "Quirks and Quarks", I think)
that although there really is a difference in the force which depends upon
latitude and hemisphere, the magnitude of the force is so tiny as to make
it irrelevant.  The direction of the vortex in your bath (I take showers,
personally) is determined by the net spin you exerted on the body of water
by sloshing about in the tub.

When I drain two bottles simultaneously, I find it easiest to spin the
right one clockwise and the left one counter-clockwise.  Trying to spin
them both in the same direction confuses me as much as trying to rub my
head and pat my belly at the same time!


On an entirely unrelated note, has anyone noticed that American 6-row
malt has ridiculously low yields compared to imported 2-rows?  I get
almost 80% efficiency from Canadian 2-row, around 70% from its English
counterpart, and less than 60% from U.S. 6-row.  Is this possible?

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #494, 09/12/90
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