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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  Re: A new taste sensation? ("Bob Devine")
  Re: Gluten (le Man)
  Re: Anhydrous salts ("Pete Calinski")
  Regional Tastes (Alexandre Enkerli)


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Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 21:45:07 -0600
From: "Bob Devine" <devinebob at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: A new taste sensation?

> Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 19:15:51 +0100
> From: Signalbox Brewery <signalbox.brewery at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: A new taste sensation?
>
> I'd like to enlist the help of the collective to identify a new taste
> sensation for me. I drank a sip of Draught Bass [...]and was rewarded
> by having the front sides of my tongue anaesthetized - the area
> associated with salt on the tongue map.

Hmmm, hard to tell.  Did others notice anything weird?
Was it extra fizzy?  Was the glass clean? Had you eaten
anything spicy or hot before?

Beware - the old textbook versions of the tongue maps are misleading.
Those maps were great for making easy tests for students learning
basic anotomy, but, do not take those simplistic maps as gospel.

Flavor perception is not 100% the same across people.  There is some
truth to the maps but each region of the map is not a strict guarantee
of a unique flavor but is more of a general guideline.  You can taste
sour in more than the 'sour region'. Etc.

If you wish, you can test yourself.  Grab some sugar, citric acid, salt,
and quinine, prepare dilute samples, and then dab them on various
spots of your tongue.  Have someone give you blind samples so that
you don't mislead yourself.  Note that you will suffer palate fatigue
after a while so drink a beer or three to refresh yourself between
tests, in the name of science, of course.

http://www.aromadictionary.com/articles/tonguemap_article.html

Bob Devine, still in Utah



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Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 09:34:57 +0100
From: le Man <hbd at thebarnsleys.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Gluten

Its certainly a fascinating Discussion regarding Gluten, my wife was 
diagnosed as a coeliac four years ago (After a 5 year serious decline in 
general health, and 20+ years of being told she was anemic when giving 
blood!). We have finally cracked baking Coeliac friendly bread, but the 
one thing she really misses is beer, We are lucky in that we can buy 
Nick Staffords Hambleton Ales GFA in our local supermarket now. However 
as a discerning brewer, it doesn't cut the mustard as a 'beer', it is 
too out of balance with the sweetness just overpowering everything else 
(Update they may have changed the recipe as it is now considerably more 
bitter, and much more in balance). What I would love to do is to brew a 
Range of GF beers, but getting hold of a sensible amount of malted GF 
grain here in the UK is next to impossible (Nick guards his source 
jealously:( ) if I want a tonne of the stuff its no problem! Is there 
anyone out there that knows of a source int he UK OR would be willing to 
  buy me a small qty (6Kgs or so) and mail it (with suitable 
remuneration in advance of course). I think a CAP should be relatively 
easy to achieve, the real difficulty would be the stouts (Where's the 
brewers Caramel? :') )

Regards

- --

le Man ( The Brewer Formerly Known As Aleman )
Mashing In Blackpool UK


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Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 09:31:09 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: Anhydrous salts

Is this what you are looking for?

http://hbd.org/pcalinsk/Correction.htm



Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY

http://hbd.org/pcalinsk


***********************************************************
*My goal:
*      Go through life and never drink the same beer twice.
*     (As long as it doesn't mean I have to skip a beer.) 
***********************************************************


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Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 10:54:49 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <enkerli at gmail.com>
Subject: Regional Tastes

Hello all!

Been working on a presentation on beer and cultural identity for a joint 
conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) 
and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS).
http://www.bu.edu/lifelong/conference/
My presentation will be rather informal, based on some of my preliminary 
observations in the world of beer and brewing.

One issue that will make its way in my presentation is the notion of 
regional specificity. The clearest case is the fact that the 
Northwestern part of North America is often associated with hops. What 
would be other interesting examples? Do you notice regional 
characteristics in your brewing practise?

There appears to be some data for Belgium. According to Gaston Marinx 
(cited in Mario D'Eer 1998: 172) there's an important difference between 
beer drinkers from Flanders, Walloon regions, and Brussels. Flemish 
drinkers seem to prefer sweet and tart, Walloons sweet and bitter, 
Brussels tart and sweet.

My presentation is about North American brewers so North American 
examples would be more relevant. (D'Eer also mentions the bitterness of 
beers from the North American West Coast).

It seems to me that Quebec breweries tend to be Belgian-influenced, with 
prominent yeast character, malty sweetness, spiciness, and fruit. Part 
of this perception has to do with well-known Quebec brewery Unibroue 
(now part of Sleeman, which might soon be bought by a macro). Yet 
there's some evidence that Quebec brewers and beer geeks do tend to 
navigate more toward wits and trippels than toward hefeweizens and 
American IPAs (though this trend is changing a bit).

Here in New England, there really seems to be a clear appreciation for 
dark grain astringency. Many craft beers of the region exhibit this 
characteristic and a friend of mine (originally from the South but 
having brewed in a New England brewpub) is in fact using special methods 
to achieve this flavour in his homebrews. Could someone offer support 
for this observation that astringency is a frequent characteristic in 
beers of New England? Or, at least, that it is considered desirable in 
some examples?

Beers from the Great Lakes / MidWest region (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, 
Illinois, Indiana) also seem to have a few things in common though it's 
harder to pinpoint and might have to do with some well-known breweries 
(Three Floyds, Bell's...). In the past, participants in the Good Beer 
Show podcast (mostly Hoosiers) have made comments about a Midwestern 
domination in craft brewing. While it's quite unclear which part of the 
continent has the best beers, these claims are quite telling.

It'd be interesting to compare the different "Brewing News" regional 
beer newspapers: Great Lakes, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, Yankee, 
Northwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern.
http://www.brewingnews.com/

Of course, none of this is meant to say that regional differences are 
clearcut. Obviously, all the beer diversity in the world is likely to be 
present in any region. But it's interesting to see how some of these 
regional identities are negotiated through beer.

Cheers!

Ale-X in Northampton, MA (but originally from Montreal, Qc)
[570.6, 86deg] AR (42.33N, 72.64W)


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