Nestle Patents Coffee Beer

Dotnaught writes "New Scientist reports that Nestec, a Nestle subsidiary, has applied for a patent on a fermented coffee beverage. In other words, coffee beer -- it foams like beer and packs the caffeine of coffee, with "fruity and/or floral notes due to the fermentation of the coffee aroma."

Comments

Drew Carey Beat them to it!!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG. Buzz Beer is teh shit! Kdawg will pwn your mother!

What every college town needs

[iamjambon]

More wide-awake drunks.

Woohoo!

[sexybomber]

I, for one, welcome our new drunk AND hyper overlords!

ObSimpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

Marge: "Caw-fee!"
Bartender: "Bee-er?"

This will be perfect for late night problem sets

[Physics Nobody]

The coffee keeps you going and the beer makes sure you don't have to care too much.

Buzz Beer

[Sohgin]

I think Drew Carey has a lawsuit.

Re:Buzz Beer

[QuantumG]

Call me crazy, but wouldn't the patent actually cover their particular implementation of a coffee-beer like substance? i.e., wouldn't their patent actually have a formular in there somewhere which describes what they are patenting? Looking at the Abstract for the patent they are pretty specific what it is the patent covers. I don't think Drew Carey specified in his show a technique for making the beer or the specific ratios of methylbutanol to methylbutanol and thioacetates to thiols. Not the mention the fact that Drew Carey made an alcoholic beer, and this patent only covers a process to make a non-alcoholic coffee smelling beer.

But hey, this is Slashdot, don't let any of this stop you from declaring that patents are evil and that nothing deserves patent protection.

Re:Buzz Beer

[crail]

Drew Carey probably has a lawsuit with cool beer, makers of buzz beer. And nestle should probably check out Mill St. brewery before making outrageous claims over being the first to mix coffee and beer.

Of course, if Nestle's drink doesn't have alcohol in it, I don't really see why they would compare it to beer. Many years ago I used to mix coffee with urine for my boss. It was also foamy and surely had a fermented taste, but I'd never consider marketing that to him as a beer! That would just be lying, plain and simple.

Re:Buzz Beer

[DrWhizBang]

I'm pretty sure that the sense of humour has not been patented, so you are perfectly free to develop one without repercussions.

I guess to be fair to you, the moderators marked the parent as "Insightful" so I guess they didn't get it either.

Skittles!

[Bifurcati]

Aside from being a disturbing combination of knock-me-out and perk-me-up, I think that Skittlebrau has a much better chance of being successful.

NB. I said beer was "knock-me-out" not "knock-me-up", so don't go getting any ideas. Not that the two are mutually incompatible, I guess...

Clarification

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

If it looks like beer, foams like beer, but smells and tases like coffee, then it's this stuff. It has caffiene, but no alcohol. I'm wondering if this is just a novelty, or if there really is some place for it in the market since I think this probably would be more expensive than regular coffee. I would think if people want coffee they'd get coffee, and if they want beer they'd get beer. It just strikes me as a solution without a problem. A very clever solution, but still one without a problem.

YRO?

[kihjin]

You'd think they'd at least come up with a better name for this 'drink,' instead of concatenating the two ingredients. Anyone who wants to see the patent application, the it's here [pdf]. I think I'll pass on the taste-test.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Krach42]

WTF kind of programmers are you around? When I tell people that I avoid caffiene, they look at me like I'm crazy.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[servognome]

Why do people willingly put crap like this into their bodies? Caffeine isn't good for you. Neither is alcohol. Combine the two and you're not helping yourself.

It's fun to play chemistry with your body. Showdowns between Starbucks and NyQuil, NoDoz and Sudafed, Red Bull and Sleeping pills. It's legal so it can't possibly hurt me, right? ;)

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[afra242]

Off topic, but it comes up every now and again.

If it's in moderation, alcohol and/or caffeine is alright. Maybe you're thinking of extreme cases, like the unemployed guy down the street drinking 10 beers before lunch time. I have met many smart people who drink alcohol socially. Caffeine has been around for centuries and again, within moderation, it isn't going to kill you or make you stupid.

Before you start harping on people drinking caffeine or alcohol, take a look at what people eat. The nutrition value of meals these days, in the US, has taken a large nosedive. Obesity is huge, and it is mostly because of what people eat and the lack of exercise.

Moderated beer consumption doesn't make one a good or bad programmer....

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[CyricZ]

Regular exercise is a far better option than resorting to caffeine highs. With such exercise you're able to maintain a better mental state, and do not tire as easily. It's better to give developers a gym pass than a coffee machine.

Give me Java Porter any day...

[GileadGreene]

Eh. This stuff has no alcohol content. No thanks! I'll take one of the Mountain Sun Brewery's Java Porters over this crap any day.

Re:Give me Java Porter any day...

[dascandy]

No alcohol? So it's american beer?

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[dangitman]

Indeed, many of the best programmers I ever worked with were strictly against the use of caffeine and alcohol.

While many of the best humans I have ever met are strong advocates of caffeine and alcohol use.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Slow Smurf]

Is it wrong to assume there is some method of testing/supervision for new programmers and reviews for old to avoid that very situation happening?

I don't give a rats ass if a person is stoned, hyper on caffine or buzzed if they accomplish what they attempt, always. If there isn't a method to see if a person is capable for this mission critical software, THAT is the problem.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[shmlco]

"Caffeine causes undue anxiety. Those are not good things to suffer from when you're trying to write solid software..."

I don't know. A little extra anxiety and paranoia might be a good thing for people writing antivirus software and firewalls....

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with real programmers. The kind who develop mission critical software where mistakes are not tolerated. Aeroplane flight control software systems, for instance. Such people cannot be impaired while coding, and thus avoid alcoholic and caffeinated beverages completely.

And what do these Real Red Blooded Programmers do after work? Sit around waiting for the Bug Alarm, at which point they slide down the Fire Pole leading from their basement above the office to the office itself? No rational person says to drink on the Job when it's Important. Like when you have to make Real True Programs.

But after a long day of Untrue Work nobody wants some arrogant Shitstain like you who can't handle his beer saying in a Fake British accent, "Oh, I honestly do say! Why do people ingest such vile fluids! My word! I certainly don't need alcohol to have a good time! Dear? Are you awake? Dear? Everybody Love's Raymond is about to commence! Dear? Oh, Dear!"

In conclusion, you are a Bloody Cuntflap.

a couple of contentions

[Kargan]

There are actually a ton of coffee beers, although not in the same sense as the article suggests:

http://www.ratebeer.com/ and search for 'coffee', 'mocha' or 'java'.

However, these are simply Porters, Stouts, etc. that are brewed as they would normally be but with the addition of coffee, being a complimentary and intuitive adjunct since roasted malts frequently contribute a coffeeish, roasty sort of malt bitterness and flavor to many dark beers.

In fact, this Nestle product wouldn't even seem to be eligible to be called beer since it doesn't appear to contain malt, a prime ingredient of beer along with water, hops and yeast.

Not a bad patent...

[Zouden]

Actually this drink does not contain any alcohol at all. I don't think it is really beer.
But anyway, for all those nay-saying this patent, I think it's a fairly decent one. It certainly isn't obvious!

From TFA:
Nestlé admits it was tricky to preserve the characteristic coffee smell in the production process. Coffee beans are roasted normally, and the chemicals containing the natural aroma collected in a cryogenic condenser, before being converted into coffee oil. The remains of the roast are then ground to powder, mixed with yeast and sucrose, and fermented for 4 hours at just below 22C. At this temperature the yeast can still metabolise but does not generate alcohol.

The aroma oil is then mixed in with the liquid and nitrogen is injected to make it foam. Adding a touch of extra sugar also helps trap the aroma until the drink is poured, Nestlé claim.

Now, ask yourself, is that obvious? I think this patent is perfectly acceptable.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[DrEldarion]

Err, isn't "recipe" just a word that means "put things together this way"? Isn't that what a huge number of patents are? In this case, you're using coffee and yeast instead of silicon and plastic. Just because you ingest it doesn't make the process any less patentable.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[thebdj]

Coca Cola company *never* got a patent on cola; in fact their recipe is a closely guarded company secret. Why is that?

Because patents require disclosure, the whole idea is to offer a certain time of protection for a product while at the same time forcing disclosure of it to the public. It is this disclosure that makes it possible for people to advance technologies and improve on them. Actually the Coca-Cola as a trade secret is a great example of how keeping a secret and not disclosing could technically stifle innovation in the soda industry if other companies were already so prolific in the area anyway.

The Big Mac is a BAD example. It is a burger which would be easily rejected as a sum of its parts. Nothing holding patentable weight, but a drink like Coca-Cola is a chemical mixture and one that is actually useful. What you fail to realize is that by patenting this idea Nestle has made is possible for every company in the world to improve on their process and to improve the overall item. Without this it would be a trade secret for all eternity and no one would ever know how it was made. Since this is something that people have not done before, it is important that disclosure is made in order to allow people to actually learn the process.

Really, you are WAY off base on this one. Go crawl back into your hole of paranoia, and moderators mod down the Parent because he is not insightful at all, just terribly misinformed.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[thebdj]

To go with my other patent, check out class 426 over at the USPTO. So this isn't that odd of an occurence to patent food and beverages if there is a whole class for it. Also another note from my sibling post, a trade secret provides nearly the same legal protection as a patent in many cases, so long as the company takes great effort to maintain said secret. In this case Coca-Cola would be able to sue just about anyone selling a cola product with the exact (and possibly very similar) recipe as their own since they can claim they stole a trade secret. With a patent, it would have run out by now (Coca-cola has been around more then 20 years) and there would be the possibility of hundreds of generic Coca-Cola products which could have the exact same recipe...disclosure is key to why patents are good.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[thebdj]

You mean to say that there Pepsi Cola, Herschi Cola, 7UP, Spa Green/Red, Tonic, Cassis, etc. could all be bought before Coca Cola existed? Or you mean to say that these other soda drinks are there because of the stiffling effect of not having a patent on Coca Cola?

Take the big 4 soda makers. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, RC, and DPSU (Dr. Pepper/Seven-Up in case you are dense). Now none of these companies use the same formula. This is why they all have very different tasting soda products and why many people either love or hate one or the other when it comes to Coke and Pepsi in particular.

Now let us say for a minute that no one else was quick enough to have figured out the wonderful process and ingredients that Coca-Cola uses. By having a patent you force disclosure meaning everyone would then be in the know about Coca-Cola's recipe. This means that anyone could clone Coca-Cola perfectly after the patent age was up (see the post that is a sibling to the GP).

As it stands Coca-Cola's recipe is a trade secret and the same is probably quite true for Pepsi, RC and Dr. Pepper. This means that a "perfect" copy of these drinks is never going to be possible because so long as they protect their trade secret, anyone making a exact clone would be breaking the law in "stealing a trade secret." This means knock-off soda made by the people who provide grocery chains and Wal-Mart with their generic soda will never be perfect replicas and only close approximations.

What this boils down to is this: no patent means competition is only driven between brands of what are technically varying products. There is no generic substitute so people who want the "real thing" have to buy it from Coke, Pepsi, etc. This means that they usually do not have to worry so much about competing with the prices of generic sodas which are often sold for as much as half the cost of the name brand. The reason they do not have to compete with these is because they are smaller in number, but also because they can never successfully replicate a brands taste without copying the recipe, which as discussed above is illegal.

Your example of the RIM v. NTP case is not a good example. First off, you misuse the idea because it goes beyond e-mail and wireless link. Go read the claims of the patent and get back to me on that one, because unlike what the masses of patent haters on /. would like you to believe the case isn't as dumbed down as it looks.

Now back to my original example. The reason a Big Mac has no patent is because burgers are much older then the Big Mac. The idea of adding lettuce, tomato, etc. is no big deal since it would be "well known" in the art. There was nothing new and innovative about the Big Mac, I mean even the lame sauce isn't that secret.

I will now point you to a particular patent for a food product. In this case 4,871,554 which is a patent for fortified food products. The first claim basically covers your fortified orange juice. The patent as you will see is held by Coca-Cola, for their Minute Maid division no doubt. I once again invite you to look at class 426 and check out subclass 7 for fermentation processes. There are patents for Anheuser-Busch which covered a cholesterol free egg product (3,987,212) which is now expired.

There is a difference between patenting a mass produced product and a simple cooking recipe. The fact is it would not be economical to get patents on simple food recipes and quite possibly impossible since there is such a wide variety in cooking. On a side note, recipes have the potential to be copyrighted if provided with the proper context. We all know how much longer a copyright lasts over a patent.

Seriously, this is not a really contested issue among patents and you are in an obvious minority here. Why do I say that? The patent application is a WIPO/PCT patent application being sent to a wide variety of states, therefore it must be something that holds patentable weight in many countries and not just in the USA.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[CastrTroy]

Cloning the exact taste of Coke wouldn't be that hard if you threw a bunch of scientists at it. The reason it isn't done, is because as soon as you put out a product (CokeRipoff), and say it tastes just like Coke, you're admitting that Coke is the best. People will cease to buy your original product, Pepsi?, and buy Coke, because you are saying Coke is the good product. Some people will buy CokeRipoff, however, they know they aren't buying the real Coke, and will only buy CokeRipoff if, it is much cheaper, and others won't know about it.

This can be seen with the fragrance industry. The only reason they can sell a fragrance for $100 a bottle, is because people believe it's the real thing, and that they need the real thing. It could easily be produced and sold for much cheaper, which it sometimes is, but is often not bought by most, even at extreme savings, because they don't get the status of saying they are wearing a $100 fragrance.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[steeviant]

You are a shrill for Nestle

I think you mean shill. :D

Re:Not a bad patent...

[squiggleslash]

Drew Carey was proposing caffienated beer, not beer fermented from coffee beans. In any case, the fact he had the idea for an end-product doesn't mean he invented the product itself.

"A pair of chairs where if you sit in one and press a button, you automatically are transported to the other one, in less than a second, regardless of where it is in the world."

Did I just invent something? (Yeah, I've read similar ideas, but none involving chairs for some reason. Pretend, for the sake of argument, nobody's ever said anything about chairs before now) Was that an invention?

Of course it wasn't. And it will not be until I can at least describe how the chairs work. And that doesn't mean "I'd use wormholes", I mean I need to document enough that someone with adequate knowledge and equipment can put the invention together, at a bare minimum. One can come up with an argument that Arthur C. Clarke did invent the geostationary satellite, because he documented that, essentially, all you need to do is put an object in a particular orbit around the Earth (that is, have it a certain height from the ground, travelling at a certain speed) using basic Newtonian physics to prove the principle; if, however, he'd just talked arbitrarily about a satellite that, somehow, floated above the same point above the Earth without describing how (leaving his readers to wonder how the hell it stayed up there), he wouldn't be described as the inventor of anything of the soprt.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[RFC959]

The thing is if your crack team of scientists "reverse engineer" the coke formula Coca Cola is going to throw a fit and quite likely you'll get sued back to the stone age and that is not exactly something people want to deal with. The idea is the Coke formula is a trade secret and violating that would cost you.

Please don't post in ignorance. If you reverse-engineered Coke's formula (which has already been done), the Coca-Cola corporation would have absolutely no legal grounds on which to sue you. If you stole it, that would be one thing, but if you simply figure it out, you're in the clear. They have no legal protection from duplication for their formula; it's protected by being a secret. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the University of Nebraska.

Re:Not a bad patent...

[Ihlosi]

The idea is the Coke formula is a trade secret and violating that would cost you.

No, no, no. That is absolutely NOT how a trade secret works. In fact, you cannot violate a trade secret precisely because of that second word: secret. If you come up with the formula for Coca Cola by any other means (i.e. chemical analysis, trial&error, plain dumb luck) than flat-out stealing the recipe, you're clear.

Of course, if you work for Coca Cola, have knowledge of the recipe and sell it to competitor X, you're toast.

NO, officer...

[laughingcoyote]

That's not BEER you smell on my breath, it's coffee. COFFEE! Hey, put those damn handcuffs away!

Foamy

[yintercept]

What is the point of this product?

My guess is that the selling point of the product is that it is a packaged foamy drink. It is easy to market foamy. Coffee shops do a good job selling foaminess. The other bottled caffiene drinks are all flat. So, something that foams might stand out.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Krach42]

Dude... shut the hell up. I work with real programmers, where if we get something wrong it hits millions if not billions of people, and they all get mad.

We do "real programming" as much as anyone else.

Fact is, you can take whatever opinions you have about beer and caffeine, but the average person doesn't share those opinions. The average person sees nothing wrong with either caffeine or beer. This is the reason why Starbuck's makes tons of money, and why any gas station has probably about 1/4 of the beverages that it has for sale which are alcoholic.

Your small little prudish subsection of the world may not give a shit about caffeinated beer, but neither will devout Mormons, Arabs, nor dry counties all around the country. Just because you don't give a shit, doesn't mean no one else will. Especially even among even "real" programmers.

Re:Redhook/Starbucks produced a coffee beer

[ElBorba]

As much as I tend to disdain the very novelty of redhook beers and patently despise the evil empire that Howard Shultz begat I can say without hesitation that Double Black was one of the better middle-of-the-road too-sweet porters out there and it was ONLY the bitterness of harbucks' over-roasted (they call it "full city") mcdonald's-coffee-for-three-dollars-a-cup beans that made the bland sweetness of yet another redhook underachiever stand up and say hello. I mean, the only beverage I hate more than Redhook beer is Starbucks coffee... but this stuff was pretty tolerable.

To take only a small tangent, did you know that the now world famous "full city" starbucks roast is the result of an ever-increasing demand for espresso-quality beans? Turns out that starbucks buys so many boatloads of coffee every year that they no longer bother much with traditional coffee plantations and now specialize in converting any massive coffee crop into either House Blend or Espresso Roast? You see, when you sell more coffee than Folgers and Maxwell House it means that, guess what, you don't get quality, you only get quantity! How to compensate for a decidedly lower quality bean? Burn it just a little more than the other guy and call it your signature roast. How you call it a signature roast when there are no human roasters at the plant any more is beyond me. I but you didn't know that either! Robots make starbucks coffee. Oh, and it tastes exactly like dog shit which is why no one has ordered an actual "espresso" at starbucks in nearly 14 years. I'm surprised they even have it on the menu. "Oh, do you want that con pana (because otherwise you can taste the feces)?" Also, who are you retards who order a "viente" latte? Did you know that baby cows don't drink that much milk in one day? And you're having one with a feckin' currant scone? Oh, sorry, make that a viente latte with sugar free chocolate squeezins. Aaaaaargh... I HATE YOU! Get back in your Touareg and die.

Next week's rant:

Volkswagen

Nestle owns all European chocolate

[chocolatetrumpet]

Nestle basically bought all of the chocolate manufacturing in Europe.

Take a look at your kitkat some time - licensed from Nestle.

I was at a restaurant at 10,000ft in the alps. Nestle hot chocolate, of course.

All of Nestle's chocolate products are made with powdered milk, except for Callier - the only Nestle chocolate made with fresh milk. Have fun getting it in the states.

Probably the only chocolatier that Nestle doesn't own is Caotina - damn hard to get that stuff in the states too.

My point is, Nestle has long been your chocolate overlord - the Microsoft or Google of chocolate, especially European chocolate.

Re:Nestle owns all European chocolate

[10Ghz]

There are plenty of chocolate-makers in Europe, besides Nestle. Being in Finland, the two dominant companies here are Cloetta/Fazer and Kraft Foods (which owns such brands as Marabou and O'boy, as far as chocolate is concerned). There ARE products by Nestle available here (Kitkat for example), but they are not the dominant player. Nestle might be the biggest one overall, but they do not dominate the field, IMO.

Re:Nestle owns all European chocolate

[jonwil]

What about Cadbury and Mars (who make mars, m&m, snickers and other things I think). Both are (at least in australia) quite large.

Re:Nestle owns all European chocolate

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up - Cadburys and Mars are just as big, Cadburys Schweps also I believe own the Coca Cola franchise in Europe.
Nestle only seems big because it bought out British Rowntrees in the late 80's early 90's, which made Fruit Pastels, Kitkats, Smarties, Polos etc...

Re:Nestle owns all European chocolate

[Marcuzio]

Nestle basically bought all of the chocolate manufacturing in Europe..

What about Lindt? I don't think is Nestle owned and there are many "little" chocolate prodoucers in Europe that make some delicious product. Here in italy we have NOVI, that's quite good but if you are searching something particular and you are in tuscany try the one from slitti

Re:Nestle owns all European chocolate

[Hadlock]

Look in to the history of chocolate. It was Mr. Nestle himself that invented powdered milk. That's where the name - Nestle - came from. Of fucking course it's made with powdered milk. The whole point of using powdered milk is that it allows you to control the moisture content more closely - creating a more even product. Using fresh milk - and calling it quality as a result - is a pure marketing gimmick.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[mikkom]

Certain alcoholic drinks, like red wine, contain substances that do offer health benefits. But the alcohol does not.

Both of them have health benefits. A recent study even told that (this is crazy) more alcohol you drink, not just red wine as you point, better it is to your hearth. Some research also suggests that moderate drinking may cut the risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. The only problem is that it's also very harmful to drink large amounts of alcohol so the harmful effects are a lot bigger issue than health benefits.

Also, There has been a lot discussion lately about coffees health benefits, see the following articles for example:
Coffee found to be high in health-giving antioxidants
Coffee is America's No. 1 Source of Antioxidants
Coffee: The New Health Food?

a stimulant and a depressant?

[nilbog]

Who invented this? Don't they just cancel eachother out? It's like the simpsons where homer takes sleeping pills and energy pills.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Belseth]

Beg to differ. Let's start programming and you drink spring water while I drink Red Bull and expresso and we'll see who's still functional in 72 hours. I've worked around people that do Cocaine and they get worthless after awhile but the caffine drinkers fair well. Different drugs effect the body in different ways. I do fine large amounts of caffine clear your head and can somewhat overcome a lack of sleep. I can't recommend it and ideally the best is 8 hours of good quality sleep but I find for various reasons it's not always possible. The bigger issue is exercise and trying to eat well. Caffine isn't the dangerous drug it was once made out to be and the body tolerates it fairly well. The biggest issue I can see with fermented coffee beverages is caffine is a dieretic and the body needs water to process the alcohol so you might find hang overs worse unless you drink extra water. If you are fantatical about your body I'd avoid sitting infront of a computer, drop your calorie intack below 1,000 a day and pick a career where you are kept physically active for 8 to 10 hours a day. Also go for a low stress lifestyle. Stress will do a hundred times the damage caffine will ever do and that is a fact. Outside of diet and exercise stress would be in the tope three for americans for contributing to ill health. If you are drinking Caca Cola I'd worry far more about the sugar than the caffine. I think the acid it contains would harm your health more than caffine. In coffee the cream and sugar are worse for you than the caffine. No one is perfect the idea is to do your best.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[ankarbass]

I have some bad news for you. Your mission critical software has errors. Maybe not quite as many as some "less mission critical software", but it has errors.

BTW: It isn't just guesswork that reduces errors. If you have formally proven your systems, (which I'm quite sure you have right?) then they are correct. It isn't necessary for the implementer really to be sober as long as you have a formal proof and others, including yourself with your pristine substance free (no sugar right) body, can check the proof. Going from a provably correct system to real code is pretty easy work what with all those nice tight pre/post conditions an all.

Oh, and of course you only use compilers that are subjected to similar standards, right?

And please don't tell me any of this runs on windows, none of it runs on windows, right? I bet you're only solid mission critical operating systems that have had every line of code checked and double checked against a formal system? Right?

After all, we wouldn't want the software with bugs. It has to be as good as the rest of the airplane, bug free, nothing will fail, nothing has been overlooked, the design is PERFECT!!!

Reminds of that accident that happened sometime in the late eighties/early nineties where an airplane toilet had its contents jetisoned while still in flight and the frozen contents came crashing into someone's living room. The victim was quoted as saying "Of course it surprised me, the last thing I expect to come crashing into my house in this day and age is an icy BM."

I knew they were working on it!

[Muhammar]

and I could have scooped them - some years ago, I noticed that the stale instant Nestle tastes incredibly lot like a stale weak beer. (I thought it was nice that they did not use the usual burnt motoroil flavor like Folgers'). So they were just passing a beta version of their birra Coffiest!

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[TheAcousticMotrbiker]

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

I half a 1 and a half hour commute each day.
I do this on a bicyle

I also drink coffee (usually in moedration) and alcohol (in moderation).

Then again, Im currently working in moscow for a week, so I have no biking commute, I drink about a dozen cups of coffee a day, (and Im not going to talk about alcohol, though compared to the locals Im hardly drinking anything).

Ive also spend time doing similar work in muslim countries (no alcohol allowed, and tea, tea, tea all day long, no exercise either).

Ive also spend time in countries where my habits were between these extremes, doing similar work.

I've looked back on the quality of work there and can safely state that there is no correlation between the quality of work, and the type of beverages or the amount of physical exercise.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[zoloto]

whoa, someone needs to lay off the caffeine

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[Omestes]

I then must worry about "mission ciritcal" NORMAL people, like ambulance drivers and firefighters...

Wait. Every time you drive a car someone is at risk. Screw the don't drink and drive thing, we need don't drink a coke and drive!

Moderation. Yes, repeat that word. Real adults know their limits. Sure a pot of coffee will make me purform less well, but 2-3 cups has no real mental imparement. (for me), and thus I indulge.

Fat foods, and a lazy life style could also hinder their abilities. As could dating. Freindship. Or anything else causing stress.

Coffee and beer have been mixed forever

[asink]

Their exact process for doing so may be somewhat unique, but coffee beer has been around for a long time, the most popular type being the coffee porter
I would say something about them not being able to stand up in court, but the caffeine helps with that.

Re:Why do people drink this crap?

[archen]

Real Programmers can code anything they want. They write operating systems all the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are crazy and awsome and code all the time. I heard that there was this Real Programmer who was eating at dinner. And when some dude dropped a spoon, the Real Programmer replaced the entire town with a shell script.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just home brew your own

[hubie]

Here is a nice article on how to home brew your own coffee ale and how to best brew with coffee and/or coffee beans. For those who haven't tried, home brewing is really rather easy (if you can make homemade soup, you can make homemade beer). The only downside (in my opinion) is all the sanitation and cleaning up, i.e., "doin' the dishes." I presently have a Christmas Ale in the fermenter that is about as black as coffee (I hope it mellows a bit between now and Christmas).

Here is one recipe from that link (I just might have to try it):

Coffee Imperial Stout
(5 gal/19L, all-grain)
OG: 1.067 FG: 1.016
IBU: 70 SRM: 35
by Doug McNair, Redhook Breweries

Ingredients
8.0 lbs. (3.9 kg) 2-row pale malt
2.25 lbs. (1 kg) crystal (60ö80¡ L)
1.5 lbs. (0.7 kg) wheat malt
1.25 lbs. (0.6 kg) chocolate malt
0.5 lb. (0.2 kg) roasted barley
0.5 lb. (0.2 kg) black patent malt
18.75 AAU Northern Brewer hops (bittering)
(2.5 oz./71 g of 7.5% alpha acids)
1.5 oz. (42 g) finishing hops
(Northern Brewer or Cascade)
15 oz. (445 mL) of espresso
Ale yeast (your choice)

Step by Step
Mash in all grains at 149¡ F (65¡ C). Hold until converted, about 1 hour. Mash off at 170¼ F (77¡ C) and begin lautering. Sparge to achieve eight gallons (30 L) of wort. Bring to a boil and add 2.5 oz. (71 g) boiling hops. Total boil is 70 minutes. After the boil, turn off the heat and add 1.5 oz. (43 g) finish hops for five minutes. Cool to 70¼ F (21¡ C) and ferment with ale yeast. Original gravity goal is 17.5¡ Plato (1.069 SG). Terminal gravity will be pretty high, approximately 1.016. Add espresso at end of primary fermentation, bottle and enjoy!

I'd rather have a Tomacco

[paco3791]

Ahh sweet, sweet nicotine. and a link for the clueless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomacco

Nestle owns all European chocolate

[Reack]

Nestle is the worlds largest food & beverage manufacturer, but they do not own all of the Chocolate. There are plenty of other brands: Masterfood (Mars, M&M', etc) Ferrero (Rocher, Rafaelo, Nutella, tic-tac, etc) Cadbury Lindt Plus Nestle gives your the 5 worlds largest manufacturers. Nestle is just so big as it owns things you wouldn't even know about. Such as a large share in L'Oreal cosmetics. They certainly spread their wings.