Reproducing an Ancient New World Beer

The Edible Geography blog has an amusing piece about Patrick McGovern, the "Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales, Wines, and Extreme Beverages," and his role in the production of a 3,400-year-old Mesoamerican beer recreated from a chemical analysis of pottery fragments. "McGovern describes his collaboration with Dogfish Head craft brewers ... to create a beer based on the core ingredients of early New World alcohol: chocolate beans (in nib form, as the cacao pods are too perishable to transport from Honduras to Delaware), honey, corn, ancho chillis, and annatto. ... The result? Cloudy and quite strong (9% A.B.V.), but more refreshing than you would think: the chocolate is savoury rather than sweet, and the chilli is just a very subtle, almost herbal, aftertaste. There is almost no head."

Comments

Excellent!

[sv_libertarian]

Just the thing to toast the arrival of 2012 with

Re:Excellent!

[nickdwaters]

This is the funniest thing I've read in weeks! Please mod this to 6!

Re:Excellent!

[troll8901]

I don't understand the joke. Are we referring to the Olympics, Mayan, Turing, NEO, Commonwealth, US Census, Korea Military, World Expo, Solar Eclipse, or what?

2012

Re:Excellent!

[longhairedgnome]

Commenting to undo "Interesting" moderation. I thought this was in reply to the

I love head. Nothing better than watching your

post

Re:Excellent!

[ByteSlicer]

Well, you have to be drunk to enjoy that movie...

Re:Excellent!

[Pharmboy]

Woosh.

RTFA for more info on this mesoamerican (Mayan) beer.

Head down in shame

[oldhack]

This is the sorta thing that shames me when facing the Russians. Stop it.

Re:Head down in shame

[tsalmark]

Erm, What? I think the Russians are also rather into experimenting with alcohol.

Re:Head down in shame

[oldhack]

You're not a Rusky, are you?

Re:Head down in shame

[morgan_greywolf]

In Soviet Russia, ancient mesoamerican beer shames YOU!!!

Re:Head down in shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that the plot of Leviathan?

Re:Head down in shame

[sznupi]

Oh just look at their mortality of their men from around 40 years of age, chiefly alcohol-related.

Re:Head down in shame

[tsalmark]

NO, I'm not. I know a few Russians, but you are being far to cryptic for me. Care to elucidate your thoughts?

Re:Head down in shame

[oldhack]

Nah, it's just load of nonsense ... I remember vague sense of disgust at oh-so-fashionable "craft" beer snob ... yeah, never mind. Cheers. :)

Midas Touch

[robbievienna]

Dogfish Head is also well known here in Delaware for recreating the mead found in King Midas' tomb, based on studies done by UPenn archaeologists in Turkey. The beverage is called Midas Touch and is frickin' amazing.

Re:Midas Touch

[morgan_greywolf]

Dogfish Head is also well known here in Delaware for recreating the mead found in King Midas' tomb, based on studies done by UPenn archaeologists in Turkey. The beverage is called Midas Touch and is frickin' amazing.

Even better, you can make it yourself. The recipe is posted here. Mead making is very, very easy. Combine the honey, water and other ingredients in a big plastic bucket, add some wine (or champagne) yeast, yeast nutrient and yeast energizer, and wait. Siphon out into a carboy when fermentation stops. Yummy.

Re:Midas Touch

[Psyborgue]

It's well known in a lot of places thanks to the documentary "Beer Wars". In the DC area where I live there are several Dogfish Head alehouses and the local Wegmans stocks several of their beers as well. I don't normally like beer but Dogfish Head makes excellent products with variety and eccentricity that actually taste good.

Re:Midas Touch

[Phanatic1a]

Dogfish and McGovern also collaborated on: Jiahu, based on chemanalysis of 9000-year-old pottery fragments from China; Sah'tea, based on 9th-century Finnish sahti; and Pangaea, which is more gimmicky than most of Dogfish head's gimmicks, and includes an ingredient from every continent.

Re:Midas Touch

[jd]

It's not really a mead, as it is not primarily honey, but it is good. I like the fact that Dogfish are doing this right. The Japanese brewery that recreated Old Kingdom beer (to the point of reconstructing the original brewing vessels) only did so for one season and distribution was limited. A Californian brewery that recreated one of the 27 known Sumerian beers likewise only did a limited edition. Not all places that sell Dogfish's beers sell Midas Touch though.

Ultimately, there's a huge range of ancient brews that might be very popular but next-to-zero research on the subject and absolutely zero interest from the stores and bars. That has to be fixed before any of this goes anywhere.

For mead, I've produced my own GPLed mead recipe (GPL version 2) which has proven very popular with those who have tried it.

Re:Midas Touch

[DNS-and-BIND]

American beer defined at urbandictionary.com:

Comparable to having sex on a boat. It's fucking close to water.
European person: What's up with this barley water? 241 thumbs up.

What the rest of the world knows as water.
I thought I asked for a beer, not a dasani. 179 thumbs up.

Dog piss and fairy sauce. The crappiest beer ever. Australian and european beer is the best!
yuck taste this crap. its called american beer...
no thanks! 144 thumbs up.

Huffington Post: "The 9 Countries With The Worst Beer In The World". Guess who comes in at #1, as voted by a diverse range of the world's population? Do we really need any more [citations] and footnotes?

The reason for this is back in 1920 our government had the bright idea to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, improve health and hygiene, and reduce the tax burden on poorhouses and prisons by making alcohol illegal to produce, consume, transport, buy, or sell. Prohibition. All distilleries and breweries were shut down and their inventory destroyed (except for a few that were crafty enough to slip under the government's radar). When these breweries were closed down, most of them permanently, their progress in the field of crafting tasty beer was stopped and forgotten. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was making beer like they had been for the past 500 years. Eventually, in 1933, prohibition was lifted and production of alcohol started with a clean slate. This is why American beer sucks: because there is no history, not as much trial-and-error time to get it right as everyone else had. And we haven't even broached the subject of Canadian beer, either, so STFU.

Re:Midas Touch

[BrokenHalo]

Mead making is very, very easy. Combine the honey, water and other ingredients in a big plastic bucket...

Indeed. And if you're careful about the strain of yeast you use (home-brew shops usually have good tech specs these days), you can ferment the sugars out completely, with a result that is surprisingly similar to a very good, dry fino sherry. But remember the fermentation has to be under an airlock, otherwise instead of producing equal molar quantities of etOH and CO2, the yeast will just produce CO2.

Re:Midas Touch

[OrwellianLurker]

Yeah, what a reliable source for the study--- an internet survey. America does produce lots of crappy beer, but we also produce some of the best beer. It's simple economics. The crap beer is cheap and more in demand.

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

How incredibly ignorant - or just yet another "I Hate America" troll on Slashdot.

It is true that the Prohibition kicked good brewing in the nuts here in America, but in the past decade there has been quite a revival in good craft beer. Many American breweries win placements in the World Beer Cup, for example, and even where I live - 45 minutes outside of a medium city, in a semi-rural area - there is a local microbrewery and it is possible to find an excellent selection of domestic and foreign beers.

While Budweiser, Coors, Miller, and other swill are still selling, they are losing market share and it scares the piss out of them. Here in Ohio, Budweiser was a huge advocate against raising the alcohol limit on beer from 6% to 12%, because they knew that it would result in a wider variety of beer being made available. Thankfully they lost, and while the stronger beers are still off the store shelves for now the current variety is quite good.

Re:Midas Touch

[harrytuttle777]

Ugghh. Let me guess, you have an axe to grind. So the USA has bad beer. Maybe if more microbreweries keep up the creativity, we will eventually get good. beer. I still don't know what was the point of your post though, since it has nothing to do with the OT (creating a great beer from ancient history). Besides pointing out that American beer is bad is kind of like pointing out that many Europeans act kind of faggy. It is just way to obvious.

As for the 1920 thing. It is interesting that the people who profited the most off of prohibition (bootleggers) rose to the very top of the political power structure in the U.S. Those people in political power are still profiting thought the high taxes paid on alcohol. Kind of makes you go 'hmmm'

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually licensed a homebrew recipe?

That's...scary. A worrying indictment of the world today, I think.

Re:Midas Touch

[Patch86]

On the subject, you actually can't copyright a recipe. Probably.

http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-realworld/recipe-copyrighting.html

Re:Midas Touch

[Cylix]

It's not exactly special that Wegman's stocks their beers. They have an oddly large collection of off the wall brews.

After moving far away from the area I now deeply miss Oak Barrel Stout.

Re:Midas Touch

[dookiesan]

Can't speak for the east coast, but have you ever been to Seattle or San Francisco? You'll find many bars with excellent selections of microbrews on tap. These breweries have no long history of trial and error, and it has nothing to do with prohibition; many are less than 20 years old! They are young because microbrews have only recently become trendy.

Re:Midas Touch

[value_added]

This is why American beer sucks: because there is no history, not as much trial-and-error time to get it right as everyone else had.And we haven't even broached the subject of Canadian beer, either, so STFU.

I agree with all of your comments, but I'm not entirely sure that a lack of history, at least with respect to technique, has that much to do with it.

First, American beer makers were (and are) free to import both the people and skills necessary to replicate what was developed over countless years in Europe, and if needed, improve on those practices. In some areas of the food and beverage industries, that was done, and to great success, but beer makers, like many others, chose not to. Whether that's the product of pride, cultural bias/discrimination, or foolishness is anyone's guess.

Second, there's the ingredients. That's a bit more complicated, but suffice it to say that in regards to what we eat and drink, the whole is never better than the sum of its parts. Inferior quality ingredients always yield an inferior product.

Third, there's the issue of taste. If beer makers have no sense of what's really good or bad, and their customers similarly don't, where is the obligation or impetus to pursue efforts to replicate something no one cares about, or more accurately, isn't able to discern? The operative phrase here for American success stories is "time and money". If you can save on both, you're a success, and your customers are happy to buy what you sell them.

Wisconsin, I'm told, makes a lot of cheese. I've certainly never tasted anything I would call cheese. Lots of cheesy or cheese-like products, but let's be serious: something wrapped in a label adorned with an Italian flag and aged for 6 months isn't Parmesan. And as for the endless varieties of bland and uninteresting domestic cheeses well, they're bland and uninteresting.

A "lack of history" with respect to inculcated tastes, certainly. The US has made progress, but it's still rooted in the white Wonder bread diets and products that became popular and widely distributed in the fifties, and which Julia Child, among others, devoted her career to changing.

Shitty beer? Most Americans prefer it. Budweiser advertising dollars will ensure that never changes.

Re:Midas Touch

[Rollgunner]

Every brewmaster had either died, moved or suffered amnesia by 1932.

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't copyright the actual combination of ingredients (you may be able to patent that though, as a form of business method). You can copyright (and as copyright goes, you already have copyrighted) the text that you have made describing how to do so.

Of course, IANAL.

Re:Midas Touch

[MrHanky]

When it comes to recipes, I'd say the GPL is probably the most draconian "license" you could come up with (as some other guy points out, you can't actually copyright a recipe, so fuck you). You can't serve the finished product without making the recipe available? You can't serve derivative products without making the recipe changes available under a similar license? What if someone uses your recipe as the base for an improvisation, and fail to take notes? S/he wouldn't be able to make the changes to the recipe available, and thus lose the license to distribute her product. Luckily, there are millions of free recipes available on the web, with no license attached to them, many of them well tested and discussed on appropriate fora. There are millions of recipes that you can buy in books, that also have no license attached to them. I'd suggest that attaching a GPL license to your recipe is a symptom of narcissism and a sure sign that you don't actually know what you're doing.

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

you cannot license a recipe in this manner.

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I'm very mistaken the only reason the airlock is used is because you want to keep out other yeasts and bacteria that could spoil the 'mead-to-be'.

Re:Midas Touch

[cynyr]

nope but if it needs a special ingredient, i guess you could trademark it...

Re:Midas Touch

[morgan_greywolf]

That's what I was told as well. Basically, you don't need the airlock, but if you want to seal that bucket, you're going to need one because otherwise the escaping gas will explode. And if you don't seal the bucket, other yeasts and bacteria could spoil your mead.

However, airlocks are quite cheap. You can pick a cheap plastic one at a home-brew store for $1, along with a stopper, plastic bucket and glass or PET plastic carboy to go with it. Also, chemistry geeks are likely to have all this stuff already. :)

Re:Midas Touch

[Guido von Guido]

Unless I'm very mistaken the only reason the airlock is used is because you want to keep out other yeasts and bacteria that could spoil the 'mead-to-be'.

The airlock is primarily to keep out air and to minimize oxidation of whatever you're fermenting. There is usually a blanket of CO2 on top after fermentation, and the airlock ensures it stays there. Keeping out other yeasts and bacteria is a bonus.

Re:Midas Touch

[Captain Nectarine]

I think it has more to do with each US State separately and legally defining what "beer" is based on alcohol percentage of volume for regulatory and taxation purposes. As a result, a mass producer can only really produce the LCD beer that they can sell nationwide profitably, as making a version for each state would be, most likely, logistically impossible or extremely costly and unprofitable.

Re:Midas Touch

[vegiVamp]

Not so much a recipe as a partial list of ingredients, really, but an interesting base to start from nevertheless. Any idea where I could get ancient greek yeast ?

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Before spouting such nonsense, perhaps you should educate yourself.

Michael Jackson was a world-renown beer expert. He had quite a high regard for American beer (not the mass market crap like Miller or Coors). Here's a little bit more about Michael Jackson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(writer).

"In articles for the consumer press, it is hard to communicate the point that the U.S. makes some of the world's greatest beers, and augments them with a wider range of imports than can be found anywhere else." - Michael Jackson, a.k.a. The Beer Hunter

"The modern theory of beer style is largely based on the work done by Michael Jackson in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer"

Here's another link: http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000193.html
"Indeed, I wish European breweries would maintain their best traditions. Many are discarding them with apparent relish. If I wanted to find a traditional Märzen-Oktoberfest, I would have to look harder in Bavaria than the U.S. Should I desire a true India Pale Ale, the style's country of origin, England, would have a hard time delivering; the American examples are far more assertive."

Heck, don't take his word for it. Try actually sampling some good American beer (or any good beer, regardless of origin), instead of just dismissing all of it.

Re:Midas Touch

[Chris Mattern]

You can patent a recipe, though. It would have to be a new recipe that was just invented, however, so this Mayan beer wouldn't qualify. Making it a trade secret generally works better, but then it actually has to be kept secret, and so once again the Mayan beer recipe, which is publicly known, wouldn't qualify.

Re:Midas Touch

[dkf]

Ultimately, there's a huge range of ancient brews that might be very popular but next-to-zero research on the subject and absolutely zero interest from the stores and bars.

The big issue is that ancient beers tended not to keep for very long, which is really important when it comes to commercial sales! Up until the introduction of hops (from the 11th century in Germany, from the 17th in the US) beer would only stay drinkable for a few days. I suppose you could substitute pasteurization these days...

Re:Midas Touch

[jbengt]

"American beer" in this context refers more to a type of beer than a location of production.
Lager is a beer that ferments slowly at low temperatures.
Pale Lager is a light-colored lager beer Pale lagers tend to be dry, lean, clean-tasting and crisp . . . Flavours may be subtle..
American Lager is a pale lager made at a faster pace, sacrificing taste for production. Quality, from a flavor point of view, is very variable within this style and many cheaper examples use a proportion of non-malt additives such as rice or corn to reduce the production costs.
"Light Beer" is an American pale lager made with fewer calories and even less taste, and seems to be very popular with the American masses.
Let's face it, much of the American beer-drinking public doesn't really like (or know) the taste of real beer.

Re:Midas Touch

[tjb]

Ummm - yeah, Budweiser sucks. Its also a foreign company (owned in Belgian InBev) as is Miller (owned by South African SAB).

The top three American breweries are currently Sam Adams, Yuengling and Sierra Nevada (and I think New Belgium is fourth). Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of there - all quite fine brews.

And at the very high end, it really isn't even close - many of the best beers in the world are made in the US. This list is mostly US brews, with a smattering of Belgian and German breweries in the mix. Or, as noted beer expert, Michael Jackson (The Beer Hunter, not the circus freak) put it: "The US has the world's best selection of beers and that's the truth."

Re:Midas Touch

[cvd6262]

It's well known in a lot of places thanks to the documentary "Beer Wars". In the DC area where I live there are several Dogfish Head alehouses and the local Wegmans stocks several of their beers as well. I don't normally like beer but Dogfish Head makes excellent products with variety and eccentricity that actually taste good.

For those of you one the West Coast: Wegmans is a Rochester-based grocers that puts anything else to shame. Seriously, I moved here from the Bay Area.

Re:Midas Touch

[BrokenHalo]

Unless I'm very mistaken the only reason the airlock is used is because you want to keep out other yeasts and bacteria that could spoil the 'mead-to-be'.

This is indeed a very important consideration (especially in small volumes of wort), but yeasts are what microbiologists refer to as facultative anaerobes. That is to say, they can function in the presence or absence of oxygen, but in the latter case the entirety of the energy (ATP) they require to perform all their biochemical functions have to be derived from the sugars they ferment.

In the presence of oxygen, they will "automatically" opt for the more efficient metabolic pathway. Now, of course, the extent to which this occurs in an open tank or bucket will vary according to the degree of agitation, comvection and so forth (since O2 is taken up at the interface between liquid and air), and obviously the CO2 being released will impede this, but for efficiency's sake it's not a bad idea to have all of the yeast cells doing what you want them to in the first place.

Re:Midas Touch

[qwertyuiopved]

On the subject, you actually can't copyright a recipe. Probably.

http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-realworld/recipe-copyrighting.html

What about submitting under a Creative Commons lic?

Re:Midas Touch

[Patch86]

Nope. If it can't be copyrighted, you can't put it under any licence, full stop. But that means it's be Public Domain, which is pretty much as liberal a "licence" as you like. So from a "free and open..." perspective, that's probably a win.

Re:Midas Touch

[Patch86]

"Trademark" is just for logos, names, tag-lines etc. You couldn't trademark a recipe or ingredient.

You could protect it as a "trade secret" through non-disclosure agreements and such what, which is what people like Coca Cola do. But then that's not really "protecting a recipe" as much as "not telling anyone the recipe".

Re:Midas Touch

[Captain Chaos]

As a Wisconsin resident, I can't agree with your first statement. Most of the breweries here were started by German immigrants, who brought their knowledge and experience to their new home. I don't think a lack of history has anything to do with the quality of American beer. I think cost has the most to do with it, but it is also very unfair to lump all beer made here as sucky American beer. While I personally think the quality of the beers coming from the major breweries is lacking, there are plenty of smaller breweries and home brewers around the nation that produce excellent beers. There are many beers made here that rival and surpass any of the beers I had during the couple weeks I spent in Germany a couple years ago.

Quality beers cost more, so they don't sell as much because too many people would rather pound back a bunch of cheap beers instead of enjoying a smaller number of higher quality beers. A friend turned me on to a beer he really likes called Pranqster from North Coast Brewing in California. The first time I found it in a store, it cost me almost $10 for a 4 pack. I could have gotten a case of some lower quality beer for that price if my goal was just to pound back a bunch of beer. The bottle of Theobroma mentioned in the article cost me as much as a case of cheaper beer also. Cost also directly ties in with your second statement, higher quality ingredients are cost prohibitive if your goal is producting a more affordable beer.

Cost also has a lot to do with 2 other food products you mentioned. My best friend looked at me like I was nuts for grabbing a loaf of bread that cost almost 5x the price of the loaf of Wonder bread that he picked up when we were at the store once. The price was worth it though for the quality difference over that spongy Wonder bread. The same can be said for cheese. Yes, Wisconsin does make a lot of cheese, including a lot of the cheese you are calling bland and uninteresting and cost is the reason since the cheaper cheeses sell much more. We also have plenty of award winning artisanal cheeses, but they cost a lot more because they use higher quality ingredients and aren't made using the same industrial methods that churn out the lower quality cheeses.

Re:Midas Touch

[blitziod]

However with an ancient recipe being acknowledged as the source anyone wishing to use that recipe could claim it was already public domain and prior art.

Re:Midas Touch

[Hurricane78]

But if you do it wrong, you also get methyl alcohol, or so I heard. And that stuff... well you know that yourself.

Re:Midas Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Other yeasts and bacteria aren't much of a worry after the few hours before fermentation has started and oxygen is depleted. And even then you need major contamination for them to out-compete yeast for long enough to do any spoilage at all.

Very few strains of anaerobic yeasts and bacteria can stand ethanol, hops, tannins, or any CO2 at all. In fact I read a study on sake and beer spoilage lactic acid bacteria that shows that they are just a handful of alcohol/hop resistant strains, most likely to be living in a professional brewery.

Most actual spoilage in any kind of alcohol is oxygen related. The bacteria probably are in your wort, unless you use some amazing technology, they just didn't get the chance. Give them O2 and they will show up.

Re:Midas Touch

[jd]

The page linked to states that although facts cannot be copyrighted, ordering can. Since a specific recipe is a well-ordered list of facts, that specific recipe should fall under copyright. It does mean, though, that you cannot claim protection against a person who produced a different well-ordered list that merely happened to have the same facts within it. Besides, Slashdot has dealt with GPLed beers and meads in the past - anyone who has been here that long and didn't complain then might want to consider what it is they are complaining about.

As for recipes being "public domain", not all States even recognize "public domain" as existing. Personally, I think those States are packed with idiots, but they are entitled to run their lives the way they want to. That's what State autonomy is about. So, if the recipe can't be public domain there AND can't be owned because of limits on copyright, that leaves Schrodinger's cat with a monopoly on food.

Re:Midas Touch

[geezer nerd]

more likely to get vinegar, I think.

Re:Midas Touch

[Hognoxious]

Methanol is only a significant problem if you're distilling - which you definitely shouldn't unless you really know what you're doing.

Re:Midas Touch

[FlyveHest]

Ancient Greece?

Re:Midas Touch

[vegiVamp]

I'm afraid my time machine is in the garage for an oil change on the temporal actuator. Mind if I borrow yours for a moment ? I'll be back before I'm gone.

Re:Midas Touch

[Hognoxious]

I suspect very few members of the public can read whatever language/script it was written in. Would that make the translation a copyrightable work in its own right?

Almost no head

[FShort]

welcome to my marriage

Re:Almost no head

[Anonymous Coward]

Figure out how much your SO costs and the cost of a whore. You'll find the whore is invariably cheaper.

Re:Almost no head

[nickdwaters]

You need to powerup and upgrade to a new wife, my friend. The other didn't get a big enough ring.

Re:Almost no head

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottle her and call it "Bait and Switch."

Re:Almost no head

[zwarte piet]

Hmmm, yes, Of all the girlfriends I had, only the ones with a penis liked giving head. Weird...

me, me, me!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can be test subject!
Me, me please!

Want to buy

[lazorz]

I definitely want to try this, do you all think they'll go into production and if so, where can I get it?

Re:Want to buy

[Macrat]

I want to place an order also.

Re:Want to buy

[Grygus]

It goes on retail every July, according to their schedule. Here is a map of the retail locations, all in Delaware.

Re:Want to buy

[Aranykai]

I followed a few links and discovered Dogfish Head originally published this beer in June of 2008. Its called "Theobroma".

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/occassional-rarities/theobroma.htm

The blog article in question was just written in May, so I'm assuming he either got an old bottle or the brewers did another production run. I'm going to ask my local dogfish head distributor about it next time I go in and hopefully he can track some down for me.

Re:Want to buy

[Anonymous Coward]

I drink this all the time. If you live on the east cost in NJ/Del/PA area you can hunt it down and find it in some liquor stores. Try there websites "Fish Finder" to see where Dogfish is sold in your area. This beer is awesome any by far my favorite of all of them that they brew. They also have other ancient ales and everyone beer they make I just plan awesome.

Re:Want to buy

[Nikker]

If you have the recipe then just goto a microbrewery. You can get a batch made quite easily, you do have to make a bit to make it worth while maybe split the cost with a couple of buddies. Sounds like I might do the same.

Re:Want to buy

[uvajed_ekil]

It is going into production, apparently. Dogfish Head beers are available at all of the beer stores that stock micros and even many supermarkets in my part of Ohio. They don't all carry the full line, but the main varieties and some of the seasonals are pretty easy to find. Not sure if they have gone national, but they do distribute widely in the US, at least. The 90 Minute IPA is fantastic and a must try.

Re:Want to buy

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the brew pages were prepopulated when the website was relaunched early last year. Some were probably created in anticipation of the brews being produced, but they may have just been in the planning stages at that point.

Re:Want to buy

[Bowling Moses]

Must be cheaper to do it yourself, not only for the volume required for a microbrewery to be interested (100 gallons? More?) and you don't pay the brewmaster! My initial equipment cost was about $60, although I've since added on a bit and now probably have sunk in closer to $300. If you go all-grain rather than using malt extracts then I've seen a $1500 setup, but it was owned by one of the guys who worked at the homebrew store. Looking through my notes, for a 5 gallon batch my ingredients cost from $27 to $65 and produces ~50 12 oz beers. More expensive than a macrobrew, competitive with microbrew, and far cheaper than specialty brews. I like some Trappist ales, but they cost a ridiculous amount--but since they come unfiltered it's possible to culture their yeast and do a very close copy yourself at a fraction of the cost. Starting a batch is a pretty good way of blowing a Sunday afternoon. Wait about a week to move to the secondary fermenter and a week later spend ~two hours bottling. Two to N weeks later you've got two cases of good beer waiting. You've got a huge amount of flexibility too. I tossed in some rye malt in the last batch, am bottling a stawberry ale this weekend, and will do a brown ale with home-grown horehound to replace the bittering hops (hops are fairly new to beer and other herbs were once commonly used as bittering agents, but good luck ever finding anything commercially available). If I'm lucky I'll get to use some home-grown hops from the garden. First year for the hops so I don't expect much. Next year, kickass.

Re:Want to buy

[psychosis]

... retail locations, all in Delaware.

Their products are available (almost*) nationwide, and in some international locations.

* Except for a small number of states that do not permit distribution of regular-ABV beers.

Re:Want to buy

[psychosis]

Theobroma hit retail availability two years ago, and is pretty widely carried. When in season, it's not hard to find - ask your retailer to ask their distributor to get some stock. Follow @dogfishbeer on twitter to know when they're brewing which recipe.

Re:Want to buy

[Aranykai]

Thanks for the info, looks like I have a reason to finally get twitter.

The Indiana Jones of Alcohol

[pushing-robot]

Okay, that is officially the best job description ever.

Re:The Indiana Jones of Alcohol

[troll8901]

Did he have to escape rolling boulders, fly planes, fall in love with women, and so forth?

Re:The Indiana Jones of Alcohol

[pushing-robot]

THIS BELONGS IN MY STOMACH!

Re:The Indiana Jones of Alcohol

[sznupi]

"Penetration tester" still seems more amusing...

FInally a good story

[plopez]

There's been a drought of good stories on Slashdot lately, leaving me parched for more. This is a great way to pop open some new discussion, jump in, and drink deeply of the conversation. Did anyone find the actual recipe? I'm thirsty for more knowledge.

Re:FInally a good story

[mortonda]

The puns are just bubbling from you aren't they? Got any more brewing?

Sorry, had to head that one off at the pass.

Re:FInally a good story

[value_added]

Got any more brewing

Consider the following as a barley funny rough draught.

My approach for whatever ales me when reading Slashot is to reduce the problem to pint-sized portions, then with stout determination engage in vigorous physical activity to ferment a solution, ideally, starting with a bending of the elbow. When possible, I leave it to the barmaid to determine whether the glass is half-empty or half-full.

Cheers.

Re:FInally a good story

[PatPending]

Sounds like another Brew-Ha-Ha is on tap: The Day in 100 Seconds: 100 Seconds of Beer on The Wall

Re:FInally a good story

[Hognoxious]

he's a lager than Leffe character. No need to be bitter.

Re:FInally a good story

[spartacus_prime]

Sorry, had to head that one off at the pass.

I hate that cliche!

Missing from the article...

[Foobar of Borg]

The writer didn't mention his discovery of an ancient tablet written in an ancient Mayan language. The tablet describes the method of brewing this beer and declares that beer is "the cause, and solution, to all of life's problems!"

Re:Missing from the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

Re:Missing from the article...

[JustOK]

I'll drink to that!

Re:Missing from the article...

[Kjella]

Clearly written by an ancient slashdotter, so unaware of the real problems in life...

Re:Missing from the article...

[Foobar of Borg]

The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

D'oh-eth!

Re:Missing from the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Ancient Mayan doesn't have prepositions.

Beer Wars

[futuresheep]

I love Dogfish Head. As much for the passion they have for producing great beers as for the great beers they produce. Everyone should watch the documentary Beer Wars to see what I mean. http://beerwarsmovie.com/

in nib form?

[bokmann]

Does the summary mean they are using nib form because 3400 years ago it would have been in nib form to get to that region of the New World, or are they saying they are compromising the original slightly based on the geographic location of the brewer reproducing it today? Surely there is a way to get them to Delaware this day in age...

Re:in nib form?

[biryokumaru]

I know, right. Surely, if they can ship bananas to New York from South America and they're still green, then they can ship this cacao husk stuff to Delaware.

Re:in nib form?

[ryanleary]

I know, right. Surely, if they can ship bananas to New York from South America and they're still green, then they can ship this cacao husk stuff to Delaware.

The genetically engineered, seedless, under-ripe when picked bananas you mean?

Re:in nib form?

[tivoKlr]

That's what I was thinkin' isn't there FedEx for gosh shakes? Aren't we flyin' around the planet in aeroplanes nowadays?

How perishable IS this chocolate stuff? I mean Hershey bars are pretty indestructible.

Re:in nib form?

[tivoKlr]

YES those ARE the ones and they're fucking AWESOME!

Re:in nib form?

[camg188]

It's not chocolate. They are using a different part of the plant than what Hershey bars are made from. From the article:

made from the fermented fruit that we now discard in favour of the chocolate-producing bean it surrounds.

Re:in nib form?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever tasted a ripe banana? As in, ripened on the tree?

It has a completely different taste and texture. It's not just more 'banana-ey', it is actually very different. You wouldn't recognize it as banana-flavour in a blind taste test.

Re:in nib form?

[oracleofbargth]

Bananas ripened on the tree are truly awe inspiring. Same goes for pineapple, mango, and most other fruits. Whenever I visit family in central america, I find that after I get back to the US I can't stand to eat supermarket fruit for several weeks until my taste buds forget the real flavor.

Re:in nib form?

[Desert Raven]

The cacao beans themselves are pretty hardy, and once dried and roasted are very transportable. What they're talking about is the pulp that surrounds the seeds, which is supposed to be very good, but has an extremely short usable life. Like just hours from harvest. Likely the only practical way to use it would be to build your brewery on the plantation.

Inhaling Beer?

[carlzum]

The head on a Guinness stout has nothing on this beer...

It was apparently served with a thick head of foam, in vessels designed so that “one had the option to inhale the foam or drink directly from the mouth of the vessel.”

Heroin users call that chasing the dragon :)

Re:Inhaling Beer?

[uvajed_ekil]

Heroin users call that chasing the dragon :)

No, they don't. Heroin vapors and beer foam are not even remotely similar, and I doubt many junkies drink liquid heroin. Equating the responsible enjoyment of a truly interesting, historical, fine craft beer with illegal drug abuse is not funny. Not even when you put a :) after it.

Re:Inhaling Beer?

[xonar]

Equating the responsible enjoyment of a truly interesting, historical, fine craft beer with illegal drug abuse is not funny. Not even when you put a :) after it.

"Ethanol is one of the oldest recreational drugs."
-Wikipedia

Re:Inhaling Beer?

[Anonymous Coward]

How's the weather up there where you think alcohol drinkers are some sort of special sort?

Re:Inhaling Beer?

[carlzum]

Opium use predates written history, and it certainly has an interesting history. If heroin is legalized, can I make jokes about "craft smack"?

Re:Inhaling Beer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not funny. The smile was a passive aggressive jab at the part of your subconscious that knows you are really just a DRUG ADDICT, who hides behind societal acceptance. But, by your reaction, I can see that your subconscious got that.

(

History of Alcohol

[geoffrobinson]

Dogish Head also makes Chateau Jihau, which is based on a 9000 year old Chinese recipe. Based on the ingredients of all their historical recreation beers, I can safely say that the ancients just took whatever around them was fermentable, founds some good spices and herbs, and made themselves an alcoholic drink.

Re:History of Alcohol

[spatley]

Sounds like the ancients were wise and resourceful people with a keen sense of priority.

Re:History of Alcohol

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

They were also achingly poor and forever desperate to numb the agonizing grind of their squalid lives.

Luckily, when it comes to developing a culinary tradition of booze, those two statements are essentially synonymous....

Homebrew

[camg188]

Go to any homebrewing forum and you can find recipes that were taken from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The result? Cloudy and quite strong (9% A.B.V.)

[PatPending]

"The result? Cloudy and quite strong (9% A.B.V.)" --like my urine.

Re:The result? Cloudy and quite strong (9% A.B.V.)

[nickdwaters]

After a six-pack of dogfish no less.

AC had a few.

[tivoKlr]

"They also have other ancient ales and everyone beer they make I just plan awesome."

Really? How many Ancient Ales did you have tonight?

Not beer.

[DerekLyons]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.
 
And speaking as someone who does historical reproduction cookery: The odds this wine tastes like the source are pretty slim. We don't know what their cacao tasted like or how close the extract shipped from Honduras to Delaware is to the product they would have used. (Reading TFA, it appears that it wasn't very close at all.) We don't know the quality of their honey. (And I bet they didn't use honey from the beverage's native region.) We don't know the taste of their chili's or other spices (or in what form they were used).
 
Not to mention the yeast, cooking, handling, and storage processes... (Note that he had it in a refrigerator - something the Mesoamericans notably lacked.)
 
In short, from a culinary historic point of view, this is junk science à la Mythbusters. It's kinda cool, but it's pretty much worthless and meaningless from a historical and scientific standpoint.

Re:Not beer.

[techno-vampire]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.

I realize that this is Slashdot, but did you even RTFS? Right up there, the list of ingredients includes corn.

Re:Not beer.

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.

I'm assuming mean = mead.

Re:Not beer.

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

GP is a pretentious twat. By his reasoning, if he didn't kill and butcher his own meat then his "historical reproduction cookery" is also just plain fucking worthless. Anything purchased from the grocery store? FRAUD!

Fuck you. Seriously.

Re:Not beer.

[uvajed_ekil]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.

I don't know how nice this mead is, but you're certainly right that it is not beer.

It's kinda cool, but it's pretty much worthless and meaningless from a historical and scientific standpoint.

Agreed again. It is impossible to duplicate an ancient recipe unless we know for sure that we can use the exact same ingredients and utilize the same preparation methods. This is cool though, and perhaps at least somewhat similar to the archaic brew, and I would love to try it.

Re:Not beer.

[Jarik C-Bol]

Obligatory XKCD for your stab at the mythusters.
That aside, you make several well thought out and voiced points, and I award you One internet for pointing out the fact that because they did not go hunker over a clay pot in the jungles of the Yucatan mumbling ancient rites and sprinkling herbs, that this beer is a mere facsimile of the goat-swill that once was brewed.

Re:Not beer.

[Jarik C-Bol]

http://xkcd.com/397/ because i failed to copy and paste a moment ago.

Re:Not beer.

[Desert Raven]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer.

Not actually true. In it's most basic definition, beer is anything made from fermenting starches. Yes, modern beers use grain for the primary starches, but that wasn't always the truth.

Root beer wasn't always a sickly sweet kid's drink, it once was exactly what the name suggests, beer fermented from roots, primarily sassafras.

Grain became the hands-down favorite because of its relative low cost and high starch content. Which is also why companies like Anheuser-Busch use rice, it's very cheap and high in fermentable starches. They sure don't do it for the quality flavor (rice has none).

Re:Not beer.

[DerekLyons]

Not actually true. In it's most basic definition, beer is anything made from fermenting starches.

Yes, actually true - beer is made from grains. (Hint: Look up how beers were made historically, back in Mesopotamia for example.) Not to mention that you ferment sugars, not starches.
 

Root beer wasn't always a sickly sweet kid's drink, it once was exactly what the name suggests, beer fermented from roots, primarily sassafras.

Which is why it's called 'root' beer rather than beer - to differentiate it from actual beer.
 

Grain became the hands-down favorite because of its relative low cost and high starch content. Which is also why companies like Anheuser-Busch use rice, it's very cheap and high in fermentable starches. They sure don't do it for the quality flavor (rice has none).

Actually, Anheuser-Busch, etc..., use rice because it's high in starches that can be converted into fermentable sugars. The Japanese brew Sake from rice for the same reason. You'll also note that Sake has flavors. (Anheuser-Busch, etc..., doesn't have flavor because of the brewing processes they use not because of any special qualities or lack thereof in their grains.)

Re:Not beer.

[Hognoxious]

It is impossible to duplicate an ancient recipe unless we know for sure that we can use the exact same ingredients and utilize the same preparation methods.

But would they have used the same ingredients all the time? Food supply was more precarious, some things might be in short supply, so you'd put something else in. Then there's infections causing side reactions, and temperature variations.

I'd expect there to be a bigger element of pot luck in the old days.

That's not Mayan language, it's Homeric verse.

[xmark]

Season 8, 18th episode, to be precise.

Re:That's not Mayan language, it's Homeric verse.

[Sulphur]

Homer Simpson drinks ancient brewski?

Pottery fragments?

[PatPending]

"...a 3400-year-old Mesoamerican beer recreated from a chemical analysis of pottery fragments."

How do we know the pottery fragments weren't from a piss pot?

Re:Pottery fragments?

[WinstonWolfIT]

Because the brew didn't come out tasting like Old Milwaukee.

Re:Pottery fragments?

[dkf]

"...a 3400-year-old Mesoamerican beer recreated from a chemical analysis of pottery fragments."

How do we know the pottery fragments weren't from a piss pot?

By the lack of a carbamide signal from the spectrographic analysis.

I don't care what the ancients say.

[mirix]

Chocolate and chilli peppers do _NOT_ fucking belong in beer.

Water, barley, hops, a little yeast. That's it.

Re:I don't care what the ancients say.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care what you say, wheat beer doesn't adhere to your rigid standards and it's great beer.

Re:I don't care what the ancients say.

[Xiph]

Beer fundamentalists, like other fundamentalists, have less fun.

Re:I don't care what the ancients say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, the squarehead is trying to apply the Reinheitsgebot to a beverage that PREDATES IT BY ABOUT 2900 YEARS. Normally, I'd be beer-nazi goosestepping right along with you, but the purity laws are gonna have to step aside on this one, pal.

Re:I don't care what the ancients say.

[Malc]

Have you been to Belgium? That's a whole country that will disagree with you. I've been enjoying a very nice wheat beer recently with a touch of coriander and orange in it - perfect for sitting in the summer sun by the river. There's a time and place for everything, and I'm just as happy with downing a couple of pints of bitter if I have 20 mins to unwind and chat to work colleagues on my way home.

Re:I don't care what the ancients say.

[Hognoxious]

I sometimes think the Reinheitsgebot is a kind of anti-Shibboleth that enables you to recognise people who think they know about beer.

It was actually nothing to do with assuring beer quality. Depending on who you believe, it was to reserve wheat for breadmaking so the poor wouldn't starve, or so the upper classes could make wheatbeer with it.

Fraoch Heather

[Anonymous Coward]

Fraoch heather ale a very good one with origins dating back to 2000 BC...

http://www.fraoch.com/historicales.htm

hmm...

[frnic]

Problem is that after a pint you have an uncontrollable urge to declare your independence, and write a constitution...

Re:hmm...

[MrHanky]

At 9% ABV, your constitution will be your biggest problem after a litre or so.

3,400 years old? Meh

[nofx_3]

How about beer produced with 45 MILLION year old yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae (aka brewer’s yeast)) cultivated from a piece of amber. I've tried it and it's damn good too: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/brewery/

Pfffft...

[Itninja]

Wake me up when they discover/remember Greek fire.

Sounds good.

[Beelzebud]

Although that's the same thing I thought about Chili with chocolate and that was pretty bad.

Re:Sounds good.

[Jarik C-Bol]

you don't like molé? me either, but an entire culture seems to think its the best thing ever.

Re:Sounds good.

[ImNotAtWork]

Similar to the discussion about high production beer, mass produced mole sucks. If you're ever in Salt Lake CIty, Utah try out the red iguana it's about 5 mins or less from the Airport. I went there on a business trip for a few weeks, ended up liking the moles (yes, plural) so much I went their half a dozen times during my stay. It was packed every time too. When food network did a special they nearly doubled the price they had when I went for plates. Here is a look at their menu. http://www.rediguana.com/menu.pdf Their main site is flashed based.

The wrong yeast?

[haggholm]

I haven’t had this particular beer, but I did have the Midas Touch (another Dogfish brand reconstruction), and I rather enjoyed it. It wasn’t nearly as weird or “special” as one might expect; nothing spectacular, but pretty tasty.

However, one thing makes me doubt that either beverage comes anywhere near the original flavour. As per the article, “The fermentation was carried out with a German ale yeast, which is not obtrusive and brings out the flavours of the other ingredients.” The Midas touch certainly tasted like that was the case there, too. However, that long ago there was no such thing as cultivated strains of brewer’s yeast—fermentation was done with wild yeasts (leave the vats open, let naturally occurring yeast spores drift in on the breeze, gaze in wonder as the brew transforms for no reason discernible without a microscope). As anyone who has had a Lambic beer (still made with spontaneous fermentation) can attest, spontaneously fermented beers taste vastly different from beers fermented with cultivated yeast: Wikipedia calls it “bracingly sour”.

Re:The wrong yeast?

[Guido von Guido]

While you have a good point, I don't think it's likely that this was a sour beer. The first thing to keep in mind is that this is a strong beer--9% ABV. Most sour beers (including lambics) are in the range of 3-5% ABV because the lactic acid bacteria can't handle the higher levels of alcohol.

Secondly, lambics are aged for at least a year or two (and in reality lambics probably get most of the bacteria that make them interesting from the oak barrels in which they're aged). If this beer was drunk when it was younger, wild bacteria wouldn't have the chance to make as much of a contribution to the flavor. It's hard to say how long it would have been aged before drinking, but the odds are good it would have been drunk within the first 6-9 months. A beer made with malted barley and hops at this ABV would have historically been ready to drink in 6-12 months, but the hops are a factor in that.

So while I suspect you're right in that bacteria may have made contributions to the flavor profile, I don't think this was a sour beer.

Re:The wrong yeast?

[VShael]

Indeed. There are many spontaneously fermented beers on sale in Belgium. They do taste quite different.

At first I was like!

[Rusty KB]

A first I thought we were talking about bears.... But then, ahhhhhh something actually *useful*!

Chocolate

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

How is it that one of their other recipes features the heavy use of chocolate, which as far as I'm aware should have been unknown to Midas and company?

Re:Chocolate

[Guido von Guido]

Midas Touch doesn't have chocolate. The recipes of their other beers are irrelevant to the recipe for that beer.

Re:Chocolate

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Not the beer, look at TFA... yes I know, this is slashdot...

/ begins flagellation

Lets see...

[SolarStorm]

Strong Beer, mayan calander, 6 pack...

So who wants to bet they stopped writing the calendar around their 6th beer...

Try making your own ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Making your own (good) beer at home is straight-forward. From there, the sky's the limit -- it's easy to add fruit, cocoa nibs (really, really freaking good to add when fermentation is done -- about a quarter pound per 5 gallons), honey, spices, you name it. You just need about one hundred dollars' worth of equipment, patience, a bottle of bleach, and some empties.

Calagione even has a beginner's book to extreme brewing, http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Brewing-Enthusiasts-Guide-Craft/dp/1592532934/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275228402&sr=8-3 complete with recipes from DFH.

From there, Charlie Papazian has a more detailed book, http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Homebrewing-Third-Harperresource-Book/dp/0060531053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275228649&sr=1-1 that serves as a primer to more advanced brewing techniques.

Honestly, for about $1500 (less if you're good at DIY), you can make any damn beer you want, from French saison to a classic Pilsn to a west coast hop bomb. And the results are almost always better than what you can get from your local supermarket. No, seriously -- it's true. Most beers don't age well (we're talking about flavours going south in a couple months -- faster if the beer is subjected to temperature swings).

FWIW, I'd recommend every beer lover to try making their own a couple times. It's easy enough to do, and it'll give you a deeper appreciation of what actually goes into beer. Homemade wine is almost always plonk because you're using stale, condensed juice; beer is different because brewers the world over use the same, commodity ingredients (water, malt, hops, yeast), all of which are also available to homebrewers. Even if you don't want to shell out the $$$ for the equipment, most cities have homebrewing clubs that have "brew with a newb" days.

Joke explained

[DrYak]

Okay, feeding the Troll.

I don't understand the joke

The mayan 2012. In 2012, the mayan calendar rolls over.
(Think 999->1000. Except with the mayan dates it's slightly more complicated)

On a western "big, round" new year, like celebrating 1999->2000, you would probably be drinking a *western* alcoholic beverage to celebrate it. Like a bottle of French Champagne.

So with the same reasoning, on a *mayan* calendar roll-over, it should be appropriate to celebrate by drinking a *mesoamerican (mayan)* alcoholic beverage. Like this one.

Well, unless you believe that 2012 in which case, there will be no-one left to celebrate calendars or drink alcoholic beverages, because the world would have ended. Due to a sudden failure of all major laws of physics and logic or something a like, from what I understand...

Re:Joke explained

[troll8901]

on a *mayan* calendar roll-over, it should be appropriate to celebrate by drinking a *mesoamerican (mayan)* alcoholic beverage.

(emphasis mine)

Ohhhhhhhh, NOW I get it! Thanks for explaining.

*blushing furiously* Okay, okay, I've learnt my lesson. Next time, I'll RTFA before asking.

Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[absurdist]

At best we get a close approximation of something Mesoamerican peoples might have quaffed 3400 or so years ago. At worst we get yet another interesting recipe and high-octane brew. Where exactly is the bad?

Re:Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[DerekLyons]

Where is that bad? Because it's junk science and crappy historical research. Some of us actually care about things other than just getting drunk.

Re:Bitch, bitch, bitch...

[absurdist]

You must be loads of fun at parties.

Uncorking the Past...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are at all interested in craft beer, wine, mead, or just plain pre-biblical history, pick up this book. It is very interesting and the author has done a fantastic job of making the book accessible to non-archaeologists. That's not to suggest it doesn't contain a lot that geeks will love, either.

Beer lovers often joke that civilization (or the settlement-building sort) started as the result of searching for and finding ingredients for alcohol. It's not a joke, but the truth. Our simian relatives show the same behavior.. migrating from place to place and settling down where there's plenty of fruit. When they find rotten fruit fermenting on the bush, they over-indulge. Early on we discovered that fruit was a fantastic source of energy, and we learned that when it goes alcoholic it has a VERY short remaining shelf life, and we better gobble it up because the days of want and need will soon follow. It all started with honey and rotting fruit, and eventually we learned to associate the fact that just about ANYTHING sugary (including wet converted/mashed grain or proto-bread) could be turned into alcohol. The quest for alcohol was also driven by a need to speak to and interpret the wishes of the spirits (at this time mono-theistic creation myth had not yet originated).

I love that Dogfishhead is replicating some of these historical and indigenous brews. I'm brewing my own based on descriptions in this book. Who knew science and history could be so much fun? :-)

Shameless plug

[Anonymous Coward]

Oskar Blues! Frickin' amazing craft brews in bottles and.. CANS!!

Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

tastes bad and is awful. Story at 11.

Re:Not beer. But SAKE is!

[aqk]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.

More trivia-
Similarly, Japanese Sake is not wine, but beer, since it is made with rice.
On the other hand, I'm not exactly sure WHAT Pinoqachole is...

Re:Not beer. Ah, but SAKE is!

[aqk]

If there's no grain in it, it's not beer. Since the primary carbohydrate source in it is honey, it's mean - honey wine.

Agreed, from a guy who's made both mead AND beer. (but these days it's simpler to stick to makin' wine from kits)

Conversely, Japanese Sake is not a wine, but a beer, since it is made with rice.
OTOH, I'm not exactly sure what Pinoqachole qualifies as....

Dogfish Head

[porky_pig_jr]

BTW, Dogfish Head IPA is truly outstanding brew. Give it a try. You won't be sorry.

Re:That's what you think...

[blitziod]

I'm a beer snob and although I enjoy many a trapist ale, I'll put some of the best American beers up against any in the world right now. Anchor brewing company's Liberty IPA may be the best beer in the world. If it's not then Real Ale company's Full Moon Pale Rye Ale is. Also Pike's Kilt Lifter Scottish style is very drinkable.

simpsons quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

mhmmm... beer...
i *like* beer...