Websites and Beer

8:04:47 AM Tim Rosenblatt: i like the idea of delivering beer
8:04:54 AM Tim Rosenblatt: it's like, being Santa for adults.

8:07:16 AM danpaulson@gmail.com: I've never had beer that was as good
8:07:27 AM danpaulson@gmail.com: as beer from the tap at the guinness warehouse

Apparently kegs used to be highly regulated in Lake County. A judge overturned the keg law, which was intended to reduce underage drinking. So now kegs are more easily available again. I think the judge gave very clear reasoning for his decision -- kegs aren't really more contributory to underage drinking than bottles or cans, yet they remained legal.

I'm sure I could launch into "why the drinking age is not well-thought-out", but you probably already understand that there's something messed up when a person can go to war and die for their country, without ever having enjoyed all of the freedoms that they fought for.

Found Foamee via my Twitter roll. It's a ridiculously simple site that lets you easily and publicly announce your intentions to buy someone a beer.

Apparently I'm already owed a beer as a result of my awesome Twitter extension, Tw-autocomplete, which provides autocomplete functionality for messaging people on Twitter. Tw-autocomplete is probably even more useful after you've had a few (no doubt, as a result of Foamee beers). Unless you're drunk-tweeting, in which case, you should go do something else.

A few days ago, I posted an article on my personal site, regarding people's inability to tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine. It's largely due to the psychological expectations of what will happen -- often if people believe they will feel a certain way about something, they do.

Now, to the beer world.

Here's a study where people were offered vinegar in their beer. Sounds awful, right? They thought so too. Well, it turns out if you do a blind taste test, people generally prefer the vinegar beer, to the point that once you tell them that there was vinegar in the beer, they tend to *keep drinking it*. This is definitely a taste combination I'll be personally exploring in the near future.

This somewhat reminds me of the Miracle Fruit, which I want to get some of in the near future. It's amazing how some flavors in food come together and build on one another.

''(That is) poor judgment on two counts there -- drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter,'' magistrate Vince Luppino was quoted as saying.

Judge-burn!

Anheuser-Busch got bought.

It's kinda interesting, that as craft brews are increasing in popularity, that the bigger beverage makers are getting even bigger.

Guess who is the number two consumer of Guinness in the world. The Irish? The English?

Think farther south. As of 2007 (I couldn't find a more recent source) Nigeria is the number two consumer of Guinness in the world. Brilliant!

If you're gonna try brewing your own beer anytime soon, check out the Open Source Beer Project. If you're just interested in learning about beer recipes or brewing, also read through it. It's a good read.

I came across an article the other day about a brewer located in Weed, California. They were being ordered to stop selling beer with "Try Legal Weed" printed on the bottle caps.

Brewer must stop using 'Legal Weed' bottle caps

Since 1994, there's a federal law against drug references on alcoholic beverages. I had never really considered that there were federal regulations regarding beer labels, but of course it makes sense that there would be. These rules are enforced by an agency: Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or their acronym, TTB. I guess ATTTB was too much.

Anyways, I was thinking about these laws, and wondered more about them. So, I looked up the homepage of the TTB, and started looking at the TTB Beer Regulations. Naturally, I clicked through to the section labeled 'Beer', and from there, found myself reading the page on barrels and kegs, where I found this:

May be shown as the only location on the bung, or on the tap cover, or on a separate label attached to the keg;

"on the bung"?

As everyone who's heard of Beavis & Butthead knows, Beavis always wanted "TP for his bung hole."

Turns out that a "bung" is the stopper that keeps the beer in the keg. The bung hole is the opening in the keg that gets tapped, so that beer can flow out.

*The more you know!*

There's been talk for months about how beer is getting more expensive. I previously blogged about it too.

Here's an article from the LA Times about the rise in beer prices. It's actually a good read, and it points out that the rise is not just because of the demand for biodiesel, but due to other factors.

For example, during the mid-late 1990s, there was a surplus of beer ingredients due to new, high-volume varieties, and lots of extra acreage. Apparently the barley and hops store very well for long periods of time, and since there wasn't an increase in demand to match the increase in supply, the excess was put into storage. This excess product pushed down prices, and hops/barley farmers actually started going out of business. As with lots of big things, there were a variety of factors leading up to this.

Then, for the good news: Denver, CO is allowing liquor stores to open on Sundays. Previously, 3.2% was the legal limit for sale on Sunday. It doesn't say if it was a.b.w. or a.b.v., but it doesn't matter, since the law is changing. The article doesn't talk about any real opposition to the change, except from the people who used to profit off the 3.2% beer sales, but of course they're unhappy -- they're losing sales!

Dry laws just seem like such an archaic concept anyways. If someone really wants to drink on a Sunday, they'll buy on a Saturday. Screw prohibition. Sure, there's people who get caught up in one thing to the point where it interferes with their lives, but it seems like most of us can moderate ourselves. It's like elementary school where one kid screwed up fun for everyone else.