Well, here’s something interesting from the Style section of the Washington Post.

The Beer That Takes You Back . . . Millions of Years

Raul Cano is the real-life “Jurassic Park” scientist. Yes, there is one.

A day before that movie opened in 1993, Cano announced that he had extracted DNA from an ancient Lebanese weevil entombed in amber, just as the fictional employees of InGen do with a mosquito to create their dino-amusement park. One newspaper account said the “achievement” refuted “the long-held view of many biologists that DNA of so great an age” couldn’t be preserved.

[...]

“I was going through my collection, going, ‘Gee whiz — this is pretty nifty. Maybe we could use it to make beer,’ ” says Cano, 63 , now the director of the Environmental Biotechnology Institute at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

The result is Fossil Fuels Brewing Co., which ferments a yeast strain Cano found in a piece of Burmese amber dating from about 25 million to 45 million years ago. The company — in which Cano is a partner, along with another scientist and a lawyer — introduced its pale ale and German wheat beer with a party last month at one of the two Bay Area pubs where Fossil Fuels is made and served.

In April, at the World Beer Cup in San Diego, “we had one judge give us the highest marks, one just below and one who didn’t like it,” says Chip Lambert, 63, the company’s other second microbiologist. “We learned that the issue was that in these competitions, you brew to match the traditional concept of the style, which these yeast just don’t do.”

William Brand, the Oakland Tribune beer critic, says the ancient yeast provides the wheat beer with a distinctively “clove-y” taste and a “weird spiciness at the finish.” (The Washington Post Style section’s summer beer critic pronounced it “smooth and spicy, excellent with chicken strips.”)

Now, not only do we have companies making beer derived from recipes that are thousands of years old, but now we also have yeast that is tens of millions of years old being used to make beer.

Everything old is new again.

(via bookofjoe)

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In the United States, Labor Day is the first Monday in September and has its origins in the 1880 as “a day off for the working citizens”.

As one of those aforementioned “working citizens”, I will endeavor to spend the entire three-day weekend resting from my labors. If I’m very lucky, even spending some time in my hammock (which I’ve only done twice previously this summer). Oh, and I’ll be rewarding myself with some good beer.

Labor Day is also the de facto end of Summer, so is popular for barbecues and other festive events. I wish you the best as you rest from your own labors and reward yourself with good beer. Responsibly, of course.

You’ll need to get your own hammock, though.

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I like Dogfish Head Brewery. They make some really interesting stuff and, since they’re just over in neighboring Delaware, local to me.

Spotted a news item today (although I’ve seen mention a few times before this) and thought I’d share.

Dogfish Head brews up ancient Aztec cocoa beer

Over the past few years, [Dogfish Head owner Sam] Calagione and his brewers have been working in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania’s molecular archaeology department on finding – and recreating – recipes for beers of from bygone eras, which have included Midas Touch, brewed from a recipe found in the drinking vessels of the cursed king’s tomb, as well as Chateau Jiahu, a 9000-year-old Chinese recipe dating back to the Neolithic period.

The latest offering, available in September, is Theobroma, which translates to “food of the gods,” in Greek. Far removed from Greece, however, the beer is a recreation of a central American recipe for the earliest chocolate drink in existence, consumed by the Aztecs.

That certainly sounds interesting. I’ve been on a big chocolate kick lately and I find archaelogy and paleontology fascinating. Can’t wait to try it.

Dogfish Head: Theobroma

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One of the highlights of my small local weekly newspaper is the articles that they reprint from the newspaper of 100 years ago. What a small town paper thinks of as news is fascinating. Scores from games at the YMCA. A new house is almost complete. Farmers are glad for recent rain.

Today, my darling wife was looking through this week’s edition when something caught her eye that she knew I’d be interested in.

August 7, 1908

ARRESTED FOR SELLING AMBERINE IN BRUNSWICK

The question whether “amberine,” the substitute for beer manufactured for sale under the Byrd local option law in Virginia, can lawfully be sold in prohibition territory in Maryland will likely come up at the September term of the Circuit Court in Frederick county.

Sheriff Myers, of Frederick, on Wednesday last arrested Frank Woods, at Brunswick, on the charge of violating the law against the sale of intoxicating beverages in Brunswick, which is a prohibition district. Woods, it is alleged, has been selling “amberine” at Brunswick. “Amberine” resembles beer in practically all particulars, but contains a smaller amount of alcohol than ordinary beer.

Woods was taken to Frederick before Justice C. H. Eckstein, where he waived a hearing and was released in $200 bail pending the action of the grand jury.

Brunswick hasn’t moved very far from the Prohibition days. There’s only one bar in town, no restaurants with an on-premise license, and two liquor stores.

But, what the heck is “amberine”? Sure, they describe it briefly in the article, but I’ve never heard low-alcohol beer called that befor.

Well, happy for an opportunity to learn something new, I turned to the intertubes to get some more information. Wikipedia? Nothin’. Okay, Google. Well, some results, but nothing about beer or a relation. I got the name of a woman on MySpace, what appears to be a large fishing lure a kind of fish, a (faux) precious stone variety of moss agate, a dietary supplement, a song, and a model of motherboard by ASUS.

Even my search for “Byrd local option law” came up empty, but I suspect I just didn’t get the search term right.

So, can anyone enlighten me? Where can I learn more about this?

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I have no Photoshop chops. I’m always amazed at some of the images I see at worth1000.com and which come out of the 4chan message boards. No, my results would more likely end up on Photoshop Disasters.

PSDTUTS is a blog/site which collects Photoshop tutorials. Recently, they put up instructions on how to create a drawing of a glass of beer.

Illustrating a Cool Glass of Beer

The inspiration was obviously a light lager (it is a pilsner glass after all). I’d love to see someone create some other styles, and in other glassware.

(via Boing Boing)

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