Almost, almost a great idea!

Here's a link to a fun article about a brewery in Bruges building a pipeline to the bottling plant to keep hundreds of beer tanker trucks off the roads. Now this is a pretty good time, energy saving idea, but it could have been a great idea.  Why not just cut out the middle step, the bottling, and pipe the fresh beer right into your abode?  Yes, yes, right there with the running water, hot and cold, and fresh draft beer. Just a bit more creativity was all that was needed. But, good job otherwise guys.

Boldly brewing what no one has ever brewed before

OK, Klingon beer is mighty geeky even for a Star-Trek fan from days of yore.  But Klingon beer? If memory serves TPP rightly, Romulan ale was way more famous, but probably too hard to get the shipments across the neutral zone without shelf-life problems. TPP's Klingon is a bit rusty, but shouldn't beer be spelled "wornagh" or is that just phonetic? You know these little things do matter. So what do you think it tastes like? Supposedly brewed from rye, which is ridiculous because everyone knows the grain should have beenTriticale (quadro- or quinto-? Never can remember, one from TV, one from the animated version), and with banana-clove highlights. Sounds a bit frou-frou for a Klingon don't you think?

What, right here in Lincolnland, Dr. Strangebrew?

Now how did this escape TPP's eagle-eyed attention?  He must apologize because he knows you expect more.  So nothing to do but steal the story and run with it, but thank Agricultural Biodiversity Blog for bringing it to our attention. At any rate Scratch Brewery a full half day's drive south of here in Ava, part of the deep south of Lincolnland, is making some mighty strange beer.  Hops has not always been the flavoring of choice, so lots of other things can be used, and these guys use lots of strange local things to flavor their beer.  Not sure what to think, only a taste will tell, so Scratch, send us a sample if you want the full TPP endorsement.  Now how annoying is this?  His timing is so bad. Why nearly 40 years ago when TPP was doing research in the nearby Shawnee Nat'l Forest, a microbrewery would have been a most welcome watering hole; at the time the best local stop was for pork BBQ in a diner in Murphysboro, and you had to put dimes in the old Coke machine in Ray's garage to get a beer, if you were a friend.

An outing in Louisiana - Fontainebleu and Abita Springs

TPP can only stand being in a big city for so long, like maybe five days.  Today's outing required us to cross the 25 mile causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. Quite near the north end of the causeway is a state park that occupies the grounds of the old Fontainebleau plantation; the double row of live oaks that must have lined the road in are still present, but strangely they aren't labeled as such.  The idea was to do a bit of birding/botanizing on a not very long hike, and we liked the sound of their marsh board walk.  However it appears that it wasn't just damaged by Katrina, the boardwalk was wiped out.  A piece of boardwalk was spotted in debris under some live oaks at least 400 yards from the marsh.  Although a hot, humid, near oppressive day, our nature walk was fine.  Glad to have had a dew rag.  The drive over and the walk consumed the AM so drove a bit further to Abita Springs and had lunch at the Abita Springs Brew-pub and visited the Abita Brewery.  If you haven't yet discovered their beers, well, you be missing some very good beer.  TPP is especially fond of their Turbodog Abita Beer (once voted the best dark beer in the USA) and their Amber Ale (image shows four glasses of Amber).  You can tell this is Louisiana by the condiments to the right: hot sauce, ketchup, and mayo.  If you visit their web page you can download an app for your iphone or ipad that will tell you how to get to the nearest place that sells their beer.  Hope it isn't more than a state or country or two away.  However, judging by the brewery expansion underway, a lot more Abita beer will be coming our way.  No bad news there.

Fracking threatens - wait for it - quality beer!

OK, the possibility of polluting the environment doesn't seem to arouse public officials into action to strictly regulate fracking, but German beer makers, serious beer makers and consumers, worry about what fracking will do to the main ingredient of beer, water.  German beer is brewed according to the oldest food purity law, the "Beer Purity Law" (Reinheitsgebot) of 1516, and according to this law, high quality water sources are to be protected.  Allowing fracking has the potential to violate this law.  Now it would seem that in terms of what matters in life, beer should always be a higher priority than energy production because if you've been drinking you shouldn't be driving anyways. Unfortunately here in Lincolnland, TPP guesses that most of our state legislators think Bud Lite is pretty good beer.  Sigh.  In a way it makes sense, light beer will ruin the environment!  Will the quality beer brewers here in Lincolnland get going on the anti-fracking program?  Bring this up when in your local brew-pub.

Heads up on some important molecular genetics

Sometimes you wonder what if any benefit certain research programs will produce.  Not to criticize because TPP's research has never been focused on application.  But this is certainly useful and important.  Researchers have identified the yeast gene that makes the protein that coats the carbon dioxide bubbles that creates the foamy head on beer!  Now ignorance of this gene has not in the least prevented humans from using yeast to make beer over the last 8,000 years or so, but maybe the head on beer will improve thanks to this research.  HT to Agricultural Biodiversity. 

Reductionist vs. synthetic science

No question a reductionist approach to biology has been pretty successful from the cellular level on down. But at some point you can take reductionism too far. Does analyzing a bit of pigment to determine its components help you appreciate Dogs Playing Poker any better? Somethings are just meant to be enjoyed, appreciated for what they are, and one wonders if this research will make beer any better, as if that were possible.

Beer and Biology Travel Quiz

When traveling abroad the Phytophactor has an odd penchant for photographing food and beverages. Consider this image of liquid loveliness and then tell me what famous biologist was next on my travel itinerary?

Happy Birthday Gregor Mendel

Oops! Missed it. So a belated Happy Birthday, Gregor Mendel. He’d be 187 years old as of July 20th.

Here’s Gregor’s actual garden patch in Brno, Czech Republic. But instead of peas, it’s planted in flax. This is a practical matter because peas grow and develop pretty fast, so visitors to Mendel’s monastery (& genetics museum) wouldn’t be able to see the inherited characters. However flax flowers over a good long period of time so the display of flower color (blue vs. white) can be observed for weeks. The only 1st floor window in view in the wing to the rear is Gregor's room.

A very nice young lady helpfully explained the Mendelian inheritance of flower color to the Phactor, and got it wrong. The offspring of pure white and pure blue flowered plants have all blue flowers (F1s), and not blue and white in a 3:1 ratio. The bed with the 3 blue flowered plants to every 1 white flowered plant would be the F2s, the offspring of the F1s, the grandplants of the initial blue vs. white cross. Had to produce a business card to verify my scientific credentials and convince her I indeed did have it right. Easily dropped into the old intro bio mode to explain where she made the mistake.

A visit to Mendel’s old stomping grounds will expel any doubts about his being a simple old monk. The entire order to which Mendel belonged was a quantitatively inclined group busily investigating nature. His notebooks show the meticulous detail of his data including a list of all the varieties of peas he purchased and observed as a prelude to his genetic studies.

Brno also produces a darned fine beer: Starobrno. Of course all the beer in the Czech Republic is darned fine.

HT to GL for reminding me.

Student involvement in local politics is great!

Don’t you love it when students, especially Political Science majors, get involved in local politics?

Let’s see what troubles David. The city “increased the underage drinking ticket dollar amount from $250 to $275.” Well, I can understand his concern. How do you justify a 10% increase? That does seem to be excessive, although prices are rising all over. Have you checked the price of beer lately? Oh, as a freshman, David probably isn’t old enough to be in liquor stores, so it’s hard to see how this affects him at all.

David wants to “Make a change in the way students are treated” [in our city]. “We can stop the town from making more ordinances that negatively affect us.” Well, you can certainly understand that. OK, there was the increase in underage drinking ticket fine, what else? Oh, yes, the town requires purchasers of kegs of beer to register their address, and “police will now have a list of all the parties in town.” OK, I agree this is kind of big brotherish, but why am I not too worried? First, I hate to tell David this, but finding most student parties is pretty easy, which is why I question the need of this ordinance. You turn your head, listen for any blare that can be heard more than 10 or so blocks away, and there you go. Even though I will have to register whenever I buy a keg, I doubt the police will bother me because I won’t be buying 20 or 30 kegs, a sure signal to most law officers that here is party that will get out of hand. Here's a hint: know the names of everyone at your party to minimze trouble with the law.

David’s conclusion is hard to argue with. Ordinances on underage drinking and regulation of keg parties, which lead to the former, certainly negatively affects students, and they don’t negatively affect the rest of us because we don’t break the law. Yes, it would be nice for David if the drinking age was 18 again, along with registration for the military draft, but all of this has been changed. Still for David, I would consider bringing it all back, although the beer in the military has always been bad. Still with the student penchant for lite beer, maybe 3.2 beer won’t seem so bad.

Now I might suggest to David that how the city treats students is based upon years of experience, and since he’s new, David wouldn’t know this. For example, here's another ordinance that negatively affects students. The reason you can’t have cushy chairs or couches on your front porch or in your front lawn is because it led to the spring, end-of-semester ritual of dragging them all into the streets and setting them on fire. No question this was festive, and enjoyed by many, unless you were sleeping on the couch (yes, that happened once). Personally, this ordinance has never been a problem for me as my furniture stays in the living room where it is guarded both day and night by sleeping cats.

I will suggest that if David gets his beer discretely, and has parties with only 10 or 20 of his close intimate friends, instead of 200 to 300 passers-by who pay to get in, I think he’ll find that no one cares and these ordinances won’t have a negative impact on his activities either. But if David thinks our current pretty mellow mayor, who is up for reelection, is a prig about drinking, and a thorn in the side of student fun, well, he might want to ask his opponent what his more uptight Christian attitudes are about underage drinking. Even a political science major can figure this one out.