5,000 Year Old Beer Professor Li Liu's team from Stanford Univ. recently discovered a 5,000-year-old beer recipe that students in her Archaeology of Food: Production, Consumption and Ritual course used to make beer. The recipe, found during research that presents the earliest known evidence of beer production in China, consists primarily of grains like millet and barley, as well as Job's tears (a type of grass native to southeast Asia) and traces of yam and lily root. The concoction produced is thicker than modern beers. and one student said it had "a Dr. Liu said the beer had a pleasant fruity smell and a citrus taste, similar to a cider. She was surprised to find that barley was part of the recipe, since the earliest evidence of barley seeds in China dates back to about 4,000 years ago. This could mean that barley was first brought to China for alcoholic uses, rather than other food purposes. Liu added. "Trying to imitate ancient behavior and make things with the ancient method helps students really put themselves into the past and understand why people did what they did." |
Brexit Brings Price Increases Proponents of Brexit may be having buyer’s remorse as they face increased prices at the pub in the wake of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Heineken, Carlsberg and MolsonCoors have all had to raise their prices as labor costs increase and the value of the pound decreases. Carlsberg increased prices by 2.6% and Heineken tacked on an additional 6 pence (about $0.08) on the price of a pint. “Beer in the UK is made predominantly using domestic raw materials,” said British Beer and Pubs Association head, Brigid Simmonds. “However, the depreciation of sterling certainly means there will be some inflationary pressures through increased costs such as raw materials, packaging, energy and transport costs as well as employment and other cost pressures all businesses face.” Beer Faces The Music Older music acts are seeing beer as an opportunity to get back in the limelight.. AC/DC, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Queen, Megadeth and even Rick Astley have slapped their intellectual property on beer or plan to do so in the future. It’s not just the classic rock and pop folks, either: Chance the Rapper produced a beer with Anheuser-Busch InBev’s BUD, -0.04% Goose Island, Slim Thug is working on craft beer suitable for the club, and the Deftones, Killswitch Engage, The Descendants and NOFX are making a whole lot of Ozzfest and Warped Tour attendees eel old by brewing beers of their own. Last year, an unsigned band even released its fourth album on a beer can. The Lights Out, based out of Boston, collaborated with Somerville, Mass.-based brewery Aeronaut Brewing Co. to release their album “T.R.I.P. (The Reckonings in Pandimensionality)” with help from an “imperial session ale.” The 7.5% ABV India Pale Ale’s Galaxy came in a can marked with a hashtag that buyers would post on Twitter to receive a link to the album files |
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Still The Champ Beer is still the number one beverage of choice for Americans over the age of 21, measurement company Nielsen announced on 2/24/17. Four out of 10 regular drinkers prefer our favorite beverage over wine and liquor. Nielsen's Harris poll found that beer was the preferred drink of 55 percent of men, 41 percent of younger generations (ages 21-34) and people who live in the south USA. Domestic non-craft beer was preferred by 38 percent of beer drinkers, while craft and imported beers were favored by 29 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Wine came in second place overall, but was the top drink of choice for 46 percent of American women. The survey also said that 42 percent of adults over the age of 65 preferred wine, as did 37 percent of high income households (over $100,000 annually) Interestingly enough, many of today's wine drinkers opted for beer or liquor just a decade ago. While nearly 75 percent of wine lovers (over the age of 31) preferred the same drink two years ago, only four out of 10 people selected wine in 2007. |