| Moon Beer A team of researchers has launched a plan to find out whether beer can be successfully brewed on the Moon. Scientists from the University of California are designing a fermentation vessel the size of a soda can which they hope will be transported on an Indian spacecraft due to blast off later this year. They say finding out how yeast behaves in lunar conditions is important for the developmentof pharmaceuticals and yeast-containing foods, like bread,in space. Rather than separating the fermentation and carbonation stages, as normally occurs during brewing, the team will combine them eliminating the need to release accumulated carbon dioxide which could endanger a spacecraft. The canister has three compartments, the top will be filled with unfermented beer, and the second will contain the yeast. When the rover lands on the Moon a valve will open between the two compartments, forcing a mix. Once the yeast has done its job, a second valve will open to allow it to sink to separate from the now fermented beer. |
Beer Matched To Your DNA A brewery in London is taking the adage that you are what you drink to a new level by offering to make a custom beer literally matched to your taste buds. Meantime Bespoke Brewery claims to brew beer based on DNA from testing of oral taste receptors through a specific gene (TAS2R38, if you’re counting). “Hereditary variations in a person’s oral taste receptors (the TAS2R38 gene) will be used to help determine their perception and proclivity to sweet and bitter profiles, primarily based on the ability to detect propylthiouracil — a chemical similar to the bitter compounds found in cabbage, raw broccoli, coffee tonic water and certain dark beers,” said a Meantime spokesperson. After providing a saliva sample, beer buyers spend time with Meantime’s brewmaster Ciaran Giblin and get their hands dirty with hops and grains to perfect their own brew. There’s more on tap than a six-pack — brewers will also get 2,000 pints of their custom beverage to share. For those in it for the glory, optional add ons include creative agency time to design your own packaging, kegs offered to your local watering hole (no guarantees that they’ll accept it) and pint glasses moulded to your hand. To some beer enthusiasts, the $30,000 price tag for this experience would be worth it (and for that tab, you’d have to be pretty enthusiastic indeed.) Meantime seems to be marketing the brewing package to those who want to lay claim to their own piece of the ever crowded craft beer landscape (the website implies the cost of the package is negligible next to the “unprecedented bragging rights with your mates”.) But in an increasingly competitive, customizable and even self-serve marketplace, where home brewing keurig-type systems for craft beer can be had for a mere $999, will even the most star-struck beer quaffer be able to justify this price tag? |
| Feature News from beernexus.com |
Edited by Jim Attacap
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| Keruig Beer Coffee machine maker Keurig Green Mountain and Anheuser Busch InBev have announced they’re teaming up to develop a new kitchen appliance that makes alcoholic drinks in seconds. According to a press release the project is being spearheaded by a joint research and development team. The machine will have the ability to brew beer, mix cocktails, plus whip up spirits and other mixers. This is the first formal colloboartion for the two beverage powerhouses but the idea of a one touch home beer machine-meets-personal bartender has been brewing for some time. In 2013, a robotic bartending device called Monsieur raised over $140,000 on Kickstarter and last year Soda Stream released the Beer Bar in Germany and Switzerland—a home beer making system that utilized a beer-flavored concentrate to create a fresh, hoppy ale. Both ventures eventually failed however. |
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