I've been drinking Lone star beer mainly for budget reasons for few months now. On a whim I decided to treat myself tonight to one them fancy import beers and bought a six pack of Belhaven Scottish ale. It's very good.
Whenever I want cheap and yummy, I jump for Lagunitas. I have no idea fucking why, but everytime I go to a beer store, Lagunitas' Brand is really cheap, and I'm talking really strong stuff for easily under 5 dollars.
Chilled out in London this weekend. I hung out in a pub drinking DT Nocturne and then in a market drinking BrewDog Hardcore IPA and mulled scrumpy. A female acquaintance was there and kept asking to try my magnificent beers. It's a shame we weren't there longer or I would have asked her to dinner.
The beermonger at the market had the BrewDog-Mikkeler-Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout, the Black Tokyo Horizon, which clocks in at a handsome 17.2%. I almost bought it, but at £17.50 per bottle, my broke student impulses knocked out my tremendous beer geek impulses. Same for the BrewDog-Three Floyds Scottish Barleywine, at £11. I'm rather angry; they hiked the duty on all >7% beers here on the first. Persecution, I do declare!
I was told earlier this week that the Wal-Mart right next to campus actually had a really good beer selection (for a Wal-Mart) and was appropriately skeptical. Stopped by today after doing some homework and they do, in fact, have good beers.
I was told earlier this week that the Wal-Mart right next to campus actually had a really good beer selection (for a Wal-Mart) and was appropriately skeptical. Stopped by today after doing some homework and they do, in fact, have good beers.
Mine has a decent selection but what I was kind of surprised to find out is that mine has kegs of a lot of good beers. Hell, I was surprised in general that they have kegs but having them of good beers is a bonus.
Last night I bought a variety 12 pack of Dundee beer. The case comes with Indian pale ale, English ale, Nut brown ale, and Porter. I like the english ale the most. I didn't care for the indian pale ale. It's like there is a hint of soap in those IPA's or something. Maybe my taste buds are just screwed up.
Schlafly is a relatively close brewery to me, recently I've been trying to taste their whole selection. Havn't had a bad one yet. None of them are "the greatest thing evar", but it's reasonable for the price.
I still don't know if I really like or really hate shandy.
Sounds disgusting to me. You should try braggots - ale and mead mixed together. Very technically, it's actually an ale whose fermentables are at least 50% honey. They're tasty.
I still don't know if I really like or really hate shandy.
There seems to be a curve over a persons life time on how much they like shandy. At 13, it is the most awesome thing in the world because you can drink "real" beer. At 17, it is really lame, why aren't you drinking real beer. But in your twenties, it suddenly becomes cool again!
Found a Russian Imperial Stout called Ten FIDY at the liquor store today and had to buy it because of the name. Internet seems to think it's tasty and I'm looking forward to having a go at it.
Found a Russian Imperial Stout called Ten FIDY at the liquor store today and had to buy it because of the name. Internet seems to think it's tasty and I'm looking forward to having a go at it.
They are a pretty nice brewery. My favorite of their beers is G'Knight, which is a pretty nice hoppy red. Love this season, because the strongest and some of my favorite kinds of beer come out.
...I need to go buy more Olde School while it's out. @_@
So, I talked about using Clarity Ferm to possibly create a gluten-free beer from an all-barley recipe. The idea is to make a gluten-free beer that doesn't taste like ass.
I got test results back from the lab. I made one batch of beer and split it in half; one half was treated with the enzyme, the other wasn't. Pretty straightforward initial testing procedure.
The treated beer had levels of gliadin below the LOD (limit of detection) of the assay used: 5 ppm. Extrapolation from the absorption curve gave a value of 3 ppm gliadin (6 ppm gluten). That's crazy fucking low.
But the big thing is that the UNTREATED beer had ~6 ppm gliadin (12 ppm gluten). While the US does not have a particular standard for what constitutes "gluten-free," the EU does. They set their standard at 20 ppm gluten.
So whatever the hell I do in my beer process may actually render the beer gluten-free BEFORE being treated by this enzyme.
This, however, does assume that the assay in question detects all toxic gluten proteins in the product. Different assays either underestimate or overestimate the concentration of different gluten proteins. The one we used overestimates the presence of barley proteins, but may have trouble with hydrolyzed barley gluten.
I think I'm going to continue the experiment with a different brew and see what I can find, while also reaching out to some researchers.
Dude, you should totally publish if you find some interesting results.
It's funny, because it actually seems to be a very under-researched area that's still developing.
Unfortunately, I am not a protein biochemist, nor do I have access to the amazingly expensive LC-MS equipment needed to do this right.
But I might be able to drum up interest with researchers who do have access to this stuff.
The real problem is that "gluten" is a very broad term, and various "gluten intolerances" all have different specific causes. That's actually why there is no federal standard for "gluten-free;" different people can react to different allegedly "gluten-free" products.
Right now, the strongest indication seems to be that the brewing process alters the structure of the gluten proteins in barley. It also reduces the concentration of those proteins by roughly 3 orders of magnitude. It is not known whether or not the specific proteins remaining after brewing are toxic or not, and anecdotal evidence gathered from patients indicates that some can tolerate certain beers while others cannot. There are also indications that the change in structure in those gluten proteins can render them undetectable to certain test methods. Whether that's a bad thing or not, we don't know.
What I need to figure out is whether or not Clarity-Ferm actually kills toxic "gluten" proteins or not. This doesn't just change the conformation of the protein - it destroys prolines, which actually cleaves the protein. I would think that would result in an actual reduction of toxic gluten, but there haven't been any clinical trials yet linking these gluten-detecting assays to patient reactions.
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Also, milk stout is a weird beer. I generally dislike the lactic sourness it has.
Really, the only reason I don't have a serious beard is that I keep it chopped down so as to not make everyone else feel inadequate.
Should probably add, I gave up beer for health reasons, but I guess drinking a little shouldn't hurt...
The beermonger at the market had the BrewDog-Mikkeler-Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout, the Black Tokyo Horizon, which clocks in at a handsome 17.2%. I almost bought it, but at £17.50 per bottle, my broke student impulses knocked out my tremendous beer geek impulses. Same for the BrewDog-Three Floyds Scottish Barleywine, at £11. I'm rather angry; they hiked the duty on all >7% beers here on the first. Persecution, I do declare!
Fuck shandy.
BRB, friending you on Facebook.
...I need to go buy more Olde School while it's out. @_@
I got test results back from the lab. I made one batch of beer and split it in half; one half was treated with the enzyme, the other wasn't. Pretty straightforward initial testing procedure.
The treated beer had levels of gliadin below the LOD (limit of detection) of the assay used: 5 ppm. Extrapolation from the absorption curve gave a value of 3 ppm gliadin (6 ppm gluten). That's crazy fucking low.
But the big thing is that the UNTREATED beer had ~6 ppm gliadin (12 ppm gluten). While the US does not have a particular standard for what constitutes "gluten-free," the EU does. They set their standard at 20 ppm gluten.
So whatever the hell I do in my beer process may actually render the beer gluten-free BEFORE being treated by this enzyme.
This, however, does assume that the assay in question detects all toxic gluten proteins in the product. Different assays either underestimate or overestimate the concentration of different gluten proteins. The one we used overestimates the presence of barley proteins, but may have trouble with hydrolyzed barley gluten.
I think I'm going to continue the experiment with a different brew and see what I can find, while also reaching out to some researchers.
Unfortunately, I am not a protein biochemist, nor do I have access to the amazingly expensive LC-MS equipment needed to do this right.
But I might be able to drum up interest with researchers who do have access to this stuff.
The real problem is that "gluten" is a very broad term, and various "gluten intolerances" all have different specific causes. That's actually why there is no federal standard for "gluten-free;" different people can react to different allegedly "gluten-free" products.
Right now, the strongest indication seems to be that the brewing process alters the structure of the gluten proteins in barley. It also reduces the concentration of those proteins by roughly 3 orders of magnitude. It is not known whether or not the specific proteins remaining after brewing are toxic or not, and anecdotal evidence gathered from patients indicates that some can tolerate certain beers while others cannot. There are also indications that the change in structure in those gluten proteins can render them undetectable to certain test methods. Whether that's a bad thing or not, we don't know.
What I need to figure out is whether or not Clarity-Ferm actually kills toxic "gluten" proteins or not. This doesn't just change the conformation of the protein - it destroys prolines, which actually cleaves the protein. I would think that would result in an actual reduction of toxic gluten, but there haven't been any clinical trials yet linking these gluten-detecting assays to patient reactions.