Get your hands off my boobies!

A recurrent theme in this blog is do-gooders, bleeding hearts and fun-nannies trying to sanitise and simplify and overtake my life. OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but it seems that every week I am having to ask myself; “Is that REALLY necessary?!?”

Today it is some bunch of tools who put two and two together and come up with “OH MY LORD, YOU CAN”T DO THAT!!!” The two and two that they are putting together makes up a new campaign to educate those who may need a little assistance in order to make the right choice. Two beers and two boobies.

We are constantly being advised as to the alcoholic strength of the beer we drink wether it be a nice craft beer or an import or a glass of bland mainstream fizz. Every container of take away beer clearly states the number of standard drinks contained within. 1 standard drink, 1.3 standard drinks, 2 standard drinks. Simple, really. And this is a good thing because it gives all drinkers the opportunity to understand the terms of measurement. It’s about education.

But what about tap beer? How many standard drinks are there in a pot? A schooner? A pint? A pony or a butcher, a middie a schmiddie or a tasting paddle? The TAC (accident compensation, to which all tax payers contribute and all innocent victims are eligible to be paid from) has used different techniques to get the message across that drinking and driving is dangerous. All based on standard drinks. And now they want to make the point with a well put together ad campaign showing two blokes trying to calculate how many standard drinks they have had.

A barmaid pours two more beers for them, then tips out and tops up the beers to different levels based on a complex formula taking into account their respective weights, metabolism, food intake, drinking speeds etc. It is a well constructed message saying; “If you think you’re over the limit, you probably are”. This ad has been around over a year with no problems. Maybe the do-gooders missed the ads because they played during the telecasts of fun things like sport, funny movies and reality programs. The ads have recently been condensed into a beer coaster format showing two beers being served by the same friendly barmaid with the words “This is 3 standard drinks”.

The do-gooders have come out swinging. “We don’t want breasts with our messages! These coasters will just make people want to drink more beer! Are you all MAD!?!” Damn right I’m mad, you sanctimonious twat! It takes the right kind of marketing to point out the right message, and if the TAC use these two points to make a point and young, stupid, potential Beer-Idiots are drawn to these points and then they get the point – then that’s a good thing. Now piss off.

You can see the original ad here.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

The Eyes have it

What do beer and eyes have in common? Well, apart from the fact that you need eyes to be able to fully appreciate the colour and the look of the beer, and the fact that eyes are reasonably handy in finding your way to the pub, it seems there is more to it than you might think.

A study released this week shows a strong possible link between drinking beer and going blind. It used to be just about GETTING blind. Apparently men who drink four or more beers a day have six times the chance of going blind from macular degeneration than other drinkers and teetotallers.

The study involved 6700 people – I don’t know much about science so I don’t know if this is a good size for a study that might scare the shite out of beer drinkers – and featured people aged between 58 and 69 years (aren’t they a fair chance of going blind anyway?). The researchers also stated that they didn’t want to base a general health alert on one study. Probably should have just kept the results to yourselves until you were sure, eggheads.

I thought I’d better counter balance this with a study that might make beer drinkers feel that they can do something to prevent the effects predicted by the ‘evil study’. So here’s the ‘good study’. It comes from a few years back but I can’t see any reason that it would not be just as relevant. Dr Karen Wetherby conducted a survey of 200 blokes in Germany and found that staring at women’s breasts is actually healthy for you and just a ten minute perve is the equivalent of a 30 minute aerobic workout. A concentrated gaze resulted in lower blood pressure, less heart disease and a slower pulse rate compared to those who didn’t get a daily eyeful. Hmm.

“Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There is no question that gazing at breasts makes men healthier” said Dr Wetherby who went on to claim – and who am I to doubt her – “our study indicates that engaging in this activity just a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half”. IN HALF!! If women had FOUR, maybe we’d become immortal!!

The study concluded that .. “by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life expectancy by five years”.

All in all, that’s a nice set of figures.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Here is a simple self test below. Check your pulse rate before and after. Let me know how you go. And ladies, the study didn’t say anything about the effect of staring at man-boobs on your health. Sorry. Oh and by the way, Dr Karen Wetherby appears quite a bit in searches for ‘urban legends’ – but don’t let that rain on your parade.

Can Crusher Canned

Flicking through some on-line beer news articles I happened across this funny one from October last year. As those of you who have followed this carp for any length of time will know, I find humour in nearly anything beer related. That and boobies. Combine the two and I am in beery-boobie heaven.

This piece appeared in a Western Australian newspaper. For those outside the wide brown land of Australia, the large state which takes up the western coast of the country is something of an oddity to the rest of us. Even the Tasmanians. WA is close enough to the rest of the country to be considered a part of us, but far enough away to have their own kind of accent, a lot of English and South African immigrants and nearly all the bent politicians, drug lords and social refugees.

PERTH, Australia (AFP) - An Australian barmaid who entertained patrons by crushing beer cans between her bare breasts and hanging spoons off her nipples has been fined, police said Wednesday.Luana De Faveri, 31, was fined 1,000 dollars (900 US dollars) in the Mandurah Magistrates Court in Western Australia after pleading guilty to two breaches of the Liquor Control Act.

Don’t know about you, but the first two things that catch my attention – no, the other two things – are the barmaids’ name (like the sort of name that chicks who were born blokes call themselves while they are dancing and saving up for the op) and that she was prosecuted under the Liquor Control Act. Two breaches of the Act. What, separate charges for the left one and the right one!? And anyway, surely crushing cans with your cans shows sensational control over liquor!

Another barmaid who helped hang spoons on De Faveri's nipples, Tracey Leslie, 43, was fined 500 dollars while the bar manager was fined 1,000 dollars for failing to stop the pair, police said in a statement.

No, doesn’t specify which pair.

It also doesn’t elaborate on the actual section of the act that the girl’s actions contravened. Maybe the pub didn’t have a live music license and the ‘assistant’ was deemed to be ‘playing the spoons’? If they were tampering with the beer I can understand the courts’ reaction. Maybe as the girls leaned over to give you your change they inadvertently dipped their jugs in your jugs? False advertising? “Our beer has no additives – except the barmaids’ McGits!”

Anyway, in this age of CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL WARMING (Wooooo-ooooooooh!!! We’re all going to DIEEE!!!!!!!) we should not be discouraging any forms of recycling.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Have a Bottlin' Good Time

Bottling your Homebrew - 101

A post back in November drew a response from Zak of Sydney in relation to bottling your homebrew and I thought this a good chance to discuss a few homebrew related chores and maybe seek out a few suggestions from the homebrew web. I’ll also throw in some gems of wisdom gleaned from our own experiences.

Zak said;

Homebrew is coming along great. Got a batch of Cooper's Draught ready to pop on Saturday. I actually started this one on the 13th of October but didn't bottle it til the 17th this month due to laziness and the dreading of bottling (which in the end, as usual, is not so bad). Do you know if this extra month in the fermenter affects the brew at all? The final gravity or whatever didn't change so I'm guessing not.

Bottling your brew is one of those things that lingers in your planning thoughts like a visit to Grandmas’; you fret over it a bit, you can think of things you’d rather be doing, but once it’s done, it’s done and things get back to normal fairly quickly. And, like Zak says, it’s rarely as bad as you think it will be. But there are some DO’s and DO NOT DO’s that can make bottling your beer as easy as putting liquid into a glass container.

First, while it’s good to let your beer rest before drinking it, it is better to have it resting in individual stubbies rather than in one big fermenter. Having said that, you probably won’t break the beer by leaving it in the tub, it just won’t be at its best. This is mainly because, as the yeast burns up and fades away, its dead cells can impart a ‘dud’ note to the finished beer, particularly if there is any disturbance of the sludge at the bottom of the fermenter. The beer will be a little ‘yeasty’ or ‘bready’ in the nose. It’s just better to let the yeast do its thang, wait two or here days after fermentation has ceased to let the yeast sediment settle to the bottom and then remove the beer sooner rather than later.

The other issue is that, with some yeasts, if left to die off too much there may not be enough viable stuff left over to kick start the bottle conditioning. The finished brew may be left under carbonated. If you have brewed a Bitter or a nice mild pale ale, then stand back and shout “HurrAh!” If you wanted a lively pilsner or a crisp, refreshing and bubbly lager, then you may want to slap your forehead and utter a small “D’Oh!”.

Now to the bottling. The main reason homebrewers dislike bottling is that it can be a fairly ‘drone-like’ procedure which lacks the artistry of the cooking and pitching and fermenting performance. It’s just all a bit boring, really. Of course, it’s a much easier job when it’s shared and bottling with a mate not only cuts the time taken by MORE than half, but it gives you someone to talk beer with – and someone to crack a coldie with to finish the bottling session and to toast the new brew. If it costs you a half a ‘D at the end of the lagering stage, then that’s a small price to pay. And is there a better gift than the gift of beer?

I’ll describe our particular bottling process here and readers who want to can also surf the web for some interesting variations – in particular from those crazy American homebrewers who seem to have to make everything they do a convoluted and arse numbingly difficult procedure! I’ll bust it up into separate posts so it’s not so long. And boring for those who don’t homebrew. But, so those people don’t skip over it altogether; and to reward those who do, I have strategically hidden some boobies in amongst the information. See if you can spot them!

Have a Bottlin' Good Time - Part Two

CLEANING & SANITISING

There is no more important facet of homebrewing than cleanliness, sanitariness and, as a result, perfect beeriness. Bottles need to be cleaned first and this is best done as you finish pouring the beer out of them and into your glass. Rinsing them now means that washing them after is an easier job and the cleaning is more thorough. I give all mine a quick swish with cold water – saving the water for the vegies – and then wash them in the sink before doing the dishes. If you inherit bottles from a friend or Uncle, give them a really good scrub inside and out with a bottle brush for the first go and from then on you should be able to rinse wash and sanitise them quickly.

When we began brewing, we bought a 60 ltr rubbish bin and filled it with powdered sanitising solution then stacked as many stubbies and long necks into it as would fit, adding more water as the level rose. We then had to empty and rinse each bottle, resting them on the washing machine and tipping into the laundry trough, until we had 60 375ml bottles ready to fill. This was hugely labour intensive and time consuming, not to mention as boring as mud. If you use a sodium metabisulphite sanitiser, the stink is off putting to say the least and this stuff is not good for asthmatics and kids. It can also take a couple of rinses before you can bottle. Cooper’s make a ‘softer’ style sanitiser of sodium percarbonate but it needs to be left overnight and also needs rinsing in hot water. I find that these products also require the ‘sniffing’ of each stubby to make sure they are ‘clear’.

All these processes work and, at the end of the day, that’s what you want but there are easier ways that still ensure that your bottles are sanitised. I had heard about a rinse free sanitiser and eventually found it. Morgan’s Sanitize contains Hydrogen Peroxide and silver ions and is pretty inexpensive at about $4 for 250ml. Diluted at a rate of 30ml to a litre it is more than enough to do a whole batch worth of stubbies. We bought ourselves an atomiser, and here’s a picture;

... which makes it even easier to sanitise the bottles. We just pop a litre of diluted sanitiser into the bowl part and then plunge each stubby onto the sticking-up bit which sprays a covering of liquid onto the inside surface of the glass. We can then stack up to 80 bottles onto the drying tree and we are away! The sanitiser dries off without the need for rinsing which means we can move swiftly into the next phase of the process. Priming.

PRIMING & FILLING

The next ‘finicky’ step required to get your beer from the fermenter to the fridge is the priming, or secondary fermentation. Homebrew requires a second jolt of yeast activity to bring the alcohol content up to par and to carbonate the beer properly by the creation of CO2 in the stubby. This can be achieved in many ways – see ‘Crazy American Techniques’ – but the simplest is plain, ordinary, common, garden variety white sugar at a rate of half a teaspoon to 375ml or one teaspoon to 700/750/800ml bottle. An even easier way is to use carbonation drops which are solid pre-measured lollies of sugar, some of which are made by Cooper’s.

If you use granulated sugar you must clean, sanitise and thoroughly dry a small funnel and teaspoon measure, then set up as many bottles as will fit your work area, load them all with a measure of clean sugar, moving the funnel with a shake to dislodge any grains until all are primed, then continue on to the filling and capping. With the drops, you can bypass the cleaning, drying and funnelling stages, simply dropping one drop into each bottle. Nice. And quick.

Filling your bottles is a straightforward process with the right equipment and care taken to sanitise it. A filler tube (some are labelled ‘Little Bottler’) attaches to the spout of the fermenter and allows the beer to be transferred smoothly and quietly into bottles. It is important that the beer not create too much ‘bubble’ when filling as this can lead to oxygenation of the beer. Not good. I’ll explain further soon.

There are those who use syphons to fill the bottles but this is just such a palava that I won’t even go into it here. Once the bottles are all filled – either all at once or in manageable batches – just pop a sanitised crown seal on top and proceed directly to capping.

Having a Bottling Good Time - Part Three

CAPPING & SECONDARY FERMENTATION

Welcome to capping and secondary fermentation. As you filled each bottle you will have left a 1 or 2 centimetre gap at the top of the bottle. We don’t fill our stubs all the way to the top because the yeast activity in the bottle fermentation stage creates CO2, or bubbles, in the beer which will cause the bottle to release its cap in a most violent and inconvenient way when you least expect it. By leaving a gap, the CO2 can form and then become dissolved into the beer, thus creating the miracle of carbonation. This is also why an accurately pre-measured dose of sugar is beneficial.

At this point many homebrewers simply cap the bottles using a contraption known, conveniently, as a ‘capper’ and move on to the storage stage. My research has uncovered a beer theory, or beerthory, which may or may not have some merit. Some homies suggest that by capping immediately you can trap oxygen in the top of the bottle neck and oxygen is a sworn enemy of beer. It creates ‘oxygenation’ which can affect the taste of the finished beer. Of course, oxygen itself is not a bad thing for beer altogether. The ‘O’ in CO2 is, after all, oxygen and pouring a nice beer into a glass allows oxygen to release the full range of flavours which would otherwise be wasted on you and then, if you yourself didn’t have oxygen, well, you’d be dead and then the whole beer thing would really be wasted on you, wouldn’t it?

The suggestion is that, by sitting the caps onto the bottle and resting before capping, the CO2 activity will push the oxygen from the space in the neck of the bottle and replace it with CO2 only, thus preventing oxygenation. I might give this a go out of interest alone and let you know if I can detect any difference at all. My thoughts are that the amount of CO2, or oxygen for that matter, is pretty minimal in the overall scheme of things and CO2 contains oxygen anyway so I don’t imagine that even Beery McBeer-Beer* the famous beer taster would be able to detect any difference in the final tasting. Just move on to capping.

There are a few ways of securing the cap onto the bottle, most of which would be right at home in a museum for instruments of torture or stupidity when compared with the options available. Mallets and cap holders of all shapes and sizes are illustrated in homebrew books and catalogs but they are quite simply prehistoric when compared to a bench capper. A bench capper is also a lot safer on the bottles and on the user. Why would you want to hit your beer with a hammer when you can just pull on a handle?

The final step is to tilt and turn your bottle a few times to properly mix the sugar or kick start the carbonation drop and then set your stock aside at room temperature for at least two weeks. I like to give mine at least four and I prefer six weeks. Many swear by two months. As long as the beer has time to carbonate. Check by drinking at two week intervals.

This is a longish piece by Beer Bloke standards but I think if it helps someone to make more and better beer then it’s OK. Over 17 batches I have tried to streamline the process by trying different techniques and as long as you don’t sacrifice sanitation and cleanliness for speed then anything that encourages more people to brew can only lead to a better society for everyone.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

*There is not really any real person called Beery Mc Beer-Beer. I just made him up for effect. I based him on Homer Simpson’s ‘Hootie Mc Boobs’.

Stuff I’d like to see

Reading through the local paper the other day I found myself suddenly contracting a sudden and unexpected case of ‘Old Codger Syndrome’ which is a clinically diagnosable affliction in which sufferers will yell at the newspaper or the TV with comments prefaced by the expression, “Now, in MY day...” and concluding with, “Really, what IS the world coming to?”

To be fair, I had had a bad day and the news was particularly annoying – see the post ‘COREY IS A DICKHEAD’ – but it did get me thinking about the things that I really wish I could see in everyday life. As you can probably guess, most were related to beer, brewing, beer sales, beer brewing, beer news, boobies and other beer related matters. But some jumped seemingly out of nowhere – although the beer that I had already enjoyed may have prompted some of them.

First, it would be nice if someone could pass a law that makes it severely illegal to use the words ‘restaurant’ and ‘McDonalds’ in the same sentence. Apart from their insidious abuse of the ‘Heart Tick’ references in their ads, they just seem corporately intent on world domination. I ‘spose if more and more of the world’s population can’t see their toes or their todgers as each year goes by then this might not be as difficult as you may think. Can we please force them to change their name to “The McFat Kid Factory”, or something equally appropriate?

Beer. Yes, some of the things that annoy me are beer related. Apart from the constant media reports about dickheads doing dickhead things after disrespecting the beer, I would like to see less ‘Idea Beers’ created by marketing men who are carrying on blissfully unaware that the company they work for has a brewing division. How about doing some ACTUAL research, instead of the ‘virtual’ focus group research that tries to tell you we need more low carb beers on the market and look at the possibility of creating some real, full flavoured and a little bit ‘out there’ beers like our friends in other beer drinking lands have been enjoying for decades now.

Next, can you people who insist on using mobile phones in public please note the following;

a) The technology employed by all mobile phone manufacturers ensures that the person to whom you are speaking can hear you as if they were in the same room. You do not need to shout as if they are as far away as they really are. O.K?

b) If the person to whom you are speaking says that they will see you in anything under ten minutes – THAT IS THE END OF THE CALL!! – for f&%#s sake wait to speak to them in person. Don’t begin your ‘private’ conversation while we are all still here. We don’t care and, by not seeing your friend in person, you may miss them making a “you are a wanker” gesture.

c) Regarding your ‘private’ conversations, we REALLY DO NOT CARE who’s up who and who’s not paying so shut the f#%k up. If you could climb out of your own arse for a second and hear yourself waffle on you would realise that your life really is as dull as it sounds to us. Thank you.

More on beer. I’d really like to see the increased use of boobies in beer advertising. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I’ve already bought a shed load of your beer anyway so why not reward me, retrospectively, for the gesture? And breweries everywhere are trying to get more women to drink their product and women always seem to be talking about boobies ALL the time! In fact, all I ever hear is comments from Mrs Pilsner like; ‘Why are you always talking about BOOBIES in your blog?’ or, ‘Were you just looking at her BOOBIES?’ and ‘There’s another ad with BOOBIES in it!’ See, always bangin on about them.

As I think of more things that are designed to annoy normal, well adjusted beer drinking folk, I will post them as well. Until then, stay positive, don’t let the dickheads and the wankers get you down -smile at them and picture your next beer – and then go and have a beer.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Vegemite and Beer

In many previous beer bits I have endeavoured to track down some of the many ways in which the world of beer crosses paths with other elements of our lives. You may also have noticed that it doesn’t take much more than a tenuous thread of linkage for me to get onto the research and put together some fun facts and foolish figures.

Upon one of these paths travels a product that is synonymous with Australia and yet strangely is one which is repugnant to many overseas visitors. Its path and the path of the beer world do not merely cross, but run in parallel and are intrinsically enmeshed.

Vegemite

It is both a by product of the brewing process and a complimentary food match in more ways than one. It shares a symbiotic relationship with the amber nectar and it holds a special place in the Australian cultural landscape.

Discovered or developed or created by Australian food technologist Cyril P Callister in 1922 and marketed by Fred Walker, a Melbourne businessman, Vegemite was a thick dark paste scraped from the bottom of the barrel (so to speak) at Carlton & United Breweries. This paste came from the fermenter which housed the cooled wort during the fermenting process. The yeast which brewed the beer settled to the bottom of the fermenter after the wort was chilled. Some of this product was re-used in the next batch and some went off to Fred and his chemist to see what he could make of it. He made Vegemite. A previously discarded waste product of brewing.

Fred pushed his new product as a health food, despite the fact that the early stuff was around 10% salt, as an additive for soups, stocks, sandwiches and gravies. A slow start to the products popularity was countered when infant welfare centres began promoting it as a rich source of Vitamin B1, B2 and Niacin for little folk. A still used radio advertising campaign began in 1954 and a whole generation of ‘happy little Vegemites’ was born and raised on this thick black beery sludge. Walker sold his company to Kraft Foods after WWII and in 1988 Kraft was sold to Phillip Morris. Despite this, Vegemite is still iconically Australian.

But what of this ‘symbiotic relationship’ of which I spoke earlier. If I am going to throw in big words like that then it seems fitting that I follow them up and temper them with real words and explanations. We don’t want people to stumble upon our Secret Men’s Business Site and think that we are a bunch of pretentious private school wankers, do we? Just in case, hold on while I scare them off.

Right. That should do it. Where were we? Oh, yes, symbiotic relationship. Beer and Vegemite. It goes something like this.

Vegemite comes from the reaction of brewer’s yeast on the fermentables in the wort. The yeast creates CO2 and alcohol by eating up the sugars. The brewer makes the beer and Kraft makes the Vegemite. We drink the beer. In metabolizing the alcohol in the beer we use up vitamin B1 and B2 as a result of a reaction with the residual sugars which created the waste which became the Vegemite. We can feel a little ordinary the next day due to a lack of B1 and B2. The very Vitamins that Vegemite is chock-o’-block of. We eat the Vegemite and replace the B1 and B2 that the beer took away using the very stuff that was made from the beer that took it away after giving up the stuff that made the Vegemite! Simple!

So that’s Vegemite and a brief history of its life as, and with, beer. If only all our food choices were as straightforward and as good for you as Vegemite. Then we could drink so much more beer. Followed by Vegemite.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner