Now I can’t wait to get old

I love surveys. And studies. Any old grant-driven scientific research, really.

Do you know why? Because it’s pure entertainment. It is all about as relevant as the fifth placed finalist in Australian Idol, as important as Paris Hilton’s latest shopping trip, or as believable as Oprah and Dr Phil combined.

“Give us some cash and we’ll give you some stunning and world-altering figures about important social issues”, they say as they extend their grubby cash-grabbing hand.

“Give us even more cash and we’ll give you some even more stunning and more world-altering figures about important social issues which contradict the first!” With hand out.

Today I read that older Australians who have up to 28 drinks a week stand a better chance of warding off dementia than those who abstain. This data comes from 15 international studies involving more than 10,000 people so it’s not like one of those narrow, pissy little studies that trumpet mind-blowing results and then pop some figures into the fine print which show they phoned ten people or spoke to all the people on a bus one day.

Folk aged 60 or over who drank between one and 28 alcoholic drinks a week were almost 30% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. This raises some very interesting questions. If I start drinking my 28 drinks per week BEFORE I’m 60, will the benefits be less – or will I just spontaneously combust? If I have 29 drinks, will the effects be reversed – or will my head just drop off? If I go one week without ANY DRINKS AT ALL will there be no ill effects at all – or will I suddenly forget my entire family as well as the ability to remember to remove my trousers before using the toilet? If I start before I turn 60 AND have more than 28 drinks will it be the same as swimming 29 minutes after eating rather than 30 minutes after eating? Will I walk into the surf and just explode?
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Either way, I’m gettin’ an early start. Why wait till I’m 60? If I start now, surely my body will be better prepared for drinking into old age. After all, you don’t prepare for running a marathon by running a marathon! You have to do SOME training. Like the warning labels say – Excessive alcohol consumption can cause memory loss – or worse, memory loss.

Cheers – and drink up before the contradictory research is released,
Prof. Pilsner

"Ahs forgot to gets me a beer - Oh well, least I ain't BLACK!!"

Goats, Mates & Beer Karma

I don’t get many Wednesday nights off work, so when I do I want to make the most of it. And ‘the most of it’ turned out to be a visit to the Mountain Goat Brewery in Richmond – on a bit of a whim and a bit of a mission.

After sharing the Ale Stars floor with Dave on the night we did Belgian Blonds (*insert boyish snigger here*) I promised the Head Goat I would pay a visit to get some more info for a post I have been preparing for a while now. It was also a good excuse to have a nice beer.

Now, apart from the ability to consistently produce some damn fine ales, the Goat Guys are also known around the traps as folk who are prepared to have a bit of fun along the way. Traditional brewing methods? Check. Best available natural ingredients? Check. Naming your bottling machine ‘Maxine’ and petting her during operations so that she doesn’t chuck a wobbly? Check.

‘Maxine’ – whose name comes from a witty extension of the brand name, Framax – does work better with a kind word and gentle pat according to Dave and who am I to argue with that? And, apart from their beloved and valued two-legged staff, other ‘members of the Goat family have names. And the one I met on Wednesday was Randy. Or Randle Handle, to his friends. Randy may appear, to the uninitiated, as little more than a large glass tube at the end of the bar but he is far more than that.



Built for them by Richard Watkins of the Wig & Pen in the image of his own creation (known as The Modus Hoperandus) it sits in the beer line between the keg and the font. The beer is drawn from the keg, through Randy, then out and into the temprites (to chill the beer) before coming out at the tap and into your glass. The big deal is this – you can fill the glass tube section of Randy with a ‘flavour component’, like fresh hop flowers, to give the beer a last second kick of fresh aroma and taste. How cool is THAT?!?

What the Goat Guys have got right now is Randy stuffed full of a Coffee blend specially selected from 5 beans sourced from around the equatorial belt. I don’t know a lot about coffee beans and I’m just guessing it’s beans from 5 different places, not just 5 beans, given that I could smell the coffee as Meg was expertly pouring a beer for me. The Mountain Goat Surefoot Stout is running through the beans and the explosion of flavour, the punch of the aroma and the inexplicable and uninterpretable sensation that it gives you is an experience that you just have to experience yourself to know what I mean. If you know what I mean?

And here’s where the Beer Karma comes in. I’m sitting at the bar with Tom who looks after the sales side of things at Mountain Goat and he introduces me to his drinking mate. “This is Ben, “ “G’Day Ben – what do you do?” “I put the coffee blend together.” “This coffee blend that I am actually enjoying right now, this very minute as we very speak?” “Yes.”

Now where else could something like that collision of coincidences occur? That is what a wanker might call ‘serendipity’ – a beer drinker would just describe it as ‘sweet’. Good, handcrafted real beer, brewed with love, handled with care and then filtered through choice coffee beans, and drunk by me while sitting between the guy who brewed it and the guy who enhanced it ... that’s Beer Karma.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner

Ale Stars – The Best?

Calling all Ale Stars and anyone else who likes to contribute to Beer Polls.

In twelve meetings we have sampled around fifty beers with nary a dud amongst them. Imports and locals, refreshing and robust, light, dark and everything in between, we’ve tried them all. And, while beer folk in general and this blog in particular, are not about ratings and rankings it can still be fun to narrow the large field to a select few.

In this case, seven.

Last Ale Stars meeting was a Shandy-selected ‘best of’ of sorts and here’s our chance to nail down the Rest of the Best, if you like. I’ll pick my best 7 from the full (well, as full as what I can remember) list of Ale Stars tried and tested ales, lagers, porters, stouts and weizens.

The list.

Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter, Bright Brewery Staircase Porter, Red Duck Queen Bee Honey Porter and Meantime Coffee Porter, Guinness , Cooper’s Best Extra Stout, Red Hill Imperial Stout, Young’s Double Chocolate, Can You Believe I’ve Remembered Them All So Far, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Weihenstephaner Festbier, Erdinger Oktoberfest Weisbier, Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen, They’re All In Correct Order Too, Saison Dupont, Trois Monts, Bridge Road Saison, Silly Saison, Still Goin’ Strong, Redback Original, Weihenstephan Hefeweissbier & Vitus, Hoegaarden Grand Cru, Promised Aventinus – Couldn’t Get It, Neil Brought Along Some Sebastian, Lucky That, Pilsner Urquell, Hofbrau Original, Emerson Pilsner, Bridge Road Chestnut Lager, Sunner Kolsch, James Squire Golden Ale, Cooper’s Pale Ale, Hargreaves Hill ESB, Its An APA, Timothy Taylor Landlord, Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Pale Ale, Fuller’s London Pride, Worthington’s White Shield, I Better Not Have Missed Any, Cooper’s Sparkling, Bridge Road Australian Ale, Stone & Wood Draught Ale & Pale Lager, That Was A Huge Night, Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale, Emerson Old 95, Feral Razorback, Rogue XS Imperial Red, Still With Me?, Holgate Nut Brown Ale, Meantime Winter Time, Nearly There, Lobethal Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, Don't Remember Much Of That Night, Young’s Christmas Pudding Ale, Murray’s Sassy Blond, Red Hill Belgian Blond, Duvel, Mountain Goat Rapunzel, That’s Orl Ah Got To Say About That.

Now excuse me while I sit down for a bit, take a breath and have a beer while I pick my best seven.

Cheers
Prof. Pilsner