Products on the cutting edge

I'm not always sure what to think about advertising or promotions. They can be timid; they can be strong. Yet often I'm just not sure exactly what they are.
I used to buy a beer at duty free coming home from Canada which enticed its patrons on the cigar band that it was 'remarkably drinkable'. I don't know about you, but I simply cannot imagine that as a good advertising slogan. "I say old boy, have you tried this? It is remarkably drinkable." Um, okay.
So today I'm having a spot of tea which commands that I *dare* to drink it. What, is the next step a double dog dare? Or might we skip the protocols and jump right to the triple dog dare? Really, I ask you.
I'm drinking the tea anyways. I never back down from a dare.

Homebrew Tension

Listen, my children, and you shall hear, the marvelous story of Marty's beer.

Okay, so I totally ripped off Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For my Canadian friends, the joke involves a poem written in 1860. It can be found here: http://www.legallanguage.com/resources/poems/midnightride/ if you are so inclined to make the connection. But this is only connected to it by the famous opening line, and nothing more.

So much for culture. I can't stand too much of that anyway.

So anyway, to the important stuff. This evening I entered my latest brews into their secondary fermentation phase. The first beer, a stout, I can hardly wait to try. The dregs at the bottom of the primary fermentation keg (I do so love beer related terms) smelled so wonderfully chocolately that I almost drank it. The aroma was, simply, marvelous, hence the above reference. Chocolate, stout, I mean, the smells so wonderfully mix that it is difficult to put it into words. The one to two week secondary fermentation period will simply be unbearable.

But, of course, you can't drink the dregs. That would make you a drunk, and worse, a drunk with the runs. I can't imagine a worse kind of drunk, and I would be extremely grateful if you would not make comment upon that. Just trust me. Don't drink the dregs. Or comment about me.

But man oh man, I am so looking forward to that stout. Please do not disappoint me, beer gods!

The other brew, an American Red Ale (so said the directions of the recipe I followed; I was not aware that there was such a thing as an American Red Ale) I am not so anxious about. I had grown impatient (imagine that) and decanted it into plastic one liter bottles because placing beer into glass bottles for secondary fermentation, since I have nothing larger than 12 ounce glass bottles otherwise. It had taken me around 45 minutes to decant the stout into 24 twelve ounce bottles and I simply didn't want to take 45 minutes with the red ale. Hey, I told you I was impatient. Besides, I only really care about the stout.

Still, I did use four twelve ounce glass bottles as a sort of control group. Maybe it's just me, but beer from plastic bottles taste plastic. This way, I can try the ale from the plastic and the glass and see which tastes better. Yes, I am a scientist at heart. If beer is involved.

Thus, the story of Marty's beer is not over yet. The denouement is to come. But never fear, friends, beer mavens, and those suckered into reading this blog. I'll let you know the result.

You may even hear it from Canada. Just turn your ears northward (Yanks, we are north of Canada here in Detroit) for the cries of delight or disappointment.

Four Loko and Craft Brewers

Craft brewers in Michigan and elsewhere are jittery in the light of the Four Loko advisory which the Food and Drug Administration aimed at the makers of the aforementioned drink and three other companies which mix alcohol and stimulants such as caffeine in their concoctions. The warning reminds the companies in question that it is illegal to sell drinks which are unsafe for consumption, and that their products appear to fit the bill.

The trouble is that many small breweries, craft breweries which make specialty beers, often use ingredients which contain natural caffeine. They don't add caffeine per se, but it comes into the beverage through the ingredients they use, such as cocoa beans. These brewmasters worry that the recent FDA edict will prevent their making beer their way for the folks who like it.

Part of the issue revolves around the way the Four Loko makers are marketing inexpensive, high alcohol, sweetened, high caffeine drinks to the college crowd and younger. The craft brew industry doesn't do that: they make beer for the love of beer, and are more free to experiment than the large breweries.

When all gets said and done, what we have here is a fine example of the troubles involved in personal freedom issues (at several levels, not simply of the individual), government regulation, and responsible citizenship. It is rather difficult to argue that those of legal drinking age should be kept from a product they want...yet it is also difficult to argue the morality of a company making a beverage aimed at an audience who wants only to get schnockered on the cheap. Toss in the fact that many microbreweries also use ingredients which may violate the standard the FDA apparently seeks to employ, brewers not attempting to entice potentially impressionable youths but, rather, enhance the quality of their product (what true beer lover doesn't appreciate the aroma and rich taste of a chocolate stout?) and we have an interesting mess of rights at work.

How far should the government go, and we must remember we are dealing with a monolithic government, in protecting the citizens from themselves? When considering this question, we must also factor in that there's nothing wrong with that government protecting the citizens not engaging in puerile behavior from the often dangerous antics of those who are. Yet we must also consider the obvious freedoms of the rest: the beer makers and beer drinkers who are not doing wrong but are merely engaging in the responsible marketing and responsible consumption of alcoholic products.

Those in the latter category are surely justified in the fear of what blanket government dictates may impose upon them. Washington certainly seems to use a heavy trowel when issuing edicts. Still, that cannot mean that everything coming from the beltway is wrong or errant. It will be quite interesting to see how the issue plays out.

Pot Shots on August 5th

A federal court has overruled California's Proposition 8, which disallowed gay marriage. It's just another example of how liberals are all for democracy and the will of the people...until the people disagree with them. Then we haul the issue into the courts. The courts, of course, as no less of a civil libertarian than Thomas Jefferson has noted, offer the greatest threat to our true freedoms. Especially when they begin to be used to enforce upon the body politic pure abominations.

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick has lost the Democratic Primary for the seat she has held in Congress for years. It seems that the apron strings can stretch a very long way; no one doubts that her name association with her infamous son has caused her downfall. Blood is thicker than politics, apparently.

A British group claims that a glass of beer per day, rather than a glass of wine, will burn more calories than a 30 minute jog. We don't care about the scratch your head factor which such statements invite: the bottom line here is that just when you think that England has become unimportant in the world, they give us reason to respect them again. Any nation which touts beer drinking as healthy is a good and grand ally in our book.

I Love Irony

In the interest of trying to get my aging body into some kind of decent shape, especially as curling season approaches and I will be expected to sweep rocks, I am making an effort to spend thirty minutes on a treadmill each day.

So far I've made it two straight days. The journey of a thousand miles and all; it's worth something. And I don't even hurt, nor have I really been all that winded when I've stopped. A bit sweaty, but I'm not truly out of breath. Maybe I'm not in such bad shape after all.

I feel I have the right incentive to keep the regimen going strong. You see, I drink a beer as I walk the treadmill at a pretty brisk pace; I time myself at about 75 steps per minute. The beer is my incentive to keep pushing; a few steps, take a swig.

Now I know some of you purists out there think I'm defeating the purpose of the workout. So it goes; it's nevertheless exercize, and I like the juxtaposition. Besides, how many of us drink when we bowl or curl? So unless you don't believe that bowling or curling qualifies as exercize, I rest my case. And if you don't think curling is exercize, come out to the ice and try it. That'll change your mind.

The beer we drink while playing will surely help you see the light.