Beer Viz – a visual recommendation for beers to try
… based on which other beers you like.
Tag: beer
Super Brew 15 in review
I haven’t seen this brand of beer in the local shops (gladly), but I still recommend reading the review. It’s good, inspirational writing. And absolutely hilarious content with some nice heavy tunes to accompany the laughter and it give the proper atmosphere.
Here are some quotes to get you started:
The aroma is . . . bracing. A flood of synthetic-smelling burnt caramel gives way to butterscotch, a touch of maraschino cherry, and then to what I can only describe as rubber cement. If you’ve ever wondered why rubber cement is so unpopular as a custard flavoring, take a whiff of this beer.
And:
In keeping with the absence of a proper head, Super Brew 15 has a thin mouthfeel, despite its potency. The flavor starts inoffensively—oily toffee, subdued fruitiness (green grape, tart apple), and a faint maltiness like stale graham crackers. Combined with the alcohol heat, this has been enough to remind some online reviewers of brandy. But then something tragic happens: an aftertaste arrives that splits the difference between gasoline and nail polish remover. I’m convinced this shit is eating the enamel off my teeth.
The best ones though, I wouldn’t post for the reasons of the strong language. But you should definitely click through to read it. LOL.
Geroskipou Beer Festival
I came across the announcement for the Geroskipou Beer Festival somewhere in my Facebook stream. Being a big (literally) fan of beer, I couldn’t not post it. Even with the heavy heart after all the previous beer festivals I’ve been to in Cyprus. This one seems to follow the general pattern: 5 EUR entrance buys you one beer. You’ll pay for the rest, and there are about 40 different ones to taste.
As these festivals usually go, you’d probably overpay for the beers, and the variety won’t really be of 40 different brands. Judging from previous experiences, small can of Keo, large can of Keo, small bottle of Keo, large bottle of Keo, and a draught Keo – are five different varieties and not one. Heck, I’m not even sure I can list 40 different brands even if I’ll remember all the beers I ever drank or saw on sale in Cyprus!
Just for the fun of it, I’ll try . First of all, the local ones, obviously: Keo, Carlsberg, and Leon. Mythos from Greece. Then the usual suspects: Hoegaarden, Guinness, Krombacher, Stella Artois, Warsteiner, Veltins, Heineken, Beck’s, Budweiser, Pilsner Urquell. Then slightly less usual suspects: Kilkenny, Caffreys, Erdinger, Konig Ludwig and Konig Ludwig Dunkel, Weissbier, Franziskaner, Amstel, Grolsch, Fosters and Bavaria. Then a few Belgian beers: Blanche, Duvel, Kwak, Leffe (blonde, dark, and red), Chimay. A touch of Mexico with Corona and Sol. Ciders, although not technically beers, are almost always present at beer festivals – Magners, Strongbow, Woodbecker and Somersby.
How many are these? 38. Throw in a couple of non-alcoholic names that I don’t know, a coupe of Asian (Chinese and Japanese names that I cannot remember), and, just to get rid of any doubts, a couple of nice ones from Bavarian Delikatessen shop – those names are tough even for Bavarians. There you go – 40 or so varieties. Now, can you imagine all of them in one place? I can’t. Not even in supermarkets which offer a great variety these days.
Somehow, the more I think about this festival, the more I think it’ll be like the others. What do you think? Is it worth driving all they way over to Geroskipou just to get the same beers you can get in any Limassol pub or supermarket?
The Beer Shot Glass
As seen on foodiggity.com.
Guinness bubbles problem – solved!
If you are a beer fan, you’ve probably heard about the famous Guinness bubbles problem. While bubbles in most other beers rise up, in Guinness they go down. A lot of people were puzzled by that fact, and now, it seems, the puzzle is solved.
According to the article in Technology Reviews, Irish mathematicians came up with an answer:
Today, a dedicated team of Irish mathematicians reveal the answer. Eugene Benilov, Cathal Cummins and William Lee at the University of Limerick say the final piece in this puzzle is the shape of the glass, which has a crucial influence over the circulatory patterns in the liquid.
To understand how, first remember that the motion of every bubble exerts a drag on the liquid around it. Now imagine what would happen if there were a region of liquid containing fewer bubbles near the wall of a pint glass and consequently a region of higher bubble density near the middle of the glass.
Benilov and co say that the drag will be higher in the region where the bubble density is higher, in other words near the centre of the glass. This creates an imbalance that sets up a circulation pattern in which the liquid flows upwards in the centre of the glass and downwards near the walls.
That’s exactly as observed in a pint of Guinness.
There are more details and image of an anti-pint in the article. Read it.
Also, while reading up on the subject, I’ve learned something else about Guinness – the widget.