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The kid is back in town. That means long lines outside Russian River Brewing Co.'s downtown Santa Rosa brew pub on Friday and lots of voice mail messages on brewer Al Gorton's phone. “I get a lot of friends this time of year,” Gorton said Thursday at the company's south Santa Rosa production facility. Gorton was in the process of filling kegs with Pliny the Younger, a Triple IPA (India Pale Ale) that is so popular with beer aficionados that people come from all over just to sample it. Last year, that included beer enthusiasts from Japan and Denmark, said...

This has cast doubt on the popular theory that Mesopotamian brewers used to crumble flat bread made from barley or emmer into their mash. The so-called "bappir" (Sumerian for "beer bread") is never counted as bread in the administrative texts, but in measuring units, like coarsely ground barley. Damerow also points out that the high degree of standardisation, which meant that the quantities of raw materials allocated to the brewers by the central administration remained exactly the same over long periods, sometimes even decades, makes it difficult to base any recipes on them. According to Damerow, even the "Hymn of...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. LONDON (Reuters) - British beer lovers have enlisted the support of a Sumerian goddess in their efforts to shake off the masculine image of their favorite tipple. Fed up with the drink's beer bellied image, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) said on Tuesday it had adopted the goddess Ninkasi -- said to have created a recipe for beer 4,000 years ago -- as patron in a bid to attract more women to the pumps. "We think real British beer is something to be proud of and it should be marketed...

Saturday, 3 August, 2002, 10:06 GMT 11:06 UK Brewers concoct ancient Egyptian ale Did King Tut sup on the Old Kingdom recipe? A Japanese beer maker has taken a 4,400-year-old recipe from Egyptian hieroglyphics and produced what it claims is a brew fit for the Pharaohs. The Kirin Brewery Co. has called the concoction Old Kingdom Beer. It has no froth, is the colour of dark tea and carries an alcohol content of 10% - about double most contemporary beers. Sakuji Yoshimura, an Egyptologist at Waseda University in Tokyo, helped transcribe the recipe from Egyptian wall paintings. Kirin spokesman Takaomi...

Beer drinkers rejoice: Your favorite brew may be healthier than you think. For years, wine drinkers have indulged without guilt, reveling in the news that red wine can help protect against heart disease. Recent research shows that beer can also be good for what ails you, from reducing risk for broken bones to helping warding off diabetes and mental decline. It can even increase longevity, a large study suggests. However, the key to tapping into beer’s benefits is moderation, meaning just one 12-ounce beer per day for women and two for men. Heavy drinking ups the threat of liver damage,...

Perhaps he just needed some money to pay his tab. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office says a man robbed a bank in between trips to a bar. Deputies say they got a call around 1:42 Thursday afternoon of a man robbing the Wells Fargo Bank located at 8994 State Road 52. About 10 minutes later, they encountered a man who fit the robber's description a few doors down at the Hayloft Bar. A bartender told deputies the man ordered a beer, disappeared for about 30 minutes, and then returned to his drink. Deputies arrested 52-year-old John Robin Whittle on one...

The Detroit News this morning published a story about the possibility of reforming the Michigan Liquor Control Code and its related rules. The author correctly notes that some groups and residents in Michigan are “on edge” over what the reforms may bring. One of those quoted, Mike Tobias of the group Michigan Alcohol Policy Promoting Health & Safety, argued that “We (Michigan) have plenty of liquor licenses and plenty of beverages sold over the counter. We know that the more alcohol outlets there are, the more alcohol-related problems and harm there is.” There are two problems with this quote. First,...

I've decided that now is the time to speak to one & all.

Rolling in the Deep" singer's no Jane SixpackSome singers' contracts stipulate that the red jelly beans have to be removed. Adele's backstage rider says keep the American beer away from her. In her boilerplate contract, the British singer goes out of her way to diss stateside suds. She must have 12 bottles of beer on her bus, but it can't be just any beer. It must be the "best quality European lager beer." Beck's, Stella Artois, Peroni, the pact suggests helpfully. Then, for the band's and crew's buses, only "good quality local lager" is acceptable. "NOT Budweiser, Miller or similar...

Clifton Vial, 52, climbed into the cab of his Toyota Tacoma on Monday night in Nome to see how far a road winding to the north would take him. More than 40 miles out of town, at about 9:30 that night, he found out. As Pink Floyd's "Echoes" played on the stereo and temperature dipped well below zero in the darkness, Vial's pickup plunged into a snowdrift. "I made an attempt at digging myself out and realized how badly I was stuck," Vial told The Anchorage Daily News. He was wearing tennis shoes, jeans and a $30 jacket from Sears....

In the spirit of authenticity, a home-brewer attempts to recreate a founding father's beer recipe. It was last Thanksgiving. I had my heirloom turkey, local yams and organic cranberries. I had donned my waxed-canvas apron and consulted vintage recipe books. I was ready to eat. But on this, the most heritage-chic of holidays, what should one drink? Wine felt too stuffy; a six-pack not ceremonial enough. I was stumped. Then I discovered George Washington's beer. Or, more precisely, a recipe for it, referenced in a few old home-brewing books. Scribbled on the last page of one of Washington's journals is...

Nineteen people suspected of committing crimes in Derbyshire have been arrested after being offered free beer by police as part of an undercover operation. Officers sent letters to dozens of suspects who had evaded arrest for several months asking them to ring a marketing company to collect a free crate of beer. A total of 19 suspects fell for the hoax and called the number which put them through to police officers based at Chesterfield Police Station. A time and date was arranged for the free alcohol to be dropped off and the suspects were arrested. The sting was carried...

Few people will argue against preventing underage drinking. Michigan’s new keg registration law, however, an attempt to trace the buyers of kegs that end up serving underage drinkers, will not accomplish that goal. In fact, keg registration is an invasion of consumers’ privacy and has proven repeatedly to be a waste of time and money. Moreover, it will do nothing to reduce underage drinking and could even make the problem worse. As of Nov. 1, Michigan joined with the nearly 30 other states that have a keg registration law of some type, requiring businesses to affix a sticker or a...

The bizarre rant from Illinois congressman Joe Walsh came after he was grilled during an informal surgery in a bar about the lack of regulation which ultimately allowed banks to bet against their own customers. Cutting off the man, the father-of-five yelled: 'I am tired of hearing that c**p. Don't blame the banks... that p***** me off.'

If you live in Michigan, you can’t order online from wine retailers in other states, at least not if you want the wine shipped to your door. But action this Election Day far off in Washington State may send tremors across America by cracking open the anti-consumer, anti-competitive alcohol regulations there. Entrenched interests — particularly alcohol wholesalers — appear frightful that they will be the ones to suffer from government withdrawal from the industry. But if enthusiasm for such freedom becomes contagious and spreads to other states, consumers will reap the benefits. Washington state’s initiative strikes at the heart of...

On Oct. 24, the Mackinac Center dispatched letters that made 15 major and explicit recommendations for reform of Michigan’s alcohol control system to Gov. Rick Snyder’s 21-member Liquor Control Advisory Rules Committee. The advisory committee first met in August and is due to make recommendations to the governor for reform as early as mid-December. We suggest that the committee and Gov. Snyder reform boldly. The 15 major ideas presented below are by no means the only reform ideas we intend to make, but they do represent some of the most wide-ranging and beneficial ones. Where appropriate, I've added nuance and...

Ulrich Steinhaus, a 34 year-old banker, washes down a roasted chicken with beer at Oktoberfest in Munich. He is wearing traditional Bavarian clothing of lederhosen and suspenders. The beer lovers at Oktoberfest brag about the centuries of history sitting in their mugs. But German brewers are increasingly worried that the old model may not be enough to carry them into the future. Germans drink less beer every year, so breweries founded in the 14th century are searching for ways to compete in the 21st. The answer, increasingly, is to look to an uncomfortable place for German brewers who pride themselves...

That will teach beer vendor Steve Lazarus to get jocular with the jocks. No doubt under pressure by Major League Baseball's fraternization police, the New York Yankees recently threw down the dragnet on Lazarus, who got a little too chummy with the team's oldest and most-hated rival. -snip- Lazarus, 53, also works as a stand-up comedian when he's not vending, but he wasn't laughing after being humiliated and punished for doing, he says, nothing wrong. Lazarus was standing with co-workers near a freight elevator on the terrace level when they heard the clacketty clack of cleats on the floor. They...

Besotted beetles are dying while trying to get it on with discarded brown beer bottles, according to research conducted by Darryl Gwynne, a University of Toronto Mississauga professor. It's a case of mistaken attraction, because the beer bottles happen to possess all of the features that drive male Australian jewel beetles wild. They're big and orangey brown in color, with a slightly dimpled surface near the bottom (designed to prevent the bottle from slipping out of one's grasp) that reflects light in much the same way as female wing covers. As a result, the beer bottles are irresistible to the...

If you’ve ever seen a Ken Burns documentary, you’re familiar with their use of faded photos, archival video and interviews with renowned historians. Films like “The Civil War,” “Thomas Jefferson” and “Lewis & Clark” bring the past to life despite the decades of distance between the subject matter and the viewers. No doubt, his newest documentary, “Prohibition,” which premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. PBS, promises to offer a thorough historical examination of American life during the period around the 18th Amendment’s rise and fall. The three-part series focusing on Prohibition’s past, however, may lead the viewers to believe that every...

MINNEAPOLIS - A developer who wants to open a microbrew pub in Minneapolis has a unique business plan. For a $1,000 investment, neighbors can be part owner of the Smokehouse Brewpub and get free beer for life. Developer Jamie Robinson says free beer is among the equity options for the $800,000 restaurant and bar. The project needs $175,000 for a down payment and is targeting investors $1,000 at a time. Kelly Neisen has seized the opportunity. Neisen says as a homeowner she has a stake in seeing her neighborhood succeed. Minneapolis council member Gary Schiff says people crave something authentic,...

Police say a drunken crowd tossed a dead squirrel around and tipped over a car in La Crosse this past weekend. Lt. Brian Thomson says some college-age people began throwing a dead squirrel back and forth in the street near the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus on Saturday night, the second night of the city's annual Oktoberfest celebration. Police say a drunken crowd tossed a dead squirrel around and tipped over a car in La Crosse this past weekend. Lt. Brian Thomson says some college-age people began throwing a dead squirrel back and forth in the street near the University...

Maxine Waters: Republicans “Eat Obama’s Food, Drink His Beer And Leave, Then They Go And Try To Kill Him”…

The Detroit Free Press published a response to my essay, “Rethink state’s liquor distribution system,” on Sunday. It reads more like a beer commercial designed to redirect attention away from unnecessarily high beer prices, rather than a scholarly rejoinder to the facts presented in my original essay. There are four major problems with the letter: First, it doesn’t answer any of my assertions and instead advances spurious generalizations. For example, the letter encourages the reader to ask “any number of Michigan breweries” to learn that their partnerships (with wholesalers) “fuel growth and jobs in Michigan’s craft beer industry.” These same...

World's biggest beer festival is expected to attract 7 million tourists.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Dakota Meyer saved 36 lives from an ambush in Afghanistan and the former Marine will collect the nation's highest military honor at the White House on Thursday. While he is receiving the Medal of Honor, Meyer's slain comrades will be memorialized in hometown ceremonies at his request. His hero's moment was his darkest day. Meyer lost some of his best friends the morning of Sept. 8, 2009, in far-off Kunar Province.

I love a good hack, especially one that requires me to throw back a cold one before hand (or during). This simple wifi boost has actually been shown to increase signal strength by at least 2 to 4 bars. And, well, I will drink to that. These instructions came to me via The Chive and i think they are most definitely worth checking out. But here is the most important question: what kind of beer will you use? For this project you are going to need scissors, a utility knife, some adhesive putty and an empty beer can. More than...

Michigan is one of 18 states in which the state government itself is the statewide wholesaler for all hard liquor (or “spirits”) sold to consumers by retailers, bars and restaurants. Anecdotal and empirical evidence indicates that this arrangement unnecessarily drives up costs, while providing no public safety advantages. State lawmakers should repeal Michigan’s status as a so-called “liquor control” state, and eliminate or shrink the 152-employee Michigan Liquor Control Commission. As wholesaler, the state is in a unique position to drive up the cost of liquor. The Michigan Liquor Control Commission tacks on a 65 percent mark-up on every bottle...

As Gov. Rick Snyder’s Liquor Control Advisory Rules Committee meets today for the first time, a statistical analysis being released by Mackinac Center policy experts indicates that liquor prices are higher in Michigan and in the 17 other states where government acts as a statewide liquor wholesaler. According to the analysts’ calculations, a representative bottle of spirits — a fifth of J&B Scotch — cost almost $1.59 more on average in liquor control states like Michigan than in other states, amounting to a substantial hidden tax on a commodity already subject to large state and federal taxes. “We found that...

In the 15th century, when Europeans first began moving people and goods across the Atlantic, a microscopic stowaway somehow made its way to the caves and monasteries of Bavaria. The stowaway, a yeast that may have been transported from a distant shore on a piece of wood or in the stomach of a fruit fly, was destined for great things. In the dank caves and monastery cellars where 15th century brewmeisters stored their product, the newly arrived yeast fused with a distant relative, the domesticated yeast used for millennia to make leavened bread and ferment wine and ale. The resulting...

Scooter Capable Of Holding Several Dozen DrinksAn Australian man was fined and had his license suspended after being caught driving a scooter made of a motorized beer cooler capable of carrying several dozen drinks. The scooter featured a cooler box mounted on a wheeled frame, a steering handlebar and was powered by a 50 cc engine. The cooler doubled as a driver's seat and could hold up to 48 bottles of beer, Reuters reported. Chris Petrie, 23, bought the scooter on the Internet for $600. After assembling it with a friend, he had a few beers and decided to drive...

Most of us don't usually think of beer as an earth-friendly alternative to improving our gardens and lawns or dealing with a host of pests. However, if you can bring yourself to part ways with your favorite brew, or at least invest in some of the cheap stuff, you'll be surprised by beer's many uses. 1. Trap slugs and snails: Place dishes or jars of beer around your garden, especially in the evening. In the morning, the slimy critters, which have been drawn by the beer's aroma/fermentation, will have drowned. The beer can be re-used until it evaporates for garden...

The State of Michigan maintains a so-called three-tier liquor distribution system that erects legal walls between suppliers, state-approved wholesalers and retailers. This arcane system drives up the cost to consumers by limiting competition without necessarily making any contribution to public safety. The system was created after Prohibition ended in 1933, ostensibly to curb potential distribution and sales abuses. Today it's merely a tool used by a handful of politically powerful beneficiaries to tap consumer pocketbooks. Specifically, the system appears to have been captured by a private, for-profit second tier -- beer and wine wholesalers -- who enjoy monopoly profits and...

Why do so many of our leaders always want to associate legal alcoholic beverages with sinful behavior? We understand that too much drinking has gotten a few legislators and other officials in legal hot water but most Utahns -- including those who do not drink -- do not associate having a beer with jails. If we need to pay more for jail space, the Legislature needs to place it at a higher funding priority. Or, we need to up taxes; sometimes that's necessary. The prudish, offensive way to do it is by upping beer prices. That's what the Legislature may...

Political pollster Nate Silver summarized the results of a recent Gallup poll this way on Thursday. "In case there weren't enough reasons to be depressed about the country: Popularity of beer at record low." OK, it's not crystal clear that a record has been shattered, but the nation's adoration of beer has dropped to its lowest point in the past 20 years among adults, according to the poll that was released Wednesday. Among those asked which alcoholic beverage they would most often drink, 36% said beer was their pick. Beer just beat out wine as the top choice. Wine was...

These are busy times for people in the alcohol business. A new state “Liquor Control Advisory Rules Committee” is being constituted by the Office of Regulatory Reinvention and may meet to review alcohol rules as early as the second week of August. Also, the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association are meeting at the Grand Traverse Resort today, concluding their annual summer convention. The MB&WWA represent some 60-plus beer and wine wholesalers statewide, and it doesn’t strain credulity to suggest that they will be discussing how best to protect the legal advantages they have won for themselves over the years,...

It is counterintuitive, but many businesses actually want to be regulated. Regulation can raise the cost to upstarts entering a particular field and provide businesses with the opportunity to influence — if not write — the actual legislation under which they will operate. A good example of this involves beer and wine wholesaling, which in many states involves a government mandate that forces suppliers of alcohol to grant exclusive territorial monopolies for their products to wholesalers. Recently, wholesalers have expended a great deal of effort to strengthen with federal laws their protected status in the states. It should not surprise...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill that officially classifies beer as alcoholic. Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has been considered a foodstuff. The move, signed into law on Wednesday, will allow ministers to control the sale of beer in the same way that spirits are controlled. Russian alcohol consumption is already twice the critical level set by the World Health Organization. Although vodka has long been the traditional tipple in Russia, beer has soared in popularity, being marketed as a healthier alternative to spirits. Over the past decade, beer sales in Russia have...

Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes -- a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown. In the days leading up to the shutdown, thousands of outlets scrambled to renew their state-issued liquor purchasing cards. Many of them did not make it. Now, with no end in sight to the shutdown, they face a summer of fast-dwindling alcohol supplies and a bottom line that looks increasingly bleak. The Ugly Mug doesn't have enough beer to get through the baseball season. "Our...

In the June 2011 issue of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association (MBWWA) newsletter, President Michael Lashbrook reaffirmed his organization’s endorsement of the Community Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness (CARE) Act of 2011, which would strip away the protections alcoholic products currently have under federal law against discriminatory state-based regulations. Lashbrook said the CARE Act simply “reaffirms that alcohol is different from other consumer products and should continue to be regulated by the states.” In reality, wholesalers in Michigan and around the nation are trying to protect their regional monopolies on alcohol distribution by preventing consumers from purchasing beer, wine, or...

POTTSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - When Richard "Dick" Yuengling Jr. first took a job at his family's brewery as a teenager, his grandfather's secretary discreetly gave him this advice: "You ought to go out and do something else, because we're barely making payroll." That was more than 50 years ago, long before he purchased America's oldest brewery from his father to become the fifth-generation owner of D.G. Yuengling and Son. After 26 years at the helm, Dick Yuengling is doing a lot better than making payroll. Yuengling is one of the fastest-growing and most coveted brands in the beer industry. And...

BBQ and beer what can be better.

HEALTH activists who believe even one alcoholic drink can cause cancer are lobbying MPs in Canberra today for limits on how much we consume and how much we pay for it. If they're successful in branding alcohol a carcinogen it could lead to tough restrictions similar to those applied to tobacco, including warnings on labels and laws requiring plain packaging. 1.18pm Action on labelling was "not what the agenda of this group is on about today", said Todd Harper, chief executive of the Cancer Council of Victoria. "We do want to see a more comprehensive approach to alcohol, better education,...

In recent weeks, Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed two new members to the five-person Michigan Liquor Control Commission, and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs announced the creation of a new committee to review existing wine, beer and liquor market rules and recommend changes. Any changes should place consumer interests ahead of both state government interests and those of the 60-plus beer and wine wholesalers and distributors who dot the state with their territorial monopolies. For the uninitiated, Michigan is one of 18 so-called “control” states, in which the government is the initial buyer of all of the hard...

A boozy Brooklyn man was hit with hate crime charges Sunday for pouring beer on a newlywed neighbor, calling her an "Arab terrorist" and pummeling her husband, police sources said. Following the seemingly unprovoked attack Saturday night in Mill Basin, Simchon Schwartz, 46, hid in a local synagogue and tried to fight off cops when they came to arrest him, sources said. The Hasid even kicked out a window of a police cruiser as he sat inside, whining that "the cuffs are too tight," a source said. "F---ing Arabs! F---ing terrorists!" Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan,...

A mother accused of leaving her 3-year-old son unattended at a pool Wednesday while she apparently drank beer — using money an 11-year-old girl gave her to buy ice cream — was arrested on a child neglect charge, according to an affidavit released Thursday. The case against Kelly Lynn Chaffee, 22, began Wednesday night when a man spoke with Port St. Lucie police at a pool in the 1900 block of Southeast Hillmoor Drive. The man said his 14-year-old stepdaughter had a 3-year-old at his home. He said a woman later identified as Chaffee left her 3-year-old son at the...

As revealed in Michigan Capitol Confidential last week, a state beer and wine distribution monopoly that successive Legislatures have protected for decades enriches a handful of families (the so-called “Millionaires Club”) at the expense of consumers, taxpayers and small business microbrewers, whose ability to create jobs is also hurt. Over the years legislators have played partner to the distributors, collecting a share of their monopoly profits through steady streams of campaign cash and other benefits. So perhaps members of the state House shouldn’t be surprised if microbrewers don’t feel overly grateful for a meaningless piece of puff they passed this...

By Spencer Soper, OF THE MORNING CALL 4:51 p.m. EDT, June 21, 2011 Pottsville beer-maker D.G. Yuengling and Son, America's oldest brewery, plans to enter the Ohio market later this year. Pat Noone, the company's business development manager, told the Akron Beacon Journal that Yuengling has been in discussions with retailers and distributors in the state and it could be available in Ohio as soon as October. The company has been eager to enter the Ohio market, but wanted to make sure it had an adequate supply of beer to accommodate demand, Noone told the newspaper. The company on Tuesday...

The president’s letter in the January-February edition of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers newsletter suggests that association members are not primarily motivated by economic self-interest, but are merely active supporters of public safety. He then offered to sell the Mackinac Bridge to potential buyers at an excellent price. OK, just kidding about the bridge. But the absurdity of the “disinterestedness” suggestion was indirectly revealed in the president’s letter, writing on a state of Washington effort to privatize the state’s liquor control regime and reform beer and wine distribution by repealing that state’s distributor monopoly. Reportedly, the initiative was financially...

The Mackinac Center’s Ken Braun and Kathy Hoekstra have documented how the wine and beer distribution monopolies that Michigan has granted to a handful of families damage entrepreneurs and investors in the micro-brewery industry. The Center’s Michael LaFaive has reported how an obsolete regulatory regime on hard liquor generates prices that exceed those in neighboring Indiana by more than 20 percent. This system generates losses for the Michigan economy that probably amount to tens of millions of dollars. Part of that goes into the pockets of a few monopoly distributors who have spent lavishly over many decades lobbying legislators to...