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Post by silverdragon on Mar 25, 2018 13:37:31 GMT
Where as I delight in goi8ng around micro-breweries getting educated and seeing how well they can produce a commercial ale, and then using that as a guest beer in my Pubs, which then go on to out-sell the brewery recommended beers.... Which winds the brewery up, because they dont get to sell as much of their own brew.
However, more and more, small micro-breweries are getting more popular, because more and more, people prefer "local" mastery and abilities over vast quantity brewed for max profit type slurry?... You can probably guess where I stand on that.
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Post by the light works on Mar 25, 2018 14:12:47 GMT
let's revisit this, now that I'm actually awake and can be properly attentive to it. consider: then let's add that breathing helium from balloons to do the squeaky voice thing is a popular party pastime - and despite hearing about teenagers passing out from overdoing it, I haven't heard of any local party balloon related injuries. skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19298/is-inhaling-helium-dangerousso the only known medical danger is if you breathe too much of it, you are not breathing any oxygen with it; which is bad. but you could replace all the other gas in air with it (besides oxygen), and have minimal ill effects. as for the bends, that relates to pressure differential, and unless you build your pubs differently over there, there isn't much pressure differential getting on and off a bar stool. so that leaves the question of whether a fizzing beer releases enough gas to be harmful. I'm going to be presumptive and say a pint of beer couldn't hold much more than a pint of gas. unless maybe it was a stadium or a rock concert, in which case there would probably be plenty of room for gas in the cup. - but still, released helium would rise in normal atmosphere, so you wouldn't have a dangerous gas pocket. but I may, if I get ambition, start a thread about kids dying from party balloons, because that would involve sitting around connected to blood gas monitors and talking funny.
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Post by kharnynb on Mar 25, 2018 15:41:13 GMT
The one thing I really do thank the USA for on a regular basis, the resurgence of "craft beer" and local made brews.
Just 5 years ago, it was practically impossible to get anything much beyond the "finnish big 4 brewers" in the shops, a bit more in the "alco" state liquor stores if you were willing to pay.
Now, every damn supermarket has a local brew shelf, and while 50% is crap and it's all overpriced, the other 50% is nice to try and a real breath of fresh air
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Post by c64 on Mar 25, 2018 21:43:32 GMT
Have seen plastic beer bottles myself, at sports stadiums where they are less dangerous than glass ones. Germany's biggest Grocery Discounter doesn't sell any returnables at all any more. They sell everything in disposable plastic bottles. This is in fact better for the environment since returnables need to be shipped and cleaned which consumes more energy and oil (diesel) than you need to make a thin shelled plastic bottle. True, the common garbage/recycling isn't in the official equation but it shouldn't cause a significant impact in more energy consumption of recycling and garbage collection.
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Post by the light works on Mar 25, 2018 21:43:35 GMT
The one thing I really do thank the USA for on a regular basis, the resurgence of "craft beer" and local made brews. Just 5 years ago, it was practically impossible to get anything much beyond the "finnish big 4 brewers" in the shops, a bit more in the "alco" state liquor stores if you were willing to pay. Now, every damn supermarket has a local brew shelf, and while 50% is crap and it's all overpriced, the other 50% is nice to try and a real breath of fresh air you mean after we'd introduced the concept of mass produced horse pizza in the first place?
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 27, 2018 6:25:46 GMT
Have seen plastic beer bottles myself, at sports stadiums where they are less dangerous than glass ones. Germany's biggest Grocery Discounter doesn't sell any returnables at all any more. They sell everything in disposable plastic bottles. This is in fact better for the environment since returnables need to be shipped and cleaned which consumes more energy and oil (diesel) than you need to make a thin shelled plastic bottle. True, the common garbage/recycling isn't in the official equation but it shouldn't cause a significant impact in more energy consumption of recycling and garbage collection. Lets see, returning bottles where they came from, back on the return journey of the wagon that delivered replacements that would otherwise be empty space, is that a wasted journey?. Put that against the environmental impact of a Bin wagon taking the trash to a landfill dump that now has to do Extra journeys because it gets full quicker, and the extra space in that landfill, against either recycling glass in a separate bin that doesnt go yo landfill at all but goes back into bottled glass, or return to store to be re-used, and ask me, the landlord of the pub, that had a full car sized glass bin of NRB's as well as the returnable bottles collected each month, knowing that not one ounce of glass went to landfill back from the 50's-60's onwards when my Father and I were both in the trade back to when even my Great Gandfather was in the trade, and if you ask us what is better, returnable recycled makes less mess in landfill, and as at least half my weekly trash these days is plastic I didnt want in the first place, packaging that could be of a recyclable material, then I know what I would rather have. In the trade, washing sterilising and refurbishing returnable bottles takes less energy and time than making new glass. Now they can grind up the old glass quicker, its also less expensive, by product and environmentally, than plastic.
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 27, 2018 6:45:49 GMT
The one thing I really do thank the USA for on a regular basis, the resurgence of "craft beer" and local made brews. Just 5 years ago, it was practically impossible to get anything much beyond the "finnish big 4 brewers" in the shops, a bit more in the "alco" state liquor stores if you were willing to pay. Now, every damn supermarket has a local brew shelf, and while 50% is crap and it's all overpriced, the other 50% is nice to try and a real breath of fresh air I dont know our age difference, I was a child that remembers the 60's, but back then, my Father being in the trade as a licencee of a wine shop, I can remember the local breweries did a good trade. The Big Six that you mention, we had similar here, some good ones, some "False gods", but they went aboit buying up all the small breweries and making a mess of them. What I am seeing now is a general reurn to the shelves of good local small brew, they call them micro-breweries, but they are just what we used to have in the first place, a small local supply sized brewery that too care of the local needs. As Transport has now gotten better, its common that you see more guest beers, because transport abilities allows those beers to travel. Science has gotten better... As Example, There is a local brewery in Stockport called Robinsons. It used to be known that "It doesnt travel well", in that if you tried to buy it 50 mile away, the journey doesnt do it justice, and its not as good. That is because the real live beer in the cask doesnt react too well to being all shook up by a long journey. Better filtration and making that a Keg beer has now allowed Robinsons to be a good brew made locally that now can travel more than 50 mile.. It used to be the same with many other regional local brews. Also people like me got to the knowledge of getting a live beer in the cask to travel, in that we up the standing time when racked, from the usual three days to Five, tap and vent and give it yet another day to settle, and only then when it has been cellar conditioned and allowed to settle out, can you start to sell it, so in that way, a beer cellar has to have stock a week ahead of selling, which in a cramped space isnt available for many, hence you just couldnt rack a beer on its side for a week before you sold it in the past. Yes this is "Old school" knowledge, because back when roads were a series of potholes held together by Mud, local beers got a better shaking than a Martini going less than a couple of miles, and the cellar person had to know that racking a week ahead of time would be necessary anyway, but then the modern generation, even back to the Baby Boomer generation, who got used to Tarmac road, wanted a product in the cellar and sold the same day. Having a barrel of beer in the cellar, as long as it isnt vented or tapped, is in its self, a product in maturation, and will last many weeks. Even in Wooden cask. A Good cellar man that is selling local product will have stock for a couple of weeks, and will rack a beer up as soon as possible to let it settle... where racking is the art of tipping the barrel on its side. The rack allows you to tip the barrel slowly once the beer gets down to the tap level, to allow moor beer out, an art form in its self, as tipping the barrel has to be done slowly so not to disturb sediments. It doesnt have to be tapped or vented, even on a hard peg, until its necessary, or if it is, its tapped and vented on a hard peg, one that stops any outside air getting in, so when you need to use it, you just swap for a soft peg that allows air in, and then you can start to use it without any disturbance of the sediment. This SHOULD be common knowledge, but sadly, in todays world of Keg everything, its not.
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Post by the light works on Mar 27, 2018 7:03:38 GMT
The one thing I really do thank the USA for on a regular basis, the resurgence of "craft beer" and local made brews. Just 5 years ago, it was practically impossible to get anything much beyond the "finnish big 4 brewers" in the shops, a bit more in the "alco" state liquor stores if you were willing to pay. Now, every damn supermarket has a local brew shelf, and while 50% is crap and it's all overpriced, the other 50% is nice to try and a real breath of fresh air I dont know our age difference, I was a child that remembers the 60's, but back then, my Father being in the trade as a licencee of a wine shop, I can remember the local breweries did a good trade. The Big Six that you mention, we had similar here, some good ones, some "False gods", but they went aboit buying up all the small breweries and making a mess of them. What I am seeing now is a general reurn to the shelves of good local small brew, they call them micro-breweries, but they are just what we used to have in the first place, a small local supply sized brewery that too care of the local needs. As Transport has now gotten better, its common that you see more guest beers, because transport abilities allows those beers to travel. Science has gotten better... As Example, There is a local brewery in Stockport called Robinsons. It used to be known that "It doesnt travel well", in that if you tried to buy it 50 mile away, the journey doesnt do it justice, and its not as good. That is because the real live beer in the cask doesnt react too well to being all shook up by a long journey. Better filtration and making that a Keg beer has now allowed Robinsons to be a good brew made locally that now can travel more than 50 mile.. It used to be the same with many other regional local brews. Also people like me got to the knowledge of getting a live beer in the cask to travel, in that we up the standing time when racked, from the usual three days to Five, tap and vent and give it yet another day to settle, and only then when it has been cellar conditioned and allowed to settle out, can you start to sell it, so in that way, a beer cellar has to have stock a week ahead of selling, which in a cramped space isnt available for many, hence you just couldnt rack a beer on its side for a week before you sold it in the past. Yes this is "Old school" knowledge, because back when roads were a series of potholes held together by Mud, local beers got a better shaking than a Martini going less than a couple of miles, and the cellar person had to know that racking a week ahead of time would be necessary anyway, but then the modern generation, even back to the Baby Boomer generation, who got used to Tarmac road, wanted a product in the cellar and sold the same day. Having a barrel of beer in the cellar, as long as it isnt vented or tapped, is in its self, a product in maturation, and will last many weeks. Even in Wooden cask. A Good cellar man that is selling local product will have stock for a couple of weeks, and will rack a beer up as soon as possible to let it settle... where racking is the art of tipping the barrel on its side. The rack allows you to tip the barrel slowly once the beer gets down to the tap level, to allow moor beer out, an art form in its self, as tipping the barrel has to be done slowly so not to disturb sediments. It doesnt have to be tapped or vented, even on a hard peg, until its necessary, or if it is, its tapped and vented on a hard peg, one that stops any outside air getting in, so when you need to use it, you just swap for a soft peg that allows air in, and then you can start to use it without any disturbance of the sediment. This SHOULD be common knowledge, but sadly, in todays world of Keg everything, its not. I'd guess a lot of the younger generation hasn't a clue what dregs are.
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Post by kharnynb on Mar 27, 2018 9:01:02 GMT
A lot of the new bottled beers from small brewers are live, unfiltered. I bet new drinkers know more about dregs than the older mainstream drinkers.
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 27, 2018 9:50:42 GMT
A lot of the new bottled beers from small brewers are live, unfiltered. I bet new drinkers know more about dregs than the older mainstream drinkers. I also bet that there is a lot of interest to get the new drinkers and the older 'retired but still remember how' type craftspersons to explain everything they know to ensure the art-form of craft brewing is never lost. I dont know "enough", I know that, but what I do know, I am happy to make available, maybe I should sign up and help Wiki pages get more comfortable in the knowledge?. Edit some of the pages and supply extra information?.
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Post by the light works on Mar 27, 2018 14:26:51 GMT
A lot of the new bottled beers from small brewers are live, unfiltered. I bet new drinkers know more about dregs than the older mainstream drinkers. true, but we still have a lot of people who drink mass market beers and wines.
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Post by c64 on Mar 27, 2018 21:32:45 GMT
Germany's biggest Grocery Discounter doesn't sell any returnables at all any more. They sell everything in disposable plastic bottles. This is in fact better for the environment since returnables need to be shipped and cleaned which consumes more energy and oil (diesel) than you need to make a thin shelled plastic bottle. True, the common garbage/recycling isn't in the official equation but it shouldn't cause a significant impact in more energy consumption of recycling and garbage collection. Lets see, returning bottles where they came from, back on the return journey of the wagon that delivered replacements that would otherwise be empty space, is that a wasted journey?. Put that against the environmental impact of a Bin wagon taking the trash to a landfill dump that now has to do Extra journeys because it gets full quicker, and the extra space in that landfill, against either recycling glass in a separate bin that doesnt go yo landfill at all but goes back into bottled glass, or return to store to be re-used, and ask me, the landlord of the pub, that had a full car sized glass bin of NRB's as well as the returnable bottles collected each month, knowing that not one ounce of glass went to landfill back from the 50's-60's onwards when my Father and I were both in the trade back to when even my Great Gandfather was in the trade, and if you ask us what is better, returnable recycled makes less mess in landfill, and as at least half my weekly trash these days is plastic I didnt want in the first place, packaging that could be of a recyclable material, then I know what I would rather have. In the trade, washing sterilising and refurbishing returnable bottles takes less energy and time than making new glass. Now they can grind up the old glass quicker, its also less expensive, by product and environmentally, than plastic. The truck which commutes between the stores and the central warehouse is in fact almost empty on the return leg. The trucks which deliver the empty bottles back to the breweries or fountains can handle a different, unrelated cargo. Using computer networks, trucks almost never have to drive all of the return leg empty. Returnables made sense before the "internet age", but not nowadays! Also a plastic returnable is made out of more than ten times the plastic and can't be refilled often. Thin walled disposables can't be refilled at all. I am not sure how often (in average) a returnable plastic can be refilled but it is definitely far less than 20 times. Not much plastic to safe there. Glass returnable bottles can be used up to 50 times in average. But the weight of a returnable glass bottle is more than a plastic bottle with 50% more volume! A classic 1 liter glass returnable is heavier than a 1.5 liter plastic disposable. You can haul 50% more liquid with the same weight. And plastic bottles stack much better since they don't have to be protected against rough handling. So a truck can carry more than twice the volume of liquid compared to glass returnables. Also melting glass consumes an awful lot of energy. Imagine melting a glass bottle by burning a plastic bottle. You need a lot of plastic bottles to melt a glass one. Since most people think glass bottles can be recycled infinitive "for free" and guess it is greener than plastic, most discounters still sell glass returnables. The major discounter claims that it is better for the environment to sell disposables only and I never heard any credible counter argument.
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Post by mrfatso on Mar 27, 2018 21:56:12 GMT
That's true if you are only looking at plastics vs glass in terms of usage of energy, but the new part of the equation is the environmental damage done by plastic particles as those plastics break down.
These are entering the food chain and may cause damage to fish and ultimately us if we eat those fish, what the solution is I don't know.
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Post by the light works on Mar 28, 2018 1:21:58 GMT
That's true if you are only looking at plastics vs glass in terms of usage of energy, but the new part of the equation is the environmental damage done by plastic particles as those plastics break down. These are entering the food chain and may cause damage to fish and ultimately us if we eat those fish, what the solution is I don't know. also at beverage quality.
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 28, 2018 6:47:40 GMT
Also... Tea tastes better out of a Bone China cup, Beer tastes better out of glass. There are reasons, there are known answers, but beer in plastic tastes "different", and I aint too keen on that difference?.
Tea out of a Tin Mug, you know your camping out, but then, its tea, and any hot brew on a camp site is worth its weight in Gold right there right then.
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Post by the light works on Mar 28, 2018 11:28:05 GMT
Also... Tea tastes better out of a Bone China cup, Beer tastes better out of glass. There are reasons, there are known answers, but beer in plastic tastes "different", and I aint too keen on that difference?. Tea out of a Tin Mug, you know your camping out, but then, its tea, and any hot brew on a camp site is worth its weight in Gold right there right then. here, we've learned not to drink hot beverages out of metal containers.
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Post by kharnynb on Mar 28, 2018 13:25:14 GMT
with beer, even the shape of the glass does make a difference and it should be served in a correct shaped glass depending on style.
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 29, 2018 6:51:08 GMT
with beer, even the shape of the glass does make a difference and it should be served in a correct shaped glass depending on style. Careful there, a Pint is a Pint, and although there is the Lager glass with the etched bottom that keeps a head better than the usual pint glass "Sleeve", there is also "snobbery" that states only a certain glass should be used where there is no direct evidence that that glass is getter than another. Take Guinness, if it doesnt taste the same in one of their glasses and a usual pint glass, then your poring it wrong?. Otherwise, yes, Beer Wine Cyder and Spirits should have separate glassware, but two different beers will taste the same in the same glassware.
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Post by c64 on Apr 2, 2018 12:43:59 GMT
That's true if you are only looking at plastics vs glass in terms of usage of energy, but the new part of the equation is the environmental damage done by plastic particles as those plastics break down. These are entering the food chain and may cause damage to fish and ultimately us if we eat those fish, what the solution is I don't know. The problem with plastic in the environment is different! How would disposable plastic bags and disposable bottles end in the ocean? Who throws disposables into the ocean (or river) would do that with returnable plastic bottles as well. Returnables contain a lot more plastic so they would be worse! And what about the free shopping bags? I used them in trash cans, now I buy trash bags so there is no difference here. And who would take the bags back out after coming home to dump them into the environment? After emptying your bags out at home, you either reuse them or put them into the recycling bin. The plastic in the environment comes from many different sources which have nothing to do with our bottles or free shopping bags! There is the industry in poor countries with no environmental laws. They dump their waste into the ocean on purpose. Then there is the "trash Mafia" which collects recycling money from the governments and just dump the stuff into the ocean. And what is worse is your every day plastic trash you intend to dispose or recycle. Just look at any food packaging. Just unwrap a pack of bubblegum and you end up with tiny bits of plastic wrapping. No matter how carefully you are, some bits often fly away from the wind. And no matter how carefully you put them into an outdoor bin, the wind will blow a lot of them out. Same with your trash from your home. While collecting and handling the trash, smaller bits fall out of the truck or is blown off by the wind. We don't need a ban for free shopping bags or forcing bottles to be returned, a law to simplify packaging is needed.
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 3, 2018 7:43:20 GMT
The problem exists in countries that either have no recycling, or simply "Dont care", yes, confirmed, we here in the countries that DO care must teach them how, set example, and only send goods to them in trade that have recycled or bio-disposable packaging, and only accept the same in trade returns. If we simply refuse to allow goods from then in non recyclable containers, see how quick they change?.
And then refuse to sell to them anything that would be used in the manufacture of non degradable non returnable non recyclable materials.
Plastic bags?.. I suspect ban them completely and use tough p[aper recyclable materials instead. We CAN grow more trees....
Replanting the rain forest to keep up with world paper demands and doing it in a sustainable forestry way is a cash cow waiting to be milked.
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