And Slaters Go Plop

If you are a Christian you may boggle at the inanity of this. If, like me, you are not a Christian this will probably make as much sense as the musical manipulation we normally see in happy-clappy churches.

From RealBeer.co.nz:

SOBA, New Zealand’s consumer beer advocacy group, is excited about the April 1st release of Mac’s Brewjolais seasonal beer, and is looking to celebrate the event in style and en masse.

Mac’s Brewjolais is a beer which has been brewed annually by Lion Nathan at the old Mac’s Brewery in Wellington. It is brewed to celebrate the hop harvest, and uses freshly picked “wet” (undried) hops from Nelson late in the brewing process to impart their aromatic and distinctive notes to the finished beer. It’s a rare type of beer, and one that SOBA believes deserves recognition, particularly when brewed by one of NZ’s largest breweries who could be expected to opt for the ‘safer’ and more commercially viable styles of beer.

SOBA plans to show its appreciation for Brewjolais by organising a synchronised toast to Lion Nathan and the beer at all of the locations it will be served. SOBA members will descend upon the six Mac’s Brewbars around the country and raise a glass of the deliciously hoppy beverage to the brewers who make it, and the company which gives them the freedom to push the boundaries of beer a little.

The Mac’s brewery in Wellington where Brewjolais has been brewed is being closed down for economic reasons, with Lion Nathan citing higher costs involved in running the smaller scale brewery. This fact makes the 2010 release of Brewjolais bittersweet for beer lovers who fondly remember some of the excellent Mac’s beers to roll out of this brewery. While sad to see the brewery go, SOBA is optimistic that the beer will continue to be produced, and hopes its gesture will help convince Lion Nathan to continue production each year.

SOBA was formed in 2006 in order to increase awareness of and appreciation for flavourful crafted beers. The organisation is often perceived as “anti big brewer”, but in actuality is simply “pro good beer”.

If you appreciate a good beer and want to help celebrate you will be able to do so at one of the following locations:

Northern Steamship Co. – Quay Street, Auckland
Nuffield Street Trading Co. – Newmarket, Auckland
Neighbourhood – Kingsland, Auckland
Shed 22 – Taranaki Street Wharf, Wellington
The Vic – Trafalgar Street, Nelson
Poplar Lane – cnr Ash & Poplar Street, Christchurch

I’m going to be in Christchurch over the next few days and hope to get myself along to Poplar Lane. There will be a synchronised toast at each of these locations at 6pm tomorrow afternoon (Thursday 1 April).

Here is a follow-up from Sam Harris on much of the comment generated by his TED Talk on Science and morality.

“Why not read a book? Because it’s boring, that’s why” – Ellen DeGenerate

I gave Twitter a go and found that it’s too unreliable, too limiting, too shallow and too time-consuming. So, future tiny posts will be posted here instead of on Twitter and will be categorised as ‘bleats‘.

According to experienced homebrewers, temperature control during the fermentation is second only to sanitation (and perhaps healthy yeast). It’s been hot here over the last few months and I’ve been struggling to keep my fermentation temperatures down to a reasonable level by way of a laundry sink full of water with regular additions of slicker pads from the freezer. So, I went ahead and scored myself a full-sized fridge for just $30 on TradeMe (broken thermostat which I removed and hard-wired to permanently on) as well as a $100 TempMate from CraftBrewer in Australia.

The TempMate allows me to keep a constant 18 degrees (you can set the temperature to anything you like) for my ales by turning the fridge on when it gets too warm and by turning on a heading pad (not needed yet as it’s still too warm) when the temperature drops below that. The TempMate ships with very few instructions as to how to wire it up, and, given that the penalty for getting it wrong is possibly death by electrocution and also keeping in mind that if you are a home brewer you are likely going to wire it up yourself instead of consulting an electrician (undoubtedly with a belly full of beer like I did), I’ve decided to share my setup.

A caution: this is 240V mains stuff and cocking it up really can result in an untimely death so if you are going to do it yourself be very careful.

The best guide I could find was on the Melbourne Homebrewers website and I basically copied their setup so check them out.

From Ideal Electrical I shelled out a whopping $50 (I could buy almost two fridges for that!) for a fully sealed enclosure along with two unswitched sockets ($20) — one for the fridge and one for the heat pad — and cable glands ($7) to hold my power and temperature probe cables firmly in place at the back. All of the cabling came from an old computer monitor power cable which I shortened and divided up to make all of the cross connections as well as the main power-in lead. I used a drill, a hacksaw blade and a craft knife to create all the cut-outs and holes. It’s a thing of beauty and it works a treat. Now, to brew a batch of Ordinary Bitter on Saturday morning and keep the bugger at 18 degrees throughout fermentation!

(Here is an unobstructed close-up of the wiring)

A conversation I’ve felt needs to become commonplace…

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Keeping with the theme of quirks of the English language, here’s one courtesy of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct:

This one requires a lot of scene-setting, let’s start with,

Cats whom dogs chase like to eat mice.

which can be shortened to,

Cats dogs chase eat mice.

We can place the cats, dogs and mice in locations:

Christchurch cats Dunedin dogs chase eat Masterton mice.

What if there is no chasing or eating, just bullying?

Christchurch cats Dunedin dogs bully bully Masterton mice.

Why not make them all live in the same town?

Christchurch cats Christchurch dogs bully bully Christchurch mice.

Let’s only talk about cats who are bullied and who themselves also bully:

Christchurch cats Christchurch cats bully bully Christchurch cats.

Let’s move them to the town of Buffalo in the US:

Buffalo cats Buffalo cats bully bully Buffalo cats.

Swap the cats for buffalo instead:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo bully bully Buffalo buffalo.

And did you know that another word for ‘bully’ is ‘buffalo‘? Let’s do it:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

There, perfect sense.

This is likely to be familiar to many people. It’s about how the addition of punctuation can turn a seemingly nonsensical set of words into a technically correct sentence, usually with a story to go with it.

So,

There is not enough room between fish and and and and and chips

makes sense when I tell you that a shop owner is telling the signwriter that the words for his fish and chip shop are too close together:

There is not enough room between “fish” and “and” and “and” and “chips”.

Ok then, try to add punctuation to the following to make it make sense:

Jack while Joe had had had had had had had had had had had the teachers approval

Answer below the fold.

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