A parody of current politics; a spoof; if it doesn’t make you chuckle, I quit!
Guest post by Caleb Shaw
The beer institute has come out with its yearly figures, and I am sad to report that you people are slacking off. For the third straight year the United States has drunk less beer than they did the year before. As I will explain later, this has had a very bad effect on the environment, and especially the climate.
I am proud to say I am doing my part to help the climate. Here in New Hampshire we lead the nation in per capita consumption of beer. Some suggest this may explain the “Live Free Or Die” on our license plates, and also the fact we are the only remaining state where insurance companies have been unable to force adults to wear seatbelts if they don’t (bleeping) feel like it. In any case, we drink 43 gallons of beer a year. (That’s only an average. Some of us drink more.)
Three miles from my front door is the state line, and just across that imaginary line are a miserable bunch, living in the state of Taxachusetts. Those poor Flatlanders rank 41st, only drinking 26 gallons a year. (Amazingly, some even drink less!)
This likely explains why they are so tense and up tight down there. I wish they’d just relax and be honest, but instead they have to be this thing called “politically correct,” which seems to have little to do with just telling the truth. They like to say they have overcome their Puritan roots, however the truth is: They are so up-tight and Puritan, (about just about everything,) that they make Puritans of the 1600’s look wanton. After all, those old Puritans had masses of children; (Paul Revere had sixteen,) however the modern Puritans of Taxachusetts fret that having sex with the opposite sex might be a little bit…dare I say it…”homophobic.” I really think they need to quit taking their medications, and instead medicate themselves with a beer.|
They tend to get a bit haughty when I speak honestly. They feel I am some sort of Redneck. They tilt their noses skywards, and say, “While you drink 43 gallons a year, we only drink 26. Obviously you are ossified, whilst we are rational.” That’s how they get, down there in the Flatlands, with all their concern about statistics, facts and figures, and other bureaucratic number-mumbo-jumbo. However the Truth is surprisingly different from their peculiar view of reality.
For example, facts and figures show that no one in Massachusetts buys fireworks, for they are illegal. In New Hampshire fireworks are legal, so facts and figures show we spend an amazing amount, per capita, on stuff that goes up in smoke. Therefore a Massachusetts snob could state we are foolish to spend on what goes up in smoke, and they are far wiser.
The only problem with these facts and figures is that, when you look in the parking lots of our fireworks stores, not all that many of the cars have license plates that say, “Live Free Or Die,” on them. (They don’t say, “Live Taxed and Regulated,” but they do say, “Massachusetts.”)
Furthermore, if you climb a high hill and look south into Massachusetts, as night falls on the evening of Independence Day, it looks like the entire state of Massachusetts is breaking the law. If fireworks are against the law in Massachusetts, they are a nation of hypocrites, writing laws with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. (And it must now be stated that the Attorney General of Massachusetts, (supposedly the one upholding The Law,) is on record for stating a most amazing hypocrisy, (concerning illegal aliens,) “It is not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts.”)
They are a mysterious bunch, those Flatlanders.
However, to get back to my point, the facts and figures concerning fireworks do not include the fact thousands of people flee Massachusetts’ oppression to enjoy our freedom, and buy fireworks here in New Hampshire. In the same way, the facts and figures concerning the consumption of beer do not include the fact many in Massachusetts do some calculating, and even with the price of gas high, figure out it is worth their while to drive up here to buy beer, escaping the oppression of Massachusetts taxes.
Because I live on the border, and actually see, when I go to buy hooch, no parking places, due to cars from Massachusetts, and because I only want a six-pack but the people from Massachusetts are buying sixteen cases, I can even go so far as to suggest the people of New Hampshire do not drink as much as facts and figures show, whist the people of Massachusetts are all as drunken as lords. (It might explain their politics.)
What does this have to do with Global Warming?
It has to do with the fact it is silly to play games with statistics, comparing two abutting states and ignoring the fact people cross state lines.
Last spring, if you look at the temperature anomalies of the entire planet, you notice the entirety of the planet was cooling. Only in one spot was it warm: North America. However the media seized upon the microcosm of North America to blare political propaganda about Global Warming, ignoring the macrocosm of the cooling entirety.
This year the entirety is actually warmer, but the microcosm of North America has been colder than a witch’s bodily part, especially in Minnesota, which was near the center of last year’s warmth. However the response of the media has been deathly silence.
The media really needs to wise up. It is not merely the people of Minnesota who notice when a nice, warm spring is used to beat a drum of Global Warming doom and gloom, while the following spring, which is much more like doom and gloom to the people who actually endure it, inexplicably escapes notice.
What the media really needs to do is crack a beer. They need to stop being so politically correct, and so observant of political agendas, and instead to enjoy the lack of discretion that a beer makes possible.
This brings me, at long last, to how beer affects the Global Climate.
As some of you know, CO2 is not a major component of the Earth’s atmosphere. In fact, it is such a small part of the air we breathe that it is a bit amazing that plants, which depend on CO2 the same way we depend on Oxygen, do not suffocate. However we are asked to believe that this tiny, tiny part of our atmosphere can have humongous effects. Well, if it has such a humongous effect, despite being tiny, it is a bit like a tiny pebble that can start a huge avalanche, is it not? And, if such a tiny thing can have such a huge effect, so can another tiny thing, like the head on your beer.
After all, the head of your beer is mostly CO2. If a little pebble can start an avalanche, then whether you have one beer or ten could make a difference in the wheat crops. (It will definitely make a difference in your relationships with your boss, and also your wife, (occasionally one and the same,) but that is another matter.) If warming is a bad thing, then you should drink less beer and release less CO2. However the opposite might be true. We might be, (according to certain Russian scientists,) on the verge of another Little Ice Age, or even the next Real Ice Age. If that were the case, the fact you only had one beer, rather than ten, might be the pebble that tipped the tipping point, starting the avalanche of events into the next ice age. (You might think you don’t matter, but Chaos Theory states even a butterfly flapping its wings can matter.)
(I’ll know if you caught my drift, if I see you looking at the froth of your next beer in a rather owlish and overly serious manner.) Of course the people of Taxachusetts will not believe that this “tipping point” exists, unless I produce facts and figures. I can do so. The last winter was colder, and beer consumption in the northern hemisphere was way down. It is scientific proof: Less beer causes colder winters.
I will furthermore supply links.
Beer consumption is down in the USA: http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/americans-consume-63-billion-gallons-beer-annually
In the United Kingdom, consumption of beer in pubs has fallen by an alarming 50 million, (I repeat, 50 MILLION,) pints. http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2013/04/pub-beer-sales-fall-by-50-million-pints/
But we can depend on the Germans to drink beer, can’t we? Alas, apparently not. German beer sales have hit a twenty-year-low. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/german-beer-sales-decline-to-lowest-in-20-years-on-cold-weather.html
However the link to Germany provides a crucial factor. The reason Germans drank less beer was (supposedly) because the weather was colder.
Do you see how ominous this trend is!!!? If people drink less beer, the beer’s froth will produce less CO2, and less CO2 will make the weather colder, which will cause people to drink even less beer. It is a vicious cycle which, like a mere pebble starting the mighty avalanche, could freeze our socks off, with the onset of glaciers and an ice age which will plow Boston and Taxachusetts right off the face of the map.
The only way for you to prevent this horrible destiny is for you to drink more beer. Please do it. I know you hate beer, especially when the weather is cold, but I’m asking on bended knee. Your grandchildren are depending on you.
Per capita beer consumption as a paleo temperature proxy?
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
ENVIRONMENTAL SATIRE—CAN YOU HANDLE IT???
And here I was always told New Engllanders ate more ICE CREAM than other places! 🙂
The only important tipping point is where the bottle meets the glass…
Aaarghhhh…..beer floats, anyone? (Only in Taxachusetts, I suspect….)
Quick get a grant before someone else seizes on this beer inspired impending doom.
We will consider drinking more beer. After all, Hamlet said;
“Two beers or not two beers,
that’s no question.”
And the well-known song says:
“In Heaven there is no beer,
that’s why we drink it here.”
To which I would like to add:
“Downstairs there’s beer as well,
that’s why we go to hell.”
Be interesting to know whether changes in beer consumption in Mexico and Australia (the other big beer-drinking countries) are also showing up in the global warming meme.
I’m buying less beer these days, but that’s just because I’m brewing my own ciders (brewing beer is too much like work 🙂 ). I love watching the bubbling in the airlock, knowing I’m helping to contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere.
I visited the border between Denmark and Germany. On the Danish side were sex shops. So when I drove back I wondered what was in the German: tier upon tier of sweats.
I can understand the Danish sex shops … I still can’t understand why the Danes crossed the border to buy German sweats.
But the Irish have the solution to atmospheric CO2.
Irish mathematicians may have solved the mystery of why bubbles in stout beers such as Guinness sink.
Simulations suggest an upward flow at the glass’s centre and a downward flow at its edges in which the liquid carried the bubbles down with it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18247680
A Research Grant is being sought to investigate the viability of converting the Atlantic Ocean into Guiness.
If Australian beer consumption has gone down, the world has had it. :O
Hilarious!
Going to get another Golden Coldy before reading other posts.
*Burrrrp*
I see Mannian statistics in play here.
“In the United Kingdom, consumption of beer in pubs has fallen by an alarming 50 million, (I repeat, 50 MILLION,) pints.”
Not all beer is drunk in pubs. Since the smoking ban came in, pub trade has gone through the floor.
43 Gallons? Pah! Those aren’t even proper gallons. Roughly 35.8 imperial gallons. (Don’t tell that to the Texans) Less than 1 pint per day. Note that our (British) imperial pint is also larger than yours, ~1.2 to 1. Combine that with beer that contains measurable amounts of ethanol and it’s understandable that USAer visitors often become dazed and confused on their first visit to a British pub. 😉
Rest assured, there are many of us here in UK who are doing our bit for future generations.
Well, I was going to take the night off, but, Caleb, you talked me into! I’ll drink for the climate!!!
I’m tempted to say “I’ll drink to that” but I think I’ll get my coat instead.
Chukkel, chukkel…. sorry, i think I just may have been over-served this evening. Just love that Black Sheep Bitter. Hic.
If it saves only one life, it will be worth it!
As a budding zymurgist, I am doing my part. Plan to crack open my latest Irish Red creation tomorrow evening…
Some Warmista Geo-engineer will surely advocate making more beer, but not drinking it, thus capturing the evil CO2.
His great socialist idea has a simple flaw: “Beer can be created, but it can never be left undrunk”.
Enjoying a Lienies Honey Weiss now. Hope that helps.
“A beer a day
keeps the cold away.”
Bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats – can the WUWT store keep these in stock?
🙂
Bottom’s UP…..
Always glad to help a worthy cause.
Cheers (wink wink) Kevin
BEER! 🙁 Americans still drink BEER ?
Feckalong Cassidy do you people need to get up with the 21stCentury.
Drink LAGER boys n girls, its LAGER you need.
I’d shlike to know smore bout t’ etched widget, hick up.
I’ll lhave one for the grandkids……..Cheers.
I will drink a Baltika #9 to to help with the warming.
Lower Taxes AND more beer consumption!!!! I am sooooo out of Massachusetts!!!! Slide over everyone, I’ll get the first round when I get up there.
I saw a mention of Black Sheep, which makes me very happy because I have great memories of drinking a good bit of it at the Head of Steam, in the train station in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. But it also makes me very sad because there is nothing even remotely as good as Black Sheep here in Mississippi. *sigh* Life just ain’t fair.
But-but, according to Joe Romm, “global warming hates beer”. He said that the water, barley, and hops required for beer are already being disrupted by climate change, and will be even more in the future. Apparently, heavy rains in Australia and drought in England in 2011 hurt malting barley yields.
If only there was some way of stopping weather from happening, we could save the beer from ultimate doom. If we all put our heads together, I’m sure we can do this! Who’s with me?
Sadly, I no longer drink beer, even in a state with no sales tax, and the home of Budweiser and the Clydesdale horses (well, originally from Scotland).
This was indeed a timely post. I just stopped at the brew store today and purchased ingredients for another 5 gallons of Pilsner lager.
In a nod to the warmists, I will cut back on the priming sugar. Too much head just delays enjoyment of the beer anyway.
Traditional English beers are less fizzy than lagers, and are carefully poured so that there is a minimal head. This means that the CO2 they contain is absorbed by the drinker and does not enter the atmosphere.
Australian beers are much fizzier, so the CO2 escapes. This explains why Australia is so much warmer than the UK.
Since lagers are becoming more popular in Britain, we can expect to see Britain warming up.
(Some people have even taken to drinking Mexican beer, which consists mostly of CO2, and has neither taste nor body to hold the CO2 in.)
Let’s be clear and sober for a moment… even the most alarmist climate scientists who have a clue about the underlying thermodynamics know that CO2 causes a very small and fairly insignificant warming, on the order of 1 degree C for a doubling. So 1 degree for the doubling from 300ppm to 600ppm (we’re barely a third of the way there at 400ppm), and it would have to get to 1200ppm for the next 1C attributable directly to CO2.
The stories 350.org use to scare little children and their intellectually equivalent adults are all based on a theorized response of the climate to that stimulus (or ANY stimulus) that is dominated by strong positive feedbacks. In short, our world’s climate has been dangerously unstable for the last 500+ million years just waiting for mankind to infest the place with SUV’s and Al Gore’s bizjets to turn the place into a furnace.
Unfortunately, there are no instances of any natural perturbation of the climate that caused a positive feedback runaway heating, so they wrote computer simulations to show how bad it could be but these have also failed miserably to actually follow the climate changes since the AR4 snapshot.
Back to beer, and the Carlsberg Conspiracy. The Carlsberg Foundation, relying on the sales of Carlsberg beer for their evil excess cash, funded the SKY experiment of Henrik Svensmark and associates which paved the way for Jasper Kirkby’s CLOUD experiment at CERN to get its funding back after IPCC partisans managed to kill his original funding in the late ’90’s. Carlsberg obviously just wants to be free to let their Danish yeast farts to help boil the oceans away. Those reprobates even gave Neils Bohr a house next to the brewery, with free beer piped in, just for winning the Physics Nobel in 1922.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/11/28/for-winning-the-nobel-prize-niels-bohr-got-a-house-with-free-beer/
“[T]here are no oil companies funding my work, not at all. It sounds funny, but the Danish Carlsberg Foundation—you know, the one who makes beer—they have been of real support to me. They have a big foundation; in Denmark it’s one of the biggest resources for science. It’s because the founder of Carlsberg wanted to use scientific methods to make the best beer. It’s probably the best beer in the world, because of science.”
-Henrik Svensmark to Discover Magazine, 2007
The problem here in Minnesota is the proliferation of craft breweries such as Brau Brothers, it’s so much better than that St. Louis or Denver stuff, but then ya pay two dollar a bottle an ya know dat vee Scandiwhovians gots ta pinch da pennies, so we don’ drink so much as we used ta. But we enjoy it more. Calmly.
Roll out the barrel – The way the song goes.
Nobody with taste buds drinks lager, Wamron. I live in Australia but prefer to pay a premium to drink beer that has a taste rather than drink the gassy, tasteless ice cold muck that the Aussies consume. It amuses me that many actually have a preferred brand and will decry another brand that has the same bland taste.
As the recent add for Hobgoblin in the UK has it: “What’s the matter, lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?”
In the UK, lager sales are down while golden ale sales are soaring as lager drinkers try and wean themselves off lager and onto something with flavour.
Jeff says:
May 1, 2013 at 3:17 pm
“The only important tipping point is where the bottle meets the glass…”
I thought it was when the glass tipped to the lips……………….
It’s Stanley cup time in Canada! The brew goes down by the gallon. This causes all the hockey sticks to come out, eh?
I think one reason beer sales are slumping is because more people are learning how to brew their own. If people from Massachusetts will drive all the way up to New Hampshire to avoid taxes, they will also brew their own to avoid taxes.
Also the results can be surprisingly good. Your own cellar is the most micro of micro-breweries.
The best beer I ever had was way up in Golspie, in Northeast Scotland, back in 1970. I think they had some secret recipe, and a barrel in a back room. It seemed thick as cream, and you could stand up a spoon in the head. Served at room temperature, of course. When I got back to the states the beer seemed like rancid water.
I’m glad people appreciated my humor. I write this sort of stuff to decompress after reading other things that raise my blood pressure.
The way statistics are bandied about these days deserves ridicule, and to be spoofed. Thank God Steve McIntyre brings a little sanity to statistical analysis. If it wasn’t for his work at Climate Audit, I likely would have exploded into very small pieces many years ago.
Chad Wozniak says (May 1, 2013 at 3:22 pm): “Be interesting to know whether changes in beer consumption in Mexico and Australia (the other big beer-drinking countries) are also showing up in the global warming meme.”
Technically the consumption survey should include all carbonated beverages, alcoholic or not. So, for example, what’s going on with US soft drink consumption?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323783704578245973076636056.html
Uh-oh.
Here in New Zealand we have just had a hot dry autumn so Wellington (Beer Geek Capital) is trying to cool things off with a proliferation of boutique breweries with stouts, lagers and beers of all types. I don’t drink much myself but happy to be designated driver. Come on down and try some, for the planet.
“If people drink less beer, the beer’s froth will produce less CO2, and less CO2 will make the weather colder, which will cause people to drink even less beer.”
At what temperature does the “tippling point” occur?
Caleb, I think beer sales may be down due to many folks shifting to the hard stuff and or abstinence in this crappy economy here in the US.
I can attest that I have tried to move the stats on beer tonight while watching the NHL playoffs!
I would also attest that many where I am have also been working hard on the Methane count too 🙂
Reminds me of a movie I once saw,,,,,,,, Blazing Saddles?
~DocBud…….all you are saying is that beer drinkers are without a sense of taste! !Indeed, they are very often distasteful: Wobbling fat guts on stumpy legs who fart every five minutes.
Nor can you assess lager on the basis of Australian crap…I agree there, Fosters is awful fizzy guff.. like Budweiser.
You need to try a few of the dozens of French, Belgian, Dutch, German and other Czech flavours.
OMG! I’ve checked it, and made 3 graphs, and it’s TRUE! Lower beer consumption leads to colder weather! GASP! I think I need to write a FORTRAN program to do ‘infilling’ for the missing data of “Wine Coolers”…
😉
The only thing missing in this story is an (inverse) hockey stick graph which clearly links the reduced beer consume to colder temperature.
I was really enjoying this until I got to: “plants, which depend on CO2 the same way we depend on Oxygen, do not suffocate.”
Uh …. no. Plants respire just like us, using oxygen and producing CO2. The difference being they also produce food (sugar) and oxygen through photosynthesis using CO2 and (evil) DHMO. They NET produce oxygen and consume CO2. More accurately, plants starve without CO2, they do not suffocate; plants depend on CO2 the same way we depend on plants.
Gary asks wuwt soda? After shedding 60 pounds of body weight to get back to h.s. football defensive end weight… high fructose corn syrup is something I avoid. HFCS stimulates appetite much more than pure cane sugar, looking back. At least in my experience. Something with real juice and cane sugar I will drink, like Xing blackberry-grape or their tea, and not get a hunger feeling. Water from a real Ozarks spring is far better tasting now.
Cannot locate any Country Club Malt Liquor anywhere in the USA. Wuwt? Have to settle for a PBR. Pabst makes the CC, in batches I guess. Has a good taste for a stout Kickapoo juice. When you can find it.
Caleb, I can pay no higher compliment: I wish I had wrote this post. Plain genius.
Interesting, humorous, and well done, Caleb. But about those declining sales:
My mother was born early last century and experienced both Prohibition and the Great Depression. She knew something about drinking. Her motto was “Don’t share.” Thus, when the wee ones wanted a sip of her beer and reached for her glass she would slap our hand and tell us to “get your own d— beer.” Home brewing and stills were still common after prohibition but following the military action in Korea and the GI Bill there were very strong trends in the US toward urban living, disposable income, and large families. More beer was purchased rather than made – we went to a distributor for a 24 bottle case of 16 oz. Schmidt’s of Philadelphia. There were no grocery store sales.
The large number of children (a slow beginning in 1946 but peaking in the mid-1950s) became known as the “Baby boomers” (a demographic bulge) and this cohort has moved into late middle-age and retirement. The ‘46ers were age 62 in 2008. The varied activities of this group of folks as they grew included drinking a lot of beer.
Cans of beer became available in the mid-1930s but the first 16 oz. can of beer came in 1954 via the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company. Autos became more available. Deaths from drinking and driving went up. As they say, the rest is history.
Therefore, it is not surprising that maintaining beer consumption is going to be a problem as the boomers age. My age group – either called War Babies or ‘those that came before’ – may still follow our mother’s directive but find keeping up is ever harder and there are fewer of us daily.
I sense a cold one calling. Cheers.
What’s with you tonight Anthony. Another curve ball?
It all sounds rather logical, in fact, it is in practice.
Now for the model and abstract.
Good post Caleb.
Everyone needs something to believe in…
I believe I’ll have another beer.
Caleb Shaw
“However we are asked to believe that this tiny, tiny part of our atmosphere can have humongous effects. Well, if it has such a humongous effect, despite being tiny, it is a bit like a tiny pebble that can start a huge avalanche, is it not? And, if such a tiny thing can have such a huge effect, so can another tiny thing, like the head on your beer.”
Caleb,
I’m delighted to confirm that the EU’s SWAT-MaDw team (Shroud-Waving-Astroturfing-Trolls = Maniac Anti Deniers) have spotted your posting and this passing comment and scurried to report up the line.
As others have noted, proper beer will soon be phased out and replaced by fizzy and metallic tasting ‘lager’ – this is EU work in progress.
But I can reveal that Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action (sic), will make a major announcement about ‘tiny pebbles’ at her forthcoming keynote speech at the Europe Conference 2013 in Copenhagen, tomorrow.
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/agenda/agenda_en.htm#nj-d_2013-05-03_02
Highly paid Consultants have scoured Europe to find a suitable ‘beneficial crisis’ and found a ‘huge avalanche’ in a disused quarry in Central England. Not only had several hundred tons of rock fallen but it is feared that some Great Crested Newts may have been killed.
Disregarding the massively industry funded propaganda that the slope was unstable and couldn’t be stabilised without disturbing the love-lives of the fantastically rare and endangered newts (which live in their millions in Central England), computer models prove conclusively that this avalanche was indeed caused by a ‘tiny pebble’. Scientists confirm that things are, indeed, worse than we thought and point out that frost action due to global-warming-caused frosts, were making tiny pebbles even tinnier.
(Besides, no-one in Brussels has even heard of Rock Mechanics.)
In a major policy development, the World’s Media will hear our Great Helmsperson Connie’s announcement of the EU’s new Pebble Directive. This will immediately ban the tinniest pebbles across Europe. And also set up a Pebble Trading Scheme and impose taxation designed to ensure that small (but bigger than tiny) pebbles cost at least as much as medium sized cobbles. This will be incrementally increased by an army of dedicated Eurocrats, trained to talk cobblers, until any remaining stones cost at least as much as gold ingots.
This will greatly promote the trade in gold ingots which are far less likely to cause avalanches and disturb newts. And, indeed, Members of the Commission have, in a gesture of great self-sacrifice, agreed to safely store all gold ingots themselves and only charge quite a modest storage cost to hard-pressed EU taxpayers.
Other ingots will, it is hoped, become available to useful members of the press, national political leaders and selected bankers and hedge –fund operators.
In an interview with the Blessed Connie in her luxury penthouse, sipping best Eco-Fascist Vichy Water (although hers looked more like Vintage Champagne), she commented – “Again the EU Commission demonstrates it’s nurturing care for the Environment in general and Newts in particular. The Pebbles Directive will ensure that our grandchildren will grow up knowing that we have saved the Newts as well as the Environment and the Climate.”
/sarc
Drink hot mulled beer. Emits the same amount of CO₂ (while boiling, mostly), saves the planet, helps overcome peak beer, makes you warm & tastes delicious. Can you ask for more?
There is an important point missing in this essay. In UK we drink ALE which is not refrigerated but instead is kept pleasantly cool, normally in a beer cellar (i.e below ground level). As it is not refrigerated, when it is poured into a room temperature glass it starts to warm which causes it to outgas CO2 On the other hand the refrigerated lager which Americans (and Aussies, Germans, Dutch, Danes, etc.) drink is too cold to outgas CO2. Therefore it makes more sense to drink Ale not only for this reason but also Americans (and Aussies, etc.) drink their “beer” very cold so they cannot taste it! If they had to taste it they wouldn’t drink it at all!!
Back about 35 years ago a bumper sticker that was put out by one of the many Massachusetts government agencies said, “Make It In Massachusetts”.
A New Hampshire company came out with an answer to that sticker that said,
“Make It In Massachusetts
Spend It In New Hampshire”
A wife of an alcoholic in the Ozarks decided to scare her husband into quitting drinking once and for all. When he came home drunk she was waiting for him dressed in a Satan costume and making eerie, screeching and ghostly sounds. As he waddled through the door he said, “Who are you?”
“I am the devil.” She said.
“Shake hands devil. I married your sister.”
Steady on now. We don’t all want to go rushing into this excessive beer drinking lark together. That’s going to end up producing a hockey stick in beer sales. Then where would we be? Caleb Shaw would be plied with government grants and awards and I fear the temptation would be simply too much to resist.
We drink manly 20oz pints here in the UK not those girly 16oz ones you Americans drink.
Excuse me Mr. Shaw, or Caleb, but you state: “Three miles from my front door is the state line”
Given the size of your state, can’t every resident make that claim?
Beer consumption follows temperature, when it’s warm more people reach for a cold beer and when it’s cold people reach for a hot beverage.
Amazing. And a good laugh; but you can’t trust those Flatlanders one little bit…….”The only problem with these facts and figures is that, when you look in the parking lots of our fireworks stores, not all that many of the cars have license plates that say, “Live Free Or Die,” on them.”
Nope, they don’t do they. But what happens to all those unignited fireworks purchased by the Bostonians?
According to The Boston Globe, the FBI has said that the contents of the discarded backpack, allegedly thrown in the trash by Tsarnaev’s friends, include: fireworks, jar of vaseline, and homework sheet. That’s significant because, as CNN noted on air, vaseline can be used in making an explosive.
What they have yet to understand is that fireworks actually explode too.
Your shout. And make mine a “Little Creatures”.
In Chemistry, Beer is a solution!
RE: Sceptical Sam
Bringing up fireworks and the Marathon Bombers will take this post into far less humorous territory, but I’ll go there, just a few steps.
First, it is my understanding that Islam forbids beer. This may explain a certain up-tightness.
Second, there will likely be a moment to forbid fireworks, however better bombs are made of other stuff.
Third, it might be wiser to forbid welfare, for healthy and strong young men. Many is the time I found my thinking was improved by being forced to get some brainless job. Even working as a dishwasher was better than sitting around with writer’s-block, complaining that no one would support my “great art.” (It is sort of like making crazy people do basket-weaving in an insane asylum; it keeps the brains away from the crazy lines of logic.) When you pay welfare to a young man, and he is just sitting around, trouble is sure to come of it. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
By the way “Idle Hands” is a name of a Boston microbrewery.
This beer problem was solved along time ago I thought, in Tasmania in 1988.
Young Einstein
Albert Einstein is the son of a Tasmanian apple farmer, who discovers the secret of splitting the beer atom to put the bubbles back into beer.
http://youtu.be/q8ahVJ-7Bdg
RE: philjourdan says:
May 2, 2013 at 5:00 am
All tight, wise guy. New Hampshire isn’t THAT small. Lake Winnipesaukee is 21 miles long and 9 miles wide.
Does Texas even have a lake? (A natural one, I mean.)
I lived out in the four corners region for four years, and loved the landscape and the views. There are not many views like that in New Hampshire. However you can see more things walking five miles in New Hampshire than you see walking fifty out west.
Bigger isn’t always better, unless its a beer. (Some women might disagree.)
Caleb,
A better statistic may show your 43 gallons to be teetotalers. Take Whiteclay, Neb. and their 38750 gal per person ( although a couple may drink a little less)
See –
Just six hours from Denver is the town of Whiteclay, Neb. Its population: about 12. Yet in 2010, this tiny town sold 465,000 gallons of beer, enough for nearly 5 million 12-ounce servings. There’s no place in Whiteclay to legally consume beer, and state law prohibits its resale. So where is all that beer going? Just 250 feet from Whiteclay’s border is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Lakota people of the Oglala Sioux Tribe — population about 40,000.
It’s illegal to drink, possess, sell or transport alcohol onto the reservation. Yet Pine Ridge is drowning in beer: Alcohol abuse impacts 85 percent of families and accounted for 90 percent of arrests in 2008.
Read more: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is drowning in beer – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_20704990/drowning-beer#ixzz2S9WW5Nak
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@ Caleb says:
May 2, 2013 at 8:43 am
But it looks so SMALL on the map! 😉 (For the record, I am not a Texan, just from an average size state).
Young Einstein…one of the most imaginative comedies and also very funny!
philjourdan says:
May 2, 2013 at 9:21 am
@ Caleb says:
May 2, 2013 at 8:43 am
But it looks so SMALL on the map! 😉 …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is because NH is badly wrinkled so it looks smaller. Most of the miles are either up or down. (I lived in NH for several years)
As a brewer and driker of way more the COs average, I love watching those yeast produce tons of CO2. I wonder if all the tree huggers in colorado’s craft brew scene know how much CO2 they produce. It is beautiful.
Thanks Caleb,great satire, buy hey, who knew the mighty brew was responsible?
I had been blaming “it” on Somali pirates.
As a non-beer drinker, I don’t help to bring that stuff in the atmospher for joy of the plants that like that gas. But on the other side, Belgium probably has more breweries and unique types of beer than any other country in the world for the number of inhabitants. And we are home of the largest brewery group of the world, they even bought that non-drinkable Bud stuff that people in the US think that is beer.
Well, ever tried a Duvel or a Westmalle Trappist, then you know what beer is! See:
http://www.belgianbrewers.be/en/beer-culture/the-art-of-beer/beer-styles/
But even here, beer consumption is going down…
@ferdinand meeus – if you are not a drinker, how do you know Bud is not drinkable?
(I personally prefer the Czech Budwieser, but hey! What do I know? I only consume about 20 gallons a year. 😉
Caleb,
Back in ’92-93, I was a resident of Tax-a-chew-settes for almost a year, up near the New Hampshire line. I spent much of my free time exploring the back roads, mountains, and state parks in Maine and New Hampshire (Pawtuckaway!).
While there, I noted that the Massachusetts folks held the Maine residents in low regard, referring to them as ‘Main-i-acs’. The Maine folks, in an uncharacteristic diversion from their usual taciturn nature, referred to the Massachusetts denizens as ‘Mass-Holes’!
Alas, Caleb, a throat surgery back in 2005 left me unable to consume the barley pops at a proper New Hampshire consumption level. I can no longer ‘punch above my weight class’, as it were.
Still, I’ll hoist a pint tonight, to honor that cherished memory of Maine dialectic and your fine satire above! Cheers to both!!!
MtK
philjourdan says:
May 2, 2013 at 12:25 pm
@ferdinand meeus – if you are not a drinker, how do you know Bud is not drinkable?
As my wife drinks beer and I am not (which often confuse waiters when we order a beer and a coke or so), I always take one swig to know how it tastes (my problem is alcohol, not beer, probably since I got hepatititis as young child). At the origin of that habit: our professor of industrial chemistry, who was brewer engineer in his former working life. That made that we visited a lot of breweries, including the Trappist brewery of Westmalle, normally closed to outsiders.
The main difference between most Belgian beers and pilsner types is the way the fermentation goes: cold with yeast at the bottom for pilsner types and warm(er) and floating yeast for more tasteful beer types. Some, like the Trappist have a second fermentation of the unfiltered beer in the bottle, where yeast still is present at the bottom if you like to drink it and empty the bottle completely. That gives quite a lot of extra taste (with or without the yeast), you will never find in a pilsner type (which is always filtered clear)…
The main difference is that pilsner is very good if you are thirsty and need a fast drink, while our beers you drink slowly for the taste (also because some of them are really strong – 7-9% alcohol!).
@Fredinand – I am sorry for your situation. A terrible waste that you are unable to enjoy one of the life’s simpler pleasure. And yes, I guess the waiters will do a double take since your wife likes beer (so few women partake).
But I still prefer the German brews to the Belgium ones. However the next time I go out, I will order a Belgium brew and drink it to your health! Prosit!
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
May 2, 2013 at 12:09 pm
And we (Belgium) are home of the largest brewery group of the world, they even bought that non-drinkable Bud stuff that people in the US think that is beer.
Ferd,
Don’t lump all of us (USA) into that category! Many here in ‘The States’ refer to Budweiser as ‘clydesdale urine’. Another common term of endearment is ‘Butt-Wipers’.
You could spend a life time, attempting to sample all of the fine ‘small brewery’ beers, ales, stouts, meads, and hard ciders that are produced and consumed across the width and breadth of these United States of America!
MtK
Oh God!! I am soooo glad I wasn’t drinking anything (especially beer!) when I read your post!
That was funny, even here in the flatlands of Massachusetts.
Mac the Knife says:
May 2, 2013 at 3:04 pm
You could spend a life time, attempting to sample all of the fine ‘small brewery’ beers, ales, stouts, meads, and hard ciders that are produced and consumed across the width and breadth of these United States of America!
I know, once visited the small “New Belgian Beer Brewery” in Fort Collins, Co, as I was curious about the name (and in the passing bought some bread from the then “Belgian Bakery” in Boulder, as “standard” bread in Anglo-Saxon countries is only eatable if roasted – and even then… Now the bakers, family of one of the bakers in our village, moved to New Zealand):
http://www.newbelgium.com/home.aspx
Indeed some are knowing how to brew beer!
John West says:
May 1, 2013 at 7:25 pm
I was really enjoying this until I got to: “plants, which depend on CO2 the same way we depend on Oxygen, do not suffocate.”
Uh …. no. Plants respire just like us, using oxygen and producing CO2. The difference being they also produce food (sugar) and oxygen through photosynthesis using CO2 and (evil) DHMO. They NET produce oxygen and consume CO2. More accurately, plants starve without CO2, they do not suffocate; plants depend on CO2 the same way we depend on plants.
****************************************************************************************************
Thanks for the useful information, it’s good to know plants are helping to reduce the evil DHMO.
PS I love your salmon 🙂
Steve T
RE: DD More says:
May 2, 2013 at 9:17 am
“Caleb,
A better statistic may show your 43 gallons to be teetotalers. Take Whiteclay, Neb. and their 38750 gal per person ( although a couple may drink a little less)…..”
Great statistic. You caught my drift. I am going to use your example, next time I’m in the mood to poke fun at statistics.
Back between 1986-1988 I helped a Navajo write his autobiography, and lived out on the reservation. I also had friends on the Zuni reservation. Reservations struck me as strange places. In some ways they seemed like nations, in some ways they had the small-town flavor of rural towns in New England, but in some ways they felt like prisons.
In order to make ends meet, I worked a variety of jobs. One strange one involved washing returnable bottles, bottling wine, and delivering beer in Gallup, New Mexico. I saw a lot of the problems concerning alcohol on and near reservations, from several different angles. I saw some amazing abuse of alcohol, but also had some Navajo friends who were great fun to drink beer with, and who weren’t alcoholic. Some day, God willing, I’ll write a book about it.
I wonder if you know that the bubbles in Guinness stout go down instead of up? This is especially true in the usual Guinness glasses used in pubs. Physics at work.
As far as beer is concerned, I’m that butterfly.
As a displaced Louisiana native recently moved to New Hampshire to run an inn, it’s great to see that an independent thinker survives in my newly adopted state. Very few drank the climate change cool aid down south, most guzzle it in New England. I will stick to guzzling the beer, and I must say, the New England craft beers are fabulous.
RE: John B says:
May 2, 2013 at 2:13 am
“….Caleb Shaw would be plied with government grants and awards and I fear the temptation would be simply too much to resist.”
Sad to say this, John, but I’m afraid that is one temptation I will never have the chance to resist.
Thanks to all for their comments.