How long in advance do you need to order Westvleteren?

It seems you need to place an order in at least 60 days in advance of the time of pick up at the abbey.

  The abbey is located at Brouwerij de Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren, Donkerstraat 12, 8640 Vleteren, Belgium. But be warned: the abbey is not easy to find. When coming from Brussels, the recommended way of travel is by car, which will take an hour and a half. Traveling by bus is doable, but not recommended. You will find yourself taking connection to connection that could possibly rack up to about a nine-hour journey.

  Here’s the tricky part: if you are interested in buying this special beer, it is exclusive to the abbey and is only sold at two official sale points – the abbey and the visitor’s center. In order to get your hands on some of the world’s best beer is truly a delicate process. To acquire some Westvleteren, you must call the ‘beer phone’ and place a reservation 60 days ahead of time. The phone line tends to be busy with 85,000 calls coming in every hour. Once you finally get to talk to an individual at the brewery, you will give your license plate number and set up a date and time in which you can pick up your order drive-thru style.

  While these methods may seem extreme, the monks are ultimately striving to eliminate commercial and illegal resales. There should be no pubs or bars supplying Westvleteren, and if they are, that means it’s considered a ‘gray market item.’ If you really can’t wait the 60 days, the abbey also owns a café and visitor’s center called In de Vrede, just across from the brewery, where beer can be bought on the premises to drink right away. - Westvleteren, Belgium's Most Secretive Brewery

Customers are limited to one case per person (per license plate) per 60 days.

The beer phone for the Abbey of Saint Sixtus is (+32) (0)70-21-00-45.

Bierverkoop Trappist Westvleteren

Nota Bene: "The Westvleteren Beer Sale page only mentions that you cannot place another order earlier than 60 days after your previous one. It does not give any information about how long in advance the first order may be made." – Altbier is not Old Beer

To be safer than sorry, I would still place an order in 60 days prior to pick up, unless the first purchase can be verified to be obtained earlier than that!


How to best serve a Madeira that's been in the fridge for a few years?

Madeira is a fortified wine and very very sturdy. Pretty hard to ruin it.  I would not decant it but let it settle to the proper temperature. If you have it too cold you miss some of the flavor and too warm the alcohol is too prominent.

http://www.vinhomadeira.pt/Temperature-208.aspx

It is usually recommended that the wine be served at between 13 and 14º for younger wines while older wines, given their greater complexity, should be served at a temperature varying between 15ºC and 16ºC.


What happens if I drink buttermilk after 3-5 drinks rum or whiskey (60ml each)?

The acidity (ph) of ethanol is relatively neutral (roughly equivalent to water), so milk and creams will typically mix fine with ethanol. In fact, it's the basis of many popular alcoholic beverages, like and "egg nog" (which is a spirit, a whole egg, cream, and simple syrup), or the White Russian (vodka, coffee liqueur and milk).
Milk or cream-based beverages can become curdled, but it requires a high level of acidity (e.g. lime juice) to be introduced prior to consumption.  It's why the "cement mixer" shot becomes curdled (the combination of cream in the "Irish Cream" and lime juice). If you are not familiar, do not try to drink a cement mixer "shot", it is typically considered a really bad prank to pull on an unsuspecting victim. See "Cement Mixer"
Even though buttermilk is slightly more acidic than regular milk or creme, it's not enough to cause a reaction like curdling (unless you add the aforementioned high level of acid). Plus, milk already curds somewhat on its own in the stomach.
There is a popular myth that drinking buttermilk (or regular milk) prior to alcohol consumption has preventative benefits (i.e. "hangover cure"). However, there is no scientific evidence that supports the claim that drinking any type of milk (even buttermilk) before consuming alcohol does anything to stave off or reduce hangovers.
Conversely, it is well known that alcohol consumption slows digestion and reduces the absorption of nutrients, especially those found in milk. This is because alcohol reduces the secretion of digestive enzymes, which are what break down food in the stomach, including milk proteins and sugars. Alcohol also increases acid levels in the stomach, but it doesn't typically cause major negative side effects when consumed in moderation unless there is already another medical factor present.
High levels of milk or creams, followed by excessive alcohol intake can produce effects similar to lactose intolerance because the milk sugars are not digested well and move into the intestines. Once excess sugars are in the intestines, the bacteria there consume the sugars and produce large amounts of gas. High levels of sugar in the intestines also cause more-than-normal amounts of water to be drawn into the intestines...a.k.a. "diarrhea".
As long as you aren't eating cheese curd sandwiches, made with flourless (i.e. all-cheese) cheese bread, with 5 slices of cheese and cheese soup, followed by high levels of alcohol, you should be fine.  Moderation with all things is the key.
Note: If you are diabetic, you run the risk of much higher levels of milk sugars going into the intestines and should consult a physician, because prolonged sugars in the intestines and stomach can lead to gastritis or even ulcers.


What is the max ABV that can be attained with instant yeast?

For fermenting with bread yeast most sources cite an average yeast alcohol tolerance of 13-14% AbV.  Obviously bread yeasts vary between manufacturers.

There are numerous other factors influencing attenuation, some common ones are:

concentration of sugars in the juice / must / wort
amount of yeast used
fermentation temperature

If your intention is to make quality wine, then it would be best to purchase a small amount of a purpose-bred wine making yeast, and grow it up into an amount large enough to ferment a batch.  Before pitching the yeast into the wine, reserve a small amount to grow up for the next-batch.  This method requires the least cost, but still ensures the yeast-type is appropriate for the beverage.

If you are making a "country wine" (fermented fruit juices, ginger "beer", flower-flavoured water+sugar, etc.) then bread yeast will be OK, but you would need to experiment to get the pitch correct.  For a rough idea, on a beverage that would ferment out to ~14% I would start with 40 grams* of dry bakers yeast into a 20 litre batch.

I strongly advise you to purchase a hydrometer so it's possible to monitor the performance of the fermentation.  Do this by taking a reading before pitching the yeast, and during fermentation.

My reasoning on this is the original gravity to produce this amount of alcohol would be quite high, say 1.1 SG / 23 Brix.  If this were beer, a pitch rate like this would be in order, and was verified with a pitch-rate calculator online.


What means to adulterate and why is it so dangerous?

To adulterate means to dilute or debase a substance. So adulterated schnapps means schnapps with something added in. Much like cocaine cut with flour, that something need not be a similar substance, but is likely to be something cheap.

It gets worse when this adulteration is "off the books", because it means that a company can pass one product with the relevant consumer authority, then turn around and add whatever they want into it. That stuff might end up poisonous.

As you can see, it's rightly considered a crime:


Craft/micro brewery in Saarland, Luxembourg and Lorraine region?

First of all... you must know in this regions there is a laarge tradition with beer, so microbreweries are not as usual as in other regions, because there is a lot of abbeys and old factories that made beer in a traditional way. That tradition gives us really good beers, what makes microbreweries less usual than in other regions like Spain or Italy or center-south part of France where comercial beers are a real shit ;).

That's why I will make not only a microbreweries list, but also places where you can find craft and traditional beers of each region.

Also, feel free to check this map I made where you can find some Bretagne (France), Flandes (Belgium) and some Italian (Roma), Home/micro-breweries, Abbeys, Factories, Brasseurs and Bars :) related.

Saarland

Here and here you can find more Saarland breweries.

Walsheimer Sudhaus Microbrewery
walsheimer-sudhaus.de
Facebook: walsheimbrauerei
info@walsheim-brauerei.de

Neufang's Brauerei
Dudweiler Landstraße 3-9,
66123 Saarbrücken.
http://www.neufang.de/

Grosswald Brauerei - Bauer
Grosswaldstrasse 132,
66265 Heusweiler.
http://www.grosswald.de

Hochwälder Braugasthaus
Zum Stausee 190,
66679 Losheim am See.
http://hochwaelder-brauhaus.de/

Homburger Brauhaus Karl-Heinz Wierz Saarpfalz-Center
Talstraße 38,
66424 Homburg.
http://www.homburger-brauhaus.de

Luxembourg

Here and here you can find more Luxembourg breweries.

Brasserie Simon
rue Joseph Simon 14,
9550 Wiltz.
Homepage: http://www.brasseriesimon.lu/
Annual production: 23,000 hl

Brasserie Bofferding
Bd J.F. Kennedy 2,
4901 Bascharage.
Email: direction@bofferding.lu
Homepage: http://www.bofferding.lu/

Go Ten Café
Type: Bar (6 taps, 8 bottles)
10, rue du Marché-aux-Herbes
Luxembourg, Luxembourg L-1728
+352 26203652
www.goten.lu

Liquid Café
Type: Bar (6 taps 25 bottles)
15 - 17, rue Munster, Grund
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
+352224455
www.liquid.canalblog.com

Lorraine

Finde here a list of breweries and brewers (is a France one, but you can search for cities like Metz) and here a list of brasseurs (traditional beer producers in france).

Bière de Metz
Rue de la Fontaine à l Auge
Jury, France 57245
(3) 87 63 83 41

Bière Artisanale Lorraine L’Epitaphe
40, rue de France
Blénod-Lès-Pont-À-Mousson, France 54700


How safe are eggs in cocktails like fizzes?

According to a USDA report, a study done in 2000 showed that of the estimated 47 billion eggs consumed in the U.S. annually, 2.3 million of them were estimated to be contaminated by salmonella, leading to approximately 240,000 illnesses.  So, if my math is correct, for any given egg, you have something like a 1 in 100,000 chance of getting one that has salmonella, and the chance of getting ill is somewhat less that that...Somewhere between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in a million.

So, relatively low risk, I'd say, assuming that the global numbers are at least on the same order of magnitude as what we see in the U.S.

That said, there is a way to reduce the risk even further...Nearly to zero.  That is to use pasteurized eggs.  Most shell eggs sold in the U.S. are unpasteurized, but you can find pasteurized shell eggs, and the pasteurization process does quite a good job of killing salmonella, and so these eggs are highly recommended in any concoction that requires raw, or undercooked eggs.


And, according to English Wikipedia and its source (ref. [26]), you may be right:

  Busch Bavarian Beer was introduced in 1955 on national TV. Busch Beer was originally sold in the South, Midwest, and Mid-Alantic regions of the U.S.


I think any beer that has already been shipped around the world can probably take a week at slightly elevated temperatures. I don't think a week is going to hurt it, but a couple of months might. Relax and enjoy it!


Did everyone drink beer in the middle ages?

Beer was commonly drunk in the middle ages (and renaissance), but what they drank is different from the beer we're used to today.

Beer and ale, being grain-based, were important dietary staples -- it's said that beer is liquid bread, and that's not far off.  For the common man (not nobility), in particular, grain made up a substantial part of the diet, with meat being fairly rare.  (Will try to update later with a friend's research on amount of grain/household consumed in medieval England, but it's substantial.)

Common beer was not aged for months or years like some beers today; rather, a batch might be produced in as little as half a week.  These are "small beers" (or "small ales", for the unhopped variety), which are mildly alcoholic but drinkable in volume without unfortunate effects.  These small beers/ales were produced in the home/manor; it was just one more task for the cooks.  (See, for example, Markham's The English Housewife, 1615 -- so that's rnnaissance not medieval, but is consistent with earlier cooking sources I've seen.)

I'm not aware of exceptions being made for pregnant women and small children.  Arguing from absence of evidence is risky, but I've worked with a variety of medieval and renaissance cookbooks and the occasional medicinal source, and I haven't seen anything along the lines of "drinks for the pregnant and young".

You may find the following helpful:

discussion of Elizabethan homebrewing
Wikipedia article on ale and Wikipedia article on small beers
research/recreation notes on 13th/14th C beer, which also cites Judith Bennett's book Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England


What style of lager is Corona? And what other beers are similar?

The BJCP classifies Corona Extra as a Premium American Lager, being, clear, yellow, not hoppy but with a little more body than a light.

Assuming 'dry' isn't some radically different beer, the category would probably still be correct. BJCP draft guidelines (not official) consider putting Asahi Super Dry and Corona Extra in  2A 'International Pale Lagers' which is 'Loosely derived from original Pilsner-type lagers....'

1MB PDF if you want to read the draft.


Apps for recording variety of beers consumed

I would suggest the app Untappd. It gives you an opportunity to comment on beers and include pictures and locations. You can even earn badges that notate various "beer achievements".


The short answer is - "It depends, probably not".

Bottles are usually rated for Volumes of CO2.

Champagne bottles are typically rated for 7 volumes.
Wheat beer bottles should take around 5 volumes.
Ales/Lager beers are normally carbonated at 2-3 volumes.

However, flip-top bottles (I assume you mean the ones with the rubber seal) are produced in both CO2-rated and cheap un-rated beverage bottles - found in supermarkets.

As you say 1.044 is quite high - plenty of beers start around that point.  This could generate a lot of CO2 (> 15 volumes) if it fermented out.

The actual CO2 volume calculations are discussed in another answer.

It might be better to transfer the mead to PET(plastic) bottles, and store them in a safe location.


Can you order beers by strength of flavour?

I think you'd have trouble with this because of different dimensions of flavor.  Beer has a very complex flavor and different recipes are different.  One can order beers (if specific enough to include a brand) along any dimension of flavor, but I am not sure that you can order them consistently along all dimensions.

Here are dimensions I would think of:

Malty/caramel
Hop-forward
Bitter (Hops)
Yeasty

It isn't clear to me how one rates strength of flavor between an IPA and a porter for example.  So I think the answer here is a simple "no, you can't."


Impact of bottling in plastic on beer taste

Provided all the bottling equipment was properly sanitised (which you'd hope was the case for commercial beer), you shouldn't notice any impact on the taste of the beer.

That said, plastic bottles do not provide as good a seal as a crown sealed glass bottle.  If you store the beer for long enough (say six months to a year), a plastic bottle will have lost some of its carbonation.  If you stick to the "drink by" date on commercial beer though, this shouldn't be a problem.


What temperature is ideal to store my beer?

The ideal temperature for storing beer is between 10 to 15 ˚C (50 to 59 ˚F). If you are planning to preserve your beer for several years, it is better to have an even lower temperature of about 4 to 10 ˚C (40 - 50 ˚F).

A cold cellar is ideal to preserve your beer as a humidity of about 60% - 65%. The reason being that it can affect the airtightness of the cork (or cap). Dry corks are bad for preserving beer as they will tend to break down and cause wild yiests or bacteria to enter the bottle (which would render the beer undrinkable).

And as commented by Grohlier:

Remember, light can drastically affect beer. Darker bottles can withstand more light than their green and clear counterparts. However, light is not good for beer in general, even if it is stored at the appropriate temperature.


How common is Guinness with a Smithwicks head in Ireland?

As Anon mentions above, you're probably thinking of Smithwick's with a Guinness head, rather than the other way around — Guinness has a creamier head, which I think is the reason why people order it.

It is not, by any stretch a Black and Tan — and yes, the name would be seen as offensive by most in Ireland and I have never heard ordered by locals (this is a sure way to spot a tourist) — which, as far as I know, is normally made with a larger or pale ale (Smithwick's is a red ale), and whose ratio is more like 50:50. It would look something like this:

Smithwick's with a Guinness head is just that — the proportion of Guinness in the drink is just the head, i.e. maybe a inch on the top of the glass. The pint of Smithwick's is poured as normal, with a small amount of Guinness added at the very end, which sits on top of the pint giving it a head of stout. Adding too much Guinness at this stage will cause the beers to mix, and will ruin the pint.

Can't find a picture of it, but it will basically look like a pint of Smitwick's with a creamer (look and texture) head, and taste as such.

As a barman in a country pub for a couple of years during college, I had a couple of regulars who used to order it. It's not particularly common, but neither is it unusual — any barman should know what you want and be able to serve it.


Is there a way quantify beer flavour characteristics?

Wikipedia has an entire article on beer measurements. The main truely quantitative measure of taste I'm aware of is the International Bitterness Unit or IBU. Wikipedia has a section which describes the IBU. Of course there are other quantitative measures like alcohol by volume that while not exactly taste give some value in assessing a beer. I've also seen specific gravity reported, but this isn't very common in my experience.
Beer Advocate provides user reviews of beers where the beers are assessed numerically based on look, smell, taste and mouthfeel on a 1 to 5 scale. Although these are based on opinion, with enough reviews a useful amount of user feedback is obtained and quantified (to two significant figures).


Why do some people put olives in their beer?

Apart from the obvious reason, because they can, they seems to be couple of reasons for this.

Some individuals actually enjoy doing it.
Olives are paired quite nicely with some varieties of beer.
For some it is a sort of tradition: beertini.
It is part of barroom culture in the Midwest.

  Olives still have that much needed salty taste which keeps us thirsty and makes our beer that much more appreciated, and with so many varieties of olives available they make pairing with some great craft beers a perfect choice! And with olives being used in cocktails for decades why wouldn’t they work with beer? The key is finding the right match.

  Through some experimenting with various olives and types of beer, I came to one conclusion, and that was to not go any darker than an amber ale. Beers like stouts and deep IPA’s when tasted with olives felt a little bitter. The hops seemed to be competing with the olive and maybe the brine but anything lighter than an amber ale was really tasty!

  Here’s how some of my favorite Delallo olives ended up being a good pairing with five varieties of beer.

  Calamata Olives + Belgian Ale

  These are popular olives usually from Greece with a smooth skin and chewy bite to them. They’re definitely on the milder side for flavor and went really well alongside a light and crisp Belgian ale. Belgian beers are know to include spices in the fermentation process which also goes well with the olives.

  Piccante Green Pitted Olives + Hefeweizen

  Piccante means spicy and these Sevillano olives are combined with red pepper flakes. Although the olives aren’t too spicy I needed a beer that would tame the heat but still let the olive taste come through and Hefeweizen does that perfectly. The beer is crisp and should be served well chilled. This is the perfect snack pairing for a warm summers day!

  Castelvetrano Olives + Saison

  These Sicilian green olives are buttery and smooth with a soft bite and a mellow flavor. Pairing them with a light and fruity Saison made perfect sense. Saison’s are not that common amongst the rest of the belgian wheat beers but they have a distinctive crisp and fresh summery taste, making them a great pairing choice with the Castelvetrano’s.

  Olives Jubilee Mix + Red Amber Ale

  Because this mix consists of Kalamata, Picholine and green olives marinaded in savory spices, the choice for beer had to be a bold one but not as strong as a dark stout. Tasting these spiced olives with a red amber ale seemed to cut the happiness of the beer and elevate the spices in the olives. This pairing was probably the boldest of all of the combinations but still really tasty.

  Aglio Green Pitted Olives + Pilsner Lager

  Italian green olives with a texture much like the Castelvetrano’s but covered in chopped garlic pieces. The garlic isn’t overpowering and pairs well with a light Pilsner Lager. Some people might say this kind of beer isn’t very exciting. It’s really light but it lets the garlic shine through from the Aglio Olives. This is one for quick picnic on a hot summers day. Throw down a blanket and enjoy! - Olive and Beer Pairing Guide

Putting an olive in a glass of beer has become known as a beertini.

  At first glance, the “Beertini” is the ultimate dad joke—something that a sitcom father would facetiously claim as his favorite drink after overhearing someone order an Appletini. His flannel-shirt-wearing buddies would all chuckle and eye-roll as they clinked their mugs together, happy with their classic, no-fuss beer selection.

  In certain pockets of the Midwest, though, the combination of beer and olives known as the Beertini (also called the Minnesota, North Dakota or Wisconsin Martini, depending on where you’re located) is not only very real, but is deeply engrained in barroom culture.

  In its most elemental form, the Beertini is a drink and bar snack in one. The way a drinker preps his or her Beertini relies both on what’s available and on individual taste: a canned beer or a draft beer can be used, as can a stein or a lager glass, and the olive count can range from just a few to a whole bowl if the spirit moves you. Beertini-crafting is a trial and error process.

  What the drink lacks in a colorful origin story (no one quite knows—or, frankly, cares—where the first Beertini came to be), it makes up for in simple best practices. Craft beer varieties need not apply and the olives can only be green, the kind most often found swimming in their own juices on dusty bar tops. Want to get wild and use a pimento or blue cheese-stuffed green olive? Not a problem. Try to drop a black olive in your beer, though, and watch the room raise a collective eyebrow.

  The olives—and, often, a splash of olive juice—brighten up the beer, spotlighting how the humblest of ingredients can become the perfect odd couple. They also offer a charming lesson in barroom chemistry. When plunked into a glass of beer, the olives neither settle at the bottom nor lollygag around at the top of the glass. Instead, they bob up and down, sinking and rising like tiny, edible submarines. It’s downright hypnotic.

  Travel a little further down into South Dakota, and you’ll encounter a variation unceremoniously dubbed “Red Beer” (sometimes known unappetizingly as a “Bloody Beer”), which calls on both olives and tomato juice to brighten up a standard lager. The addition of tomato juice draws parallels to the Michelada—minus some of the spice, of course. But no one is quite sure if the two share a common ancestor, or if it is, perhaps, a case of multiple independent discoveries in the same vein as calculus or the theory of natural selection.

  There also seem to be an almost infinite number of permutations and combinations for the way Red Beer can be crafted. Several people suggest swapping out the tomato for orange juice if it’s before noon to create a “poor man’s Mimosa,” while others claim the more olives you can plop into the glass, the better. A few even prefer the additional crunch of a pickle.

  Weber estimates you can find Red Beer (or a Beertini) in just about every single neighborhood bar across South Dakota, but seems less optimistic about the drink’s ultimate future. Craft breweries have been frothing up all over the Midwest for years now, supported largely by a boom of millennial enthusiasts, while Beertinis and Red Beer are the barroom hacks of a former generation.

  But it’s hard to imagine olive-speckled beer steins disappearing anytime soon. The practice is, after all, a true testament to the creativity of Midwestern drinkers and their spirit of brassy, briny industriousness. - How the Beertini Became a Midwestern Staple

Some bars in Spain serve olives as a bar snack, so it seems beer and olives are a little more commonplace than simply just the Midwest!


Alternative corks vs natural corks. What is the difference?

Let's start with what are Nomex corks and what are natural corks.

  Nomex is a registered trademark for flame-resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967.

  Nomex and related aramid polymers are related to nylon, but have aromatic backbones, and hence are more rigid and more durable. Nomex is the premier example of a meta variant of the aramids (Kevlar is a para aramid). Unlike Kevlar, Nomex cannot align during filament formation and has poorer strength. However, it has excellent thermal, chemical, and radiation resistance for a polymer material.

"Nomex corks" for wine do not exist. In fact "Nomex cork" material is used as a gasket material for engines and the like. I believe you are thinking of rubber corks.

Natural cork comes from the outer bark of the cork tree.

  Cork is produced from the sponge like material taken from cork oak trees, also known as Quercus Suber. Cork oak trees are grown primarily in Portugal. Cork started to become the sealing material of choice in the late 1600’s when it became possible to create glass wine bottles with an almost uniform shape and design. It took until the late 1700’s to create easy to use corkscrews for the wine lover or tavern owner. At that point in history, cork replaced glass wine stoppers, which while they worked well, glass stoppers were not easy to remove without breaking the wine bottle. The pairing of the cork and wine bottle ushered fine wine into the modern age, as from that point forward, wine had the ability to age and evolve in the bottle. Interestingly cork and fine wine share another commonality. The cork, oak tree needs to be at least 25 years old before the material used to create the cork can be harvested. This is similar to the age of vines in many of the world’s best wine regions. While grape vines are harvested every year, cork trees are only able to be harvested once every nine years. - Wine Corks Everything You Need to Know About Wine Corks

Alternative wine closures or corks can be seen here and many are known as rubber corks and plastic corks:

  Alternative wine closures are substitute closures used in the wine industry for sealing wine bottles in place of traditional cork closures. The emergence of these alternatives has grown in response to quality control efforts by winemakers to protect against "cork taint" caused by the presence of the chemical trichloroanisole (TCA). - Alternative wine closures (Wikipedia)

There are pros and cons to using of all types of corks.

  The problems with synthetic corks is the lack of a perfect seal. In turn that allows more unwanted air into the bottle, causing the wine to oxidize. Worse, many of the synthetic corks have been known to impart a slight rubber or chemical smell, damaging the wine. Beherns and Hitchcock, a producer of Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa California was one of the early proponents of plastic corks. Most of the wines bottled using those synthetic corks have not developed well. Many of those wines are defective. However, today, they have improved since their initial creation. Because the plastic corks allow air to integrate at a faster pace than normal corks, some winemakers actually prefer it. In fact, that has become part of the selling point as the corks can be ordered to allow for a more or less rapid transmission of air into the wine, based on the tightness of seal.

  Wine corks do however have problems, the major issue being infection with TCA, which causes what is known by wine collectors and others in the wine business as Corked Wine. Corked bottles of wine remains a serious problem in the wine industry as many people think that it effects between 5% to 10% of all wine undrinkable.

  The old saying that nothing lasts forever is especially true with wine. When a wine cork degrades, so does the wine, due to additional exposure to air, which in turn causes premature oxidization. Before that happens, for rare and expensive bottles, it might be possible to replace your old cork with a new wine cork. This is something you cannot do at home on your own. For more on replacing your wine cork, Everything you need to know about Re-Corking wine bottles.

  Corks have been the undisputed choice to seal wine bottles for hundreds of years. But with all the alternative enclosures available these days, by 2016, it is estimated that only 70% of all wine bottles today are sealed with natural corks. Still, at the end of day, it is unlikely corks will be replaced as the sealer of choice for the best wines. In part, there is the romance and tradition of removing the cork, coupled with that special popping sound that lets you know, you are about to drink a wine and that is something technology cannot improve on. - Wine Corks Everything You Need to Know About Wine Corks

Although natural cork is more eco-friendly, they are s slightly more expensive than their counterparts.


Selling/buying limited edition beers online

It is not legal to ship alcohol(beer, wine, or spirits) through the mail across state or national lines unless you have a license. This has to do with each state wanting to get it's tax revenue for the imported alcohol.

That doesn't mean it's not done, it's just less likely for a site that wants to stay in business to allow transactions that would result in it.

I have friends that are part of "exchange programs" that are on various forums. There is a "beertrade" sub Reddit for example.


From the looks of it they sell their beers on rotation in their own bottle shop:

We are just a humble micro brewery producing small batches of beer. Often times people develop a love affair with one particular beer (Roman Candle fanatics tend to be the most assertive!), but we brew over 50 styles in a year! With only 9 fermentors this ultimately means that availability works in ebbs and flows. If your favourite beer isn’t on draft or in the bottle shop, this gives you a chance to experiment with something new. We promise, there are no wrong choices.

They are available in some restaurants and bars in Toronto (they don't have a list of which ones those are on their website), however this doesn't help you in the UK.
They don't ship, and they don't seem to have any links to a proper distributor (from the sounds of it on their website, they sell everything they can make in house already). The relevant bit from their FAQ there:

Do you ship to other parts of Canada? The US? Jupiter?
At this point no. There’s no legal way to ship beer to an individual. Stay tuned for an online retail store where you’ll be able to purchase merchandise. Aliens, be damned!

Looks like your best bet is to head back to Toronto and hit their bottle shop. That's not too far of a drive from the UK...right?


Do growlers of different materials have a tangible impact on flavor?

The biggest impact tends to be the color of the container. Green and clear bottles let in more of the harmful light that spoils the beer. The darker the container, the better.

Plastic also lends itself to being scratched if re-used (which most growlers are). Even powdered cleaners with soft cloths can scratch the plastic (if the cleaner isn't disolved well enough) and make grooves where bacteria can sit and ruin future beers.

While it isn't the only choice: Dark Colored, glass growlers that have an air-tight seal would be the best for longevity sake.


What beer is really bitter, but has a fantastic aftertaste?

For really bitter, a double/imperial IPA is the way to go. For the big bitter hop flavors, check out some of these: Stone Ruination IPA, Port Mongo IPA, Russian River Pliny the Elder, Lagunitas (pretty much any of their hoppy beers), Southern Tier 2XIPA, Cigar City Jai Alai. Many more to choose from depending on your location. Maine Beer Company and Kane Brewing are two of my favorite small breweries on the east coast.

As Pepi mentioned, sour beers are certainly very interesting. A great start into the world of sours would be the Oud Bruins -> Monks Flemish Sour Ale, Rodenbach Grand Cru, or Liefman's Goudenband. These will run your a little more $$ but are super refreshing and really great to sip on. They open up and change flavor that longer you leave them out.

Cheers.


Is non-alcholic beer nothing else than unfermented wort?

No, it is fermented to break down the sugar; otherwise it would be very sweet and sugar cannot be cooked off. After fermentaton is complete, the alcohol is removed. Note that most NA beers do actually contain a small amount of alcohol: < 1%.


Is there a universal resource to decipher beer production codes?

TLDR answer: Unfornately, no.
From my own experience, this varies a lot from company to company. It also depends on country's legislation or even the state, when it comes to USA. As far as I know, expiring dates for beers are even not obligatory by law in many american states.
Besides that, some breweries inform the bottling date, others the expiration date, which is less useful, because if you are a experienced drinker you know how old (or not) you want your beer to be, despite what the producer has estimated for it. So, in those cases, first you need to figure out the given shelf-life of it, and count backwards, to know when it was bottled. Pretty messy. I age beers and I'm quite used to it.
So, in general, when that information is not clear, your best (and maybe only) friend is the web - the brewery's website or forums.
For example, Anchor Brewery has a very particular (and weird) code standard for bottling date, but it is well explained on their website.

The date code currently being used by Anchor Brewing Company (post-October 1991) replaces the clock-face that used to show the bottling month as one of 12 small notches around the main label. A three character code is now included on the new back label of the bottle. The code works like this:
The first character is always numeric and represents the last digit of the year. The second character is always alpha and represents the month by using the first letter of the month unless that letter has already been used:
January: J, February: F, March: M, April: A, May: Y, June: U, July: L,  August: G, September: S, October: O, November: N, December: D
The third character in the code is either alpha or numeric and tells the day of the month. The first 26 days are represented by the alphabet with the remaining days listed as:
27th through 29th = 7 through 9, 30th = 3, 31st = 1
An example of a date code would be: January 20, 2012 = 2JT

Not all breweries are so transparent like that, though. I have had a lot of trouble trying to figure out bottling date of some European beers, specially from some small, old breweries. Some american ones just won't tell anything about it as well, even on bottles.


How to obtain Amanita Muscaria in California for brewing

Check with your local mycological society in your area. If it grows wild near you. You can buy grow kits and try to grow it indoors. But the mycological society is probably your best bet for finding it wild or a supplier that you can get it from.


100 degrees, now what to do with the wine

Yes, it's perfectly fine to leave a bottle of red wine in the fridge if you can't finish it that day. In fact that is the best way to preserve an open bottle if you have no other way. You can extend the life of an opened bottle of red wine by a couple of days by sticking it in the fridge. Room temperature red wine starts to get funky around day 3 while in a fridge it might be 5 or 6 days. It really depends on the wine.

The only problem, unless you like cold red wine (if you've ever been to Paris, you know that's how they serve it), you will need to let it sit out in a glass until it warms up. Make sure you put a cork or some other stopper back in the top of the bottle to slow down the rate of oxidation. Personally, I like my red wine served at cellar temperature (around 50f). I think it makes the red wine easier to drink. Nobody likes hot red wine unless you are making Gluhwein.


Are there other spirits and/or wines in the world that use the Sherry production method?

One wine comes to mind and that is the Apera wine produced in Australia. If you do a google search on apera and solera you will find numerous hits of wineries in Australia and Canada making something that is Sherry-like. Sherry is now a protected name place like Champagne, Chianti and Burgundy and can only be used in Spain of wines produced in the Jerez-Xeres-Sherry DO province of Cádiz in the region of Andalusia. Everything else produced in a sherry-like manner has to be called something else. Many have settled on the Apera (a play on Aperitif) name. See the "Protection of Sherry" in the Sherry Wikipedia.

There are several other wines produced in the world using the Solera system and these include spanish Brandy, Marsala, Mavrodafni, Glenfiddich whisky, some Champagne, awamori in Japan and is well covered in your link in Wikipedia


What specific characteristics distinguish an imperial stout from other kinds of stouts?

The first Imperial Stout was made by Thrale's Brewery to export to the Russian royalty, it had high alcoholic content so that it could survive the trip gracefully [1]. Since then Imperial has been used as a prefix to signify beers which are of higher alcohol volume than their normal variants, and luckily they're no longer just for Russian royalty.


Prohibition was an Era in American history from 1920-1933 - and - it failed miserably. If anything, it made alcohol more popular.

Prohibition, in general, also means to prohibit something via law or religion though. The religious aspect is the only case that one can see prohibition working. ::Insert Mormonism/Islamic religion/et cetera here::


There are two main ingredients in beer that might cause them to be unsuitable for vegans. The first one might be fairly obvious. Honey is sometimes used as a sweetener, especially in meade, but certainly in other beers.

However, the main cause is a fining agent called Isinglass that is made from ground swim bladders of fish.


What is the closest tasting beer to Erdinger?

I assume you're talking about the Erdinger hefeweissbier.  This is a good example of the beer style known as German-style wheat beer / BJCP category 15A.

It also goes by the names: Weizen, Weissbier (Weißbier), Wheat beer, etc. etc.

Lots of German breweries produce great examples of this style of beer: Weihenstephan, Franziskaner, Schneider, Aying.  I believe that if you like Erdinger, many of these companies' wheat beers will be to your liking.

IMHO the closet to Erdinger Hefeweissbier would be from Franziskaner (obviously this is a very subjective assertion, YMMV).  It would be interesting to line some of these up for a taste-difference test.

But you may be able to find German-style wheat beers brewed in many other countries.  Do not be confused with an "American Style Wheat-beer" / BJCP Category 6D.  This is a significantly different sort of beer.

Given your liking of these sorts of beers, you might also enjoy Belgian style wheat beers, collectively known as Witbier.


If used the the brewing process,  the nicotine in the tobacco leaves would be extracted into the beer. Too high a nicotine dose in the beer would be poisonous.  The whole process would probably be more effort than it is worth.

As for tobacco flavor, it depends on the flavors that you enjoy in tobacco.  Just like some smokey whiskeys work well with cigars, some rich beers work just as well.  Strong beers aged in spirit barrels often contain the same oakey, vanilla notes that are present in the aged spirits.  Cigar City Brewing uses a lot of different barrels to impart tobacco like flavors in its beers and their tasting notes usually suggest pairing a beer with a cigar.

If you are looking for a smokey beer without the possibility of nicotine poisoning, then I suggest Rauchbier.  Some of the malt used in this beer are smoked over different woods (usually alder).
Some breweries experiment with adding smoked malt to other beer styles (Porter,IPA, etc.)


Can the social perception of beer be changed?

Standards and qualifications will play a big role in how we can change the perception of beer. Wine has had the Sommelier since 1907. Beer now has the Cicerone (of which I can not find a date when the certification program started). Just look at the Wikipedia difference between the Cicerone and Sommelier.

Remember, wine has the "low-brow" wines that are just a cheap way to get drunk.

As the craft beer industry continues to boom, we need to have more sophisticated conversations about beer. Talk about the subtleties that vary in like-beers, to be able to accurately describe mouth feel, know why head retention is critical, and grow as a community that is willing to take the time to teach those that show interest. Nothing will turn away a curious consumer like a bunch of beer snobs that act snobby.

Beer will always have the beers that are associated with rednecks, tailgating, insert other disparaging term here. But as a community, we also need to embrace "those types" of beer. People love them, and we don't need to change that. The people that love those beers might also be willing to branch out into other styles. Unless you are trying to convince them by attacking the beer that they love and belittle them for not having an expanded range.


How can I prolong the life of beer in a growler?

Unfortunately, there's not much one can do, at least using only household products.

While filling, using a counterpressure bottle filler would maximize the longevity of the beer as well as filling the beer while it's very cold, near its freezing point ~29 degrees F (so that its CO2 is maximally dissolved), if you have a choice in the matter (likely not).

Once opening the growler over multiple sessions, however, it's not the ineffectiveness of the seal (using a swing-top growler should do just fine) as much as it is the growing amounts of air that get sealed within.

There exist several products funded and developed via Kickstarter you might want to check out:

FreshCap (See retailers for purchase.)
The Growler Saver (See retailers for purchase.)
Drink Tanks (See store for direct purchase.)
TapIt Cap (See store for direct purchase.)


Can drinking 45ml of spirit (40%) per day affect your health?

To answer your last question first, drinking 1 drink a day will not make you dependent. Drinking 3 or 4 times that amount probably won't make you dependent physically. Physiologically, you might become dependent on drinking for the effects but with that little amount, it would be very tough to be physically dependent. It's more of a bad habit at that point. I have a family member that was/is an alcoholic and he was drinking a pint of vodka a day. Obviously he was physically dependent.

As someone who was physically dependent on cigarettes a while back, I have never had anything approaching those nicotine cravings. Unless, you've been there you'll never know. But, I do have a habit of coming home from work, cracking a beer and eating dinner. It's relaxing and tastes good.

I know family members that have been drinking almost every day since they were 18 (now in their 80s) and sharp as a tack and others that never drank that can barely remember what day it is. The human body is widely different from one person to another. Some native Americans have a really hard time metabolizing alcohol, while northern Europeans have livers of steel.

So, the answer to your question is that it depends. It depends on so many variables, you'll never get a straight answer. The best thing you can do is drink as little as possible and enjoy yourself. Don't binge drink and don't get into a habit.


How long does it take to cool a keg of beer?

I know I'm a few days late but the worry I'd have leaving a keg outside in cold weather is the pressure changes.  CO2 absorbs more in colder conditions, but if anything freezes, even partially, CO2 gets driven out of solution.  Normally when you refrigerate kegs indoors they're hooked up to gas, so as pressure in the headspace drops it's less likely the keg will unseal itself.  Also, if the keg did freeze a bit the CO2 being forced into the headspace could conceivably go over the pressure limits of the keg, depending on how carbonated it was to begin with among other things.

Think of leaving a bottle or can in the freezer to chill it quickly then forgetting about it.  Odds are instead of a beersicle you got beer and glass sprayed all over the inside of your icebox.  It's anecdotal, I'll admit, but I've seen it happen so I wouldn't risk a keg and either leave it outside uncarbonated or chill it in a temperature controlled fridge.

Anyway, this is long since past so my fear mongering is moot.  Let us know how it went for you.  You should be able to leave and accept an answer to your own question and it would be good for the site.


Is there a site (or app) like Beer Advocate that lets me give just an overall rating?

RateBeer is the other big rating site.  It also has a 5 point rating system but you can also just "tick" beers 1-5 stars, which may be helpful for you.

There's also Untappd which is pretty popular.  It operates more on a 4square-style check-in system and has a lot of social features as well as badges for various types of beer, origins, location, timing, etc.  But their rating system is a simple 1-5 stars with an optional notes field and location tagging.  They also include a recommendation system but it doesn't take locality into account making it largely useless since the majority of the beers they'll recommend are impossible to find in your area.

There are a few smaller ones kicking around as well.  A buddy of mine did littlebeerbook.com, which is fairly up your alley based on the description.  However it's pretty rough on mobile, and even outside of that the User Experience isn't the best.  Work is being done, but it's slow going with day jobs and families and all that.  So if you don't mind the interface, it'll track what you want pretty well.


Traditional ale styles of beer were only carbonated by using natural yeast and remaining sugars post fermentation. The ale house would "pull" pints from huge wood tanks, generally located below their taps by using traditional cask systems. CO2 was not available to breweries for most of the worlds brewing history. This led to a ale that was cellar temperature and with little to no carbonation.

Today breweries try to replicate this process by "cask conditioning" carbonating naturally their beers. So, there is no forced carbonation with CO2 and generally they do not refrigerate cask ales either.


Would it be sexist for a beer shop to have a "selection of beer for women"?

Yes, I think this is a pretty unnecessary (and non-descriptive) label to put on a category of alcohol. If I go to a liquor store looking for cider or for a dry stout or for anything else and I see a section labeled "women" that effectively tells me absolutely nothing about what it is I'll find over there. Not to mention it basically assumes a woman will have no clue what it is she's looking for, so we'll just label this shelf "women".

I would definitely opt for something more descriptive and that doesn't imply clueless-ness i.e. "Radlers and Ciders", "IPAs", etc.


It's highly unlikely that you'll get a confirmed source on this.  Wineries, particularly higher end wineries are not forthcoming about their use of Mega Purple, when they do use it.

How much does it matter?  To a large extent that depends on what you're looking for.  If you're looking for a wine that's a pure expression of the Napa terroir and the barrels it's aged in, obviously the addition of Mega Purple (or non-Napa grapes, or oak chips, or any other additives that result in the end product the vintner is looking for) will detract from that.  In the case of Mega Purple specifically, it adds a darker coloration but at the expense (to some degree, how much depends on how it's incorporated) of aroma and potentially added sweetness.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for a bottle of wine that you particularly enjoy, then it doesn't matter at all.  If the color and the aroma and the flavor please your tongue, than to me, that's good wine.  I personally am a lot more worried about how my wine tastes to me than I am about what went into making it.

So, if you really enjoy them, I'd suggest going ahead and continuing to enjoy them and don't worry about.  If it still bothers you, find something else you enjoy more, and buy that instead.  That's one of the best things about wine...There are always new amazing options just waiting to be discovered.


Nowadays do wine makers use squeeze-by-feet method for grape juice extraction to make wine?

Very few people stomp grapes anymore for commercial winemaking. There are some wineries that still do it, I've heard of several in burgundy. Maybe some really old world stuff in Eastern Europe. The problem is that is super messy. Grapes are very sweet and when that juice dries on you, it is very sticky. Machines are much more efficient at crushing and pressing these days and don't cost a whole lot and last a lifetime. I can't name anyone off the top of my head. A quick google search didn't turn up anything either.

As for they hygienic part, grapes are full of bird poop, dead bugs, spider webs, dirt. I've found dead birds, bird nests, dead lizards, snakes, you name it in grapes and vineyards. So, dirty feet don't really have much on all this dirty natural stuff. It's all moot anyways because the alcohol level in wine is high enough to kill any pathogen that makes it way on the grapes. So, you are safe from that standpoint.


Winterhighlight "Feuerzangenbowle" without headache?

What is happening is that you are burning off most of the alcohol before you consume it. I can't tell you the exact amount, but it's significant. I would say that it's probably less than 10% alcohol by the time you drink it. That's why you don't have a hangover.


How does the PA liquor control board decide which beers can be sold in the state?

Here is a link to the application for for registering beer brands As you can see on the form, there is a fee of $75 for each "beer brand". They define a "brand" as an individual beer style.  No big deal if you are Miller/Coors/Bud, but a real hassle if you are a micro with a couple of dozen seasonal beers. Note that you also must list the "importing distributors with whom territorial agreements have been established". So, I can see that getting a foot in the door would be a daunting task for a small brewery. And once a brewery is established, the process starts over every time they develop a new beer.

You can thank Gifford Pichot for this mess. He was the prohibitionist governor of PA when prohibition ended, and he established the PA LCB and State Store system to "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible." Recent efforts to reform the system keep failing because there are too many entrenched interests making money off of the status quo.


If the aerator top is still working, meaning that no air has gotten to the wine, you should still be able to bottle it. The best way to know is to taste it. If it tastes right, you should be fine.


Why draught beer tastes so different at different places in India

It's all in the water. The water has a big role in the beverage's taste.


I'd say beermenus.com would be a good bet. My favorite local brewery updates their page every other day or so.

It's funny that you mention this though. I just had an email exchange with the brewmaster regarding this very thing. I asked him to set up a webcam system which will update the list of beer offerings in realtime (similar to what the Dogfish Head Ale Houses do at the bottom of the page). He liked the idea and said he's game for it, so hopefully we'll start seeing these type of things pop up more and more.

In the meantime, I think beermenus.com is your best bet (aside from calling the brewery probably). There's also a smartphone app called UnTapped that was pretty good at this as well, last time I checked (I'm happily a dumb phone user once again as part of a personal experiment of mine; so I haven't used it recently).


Good non-alcoholic, sedative drinks to replace alcoholic drinks

Allow me to suggest a Kava tea as an alternative to an alcoholic drink due to it's sedative properties.

  Kava drinks - often referred to as "kava tea" - are made from the roots of a plant grown in the South Pacific, and they're known for their purported anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects.

  When ground up and mixed with water, the root turns into a juice that some claim can be a natural alternative to alcohol. It has been used for thousands of years as a ceremonial and social drink in the South Pacific.

  Basically, the drink mimics alcohol's relaxing and sedative effects without the downsides - no extreme emotions, no memory loss, and no hangover.  Tech Insider previously reported on kava's key compound, kavain, which mimics a sedative and triggers relaxation in the body. It works as a muscle relaxer, so while you're mentally alert, you feel physically loose.

Here is what Bulletproof has to say about Kava:

  Kava is like chamomile on steroids. This muddy-tasting little root comes from the Pacific Islands, where people have used it for centuries as everything from a pain reliever to a ceremonial drink. A potent anxiety reliever, kava offers a non-alcoholic way to wind down at the end of the day, especially if you’re working late or you have trouble falling asleep.

  The secret lies in kavalactones, the psychoactive parts of the kava plant. The kavalactones in a cup of kava tea, or a few drops of kava extract, can put you into a rare state of relaxed focus.

If you can not find it locally, it may be obtained on Amazon.

YOGI TEAS Kava Stress Relief Tea


What fortified red wines combine best with black olives, pistachio nuts and this particular cheese?

Please allow me to recommend a nice red classic Italian wine called Chianti.

From this Wine and Cheese Pairing Guide we can see that Chianti is paired well to the Pecorino Romano Cheese and nuts. I know that you are using a Columella's Caciofiore cheese that is "considered a sort of "ancestor" of the Roman pecorino cheese, prepared with rennet based on cardoon."

  Columella's Caciofiore can be considered a sort of "ancestor" of the Roman Pecorino Cheese, prepared with rennet based on cardoon. Columella talks about this cheese in his treatise "De Rustica": "It is better to curdle the milk with lamb or kid rennet, although it is also possible to curdle it with the cardoon flower or with safflower seeds or fig latex. Anyway, the best cheese is made with as less treatment as possible". (Lucio Giunio Moderato Columella, "De Rustica", 50 AD). Today, in the Roman Countryside, "native country" of the cardoon and the artichoke, some producers still use the cardoon flower as rennet and prepare raw milk pecorino cheese with an ancient taste.

The Chianti red wine could be substituted with a Sangiovese red wine.

If the olives or spices are over powering the taste of your dish you may wish to use a Merlot Wine.

If it is a fortified wine you are after, would like to recommend a fortified Madeira Wine.

  Fortified wines, like port, sherry and Madeira, also go very well with rich cheeses. A classic match is English Stilton and port, but other blue cheeses also taste lovely alongside a glass of sweet, flavourful port. - Pairing red wine with cheese.


How can I find beer or wine shops online in India?

Yes, finding a nearby beer shop or nearby wine shop is hassle free now all because of Nearbytheka.com.

NearbyTheka is India’s first online portal where you can locate the list of nearby beer shops, pubs, bars, wine shops, cafes, and thekas close to your location just within a click. All you need just to search your existing location through GPS and explore the nearby beer shops, just like that.

The motto of NearbyTheka is to provide a hassle-free way out to search nearby wine shops. Along with that, they believe to provide a platform for all daaru lovers to spice up their life with the list of nearby thekas, yummiest nearby chakna, nearby cafes, pubs, bars and daaru party theme merchandise with the latest daarubaaz trends at amazing prices.


Let us start by defining what non-alcoholic wine is.

  What is non-alcoholic wine?

  It's  pretty much what it says on the can, (or the bottle in this case). It’s wine with the alcohol removed. However, some of the beverages can still contain some alcohol, because let’s face it, it’s pretty hard to extract every single bit. Under the law, in order to be called ‘non-alcoholic’, a beverage can contain up to half a per cent of alcohol by volume. It can be a bit confusing, so here’s a quick guide to non-alcoholic wines and their labels in the UK:

  Non-alcoholic: contains no alcohol at all (0.0%)
  Alcohol-free: contains 0.05% alcohol or less
  De-alcoholized: contains 0.5% alcohol or less
  Low-alcohol: contains more than 0.5% but no more than 1.2%

  5 best non-alcoholic wines

Here are some recommendations:

  Best Red

  Eisberg, Alcohol Free Cabernet Sauvignon

  BEST ROSÉ:

  Sainsbury’s Alcohol Free Rosé Wine

  BEST WHITE:

  Eisberg, Alcohol Free Sauvignon Blanc

  BEST MULLED WINE:

  Marks & Spencer, Non-alcohol Mulled Punch

  BEST SPARKLING:

  Asda Extra Special, Alcohol Free Pink Muscat


Where to find Okocim beer in or around Pennsylvania

Okocim Beer is part of the Carlsberg group. According to Carlsbergs site it looks like they are distributed in the USA by St. Killian.

St. Killian has a beer finder page that lets you search for bars, resturants, or stores that sell particular products by zip code. When typing in the zip code for State College, Pennsylvania, I'm not sure where you are located but this is pretty central, it shows four locations within 100 miles.

You could put in your zip code and then select see what is near. I'd call before making the trip and see which Okocim beers they actually sell since the comments seem to suggest that some only carry O.K..


Are there any good uses for beer that has sat in my growler for too long?

Supposedly washing your hair with it has some nice effects,
and people have found other creative uses:
How to make good use of flat, leftover beer from your Christmas party.

However, if it is only a few days old and has been in the fridge, it's unlikely that it's done much more than go completely flat, so any use that doesn't require it to be carbonated would be fitting. -- I'd go for the bread.


Electrolytes are just dissolved salts, where the ions can help transmit an electrical charge through the liquid.  So adding some table salt to your beer would be a way to add electrolytes.

That said, drinking alcohol will dehydrate you, so added electrolytes might not actually help.  If you are feeling thirsty after your run, it would be best to drink water (with or without added elecrolytes) rather than replacing water with beer.  Save the beer until after you've rehydrated.


What are the characteristics of a rye beer?

A rye beer is any beer that incorporates rye, usually malted rye.

How much Rye and how it tastes

There are no laws to state that the quantity of rye should be above some minimum, so some rye beers include just a few percent of the malt bill as rye, while others such as Roggenbier base their entire flavor profile on rye, using over 50% rye malt. With such a large difference in the grain bill and the amount of rye, the two beers taste very different.

When rye is added to beer between 10-20% of the grain bill, it gives a pleasant spiciness and bread-like quality to the beer that blends well with most hop types, particularly spicy or citrussy hops. Rye can also add some dryness to the aftertaste.

Above 20% the spiciness becomes progressively more assertive and the beer fuller, more earthy and hearty, and perhaps not unsurprisingly, tastes similar to rye bread.

Var-rye-ation

Rye beers show considerable variation. Rye is a versatile ingredient, which has become increasingly popular recently with craft brewers, so there is no longer a common theme underlying rye beers, other than the rye itself. In fact, even the rye can vary. New malts are appearing, such as crystal rye which give a new flavor dimension to beers - crystal rye provides some of the spiciness of malted rye with dark fruits, and a pleasant dryness in the finish. This means the brewer can make a rye beer from:

malted rye
flaked (unmalted) rye
crystal rye

Rye is becoming at least as versatile as wheat, if not in fact more so. While most Wheat beers focus on the esters and phenolics produced by the yeast (banana/clove), Rye beers have the freedom to exploit the full spectrum of beer flavors and are not constrained by adherence to a particular style entrenched in tradition.

But will you like some other rye beer having tried one?

If you don't like the taste of rye in beer, then there's a good chance you won't like most rye beers, since the rye flavor is most likely going to be present. However, if you do like the taste of rye, there is still no saying up front that you will like any rye beer simply due to the diversity of beers that can be brewed with rye.


Doing the math out, assuming my liters to US Gallons conversion by Google is accurate, that would come out to around 1.6-1.7 volumes of CO2 in the beer which is on the lower end of carbonation but probably appropriate for many European ale styles.

Think of something like a Bitter or ESB, that's probably where you'll end up.

Caster sugar is just very fine white sugar, so it's probably some form of sucrose...pretty much all of which are interchangeable.  If this is under carbonated for the style you're going for, check out an online carbonation or priming sugar calculator next time and just pitch sugar according to that.

I always liked Northern Brewer's.  It takes beer in gallons since it's a US site but I like that they have a style drop down and list how much of many different types of sugar to use.


I know wineries that spent huge amounts on a label design and others that keep it super simple with just text and no graphics. The sky is the limit on designing a label. I had to spend about $1000 USD to have a decent label designed. Then printing it on really high quality paper cost $$$$. I was charging between $30-$50 a bottle for my wine.

I was spending around $0.25 a label, $.40 a cork, $.50 tin capsule and about $0.75 a glass bottle. I can only imagine that production costs on the Canary islands are probably double that because it costs so much to ship that stuff to the islands.

Packaging costs become less of a factor the more expensive your wine is. For me it was about $3 per bottle. If you wine costs $10 then it's a huge percentage. If you are charging $50, then it becomes less of an issue.

Wine labels are like snowflakes, not two are alike and why someone would choose eye popping graphics for a low production wine from the Canary Islands, I have no idea. Those usually are reserved for supermarket level wines so you are compelled to pick it up off the shelf.

If fact, If you look at the most expensive wines in the world. They have very conservative labels. 10 most expensive labels


The bottle cap has the same purpose as a wire cage-- to ensure that the cork doesn't pop itself under the bottle's interior pressure.


Are all lambrusco cheap?

The short answer is no.

The most highly rated of its wines are the frizzante (slightly sparkling) red wines, designed to be drunk young. Aged wines are generally not an issue here and generally speaking are on the more inexpensive price range. But this is not absolute. It does have some historical value to its name also.

  Lambrusco is the name of both an Italian red wine grape and a wine made principally from said grape. The grapes and the wine originate from four zones in Emilia-Romagna and one in Lombardy―principally around the central provinces of Modena, Parma, Reggio-Emilia, and Mantua. The grape has a long winemaking history, with archaeological evidence indicating that the Etruscans cultivated the vine. In Roman times Lambrusco was highly valued for its productivity and high yields, with Cato the Elder stating that produce of two thirds of an acre could make enough wine to fill 300 amphoras.

  The most highly rated of its wines are the frizzante (slightly sparkling) red wines, designed to be drunk young, from one of the eight Lambrusco denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) regions: Colli di Parma Lambrusco, Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro, Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, Reggiano Lambrusco, Colli di Scandiano e Canossa Lambrusco, Modena Lambrusco, and Lambrusco Mantovano. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s sweet Lambrusco was the biggest selling import wine in the United States. During that time the wine was also produced in a white and rosé style made by limiting the skin contact with the must.

Today, there are various levels of dryness / sweetness, including secco (bone dry / dry), amabile (off-dry / sweet) and dolce (very sweet). Sweet Lambrusco became hugely popular in the United States in the late 1970s-1980s, reaching a high of over 13 million cases exported to the country in 1985. The wine is noted for high acidity and berry flavors. Many of the wines now exported to the United States include a blend of Lambruscos from the different DOCs and are sold under the Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) designation Emilia.

  The wine is rarely made in a "champagne" (metodo classico) style; instead, it is typically made using the Charmat process where a second fermentation is conducted in a pressurized tank.

  In Australia a number of cheaper bottled and box wines are produced by Australian vineyards and sold as "Lambrusco". They are typically medium-sweet, around 10% ABV and styled as an "easy drinking" product.

Some Lambrusco wine  will taste cheap, but I imagine not all.

  Lambrusco Wines Worth Drinking

  Upon the boisterous expression of the beauty of Lambrusco, you may be remonstrated with something like,

  “You mean that cheap, sweet red wine that tastes like soda?”

  Well not exactly, but yes, that one. Apparently, Lambrusco still has a long way to go since it tarnished its reputation nearly 40 years ago (blame the wine boom of the 1970s). Fortunately, this means you can find great wines for obscenely good prices. Lambrusco is awesome and its story is more fascinating than probably imagined.

  Lambrusco Wines Worth Drinking

  Lambrusco is actually a family of very old grape varieties native to Italy. Most wines are a blend of several distinct varieties, each with a unique taste profile. It is unclear exactly when these varieties manifested, but Cato may have mentioned them in De Agri Cultura in 160 BC – humanity’s oldest printed farming manual. So when you drink Lambrusco, you are drinking some O.G. juice (several millennia older than Cabernet).

  Today, the best Lambruscos are dry (secco) and barely sweet (semisecco) and are almost always made in a semi-sparkling, frizzante, style. There are about 10 different varieties (8 closely related varieties, to be exact). That said, there are the 4 high quality varieties you should know: Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Maestri, Lambrusco Grasparossa, and Lambrusco Salamino. These four offer the complete range of styles and they’ll match with an incredible array of foods from Korean barbecue to Argentinian empanadas.

  Classy Lambrusco Wines to Try

  Lambrusco di Sorbara

  This grape produces the lightest and most delicate and floral of the Lambrusco wines, often in a light, pink-rose hue. The best versions are in a dry and refreshing style but have delightfully sweet aromas of orange blossom, mandarin orange, cherries, violets, and watermelon. You’ll find these wines labeled primarily as Lambrusco di Sorbara and they pair extremely well with spicy Thai and Indian cuisine.

  Lambrusco Grasparossa

  This is the grape that makes the boldest Lambrusco wines with flavors of black currant and blueberries, supported by moderately high, mouth-drying tannin and a balancing creaminess from the Charmat sparkling production process. You’ll find this wine labeled as Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro (which includes 85% of this grape) and is great to pair with fennel-infused sausages, lasagna, or even barbecue ribs.

  Lambrusco Maestri

  Wines of Lambrusco Maestri are more grapey with soft and creamy bubbles and subtle notes of milk chocolate. L. Maestri is actually the most well-travelled of all the Lambrusco varieties and there are some excellent examples coming out of Australia (Adelaide Hills) and Argentina (Mendoza). It’s a little harder to find a single-varietal Lambrusco Maestri in Italy, although to quote Italian wine expert, Ian d’Agata,

    “Try: Cantine Ceci, Nero di Lambrusco Otello, guaranteed to change your mind about Lambrusco forever and turn you into a believer.” Ian d’Agata, Native Wine Grapes of Italy

  Lambrusco Salamino

  This Lambrusco has cylindrical salami-shaped bunches (which is what the grape is named after). These wines have the delightful aromatic qualities of Lambrusco di Sorbara (imagine cherries and violets) with the structure (tannin), creaminess, and deep color of Lambrusco Grasparossa. Expect Lambrusco Salamino to be made in sweetest styles, including semisecco and and dolce to counterbalance its tannin – oddly enough, the sweetness makes it a great match for burgers. This variety can be found labeled as Reggiano Lambrusco Salamino and Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce.

More information may be gleaned from the following article(s):

LAMBRUSCO IS THE FIZZY RED WINE YOU SHOULD BE SIPPING THIS FALL


Are there cocktails with wasabi or other spicy ingredients?

Tabasco or other hot sauces will be a far more common spicy ingredient, and is present in quite a number of cocktails (the Bloody Mary variants, Afterburners*, Flatliners). You could even use a vinegar-based hot sauce as the "dirty" part of a dirty martini. Here are more ideas that I haven't tried myself.

Note that unless the wasabi root was grated in front of you, no matter where you are in the world, you almost certainly actually had green-colored horseradish 1. Horseradish can also be an ingredient in the Bloody Mary family of drinks.

*Names for lots of shots are not standardized, so there are a huge number of totally different "Afterburner"s, YMMV.


Does anyone know what this vintage aluminum container was called and used for?

I suspect it is a vintage milk jug if you picture search on Google "vintage aluminum milk jug" you'll get a lot of similar hits. Every growler I've seen has been glass although I'm no expert.


What characteristics make a suitable wine for mulling?

"Mulled wine is a seasonal staple but although it's easy to make it's also easy to spoil.

You can mull white wine but most people prefer a red. It needs to be inexpensive, obviously, but that doesn’t mean it should be undrinkable so don’t just chuck in the tail ends of bottles you may have hanging round the kitchen. And you don’t want a wine that’s too heavily oaked though that’s relatively unlikely if it’s cheap.

There’s a fair amount of inexpensive own-label Corbières I’ve noticed lately which would fit the bill perfectly or try a basic Portuguese red. Most recipes add water as well which brings down the cost and stops guests getting too plastered but adjust the amount to the strength of your wine.

Whole spices work better than ground ones otherwise you can get an unpleasant powdery sensation as you drink. Cinnamon is probably the most popular spice but you could also use cloves, cardamom (lightly crush a few pods) ginger and nutmeg. Some recommend star anise but use sparingly if you don't want your mulled wine to taste of aniseed.

Most recipes call for sugar but you might want to add a little less than they suggest if your wine is particularly soft and fruity or if you add port."

Personally, I am very fond of cinnamon in my mulled wines at Christmas time.


What's the difference between blended and single malt Scotch?

We need to work up a few definitions before we get to the final answer here.  So without further ado:

Single Malt

Single Malt means that the whiskey has been made using ONLY malted barley and nothing else and has been distilled at a single distillery.  This is to distinguish it from:

Grain/Single Pot

Grain Whiskey, called Single Pot or Pure Pot when it's Irish, is still whiskey from a single distillery but can have other grains in it, such as rye or unmalted barley.

Single Malt + Single Malt = Blended/Vatted Malt

By mixing single malts from different distilleries you get a Blended Malt or Vatted Malt whiskey.

Single Malt + Grain Whiskey = Blended Whiskey

When you mix Single Malt with anything besides more Single Malt you get regular old Blended whiskey.

A lot of these terms only really apply to whiskies produced outside of the US, namely Scotland and Ireland, but Japan's whiskey-producing traditions are based primarily on Scotland's.

In the US the whole malt thing goes out the window since the legal requirements only specify "Majority" grains, IE American Malt Whiskey only needs to be 51% malted barley.  Rye Malt is 51% malted rye, etc.  But the US terms also put a lot of other restrictions on the length of time the whiskey was aged and the alcohol proof at after distillation, when put into barrels, and when bottled.  But that's a different question.


How can absinthe be colored into a different colour other than green?

Clear Absinthe

Absinthe is made much in the same way that many gins are.  You take neutral spirits, add botanicals (wormwood and anise), and re-distill.  Anything that comes out of the still will be clear.  Some absinthes at this point are finished, these will be called blanche (white) or sometime la bleue.  The first absinthe available in Val-de-Travers (the birthplace of absinthe) after the ban in Switzerland was lifted was a blanche.  That same bottling was the driving force behind making it legal in the United States (interview of lawyer who fought the ban).  It can be really good stuff.  Any of these can be really easily colored.

Green Absinthe

Usually absinthe gets a second chance to mingle (macerate) with some herbs after it's sprung from the still, this style is known at verte.  This is when it gets it's color, as well as some extra flavor and aroma. It's a more complex flavor.  The color that the chlorophyll imparts is dull.  If it's neon green there was food coloring added and some of these "greener" varieties are actually blanche at heart.  Also of note is that sometimes these food colored types add sugar, to make it friendlier to less experienced drinkers (or to hide poor distillation technique as happens with vodka).  There is at least one non-green bottling that I know of that is still macerated post distillation, but uses hibiscus which turns it red.  These methods of coloration don't make them any less of a true absinthe, they do use wormwood (and equally important, anise).

Czech Absinth (without the e)

The most common non-green "absinthe" is so called Czech-style, also known as Bohemian style.  These are not rightly called absinthe and are historically known for very low quality.  Instead of distilling the botanicals in the alcohol, they are cold compounded.  It's made either by mixing spirits, flavoring oils, and food coloring or by macerating the botanicals without distillation.  Be wary of absinthes much over 140 proof, as they are frequently Czech-style.  Do be aware that they're called Czech-style because that's where the style originated and where most of this variety still comes from, however the Czech Republic does have good examples of absinthe.


Just like wine, pour into a glass while watching the sediment.
 Make sure the bottle has sat still for long enough that everything has settled. Stop when the sediment is about to pour out.
Enjoy.


Seeking online sources where companies offer free labels for their products (beer, wine or other spirits)?

Free, just the label, can be placed over existing label

Josh cellars, will give out free labels for their wine that will be shipped to you that can be placed over existing labels that you have already purchased. Josh Cellars custom label page
Woodford Reserve will print custom labels and mail to you. Woodford Reserve custom labels

Purchase special labeled beverages to be shipped, includes alcoholic beverage

Gordon & MacPhail will allow you to purchase custom labeled products from their site but it doesn't look like you can place a label over an existing product. Gordon & MacPhail custom labeled products
Windsor vineyards will customize a label for free and then send the wine to you. Windsor vienyards label site

Not Free but still custom

In Milwaukee Sprecher brewing will do this for their beer or soda. Not sure if they will ship it. I've not heard of others but I'm from Milwaukee and don't know much about what breweries outside this area will do. Sprecher's Private Labeled Beer & Soda


Will drinking too much of beer increase the size of belly?

Most beer has a lot of calories. Just like any other calorie intake, if you consume more than you burn, you will gain weight.

So, yes, drinking "too much" beer will "increase the size of belly". What "too much" means, however, is dependent on your other habits.

The typical "(beer | pot) (belly | gut)" is usually "Abdominal Obesity" which, by definition, means obesity in the abdominal area specifically, i.e. the belly.


What causes my stuffy nose after drinking alcohol?

I'll keep it simple. All three of those alcoholic drinks have something different in them. You said wine and booze don't do it very much yet beer makes you stuffy. Hops are very well know to cause stuffiness and allergic reaction. It could be more than hops, it could be something to do with malt. You might try less hopped beers so a Helles Lager vs an IPA and see if one makes you more or less stuffy. Most people have an allergic reaction to the histamines in wine, which causes flushing of the face and neck and nasal congestion.

You could take an anti-histamine (Zyrtec or Benadryl) before you drink and see if that helps.


Can I substitute Green Chartreuse for Yellow?

You cannot substitute green for yellow Chartreuse without changing the basic character of the cocktail. Both varieties are very strong flavors, but different characters. As the Chartreuse is nearly 25% of the ingredients you can't hide the difference.

If you make a Green Jacket instead of a Yellow Jacket you'll end up with something more vegetable tasting and less sweet. It may taste good or it may not, there's no way to predict. You could try dropping the green Chartreuse to 1/2 an ounce and adding a dash of honey, that may get you closer. If you do use honey try mixing it in with the Chartreuse before adding it to the cocktail - you want it well blended.


How to tap beer without CO2, like the germans do?

I've never seen any evidence that Germans use anything but CO2, so if you have a source that'd be cool.  That said, for getting beer out of the cask/keg/barrel you generally have 3 options:

Pressurized gas.  As mentioned by the other answer this is most commonly CO2 since CO2 is produced by yeast, so if you sealed the container while yeast were still processing sugars and producing CO2, they would pressurize the container.  Some brewers, especially home brewers, will pressurize their kegs through natural carbonation but most just push CO2 from a canister.  BUT there's also "beer gas" which is a mix of Nitrogen and CO2, think Guinness or Boddingtons.  This came into use to emulate the soft carbonation of cask/real ale/kellerbier, which leads to:
Siphoning.  A hand pump, or beer engine, uses a siphon to "pull" the beer out of the cask and up to the tap.  The physics needs atmospheric pressure to be maintained inside the cask, so it's usually open to the air at the top.  This required a fast turnaround on casks to prevent the beer from spoiling, which is one of the reasons cask/"real" ale fell out favor.  Kegs simply kept longer and were more economical.  I think CAMRA still isn't a fan of them, but some bars use "breathers" which basically add very low pressures of CO2 to replace the volume lost by the beer, but not enough to pressurize the cask.  This just lets the beer last longer in the cask.
Gravity pouring.  This tends to happen most often at festivals or if a bar has a "guest cask".  A spout is installed in the side and beer pours out.  All the caveats about air spoilage from cask ale still exist here.

So if the bartender pulls a handle and leaves it there until the glass is full of beer, that's a pressurized gas system.  If the bartender has to keep pulling the handle to fill the glass and the beer has that cool "cascading" look, it was pulled by siphoning.  If the cask is on the bar and the bartender just opens a spigot...that's a gravity pour.

I don't know that there are any other options...maybe an open barrel and ladling the beer out like soup?


I think it would be right to say that lagers were discovered rather than invented. Lager yeast is apparently the result of an unlikely mating of ale yeast and a wild yeast from South America. It's ability to ferment at lower temperatures probably led to its establishment in some brewery in some cold part of Bohemia centuries ago.

According to Wikipedia, lagering became more commercially viable with the appearance of refrigeration systems. But White & Zainasheff describe why this was desired. After Pasteur showed that yeast are responsible for fermentation, the Carlsberg brewery isolated S. carlsbergensis, now known as S. pastorianus, for commercial use. This is a lager yeast, and since many ales were brewed with mixed (S cerevisiae plus wild yeasts, bacteria) cultures, it created the perception was that lager, as a style, was cleaner than ale, and the improved shelf life made it a more attractive product to produce. And so, lagers took over the beer world after that, despite so many small breweries that make high quality ales.


Although as Bill said it can be down to a persons chemistry. One reason for you finding that IPAs affect you more could be the higher hop content in a Pale Ale (IPAs in particular). Hops (the oils) can have an effect on brain chemistry, that affect can be positive or it can be negative!

Some people can actually have alergic reactions to hops, or even beer in general (poor them, see this). Where as I suffer from some nasty migraine problems and actually find that well hopped ales alleviate some of the symptoms (not that I use it as a reason to drink!!).

So to sum up is it possible that you find that IPAs cause you to suffer more in the morning because you have a slight intolerance to higher hopped beers. Where as your fellow drinkers do not.


Does milk stout actually contain lactose?

Yes, the lactose remains in the beer at the end of brewing.

In normal beer, the only sugar which enters the brewing process is from the malted barley: maltose and glucose released by the breakdown of starch, and a little sucrose and fructose. This 1953 analysis by a chemist in the Carlsberg research laboratory has all the gory details.

Normal brewing yeast has enzymes that break down glucose and fructose, but not lactose. This kind of yeast evolved on rotting fruit, where there is plenty of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, but no lactose, so they never needed the enzymes. There are other yeasts which can ferment lactose, but they aren't used in brewing, except by zany vodka makers and Mongols.

So, in a normal beer, potentially all of the sugar can be broken down during brewing. Whether it is or not is up to the brewer, who can stop the process while sugar remains, or let it run to completion. However, in a milk stout, there is no way for the lactose to be broken down, so it all remains at the end.

The amount of lactose in a milk stout varies, but it seems that it is likely to be in the range of 5 to 13%; that is, in a (568 millilitre) pint, there may be anywhere from 28 to 74 grams of lactose. The lactose concentration in milk is about 4%, so this is the equivalent of 700 - 1850 millilitres of milk. Rather a lot!

Perhaps you might like a honey porter instead?


Besides wine, are there any alcoholic drinks associated with any religious rituals or customs?

According to this link Pastafarians have many holidays dedicated to alcoholic beverages including daiquiri day, Vodka day, wine day, lager day and many, many more.


Difference between Dark Lager and Black Lager

It's likely just naming differences.  Though the BJCP has distinct categories for "Dark American Lager" and "Schwarzbier (Black Beer)".  The main difference seems to be that Dark lager is sweeter and more towards caramel malt than Black which is more dry and slightly roasty.


How can I make a home distillation set up, safely?

For small-batch home distillation, hypothetically, a large (24 qt.) stainless steel stockpot makes an economical and effective pot still for 5 gal. batches. You will need a large stainless salad bowl of equal diameter, which when inverted makes an ideal lid.

A hole in the top center of the inverted salad bowl for installation of a threaded boss, for attachment of copper tubing which will be coiled in a bucket of ice water to serve as a condenser. The seal between pot and lid is best done with a split length of silicone tubing, using bread dough to patch and seal leaks during the boil (you don't want leaks, it wastes product and could be dangerous). The lid gets clamped on during the boil with squeexe clamps, c-clamps, locking pliers, etc.

A small hole in the lid for insertion of a thermometer, also sealed with bread dough, allows close monitoring of overhead vapor temperature. The overhead temperature indicates the composition of the vapor thus the composition of the condensate/distillate as well.

Of course, this is for distillation of water (which is legal to do at home) but do it outside on a camping stove and keep a fire extinguisher handy nonetheless.


Recommendations for learning how to brew beer in London?

I'll take a stab at this... I would start with a good homebrewing book and walk through the process. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is where I started 20 years ago and it's still a great place to start.

I was also very active in my homebrew club so I would definitely reach out to them too. You can learn so much so quickly watching someone else. I think this is where you would learn a lot about beer styles and tastes.

I taught in the wine making program at a local community college for a couple of years. This school also had a brewing program. I would only go this route if you really, really want to be a serious brewer. You can brew really excellent beer just learning on your own or hanging out at a homebrew club.


Which chemical compound gives Heineken its sweet taste?

Chances are that the sweet taste comes from the malt used in Heineken (and other beers).
Malt contains starches that are easily broken down into simple forms of sugar (like Maltose) early on. Amylase enzymes present in your saliva start breaking down starch into sugars, leading to a sweet taste when drinking Heineken.


There are a number of beer-related APIs available.  RateBeer does have a JSON API, but it's apparently currently unavailable and I don't know if they intend on making it available again or not.

Here are several that I've found:

Brewery DB has an API that can return JSON, XML, or PHP, and from their API documentation, it appear that they have quite a bit of info available about both breweries and beers.
Open Beer Database is a beer API, but it appears that it's still under development and may be unstable, so YMMV.
The Beer Spot offers an API that includes some social aspects, such as what people are drinking, and ratings, but not as much in the way of rich data about the beers themselves.
Untappd is another social/beer app that offers an API, but you need an account on the site to view the documentation and they seem to be a bit more strict in that they have to actually review and approve your app idea before they'll give you an API key.
Open Food Facts while not limited to beers, has 1500 of them and an API with barcodes, nutrition, ingredients… It's fully opendata and collaborative, meaning you can upload new beers from their mobile apps.

There are others, but those are a few of the most common and/or promising from what I've seen.


Which drink is moderately less hazardous to health: Beer, Whiskey, Rum, Vodka or Wine?

There is no one perspective that is a definite answer to this question because there are many factors that must be taken into account.

How much alcohol is considered moderate?
What type of drink contains more calories and thus makes one gain weight more quickly?
What types of drinks can by those who are gluten intolerant?

How to drink moderately and how much alcohol in a drink is considered to be moderate?

Most people consider drinking by consuming a drink or two socially or in private. Drinking too much in some circumstances can lead to another alcohol poisoning.

  What is Moderate Alcohol Use?

  Guidelines for moderate drinking have been set by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization.

  The US guidelines suggest no more than 1 drink per day for women and no more than 2 drinks per day for men. A drink is defined as 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine, or 1.5 oz of spirits.
  The WHO guidelines suggest no more than 2 drinks per day, and no more than 5 drinking days per week. They recommend 2 non-drinking days. Of course, you can't stockpile your drinks, and have them all at the end of the week.

  A Standard Drink - The Definition of a Drink

  A standard drink is 14g of pure alcohol according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The World Health Organization defines a drink as 10g of pure alcohol.

  Each milliliter of pure alcohol weighs 0.79 grams. Therefore, you can calculate the alcohol content of a drink with the following formula:

  1 can of beer (330 ml, 12 oz) at 5% (strength) x 0.79 (conversion factor) = 13 grams of alcohol
  1 glass of wine (140 ml, 5 oz) at 12% x 0.79 = 13.3 grams of alcohol
  1 shot of liquor (40 ml, 1.5 oz) at 40% x 0.79 = 12.6 grams of alcohol

  Note that a 750ml bottle of wine contains 5 drinks. Therefore 2 drinks a day is less than half a bottle of wine a day.

  Recommended Alcohol Guidelines - Moderate (Social) Drinking Plan

Now for the question of weight gain! Which drinks contain more calories and thus can make it more readily possible to get one fatter more quickly. The amount of carbohydrates must also be taken into account.

  Alcohol can either give you a beer belly or help you uncover your abs. After all, while one Archives of Internal Medicine study shows that people who put back one or two drinks a day are less likely to gain weight, research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that men consume an extra 433 calories on days they have just a couple of drinks.

  While lowered inhibitions and drink-fueled munchies have something to do with it, 61 percent of the caloric increase comes from the alcohol itself. So, if you're trying to lose weight while still enjoying the occasional drink, you'd better be wise about which drinks you choose. Here are the best and worst booze you can order.

  The Best Wine

  Red or white, you can expect to consume roughly 100 to 120 calories per glass. (That's assuming, however, that you're drinking a standardized 5-ounce glass. Research from Iowa State and Cornell shows that people tend to over-pour by 12 percent.)

  However, there are some considerations to make when picking grapes: White wine typically contains fewer carbohydrates than does red wine, which makes a small difference in terms of calories, says Caroline Cederquist, M.D., author of The MD Factor and creator of bistroMD. Meanwhile, red wine is richer in antioxidants, and a 2014 study in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, red wine's ellargic acids delay the growth of fat cells while slowing the development of new ones.

  Vermouth

  “A fortified wine with higher alcohol content and infused spices and herbs, vermouth is a calorie saver if you have it by itself—as it's commonly served in Europe," says Georgie Fear, R.D., author ofLean Habits for Lifelong Weight Loss. A 1.5-ounce serving contains a mere 64 calories, and typically contains about 15 to 18 percent alcohol, she says. Plus, research out of Budapest shows that it's jam-packed with polyphenol compounds, which may promote healthy weight loss.

  Still, remember that if you mix it into a Manhattan or martini, you're probably going to be consuming far more calories and sugar, Fear says.

  Straight Liquor

  When it comes to getting the most alcohol for the fewest calories, shots and straight booze on the rocks are the way to go. "There isn't much of a difference between 80-proof hard liquors," Cederquist says. "They all have around the same amount of calories and carbohydrates." And as calories increase along with alcohol content, the difference isn't huge. For instance, a shot of 86-proof whiskey contains 105 calories and a shot of 80-proof vodka contains 97.

  However, you also need to keep in mind that the sweeter the liquor, the more calories it typically contains, she says. "If you're looking for a lower calorie alternative, avoid the flavored vodkas and spiced rums and go for the original or 'plain' option offered," she says. "If you are looking for a flavor boost, try low-calorie mixers like a flavored seltzer or fresh squeezed lemon or lime. This will provide the taste without the calories."

  Light Beers

  With fewer calories and carbs, these are the best brewskis for weight loss, Cederquist says. Many light beers contain 90 to 100 calories per 12 ounces, while extra-light beers pack about 55 to 65.

  However, just don't use that as an excuse to have more beers than you typically would, or you'll undo all benefits. Hey, they generally pack less alcohol, right? Well, yeah, but they actually tend to have a higher percentage of their calories coming from alcohol compared to standard brews. Budweiser Select 55 for example derives 88.2 percent of its calories from alcohol, compared to Bud Light at 74.1 percent, and regular Budweiser at 66.9 percent calories, Fear says.

  The Worst

  Sugar-Packed Cocktails

  "Margaritas and Long Island Iced Teas can set you back more calories than a large order of McDonald's French Fries," Fear says. Even worse, calories from sugar-laden drinks come as a sneak attack. When you drink a marg, your body is so overwhelmed with the alcohol content that your body doesn't properly metabolize the sugar. Instead, it stores the sweet stuff as fat.

  There is never a good excuse to drink these and other sugar-filled cocktails especially if you are trying to lose weight or not develop diabetes, she says. Now, if you've got a skilled mixologist behind your bar, you're probably calorically safe ordering a cocktail. After all, he'd never serve up one of these artless offenses.

  High-Alcohol Craft Beers

  "The last five years have seen an explosion of craft breweries creating high-alcohol varieties, which pack more calories per bottle than you may realize," Fear says. Remember, more alcohol means more calories. Every gram of the good stuff contains seven calories.

  For instance, Flying Dog Horn Dog, which contains 10.2 percent alcohol by volume, also contains 314 calories per bottle, and Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA boasts 18 percent alcohol by volume, but also packs 450 calories into each bottle. That's a meal in a glass. Unfortunately, though, all that alcohol can wind up making you hungrier.

  The Best and Worst Booze to Drink if You Want to Lose Weight

If one deals with a gluten sensitivity, the only options is to avoid drinks with no gluten in them.

Wine is gluten free.
Sake is gluten free.
Distilled drinks are gluten free.
Most beers are not gluten free, however some are. This goes for some ciders as well.

This article explains it quite nicely: Gluten Free Beer, Alcohol and Wine

The end result is that all forms of drinking alcohol must be done in moderation. There is no one drink that is less hazardous to one’s health. Just keep it to one or two drinks a day.

If weight loss is on your mind, I would recommend a shot or two of straight (neat) liquor(s) or a light beer. Just because it is a light beer that should not be a license to drink as much as one wants, since moderation is always the key factor here.


The quality of beer from one gallon brewing equipment versus more robust equipment

I think it depends on a lot of factors, but you should be able to make high quality beer. You just have to pay a lot of attention to detail. Measuring ingredients becomes super important. A little error can screw up a beer. In bigger batches there is more room for error. Same with mashing. You need to have a really good way to keep the mash at the proper temperature, which can be hard in a small container. Otherwise, there is no reason a 1 gallon batch can't be just as good.