Hand Coding

Some friends of mine think of me as a loony beer purist. And, I’m ok with that ;). Labels aside, I figure that if I’m going to invest the calories in a beverage, it may as well taste good (after all, there isn’t yet Splenda Beer — nor do I hope that one ever exists). Fortunately, if you’re looking into broadening your beer palette, there're many drinkable beers available these days.

One of the sites that I often visit for beer ratings & reviews is RateBeer.com. While the site may seem overwhelming at first, the most pertinent section for most people is probably the beer ratings part of the site. If you’re ready to dive in, you could select a Beer Style or Country (from along the left side of the page) to see the best beers in that style or from that country, respectively. Or, for a healthy dose of schadenfreude, their list of the worst beers is usually good for a laugh. (Apparently, Bud Light scored even lower than Beast Light. Who knew? )

In any case, for a quick list of beers that taste good which you actually have a chance of finding in your local store, I’d recommend RateBeer’s list of Top Widely Distributed Beers (which also sometimes refer to as their list of “Top Accessible” beers). As I understand it, a given beer needs several hundred ratings to make it onto the list — that conveniently excludes, say, beers from Tom’s Nanobrewery in Somecity USA which you wouldn’t have a chance of finding locally.

Having said that, there’s no inherent downside to a beer just because it’s widely available. For instance, my favorite porter, Fullers London Porter, is there at #14 and it’s “only” among the 99th percentile of beers reviewed on the site ;). Porters are good — you could think of them as a notch down from a stout, if you haven’t tried one — but they’re less than ideal for patio-sipping. They’re generally hearty enough that they need a food accompaniment to balance out their oomph.

Probably my favorite style of beer, though, are abbey tripels. The style is classically Belgian, but that’s not to say that only Belgians make a good tripel. And, sure enough, some respectable tripels make the list as well. Chimay Blanche (White) pulls in at #33 and La Fin Du Monde is shortly after that at #37. And, while stouts aren’t personally my cup of tea, they make a strong showing on the list as well (just after a duo of two abt/quadrupel beers in 1st & 2nd place, stouts take on 3rd, 4th and 5th place).

If all these beer styles are greek to you, don’t worry — just try printing out their list of Top Widely Distributed Beers the next time you need beer and you’re headed to the store. Then just glance over what’s on the shelf and see if some of them are on the list. To be sure, even the “lowest rated” beer among their Widely-Distributed list, Sierra Nevada Porter is in the 90th percentile among beers — not too shabby. Any of the beers on the list would make for a formidable alternative to garden-variety American-macrobrews (which is to say, Budweiser, Coors and Miller).

Jones Soda is a self-described alternative soda company started in 1987 which is famous in part for its unconventional flavors such as Blue Bubblegum and Watermelon. In any case, they’ve recently achieved distribution at Target and that’s where I first ran across them. The first flavor of theirs that I tried was their Sugar Free Cola and, to be fair, it was pretty good. It’s sweetened with Splenda and even my sugar-soda drinking chum Matt was pleasantly surprised.

Recently, though, I thought to try their Sugar Free Green Apple. Oh, what a mistake that was — it’s almost undrinkable:

• Color — The first thing I noticed about the soda was its color as I poured it into a glass. Roughly speaking, it very similar to the color of a lime green popsicle. And, if that’s giving you the heebie-jeebies already, you’re on the right track. Needless to say, subtlety is not this soda’s string suit.

• Taste — This was the soda’s downfall for me. The color should have been a warning sign to me, but, yes, it pretty much tastes like carbonated Kool-Aid. If you’ve ever had the Green Apple flavor of Dum Dum Lollipops, I believe that precise flavoring was used here.

That’s not to say that all Jones Soda should be avoided. In fact, their Twisted Lime sounds rather tempting. All the same, I’d stay far away from their Green Apple; it wasn’t their flavor scientists’ finest hour.

Apparently, the hipsters within Coke Inc have come up with the wacky idea of releasing Tab as an energy drink. That’s right — Tab Energy:

Tab Energy, which Coke’s bottlers tasted in meetings last week in Atlanta, will come in skinny pink 10.5-ounce cans with the old Tab logo and “energy” in small yellow letters, according to materials from the meetings. The target market for the low-calorie drink, which does not taste like the original Tab, is young women. […]

I'm all for innovation, but this seems like a bit of a step backwards. Is this not the William Hung of energy drinks — a beverage marketed solely for its so-bad-it’s-goodbad factor? I mean, why can’t we get Tab with Splenda instead? Or, while we’re at it, how about Caffeine Free Tab with Splenda with Lime? I’d buy it (no, really).

Reuters reports on the results of a study comparing decaf to regular coffee that were announced at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005. Researchers assigned people into groups of either noncoffee drinkers, coffee drinkers, or decaf drinkers who then drank three to six cups a day for two months. After the two months, they checked each group for differences:

At the end of the study period, Superko found no significant differences in fasting glucose or insulin (measures used to diagnosis diabetes), total cholesterol, HDL2 (the very good cholesterol) or triglycerides among the three groups.

However, decaf coffee significantly increased free fatty acid levels, which in turn led to an increase in apolipoprotein B, which is associated with LDL cholesterol. […]

I mostly drink tea, so this may not affect me much. And, many coffee drinkers may be unaffected as well; the researchers were careful to point out the three-to-six cups involved in the study — “People should not freak out if they drink one or two cups a day,” commented Dr. H. Robert Superko.

I haven’t had a full-sugar soda in several years, but I still enjoy a few diet sodas a week. And, I've occasionally heard, off-handedly, that diet sodas can cause tooth decay just as their full-sugar cousins can. For what it’s worth, I switched to diet soda for the caloric savings, not specifically for the dental advantages (I almost typed “dental benefits” there, but that would have had an entirely different connotation than I intended.) However, as I like to have healthy teeth, I didn’t really want to drink beverages that might work against that (assuming that the notion was true).

A couple months back, I applied my Google-fu and though to get to the bottom of this. As it turns out, it was harder than I thought since some dental professionals said that diet soda doesn’t cause tooth decay while other dental folks said that diet soda does cause tooth decay. Yeesh. At the time, I just gave up on the question and made a mental note to revisit the issue later.

Well, I tried Googling again today and I came across a more definitive answer. One resource that looked promising was a pamphlet sent to parents from the Ohio Dental Association:

While excessive sugar is not healthy, it’s the acid in diet and regular soda that can damage tooth enamel and cause cavities and tooth decay. Acid can begin to harm tooth enamel in only 20 minutes.

That just about concluded my search, though I checked Google once more to see if I could find a national (or international) source in addition to this state-wide source. And, I came across this message from the Academy of General Dentistry about diet soda:

Drinking carbonated soft drinks regularly can contribute to the erosion of tooth enamel surfaces, according to the Academy of General Dentistry.

[…]

Because saliva helps neutralize acids and wash your teeth clean, the worst time to drink soda pop, ironically, is when you are very thirsty or dehydrated due to low levels of saliva. “The larger the volume of intake, the more impact soda pop has on your teeth,” says Gordon Isbell, III, DDS, MAGD, a spokesdentist for the Academy of General Dentistry. “Diet sodas are part of the problem. Women especially like to drink them throughout the day and between meals because they have no calories, yet the higher frequency and volume is putting their teeth at risk.” […]

You hadn’t heard of the “Academy of General Dentistry”? Well, neither had I — but they’re apparently “a non-profit organization of more than 37,000 general dentists”. I suppose that puts the question to rest, then; now I just need to figure out what I can drink instead of diet soda. (I probably won’t cut it out completely, but perhaps my teeth will thank me for drinking less of it.)

PS Is anyone else appalled — and, at the same time, amused — by the Academy’s unnecessary coinage of the term “spokesdentist”? ;)

I went to buy some beer Friday evening and, after selecting a brew, I took it to the register to pay. The clerk was a man in his 40s with a double chin:

Clerk: How old are you?

Me: 27.

Clerk: Oh, ok… That’ll be $7.13.

I then proceeded to pay for the beer. But, it left me wondering whether this was the clerk’s attempt at age verification or whether he was just curious how old I was ;).

Ah, just in time. MetaFilter has a thread today on hangover remedies. As mentioned in the FPP, the time-tested water & aspirin is a good standby (and it’s what I go with, though with ibuprofen in lieu of aspirin). And, as would be expected on MetaFilter, there’s a fair degree of snark with several suggestions to just keep drinking; but, there’re also some more useful comments in there.

One that caught my eye is N-Acetyl Cysteine, suggested by dws. N-Acetyl Cysteine, also known by its acronym “NAC”, is an over-the-counter supplement with a variety of uses, from treating an acetaminophen overdose to compensating for depressed levels of glutathione in AIDS patients. However, it apparently can also counteract hangovers:

Studies suggest that NAC, taken together with Vitamin C and B1 can be used to prevent and relief syptoms of veisalgia (hangover caused by alcohol). The primary detoxification mechanism for scavenging unmetabolized acetaldehyde (product of alcohol dehydrogenase) is sulfur-containing antioxidants. Cysteine and glutathione are active against acetaldehyde because they contain a reduced (unoxidized) form of sulfur called a sulfhydryl group, which contains a sulfur atom bonded to a hydrogen atom (abreviated SH). Another study indicates, that N-acetylcysteine generally regresses the oxidative damage induced by alcohol. […]

Of course, I’m guessing that all the usual stores which might carry NAC would be closed today; so, I’ll just have to buy some in time for next year. However, the Wikipedia page on Hangovers also mentions that NAC can be found to some extent in eggs — perhaps explaining why eggs are a component of many hangover folk remedies. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an omelette to make (HHOS).

I’ve been pining for Splenda Coke for some time, but it looks like my wish may come to fruition. Apparently, Coke is considering introducing a new Coke variety in 2005 made with Splenda (!).

The new drink, which could be called Coke Zero, Coke Light, Tab or a variation of Tab, would have no calories and be sweetened with sucralose and another artificial sweeter, according to a report in Beverage Digest.

The product is still in the “concept testing” phase, Beverage Digest said. A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola refused to confirm or deny speculation that the drink was in the works. […]

Of course, sucralose-based colas are already here, namely Diet RC and Diet Rite (both of which are made by the same company, but Diet RC also has caffeine). And I could probably drink Diet RC for the rest of my life and not mind it, but Splenda Coke has the additional advantage of Coca Cola’s marketing muscle — it should be available just about anywhere.

I’m back in Pittsburgh to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. And, as my dad isn’t a beer drinker (he prefers wine), we didn’t have much beer in the house when my brother and I arrived. So, it was time for a beer run :). And, in case you're not aware of Pennsylvania’s silly beer laws, beer can only be sold by the case here — the logic is that people would drink less that way (or something).

So, my brother and I headed off to a beer store (yeah, a beer-only store, since beer can’t be sold in supermarkets here). As we perused the aisles, we came across St. Nikolaus Bock from Pennsylvania Brewing. There were a couple other tempting beers, such as Sam Adams Octoberfest, but we decided to go for a case of the St. Nikolaus Bock as we’d probably have a hard time finding Penn Brewing beers elsewhere.

After chilling a few bottles in the fridge, Adrian and I popped open a few later that evening. I took a few sips and realized that this was undeniably a bock — there was plenty of malt flavor without much of a hops presence. And, it reminded me a bit of Paulaner Salvator (a dopplebock) as both had overtones of caramel and raisins.

Both of them are good beers but they’re not really sipping-beers. As sweet as they are, they’re almost unpleasant when drank on their own; but they can be rather enjoyable with the right food to accompany them. And, just to assuage my curiosity, I decided to check on which foods would be suitable for a bock. BeerTown has a section on food/beer pairings where they suggested barbecued salmon with a dry bock (that and limburger cheese, but I’m not sure when I’ll next run across some limburger).

And, RealBeer offers the interesting suggestion that sweeter bocks could be paired well with “heartier, spicier desserts, such as pumpkin pie or spice cake.” Now, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Considering that we’re in the Thanksgiving season, my family had both pecan and pumpkin pies yesterday; and, we had some leftover as well. So, perhaps around 10pm one evening, I may have to partake in a snack of some pumpkin pie along with St Nikolaus Bock :).

HealthTalk reports on findings by researchers from the University of Newcastle that drinking tea might prevent Alzheimer’s disease. I’m a tea drinker, so this was pleasant news (not that I plan on having Alzheimer’s, but every bit helps).

During laboratory testing, the researchers found green and black tea inhibited the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which breaks down the chemical messenger or neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. Alzheimer’s is characterized by a drop in acetylcholine.

Both teas [black and green] also were found to hinder the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), a substance found in protein deposits on the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. […]

I enjoy tea each morning, which I brew at home and take to work with me in my stainless steel “coffee mug”. In addition to being a tasty start to the morning, perhaps this offers a health benefit. I suppose that most people have tried tea and have already decided whether they like it or not.

But, if you’re undecided on tea or if you want to give it another try, I find that The Republic of Tea makes some good teas. If you’re not sure where to start, British Breakfast is a good all-around tea (and Earl Grey is another of my favorites). And, for the best flavor, I would recommend “full leaf” teas (as opposed to tea bags). But, that doesn’t mean a mess of loose tea in your mug — a Brew Basket (about $4.50) can steep single-serving mugs of tea without leaving tea leaves in your glass.