Chapter 3
[1] The legendary technical guy from Bass is said to have surreptitiously wiped his handkerchief across the rim of an open fermenter in Prague and then brought the prized conquest home and asked his microbiologist to isolate what he could from the handkerchief. It is supposed that the rag had not been used for anything other than stealing the yeast.
[2] I was in my office at Preston Brook when one of the brewers stomped in and plunked a glass of beer down on my desk. It was decidedly blue-tinged. “Come on, good doctor, what's wrong with this?” I racked my brains but could think of nothing. “Well,” said the brewer, gulping it down in one, “it tasted just fine.” I had a phone call a few hours later to tell me that Nick had had his stomach pumped: The blue color was a result of a miscalculation in the addition of copper sulfate, which was added in very small quantities to snaffle undesirable eggy aromas. But 10,000 times too much had been added—at those levels copper is poisonous. We decided that henceforth this would be one addition we could live without: better to have farty-flavored beer than kill anyone.
[3] As alcohol content of a drink increases, there is a greater tendency of volatile substances to remain in the liquid. Beers being generally of lower alcohol content than wines means there is a greater delivery of aroma substances into the nose from the former. And considering there are probably twice as many flavor-active components in beer than there are in wine, then it will be realized that beer flavor is substantially more complex than is that of wine.
[5] These were spore-forming Bacillus bacteria, present in the water supply. They would not grow in the beer and therefore spoil it, but they were present in a hibernating form (spores) and were thus of concern to the Saudis.
[6] Brewers and brewing scientists love a good meeting. We have them all over the world, and I have been privileged to have been to some wonderful places to give papers: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, India, Singapore, Brazil, and of course, numerous venues in Europe and North America. Truth is that I haven't taken as much advantage of these trips as I should have. Diane is driven to distraction: There I am in a place like Cape Town, and rather than make my way up Table Mountain, I'm to be found in yet another hotel room, writing a paper or catching up with emails. But the brewing industry has been good to me. I have roamed the globe talking about the science of a wonderful product and have met amazing people.
A good proportion of my life has been spent in air-planes—and, until gaining a degree of enlightenment, that has been the most nerve-wracking thing I have done (save batting in cricket, that is). I am the sort of guy who likes to get to airports early, real early. The most delicious words in the world to me are “you're all set, sir” as I am handed my boarding pass, aisle seat, of course. My biggest buddy in the brewing industry is Graham Stewart, erstwhile scientific guru of Labatt and until his retirement, Director of the International Center for Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Graham and I have taught beer and brewing to people all over the world, most notably in Australia, New Zealand, China, and India. Graham will regale you with various stories about yours truly, such as the time I ventured out from a meeting in Shanghai to have a Chinese massage (a stocky little masseur as I recall), part of which consisted of the practitioner flaming the necks of six glass goblets and sticking them on my back. When he removed them 20 minutes later, there were six perfect red circles—where the evil spirits had departed! It took weeks for them to disappear. However, the story Graham most likes to tell is all to do with my paranoia about getting to airports early. As he tells it, “We got to London airport three hours before the plane was scheduled to take off. And I am not talking about London, England; I am talking about London, Ontario! There only was one bloody plane!” It’s true. And we drank so many beers while we waited that, after I took off, Graham had to go home in a cab and leave his car at the airport. It cost him a fortune in parking!
Not only do I get to airports early, but I also insist on really, really long connection times. The reality is, though, that I once looked death in the face on an airplane. I had reconciled myself to die. I was flying from Valencia to Amsterdam in 1991. The reason I was on that particular flight rather than one directly to London escapes me. I do recall with some amusement from this distance, though, that the airplane was a Fokker. Indeed. As usual I was sitting working, with an empty seat alongside. That vacant seat meant that I had positioned myself by the window. Suddenly an old woman was pushed into the seat and an attendant strapped her in. An announcement was made. “Please listen very carefully. We are obliged to make an emergency landing in Paris. We cannot tell you whether this will be in five minutes or fifteen, but it will be soon. Please do not attempt to retrieve anything from the overhead compartments. If you wear spectacles, take them off. If you have any false teeth, take them out. When you are told to do so, adopt the brace position.” There was more, but I don't recall it. They certainly didn't tell us why we were coming down. All I did know was that there was a smell of burning and the attendants looked terrified. Can you imagine what goes through your mind in such a situation? I instantly told myself that this was it, the end of my life in this realm. Amazingly, I felt more serenity than fear. There was not a single tear, no panic. I quietly thought about my family. I simply and, with composure, stared out of the window. In truth, I do not recall praying. The ground was getting nearer and nearer, and all I knew was that this was certainly not Paris. All I could see was agricultural land. It seemed that we were going to hit the ground in the middle of nowhere. The plane was not plummeting; it was descending as it would for a normal landing. Except there was that smell of burning. At last we were told to “Brace!!!!” I did, fervently. With a bang we hit the ground, and I heard the reverse thrust of the engines with a mighty roar. But how could this be? I jerked my head up and looked out of the window. We were on a runway! It transpired that a fire in the cockpit had burnt out a bunch of navigation equipment, and the pilots had been uncertain where we were. Somehow—and I still don't know how—they found their way to a small airport at Metz. I know that higher powers were with me that day, guiding that airplane down but also giving me hidden strength and serenity. It was only when I got into the small terminal that I was hit by the magnitude of what I had been through. They opened the bar and I drank a large whisky. The rest of the passengers were all Dutch—and their exuberance (or was it delayed shock?) kicked in as they enjoyed the hospitality. Then a bus arrived, and we were driven to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, but not before the Dutchmen had demanded that the bus stop at a liquor store so we could get fresh supplies of booze! In Paris I was escorted to a Heathrow-bound flight held back for me and was ushered into a seat. It was the proverbial getting back on the bike after falling off. From that flight on, I have always been an attentive listener to the safety demonstrations.
It was not the first time I had cheated death. The first occasions were as a small boy. I was only three and riding my tricycle when I dislodged a paving slab that a builder working on our house had left precariously propped against a wall. It toppled over and landed on my leg, crushing it. Had it landed higher up, it would have killed me. Months later, the broken leg having healed, I dashed ahead of my mother and grandmother on College Road in Up Holland, and straight in front of a car that was pulling out of the gas station. I could only have been three or four, and I can still see the man holding his head in horror, having executed his emergency stop. And I guess I can still feel the repeated slaps on my leg, newly healed or not, from my mother, administered I guess as a knee-jerk demonstration of her relief.
The scariest event of all occurred in 1977. Diane was making her first long journey driving a car, being the only driver in our family at the time. We pelted away from Sheffield along the M1, M62, M6, and M56 motorways heading for my mother's home in Helsby.
We then exited onto a side road. Diane did not adjust, and I didn't warn her quickly enough, but up ahead was a ninety-degree bend in the road, right by a canal and underneath a railway viaduct. Around the other side of the bend were traffic lights that regulate access to a swing bridge. Suddenly I yelled to “slow down,” but too late. As she roared round the corner on the wrong side of the undivided road, she swerved into a high bank and the car flipped over onto its side, driver side closest to the road, and slid along with what must have been horrendous scraping. There was the crackling of sparks. But in my head all was quiet. I do remember reaching across as it happened and cradling Diane's head lest it touched the glass. Though badly shaken, we both climbed out without a scratch. And the remarkable thing? Those traffic lights were on red, stopping traffic from coming in the opposite direction towards us.
The last occasion came on June 4, 1994. I remember the date for one very good reason: It was the day that Emily arrived on this mortal coil. I had spent the night with Diane in the hospital in Chichester where our baby was born. Early that Saturday morning, weary but ecstatic, I left my wife and the precious new bundle to sleep while I drove back through the West Sussex lanes to our home. I wound through the one-way meandering streets of Petworth, behind somebody driving far too slowly for my liking. As you leave Petworth, the undivided A272 takes a right-hand turn, and thereafter assumes a long straight stretch, on which I knew I would be able to overtake. Sure enough the road was clear ahead, so I drew out to pass the straggler. At which precise moment somebody pulled out of a farm track a little further along and appeared in the oncoming lane. On seeing me careering towards him he must simply have stopped (he hadn't started to accelerate), but I was belting along at 45 or 50 miles an hour. The screech of the brakes as I slammed my foot to the ground must have been horrendous. The other car was looming nearer and nearer, but eventually my car came to a stop. I could distinctly see the horrified look of the man behind the wheel of the car in front of me. Our vehicles could only have been inches apart. I thought back to how carefully I had driven after Peter had been born 14 years earlier. What possessed me? Emily very nearly could have been, like me, fatherless at birth.
[7] Some Asians lack an aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme that is important in the metabolism of alcohol. As a result they display alcohol flush reaction, which is colloquially known as Asian Flush or Asian Glow.
[10] World's top ten beer brands:
|
1. |
Snow |
|
2. |
Bud Light |
|
3. |
Budweiser |
|
4. |
Skol |
|
5. |
Corona |
|
6. |
Brahma |
|
7. |
Heineken |
|
8. |
Tsingtao |
|
9. |
Yanjing |
|
10. |
Coors |
[11] One of the hazards of being a guest speaker at a Chinese brewing event is that you become the focus for the ritual of “gan bei.” Everyone will come up to you and raise their glass pronouncing “gan bei!” You are expected to reciprocate and then both of you drink the entire contents of your respective glasses. It's okay for them—they get to do it perhaps once or at most a few times. But being the center of attention, you have to do it with everyone.
[12] I recall well my first trip to India. I meticulously avoided drinking anything other than bottled water. I avoided anything that had been in contact with the tap water—for example, sliced fruit and greens. So when I was sitting in my seat on Lufthansa, homeward bound, I breathed a sigh of relief and tucked into the salad. Mistake, for where had that dish been prepared? The impact was a quite spectacular weight-loss regime over several days. I recall soon afterwards speaking at a dinner in London at which was present my big buddy, Graham Stewart, who led our India inward-missions. As I said in my speech, “with friends like Graham, who needs enemas?”
[13] Diacetyl. Substance that smells of popcorn/butterscotch and which is produced by yeast during fermentation. However, prolonged contact of beer and yeast leads to the latter removing the diacetyl, and it is critical that the brewer waits for this to occur.
[14] Gushing. The spontaneous foaming of beer when a bottle or can is opened, leading to a surge of beer out of the container. Caused by poorly soluble or insoluble materials that can populate beer.
[15] Country liquor. A distilled alcoholic beverage made from locally available cheap raw material (sugar cane, rice, palm, coconut, etc.) with an alcohol content between 25 percent and 45 percent.
[16] The most famous beer-drinking celebration is of course the Oktoberfest. This traditionally kicks off in the third weekend in September, ending on the first Sunday of October. Its history stems back to October 12, 1810, and the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. All the good folk of Munich were invited to the celebration at which copious quantities of beer were joyfully consumed.
The story is told of a small-of-stature brewer from Bass who joined a company delegation in the 1970s to a technical event in Germany that coincided with Oktoberfest. Just an hour or two after stepping off the airplane, they were at the great event, quaffing liters of Marzen and devouring sides of pork, dumplings, and red cabbage. In a state of some contentment (as it were) our hero was led back to his hotel room, where he encountered for the first time in his life a duvet. Not knowing what to do, he unbuttoned it and climbed inside, refastening matters behind him. Next morning a strapping chamber maid entered the room, flung open the windows, grabbed the duvet with both mighty paws and swung. Imagine everyone's surprise when a stark naked Englishman shot out of the end of the duvet.