h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

WA, most ales are aged, largely because if you drank the beer straight from being brewed, it would be quite bitter from the hops. It's only after a certain amount of aging that the hops in ales 'calm down' enough to flavor the beer. Some brewers actually age their ales in barrels that held cognac, or brandy. One of my favorite beers is from a brewery called Allegash, in Maine. The beer is called Curieux, and it's an IPA aged in whiskey barrels. It's got an interesting bite!

You can tell if your landlord is brewing an ale by how hot he gets the mash (the hops, barley, and water that's mixed together to make beer). If he boils it, its definitely ale. Most homebrewing is ales, largely because making lagers is a bit tricky to do at home.

A Swede won the Sock Knitting Pentathlon 2008!

Some of the socks that required to be knitted can be seen here:

http://garyou.blogspot.com/search/label/skp2008

*wondering if Ag partook*

ooh, very cool! I particularly like the first pair.

Oh, and happy birthday, David! <--- it's the perfect singing tonic. Whatever ails you before singing onstage, if you take a swig of this, it will go completely away.

Happy birthday David!

Happy Birthday, David

Cold and damp here, although there is some blue sky out there in places. Must find me scarf and hat...

Happy Birthday, David
This is dust for your wings. It'll keep them in perfect condition and, as you fly invisibly round the Library of Doom, small particles will be attracted to the most annoying students, rendering them innoxious for the next 48 hours.
If you read the small print on the underside of the box, you'll see what other properties it contains.

I'm not a beer drinker, unless you count an occasional Belgian raspberry beer, and wasn't a tea drinker until six months ago when I gave up trying to find a decent cup of coffee in Beijing and acquired a liking for Oolong and Jasmine teas, both of which are green types. My next problem was that the Chinese don't appear to understand the concept of weak tea.

It's a beautiful morning here in SE Englandshire and today I am going to Accomplish Things.

* marches off with a determined expression

I heard a great story recently about someone who makes beer and keeps pigs. He feeds the swine with the by-products of the beer-making and says the pigs end up rolling drunk. Giiven the similarities between pigs and humans, I wonder if they get dreadful hangovers too.

Oops.
Preview, dammit.

Happy Birthday David, here have a small spare leg, just so you really can go break a leg when people wish you luck without doing any damage to yourself

MR, I thought the main part of the brewing process of ales and lagers is the same. When it comes to the fermentation is where they differ - ales are top fermented (a variety of yeast which rises up and floats on the surface in the fermentation vessel) and lagers are generally bottom fermented. Lagers also should be matured in a colder environment (this is the bit that is the actual lagering process).
WA racking the beer into the barrels is a good idea as MR has said, you can easily filter out most of the large solids and then let the beer in the barrels settle so the finer sediment (usually yeast) will go to the bottom and you get a clear pint in your glass. Sometimes the brewer will let all the sediment settle (or through fine filtration) get the beer to clear before racking into barrels.

Am I too much of a beer geek?

Ooh, thanks! *examines the presents with mounting excitement*

It's my 30th today. I think somehow that tonight's dress rehearsal is not the best evening activity for not making a fuss about it - too many slightly crazy people with an excess of adrenaline!

I'm not a beer drinker at all, I'm afraid. Spirits is more my sort of thing, and generally see-through ones like vodka or white rum. Mmm, rum. It's too early in the day for a , isn't it?

Here you are David It's a re-configurable perfect pitch - great for cricket and persuading people to do what you want. The reconfigurable bit is that it's also a pitchfert perch. I'm not entirely sure what "pitchfert" means, but if you scale and gut the perch and poach it gently in milk with mace and lemon zest it makes a lovely entree.

Um.

Perhaps not.

Look at the pretty paper.

Ooh, and happy birthday to Kerr, as well, my younger Salonista twin!

Morning all, and Happy Birthday David <- it is a neverending pot of slap remover that won't go all greasy and gunky.

Are you managing to carry Star around ok with that ankle Sol?

As well as old houses withnames you also get newly-built houses with names given by their new owners - these are generally seen as a bit naff especially when they are bog-standard semis or terraces on large estates.

Numbering of houses here is a bit erratic too - when our house was built it was part of a small development that spread over three roads - rather than numbering each road the council just started at one and kept going so that numbers 1-22 are down a cul-de-sac, 23-33 are on another road and numbers 34-44 are on a third road. It is mightily confusing for delivery drivers as we all have the same postcode so they always end up down the bottom of the cul-de-sac looking all confused.

You also get rows of houses on the same road with the same numbers - so you might have 1,2,3 Post Office Cottages, next door to 1,2,3 Butcher's Row followed by 1,2,3 The Maltings etc etc. I am frequently impressed that any post arrives in our village at all.

Did I tell you all about the chap in Goa who has memorised the postcode areas for Britain, France, Germany and one of the Scandinavian countries? You tell him your postcode, he tells you where you live, and you give him some rupees in amazement - a more novel approach to begging I've yet to see. I've met other people who have met him and been equally impressed and I'd guess he has been doing this for years. I mentioned this in Ask h2g2 once and they all seemed to be of the opinion that this disabled beggar living on a beach in Goa had an international network of mates who, armed with just your postcode (or fragment of it), would then find and burgle your house while you were safely on a different continent Call me naive if you like but that seems *etremely* unlikely to me.

*Sits with accumulated bandages and frezzer packs all over ankle* These seem to be working very well, as foot feels much much better today.

Don't think I shall tell MiL that though. Have been doing royal progresses around the flat followed by MiL carrying the Star. I should give her a small cusion, perhaps...

Happy Birthday David! And here is an audition judge zapper. Point it at them and press this green button (NOT the orange one) and the part you want will be yours!

Since I missed the talk of how we organize our personal libraries, here’s a quick take:
Wherever there’s space.
Oh, all right. We do keep our biblical research resources grouped together, and we put them in categories of bible versions, concordances and dictionaries, ministry teaching books, and commentaries. We group standard dictionaries, thesauri, and encyclopedias together. Self-help primers and “…for Dummies” books coexist. Humorous works, to include comic compendiums, form a tittering pack of trade paperbacks. Romance novels and Sci-Fi stories snuggle up to complement each other. We have a few stacks of magazines we’ve saved over the years, with articles of interest for our lifestyle, though I’m wanting to cull the majority of the slick paper stock. None of these groups are necessarily in alphabetical order, and it would amaze me if they ever were.

Music, we classify by genre and then alphabetize by artist and year of issue.

Movies are organized the same way, in a sense. I have my Sci-Fi cinematics and superhero smash-ups, plus the odd Bond flick or war movie. My wife has a section of chick flicks and family-oriented movies. Our youngest daughter has her shelf of kid cartoons and tween dramas.

I’m so relieved not to be challenging the Atelier’s apparel code for this Forum. Wearing the Blue Itchy Mohair Pants for Late Entrant Salonistas is a distinction I’m working diligently to avoid. My dermatologist has also prescribed a salve to fight off B.I.M.P.L.E.S.™ from their chafing, so it should be clear sailing from henceforth.

This is for all the Salonistas whom I haven’t had the opportunity to meet…yet: Howdy!
That’s for: Happy Nerd, minichessemouse, lostmonalisa, Todaymueller, Runescribe, Pheroneous, Loftyskywalker

For Lady C.

I… I don’t know what to say.
Hugs to those who miss her most. Bless your hearts…

Once again, I feel the need to thank Lil for generating and diligently keeping open this venue for sociable conversation. This place feels like Home whenever I have the chance to pop in for a spell. Each of you here has made a positive impression upon my life, and this forum has brightened my spirits innumerable times. Thanks for all of you being who you are. …and a hearty ‘huzzah’ to last convo’s Scribes!

B4ispiralintounremittingsentimentality

Happy birthday Kerr!

Kelli, I would have thought that just the postcode wouldn't be enough to identify *exactly* where you live unless you give your name as well. In Sweden, one postcode will cover several blocks and streets.

Phil, you are correct, that the yeasting process is done from the top for ales, and from the bottom for lagers, but heat, or the lack thereof, is what makes the yeast either float (really, boil) or sink -- the coolness allows the yeast to sink to the bottom, and tempers the bitterness of the hops, which is why lagers don't have to age for as long as ales do. Secondary hopping (also called 'top hopping') is the process to make a specific kind of ale, namely, India Pale Ales (which are aptly named, since the whole concept of throwing fresh hops into a finished ale happened because the soldiers in India were complaining that their beer wasn't "beery" enough.).

And Phil, if you're a beer geek, I'm not sure what that makes me. I'm still trying to figure out how to make someone pay me money to teach a "History of Brewing" class.

Precisely my feeling Titania - I was quite surprised at the strength of feeling amongst some posters that we had foolishly provided information that would end up with us getting burgled. But it was the thought that there was this international network of thieves just sitting there waiting to dash to the destinations provided by this begger that seemed most ridiculous to me! I just thought it was an amazing and impressive memory feat, and worth buying the chap breakfast for the work he'd put in in memorising all that.

I could see getting the town/village/maybe even one's street, but zipcodes in the US cover several square miles, and in less populated areas, several hundred miles.

Can any of you clever folks explain to me how/why this works?

http://www.quizyourprofile.com/guessyournumber.swf

First of all they ask you to tell them the colour of your number - there are only five numbers with the same colour as yours. Later they ask you to pick the house with your number - there are five houses, each hous has one of the numbers you have already identified with your colour. When you pick the house you are telling them your exact number. Everything else is just misdirection and window dressing.