They must really love them some beer down in Gainesville. Late last month, The Independent Florida Alligator at the University of Florida soothed the fears of student and community drinkers with a front-page story confirming a local brewery’s batch of Big Nose India Pale Ale was perfectly OK after a nearby fire and power failure.
—
The headline: “Beer unaffected by power cutoff after fire.” The best part of the piece– and a leading contender for top student press news-editorial snippet of 2011-2012: “Don’t worry. . . . They saved the beer.”
—
—
The article subsequently recounts the post-inferno pale ale rescue in rather telling detail. I admit, I only understand a smidgen of what is going on in the portion I pulled out below. But then, I mostly drink wine:
—
“The half-batch of beer sat in the second-to-last step of brewing, whirlpooling, for about an hour before [the brewery owner] was able to persuade authorities to turn the power back on for them. . . . In whirlpooling, the beer-to-be circulates around the tank, forcing solids (e.g., hops) into a cone in the center. The longer the beer, called wort in this stage of the process, sits with the hops, the bitterer it gets, and typically the beer only sits for about 15 minutes. ‘It wouldn’t be a question of losing beer, but it would have tasted bad or been too bitter,’ [the owner] said. To compensate, [the owner] made the other half batch scheduled for Tuesday less ‘hoppy’ than it would have normally been.”
—
Let’s be clear, this is impressive reporting! Maybe just a tiny bit too serious with the write-up? Although it might simply be adopting the tone of one of the stickers found in the brewery: “Good beer, no shit.” :)
—
P.S. Lingering question: Umm, why is there a picture of a local barbershop running with the online version of the piece?
—
P.P.S. Front page, really?
—
Happy Labor Day.
Leave a comment