Kreutzening

More history this morning, as we went back to Carrie Nation and the beginning of the temperance movement. Chef Stazi neatly oversimplified one hundred years of history to show how the issues of workplace safety and women's rights merged to create the avalanche that resulted in the ratification of the 18th amendment. In several more minutes, bootleggers and speakeasies were rampant and organized crime was beginning to affect the lives of everyday people. Then, the Noble Experiment was over. Somehow, NASCAR was the result, and so was the insane three-tiered liquor distribution system that exists to this day.

Chef Stazi delivered a long interactive lecture about "dram shop" liability, the laws which affect on-sale and off-sale liquor establishments. We discussed DUI and DWI laws and variances and the current California limits. A commercial truck driver can have his license permanently revoked for a BAC of .04 (half the legal limit), even if he is not driving his commercial vehicle. We talked about factors affecting blood alcohol level: most significant are rate of consumption and drink strength, but there are numerous others. We discussed the so-called "safe limits," and the fact that most drinks you get in a bar exceed those limits. With the first drink.

Then we switched perspective to talk about beer and spirits. Did you know that hops are in the same family as cannabis? That whiskey is essentially distilled beer, and brandy is distilled wine? When hops are added after the beer is fermented, as a flavor agent (like "dosage" in Champagne), it's called "dry hopping," or "Kreutzening." ESB is Kreutzened.

There are two types of beer, ale and lager; no, wait, there's steam beer also. Lager is cold fermented, yeast at the bottom, needs refrigeration. Ale is warm fermented, yeast at the top, doesn't require refrigeration. Most beers are made from barley (hefeweizen is made from wheat); most are made with brewer's yeast except Anchor Steam, which uses the same natural yeast that makes our sourdough bread so special.

If it's "whisky," it's from Scotland, and it's "Scotch". The barley is kiln-dried along with peat, and unlike beer, there are no hops added to whisky, or whiskey either. Kentucky whiskey is made from corn. Tennessee whiskey (of which there is only one kind: Jack Daniels) is filtered using sugar-maple charcoal, which gives it its sweet characteristics. Irish whiskey is the same as Scotch except for the peat and the "e".

Maybe the abstinence lecture was designed to keep us from over-imbibing. To guarantee it, for our beer tasting, Chef Stazi himself poured: two sips per cup. We tasted from light to heavy, of course: 3 lagers (Pilzner Urquell, Heineken, Sam Adams); Anchor Steam; Pyramid's Hefeweisen; Bass, Redhook ESB, and Sierra Nevada; then Anchor Porter and Guinness. No pretzels though.