An alcohol free life

Peroni here in Aus is the real deal as are the Japanese ones

Yes Adnams has specific yeast cultures for their different beers. I had an interesting conversation with their head brewer a few years back.

An interesting story - after the war the main Adnams yeast cultures got contaminated and died. The hunt was on for a similar culture that they could then evolve… I believe my memory serves me right they obtained a culture from Woodfordes brewery in Norfolk as at the time there were many similarities.

The yeast itself is different from the culture - you can obtain the yeast - no issue - but its the culture of the yeast that is key to the flavour, and that is harvested from the wort fermenter between batches - and I’d be surprised if Adnams would let anyone have that outside of a licensing agreement, as that is effectively their IPR :grinning_face:

The story is known to me.

But regarding your first paragraph, that’s not correct. Maybe there’s an exception somewhere, but they primarily use two strains (combined) for most of their range. One more estery and one with better attenuation to dry the beer out more. These are used in 1:1 ratio. These are kept in a yeastbank in twice a year (from memory) they get a new ā€œbatchā€.

In between you can use slurry from the fermenters, but the ratio will change over time as one yeast becomes more dominant, hence the need for fresh. Of course you can streak them and grow them separately before combining to get the original ratio again. I’m not sure if they do that.

I have no clue as to what you mean with ā€œThe yeast itself is different from the culture - you can obtain the yeast - no issue - but its the culture of the yeast that is key to the flavourā€. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Are you referring to the multiple strains?

Slurry harvested from one of their fermenters is exactly what I got BTW.

Yes but that is the specific cultures - and how they are combined … and they are harvested from the wort fermenter which is technically called the yeast cake I believe .. yes I couldnt remember the frequency of the fresh batch.

Kind of like a variant of Cognac where the cognac is made by a blend of eau de vie’s - and in that scenario the ratios are determined by the master tasters as eau de vies can vary from season to season.

So if you have harvested a live culture from the fermenter then that is indeed the yeast culture or more accurately the yeast cake … and usually very protected unless it is dead.

Yes I was referring to general yeast strains with yeast cultures which are specifically prepared and grown and indeed different from yeast cake - which is extracted from the fermenter. I might not have used the correct technical terms.

My Doctor told me I should consider giving up alcohol. I asked him if he thought I would live longer. He said " No, but it will seem like it".

On a serious note, I sleep better in the week when I don’t have a drink.

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that so named evidence of the benefit of small amounts of red wine for older people isn’t scientific and medical proved at all. The latest studies emphasize an important increasing risk on cancer by drinking red wine. Much beter to stay with Your tea, as tea contains more antioxidants and tannins then red wine. These ingredients were the main reason to call drinking in a very moderate way beneficial for older people.

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and the most significant health benefit for older people I have been told by my NHS employed family (though not spoken to my middle bro yet) is hydration, specially as you get older. Many elder people cause serious harm to them selves through not being adequately hydrated.. and in a way that is one of the more serious health risks and is often over looked.

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Makes my remembering my youth.

Belgian tablebeer (around 1,1° alcohol) served to all - so also all children, independing the age - when taking lunch.
Or better, a piece of sucker immersed in "Elixir d’Anvers, a artisanal liqueur brewed since 1863, to stand some toothache and served by the grandparents to their grandchildren. Old fashion medecine.

The yeast cake (or slurry) indeed. That and the culture are two different things. The culture is a combination of one or more strains in relative symbiosis. The slurry contains the dead and dormant yeast that drops out of suspension when the sugar is consumed. The latter is of course what we’re interested in.

Harvesting from the fermenter is just a necessity when doing such volumes as those kinds of brewers do. Leaving the beer to sit on the dead yeast can cause off-flavours. When you have it, you might as well reuse it saves you a lot of money in buying and growing yeast.

Yeast strains can evolve and the ratio between different strains can change, so you don’t want to do this indefinitely. Hence they get a new batch of pure strains from a yeast bank every X time. I can guarantee you there’s no custom blending of different yeast cakes going on. When a batch’s flavour is noticeably different or there’s an infection, they’ll start fresh sooner. What might also be happening that they simply take it to the lab (they have their own) to count the live cells of the different strains to make sure the ratio is within spec.

They’re not as protected as you think. Cask and many bottle conditioned beers just come with the yeast. Just a matter of harvesting. Some brewers will give you the entire recipe, plenty will give at least a few hints and simply be flattered that you’re trying to homebrew something like theirs. But it differs per brewer of course how free and easy they are with information, but there’s plenty that are pretty relaxed about it. Adnam’s being one of them.

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So you choose what scientific studies you wish to believe.

Obviously, so many things contribute to a person’s health and their mental state is right up there. IME someone giving something up totally (except smoking) doesn’t usually surprise me when I know their characters and/or circumstances.

Perhaps the head brewer over played his hand with us :slight_smile:

I’m sure you drift off to sleep easily (alcohol does that) but it’s unlikely you’re ā€œsleeping wellā€. Believe what you want though, whatever it takes to justify your behavior. For me it has little to do with living longer. It’s about thriving. Living to 100 means fick all to me if I can’t enjoy my activities which are physically demanding. Laying around on a fat ass withering away physically and mentally is not living for me. I’d rather just check out at that point.

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People on here judgmental about other peoples decor, table lamps, car choices, lifestyle, surely not? And now to cap it all they have an opinion that they need to express on my alcohol consumption. What is this place coming to? :rofl:

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If someone decides to have an unhealthier lifestyle this does affect people around them though.

Some of my family members decided to keep smoking and drinking and - unsurprisingly - these are the once who always banged the drum that it is an individuals’ choice. These are precisely the people who died early and left large holes behind caused by their untimely death.

We’re not talking an occasional glass of beer here which I believe is fine really but the larger quantities and especially smoking.

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Over burdened healthcare systems because of our life choices.

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The amount of taxes paid by drinkers and smokers goes a long way towards covering the costs of their healthcare. Otherwise the huge reduction in the number of smokers would have led to healthcare systems being less under pressure but that’s certainly not the case, at least in the UK.
The main reason healthcare systems are overburdened is because people are living longer and needing massively expensive ongoing care for conditions such as dementia and extreme frailty.

Add sedentary lifestyles and diet to the list.

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Also, in the decades after the war there were lots of young and working folks and relatively few elderly people. This implied relatively much nurses and doctors for relatively few elderly people. These days its the other way around which is a massive demographic problem.

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You need to read the labels carefully. The Peroni in our local Coop is brewed in Italy and the Estrella is brewed in Spain. A lot of the other stuff is, as you say brewed in the UK.

For a decent alcohol free beer, try Guinness Zero. It was recommended to me by the East Pointers. They are musicians, and musicians generally know their beer.

One alcohol free drink we’ve recently tried is Tanqueray Flor De Sevilla 0.0%, which is very nice as an aperitif with ice and some tonic.

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In the UK, Peroni in bottles is brewed in Italy but Peroni on draft in pubs is brewed in the UK. This is true of most overseas beers