Beer Can't Kill You

Sampling beer at OSU Campus

The good news is I can’t kill anybody.  At best, all I can do is have bad tasting beer that my friends don’t want to drink.

This is the best beer news I’ve heard all day about beer, beer making process and homebrewing and I heard it at OSU brewing science center.

Yes, Oregon State University has a brewing process on campus however, the primary goal is not to make beer (what a pity) but to try out hops, and what hop goes best with what flavor profile. OSU is responsible for engineering most of the hops grown in and around our state & region. If the hops has an Oregon based named, it was engineered by OSU.  Other large scale mircobrews use OSU facilities and graduate student to do test brews with new hops for their beer. Bridgeport Beer (Portland Oregon) was doing just that.

To make Brandy in.

The Senior class project one year

The brewing center is expanding at OSU. The students are looking at art of making Sprits, particularly Brandy. They have a new cooper kettle system and the hands on instructor Jeff is back from a trip across Scotland sampling Brandy. (Now that is my kind of research.)

A few years back, the senior project for the engineering students was to design and fabricate a mini-malter. It is a fully programmable automatic malting vessel for barley. I’m not quite sure of the science of the vessel, but once the grain is loaded it’s a one step, one vessel process for stepping, germination and drying.

After that mini-lecture I skipped back over to the pouring of samples of beer. (NO worries, OSU has an OLCC License to serve beer on campus) and tasted. I may not understand all the science behind malting to milling; to making lagers.  But what I do know is taste. And the student beer tasted great.

But be cautious, you can actually kill someone with canned tuna. Better drink beer. Prost!