The Cellar - interesting beerology 101 story

Kinda neat story from today's NY Times. Interesting subject - but more interesting are the names of the people features. It's been confirmed that the mayor of Denver is in fact Mayor Hickenlooper, and Dr. Bamforth is just a cool-sounding name. Anyone else find it ironic that the main subject - in a story about beer - is named Dr. Maltman?

Not crying Blair, but rather enjoying the odd coincidence of the topic. Full story <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/science/14beer.html">here</A>.

Quote:

December 14, 2004
With Great Beer, It's All in the Rocks (and That Doesn't Mean Ice)
By KENNETH CHANG

DENVER - The refreshing bitterness of an English pale ale, the clean
light taste of a Pilsener, the dark, almost burnt graininess of Irish
stout. To Dr. Alex Maltman, these are prime illustrations of the power
of geology.

Wine connoisseurs often talk of terroir - a French word expressing the
notion that vineyard soils impart flavors to the finished wines. But
data to back up the notion is sketchy, said Dr. Maltman, a professor
of earth sciences at the University of Wales. And though whiskey
distillers often make much of the water they use, there is little
correlation between the taste of whiskey and the geology of where it
is made, he said.

Beer and geology, on the other hand, are closely entwined, Dr. Maltman
said last month at a seminar on geology and beer held at a meeting of
the Geological Society of America.

For one, geologists drink lots of beer, typically ending a long day
examining rocks with a trip to the nearest bar. Mayor John W.
Hickenlooper of Denver, a former geologist turned pub owner, told the
geologists how an earlier geology meeting in 1988 bolstered his
fledgling microbrewery.

And as Dr. Maltman got up to talk, two-thirds of the audience also got
up and headed for the lobby, where Denver microbreweries were handing
out samples in small cups.

"I'd like to suggest this evening, to the people who remain, that in
fact it is with beer that there is the most direct link between the
drink and geology," Dr. Maltman said.

Beer is more than 90 percent water, and because almost all brewers use
water from wells, not rivers or lakes, the different styles of beer
were traditionally derived from the rocks that the breweries sat upon.

Today beer is usually thought of as an unchanging product. But much
scientific research and technological effort have been put into
achieving that consistency from agricultural ingredients that change
from year to year and season to season.