wertperch's New Writeups

Beer Bra (thing)

2009-11-03T14:43:50Z

A travelling underwear beverage dispenser

"...turn an A cup in to double Ds AND sport your favorite beverage..."

I thought I'd seen it all; I've been a beer-drinker for many a year and muckle have I seen. There's all manner of glassware, pewter and whatnot all designed with one delightful task in view; that of drinking beer. I've seen beer hats, kilts that boast the ability to carry 20 bottles of beer, I've seen folk drink from yards of ale. I've been in pubs which serve their beer from glass chamber pots, seen men drink beer from a welly, but until today I have never seen anything so outrageous, so bizarre and so just-plain-wrong as this new technology.

This is, as its name suggests, a container (or possibly a pair) shaped after the human female bosom and designed to fit in an upper female undergarment. You may doubt, you may scoff, but it's a genuine product…

Lies my physicists told me (thing)

2009-11-02T23:58:46Z

A Personal History of Atomic Physics, and Other Animals

"The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." - Muriel Rukeyser

Way, way back in time, a little boy was told in school that all matter in the universe was made of atoms. Atoms, it seems, or at least the idea of atoms, had been around for quite a while, since Ancient Greece, in fact. It seems that this chap Democritus came up with the word ἄτομος (atomos) in about 450 BCE, around a hundred and fifty years after a bunch of Indian Jain philosophers came up with the concept of indivisible particles. The lad was excited about this, and spent many days trying to see atoms, using ever more and more powerful magnifying glasses. He failed, of course, and had to content himself with a photograph of atoms in his encyclopædia.

It will probably come as little surprise when I tell you…

September 30, 2009 (thing)

2009-09-30T05:42:06Z

On Becoming a Freelance Writer

""Eleven hours I spent to write it over" - King Richard III"

So I finally did what Christine has been on at me to do. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't do it all off my own bat, I had a little encouragement from my old employers, who decided, in a great fit of euphemism to "let me go". Feelings are mixed at a time like that, and suffice to say that it was with a heightened sense of self-awareness that I toddled home to my family to break the news to them.

We won't starve. The bears will not eat us as we trudge through the snow to break up the ice of the stream in the backwoods. We won't even run out of tea, as the wolf isn't that close to the door. We are tightening our belts somewhat as I slowly set out my stall to sell my wares, setting up a website to advertise my skills, wonder about getting business cards printed, and…

Session Beer, or How To Drink More Beer (thing)

2009-09-22T14:17:50Z

So you like to drink beer? You like to drink a lot of beer? You like to drink a lot of beer over the course of a social evening, but not be falling-over drunk at the end of it? Then what you need is a session beer.

What's a session beer? Typically, such a brew will have three qualities; an alcohol content of generally less than 5%, a balanced flavour and a light to moderate body. There are good reasons for specifying these things.

First of all, in a social setting, getting blotto is a no-no; the object of an evening in company is to be, well, companionable. You also want to be able to make it home in one piece and however you plan to do that, having a bellyfull of beer and a bloodstream full of booze in not conducive to a safe or comfortable journey. (On a side note, and for safety information, and because I worry about you all, I found a Blood Alcohol Count calculator tool that you may find to…

1554 (thing)

2009-09-18T15:51:06Z

A Little Dark History of a Black Beer

"Enlightened Black Ale...a highly quaffable dark beer" - New Belgium Brewing

Many great things happened in 1554. The city of São Paulo was founded, Lady Jane Grey was executed, pirate-adventurer Walter Raleigh was born, the herbalist Hieronymus Bock died. Well, not all these things were great, but they are important historical facts.

Whilst these matters have some bearing on our modern world (especially if you live in São Paulo), there were even more momentous moves afoot in a monastery somewhere in Belgium during these Dark Ages. There, a group of enlightened monks worked day and night to develop a new style of beer, one that took dark-roasted malts and turned them into a beer worthy of Heaven, but that was dark as the very gates of Hell.

Of course, that's just a flight of fancy, but what is true is that more recently, a…

Patron Saints of Beer (person)

2009-09-02T20:19:16Z

"I should like a great lake of ale, for the King of the Kings.
I should like the family of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal." - Saint Bridget

What do Santa Claus, Wenceslaus I of Bohemia, Saint Luke the Evangelist and the oldest microbrewery in Houston have in common? Well, the title gives the game away, but assuming that you didn't read that, or you've already forgotten it, the answer is..."Patron Saints of Brewing". I say "saints" because the more I looked, the more I found. I'd thought there was only one, Saint Arnold, after whom the Houston brewery was named, (though it turns out there are two Arnolds, one from Soisson, one from Metz). They sprang up from everywhere and everywhen, until it seemed that every country and time had its own saints, gods or goddesses who looked after beer, brewers or associated trades.

I was further delighted to discover that there are also those who…