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CBR 59: Stouts, Oyster and Oatmeal

Sun, 2006-11-12 12:09 — jbearer

Oysters and Oatmeal, the perfect combination. This week we sample two of each. We discuss what does it mean to be imperial. Also: Yeast, vegan food, or cuddly little animal?

Links:

Reviewed:

Ranking:

  • Jeff - 1. Oyster, 2. Harpoon, 3. Yards, 4. Ipswitch
  • Greg - 1. Oyster, 2. Harpoon, 3. Yards, 4. Ipswitch

Extras:

    Summit Great Northern Porter
    Church Brew Works Smoked Porter

Comments

Tue, 2006-11-14 10:54 — monkeytoe

RE: the post show

Hey Greg--maybe you should turn the reactionary tool dial on your control panel down a mark or two. Animals eat and fuck their own offspring, too, but I bet the majority of vegans don't do that either. Choosing not to harm something that is more helpless than you are is the function of a higher organism. Just because I don't eat chicken doesn't mean that I revere chickens. I just don't care to participate in the kind of cruel (to me) production of poultry: cruel to both the animals and the workers.

I have been a vegetarian* for my entire adult life and if we are ever in the same room we can have a natto eating contest and arm wrestle to find out just who the pansy is.

*I am a fish sauce vegetarian: meaning that I don't put every restaurant worker through a 3rd degree questioning before I order. So, I get some fish sauce in my veggie Thai curry and I am sure there is some animal broth in my Chinese food, etc., but I don't want to be a tool every time I go out to eat or eat at someone's house.

Tue, 2006-11-14 14:41 — SeattleBen

Mmm ... oatmeal and oysters

Yum.

Fun show. I've always been interested in the oyster stout ... worked with shellfish during college and locals are big on the oysters. Add that to love of beer and voila, piqued interest. Of course, I've always considered porter a better match for most oysters ... is that just me?

Also fun to hear a bit of synchronicity between CBR and PBN. Really fun, actually. East v. West is interesting to hear.

For clarification, however, Big Mike did suggest the 120 for pouring on pancakes, not so much drinking with.

Looking forward to episode 60.

Wed, 2006-11-15 10:53 — greg

Vegetarianism I get and

Vegetarianism I get and understand (though I don't feel the same way you do), it's the vegan thing that really throws me for a loop.

But some clarification would be nice - how is "choosing not to harm something that is more helpless than you" a function of a higher organism? It's very rare (but not unprecidented) in the animal kingdom for a creature to take pets (and this mostly happens in captivity, unless it is a mutually beneficial relationship), but pity is a purely human emotion.

Would you eat from free-range or wild caught chickens? And a cow is pretty much a brainless milk-making meat machine after thousands of years of domesticated inbreeding...

I admit, I have a hard time feeling pity for cows and chickens. Does that make me callous?

Wed, 2006-11-15 10:59 — jbearer

nope, just a tool! :)

nope, just a tool! :)

Wed, 2006-11-15 13:21 — monkeytoe

It doesn't make you callous,

It doesn't make you callous, just different. Some people felt pity for the Crocodile Hunter and Ronald Reagan. It is the wholesale dismissal of something that you don't get that is tool-ish. I am not sure why you "getting" something makes it valid or no. I don't really get Jainism (a religious culture that is vegan) but that hardly invalidates it.

In captivity, animals don't have the same food needs. I don't know of any experiments done on restricting the food of predators co-existing with prey to see if the relationship survives starvation, but there are documented cases of people starving to death due to poverty while feeding their pets.

I am not sure how fucking up cows by domestication makes an argument to keep doing it. Mind you, I am not arguing against you or anyone else not eating cows, but I don't see how your argument for holds much water. It wouldn't take much extrapolation of the concept for basically any non-sociopath to find it repugnant.

I don't eat wild caught animals, mostly because it squicks me out after 20+ years of not eating meat.

Wed, 2006-11-15 13:34 — greg

Well, in my defense, we run

Well, in my defense, we run through topics pretty fast on the show, and when Jeff doesn't disagree with me, we let it go and be done with it. I'd actually love to have a long discussion about vegetarianism, and a back and forth, on the show - I guess it just comes across as casual, wholesale dismissal when it's just me stating my opinion and not giving any counter-arguments. It's not, and I'm not trying to belittle anyone (unless the subject is Aaron Sorkin) but just as you're not wishy-washy in your beliefs, I'm not wishy-washy in mine.

The domestication argument is simply that at this point cows are little more than products (from my perspective) and I really don't feel the same way about a dead cow that I would for, say, a dead elephant. That's not to say that I get my jollies thinking about cows being stuffed into small quarters and iron rods being jammed through their heads, I just understand that there's a dirty underbelly to feeding 6 billion people, and I'm in some ways more comfortable with animals that are bred for food purposes rather than taking them from the wild.

Which isn't to say that I avoid wild-caught salmon or anything, either.

I'm still curious about your sentence "Choosing not to harm something that is more helpless than you are is the function of a higher organism." and I'd like to know what you mean by that.

Thu, 2006-12-07 08:09 — scott at east e...

Late to the party, but

Late to the party, but chiming in anyway...

"I just understand that there's a dirty underbelly to feeding 6 billion people"

My contention is that there needen't be this dirty underbelly. As a species we can survive without it. And from a land and water use perspective, raising food for vegetarian consumption uses something like 1/20 the resources of raising meat.

You can talk about needing protein and calcium in your diet, but the fact that vegetarians can be healthy (and even overweight) without getting nutrition from meat sources, well that tells me it's a matter of taste preference. In other words, we choose to eat me because we like it - or made to believe we like by clever marketing. Or more simply, that's the way we were raised.

Cheers,
Scott

Wed, 2006-11-15 13:48 — Andy

Just because cows aren't as

Just because cows aren't as intelligent as we are doesn't give us a license to treat them badly. Being stupid doesn't stop anything from experiencing pain and misery. Would the creators of "30 Rock" not feel a knee to their stomach? (I'm sorry, but the dummies have spoken and good version of that premise is about to be canceled.) I think factory farming is unnecessarily cruel, but we need calcium and protein and I like meat and diary too much to be a vegetarian. I won't eat veal though. Vegans are a bit too extreme and they all smell bad.

Wed, 2006-11-15 18:38 — keith

Harpoon 100 Barrel Series

If the Oatmeal Stout came in a 12oz bottle, then it was an encore of the 100 barrel series (Harpoon Web Site). The 100 barrel series is originally released in 22oz bombers and on tap. The encores are made available in standard six packs and cases.

Thu, 2006-11-16 21:53 — BasicBrewingJames

Yeast love sucrose, too

Hey, guys. Great new site!

Here's me being picky: I think Greg said yeast don't ferment maltose and sucrose. You're half right. They don't like maltose, but - like most Americans - they do like sucrose (table sugar). In fact, many canned kits instruct you to add it.

Loved the Oyster Stout! Goes good with fancy oyster cracker thingies.

Cheers!
James

Basic Brewing Radio and Video - basicbrewing.com

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