Michael-Thursday
Last week,
Stanley mentioned that we were in the last throes of writing our stand-alone, Dead of Night. I'm pleased to report that on Tuesday we added the
final full stop to the last sentence, and sent it off to our agents and our editor in
the UK. Stanley pointed out that the book was already available for advance
purchase in the UK on Amazon. Who knew Amazon sold books that hadn’t even been
written yet?
If anyone
is concerned that we have shelved Kubu in favor of our new protagonist, Crystal
Nguyen, don’t worry. Kubu will be back next year. We’ve just accepted a two Kubu book deal with
Orenda, and at least the first will feature a younger Kubu trying to find his
feet in the CID, working under Assistant Superintendent Jacob Mabaku. And he’ll
be back in the US, too—we’ve just signed a deal with Poisoned Pen Press and we
are absolutely delighted to be joining them!
All this is
by way of introduction to the fact that my mind is now quite blank—emptied of
Crystal and not yet reloaded with Kubu. (Some may say that that is its usual
state anyway. Thought I’d get in with that one first.) So that is how I sat down to
write this blog.
Usually
something has happened in the news during the week that intrigues me, but the
last week was totally swamped with the news of Cambridge Analytica. I don’t
think anyone wants to hear more about that.
There was one thing though. Genetically modifed beer. A research student at UC
Berkeley thought of it. Students think a lot about beer anyway (probably second
only to that business that takes two of them), so why not? His idea was to splice
mint and basil genes into yeast in order to cut out the hops. Hops are
expensive, hard to grow, and drink gallons of water. The idea is to replace the
bitterness/yeastiness introduced by the hop flowers by adding it directly in the yeast. The London
Times took a somewhat tongue in cheek approach with a headline: Abandon all hops. After insulting the Royal Family or
criticizing Football, it’s hard to imagine anything that would get the English
more upset than messing around with their beer.
However, in a blind
taste test, a panel was convinced—the new yeast made decent beer that matched
the hop flavors. Interesting, because the genes spliced were from mint and
basil. Sounds more like something you might meet in the southern states than in
California. But even the researchers are a bit dubious about the commercial
viability of their discovery; brewers are very conservative people apparently.
Most drinks
seem to be going the other way—organic wines, handmade craft beers, niche
spirits. People have strong feelings about what is best, the right way to do things, and so
on. Some of this goes almost to the occult with biodynamic wine making
involving buried cows heads and harvesting at full moon.
From my rather limited
experience, I can say two things about these types of wines. One, they are
usually expensive, and two, they are often very good. The expense clearly comes
from all the extra overheads. You start off with insects eating the vines,
progress through people having to wake at midnight at full moon (overtime), and
end up with the wild yeasts spoiling multiple barrels. The fact that it’s often
better may be a result of all these
things, but it will be the result of
all the extra care and commitment that the vineyard manager and wine maker put
into the process.
And organic means
different things in different places and different industries. Even quality
control regulations vary from place to place. In Burgundy you can chaptalize wine
(add sugar). That would be anathema in South Africa (mainly because our problem
is too much ripening and so too much sugar). In Burgundy you can’t irrigate
vines. (Why would you? Have you been there in winter?) Here it’s completely
standard.
All this, of
course, interests people at the top end of the market. The vast majority of wine
sales go to people who want just three things (1) alcohol, (2) something that isn’t repulsive to
drink or produce an instant migraine, and (3) alcohol.
So how about GM beer? In my opinion, all it needs is a catchy name and an appealing label. Suggestions can be sent care of UC Berkeley.
At the end
of this stream of subconsciousness, I realize that I still haven’t got anything to write about this week. Well, maybe in
a fortnight…
The trick is to make it sound exotic, with a brand name something like "Nhop Byeer"... sounds vaguely east-asian, vaguely Scandanavian, it's definitely got to be good! The secret is to NOT explain that it's made without hops. That be a non-starter for too large a segment of the beer-swilling union.
ReplyDeleteI really like Nhop, or maybe N'Hop. Maybe register nhop.com while there's still time!
DeleteMichael, speaking in the dialect of NYC, I don’t know from beer, GM or otherwise. But I know Kubu has found a lovely home at Poisoned Pen. What great news.
ReplyDeleteWe are delighted to be joining them!
DeleteSee what happens if you (translated “I”) don’t look at MIE for 48 hours, one misses all the important breaking news brewing out there. Here, here on the hopless beer, but cheer cheer on joinining the Poisoned Pen Press saloon! Yes, that’s how we describe ourselves—as saloonmates. Welcome aboard, Michael and Stanley. It will be a great fit!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jeff. We are delighted to be joining you at the saloon!
Delete