Bell Digest v940806p3

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 06 Aug 1994, part 3
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk


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From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney)
Subject: Beer, from a brewer's perspective.
Message-ID: <9408052121.AA21313@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 5 Aug 94 11:21:46 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5484


Okay, I'm a brewer--strictly amateur, but I've done a good deal of
reading on pre-19th century brewing and beers and I intend to extend my
brewing into pre-19th century techniques as soon as I can.


Whoever said that beer without hops is brewed only to be drunk "the next
day" doesn't know diddly about beer, brewing, or the brewer's/brewster's
craft.

"English Ale, good and stale" was regularly brewed and laid up for a minimum
of five weeks before drinking--this was in the pre-hops days and in the
days when "beer" had a legal definition of "ale that has hops in it".  Real
ale--the non-hopped stuff--could be laid up as long as a year or two without
it going bad.  In fact, ales weren't considered to be worth that much if
they hadn't had 5 or six months to age.

As for a "thick soup"--again I cry "male-cow-excrement!"  Ale is always
laid up to settle.  "Five days stale, settle your ale."  Sediment  
floating around in the brew was certainly
considered a flaw throughout all medieval and later ales, in both pre-hops
and post-hops days.  Unhopped ales could also be shipped--although not 
overseas, it is true.  A bishop of the thirteenth century in England
records having been given the gift of several barrels of ale from a different
part of the island.  (Some of this ale was in the form of malomel, a 
beverage consisting of ale, unfermented wort, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and
other spices.)

As for alcohol content--you can get a pretty darn good level of alcohol from
a high-malt wort, and that has NOTHING at all to do with your hop content.

Furthermore, a bewildering variety of herbs have been used to flavor ales.
(Read:  Virtually any herb or spice on the entire planet in some place or
another.)

Ever try mulled ale with a hopped ale?  It just don't cut it.
(Mulled ale later became mulled wine after hops entered all English brews.)
Mulled ale was a very common and popular Yuletide drink--it was also
called "Wassale" or "Wassail".  The ale used for it had usually been made
the preceding spring--early on, before the weather got too warm for
healthy ale yeasts.  Wassail became a wine drink after hops invaded the
ales.

Although a porter flip isn't too bad.  (What's a flip?  Simple, heat an
iron spike in a fire and stick it into a mug of your favorite brew.  I'd
suggest a porter or maybe a brown ale, since any lager would just be too
wimpy and insufficiently malty for the experience--a doppelbock might make
a good basis, though...)


So, why did hops end up becoming so popular?  They do act as a preservative.
They permit brews to be shipped long-distance.  They cover up for some lack
of cleanliness on the part of the brewer/brewster (disinfectant).  Without
hops or refrigeration, I'd surmise that bad batches would be more common.

However, anybody who tells you that unhopped brews cannot be stored and
would only be drunk "the day they were made" is either lying or ignorant.

If you have a happy, strong yeast culture, and you keep dust and grime out
of your brews, you can have strong, potent, unhopped brews that store for
months--even a year or more.  If you have a natural refrigeration source,
even longer.


As for somebody saying "they didn't know about germs 'back then'", I have
to say this:  From the writings they seemed to know that you shouldn't
brush off your shoes into your brew vats...

Maybe they didn't know "germs" but some brewers understood that a pure
brew needed clean implements, for some unknown reason.


PS:  Does anybody besides me realize that all beers violate the Rheinheits-
gebot?  After all, that law only permits a beer to have "water, malt, and
hops".  It makes no mention whatsoever of using yeast as an ingredient or
agent.

PS:  Guinness violates the Rheinheitsgebot, too, as does any Weiss, Kriek,
or Lambic.  Rheinheitsgebot is no guarantee of quality.  Undrinkable swill
can adhere to that law just as well as the finest Pilsner.

Anyway, that's enough rant for now.

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From: henkl@aft-ms (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: Re: Regenerating Rune Magic
Message-ID: <9408052226.AA04439@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 5 Aug 94 23:26:21 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5485

sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)

>I note that my humble suggestion re: Rune spells seems to be  
>generating a lot of debate. My silence on the subject is not based on  
>lack of interest in what you folks say. Instead, I'm avidly reading  
>all the suggestions, watching as you guys sort it out, after which  
>I'll adopt the best refinement of my original suggestion. 


I noticed that the modifications would fit David Cheng's
Rune Power system; instead of regenerating specific spells,
people would have different rates of renegerating Rune Points.


Now that I've raised the subject I will again plug my own variant of
Rune Power: As I'm more inclined to a gradual learning of the "cult
mysteries", I proposed to have people aquire the knowledge of a
specific spell each time they sacrifice POW for Rune Points.

-- 
Henk	|	Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
oK[]	|	Single Point of Change, Multiple Points of Reference

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Western religious "stuff".
Message-ID: <9408052336.AA03318@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Aug 94 23:36:38 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5486


Sandy Petersen:
> I said:
> > I think that  
> > part of the West Are Bad influence is Greg's reaction against his  
> > earlier styles of thinking and writing. 

> Alex replied:
> >These writings are mostly about Loskalm, though
> 	Actually, Greg wrote quite a bit about the Serpent Kings,  
> Arkat, and Seshnela, even the Brithini and Vadeli. It's just seen  
> even less print (if possible) than his Snodal's saga. 

Yeahyeahyeah, I wasn't suggesting he didn't, but that the "good guys"
stories you referred had Loskalmi protagonists.  Or at any rate, non-Rokari.
(Not even "invented" in Arkat's time, frex.)  Do the Brithini get a good
press in the even-less-published stories?

> I also said:
> >>I will proudly accept my title of "Most Obnoxious Pedant".
> Alex eats his heart out.
> >This title is Mine By Right(!) 
> 
> What was your critical quibble with disestablishmentarianism? I think  
> it exactly describes Greg's position. 

Greg favours the disestablishment of the Established Church of California,
does he, which is... err, um, non-existant anyway, due to the US constitution?
I think what you mean is that he's anti-RCism, or just anti-organised religion.

Alex.

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From: faber@apollo.umuc.edu (Chris Faber)
Subject: St. Myshella Story
Message-ID: <199408060119.VAA09208@apollo.umuc.edu>
Date: 5 Aug 94 17:19:58 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5487


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