Tag Archives: wheat

Witbier, Weissbier & Controversial Fruit

Posted on by
This woman is crazy on a number of levels, but would feel at home in Ohio

This woman is crazy on a number of levels, but would feel at home in Ohio

Every year at this point in April, regardless of weather, Ohioans pull on their shorts. Many of these bare and vulnerable legs are an alarming shade of white, which one is well-advised to not look at directly. Ohio winters are long, and at this point we’ve watched all of Netflix and need to get out of the goddamned house. We will sit at a picnic table in a parka and Daisy Dukes, if it comes to that, because it’s time to be outside.

I can’t say this Ohio beer-lover in particular is willing to reveal her alabaster gams, but she is ready for other summer activities, namely, summer beers. The breweries are way ahead of me, and summery wheat beers are already well-represented on the shelves and at the taps. Wheat beers are, by some magic of chemistry, delightfully refreshing, and thus often the style of choice for brewers making a warm-weather seasonal.

So, what is a wheat beer? Well, beer folk are notoriously non-obfuscationary, so your guess that wheat beers are brewed largely with wheat, instead of just barley alone, would be correct. In brewing they are top fermented and bottled conditioned. They are easy to pick out in a crowd: they’re unfiltered, hazy, and have a thick head; their smell will likely be of fruit or cloves; and they wear skinny jeans with slouchy hats while leaning against walls and playing on their phones. Continue reading →

Community News: Monsanto Wheat Returns from the Dead and the Rest of the Globe Kicks the U.S. Economy

Posted on by

In 2004, Monsanto ended its field trials of Roundup-Ready Wheat, the proprietary, genetically-altered version of the grain that would allow it to be sprayed with the company’s Roundup weed killer and survive.  The public was too uncomfortable with the prospect of eating techno-genetic food.  Last week, The New York Times reported that Roundup-Ready Wheat returned from the dead to kick U.S. exports in the shin.

The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, but last week Japan and South Korea banned the importation of the grain – and the E.U. recommended that all 27 of its nations increase testing – because the Roundup-Ready strain was found growing in an Oregon Field.  According to Monsanto’s web site, tests of the grain were never conducted in that field.  This brings up a few points worth emphasizing:

  1. The very fear American farmers have about Monsanto’s techno-genetic seeds – that natural crops cannot be protected from contamination by them – is true even in the case of a controlled field test conducted by one of the biggest and most advanced companies in the world.
  2. When contamination of those natural crops occur, ownership of those crops automatically transfers to Monsanto, meaning that farmers must then pay Monsanto or have their businesses destroyed.  This is enshrined in law by the Plant Variety Protection Act and a recent decision by the John Roberts Supreme Court.
  3. Wheat can, according to Monsanto, linger in the ground for up to two years before germinating.
  4. The company’s GM wheat apparently lingered in the ground for nine years before germinating.
  5. Wheat exports contribute, according to U.S. Wheat Associates, an industry marketing firm, account for between $961 million and $1.8 billion of our GDP.  South Korea imports 2.5 million tons.  The E.U. imports over 1 million.
  6. Countries with large numbers of educated individuals do not want to import GM food.
  7. The inability to control the Roundup-Ready wheat – an inherent component of its design – threatens the U.S. economy and our trustworthiness as world merchants.

And on a final note, Monsanto’s new strategy to introduce its proprietary, fundamental foodstuff into the global food chain is to start selling it to India.