Walking down a random farm road on the outskirts of Zurich, we came upon a small barn with the smell of smoke wafting through the air. We arrived around 6:30 pm to a well attended beer fest, a band setting up gear, and the delightful (at least to some) smell of a pig roast. There were eighteen breweries in attendance, three of which were Danish (if WarPigs counts solely as Danish).

We showed our tickets, received our tokens and festival branded Teku glasses and headed straight for some beers. 

(If I may have a get-off-my-lawn type side-rant, why all the Teku glasses, Europe?)

I was thoroughly impressed by the variety of beer available, from your standard IPAs and Stouts to table beer, pumpkin spiced beers (a rarity, I’ve come to find), and sours. All the breweries in attendance had at least three beers available to try. None of which were only IPAs or pale ales.

Every brewery on the scene was dishing out a variety of styles. If I’m to be honest, beer fests in Berlin were typically only IPAs and Pale Ales, so this beer fest was a breath of fresh air. I don’t mean to offend, but already the Swiss beer scene seems more healthy than some.

Frontrunners were for us the table beer from Blackwell (a close contendor for my favorite Swiss brewery), the aforementioned pumpkin spice beer from the Bier Factory, and a coconut porter by Broken City Brewing. Just a small curiosity I noticed, all of my Swiss beer drinking friends seem to reach for porters and stouts. Anyway, for me personally, the sour beers available from Brasserie Trois Dames and BFM were stellar (a sour red and a gose, and a saison respectively). 

 I just moved to Switzerland.
 
Overall this is a good change of scenery, both for me and my now fiance (I’m also getting married), despite the fact we had no choice…

Backstory time: Some of you may have noticed that my posting has dropped off as of late - my last post was at the end of February. Not how I intended to start this year. Seeing that it is now July, and I already missed my one year anniversary, I had a look back at the progress I had done, and these past two months have not been pretty.

In an effort to clear my head – plus I hate being vague online - I figured it would be good to post what has been going on behind the screen.
 
I have been pulling massive overtime for the past four months in an area I was forced into. The joys of working at a startup. I was initially brought on to write articles on current topics within biotechnology. Then, due to a push for the company’s A-round funding, I was told to make sales calls. On the few days I had a normal 8.5h working day, I was just too exhausted to research anything. To top it off, when things were starting to look like I would go back to writing articles, the content department was shut down. So I was no longer needed. 

Then the panic really set in. Being an expat and all, joblessness has the added bonus of being kicked out of the country. My visa and job were expiring, and the small window I had to get everything in order was quickly closing. I could have tried to find another job here in Berlin, but since I’m foreign, most employers don’t want to go through the paperwork. This would need much more time than I had. 

It being that time of year we submit ourselves to the will of giant metal tubes blasting through the air at hundreds of miles an hour, one begins to contemplate where they've been and where they're going to. 

2016 was a bit of a wild ride: joblessness to employment, traveling to Italy and Poland, starting a blog to writing freelance. From a personal career standpoint, 2016 has been a good year.

It was time to say goodbye and head home. Leaving my partner and Berlin, I entered the calm hours of the early morning. No one here besides those who work terrible hours and the few travelers who decided to buy that competitive ticket at 5 30 in the morning. 

My destination: California.

At the beginning of 2016, I was still looking for a job and getting desperate; anything to cement me in Europe. I felt I had to stay here. This is the place for the beginnings of Western beer culture and where I know I’ll eventually make my mark. 

Thankfully, I was hired for a biotech job. One which lets me hone my writing skills, albeit in a marketing tone. Yet now I can plan: which schools to apply to, which breweries to volunteer for, which mentor to follow, where I want to go with my life here in Europe. 
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​Entering the airport, you come face to face with herd mentality. Stampedes charging off to their flights, competing with each other to see who can walk the fastest. Then, full stop. Line - check into the flight - line - security - line - wait because someone let their child have a fit - passport check - then, finally to the gate. Another horde of people going to and fro, pushing their way to where they need to go. Then, turning down a corridor, I find myself alone. For some reason, no one is here. Face to face with modernity, announcements playing over the loudspeaker in different languages, planes pass by overhead, strange lighting - I begin to feel like I’m in a sci-fi movie as I reach my destination. 

Time to wait, flight’s delayed.

​Leaving LAX, I'm hit with that all too familiar LA air. I step into my mom’s car - which I’ve entered countless times before - feels somehow new, somehow different. The sun shines brighter down here, but maybe that's just me.

I am asked to give a talk about the archaeology of brewing to a female-only craft beer club, which, given beer’s history, is oddly appropriate. My main points: beer is our cultural heritage, requires serious study, but should be enjoyed and taken lightly. In sum: it is always about the beer; it is never about the beer.
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This past year I decided to write more about beer, in hopes to show people the heritage behind beer and brewing. I have had the privilege to interview fascinating people, write on topics from a malting facility in iron age Germany to the trials of brewing for women in Africa, and to participate in fun blog writing groups, all the while learning more about beer.

This year will see more interviews, more traveling, more and more about brewing archaeology, and, once I get my system up and running, actual brewing. My Father showed me a homebrew setup which would work perfectly in my apartment. Seeing that it’s close to my old homebrew system, I feel daft for not thinking of it before. 

In any case, it will allow me to do what I love most: brew beer.

Here’s to the start of 2017!

Except that Franklin never said that. Nor is it true that the IPA was invented to last the journey to India, the Pilgrims went ashore because they ran out of Beer, or that Ale-Conners sat on benches to test the strength of beer. But that is one of the joys of learning and especially with studying the history of beer, you get to re-discover the truth and learn how things really happened.

Brewing has been a part of human material culture ever since the Neolithic. It is intertwined with religious, culinary, and ethnic traditions. As such, studying the history of brewing not only covers the scientific/technical development of an industry but also ourselves, our political games, economies, rites of passage, and daily rituals. That is why I decided to start researching it.

My dissertation focused on the Faroe Islands, with a pre-viking era settlement. Incidentally, there were some pots with potential beer residue, so my adviser and I decided to have a look. The results were inconclusive, and we were unable to modify our experiments to increase resolution due to time constraints. Hopefully in the future we will be able to try again, but in the meantime, the materials will sit in the storage area of the archaeological department. 

My fondest memory of my masters was sitting in the library with piles and piles of articles and text books on beer. Whether about beer in Africa, India, Asia, South America, drinking rituals to the legitimacy of residue analysis, it was really an endless exploration for more knowledge. An experience I never felt with biology.  

This blog, then, serves as a continuation of my studies. So, here you will find my jottings on academic papers, investigations, interviews, and brewing. Topics I hope to cover are the current knowledge of brewing archaeology, the roles beer played in the past, and the people acting behind the scenes.

Cheers!