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The remains of a Roman malting oven and charred spelt grains were found during digging in Bedfordshire, as part of the proposed work on the A428 between the Black Cat roundabout and Caxton Gibbet.Experts have analysed the grains and said they suggested people who lived there were involved in making beer...During the dig, the team from the Museum of London Archaeology (Mola) and the Cambridge Archaeological Unit discovered the remains of a farmstead that they believed was in use from the Middle Iron Age to the late Roman period.The Iron Age in Britain ran from about 800BC until the period...

Search resumes of 'vast' preserve for boyfriend of missing 22-year-old Senate Democrats hit roadblock in bid to help millions become U.S. citizens BOSTON (CBS) — Sam Adams is adding even more “spirit” to its brew. The 12th edition of Samuel Adams Utopia has 28% alcohol by volume – so strong that it’s illegal in 15 states, including New Hampshire. The beer is legal in Massachusetts, where bottles can be found at select specialty liquor stores at a suggested retail price of $240 starting on Oct. 11.

Microscopic signatures of malting could help reveal which prehistoric people had a taste for beer. Ancient beer is difficult to trace, because many of beer’s chemical ingredients, like alcohol, don’t preserve well (SN: 9/28/04). But a new analysis of modern and ancient malted grain indicates that malting’s effects on grain cell structure can last millennia. This microscopic evidence could help fill in the archaeological record of beer consumption, providing insight into the social, ritual and dietary roles this drink played in prehistoric cultures, researchers report online May 7 in PLOS ONE. Malting, the first step in brewing beer, erodes cell...

Benjamin Franklin famously said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Science has proved him correct … still. A team of German scientists examined more than 13,000 molecular food compounds, looking for substances that may activate dopamine receptors in the same way that actual dopamine does. In other words, food that makes you happy. They found one in beer, a drink so noble that it is thought that beer was the nectar of the gods sipped by the Greek god Zeus from his goblet. "Drink. Be merry," commanded Zeus, or at least that's what...

Interesting that almost every homebrewer can tell you when homebrewing was once again legalized. Through the efforts of Senator Alan Cranston from California, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill in 1978 that brought legal status to homebrewing in 1979, most homebrewers are unaware of the particulars that ended homebrewing during Prohibition. In actuality, however, it was not homebrewing per se that was criminalized, it was the way that malt syrup (extract) could be labeled and advertised that was altered…

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...