Basic Colonial Brewing #8 — Malting the Grain

Before grain can be used to make beer, the starches stored in the kernel must be converted to fermentable sugars.  The grain does this naturally as part of the germination process, so the brewer need only harness this process and then stop it before the grain sprouts to capture the sugars they need for their …

Getting the Extreme Right to Take the COVID Vaccine

The best defense against a viral disease, like COVID or rabies, is a good offense — get rid of it before it strikes. Modern medicine has just such a strategy in the form of vaccination but what do you do when you have a population that will not allow voluntary immunizations?  In Switzerland they have …

The danger of always marching in lockstep

If you’ve ever been part of an organization that marches — not just the military but even marching bands and re-enactors (sort of) — you know what it means to march in lockstep.  Everyone steps in precision to a standard cadence (usually 120 steps/min, 28 in/step) and one person takes a step with his left …