Nut Browns - Dangerous?

Yes, it does. No facts. No evidence. No specifics. Only rumor, urban legends, myths, and FUD.

Food babe would be proud.

 

Timothy Taylors Ram Tam is Landlord with added caramel

 

And yes the Newcastle Broon Ale ward was a rumour that lasted decades hereabouts. It was only 6.25% when it was first brewed.

http://www.liquisearch.com/newcastle_brown_ale/history/tyne_brewery_newcastle

 

You're a smart cookie, but maybe you are ignoring where I said "carelessly dismissed." Scientific thought is a better approach than careless dismissal. Fear mongering is good for business, but don't confuse the message with the messenger. You'll note that I take the position of the skeptic, which isn't the same as putting the blinders on.

 

As others have, fortunately, pointed out, what a compound in a food/beverage would do to you in 'undiluted' form has almost no relevance to anything about the safety of the food/beverage, except about the safety of handling any concentrated forms of the ingredient in the workplace.

There are plenty of everyday household examples. If you were to concentrate the active ingredient of vinegar to its 'undiluted' form (acetic acid), it would severely burn any part of your body it touched. However, vinegar is a common ingredient in household cooking. Coca-cola has small amounts of phosphoric acid, which is certainly harmful in pure form. Citric acid is used in many, many foods (and exists naturally in citrus fruits), but can be harmful in pure form. Read the following MSDS for citric acid (particularly Section 11: Toxicological Information) and you'll get a sense of how poorly informed or flat out deceptive people can twist information about ingredients. http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923494


Not to say people shouldn't pay attention, because certain food/beer ingredients have certainly been deemed to be harmful after they were introduced (I'll leave the lengthy history of harmfully adulterating beer in some much older times to others). However, just pay attention to the details of how people are trying to spin it.

 

I will also point out that those nice German pretzels with the hard brown crust are made by dipping them in lye (NaOH) before baking. The Maillard reaction goes faster at high pH. Ly E is nasty stuff. The German word for this is Laugenbrezel, and Laugenbrot for bread, which means lye pretzel or lye bread respectively.

Caustics are used in brewing for CIP operations. No need to panic.

 

Sad obsessive that I am, I've some data on Newcastle Brown:

Year OG ABV
1928 1060.1 6.21
1929 1062.8 6.32
1931 1056 5.46
1931 1059.5 5.93
1931 1056.5 5.66
1940 1048.5 5.21
1949 1051.6 5.12
1950 1053.2 5.78
1951 1052.5 5.30
1952 1052 5.49
1954 1048.9 5.06
1959 1052.2 5.22
1961 1051.4 5.40
1964 1049.2 5.00
1966 1047.7 4.85

Apologies for the geekiness.

 

I well remember those tales of lunacy regarding Newcastle (Strong) Brown Ale. On my first foray into England, I spent a good deal of time in the North of England and Newcastle was legendary. We heard the yarn more than once. This coaster is from 1970. I liked Newcastle OK, but the full flavored and easy drinking ales all over England were better and remain my favorites.

 

Thanks for the compliment, but I maintain that dismissal of these kinds of fear mongering baseless claims is absolutely proper and the correct response, careless or otherwise.

A scientist could make a career out of debunking such claims. Besides the food babe, we have groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (whose entire name is a contradiction of what they actually do) and many others.

I'm happy to carelessly (and even eagerly) dismiss such folderol unless or until actual facts are presented from legitimate scientific inquiry.

 

"A scientist could make a career out of debunking such claims." Social scientists and political scientists often/recently describe(d) "fear mongering and baseless claims", but all too often on deaf or other-hearing ears.
Anyway, in Northern England there seemed to me to be a type of pride associated with the supposed lunacy linked to Newcastle. The tale was embraced and enhanced.....urban legend, I suppose.

 

And the NaOH reacts with heat and CO2 in the oven to the harmless NaHCO3, so not quite the same phenomenon. The lye hasn't been diluted to a safe level; it’s been transformed into something else.

 

Well, yeah, I get your point. Mine was that the pretzels are made with a substance the bakers can't get on their skin (one of the things said in the OP). It is altered in the baking, so no danger when eating the pretzels, except for the salt and calories, and the alcohol from the Maß of bier!

Don't panic, as I said.

 

I think this thread is nuts!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, it is funny, but I never entertained the thought that nut brown ale contained nuts.

For the record, Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale is delicious and I would gladly die drinking too much! I am already insane, so that wouldn't be an issue. Newcastle.... not so much.

 

I am allergic to bretanomyces. My face swells up, my sinuses shut down, and I evacuate my bowels. The sad part is I love brett.

 

Every fruit beer has arsenic. Years ago Ontario destroyed a shipment of Cantillon for this reason.

From what I understand, fermenting pectin leads to a whole list of unsavoury characters.

 

And is absolutely lovely stuff when on song.It's strange how a small addition of caramel can transform a brew.Landlord is a magnificent beer in its own right.
I am a fan of Tim Taylor's. Perhaps because my grandson was born within a sniff of the brewery

 

So is the reason for the line in Humble Pies 30 Days in Hole - "Newcastle Brown can sure smack you down"? Its at the 1:22 mark.



Love this song and one of my favorite beer references!