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Unofficial Belgian beer emojis use the appropriate glassware
As craft breweries explode in popularity across the US, more and more people want to express their love of specialty beers in the form of emojis -- rather, emoji. There's just one standard beer emoji (plus a "cheers" emoji that uses the same image) on Android and iOS, even though there are more than 100 styles of beer, some of which are meant to be served in specific ways. Here's where the Belgian Brewer's Association comes in. The group's latest marketing scheme is an iOS and Android emoji board featuring 60 tiny images of Belgian beers, all served in their appropriate glasses.
High-tech brew kit returns to Indiegogo for more beer money
Remember Brewie, the touchscreen-equipped, WiFi connected home brew kit that launched on Indiegogo? Despite a six-month shipping delay, the project is still bubbling along. It's relaunching on Indiegogo's "InDemand," a service that allows successful campaigns to move into a commercial phase so they can collect (more) pre-orders and fulfill them. The people behind the smartphone-controlled kit said they spent the extra time improving it by adding a feature that lets you add hops up to four extra times during brewing, along with improved pumps, a better cooling system, a transparent cover and support for the standard "Beer XML" format.
Belgian brewery to reduce truck use with underground beer pipeline
In order to cut down on the number of trucks it puts on the streets, Brouwerij De Halve Maan is working with the city of Bruges to construct an underground beer pipeline. While the brewing still happens at its original site, filtration, bottling and shipping operations were moved outside of town in 2010. To get the tasty beverages from point A to point B, dozens of trucks go back and forth each day, but not for much longer. Folks familiar with the Cleveland, Ohio-based Great Lakes Brewing Company may recall that it uses an underground system to send its suds from a production facility to a taproom/pub across the street. The effort in Belgium will be much more elaborate though, replacing the 3-mile tanker route with 1.8 miles of polyethylene pipe, and cutting transit time to between 15 and 20 minutes. De Halve Maan claims the system can send out 6,000 liters per hour -- on top of cutting traffic and reducing emissions. What's more, the brewery (er, brouwerij) will foot the bill for installation and road repairs, reducing the financial burden on the city. [Photo credit: Bernt Rostad/Flickr]
Macworld 2010: TUAW adventures, day 2
Day 2 of Macworld 2010 brought lots more work and lots more fun -- we spent the day covering the show floor, livestreaming right here on the site, and networking and interviewing with all sorts of Mac fans at the crowded show. In the evening, we headed out to a few media receptions, and were lucky enough to take a brewery tour at the Thirsty Bear here in San Francisco before braving the oncoming rain back to the hotel to take the Muni back to the hotel. Click on to see what TUAW's been up to behind the scenes on the second day of Macworld.
Foster's to aid in first "beer battery" fuel cell project
While it's certainly debatable whether beer is to thank for the explosion in the consumer electronics industry, it looks like we'll be thanking the beverage without hesitation for making our world a little greener. Oddly enough, "scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water by using sugar-consuming bacteria," and better yet, the University of Queensland will host a microbial fuel cell at a Foster's Group brewery near Brisbane. Essentially, the cell will consume brewery wastes such as sugar, starch, and alcohol, while producing clean electricity by harnessing the energy released from the organic materials coming in. The device is expected to produce two-kilowatts of power, and while hopes are to bring the technology to other breweries and wineries around the country, this iteration should crank up sometime in September.[Via Physorg, thanks Michael T.]
