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Alert readers (ARs) of Top Fermentation know that I welcome their feedback, which sometimes finds its way into subsequent issues of The Growler. Most but not all of this feedback relates to the style, syntax, opinions or factual accuracy of this column. Communications on more substantive matters, such as how our beer tastes, tend to find their way to Dan Kopman, our vice president and chief operating officer.
So it was that several months ago Dan received a three-page, handwritten letter from an incarcerated reader (IR) who was proposing a joint venture between himself and Schlafly Beer. The IR wrote that he had developed a great recipe for jailhouse hooch, which he made from a secret blend of different types of jelly and candy. He said that his hooch had been very well received by some very demanding critics (his fellow prisoners) and he was barely able to keep up with the demand. He also reported, “I ended up getting caught and going to the hole for 45 days.” Not wanting to be responsible for the IR’s return to the hole, Dan and I decided not to disclose his real name, his nom de guerre on the street (which is creative and colorful) or the jail where he currently resides.
Just as the IR’s brewing process was somewhat unconventional, so too were his grammar and spelling, thus putting him in some pretty lofty company. Consider that on September 4, 2007, The New York Times published an editorial titled “A National Disgrace,” deploring the “corrupt and dysfunctional school system” in the District of Columbia. The Times bolstered its position by noting, “the District’s children fair [sic] worse at school than children in other big cities.”
The Times isn’t the only distinguished institution that spells as creatively as our IR. On September 11, 2007, the Official Web Site of Yale University Athletics announced that the Bulldogs would open their 2007 football season in the “Nation’s Capitol [sic].” For most ARs (as literate a crowd as ever existed) it’s probably superfluous to point out that the Yale football team opened its 2007 season in Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, but did not do so in the Capitol, which has never hosted a college football game as far as I know.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that the Bulldogs traveled to the nation’s capital to play Georgetown, my alma mater. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, I need to add that Yale beat the Hoyas on their home field by a score of 28 to 14. Not being given to bitterness, I commend the Bulldogs for a completely honorable win. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of every football team from New England.
As we now know, The New England Patriots and their coach Bill Belichick, who have long been suspected of cheating, were recently caught red-handed and punished by the National Football League. St. Louis sports fans, who remember all too well the 2002 Super Bowl, when the Patriots beat a heavily favored Rams team by a score of 20 to 17, can only wonder whether cheating provided the margin of victory for New England in that game. Belichick’s Patriots made it through the playoffs that season with some very close wins that look extremely suspicious in retrospect.
The football field isn’t the only place in society where one encounters cheating. It can also be found in the groves of academe. Glenn Poshard, a former member of Congress and the President of Southern Illinois University, is currently fighting allegations that dozens of passages in his master’s and doctoral theses were plagiarized.
Not having read either of the dissertations in question (and not being even remotely tempted to do so), I have no way of knowing whether Dr. Poshard should have used more quotation marks or footnotes when he wrote them. I can say, however, that even if the allegations are true, Dr. Poshard’s conduct is definitely not the most bizarre behavior I have witnessed on the part of a doctoral candidate. That distinction belongs to a woman, currently working on her PhD at a local university, who refused to attend an event at The Tap Room because she was positive I had spoken at Reverend Jerry Falwell’s funeral.
I am not making this up. Although I have never been anywhere near Liberty University or Lynchburg, Virginia; and although I have an airtight alibi for my whereabouts on May 22, 2007, when Reverend Falwell’s funeral was held, the student was unwavering in her opinion and refused to set foot on premises bearing my name. On the one hand, I have to admire the student’s tenacity and courage of her convictions. On the other hand, I have to confess major doubts about the quality of her scholarship.
Keep in mind that Reverend Falwell was strongly opposed to the brewing industry. Students at Liberty University can be punished severely for drinking beer or for associating with beer drinkers. Does anyone seriously think that the owner of a business that Reverend Falwell considered sinful would be invited to speak at his funeral? I guess so.
If, by some chance, I had been invited to speak at Jerry Falwell’s funeral, I would have quoted what he had said seven years earlier, “I’m glad now, at age 66, that I never used alcohol…and I’ve buried a lot of friends who…used alcohol.” I would have pointed out that there are a lot of Schlafly Beer drinkers much older than 73, the age at which Reverend Falwell died without ever having known the great taste and salubrious effects of good beer.
Before leaving the subject of academia, I want to report some important research at the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben, Germany, where scientists are mapping and sequencing the genome for barley, an important component of beer. Interestingly, with five billion bases the barley genome is almost twice the size of the human genome.
I should hasten to add that I did not come up with this information on my own. Lest I fall into the same trap as some very distinguished academicians, I must note that I read it in the August 24, 2007 edition of Science Magazine. I must also confess that I am not a regular reader of this learned periodical and the article in question was sent to me by Dr. Kenneth Smith, an AR who formerly taught at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
As long as I’m on the subject of ethics, I want to make a few points for the record. First, unlike the New England Patriots, we have never spied on any of our competitors or taped their operations. Second, unlike some dissertations, none of Top Fermentation is plagiarized. (Frankly, I doubt that very many people other than yours truly would admit responsibility for much of the content of this column.) Finally, if we ever brew a beverage comparable to the IR’s jailhouse hooch, I promise to give him full credit both by his real name and his street name as soon as he’s out of jail and it’s safe to do so.
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