Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 48/49, 2011.

A non-comprehensive roundup
of news of beer and other things.

Weeks 48/49
27 November - 10 December 2011

• 2011.12.09
  Flies are genetically predisposed to the taste of glycerol in beer, scientific study determines. Via Science News.
  
  
• 2011.12.09
  A U.S. District Court judge in Portland, Oregon, rules that bloggers are not protected -as are journalists- by 1st Amendment 'shield' laws. Via cnet.
  
  
• 2011.12.09
  Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to pay for blues great Hubert Sumlin's funeral. Via Rolling Stone. More about Mr. Sumlin, who was well-known for playing guitar for Howlin' Wolf, via Notions Capital.
  
  
• 2011.12.09
  Hewlett-Packard to keep webOS alive by making it open source. A potential rival to Android? Via TechCrunch.
  
  
• 2011.12.07
  Harry Morgan, Colonel Potter on TV's M*A*S*H (and appearing on Dragnet, to name another program), dies at 96. Via NPR.
  
  
• 2011.12.07
  Pearl Harbor attacked: A witness remembers, 70 years later. Via Washington Post.
  
  
  
  
• 2011.12.06
  FDA approves Blowfish, a hangover pill (caffeine, aspirin, stomachic). Via Washington Post.
  
  
• 2011.12.05
  Intoxicating beverages became legal again today in the US in 1933, after 18 'dry' years, with the 21st Amendment. Via CraftBeer.com.
  
  
• 2011.12.05
  New cidery to open in Nelson County, Virginia: Bold Rock Cidery & Brewpub.
  
  
• 2011.12.04
  Twenty-nine breweries in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia currently post to Twitter. The list, at YFGF.us.
  
  
  
• 2011.12.04
  Charm City Brewing to open in Baltimore, MD. Collaboration between The Raven Beer and Oliver Ales. Via BeerInBaltimore.
  
  
• 2011.12.04
  Republican candidate for U.S. President, Herman Cain, "suspends" White House bid. Via CBS.
  
  
• 2011.12.04
  "If beer isn't fun, it isn't beer anymore." A clever re-telling of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," as a cautionary tale for the beer business. Via British blogger The Reluctant Scooper.
  
  
• 2011.12.03
  The British Guild of Beer Writers honor their best. Via Stephen Beaumont.
  
  
• 2011.12.03
  According to one measure, Chrome surpasses Firefox to become second most popular web browser (behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer). Via NPR.
  
  
• 2011.12.02
  AB InBev to sell off US operations? [An October 2011 analysis, but still worth pondering.] Via BeerNews.org
  
  
• 2011.12.01
  Wine Enthusiast Magazine selects it top 25 Beers of 2011. Analysis by beer blogger The BeerMonger.
  
  
• 2011.12.01
  Video shows secret software on millions of Android phones logging everything, installed by company called Carrier IQ. Via Wired.
  
  
  
• 2011.11.29
  Study determines "Women Like Men Who Smell of Beer." Via The Sun.
  
  
• 2011.11.29
  Sierra Nevada and New Belgium may setup East Coast breweries near Asheville, North Carolina. Via BeerNews.org.
  
  
• 2011.11.29
  BeerBloggersConference.org counts 810 "citizen" beer blogs in North America, and another 358 throughout the world.
  
  
• 2011.11.29
  Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, in Berlin, publishes online about the origins of Sumerian brewing. Via Brookston Beer Bulletin.
  
  

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• Clamps and Gaskets is a weekly wrap-up of stories  not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not. But all are brief, and many are re-posts from: twitter.com/cizauskas.
• The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.