Well, the reason people have to use morphine is because it’s a very powerful painkiller and the downside of using morphine is that it does have these addicting qualities.  If we can come up with a better way to block pain without producing these addicting qualities that would be really good news.  The thing is that until now, no one has managed to do that, which is why I think this story is so powerful.  You can home in just on the pain and not have side effects like morphine does such as addiction.

We put this question to Charlie Bamforth, Professor of Beer and Brewing at the University of California at Davis.  You can hear the whole interview here.

Well, there’s all sorts of potential problems with brewing beer yourself. The key secret to brewing good beer is hygiene, hygiene, hygiene. It’s always possible that there’s residual sugar that’s not been fermented properly in the fermenter, that’s left behind in the bottle. Sometimes they may be leakers and the CO2 may come out of the cap. There are all sorts of possible explanations.

We put this question to Charlie Bamforth, Professor of Beer and Brewing at the University of California at Davis.  You can hear the whole interview here.

Well, there are many excellent beers, some of them very light, some of them very dark. The colour of Guinness® is due to roasted cereal, roasted barley. They have a very intense heating process. The sugars and the amino acids and the grains are cooked together to give very, very dark colours. They give very roasted flavours. The foam: one of the main reasons why Guinness® foams so well is, apart from CO2 producing foam, they use nitrogen gas to give it extremely stable foams. The bubbles contain nitrogen gas and this is much more stable than CO2. Guinness® pioneered that technology.

We put this question to Charlie Bamforth, Professor of Beer and Brewing at the University of California at Davis.  You can hear the whole interview here.

I’ve never heard that one! There’s all sorts of crazy mythologies and truisms that people have handed down the ages. Possibly one of the things with mice is that some beer can get contaminated with Brettanomyces and Brett classically has a barnyard type, sometimes called a ‘mouse urine’, type of flavour.  Maybe something’s got lost in the telling.

We put this question to Master Brewer Julian Herrington...

As regards fermentations of all beers yeasts can give a predominant flavour depending upon the fermentation conditions and whether one uses lighter flavours from the malt, perhaps using rice as part of the recipe, for example and how much bitterness or hop character that’s used. So yeast produces fruit flavour which ranges from raisins in strong ales to a sort of peardrop and banana flavour in wheat beers. Though it can be all of the character of the beer (as in the latter example) or just part of it.

Chris & Kat discussed this question in the studio with Ray Marriott...

Kat:  I think it’s probably blocked its breathing apparatus or something like that.  That’s a horrible thing to do. You should let it out, let it run free!

Chris:  Ray, what do you reckon?

Ray:  Probably a solvent which is actually carrying the penetrating oil probably asphyxiated it first and then it blocked its spiracles afterwards.

Chris:  Because most volatile things can act as general anaesthetics so when people inhale lighter fluid and things, they’re actually putting all that gas into their brain. It seems to cause brain cells to decrease their activity so it could be that it anaesthetised it and then, as you say, asphyxiated it.

Kat:  Maybe it died high as a kite?

Chris:  You never know.

We put this question to Ray Marriott of Botanix Ltd.  You can read our entire interview with him here.

I think that’s a really interesting question.  There are processes such as fermentation and the production of fertilisers which actually generate quite high volumes of carbon dioxide.  It’s from these processes that we actually capture and purify the carbon dioxide and then use it for extraction.  It’s then used in multiple extraction so it’s actually quite and efficient way of using it.  And it’s actually a neat way of capturing CO2 from the brewing and fermentation process and reusing it to extract one of the raw materials.

Kat:  I would think there probably is if you get really drunk, fall over, do something stupid.

Chris:  Well, cider’s a little bit stronger than beer, on average, isn’t it?  So, I would think enjoyed at the same rate as any other alcoholic beverage and within guidelines prescribed by the government and not more than 21 units per week for men or 14 units per week for women.  I can’t see any reason why it would be worse for you but obviously in excess it’s gonna be bad.  Do you think it counts as one of your five a day?

Kat:  I don’t think it counts as a fruit and veg, no!

I think that’s because you’re scrunching up your face in hysteria.  It’s actually squeezing out the tears from your tear ducts.  It’s also blocking the ducts in your nose so it’s all pouring out of your eyes.