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Beer Packaging: What Other Metals Cannot, Aluminum Can

March 21, 2016 · by Oliver Gray

A new brewery opens, or an old brewery rebrands. They announce a new line-up with a regionally appropriate IPA. The internet hums with marketing and social media buzz.

A press release goes out: they’re putting their beer in cans.

This, by itself, is unremarkable. As Tom Acitelli notes in his All About Beer article from 2013, Oshkosh Brewing (no affiliation to the clothing, I don’t think) released a red “craft” lager in cans in 1991. Oskar Blues has been putting its Colorado born beer into cans since 2002. Budwesier has probably the longest (still existing) pedigree for canning beer, as its first cans date back to 1936. In the time it took modern beer to “rediscover” the can, those original cans could have been recycled ~680 times. Canning isn’t exactly hot-n’-trendy in the harsh light of historical accuracy.

The Aluminum Association (yes, that’s a real thing) notes that over 500 breweries are now canning over 1700 products. People seem stuck on this move to pop tabs over bottle caps, perpetually repeating the same canned cliches: cans protect against light and oxygen exposure, are lighter and more portable, are cheaper and more sustainable, and don’t shatter into a million potential wounds when dropped onto a hard surface. These are all good things and I admit I sometimes prefer my beer in cans and hooray for options.

But this focus on how we’re using cans often ignores the fact that cans are incredible. From a scientific and engineering standpoint, at least.

Aluminum (a periodic element; #13 if we’re being specific [which we are]) is the most common metal found in the Earth’s crust (8.23%). That sounds like a geologists smorgasbord until you realize that it is never found in a “free” state, and always exists as a compound of some other junk. Those compounds are called “alums.” Not only do these alums not have to field donation calls from their alma mater twice a month, they also contain trivalent metal ions, which basically means they’ve got metal in ‘um, but the metal is naturally hard to get at.

For most of human history, aluminum did not exist. We had managed to discover many other metals that exist in a free state (gold, silver, copper), and were inventive enough to realize that by melting rocks, we could get at other, less obvious metals. We even got smart enough to start blending them together, which lead to the first alloys, like steel (iron and carbon). Say what you want about our ancestors, but you have to admit they were pretty igneous…sorry, ingenious…when it came to rocks.

Up until 1787, the world relied mostly on nickel and iron for all of its metallurgic needs. But some plucky scientists noticed an unknown substance that appeared in a lot of their samples, and theorized it was another metal that they had been so far unable to extract.

They were correct. Hiding in the middle of potassium and sulfate (or more colloquially, KAl(SO₄)₂·12H₂O) was a metal that would change the world, and eventually house your beer.

The unknown metal postulation wouldn’t be proven for another 38 years, when Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish chemist, managed to isolate aluminum in aluminum chloride. By 1845, a German named Friedrich Wöhler collected enough aluminum to determine its basic properties, and in turn, possible applications. Prior to his research, metal was considered strong but heavy. Aluminum proved strong too, but also incredibly light.

Like Hunahpu and Ann, aluminum could only be found in very small quantities. This made using it for things like cars and airplanes and beer cans notably difficult. Thankfully, by 1886, two enterprising chemists (Charles Martin Hall and Paul L. T. Héroult) discovered a way to extract aluminum from aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃). This chemical advancement, coupled with the discovery of Bauxite (an ore that contains copious amounts of Al₂O₃) lead to a rapid expansion in the availability of aluminum, just like Goose Island after the ABI purchase.

With wide availability came wide use. The engine in the Wright brother’s biplane was made from aluminum, and so were ship components and radar chaff used in World War 2. When Edison first started his electrical transmission network in 1882, aluminum was still rare. He opted to use copper instead, but given its affordability and light weight, aluminum is considered the most effective metal for electrical conduction in modern day applications.

In a somewhat ironic twist, the technology to produce lighter and stronger aluminum alloys (that would eventually be spun into modern beer cans) began during the years leading up to the American Prohibition. The Great Depression saw the creation of the Works Progress Administration, whose work lead to the refinement and production of aluminum for hydroelectric and other civil engineering projects.

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, breweries saw the opportunity to put their new metallic abundance to use, and the first canned beer (Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale) entered the market on January 24, 1935. These cans weighed nearly 4 ounces; doesn’t sound heavy, but today’s modern, super-thin aluminum cans weigh 14.9 grams. There are 28.35 grams in an ounce. You do the math.

They were heavy because early cans were not usually made from aluminum. Coors introduced a two-part aluminum can in 1959, but the first all-aluminum can was brought to market by Budwesier in 1965. Today, approximately 75% of all beverage cans are made of aluminum alloy. Unlike glass and plastics, they are infinitely recyclable, too, and will often be back on the shelf in as little as 60 days. About 180 billion cans are produced annually, and they remain the single most recycled product in the world.

All that history and science, just to get a beer into your hand. And that’s just what it took to get to the point where we could mass manufacture aluminum cans.

The element itself is incredible, too.

Since it doesn’t contain any ferrous compounds, it cannot rust. Instead, aluminum oxidizes, reverting back to aluminum oxide. Unlike rust that eats into and weakens the metal around it, this oxidation actually strengthens and forms a protective layer on the aluminum. Canning companies have to add a lining to cans (debates about the evils of BPA can be directed elsewhere), otherwise the oxygen in the beer would react with the aluminum in the can, and ruin all that lupuliny goodness.

The weight (or lack thereof) is nothing to scoff at, either. As I noted above, the average aluminum can weighs about 15 grams. With ~2.5 times the density of aluminum, a modern steel equivalent (same size and width) would weigh ~37.5 grams. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but 2.5 times the weight on thousands of BBLs of beer would increase logistics costs substantially, which would probably in turn raise how much you had to fork over the for the finished product. Kegs can also be made from aluminum which, while potentially less structurally sound than their stainless steel sisters, are much easier to lug around a cold room.

TL;DR: Aluminum is sort of amazing, you guys.

The next time you slip your fingernail under a tab, and listen to that relaxing exhalation of escaping carbonation, take a second to appreciate that the can you’re holding isn’t just a gimmick, or marketing tool, or some fad in beer. It’s more than just a vessel that sails you off into the weekend unknown. It’s more than just a footnote in a PR campaign.

It’s a time-honored example of human scientific ingenuity. I also hear they’re pretty good for shotgunning too, whatever that means.

This bears repeating

Forgotten Friday: Corporate America, circa 1978

May 30, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

What images does your mind conjure when you hear the term, “corporate park?”

Do your thoughts jump to soulless financial machines: adult Lego bricks available only in greys and browns, photocopies of similar buildings plopped down into populated parking lots, unblinking logos like electric gargoyles perched on feckless facades?

Or do you imagine an actual “park,” a living, thriving, gathering place for a community of professionals, a bustling ecosystem of admins and executives sharing lunches and lessons on a Tuesday afternoon?

I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit sawing at the invisible fetters of McLean, Virginia, and I recognize the suit and tie mentality permeating every porous inch of the concrete towers that rise like well manicured mausoleums from the DC Metro marshlands. I’m fortunate to not have to spend all my waking hours walking that tech corridor, but I’m still a denizen of a different corporate park, one whose history I’m fascinated by, and have written about before.

I fear I’ve developed an unhealthy cathexis for Corporate and Garden City drives, come to know their presiding dryads well as I’ve built the base of my career. The “park” borders I-495 (the infamous DC Beltway), its air polluted by the sounds and smog of seven hundred and fifity thousand daily commuters, but signs of nature remain. Freshly gnawed trees betray a local group of beavers; fat, ornery Canadian geese turn the little creek into a personal nesting ground every Spring; honey suckles and several other wildflowers sneak to bloom between discarded trash from Metro riders moving from train to office.

It’s here I run, usually after work, usually in warm weather twilight. Doing some quick writer-math, I’ve run approximately 1500 miles in Sisyphean circles around this place over 6 years, giving me ample time get to know it.

And yet, it still surprises me.

On days I’m feeling particularly energetic, I’ll stop to do pull-ups on a set of bars just east of the Metro station. There is a sign there, worn white print on aging blue fiberglass, surrounded by algae stained splintering wood that I’ve noticed many times, but never really paid attention to:

The sign was planted here by the Southwood Corporation, a group that since the 1970s has made giant, custom signs for locations just like corporate parks. Fit-Trail creates an outdoor gym, where any person can move between stations, getting a full-body work out by following the nifty directions on the strategically oriented placards. Or so goes the theory.

I’ve never seen anyone else use the bars to do chin-ups, and have never seen anyone tempt fate by rubbing their back against old, weathered wood to do an isometric squat. Despite my hours pounding the local concrete, I’d never noticed another flash white and blue, anywhere. But this station is 21 and 22 of some indeterminable number; there have to be others, elsewhere, right? At least 10 more with two exercises each, and at least one more down the line, since the instructions on this one say: “Pace to next station: Jog.”

So I jogged. And jogged. And jogged. Heaved and sweated and walked after giving into my asthma. Put my hands on my knees and cursed the Eastern shore humidity. I went around the whole 1.3 mile loop two more times in my search, but didn’t see any other signs. I’d lost the Fit-Trail before I even got a chance to find it.

Returning to the chin-up bars, I was determined to learn more. Upon closer inspection, I found a date that explained a lot:

1978. The year Southwood launched the Fit-Trail line (they’re still making them today for children’s parks and retirement communities), meaning this random corporate park in the middle of Maryland had been one of their first customers. Other than the brief terror of realizing I’d been doing pretty rigorous pull-ups on a thirty six year old metal bar and wooden frame, I felt sort of sad. This piece of signage was older than me, the only reminder that its brethren had ever been here to begin with, the last bastion of a time when this corporate park was more than just a shell for contract vehicles and short-term tenants.

The New Carrollton Metro station also opened in ’78 (not a half mile from Corporate drive), and I imagine some real estate developer spending top dollar to create a vibrant place to work at the then-new (and still) end to the Orange line. An all inclusive vocational vacation with restaurants and social draws and accouterments to made working seem as unlike work as possible.

As I run on the decades old sidewalks, I picture a different, distant version of Corporate drive, one where beautiful afternoon sun showers brought people out of offices regardless of deadlines, one where many people ran this trail to stay in shape, moving from each station to the next, past coworkers who were chatting away about that new movie, Grease, or the crazy situation in Love Canal, New York. I step back into a place come to life with employees who cared and a community that teemed, thirty years before the whole place grew thick with trash and unkempt overgrowth.

But that version, if it ever existed, is gone. Replaced by nothing and instead trimmed down, personality faded and weathered by time. A few echoes do remain, tucked behind the buildings, but with no one to use or maintain them, they’ve lost their luster and appeal.

If history is a cycle, the moves by Google and other progressive companies to create corporate environments where people actually want to go to work might be a full 360 spin of the wheel, returning us to sometime near 1978. I’m too young to know what it was like then, but if these few dwindling symbols are even sort of representative, it’s a time I’d like to experience again, for the first time.

Volleyball, circa 1978.

Guest Post: How to Drink like a Writer – Find a Bar and Move In

April 22, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

This week, to honor the name of my blog, I’ll be talking about drinking, writing, drinking while writing, writing while drinking, and maybe even writing about drinking while drinking and writing. To that end, Ed from The Dogs of Beer has written a post about the history of writers, their haunts, and their drinks. If you’d like to write a guest post for LitLib, send an email with your ideas to literatureandlibation@gmail.com. Enjoy!

You can see why we call him, “Big Head Dog”.

Hello everyone! My name is Ed Morgan and I write a little craft beer blog called The Dogs of Beer. I’ve been writing for almost two years now, focusing mainly on the craft beer scene in and around the state of Delaware but at the end of the day, I’ll write about anything that strikes a chord with me. I’m aided in this endeavor by my girlfriend’s dog Gryphon (AKA “Big Head Dog”), who serves as photo and layout editor. Say hello to Oliver’s readers, Gryph.

When Oliver asked me to write a guest post for his blog, I have to admit that I was a little hesitant. After all, if you’re a regular here at Literature and Libation you know that above all else, this is a blog about writing, and that Oliver is a writer. I, however count among my literary achievements such things as believing that over the past year I’ve used semi-colons properly no less than 5 times. However, I’m sure that Oliver would counsel me that taking oneself out of one’s writing “comfort zone” is what all writers should do on occasion, and when he suggested I write a post about writers and drinking, I have to admit I was pretty keen on the idea.

I’m well aware that alcohol has long been a muse for artistic people. The love affair between the once banned Absinthe and the creative likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is well documented. Many rock musicians have turned to alcohol thinking that it will heighten their creativity, sadly sometimes with deadly consequences. But musicians and artists are not unique when it comes to turning to alcohol. Writers too have had a fondness for drink and one of the things I’ve always found interesting in my travels and in my reading are the establishments themselves that have been made famous by association.

For instance, the Eagle & Child in Oxford, England, for all intents and purposes might have been nothing more than an unassuming local English pub, if it had not become famous for hosting the “Inklings;” a literary group that met every Tuesday morning in the Rabbit Room. The group was run by two Oxford locals: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Pete’s Tavern, in New York City, can lay claim to being a regular haunt for writer William Sydney Porter who, under the pen name O. Henry, wrote some of America’s most endearing stories including The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Magi. The tavern embraces this by advertising itself as “The Tavern O’Henry Made Famous”, and still maintains “The O’Henry Table”. While statements that The Gift of the Magi was written in the tavern are suspect, O’Henry did use the tavern (named Healy’s when O’Henry lived in NYC) as an inspiration for Kenealy’s Tavern that appears in his story, The Lost Blend.

And of course any Jimmy Buffett fan is familiar with Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, Florida, a popular haunt for Ernest Hemingway. The bar (which now sits on Duval Street after owner Joe Russell moved it there after refusing to pay a rent increase from $3 a week to $4) originally sat at the location now occupied by Captain Tony’s Saloon and was Hemingway’s preferred drinking stop when he lived in Key West. At the time however, the name of the bar was The Silver Slipper, which Hemingway hated, claiming it wasn’t “manly” enough. He badgered Russell to change it and Sloppy Joe’s was born.

Yes, the association between writers and their favorite watering holes can be pretty strong. So strong in fact, that cities like London, Dublin, and New York have literary tours that allow you to walk around and visit some of the establishments that writers have held so dear. But sadly, some bars, taverns and pubs have become associated with writers for the gravest of reasons.

When ever I go to NYC and step into The White Horse Tavern, I’m reminded of Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas, author of such classics as Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight and, And Death Shall Have No Dominion. Although his death in November of 1953 was largely due to complications of pneumonia, the use of alcohol has always been cited as a contributing factor. It doesn’t help quell these claims when only 6 days earlier, Thomas was seen stumbling out of the White Horse loudly claiming, “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies. I think that’s the record!” Years later in her autobiography, Dylan’s wife Caitlin would write, “But ours was a drink story, not a love story, just like millions of others. Our one and only true love was drink”

One can no longer walk into the Harbour Lights Bar in Dublin, Ireland but if you could, it probably would be practically impossible not to get a lesson on Irish writer Brendan Behan. Writer of Borstal Boy, an autobiographical account of Behan’s days in a Borstal prison due to his involvement in the IRA, and Hold Your Hour and Have Another, Behan may not be a household name to people outside the writing world. But he was an important figure in Ireland, and well known for his drinking. He’s credited with being the writer to first describe himself as “a drinker with a writing problem” and is the subject of The Pogues’ song Streams of Whiskey. One night, Behan collapsed while drinking at the Harbour Lights Bar and died later at MeathHospital from what’s been called “complications due to alcoholism and diabetes.”

I had been to the Fell’s Point, Baltimore, institution The Horse You Rode In On for a few drinks and some great live music on many occasions before I learned of it’s connection to the great Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s exploits are legendary and probably well known by those who read Oliver’s blog. But some of the greatest mysteries left to us by the father of the modern detective story are the details surrounding his death. Poe was discovered, delirious, on the streets of Baltimore on Oct 3, 1849, in clothes that weren’t his and never regained enough awareness to say what happened to him before dying on Oct 7. People have argued many theories on the cause of his death; include delirium tremens, syphilis, tuberculosis, cooping, and even rabies. But what everyone does agree on is that the bar, “The Horse” was the last place he was seen before being discovered on the 3rd.

I’m sure one of the reasons Oliver asked me to write this post was to share my own personal thoughts on writing and drinking. Let’s start out by saying that the chances of me ever making a bar famous by dropping dead in it are very slim, however since I do write a beer blog, it’s easy to assume that for me the two go hand in hand. Well, that’s not quite true. When I’m writing a beer review I do like to be drinking the beer I’m reviewing. This gives me the ability to think about and capture what I’m experiencing in real time and make sure I’m not leaving out any important details that might be forgotten later.

However, what I’ve learned is that drinking and writing is a slippery slope for me, just like drinking and playing music. When I was playing in pick up bands there was an amount of alcohol that would calm the stage jitters and make me play with confidence. And then there was the amount of alcohol that turned my fretboard finesse into the inept clawing of a cloven ox. And what I found to be true back then is that the difference between those two amounts of alcohol was very small.

So in writing, a few beers are nice to relax the mind and get the creative juices flowing, but it doesn’t take much more to cause me to turn out 700 words that look like I typed it with my face on a keyboard where the Z, G, and P keys are stuck. Of course some would suggest that it’s not all bad, that at least the basic framework is there and all I need to do is clean it up later when I’m more lucid. But you writers out there know that poorly written paragraphs are like “fix-it-up” houses. Some you can do something with it, and then with others it’s best to just bulldoze the whole thing and start from scratch. And since I do that enough when I’m sober, I chose to put the keyboard down whenever I feel that familiar buzz taking over my brain.

I guess you could say that when it comes to writing, alcohol is my muse, but not necessarily always my friend.

I’d like to thank Oliver for allowing me to guest post on his blog. To show my appreciation, knowing that Oliver is a cat person, I’d like to share a couple pictures my girlfriend and I recently took at the Ernest Hemingway house in Key West, Florida. Hemingway was a well known lover of polydactyl cats and his house, now a museum, plays home to 45 decedents of his cat, Snowball. The cats have the full run of the estate, as shown by this picture of one of the cats calmly lying on a bed that visitors are not allowed to touch.

Ah Gryphon, the cat picture please?

Yeah, that’s not the picture I took. What’s your problem?

I know we have an unspoken “no cat rule” at the Dogs of Beer, but we’re doing a guest post for Oliver and I think he’d like to see some of the photos I took of the Hemingway cats. So could you just put up the picture I took of the cat relaxing on the bed, please?

Ok, this isn’t funny. You’re embarrassing me. Please put the picture up or you and I are going to have a major problem. I’d keep in mind that you’re still young enough for me to have you neutered. Last chance fur ball, put up the picture!

Thank you. Now was that so hard? The cats have four full time attendants and receive a vet visit every Wednesday. And as you can see by the happy expression on this cat, they really appreciate how well they’re taken care of.

I hate you.

Forgotten Friday: I Hear the Train a Comin’

October 5, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I remember the exact moment I found the decaying remains of some old abandoned rail road tracks in the woods of Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was a monumental event for me; a 13 year old luckily finding a physical remnant of the past buried so carefully by time that it could only be found by literally tripping over it. That day in the woods near Hanson and Sons farm and those rusted pieces of twisted metal may have been the very thing that spurred my obsession with things forgotten.

At the end of my street are some not-abandoned railroad tracks. A nightly symphony of trains accompanies our homework/TV/veg-out time as loud horns and whistles punctuate the still night air like verbal exclamation points. When we first moved in I was concerned about the noise. But now that I’ve lived there for a few years the parade of trains is soothing, almost peaceful, as they saunter on to destinations unknown.

The tracks are littered with detritus from passersby; school children cut across the tracks to reach the nearby middle school and local hoodlums smoke pot and drink malt liquor in the darkness of the nearby thickets. But the tracks themselves are shiny and well kept; freshly placed gravel carpets the area between the ties, making it feel like a weird, skinny white-sand beach in the middle of the woods.

Even straight tracks meander.

But it’s not the tracks that intrigue me; they’re clearly still in use, maintained, lovingly polished by a mysterious man in a conductor’s hat while the rest of the world is sleeping. The ties are new(ish), the signs are modern fiberglass and metal things; painted with distances and other cryptic railroadology signs that a layman like me does not understand.

Except one.

Nestled on a small hill, in the middle of several nasty-looking brambles is a sign post much older and more interesting than the others. It it falling over, only held in place by the wild overgrowth that creep up its sides. It looks like it belongs to a railroad that existed in this same spot seventy five years ago.

Lo, a marker. Not like a Sharpee, but like a land-marker.

One side says, “Baltimore 23” and the other says, “Washington 17.” I too, concluded the obvious, that this was an old mile marker. But upon Google-mapping, I found that this marker is not 23 miles from Baltimore, nor 17 miles from Washington. It’s almost as if it was picked up and moved here, either by a human’s will or by the slow ebbing flow of nature, growth, and dirt.

It’s also facing the wrong directions to be an effective marker. The “Baltimore” side is facing Baltimore (as the train conductor would see that he is now 23 miles from Baltimore, while heading in the direction of DC) and the same goes for the Washington side. Someone (in their surpassing wisdom) spray painted “Baltimore” blue and “Washington” red, in an attempt to, I assume, make the city names more visible. I don’t think it could possibly help much, as this small stone pillar is crooked, backwards, and probably completely unreadable at 65-75 MPH.

But whatever it was meant to be, someone has forgotten about it. It’s not longer needed as several bigger, easier to read signs have been erected on steel poles on either side of the track, transforming this once obelisk of guidance into an obelisk of obsolescence.

I tried to stand it up straight, but this sucker is heavy, and I was secretly paranoid that a massive CSX leviathan would come roaring down the tracks as I stood messing with a rock, leaving me to leap out of the way or lose my leg, all Fried Green Tomatoes style.

So instead, I lay down on the tracks for a second, ear to the rail, listening for the ghosts of the trains that used this marker rumbling miles and memories away.

Point of view. Vanishing point.

Forgotten Friday: Can’t see the Seminary for the Forest

September 28, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Tucked away into the deciduous overgrowth of Forest Glen, Maryland, are a collection of buildings steeped in historical mystery.The sprawling complex, just feet away from the crawling DC traffic of i495, is home to buildings of random architectural styles, the oldest of which dates back to 1887.

The main building was first built as a resort for the DC elite; a place for them to escape the humidity and mosquitoes of a major city that was, according to popular legend, built on a swamp. That’s not actually true, but many areas of DC were built on or near coastal wetlands, which as anyone who has ever visited the Eastern Shore in July knows, is just as miserable and smelly as a swamp.

The main “hotel” building, renovated as of September 2012.

Despite a fancy casino, ballrooms, and well-stocked bars, the resort failed. It was too close to DC to offer any real respite or escape for the people who came to visit. Getting through the heavy woods surrounding the property also proved a challenge, with only one main entrance accessible by train.

After financial ruin struck the Inn, John and Vesta Cassedy leased the property and began transforming the complex into a finishing school for girls. They transitioned all of the entertainment venues and hotel rooms into classrooms and lecture halls. In 1894, they welcomed 48 students into the National Park Seminary for the first time.

By 1911 the complex had been wired for the new amazement that was electricity and now housed over 230 girls and 42 faculty member. To accommodate the growing student body, buildings were erected all over the property. The plans for these properties came from a build-your-own-home book (something that I suppose was a lot more prevalent at the turn of the century) and each sorority on campus had the option to build their house in a certain style. This led to the colonial, Swiss, Dutch, Greek, Spanish mission, and even Japanese style structures that exist today.

Spanish mission, not unlike Spanish rice. OK, totally unlike Spanish rice.

The Great Depression ravaged the school like it did the rest of the nation; enrollment dropped to 30 girls as most parents could no longer afford the tuition of a private institution. In an attempt to save the property, Roy Tasco Davis sold the property to the US army (for a paltry $890,000 mind you) who planned to use it for a peaceful recovery place for the wounded for World War II. 1942 marked the official transition of seminary to medical annex.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center operated out of the eclectic mix of buildings until 1972. The army drastically changed the campus; tearing down the original plantation house and slave quarters that pre-dated even the main hotel building, and erecting barracks across from the gym, where the football and baseball fields had been. The government had even pushed to tear down the remaining seminary buildings, but local residents and conservationists intervened, demanding that the army do what it could to preserve the history of the local.

The campus was neglected and vandalized over the next 15 years, and the Greek style Odeon Theatre was tragically lost to arson. In 1988, a local group formed Save Our Seminary (SOS) in an effort to combat the decay and destruction of the property.

The Forest Glen Seminary is a modern archaeologist’s dream. Specters of the past pour from the walls of each building, reminding visitors that this place is old and deserves respect. Despite the already extensive renovations of the main building, further back in the campus, nature has done what it does best and begun to reclaim all it can. The two most remote buildings – the Beta Castle and the Villa – are in the jaws of the local plant life; poison ivy vines and tree roots climb and hug the sides of the buildings in a creepy verdant embrace.

This castle has not seen a siege in many a day.

For anyone interested, SOS and a commercial developer are trying to preserve and restore the campus by turning it into residential area. They have cleared away a significant amount of old-growth forest (which makes me sad) but also managed to salvage a lot of the existing campus, statues, buildings, and walkways (which makes me happy). While I would normally be vehemently opposed to turning something so cool with so much heritage into condos, at least this way the buildings won’t be torn down and abandoned indefinitely.

That’s a win overall, I suppose.

Relevant links!
http://www.operant.com/seminary/home.html
http://www.saveourseminary.org/
http://www.nationalparkseminary.com/

Lastly, I made a video of every single picture I took on the day my sister and I went crawling through the woods to explore the Seminary grounds. I recommend viewing it in HD, if you’ve got the bandwidth.

Forgotten Friday: Beached Go Karts

September 7, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

(A special thanks to my sister, Becca, for the awesome photos in this post)

I’m not an adrenaline junkie. I don’t want to jump out of planes or off of cliffs or into big holes naturally bored hundreds of feet into the Earth’s crust. It does nothing for me. The love of self fights the love of excitement, and self-preservation almost always wins.

The one exception is driving. Something about clutch and gears and accelerator coming together in glorious harmony, resulting in a symphony of speed, resonates deeply in my pysche. I’ve always loved to drive, and drive fast. It was speed I wanted, and the car was the means to that end.

I couldn’t physically drive a real car until I was about 15 years old, because I was a tiny boy who didn’t experience his adult growth spurt until relatively late. Having my feet be able to reach the pedals was a prophecy straight out of Plutarch; like Theseus growing to a strength to be able to move the stone to retrieve his father’s arms, I had to impatiently wait until my physical body could handle 2000 odd pounds of steel and gasoline.

I sought to satiate my desire for speed in others ways. Bicycles. Skateboards. Sprinting. Soccer. They brought me fleeting joy, but I always wanted to go faster than the highest gear would let me go, just a little faster than the steepest hill could propel me.

And one glorious day, I discovered that they had made cars for kids; smaller things with less power that could be controlled in a relatively safe manner. I’m talking go karts, holmes.

The first time I shoved my slight frame into the tiny plastic seat of a homeade go kart, I felt like Mario Andretti mixed with Mario the plumber. If I’d had a red shell to throw at other karts, my life would have been complete.

I was an equal in a go kart. I wasn’t short or weak. I could keep pace with, and even pass my older sister. I could race my dad with the chance of actually winning. I was as big as the biggest man in the world inside that little black contraption, the 12 horsepower lawnmower engine puttering under the hood, feeling like nothing could ever go wrong as long as my hands were on that wheel.

On the southern most part of Chincoteague Island, Virginia, (the beach town where I spent my summers as a kid) there was a small go kart track that my father used to take us to when it was open during the Summer season. I remember fondly scooting around that oval of pavement, watching the sun sink into the Western bay; its rays throwing long shadows and an orange glow over my race, burning this image of childhood perfection into the permanence of my memory.

My sister visited the island and the track a few weeks ago. By my crude math, I hadn’t seen (or even thought about this place) for nearly 14 years.

Thinking about it, I’ve never see a private go kart track.

It’s hard to tell when the track closed. It’s clearly been abandoned for some time, based on its current state. I don’t think it was ever exactly a high end go kart track (if such things exist) but at least someone maintained the track and the karts and the little house where you bought tickets.

I have memories of this place being alive with noise and activity as I waited in line for my chance to burn as much rubber as a 10 year old is capable of burning.

There are a few more obstacles than I remember.

The bones of the track are still there, but it’s beyond salvage at this point. I suppose there is no place in our current world for the frivolity of a go kart track in a sleepy beach town.

The tires once surrounded the outside of the track as a makeshift guard railing.

You can see from the below set of images that the surrounding wetlands flora has been encroaching on the track steadily since about 1997. There is a large gap in the satellite imagery, but I think by 2007 it is safe to say that this place hadn’t seen patrons for quite a while. The large truck/trailer parked on the track was the biggest hint.

Ah Google Earth, I wish I knew how to quit you.

It’s sad to see this little piece of my childhood in such disrepair, but I suppose it’s bound to happen. Businesses close, buildings are torn down, people move, and nature reclaims anything it can.

But memories linger. It may look depressing to an outsider, but these pictures are a connection to bright memories of happy days. I may have sat in this very car all those years ago, when I was the king of the track, learning what it was to be in control and trying as hard as I could to win some imaginary race against imaginary competitors.

Sounds oddly similar to how I feel now.

Not a very good parking job.

Forgotten Friday: A Bridge Over Landover

August 31, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve always had an infatuation with the ancient world. My earliest childhood memories are faded and grey, but I can still remember scrutinizing books about the Parthenon, Tintagel, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I never cared if these places were real, or if they still existed, I just cared about the history that was interred with their architectural bones.

It’s not that I’m obsessed with the buildings themselves. Mossy stones and broken arches make for interesting photography, but I’m more enamored with the idea of the people these places represent. People who lived lives that would seem alien to us now. People with struggles and challenges like we’ve never known, that have somehow been truncated to a few pages in a text book and a Wikipedia article. People who would be confused and angry that we waste time on things like Facebook status updates and just how hairy Snooki’s baby really is. These places echo the souls of the people who built them, lived in them, and died in them; whose memory is only maintained by a select few who care enough to think beyond the present.

My recent trip to Ireland brought my obsession to a head as I was surrounded by broken skeletons of castles, churches, and things unidentifiable after the ravages of nature and time. I’ve been longingly staring at the pictures of these buildings, dreaming up stories about their denizens, imagining who and why and how they lived.

But interesting history doesn’t need to come from thousands of years ago. There are hundreds of things woven into the banality of our everyday lives that we don’t see because our receptors are pointed inward, not outward.

I work in what, on the outside, appears to be a normal corporate park. The buildings are plain and brown, a hold-over of contemporary mid-century design. The boringly named “Corporate Drive” is in Landover, Maryland; a place that many locals would regard with disdain, or at the very least, indifference.

This is the kind of corporate park that is a tangible of the cliche: “sign of the times.”

The parking lots look like this:

and like this:

1:45 on a workday.

Garbage is strewn about everywhere; the result of a landslide of diffusion of responsibility that comes from the thinking, “well there is already trash there so it’s OK if I throw mine here too.” A fetid swamp pools just off the sidewalk that would probably be a pristine pond if not for disgusting human intervention. In the middle of this swamp floats an algae covered, half-deflated basketball. The back end of a Safeway shopping cart sticks out of the green muck like some iceberg forged in the fires of the industrial revolution.

Why use a trashcan when Mother Earth is right there?

It’s the kind of place that makes you feel sad for both nature and humanity.

I walk about a half a mile to our client’s building from my normal office twice a week. This walk isn’t lonely; I’m often dodging people coming from the Metro or heading to a nearby deli for lunch. Most keep their heads down and ear-buds secure, and react awkwardly and sheepishly if accidental eye contact is made. Short of some aggressive geese and tenacious plant life, it’s about as uninteresting a walk as you might expect.

But on my way back from the client’s office last week, I took a different path. A path I’ve never walked before, behind buildings I’ve never been in, past people I’ve never seen.

When I climbed an old concrete-and-wood staircase behind one of the corporate offices of Giant and Safeway (they share a building? WTF?), I found what appeared to be a gate to nowhere.

Mr. Tumnus, is that you?

As soon as I dismissed my thoughts of Narnia, I tried to figure out just what the hell this thing was. It had gates like you’d find surrounding (protecting?) a dumpster, but there was no way a dumpster would go behind this gate, as it led to a 6 foot drop off. As I illegally opened and moved the gate out of my way (what? the padlock was rusted to all hell, it only took like three kicks to open it) I saw what was on the other side:

A “well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures.” One hundred internet dollars to anyone who can place this quote without Google.

A pillar. No, a series of pillars, all overgrown with ivy and lichens and vines galore. They were blanketed in the kind of growth that looks like nature is really pissed off.

I moved around the side of the gate to get a better look and saw at least four of these pillars. About six or seven feet tall, made of poured cement, they stood there as a monument to something long gone, to a time when it was possible to cross this creek and see the other side of the world.

It didn’t take me long to realize this had been a bridge at some point. My mind flashed back to a time when these wetlands were actually beautiful; free of trash, with clean waters and little ducks swimming all happy-like. I imagined employees taking breaks and hanging out on this little causeway. I imagined them finding some peace from a hectic work schedule in the forested wonder just beyond their cubicle walls.

The odd thing is, this bridge clearly did not fall apart from age and mistreatment. There are no broken stones or chunks of concrete in the water below, no signs of damage to the pillars or the entrances on either side. Someone, at some point, deliberately had this bridge removed, for reasons unknown (or at least unknown to the current building property managers, when asked).

Unless the accumulation of trash, run-off from the nearby Metro maintenance facility, and pollution from the even more nearby i-495 freeway had poisoned the ecosystem and ruined the serenity of this little bridge. But that’s not possible is it? We’d never destroy the innate beauty of the natural world in the name of progress, would we?

I found an image of the bridge still intact in 1993:

April, 1993: Google Earth Coords: 38°56’53.61″N 76°51’53.91″W

But the next record in 2002 shows only the pillars:

March, 2002.

In less than ten years, the bridge is gone. I guess I’ll never know why it was dismantled, or if anyone really got to enjoy it when it was there.

At least it can live again here on the internet, if only for a few minutes while you read this.

RIP, random bridge I’ll never know.

Review: Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock

May 30, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I was born with very blonde hair. Total towhead. I looked a lot like Paris Hilton, only shorter. I’d post a picture if I could find one, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it.

As my middle school years whizzed by, my luscious golden locks mellowed into a dirty blonde. After high school, it darkened to a rich walnut. At this rate, I expect it to be raven’s wing black by the time I am 40. Either that or my hair is going to actually start capturing light and matter in an event horizon somewhere near my forehead. I’ll call it, “The Blackhole Bob.”

As a former blonde, I appreciate the plight of current blondes. There is a lot of pressure for one with fair hair to be ditsy and frivolous, even if you’re not in the mood for such lighthearted nonsense. The stereotype afflicting all blondes is unfair, as some are perfectly capable of doing math, swimming unassisted, and driving a car without crashing it into anything and everything.

Stereotypes are wrong, but they exist for a reason. Out there, some blondes are giving the rest of the blondes a bad name. Every time someone says, “I was having a blonde moment”, every other blonde person in the world loses one strand of hair. It’s a sad truth, but soon, all blonde people will be bald.

No, I don’t have anything to back this up, but it’s science. You don’t question science.

But, with stigma comes lifestyle, and with lifestyle comes eventual acceptance. Blondes may be synonymous with “dumb”, but they’re also synonymous with “exotic” and “fun.”

Blonde? Exotic? What am I drinking?

Stay with me. Historically, blondes were a minority; a tiny little subset of humans who had hair like straw, yellow and flaxen. These blondes usually had pale skin as well, making them even appear even stranger. This was a sharp contrast from the olive skin and dark hair prevalent across the middle east and Mediterranean regions, and the blondes (often Nordic) were regarded as scary and fearsome because their hair was like the sun. The light reflecting off of their hair even caused some to think they were angelic; their shining manes a mortal halo and tangible proof of their divinity.

As is the case with humans, most people were afraid of what the didn’t understand, and blondes had a rough time fitting in. People threw stuff at them a lot. Usually stones, which hurt if they hit you. To counter this, many blonde headed people dyed their hair brown or at least some shade darker, to fit into the Roman ideal of beauty.

Seems ironic that people now do the exact opposite for the same reason. Oh human race, you so crazy.

I digress. Blondes are great. Especially blonde beers. Double especially blonde bocks. They’re usually carefree and pretty, and know how to have fun. They’re brewed with pale or golden malts and brewed with a high gravity yeast which results in a heavy, sweet lager. Blondes also taste great, but that’s hardly appropriate conversation for the likes of a blog.

Gordon Biersch knows what’s up, and brewed a Blonde Bock that is tasty, fun, smooth, and refreshing. This is the kind of blonde you’d want to spend a wild summer day with, but at 7% ABV, unfortunately not the kind you’d want to bring home to mom and dad.

9 out of 10.

Blondes have more fun?

Next up: Troegs Hop Back Amber Ale!

Review: Sam Adams Belgian Session

May 1, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Guys! Guys!

Guys. (And I use the term “guys” androgynously, like “dude”, so don’t feel left out ladies)

I found another session ale. If you remember my review of Smuttynose Star Island Single, you’ll also remember that I’m a big fan of these session ales. I love that they possess a certain drinkability due to their low alcohol, but simultaneously pack a lot of taste, unlike their domestic, “carbonated piss”, brethren.

They’re pretty awesome beers.

While the Smuttynose version was hoppy and a tad sweet, the Sam Adams Belgian Session is wheaty, sour, and yeasty. It sits at 5% ABV, putting it very slightly higher than what others might consider a session ale, but it tastes light and refreshing.

I’ve gotten so used to bitter and hoppy (from drinking so much IPA) that yeasty and sour took me quite by surprise. This beer smells very strong and hearty, reminiscent of Chimay White, Leffe, or Hoegaarden.

If you don’t like yeast, you certainly won’t like this. If you do like yeast, and a beer that is refreshing and quenching, you will like this. As I sipped this yellowish ale from my glass, I started wondering why Belgian beer is so yeasty and sour. To the Internets!

Here comes the science: Brewer’s Yeast, or any yeast in the family Saccharomyces cerevisiae (literally, sugar fungus of beer), is used to make beer. There are 2 main sub-types within this family, the top-fermenting “ale yeast” and the bottom-fermenting “lager yeast.” There are hundreds of strains of yeast out there, all of which offer slightly different character, flavors, and aromas.

There is also a way to brew beer (or wine) using wild yeast by simply leaving the wort (or must) exposed to the open air called “spontaneous fermentation.” This method allows naturally occurring yeast to process the sugars into alcohol, resulting in a much more sour, unfiltered, cloudy beer. This is the way beer and wine was made pre-1836 (when French scientist and lush Cagniard de Latour discovered that yeast was alive and made alcohol as a by-product of eating sugar); a period in history when people assumed tiny, invisible fairies swam around in their beer, creating magical happy-juice in the process. This method is highly volatile, often resulting in gross, possibly dangerous, undrinkable beer.

While there are dozens of varieties of Belgian beer their brewmasters are fond of a particular strain of yeast that results in sulfur-like smells and leaves a substantial amount of yeast flavor in the beer. This may have something to do with the 15th century Trappist Abbey beer, which was originally brewed by selfish monks who wouldn’t share their delicious brown ales. Or weren’t allowed to share it because of Catholic doctrine. I can’t remember. Either way, their work set the bar for how Belgian ales should be produced and how they should taste.

As a result, contemporary nods to Belgian ale are packed to the brim with certain strains of yeast that make them – unsurprisingly enough – iconically Belgian. Belgian Pale Ale sits at an almost perfect juxtaposition to the England-born India Pale Ale.

It’s a battle of hops versus yeast.

The winner? My tongue.

8.75 out of 10.

Those Belgians sure like their yeast. And waffles. And chocolate.

Next up: Flying Dog Road Dog Porter!

The Best of the Worst

March 2, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

The wizards are often testing my limits. They have me do things that seem unreasonable given the still somewhat fragile state of my arm. I am often coerced into doing things like lifting heavy objects, applying weights to appendages for various lengths of time, and sometime even squeezing things as hard as I can.

My right, uninjured arm, can squeeze things pretty well. I average about ~130 lbs of pressure, which is in the “excellent” category when compared to national averages. My left, broken-ass arm, averages ~100 lbs of pressure, which falls into the “average” category. I was shocked when the wizards told me that most of their patients score in the 50 lb range, even with their dominant hand.

I am not herculean by any means. I’m barely 145 lbs, and have trouble reaching on top of things taller than 6 feet. I am fast and agile, but I have never really considered myself strong, especially in comparison to the projected societal image of strong. My injury has only exacerbated this idea, to the point where I was actively feeling lame, not being able to lift items I could before the break, and feeling uselessly dejected about being a noodle-armed weakling.

It was quite a shock for me to hear that I was quite the opposite, even in my damaged state. It took some time to digest, until I started to embrace the idea that maybe all those hours of working out did yield something tangible. I also began to realize that if I could be of above average strength and fitness at one of my lowest physical moments, the average American must be a pathetic sack of loosely contained goo.

I have discussed the idea (with very reputable, awesome people) that the entire nation, nay modern world, is a mere shell of what humanity once was. Gorillas, pound for pound one of the strongest animal on the planet, are 6x stronger than the strongest human. Their DNA matches 95-99% of ours, and yet they dwarf us in practical strength. I find it hard to believe that a species one genus away would retain its natural impressive power while we remained spongy and sinewy.

The argument is that as we developed more sophisticated brains, the necessity for raw physical power declined. Tools did the work of hands but faster, with less effort and injury while weapons and traps relieved the need to chase down and manually kill prey. This is all logically sound, if you ignore the fact that it took tens of millenia to reach the aforementioned levels of civilization.

In the early times of man, humans still had to survive in a harsh, untamed world. Even with steady technological and mental progress they were exposed to the elements, had to compete for food and resources with other, often bigger animals, and work hard to stave off extinction. Daily life didn’t evolve from old raw meat in a cave to an E-Class in Suburbia in a few thousand years.

So why then, are we so pathetically scrawny now? Why can a dude who spends most of his life in a drab three-walled pseudo-cage score dramatically above average on a simple strength test? Surely, countless years of development would yield superior specimens of both mental and physical prowess throughout the world, no?

No. But not because of anything natural. I blame the very thing that others do, but for very different reasons. It was technology and progress that weakened us as a race, but not because we didn’t need to be strong anymore. We were affected by the poisons of industry, the lethargy of convenience, and the decadence of materialism.

I once wrote a piece (full of ideas, but unfinished, like my writing career) about simplicity in early America. Complex tax forms didn’t exist, managing a credit score would sound like a motif from a weird fiction novel, and having to maintain your home, car, relationships, jobs, creeping psychosis, and finances were either nonexistent or generally a non-issue. The things that mattered were integral to survival; eating, establishing proper shelter, keeping the wilds at bay with a pointed stick that made thunder.

When life is about surviving, you are forced to be strong. Your mental fortitude directly relates how well you live, and how well you support your family, while your physical strength dictates if you’ll live or if wolves will eat your family. It was clear cut and gave people very few options – “be strong or die” said the Earth, and humans obliged.

But we, as Americans, have redefined survival. No longer are we concerned with badgers sneaking into the larders, or that the nearest city state might burst into violent revolt and march angrily into our cozy huts, instead we worry about qualifying for loans, impressing people who have not shown any reason to be worth impressing, and displaying our worth outwardly with things instead of ideas. We fret about gas prices, billable hours, and myriad stressful constructs of modern society.

Our stress is almost completely manufactured. Shelter and food are a given in the First World, but humans need to feel they are challenged, so they make challenges for themselves. The complexity of modern life has layered on new, abstract aspects of survival that are extremely detached from basic instincts. You know to eat when you’re hungry or run when in danger, but managing finances and building a career are alien concepts.

Ultimately, the majority of our energy is expended dealing with the everyday balancing act, leaving our bodies and minds worse from the experience. Industry has turned our food into unhealthy gruel, adding chemicals, preservatives, and other unnatural aspects to things in the name of speed and cost. Physical activity, no longer necessary to survive, has become a fad; reserved for those who “care about their image” rather than regarded as a necessity for healthy life.

Unfortunately, as more and more technology comes along to remove any physical labor or mental engagement, the problem will get worse. There is little people can do to fight it, as even the vocal minority can’t convince the silent majority that a green, naturalistic movement could solve a lot of the worlds problems. I fear the humans had their moment of glory thousands of years before I wrote these words.

I used to honestly believe the pyramids were built by extraterrestrials. While I still believe there has to be other life out there in the great cosmic expanse, a change in philosophy has made me more open to the idea that humans did in fact build these amazing structures. I don’t agree that today’s humans could build them; we are frail, excuse driven, and lazy. But perhaps humans closer to our original genetic make up could have. Perhaps one ancient Egyptian laborer was as strong as a gorilla and as quick minded as Hugh Laurie. Perhaps the average person 5000 years ago was as good as our elite few today. Perhaps they were in many ways more advanced than we are, but from a completely different perspective than how it is normally viewed. Perhaps it isn’t technology that makes us more advanced and superior, but in fact the exact opposite.

We’re told that technology and understanding of the world has made it a better place, but I think there is room to argue that point. Somewhere in the evolution of man, we’ve lost some intrinsic strength and intelligence, that we will probably never see again. We have many things that make life much, much easier, yes; but maybe life isn’t supposed to be easy.

Or maybe I’m rambling.

He has kitteh.

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