I love NPR. When I was in high school a friend of mine used to listen to NPR on his drive to school and tell me of its great worth. Not only did I not believe him, I mocked him most thoroughly. In my defense, this is the same guy that shaved a 36 into the back of his head to harness some unseen power while taking the ACT. (Coincidently, ACT is also the answer to the following question: You know you grew up in the middle of the country if you qualified for college based on the score of the _____.) But I will confesson this, he was so right.
Now you may be asking yourself, what the hell does this have to do with beer? And that is a fine question. The answer is this. I heard a fascinating interview on Forum with Steven Johnson the author of a biography on Joseph Priestley called The Invention of Air that I want to read. According to the interview, Priestly discovered how to produce soda water by a tour of his neighborhood brewery. He noticed the haze above the tanks (the carbon dioxide being realized by the brewer’s yeast) and passed water over the tanks in order to trap the gas inside. So next time you have a glass of soda water (I have no idea why people drink unflavored soda water, but they do), give thanks to beer and Joseph Priestley.