Re: [Way, way OT] Beer (was Re: Questions...)

H. Beam Piper postulated that the first crops planted on a new colony 
would be wheat, tobacco and barley. Of course, he also had his 
characters routinely knock off for cocktails at 5pm, which the natives 
of several planets assumed to be a religious ritual.

Roger Burton West wrote:

>On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 01:04:15PM -0800, Brian Bilderback wrote:
>
>>To bring this back on-topic, if that's possible at all, I'm
considering the 
>>possibility that on other planets, as we colonize them, we'll be
finding new 
>>edible plants (Sources of sugars to a brewer/distiller), with new
flavors, 
>>and thus new alchoholic beverages preferred by the populaces of those 
>>worldss.  Might make interesting background material for people to
add.
>>
>
>Seems plausible - any plant that's edible by Terrans and contains sugar
is
>likely to be fermentable by Terran yeast. We probably won't be lucky
>enough to find a replacement for beer, cider/perry or wine - but I
>suspect that almost anything fermentable will get distilled to produce
>field-expedient rotgut.
>
>Saccharomyces cerevisiae ad astra!
>
>Roger
>
>