Wine Not: Que Syrah, Syrah
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
April 4, 2013
This week, leave your beer mug on the shelf and dust off your long-stemmed glasses for a toast to Dionysus. We’re talking wine.
Wine production, or vinification, dates back to at least 6,000 BC, although different regions developed it at different times. While Montanans are becoming more and more familiar with craft beer, any wine fancier than Franzia still intimidates many college students. Read More…
The Excrement Brewponent
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel and Matt Kennedy
For the MSU Exponent
March 28, 2013
Note: This column originally appeared as part of the Exponent’s annual April Fools’ Day edition, the Excrement.
The Coffee-ponent
Turns out, coffee is way better than beer. I was trying to tell Brent this last week, but he was being a complete ass clown and wouldn’t hear me out. I was being super nice, really, and then he started shouting and threw beer in my face. So much for friends. Anyway, I’m sure the readers will see it my way, so I’m going to shell out the facts.
Unlike beer, coffee has rich cultural value. From the proud farmer to the discerning roaster, there is an inexorable love of the drink that runs through every moment of each bean’s existence. Beer’s only culture is moldy yeast. Brent tried to feed me this crap-beer he brewed in his closet — this was before he threw it all over my nicest shirt — which was probably brewed with his toenail clippings and spit. I’m surprised a hillbilly who drinks that swill can even write. Read More…
Hangovers
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
February 14, 2013
Even if you don’t wake up with a tiger in your bathroom, a missing tooth or someone else’s baby in your closet, almost every college student will deal with a hangover sooner or later. Read More…
Pucker Up: Sour Beer
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
January 31, 2013
How would you react if, instead of adding carefully cultivated yeast strains (or formaldehyde in the case of PBR), your favorite brewery let wild yeast and bacteria spontaneously ferment your beer? Could you stomach the distinctively sour taste?
A row of lambics for sale at Joe’s Parkway.
If you could — or if you just want a beery, new adventure — pick up a lambic beer at a local grocery store. Unlike the traditional ales and lagers that get us through the week, lambics rely on spontaneous fermentation from wild yeast and bacteria. Typically, the beer is brewed with a 70:30 percent ratio of barley to wheat. Read More…
A Toast to the Harvest
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
October 25, 2012
As the year’s first snows blanket Bozeman, it’s time to pause for a minute and toast a special time of year: the harvest. While the end of the summer growing season has historically been important in brewing various beverages, today the dropping temperatures signal a new round of seasonal beers and a shift in many people’s drinking preferences.
Crisp, lighter beers cool us off during the hot summer months, but many folks want a different kind of drink to warm their bellies and ward off the nip of cool fall nights. Here are a few options to consider. Read More…
Harvest Moon
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 13, 2012
“This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth.” Read More…
Introducing The Brewponent
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel and Matt Kennedy
For the MSU Exponent
September 6, 2012
Don’t worry, we understand why you did it. Why you drank Folgers this morning and why you’re already looking forward to that Coors Light later today. Sure, other beer and coffee is expensive. Anyway, the only people who like specialty beer and coffee are snobs. They strut into the coffee shop or bar, with their thin moustaches, loafers and stylish scarves, and order something you don’t understand. Maybe you can pronounce it, but you don’t know what’s in it, and you certainly don’t drink it with a smugness only appropriate for English royalty and AKC dog shows. We get it. If you have to look and act like that, it seems better to continue buying the 24 packs of PBR.
Lucky for us, Bozeman’s drinking culture is not populated by snobs. Read More…
Author
Mountain Solitaire Author Brent Zundel
MOUNTAIN SOLITAIRE 