Marijuana Beer :
By Ed Rosenthal and the Unknown Brewer
Quick Arnerican Archives
1635 E 22nd St .
Oakland, CA
(510) 5350495
$14.95
Anyone who read my column "The Noble Weed" can imagine that I jumped at the opportunity to review this book. As a pot smoker, I approached Marijuana Beer predisposed to give it a positive rating. It pains me, therefore, to say that this book is uninspired, technically poor and confusing, particularly for the novice brewer. Nonetheless, I recommend that you go out and buy it.
Marijuana Beer is about homebrewing using an illegal substance, cannabis sativa. The result is HiBrew, a beer to have "When You're Having Only One". It is written by Ed Rosenthal, an authority on marijuana. Also contributing to the book is the Unknown Brewer, someone who has brewed marijuana beer but doesn't want to go public with his name for obvious reasons.
The publication of MarijuanaBeer must have been seen as a profitable enterprise when Ed Rosenthal agreed to lend his name lo it. He has written or cowritten over a half dozen books on the subject. Unfortunately, the god of grass doesn't show much enthusiasm for homebrewing. The Unknown Brewer shouldn't be allowed the same excuse, however, and it's unfortunate that what could have been a more informing and entertaining read fails at both.
The book runs into trouble in the first chapter, The Ingredients. Paragraph two, first line: "Advanced beermakers malt (or mash) the barley or other grains themselves...". Sorry Ed, malting and mashing are two different processes. And in my ten years of familiarity with homebrewing, I have met only one brewer who malts his own grain. The paragraph goes on to state, "This turns the starches, which are indigestible by the yeast, into sugars...". He's got that right, but by this time he and the ganja gungho ghostbrewer have confused the reader on one of the most basic of concepts, the difference between mashing and malting. Serious error.
Later in the chapter, the reefer writers state: "Beermaking suppliers sell corn sugar, which is considered the purest because it leaves the least residue." They then go on to say only that corn imparts a dry taste. Corn sugar! Do these guys work for Miller Brewing Co?! In case anyone thinks I'm taking this quote out of context, nowhere in the discussion of sugars do the pot promoters mention the merits of 100% barley malt beers. Instead, they tail off into a discussion about the differences between corn sugar and cane sugar Amaizeing!
Throughout the book, the joint journalists continue to offer suggestions that sound like they had brewed one batch of beer, then decided to write about what they 'd learned. In Chapter 2, for example, the leaf lovers recommend brewing one gallon batcbes in glass containers as "more convenient". Has the cannabiphiliac couple even considered the trouble involved in scaling down, when most ingredients and recipes are marketed for five gallons? Not to mention all the effort spent brewing to come up with just one gallon of beer, which is about ten bottles. My recommendation is don't be cheap, go to your local homebrew supply shop and buy the equipment and materials needed to brew the five gallons. There's not a homebrewer worth his malt that hasn't thrown away a few bad batches.
In Chapter 3, Cleanliness and Sterility the spleef smokers present many basic concepts on sanitation, but by this time the basic problem is obvious even to someone flying Sensemilla Airways: The writers don't have their facts entirelyy wrong, they just do a terrible job explaining things. I could continue trashing the book paragraph by paragraph, but that serves no purpose. Suffice it to say that in addition to providing misinformation, Marijuana Beer jumps around as if the hemp happy homebrewer and his henchman had smoked a bowl of hashish before hammering out this handbook. An editor would have helped.
The one chapter that I have something good to say about-and it's a conditional good because the chapter still needed editting-is the one on marijuana. The Unknown Brewer did enough research to recommend soaking the marijuana in tepid water for an hour before using it, to get rid of powerful off tastes. He also talks about using the leaves of the plant, and does some calculations involving costs per bottle. Then, in the recipes section of the book, the blunt ballyhooers recommend dropping the presoaked marijuana into the secondary fermentor two to three days before bottling, so the alcohol that's built up can dissolve the waterinsoluble THC. This sounds sensible. Urifortunately, nowhere in the book could I find anything about the taste of marijuana beer, surely an issue when many home brewers may worry that the resulting beer would taste like bong water. While I 've never tasted a marijuana beer when it's brewed right, I am told on good authority that it has a nice sort of peppery flavor to it. And of course there are the aftereffects...
The thought springs to mind that this is an example of what results from lawmakers deciding to pass legislation about something they have no business meddling with. What happens in these cases is that a lot of misinformation and old husband's tales begin to swirl, with everybody expostulating or things that can't be researched because of the illegality issue. And I can't resist mentioning here how those same lawmakers have strengthened the very kind of people they're paid to fight-organized criminals-by giving them a means to reap millions of dollars in profits.
So why should you buy this book? Two reasons. The first is that despite glaring faults, it does shed a little light on the subject of brewing with marijuana. And since cheeba is prohibida, we should be happy to get the information. Buy a better book on homebrewing, however, and ignore the rest of this book. Maybe some day a hempusing homebrewer will write a good article on the subject. Any tokers-I mean takers?
The second reason is that you should
see the purchase as a vote, with your money, for a more sane approach
to marijuana Prohibition. Legalization is a far better option
than Prohibition, of course, for issues I outlined in my former
article. While on the topic, I'd like to congratulate the citizens
in Arizona and California for their recent passage of initiatives
mandating more sensible treatment of the drug. Unless people become
more active in supporting such laws, our government will continue
to waste tax dollars by searching for and locking people up for
nonviolent reasons. Historically, it wasn't until it became obvious
to even the most pinheaded lawmakers that the 18th Amendment was
having terrible consequences on our democracy, that the US government
passed the 21st Amendment, legalizing the manufacture of alcohol
again. Well, marijuana Prohibition continues apace, and reaction
to the people's initiatives from lawmakers in California, Arizona
and Washington D.C. illustrates that pinhead mentality still rules
Lastly, I'd like to repeat two assertions from my past column, neither of which was refuted by the huff and puff letters written to this paper about the need to ignore a topic that, in so many ways, closely resembles the problems brewers suffered under alcohol Prohibition.
1) Marijuana and beer are similar in that they provide stress relief and recreational fun for millions of people. Both have negative consequences when they are abused.
2) Cannabinoids-the psychoactive ingredients in marijuana-tend to mellow people out. As I mentioned before, I have friends and acquaintances who need the stuff to avoid turning into ranting psychos. As John Prine sings in his immortal song, lllegal Smile, "And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile. It don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won't you please tell the man, I didn't kill anyone. No, I'm just trying to have me some fun."
The good news is that my next assigned
book, Steal This Urine Test by Abbie Hoffman, is a tremendous
book, well worth finding and reading. It's published by Penguin
Books, and I bought one of many copies at Austin's Half Price
Books' north side store. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna sit
back and smoke some pot. I don't take the time to do enough of
that these days...
Nuco Cordo is a craft beer anarchist who rejects any attempts to regulate the responsible consumption of alcohol and marijuana.