Category Archives: Development

What effect does the shape of a glass have on the flavor of beer?

This is an answer to the question What effect does the shape of a glass have on the flavor of beer? on Quora.

The most important effect of any beer glass shape is aesthetical. How things look is important for most beer drinkers. For example, that’s the main reason why most beer producers filtrate their beer. By filtrating you remove certain flavors, to the advantage of a clear looking beer. The looks of the beer create expectations which in its turn influence the drinker’s taste of the beer positively, even though an unfiltered beer tastes more.

So, by using different beer glasses you create a visual stimuli, which in itself influence how the beer tastes.

Furthermore, there are cultural expectations on how different beers should be drunk and how they should look like. The best example of this is that some beer glasses are called weiss bier glasses (since they are supposed to be used drinking wheat beer).

Though, these cultural choices have surely derived from taste preferences for different types of beer.

Simply put, beer reacts differently from being poured and drunk from different glasses.

The general rule is that most prefer to drink fresh and stingy beer types, as wheat beer and lager, in high, slim glasses. The reason is that high glasses better manage to contain the carbonic acid of these beers than pints and big round glasses (i.e. wine glasses). Both wheat beer and lager gains in preserving the carbonic acid, because of their lighter flavor.

Some beer glasses are slim, but have a bulge at the top of the glass. The reason for this typical beer design is to better keep the carbonic acid within the beverage, while at the same time concentrate the smell at the drinker’s nose.

More heavy and flavory rich beer types, as ales and especially stouts, gains from a streamy pouring into big glasses. Such procedure mixes the beer, which awakens flavors which otherwise might stay dormant. Carbonic acid isn’t that important when drinking stout, since the beer is rich in flavor. It’s even an advantage to lose some of the carbonic acid, in order to bring out other fragrances.

Also, by having a bigger contact area between the beverage and the air, the beer lets go of more fragrances, which enhances the drinker’s experience considerably. By using a wine glass (a glass with a lower bulge which narrows into the top), you maximize the contact area, while at the same time concentrating the fragrances to the drinker’s nose. This works perfectly for wine, but is not a very good design for i.e. lager, since it leaks carbonic acid at a very high rate while lager doesn’t smell very much.

Another thing to take into consideration is how much beverage you’d like to pour into your glass. Slim glasses contain less liquid than pints, which also is an argument for using them for lagers, since it takes less time to finish them which leads to less loss of carbonic acid at the last sip.

Though these general rules apply, what matters in the end are personal preferences. Beer flavors behave differently in different glasses, and the best way to understand what you like is by experimenting. You might be surprised how much visual and cultural preconceptions shape our tastes.

Don’t Read Writing Books

I have read my fair share of writing books during my life, and I have two main reflections regarding that kind of literature.

The first thing I have found out is that books about writing are quite meaningless. There are two things you need to know to write well, and neither of them are learned by reading writing books.

The first thing you need to learn to write well, is how good writing looks like. To try to learn that by reading writing books is equivalent with learning how delicious food tastes, by reading recipe books. The only way to learn how good writing looks like, is to read good and bad books and register the difference between them.

The other thing you need to learn to write well, is to write. And you learn to write, by writing. To try learning how to write by reading writing books is like trying to learn to ride a bike, by reading a bicycle riding book. Not a good idea.

The other thing I have learned from reading writing books is that they influence your writing.

I learned my lesson when I read Stephen King’s On Writing, which I must say is one of the better books within the genre. The lesson I learned was that: If you use the same methods as another writer, then your writing will look like his. I used the exactly same methods as King described in his book. My text sounded exactly like King himself.

Now, creating literature like Stephen King might not be the worst thing possible, but being a copycat is still nothing I would like to do. Therefore I abandonded the idea promptly.

Every author has their own set of rules on how good work should look like, and which methods they should use to get there. If you copy someone else’s methods, your writing will look like that person’s too. So, you should only use someone else’s methods, if you are willing to write texts which sound like his.

One more thing. If the person who has written the writing book, is not an otherwise acclaimed author, then your writing will be influenced by that as well. You will then unconsciously write prose which is more shit than hit.

So, don’t read writing books. The best thing you can do instead is to read and write, read and write, and then write some more.

Spiritual Enlightenment is Permanent

This is an answer to the question Is spiritual enlightenment permanent? on Quora.

Interesting question. Instinctively, I’d say that it is not permanent. You need to do something to keep up enlightenment.

But heuristics has proved me wrong. I became enlightened in my late teens, haven’t done much about it since then, and still am enlightened.

I’d like to explain it like this. Enlightenment is a choice. You choose to disregard yourself. This choice will effect all other choices in your life thereafter.

Therefore, if you perceive enlightenment wrong, you might think that you need to do all those other choices to keep up the enlightenment, hence, not seeing enlightenment as permanent. But those choices are just sheer deductions of your earlier choice: to accept enlightenment.

But shouldn’t it be able to change one’s mind? It should be perfectly possible. Perhaps someone has. But such action will probably never find its way into the Great Books of History.

I have revalued my decision about being enlightened. Several times. But always, when it has come down to that initial choice I made twenty years ago, I cannot change it. Trading ego for divinity and nothingness is the right thing to do every day of the week.

Prerequisites to Reach Enlightenment

This is my answer to the question What does it take to reach enlightenment? Permanent happiness? on Quora.

I believe that there are many prerequirements needed to reach enlightenment. But permanent happiness is not one of these. I believe that happiness have nothing to do with enlightenment.

Sure, I got happy when I became enlightened, but that was an effect of discovering enlightenment. Happiness was by no means causing my enlightenment. Rather the opposite.

For example, recount the famous tale of Siddhartha Gautama. It wasn’t him being a happy prince and all that, which made him become enlightened. First he had to see someone sick, a corpse and then live ascetical for several years, before he could hit the right train. He had to have his share of unhappiness.

If the reincarnation theory is legible, then perhaps you even can’t reach enlightenment within this life, but only do your best to get a “better position” in your next.

I believe, as several persons already have stated, that the road to enlightenment is individual. I can’t tell you exactly how to become enlightened. Nobody can. You can only become enlightened by making your own separate choices how to live your life. And by that I mean choices of action, not choices of belief.

Decisions. You need to make your own decisions.

Honesty is an important prerequisite. You need to be honest to other people, but it is ultimately more important to be honest to yourself.

Acceptance is crucial.

Several answers contain introspection as an alternative. I do not agree, although it might be semantics. Enlightenment is ultimately to reach out to everything but yourself. It is about eradicating yourself. Introspection is the opposite, and therefore not so great tool for reaching enlightenment.

Responsibility for your actions.

Love.

The Feeling of Enlightment

This is my answer to the question How does it feel to experience the state of nirvana? on Quora.

I reached enlightment by four separate steps of insight while I was 17-18 years. Each and every of these insights where filled with a joyous, fantastic feeling of bliss together with amazement and oneness with everything. A great feeling.

The thing is that I didn’t fully realize that I was enlightened. Yeah, from time to time I thought that I might have reached nirvana, but I didn’t thing so much about it. It is not a big deal to me, since I am not a Buddhist. It hasn’t been until the recent years of my life, that I have realized that I am enlightened (I am 38 now).

So, the feeling of discovering enlightment is hilarious (at least it was for me). It’s like ten thousands orgasms.

But being enlightened is totally empty. It doesn’t make you feel anything. It curbs feeling, although curbing is the wrong way to express it. It is the feeling of nothingness.