VOA慢速英语2014 利用鲸鱼化石骨骼酿造啤酒

 

New Beer Made From Old Bone 利用鲸鱼化石骨骼酿造啤酒

The United States is currently experiencing a beer making movement. Many beer drinkers these days are no longer happy with mainstream¹ beer sold in every store, on every street.

They want something different – something unusual.

To satisfy this taste for strange beer, many small, or micro, brewers are trying anything they can to stand out from the crowd – to be different. Some are even making their beer with ingredients that are old -- really, really old. Like 35 million years old.

A brewery³, a place that makes beer, in the Washington D.C. area has joined with a couple of scientists to make a beer with a most unusual ingredient.  The beer is made using bacteria from a 35-million-year-old bone.  That bacteria, to be exact, is called yeast⁴.

Lost Rhino⁵ Brewing⁶ Company in Ashburn, Virginia is the company making this new, very unusual beer.  

Biology, paleontology and beer?

This beer is the brainchild of Jason Osborne. Jason is a non-professional, or amateur, paleontologist. For fun, he explores old bones, or fossils, in his free time. He was exploring a swamp in the U.S. state of Virginia when he found a 35-million-year-old- fossilized whale bone.

And that’s when his brainchild was born.

He thought, why not combine all the things he loves most - – biology, paleontology and beer? So, he took a sample, an example, of the yeast from this really old whale bone. Yeast is the most important ingredient for making beer. And voila!  Here it is! A new beer is born. 

"So the idea was conceived, it was basically a brainchild idea of mine to mix molecular⁷ biology, paleontology, and beer together.  It's three things that I love.”

Jason Osborne got help from his microbiologist friend Jasper Akerboom.  Mr. Akerboom studies very small life forms and works as a brewing scientist at Lost Rhino. He says at first, he was not sure this was going to work. But, like a good scientist, he decided⁸ to experiment.

“We took out 20 samples from all kinds of fossilized materials. This was all done in Calvert Marine⁹ Museum in Maryland. And one of the samples started to ferment¹⁰.”

The result was surprising.

“It tastes very good. It tastes very fruity, very earthy.  It is very dry.”

So the brewers decided to brew² a larger amount for buyers.

Taking a calculated risk

Favio Garcia is also an owner of Lost Rhino. He says the brewery stays innovative¹¹ by debuting¹³, or introducing, a new kind of beer every couple of weeks. He also says you have to take risks to make progress.  But he admits that the risks he takes are calculated risks. He weighs the good with the bad before going forward. 

“Well, we have 16 beers on tap right now. You have to take a risk to move forward.  So it is a calculated risk.  But we are happy to take it and create something new and interesting with it.”

The new beer is called Bone Dusters Paleo Ale.

“When people are cleaning the fossils, they dust the sand off the bone.  And we thought it would be a cool name to give it.” (Jasper Ackerboom)

The brewers offered it to the public at a special event at Lost Rhino’s drinking room. The debut¹² went well. People buying the beer, the customers, said great things about the taste of Bone Dusters Paleo Ale. 

"It is fantastic. It is a pretty courageous¹⁴ move to strike that yeast and kind of develop some[thing] unique.”

"I am not usually a yeasty, hoppy¹⁵ beer drinker.  But it is really good.”

"It is not over hopped¹⁶; there is not much competing with yeast for flavor. So it really comes through. It’s very drinkable."

Mr. Garcia hopes new ideas, or innovations, like this will help Lost Rhino compete in the growing local beer movement.

The brewers at Lost Rhino do not just talk about the importance of science. They put their money where their mouths are.  Lost Rhino will give part of the profits made from the sale of Bone Dusters beer to science programs at schools that are lacking money. 

1 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

2 brew   

v.酿造，调制

参考例句：

• Let's brew up some more tea.咱们沏些茶吧。
• The policeman dispelled the crowd lest they should brew trouble.警察驱散人群，因恐他们酿祸。

3 brewery   

n.啤酒厂

参考例句：

• The brewery had 25 heavy horses delivering beer in London.啤酒厂有25匹高头大马在伦敦城中运送啤酒。
• When business was good,the brewery employed 20 people.在生意好的时候，这家酿造厂曾经雇佣过20人。

4 yeast   

n.酵母；酵母片；泡沫；v.发酵；起泡沫

参考例句：

• Yeast can be used in making beer and bread.酵母可用于酿啤酒和发面包。
• The yeast began to work.酵母开始发酵。

5 rhino   

n.犀牛，钱, 现金

参考例句：

• The rhino charged headlong towards us.犀牛急速地向我们冲来。
• They have driven the rhino to the edge of extinction.他们已经令犀牛濒临灭绝。

6 brewing   

n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• It was obvious that a big storm was brewing up. 很显然，一场暴风雨正在酝酿中。
• She set about brewing some herb tea. 她动手泡一些药茶。

7 molecular   

adj.分子的；克分子的

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms.这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。
• For the pressure to become zero, molecular bombardment must cease.当压强趋近于零时，分子的碰撞就停止了。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

10 ferment   

vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱

参考例句：

• Fruit juices ferment if they are kept a long time.果汁若是放置很久，就会发酵。
• The sixties were a time of theological ferment.六十年代是神学上骚动的时代。

11 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

12 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

13 debuting   

初次表演，初次登台（debut的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• New debuting analog thermostat welding machine, easy to operate. 新登场模拟式调温电焊台，操作简单。
• With the new tablet device that is debuting next week, Apple Inc. 苹果公司的新型平板电脑将于下周发布。

14 courageous   

adj.勇敢的，有胆量的

参考例句：

• We all honour courageous people.我们都尊重勇敢的人。
• He was roused to action by courageous words.豪言壮语促使他奋起行动。

15 hoppy   

（指海洋）波浪起伏的

参考例句：

• The sea began getting choppy. 大海开始变得波涛起伏。
• The choppy waves made handling the boats a tricky operation that day. 那天在滔滔的波浪里驾驶小舟着实费了一番手脚。

16 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。