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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 21/10/2026

Great question that made me distil the key ideas behind the book into a couple of paragraphs.

Screenshot of forum discussion.

The question "What makes a beer a beer?" is quoted.

Answer: "Great question! And one that's asked far too rarely. The book goes into this a bit, and there is actually not a single agreed-upon definition.

In the book I choose the definition that beer is alcohol drink that's not distilled, and made from grain. The whole book is really based on that choice, because two extremely important things follow from that premise.

Firstly, making beer is much more difficult than making wine (from grapes/fruit) or cider (from apples) or mead (from honey), because those ingredients contain sugar, but grain is full of starch. So to brew beer you have to go through a starch->sugar conversion step first, and that's involved several technological challenges that people have found different solutions to throughout history. If you look at the history of brewing, the difficulties of that single issue really drives a lot of the evolution.

Secondly, grain is the foundation of people's diet pretty much everywhere, and has been since the beginning of agriculture. So grain was always available in huge amounts. Meaning that it was always the most abundant source of alcohol. And that again has given it a special place among alcoholic drinks, and it's also what made it such a spectacular source of power.

So this is really a foundational question that IMHO has received far too little attention."

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

Here is what years the sources date from.

Histogram showing most sources were from 1930-1960, but there is a second peak at 2010-2025. The oldest sources are from the 1730s, but very few in number.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

Short thread and blog post on my paper on spice in farmhouse ale. Here's a summary of the data it's based on. "Author's own collection" means fieldwork, newspaper articles, local history books, etc etc. I only used sources that describe a single brewer or a very small area.

A table of the sources listing 16 different archive collections from 8 different countries, plus two sets of author's personal sources. They total 1074 separate sources. The archive documents run to 7226 pages.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

To write a book you need to read lots of books. This is the books I bought specifically to write "The Power of Beer". I would have bought some of these anyway, but every one of these I was planning to use in the book when I bought them. All the books I got from […] [Original post on snabelen.no]

A photo of 27 books lying on the floor. Many are beer books, but some are just plain history books. Most are in English, but there are also books in Norwegian, Danish, and German.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Thursday: I write a slide outlining the timeline of the Inca Empire's very rapid expansion. Friday: Existing Inca chronology collapses.

Screenshot of an article from Science titled "Redating the Inca Empire" with the sentence "The traditional Inca chronology has collapsed" highlighted.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

The Norwegian Brewer's Association is 125 years old this year, so they had a jubilee book written, and last night was the book launch. Here Erlend Vagn Fuglum, association chair, introducing the book. Previous book was 2001, so focus is on the craft beer revolution, which happened since then.

A man is speaking into a microphone to an audience sitting at tables in a small, intimate bar. The name of the bar, "juret" (the udder), is on the wall as a neon sign. Next to it is a drawing of a calf with tattoos and a surprisingly big udder. Text above it says "Oslo's smallest jazz bar" (in Norwegian).

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

The books have finally arrived! They've been available from online stores for a while, but now I *finally* have my own copies. After years of being in progress, it finally feels like this book is published. Next up: start signing and mailing copies.

Photo of a stack of books titled "The Power of Beer", next to an opened cardboard box with DHL tape on it. The stack and box are on a table, and next to them are a pair of scissors.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2026

My new book is finally out! A short, readable overall history of beer tracing the long lines in the development of beer. Seeing history like that inevitably brings out an overlooked side of the history of beer: beer as a source of massive power. Please repost! […] [Original post on snabelen.no]

The cover of a book titled "The Power of Beer: How Thirst Drove Us From the Stone Age to the Industrial Age". The cover image is a foamy glass of beer on a throne.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

Guess it might be time to reboot the laptop soon.

Screenshot of a terminal window where the "uptime" command has been run, showing the computer has been running for 365 days and 49 minutes.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

The top spot at the end was taken by Moscow, so what if we include Moscow and Berlin throughout? Moscow was founded very late, and Berlin was for a very long time just a small town, only becoming capital of Prussia ca 1700.

Moscow appears in 1100, in place #550, rising rapidly to a place in the top 10 by 1400. After that its exact position is hard to see, but it takes #1 in 2000.

Berlin appears around 1000, rising slowly until 1600, when it quickly climbs into the top 10. Exact position after that cannot be made out.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

The position of London and Paris in the list of largest cities by population in Europe north of the Alps. Value = 1 means being biggest city.

Graph. Paris is intermittently #1 from 900 CE to 1650, at which point London becomes #1, having been #2 since 1550. In 2000 Paris drops to #6, while London drops to #2.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

The job is not made easier by the fact that languages like Estonian are heavily inflected, so what the database has as "koirohi" (wormwood), the text has as "koiruhte". Add in the hand-writing and this gets downright tricky at times.

Screenshot of hand-written Estonian, not super legible.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

For a scientific paper on the use of herbs in farmhouse ale the editors are making me look up the vernacular names used in the sources in national botanical databases to make sure the names are interpreted correctly. With 1074 sources in 11 languages that takes a *little* bit of work.

A screenshot of a spreadsheet, showing rows 250-280. First column: code identifying source. Second column: country. Third: language. Fourth: internal herb codes. Fifth: vernacular names in the source, in this case in Estonian. Sixth: status. Seventh: comments.

Names like porss, sookail, tubakas, köömen, and kaelusid occur. Apparently "kaelusid" couldn't be identified, but it doesn't matter because it's under "Others", anyway. And one mistake in translation was identified.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 02/07/2026

Great article in Vinepair (by Evan Rail) about kveik and Norsk Kornølfestival vinepair.com/articles/trendy-craft-…

Photo of a man lighting a fire underneath a brewing cauldron hanging suspended from the ceiling

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2026

This image is titled: "New Year's Wish for Pub Owners Who Falsify Their Beer". I can't work out exactly what it's showing, but it does look unpleasant.

Old engraving beer pouring into a huge beer mug, and a beer barrel with a funnel on top. Between them the devil is sitting on top of some device into which he's shitting, and something comes out of this device into the heads of well-dressed men holding beer mugs.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

Here's part of the cafe/bar inside the inn.

Old room built all in wood, with old rustic furniture in rose paint, a carved wooden statue etc. The feeling is very much cozy.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

At Ruten Fjellstue, an old mountain inn that's also a brewery, to do a tasting. Has to be the nicest brewery in Norway as far as location and buildings go.

Photo of an old wooden building in two stories. We're looking right at the open entrance door. Past the house runs a gravel road, and forest and mountains can be glimpsed in the distance.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 17/06/2026

Excuse me? Ethiopians brew 800 million liters of farmhouse ale a year?

Screenshot of the text "Tella, Ethiopia’s traditional cereal-based beer, is produced at an estimated national scale
of 8 million hL per year, yet no prior systematic review has synthesized its microbial
ecology, nutritional attributes and commercialization potential. This study presents the
first systematic synthesis of 73 peer-reviewed studies complemented by primary
ethnographic interviews with 42 brewers across 6 regions. Findings reveal that Atella"

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/06/2026

For years I've been wondering how many strains there actually are in the farmhouse yeast cultures, and a couple of weeks ago I stumbled across something that finally allowed me to figure it out. www.garshol.priv.no/blog/443.html?u…

Photo of two glass jars containing chips of dried yeast. The following text is overlaid:

"How many yeast strains in here?

For the first time we may actually know.

See the blog post for answers"

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Amazing drinking mug carved by a Norwegian farmer, probably late 17th century. It's carved with biblical scenes, on the lid is Adam, Eve, and the snake. It's thought to have been carved by Samuel Halvorsen Fanden (born 1629), of whom it was said that his carved […] [Original post on snabelen.no]

A drinking mug with lid and handle carved in lacquered wood with detailed images around the body. The lid has metal pegs, and the handle decorative notchings, and, on top, a lion. A gold band around the top of the body.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 06/06/2026

From today’s little hike at the cabin. Lake Brumund in the distance

View from a hill over forest stretching into the remote distance, and a lake almost at the horizon

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2026

Very happy to stumble across a small neighbourhood bar way outside the city center in Gothenburg, because of their beer line up. A cask ale from Närke, and steinbier from Leikeim! An unfiltered lager from Rothaus was a nice bonus.

Photo of tap towers, showing Leikeim Steinbier, Odd Island Brewing Holy Grale, Rothaus Brau something, Budejovicky, Pomona Island with a fruit gose, Faith - a Northern Monk and Fyne Ales collab pale ale, and Närke Slagskugga, a brown ale on cask.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

Welcome to the new web site for the only festival dedicated to traditional farmhouse brewing! norskkornolfestival.no/en

Screenshot of a website with a photo of a man warming his hands against a big copper cauldron in a traditional brewhouse

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

People tend to claim that gruit is the kind of beer that was brewed before hops came into use, but that's wrong in several different ways. New blog post clears up the confusion, puncturing the myths: www.garshol.priv.no/blog/438.html?u…

Screenshot of blog post with photo of a medieval building and title "Puncturing the Gruit Myth"

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2026

Here is the bottle. As you can see it’s definitely the same dragon

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 12/04/2026

We dig deeper into the new Verstrepen lab paper on farmhouse yeast: how many strains are there really in these cultures? Like, really? And what's the best way to preserve a farmhouse yeast? www.garshol.priv.no/blog/441.html

Diagram showing how many strains there are in each of the farmhouse yeast cultures, and also what proportion of the culture each strain makes up. Unfortunately the diagram is far too detailed for me to reproduce the full content here.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2025

This will be interesting: all-day archaeological seminar on the development of the farm in the Viking and Middle Ages. I will be speaking as well.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 25/02/2025

Neste torsdag holder jeg foredrag på Ringnes Brygghus om menn og kvinner som ølbryggere. De fleste har hørt at i gamle dager var det kvinnene som brygget ølet. Det er ikke feil, men det er heller ikke hele fortellingen. Her skal vi dypdykke litt i kjønnsroller […] [Original post on snabelen.no]

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2024

Spotted a hexafoil in the logo of what appears to be a local sect that’s bought a local church

Black banner with orange text reading “Chapter 49”, and a hexafoil, outside a stone church

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2024

Dressing up for the Saturday and doing the pubs along Otley Road is enough of a tradition that this pub proudly announces they’re stop 5. Barman’s hoodie said same thing. He’ll be doing it himself come Saturday.

The front of the pub Arcadia, proudly announcing “Stop 5 of the Otley run”.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2024

The pubs in Leeds are just as nice as in Sheffield, though. It’s just the beer.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2024

Noticeable difference in cask selection between Sheffield and Leeds. Much better selection in Sheffield.

Five handpumps, but only tee we o are on, serving Doom Bar and Leeds Pale

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 14/11/2024

At a gigantic Wetherspoon’s in Woodhouse outside Leeds. Open kitchen, so smoke from fried fat hangs in the air like a fragrant fog.

Huge railway station-like hall of a pub. The fragrant fatty fog is not really visible in the photo

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 12/11/2024

Really been enjoying this novel, set in Sheffield. With only 90 pages left to go I left it behind this morning. Too much weight for 90 pages. But this pub has a copy, so now I’m reading on

A very thick novel, The Northern Clemency, Philip Hensher, on a table next to a half-pint of porter

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 12/11/2024

Found some really lovely pubs last night. Particularly liked The Fat Cat and the Harlequin.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 12/11/2024

Once we got out of the city center Sheffield improved dramatically.

A row of classic English houses, with a view of hills in the distance

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 11/11/2024

That was lovely, even if I wish they’d drop the music and the TVs.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 11/11/2024

In Sheffield for a few days off. Before I went people were asking me why, and after an hour or so walking around the city center I’m wondering the same.

A pair of steel buildings looking like giant curling … balls? Non-descript modern buildings behind.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 09/11/2024

Oslo has one farmhouse brewer (kveik #7), and he gave me this bottle of his Hardanger-style farmhouse ale yesterday. The label on the neck reads: “Brewed on a waxing moon” to reassure drinkers that this is good stuff. (Old superstition.)

Beer bottle labelled "Eldhus Heimabrugg. 8.5%"

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

Not beer-related, but had to include it. The most complete Viking helmet ever found. One of only 2 known. (Yes, no horns. Long story.)

Corroded metal helmet with eyepieces and a thick band over the head. No sign of any horn attachments.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

15th century drinking horn named Sløkkefri. (Horns were prestigious, and usually had names.) From Upper Telemark. When you roll it across the table the coins make clinking sounds. Magical protective formula around the rim.

Rose-painted horn with metal rim and lid, plus metal bands round the body that attach to metal wheels on which the horn stands. Coins hang around the rim as well as on the tip, and illegible Gothic lettering can be made out on the rim.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

The Norwegian royal horn. 14th century, has been owned by several Scandinavian royal families. Thought to originally have been a wedding gift. On loan from the Danish National Museum because the Danish royal family ended up as the last owners.

Big curved aurochs horn with metal rim and tip, with a metal filigree ball on the tip. Rim has visible heraldic coats of arms, plus an extra one nailed on.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

From the collections: #6 is hop seeds, found in a bronze ladle at Mosby, southern Norway 9th century. This is literally the contents of the ladle. Second oldest hop find in Norway.

Museum exhibition with numbrered glass containers. #6 contains unidentifiable pale gray plant remains.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

Did a tasting at the National History Museum tonight. Something special about doing it in a building like this, so for once I wore a formal shirt

Gilded art noveau window in a room with chandelier

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

When Harris took over, the Democrats’ chances of winning increased dramatically. Not enough to actually win, but certainly she did far better than him. The reality is that Americans knew who Trump was, and they consistently preferred him

Graph showing probability of Democratic candidate winning (whether Biden or Harris), 2024-06 until election. Hovers at 35-30% until Biden withdraws, surges to 65% in mid-September, then falls back to 50% on election day

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 07/11/2024

Did Harris lose because she’s a black woman, or her campaign wasn’t good enough? Well, Biden was consistently behind in polls from Sep 2023 onwards. And this is the same polls that underestimated Trump. Which means that, in reality, Biden was never in a position to win.

Graph, average of all polls, 2023-01 to 2024-07. Biden is 0-2% ahead until 2023-09, then consistently behind after that.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 06/11/2024

"and, somewhere on the way, saw the headline. I can see it still, as in a dream.” Eric Hobsbawm, 1994.

Photo of a page of Age of Extremes, where Hobsbawm remembers how, on the way home from school in Berlin as 15-year old, on January 30 1933, he saw the headline announcing that Hitler was becoming chancellor.

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Lars Marius Garshol (en) @larsga.snabelen.no.ap.brid.gy · 06/11/2024

Remember that Ann Selzer poll that was going to save everything? This is why you never, never, never listen to single polls.

Screenshot of Iowa election results, showing Harris at -7.8% with 95% of the votes counted.

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