merryn

Being outside working in the garden all day has been useful and wonderful. Just in for a tea break and then there's still a couple of hours of daylight left.

How about ale? I've long understood that traditionally, linguistically, ale is unhopped and beer is hopped.

However, nobody sticks to this distinction today, do they?

A long tailed tits nest that is under construction

Day 1348 of #IansDailyPhotoChallenge and would you be interested in a mid construction long tailed tits nest I spotted in Clumber Park NT this morning? 🤗❤️🪺 😲 #inspiringnature #wildlife #naturephotography #MentalHealthMatters
#365DaysWild

Many thanks. That is great news. We've been preparing a wood pile so that we have enough fuel for some practical work this summer.

I love this. 😍 Not every piece of history you might find needs to be collected, inspected, tagged, and put in a museum/collection.

The best reasons to disturb something are either because it's in imminent danger of being destroyed, or because it can tell us something new about the past.

Stumbled upon a Peter Gabriel concert on TV from 1987. Yes, still good.

(PDF) Importance of being malted: making malt sugars in the Palaeolithic PDF | In 1953 archaeologist Robert Braidwood initiated a debate. What began the domestication of cereals in the Ancient Near East? Was it bread or beer?... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

I agree that shorter pieces work better and there's more chance that people will read to the end. Here's our 1200 words on the potential and probable origins of malt and malt sugars. It was published in The Prehistoric Society's magazine PAST 111, Autumn 2025.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Beer stein in the shape of a penny farthing bicycle, with the front wheel, which is where the beer goes, shaped like a ball. The rider is a lid for the stein, which is openable with a thumb-activated hinge.

Beer Stein from Germany
ca. 1890
Pewter rider/lid and rear wheel
Stoneware container

Hunter Gatherer societies adopted farming from women in northwestern Europe - BAJR - British Archaeology Jobs and Resources A new study has used ancient DNA to reveal that hunter-gatherers in Belgium, the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany adapted to farming thousands of years later than elsewhere in Europe. It has al...

A new study has used ancient DNA to reveal that hunter-gatherers in Belgium, the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany adapted to farming thousands of years later than elsewhere in Europe. It has also uncovered the pivotal role of women in the process.  
www.bajr.org/hunter-gathe...

Selective culinary uses of plant foods by Northern and Eastern European hunter-gatherer-fishers - BAJR - British Archaeology Jobs and Resources Thousands of years ago, European communities used a variety of plant and animal products to create elaborate meals, according to a study published March 4, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by ...

Analysis of charred food in pot reveals that prehistoric Europeans had surprisingly complex cuisines
www.bajr.org/selective-cu...

Monochrome photograph featuring a standing Black woman in astreet holding a bike wearing a jacket and short trousers

US, late 1800s, Kittie Knox was among a small group of African American women cyclists in Boston. Kittie broke taboos by wearing knickerbockers,which she designed herself #WomensHistoryMonth

I think it's a toad!

Are you able to confirm please, @arc-trust.bsky.social, if you have a moment?

Its a brew day today. First task: Mashing in. This involves lots of crushed malted barley, several gallons of hot water, some Rye malt and some oats. Also, knowledge, skills and the strength to cart the sack of malt around. Recipe to follow. Bit busy just now.

Plumber wins by-election for Greens

From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

Sam Komlenic, on opening night at the Sam Komlenic Gallery at the West Overton Museum, housed in the original Old Overholt distillery in West Overton Village. Abe Overholt's home, the original actual building is across the way, as is Overholt's springhouse...where Henry Clay Frick was born. That's right: robber baron plutocrat Henry Clay Frick was born in a lowly springhouse. Anyway, that's Sam, and by posting this, I've probably increased his social media footprint by at least 10%. Great guy, good friend, but he is a flip-phoning, non-streaming, no-time-for-that-crap Luddite.

Sam Komlenic is, possibly, the foremost rye whiskey historian in America, but many have never heard of him: he's not on any social media, has not written any books (though he is the copy editor for Whisky Advocate magazine).
I interviewed him. Good stuff!

www.podbean.com/eas/pb-ru84h...

Ah, right! Google it for details. French, Irish, Scottish and Japanese malt whisky is made the same way. It has to be, there's no other way to do it. Grain based whiskies, however, have a slightly different technique but still include malted barley for the starch converting enzymes...
#malt #whisky

BBC Two - Tribe (2005), Series 3, Penan Bruce Parry treks into the jungles of Sarawak in search of the last nomadic Penan.

Made in 2005, another of Bruce Parry's sensitive and respectful visit with the Penan. Heartbreaking to see a tiny patch of native forest left in Borneo, thanks to the logging companies. Fascinating glimpses into the hunter gatherer life and their philosophy of life.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

It’s not bad!

Why the funny face?

I looked it up. It's made from organic malted barley (unusual) and aged in cognac barrels for 4 years. Has a good reputation among experts. Same manufacturing process as all whisky. Malt, mash in, ferment the wash, distill, age in barrels. And btw brewer's wort and the wash are the same thing.

A dramatic colourful image of Stoneghenge. The stones are sillouetted in black against a firey-covered sky. The grass is a luminescent green. A robed druid-like figure stands in shadow in front of the stones holding a staff. On a hill in the distance (which does not exist in reality) are a group of shadowy men on horseback, one wielding what can only be described as a long 'thing'.

This Week! On Age of Stonehenge! All the different ways in which this image is wrong, the development of the Chacolithic Britain, defined not just by metalworking but migrations of Beaker-associated groups and interactions with local people who are in the middle of a massive monument binge.

I wonder how they cleared all the tree roots. Not easy to dig out. You can chop a tree down but this does not make good fertile soil immediately. Pigs could have rooted out the roots, maybe.

The trouble with cereals is when they are processed they mostly disappear from the archaeological record because they were consumed in one way or another. You choose! Flour? Bread? Porridge? Gruel? Or as malt, malt sugars and ale? As a student (c2000) I was taught that Beakers were for beer! #ale

Beaker holding a mug with his face on it in front of a trilithon at Stonehenge

#BeakerPeople

Landscape ecological restoration. It can be done but we need to get a move on. This is Carrifran where the sheep were removed to allow this native woodland to take over.

The moon going from full moon to a red moon and starting to go back to a normal full moon, then my camera battery door fell off.

Here's my first edit on the March 3rd Lunar Eclipse. 15 moon shots, 1 foreground. Taken over a 3 hourish period.

Row of balfour willows in the process of being cut back against blue skies and a fluffy white cloud. Neglected trees had become top heavy and a bit dangerous in strong winds.

Feeling bad because we had to prune some balfour willows. This involved removing buds and emerging blossom that the queen bees go for. But trees were so top heavy, dangerously catching the wind, roots pulling out of the ground that it had to be done. Gardening can involve tricky decisions sometimes.

One of at least half a dozen Early bumblebee queens foraging on our Dwarf Comfrey this afternoon. The sunshine must have brought them out en masse!

A beautiful sight - so many different shades of green on the western slopes of the Long Mynd. I was on Adstone Hill for this shot, enjoying the peace and quiet in the morning sunshine. I had set out hoping for long shadows stretching across the fields - and that’s exactly what I got. #Shropshire

Documentary retells the story of a community saving its village pub A new documentary, telling the true story of a village’s fight to save its last local pub, has premiered at the Dublin International Film Festival. db finds out more.

Documentary retells the story of a community saving its village pub @teamdb.bsky.social