German monks create first powdered beer | Hacker News Reader

German monks create first powdered beer

newatlas.com

68 pointsmarban78 comments

As a former newspaper photographer, I just want to say that I really dislike the use of an AI generated image for this story. Good images would have been a photo of the people or the place where this happened. A photo of a traditional brewing setup. A photo of a beer delivery truck (the story mentions saving on transport costs). There’s just so many real things that could have been used instead. I don’t even mind if they just grabbed the image from google (copyright is not a big concern of mine, but they could use freely licensed images from a variety of sources if they care).

The photo is meant to be part of the story. To just have the computer make up a photo seems to kind of miss the mark for me.

I think part of what I don’t like is that even though the image is labeled as AI generated, it still may be misleading to readers. It’s adding fabricated details to the story that will get in to people’s minds. If this becomes commonplace it’s going to lead to a lot more misinformation.

The worst thing is that they are wrong. There are images. Here is a video from the German public broadcaster RBB: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GqEr5TOIJQ8

Edit: Even better images in the few first seconds of this Der Spiegel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apsBtgdhRfA

Or this Reuters video: https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/idOV893521032023RP1

Or this New York Post article: https://nypost.com/2023/03/22/german-brewery-creates-powdere...

Amazing!

I've worked at breweries in the past and they used all sorts of computer generated imagery for products. They had me fooled too. Don't feel bad for being mistaken.

Very nice!

Anger, denial, resignation

I had the opposite impression. I thought it helped to visualise the product, brings down the cost of the article and was clearly highlighted so it's not like they were trying to hide it. For a small article like this it would seem so wasteful to send a human out to do the job.

> I thought it helped to visualise the product, brings down the cost of the article.

Does it though? First thing I thought when I opened the page and saw that image was that the granules looked quote large and that it would take some effort to make them dissolve nicely. Why have an photo realistic image if its not an actual photo, that might or might not missrepresent the product.

Why not take the bring the cost down to its logical conclusion and have AI write the story from the press release and other content on the internet?

Pictures in journalism are information, just organized differently than text. If you use a random generated image that “mimics” that information you are effectively doing misinformation or even disinformation. No picture (or a generic picture of the monastery) would have been better in terms of information content. This publication decided to go for a subpar solution because it’s what? Cool to some?. Even worse: actual images were available.

Having it written in smaller, harder to read font and positioning in the place that would typically contain photographers name which everyone usually ignores is opposite of highlighting.

If it was used to replace generic stock image with beer, I might be fine with it. As an illustration generic picture of beer cup without powder or branded packaging would have been sufficient. But being so specific it contains fake brand, powder makes it seem like it represents the actual product thus giving a misleading impression about the structure of powder and it's capabilities to produce foam.

I made very clear I am not suggesting sending a human out to do the job, so the cost argument here doesn't fly. As I said already I would be satisfied if the author used a simple google image search or wikimedia search.

This is honestly idiotic and disqualifies the entire article

I have a feeling that the entire article is AI generated since it gets things wrong, there are no monks it’s just a regular brewery it’s called a Cloister Brewery because it’s located at the site of a 12th century Catholic cloister, Neuzelle is also nowhere near Munich.

Wow, with this context, some of the article certainly reads like LLM hallucination.

They didn't even get the places right. Neuzelle isn't anywhere near Munich. It's not even in the same state. It is on the other side of the country, near Berlin.

So, they insulted Bavarians and Berliners at the same time?

The images in the article are misleading and tangentially misinformation. If you casually skim the article, you could be led to believe, that this is a real brand.

Definitely not proper journalism.

So I agree with this sentiment in this instance.

What you wrote makes a huge lot of sense. Nevertheless the picture they used probably is much more selling. It just looks tasty and makes me want to take a gulp while real story-relevant pictures you describe probably wouldn't be nearly as appetizing.

It's like the use of those delicately constructed examples of burgers and sandwiches used in restaurant commercials--it may be appetizing, but it fails to represent the reality of the product we are being sold. This is one (or more) steps further removed from reality. It's misleading, and the image captions merely reduce the severity of the deception.

Without your comment I would have discarded the whole article as AI generated. If the images are obviously fake, why should I trust the text?

As you'll see from other comments, it is. Mostly true, but all the details are wrong. It's pretty sad to see such a spam post on the front page.

A photograph of an event can be very misleading and more often than not it actually is.

Take for example Elliott Erwitt's iconic image of Nixon pointing his finger at Khrushchev when debating about... cabbage soup vs meat!

It's a powerful image that got completely misinterpreted to the point that helped Nixon become president of the US.

Absolutely true, but this seems like a new level of misleading. For example, the newspaper I worked for did not allow any kind of photoshop alteration to the photos beyond lighting adjustments. The photo is meant to show reality even if it is not photogenic. This can still be manipulated through framing as you point out, but there are limits which this new technique blows right past.

They very clearly labeled it as AI generates and “purely speculative.”

With that amount of transparency, I have no problems.

It’s like a drawing.

For people who just scan the article, they aren't going to notice that its labeled as such. People subconsciously absorb a lot of information and that's what I am concerned would happen with this kind of thing.

Yes, indeed, it's ridiculous. The shift from journalism to content made manifest.

Important to note that it's "zero-alcohol beer" though.

I wonder how to put the alcohol in there. Crystals? Is that a thing? Or just ship the ethanol separately in a small bottle like a sauce?

https://culinarysolvent.com/

Why put alcohol in there instead of being glad there's none in there and you don't need to filter it out?

People like to drink alcohol.

If I'm drinking calories in the form of fermented grass juice -- or anything that isn't plain water -- it'd better be delivering some sort of effect having substance, be it caffeine or alcohol.

Why?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_powder

I was wondering this. Thanks for the info!

How about just putting a shot of alcohol in it with the water?

When I was in college, I "invented" the kegstool, which is a barstool seat top that would attach to keg shells. Got a patent, lost a bunch of money, learned a bunch. Good times. I learned a lot about beer, storage, transportation, etc.

There was a company out of Germany I thought was going to revolutionize beer distribution - Beer in Box. Basically, they de-carbonated beer, packaged it in bag in box, shipped it and had a system to re-carbonate at the tap. Kegs are incredibly expensive, heavy, don't grid/stack very efficiently, and most importantly, you need 7 of them on average to pour 1 tap (ones being filled, transit to and from, inventory and on tap). Boxes solved a bunch of problems for everyone. The beer must not taste as good. I don't know why it never caught on.

[0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080179935A1/en [1] https://techcrunch.com/2010/03/31/the-kegstool-a-bar-stool-m... [2] http://www.carbotek.com/beer-in-box#:~:text=Beer%2Din%2Dbox%....

The first sentence seems to be wrong: > A monastic brewery near Munich says...

Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle (15898 Neuzelle) is near Berlin.

Klosterbrauerei Andechs, however, is near Munich, but the powder is made in Neuzelle, judging from the links of other commenters.

Yes, the article got it wrong. Klosterbräu is in Brandenburg, near Berlin. If you have the chance, try "Schwarzer Abt". It is a very sweet tasting beer, nothing like the big brands of german beer.

Actually there are lots of (mostly ex-) monastic breweries in Germany - just searching for "Klosterbrauerei" in Google Maps gives me 7 results in Bavaria alone, and there are others that are apparently under Google's radar, like this one also pretty near to Munich https://klosterbrauerei-reutberg.de . Not to mention the beer brands that are named after monks, but no longer affiliated with them (Augustiner, Paulaner, Franziskaner, ...)

15898 Neuzelle is an asteroid, right? Can we AI-generate a photo of it crashing into newatlas.com headquarters?

Concentrated beer already exists and is used by Guinness to get a 49:1 saving on shipping volume [0], so the extra reduction by pondering it might not be as valuable as the hype.

Though the wikipedia article says the concentrated extract gets mixed with local pale beer, rather than water. I wonder if it could be tweaked to work with water or dilute alcohol.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Foreign_Extra_Stout

As far as I understand that's malt extract, which needs to be fermented

Checking how the froth behaves in zero G is the next step in the German space program, which is the obvious reason for this bit of R&D.

Appropriate for Minister-President Soeder’s ridiculous Bavaria One space program.

There was powered beer (with alcohol!) here in Germany 25 years ago! I remember a spot in the television about new inventions. Obviously I cannot find anything about this in the internet, seems to be too long ago. But this invention isn't new at all. I really dislike this article, it is so wrong at many places.

So there was a video [0] from 2007, talking about a powdered beer, that you apparently drink directly? Sadly, the video itself is missing, so I can’t tell for sure. Going further, I moved past the American alcoholic "beer" (which I assume is even less beer than their normal beers), and found a 2005 Stern article [1] talking about the company GranMalt [2] that made beer-like alcoholfree granules… or planned to. That’s all I could find ;)
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20111016005036/http://www.myvide...
[1]: https://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/job/konzept-bier-aus-der-tue...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20070102104915/http://www.granma...

: Here I’ll mention that this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek as I really don’t know much about US beers besides the really bad stuff like Bud Light.

The GranMalt AG was / is being liquidated since 2021.

You can buy the patents, however![1] :D

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/design-patents-sale-gerhard-k...

I'm mildly annoyed at myself, that I didn't spot that the images were AI generated until I read the captions.

I can see how they can make it non alcoholic, but I would like to know how this work with alcohol. Is there some magic to make alcohol powder? How does it work?

//EDIT: To answer my own question. Apparently there is a process of micro-encapsulation that basically creates alcohol powder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_powder

Apparently they got it all figured out now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_powder

I remember this coming out. Problem is there is so much of the filler they use that it's impractical to actually use for anything. Too much volume for snorting, and the filler gunks up your drink if you try to mix a cocktail with it. At least that's my memory of what the issue was, though I never got my hands on it.

SEVEN years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XH_GD6TgTY

Also covered here [1], without the AI images, and with a nice video showing it in action and an interview.

[1]https://nypost.com/2023/03/22/german-brewery-creates-powdere...

Just reducing the weight of the product by 90% is interesting, it makes it more efficient for delivery by drone.

It makes it more efficient for delivery by most things.

Drone delivery is a mostly-bad or niche idea: https://youtu.be/J-M98KLgaUU

Peak sarcasm or the epitome of what's wrong with modern tech, idk

Given the comments here this seems to be one of most inaccurate articles to reach the front-page

I don't understand how powdered beer can end up carbonated just by adding water, unless the carbon dioxide is locked in a chemical compound, but then this compound will remain in the drink, which is bound to have health issues.

You want to tell us you have never consumed an effervescent tablet drink?

There is plenty of compound or combinations of compounds that release CO2 when reacting in water. And produces of these are stuff that we can handle just fine or are even common in food.

Since the first years or 1900 and until the 1980's, before (carbonated) bottled mineral water became of more common use, carbonating powders for water were very common here in Italy, the most known was commercialized with the name of Idrolitina.

On Italian Wikipedia:

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idrolitina

Ingredients being sodium bicarbonate and two acids, malic and tartaric.

> zero-alcohol beer

There's not really any shortage of malted drinks you can get as a powder already. Could be interesting if you cut it with kitchen alcohol though, I guess.

They mention their next step is to produce an alcoholic variant.

Sure, but that's like saying "I've built a puppet, my next step will be to give it a soul". If they pull it off, it'll be a huge accomplishment and a breakthrough, where this stage isn't really doing anything that exciting.

Can I already buy this? If this testes nice I would send this as gifts to relatives and friends all over the world.

Neuzelle isn't near Munich. We Bavarians would never accept such unholy creations.

So it’s non-alcoholic right now.

How can you powder alcohol? Any chemists care to shed some light?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_powder

I feel this would be great to mix into cheap American beer as a flavorizer

So, if read with attention, this is about beer-flavored instant drink.

Note that we're just a week away from April Fool's day.

Where can I get the powdered beer, I think it would be great for backpacking

You can't right now. This is their website about powdered beer: https://www.klosterbrauerei.com/shop/Bierpulver/951/951 They plan to sell is mid 2023.

I don't think it's available as a product yet. The original press release mentions some form of "market testing until mid-2023", but no details...

https://www.klosterbrauerei.com/shop/Bierpulver/951/951

Way at the bottom they mention that members of the press are invited to come taste it, so you only need to make yourself some fake journalist credentials as a foreign correspondent of Random Backwater Tribune...

Yeah, I wonder why powdered eggs never took off... Seems like no brainer storage size wise and lifespan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powdered_eggs

For the same reason powdered milk and most other desiccated foods didn’t.

They don’t taste as good, the texture isn’t quite right and it’s too god damn depressive to eat them unless you are on an expedition to Antarctica or these days Mars…

Where can I purchase some-I think it would be great for backpacking

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