Feedback: Not so holy brew

What makes monks blow their tops

TRAPPIST monks are getting angry. A special edition of the Trappist Newsletter, dated 24 April 2012, bewails: "Commercial breweries in the US... use the word 'Trappist', or some variant thereof, to name or describe certain beers that they produce. This worries the Trappist monasteries that brew beer, as Trappist is not a style of beer. It is an appellation, and a guarantee of provenance!"

The newsletter explains the conditions necessary to be certified as Trappist beer: "Most importantly, the beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist Abbey, under the control of the monks."

Another issue is brewery and home brew supply companies listing yeasts as "Trappist" in their catalogues. Fran?ois de Harenne, commercial director of the Orval Trappist brewery in Belgium, asserts that "there is no such thing as a 'Trappist' yeast".

The newsletter concludes with a plea from the International Trappist Association for breweries to refrain from using the name with non-Trappist products. If you, reader, brew something similar at home... take a vow of silence about it.

Howard Manwaring sends us a photo of a sign in the window of a shoe shop in Wistow, Leicestershire. It says: "Buy one, get one free"

Supersonic plane does its thing

ANOTHER statement of the blindingly self-evident. On 17 March we reported on Science Daily breaking the news that proteins called "extremely long-lived proteins" have a "remarkably long lifespan". Now Bill Miller directs us to a headline in Scientific Computing that tells us: "Next gen supersonic biplane to break sound barrier".

International conference in a pub?

UNEXPLAINED instinct led Feedback to peruse the contents of our junk email folder while waiting for the page-proof of last week's item on a dubious "Climate Change International Conference" (9 June). Normally, we delete such messages after only a cursory glance, especially since they are increasingly in scripts we don't read (10 March).

This time we were delighted to find a personal invitation to submit a paper for a "Water Resources, Climate & Energy Conference" to be held in London on 23 to 27 July. Four exclamation marks in the subject line gave us pause for thought!!!! So did the promise, "registration is free of charge for delegates from developing countries", which was identical to that for last week's featured "scamference". As was the alleged organisers' claim to be based at an address in Leytonstone, East London, that is in fact occupied by Alan Harvey Property Services.

We telephoned. A negotiator for this lettings agency, Simon Friedman, sounded confused. We resorted, for the first time in a long career, to a journalist's standby: "Would you say," we asked, "that you were 'completely astonished' at this?" "Yes," he said, "It's the first I've heard of it."

The name for the alleged conference's website, wrcece.org.uk, was, of course, registered anonymously. It bills the event to take place at the "Sky Blue Garden Hotel, 124 Kentish Town Road, London NW1 9QB". Consulting a famous web street-view engine, we find that in grounded truth this is the Abbey Tavern pub. Cheers!

Check the venue before booking

THE alleged organisers of the above scamference have not bothered, yet, to create a phony website for their "hotel". We are puzzled how they plan to collect money from the gullible. They put some care into making their "conference" seem scientifically relevant, for example by stealing wording from the Dublin World Congress on Water, Climate and Energy, which took place in Ireland's capital on 14 to 16 May. (By now we are so sceptical that it was a relief to find photos to prove that the Irish conference, at least, was real.)

But how do they imagine they can get away with picking random addresses in London? Surely scientists will have internet connections and peek to see the venue of a conference?

If any reader doesn't do this before booking: do.

Merely nine-dimensional

SEVERAL readers commented on Alex Saragosa's puzzlement over "satellites as small as 10?10?10 cm³" (12 May). Brian Darvell, working on dental materials science at Kuwait University, says this "is a style I use regularly in my journal papers". But if we were editing those papers, Brian, we'd still find it left a yawning-void taste in the mouth. John Severn reassures us that it implies that the satellite is merely nine-dimensional and suggests that "the idea of the satellite working properly in the 27th dimension is quite ridiculous". We'll leave that to the topologists.

Now John Le Page points us to the Discovery Channel's concerns that "200 million cubic liters of water gushed out into the Baker river" from Patagonia's glacial Lake Cachet II. We're worried too, but in more dimensions.

Ice cream is just cold air

FINALLY, Bob and Susanne Barton, stopping at a cafe in Edmonton, Canada, noticed a menu extolling the advantages of the cafe's "gelato" over competitors' "ice cream". Whereas their gelato contained only 25 per cent air, the ice cream apparently contained 125 per cent to 160 per cent air.

Bob and Susanne wonder who would want to pay for such ice cream. We're wondering whether to market it as a wonder diet.

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