Lars Marius Garshol
Author, speaker, and researcher of farmhouse ale.
Norwegian posts: @larsga-no.bsky.social
https://www.garshol.priv.no
- The English may have had porter beer, but the Dutch had beer porters.
- Sad to see that one myth (nobody drank water in the Middle Ages) is being replaced by another myth (people didn't drink beer every day against thirst instead of water). The reality seems to be that those who could drank beer all day every day, but many couldn't. And not just in the Middle Ages.
- Need something from this book that I didn't write up in my notes, and feeling annoyed with myself that I didn't buy it. So I searched for used copies and found they cost ~250 EUR. Ah, yes, now I remember why I didn't buy it.
- This month's newsletter has gone out. I've had some email issues lately, so if you're subscribing and don't get it, let me know. If you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the newsletter buymeacoffee.com/larsblog
- Tried this again with Claude, and it got the data out almost correctly. Parts of some columns moved one to the left or one to the right, but that was easy to fix manually. Unfortunately, the data is too sparse and noisy for me to be able to get anything very interesting out of them
- Reposted by Lars Marius Garshol[Not loaded yet]
- Took a quick look into The Other Site to see what's up, and saw this. Yeah, sounds about right.
- Found super interesting data on income from gruit and hop taxation in the Netherlands, but unfortunately as three pages of table. If I could turn that into graphs there's probably lots of valuable info in it. But how? I figured this might be something AI could actually be useful for. Thread.
- Reposted by Lars Marius GarsholWhilst I’m in my photos of the National Museum in Copenhagen, you’d better have this 360 of the Gundestrup Cauldron. Found in 1891 in a Jutland peat bog, there are more questions hanging over this silver Iron Age vessel than answers…only its shocking beauty is uncontested. #FindsFriday
- Been reading up on Richard Unger's work over the last few days (because reasons), and it's super valuable, of course, but I'm struck by one thing. From 1988 to 2007 he consistently refers to Odd Nordland as Odd Nordlund. Seems to be 100% consistent. That's ... strange.
- Just became aware that this book, on beer legislation, has come out www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...
- Reposted by Lars Marius GarsholOutside The American embassy in Copenhagen. 1 flag for each Danish soldier who died along side American soldiers in Afghanistan. Flags have been removed by the embassy, on danish soil, danish property. Disgusting and shameful.
- Wanted to check if a common misconception in Norway is also a common misconception in English-speaking areas, so I searched for "viking mead". Thanks Google AI, for this load of complete nonsense. Such a dense weave of disinformation it would take several pages to clear it up.
- Still have a liter left of this excellent, truly wonderful Vossaøl. Best Christmas present ever. (Bottled it because that’s so much easier than pouring from a 10-liter canister.)
- Bass famously registered the first trademark in Britain in 1876, and today I learned that the first registered trademark in Norway, in 1885, was for a brewery named Frydenlund. The brewery had been having trouble with other brewers copying their trademark and using it to sell their own beer.
- It's a real shame that people who don't know maths got hold of this word, because it used to be really useful for describing things that grow exponentially. Now it just means "big".
- Impossibly gorgeous day at the cabin. From here, up on the hill, we skied down into the fog.
- New book on Norwegian cuisine and food customs out, including a chapter on beverages. I haven't read it, but the authors are well-credentialed food historians. www.bloomsbury.com/uk/food-cult...
- Farmhouse ale comes in weird packaging.
- Why did nobody tell me David Lodge died on Jan 1? Such a great writer, far too good to be passed over in silence like that. Reading his "Lives in Writing" right now. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
