TOPIC:

"Diablo":p3ohnfo5 wrote:

"TheBeerNut":p3ohnfo5 wrote:

"delboy":p3ohnfo5 wrote: It is beginning to get a bit crowded up here on the micro scene[/quote:p3ohnfo5]For 4-5% ABV session beers maybe, but there's a whole realm of exportable specialty beer that hasn't been exploited at all.[/quote:p3ohnfo5]

Even within the 4-5% range, I'd love to see someone doing innovative stuff and make it look like they're having fun - like Williams brothers. No room for more Irish Reds and Stouts thanks.[/quote:p3ohnfo5]

Thats the sort of lines i would be thinking upon, I'd try and get away from the more traditional style of beer making labelling marketing etc and make real ale more 'modern' and interesting.

"oblivious":gj14gf1a wrote:

&amp;quot;delboy&amp;quot;:gj14gf1a wrote: I have a looming redundancy coming up (the life of a postdoc <!-- s:? --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_confused.gif" alt="" title="Confused" /><!-- s:? --> ) [/quote:gj14gf1a]

Sorry to hear, I known what that like. Down here they have decided that you post doc working life is 6 years. Even if you have work out side of the country, after that if either set up a company, go to industry (but no real jobs there) or become a principle investigator (a there is feck all funding around now!). Even though every other job has a mandatory permanent posting after 4 years of contracted services

&amp;quot;delboy&amp;quot;:gj14gf1a wrote: I've daydreamed on a number of occasions about setting a micro up, .[/quote:gj14gf1a]

Who know it may well be that time![/quote:gj14gf1a]

I have a couple of months left and im writing a few grants but im not holding out much hope as funding is scarce these days.

We have the same sort of mentality up here the bigwigs want you to have just one-postdoc position and then on your bike. As a foot solider in the trenches can't say it makes much sense to me, build up expertise and experience in an area for several years and then just when you are perfectly placed to exploit that, bye bye nice knowing you can take that experience and expertise elsewhere.
To confound matters the powers that been have let it be known that no home grown post-doc will get a lectureship those are exclusively for non home grown talent, don't know who they hell they get it past the employment legislation but there it is.

The so called mandatory permancy thing bugs the life out of me, im 6 years knocking about this present uni and not a sniff of permanency, apparently the only sector with less permancy is the hotel and tourism sector, says it all.

Yeah industry up here is non-existent with the exception of a few places some of which are supposedly hell on earth to work in.
Im thinking about doing the teaching/college think, there is two unis up here but about 200 odd schools i prefer the odds.

&amp;quot;oblivious&amp;quot;:puilxvfk wrote:

&amp;quot;bigears&amp;quot;:puilxvfk wrote: Joe Public won't know whether hops are used in the beer or not as long as there is some form of bittering present. There's very little hop character in a hefe anyway so he has probably chosen a good style to experiment. If it doesn't work out he can revert to using hops and Joe Public will still be none the wiser <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->[/quote:puilxvfk]

Did he say he was not using hops? From what I heard he is just making a regular hefe and saying it a 1500 year old recipe?[/quote:puilxvfk]

[quote:puilxvfk]During that process he hopes to experiment with some of Fermanagh's indigenous herbs, such as Meadowsweet and Bog Myrtle, to provide the bitter kick that is created by hops in today's beers.[/quote:puilxvfk]
I think Biddy Earley used Bog Myrtle in their red ale at one point. I imagine the trick would be getting consistency using herbs, the flavour and aroma would vary from one batch to the next - unless of course so little is added that it becomes a marketing hook as much as a flavour profile.

It is beginning to get a bit crowded up here on the micro scene
For 4-5% ABV session beers maybe, but there's a whole realm of exportable specialty beer that hasn't been exploited at all
Dont be afraid of competition,being first to set up a micro brewery is not as important as having a good taught out business plan and a good beer with consistant quality.Fergal Quinn of Quinnsworth wrote a book about getting customers and keeping them,he said that you can always get a customer in the first time the skill is to get them to come back again and again.A bit of publicity on a radio show is soon lost in the wind getting your business feet dirty is a better way to go.

Slightly off topic ( and I know zero about post doc stuff ) but from personal mistakes when doing a post grad

You had six years to get yourself a full time position somewhere and you waited around to see if your current uni might hire you on ?
I know it might be bolting the stable after the horse is gone but did no-one ever suggest to you that the post doc was a means to have a great CV to get yourself into something somewhere .

My own critical mistake was when doing my postgrad in software engineering I thought " sure I'll wait till i finish and get my results " I have never worked as a software engineer and never will.

At my graduation only 6 turned up out of a class of 40 , each of them said the same as me
The rest had signed contracts before finishing the course .


Sorry to be like that about it lads . but I think maybe ye missed something along the way ..

&amp;quot;Wallacebiy&amp;quot;:2utcfqo9 wrote: Slightly off topic ( and I know zero about post doc stuff ) but from personal mistakes when doing a post grad

You had six years to get yourself a full time position somewhere and you waited around to see if your current uni might hire you on ?
I know it might be bolting the stable after the horse is gone but did no-one ever suggest to you that the post doc was a means to have a great CV to get yourself into something somewhere .

My own critical mistake was when doing my postgrad in software engineering I thought " sure I'll wait till i finish and get my results " I have never worked as a software engineer and never will.

At my graduation only 6 turned up out of a class of 40 , each of them said the same as me
The rest had signed contracts before finishing the course .


Sorry to be like that about it lads . but I think maybe ye missed something along the way ..[/quote:2utcfqo9]

I'll try to set the scence a bit, to work in science, an ordinary undergraduate degree will not cut the mustard (perhaps unlike other fields) it may qualify you to wash the bottles or some other menial task but little else.
Rightly or wrongly you need to invest the extra time and effort obtaining a PhD which is really only the apprenticeship/beginning of your scientific career ie were you learn how to carry out scientific research.
After that you are faced with the choice of becoming a postdoc or leave and try to find a position in industry where you will most likley be a very small cog in a very large machine.
Most of us who are postdocs love the work we do and feel that we are making a difference, in those six years that you mention i've been hanging about i've being involved in several new therapetuic discoveries that will hopefully make it to the clinc and lenghten peoples lives.
After 6 years at this uni and about 8-9 in total postdoc-ing im probably at the top of my game, I could almost certainly get a job in england or elswhere no problem,but that would mean uprooting my family potentially every few years (contracts only last a few years), which i personally think pushs the work life balance too much in the wrong direction.
When i get the chop i'll be looking to do any sort of job that pays the mortgage whether it uses my skills or not, is that a waste of those skills and experience, maybe but such is life.

If i knew then what i knew now i doubt i would have went down the path of scientific research, teaching or one of the other vocational medical professions would be the way to go and would be what i would advice any young person thinking about science to do.

When you are first starting out nobody tells you this, most science teachers have done a bog standard undergrad and then go into teaching so have no actual experience of science, the lecturers don't tell you when you embark on a PhD that your chances of obtaining a full time postion as an academic is somewhere between 1-5 % or 0 % if you happen to be at my uni.
That said if you have no family and want to see the world its the perfect job for going all over the place, for someone with the personality that likes that sort of thing i would whole heartedly recommend it.