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🍻 Celebrating #internationalbeerday in Beervana

Writing great software is one of our many passions at PaperCut. We also manage to have a little bit of fun, that seems to center around beer and coffee (and not necessarily in that order)!

Tying in with International Beer Day, our cross continent team reflects on our brews of both kinds.  Firstly, Vanessa White our support guru of all things Mac gives us the low down on why the city that’s home to our US office is so endeared to this aeromatic amber liquid.

Here in Portland, Oregon we’ve got a bit of a reputation for being Beervana. To be perfectly honest, it’s a well earned reputation thanks to the craft and homebrew community that’s sprung up since the 1980s. For a great overview of the history of brewing in Oregon I’d highly recommend checking out this Beervana documentary OPB put out in 2007.

While we love our local beers we also appreciate the labor of other regions and countries, so with International Beer Day coinciding with our weekly Beer Thirty here in the Portland office we figured we should take this opportunity to appreciate beers from around the world.

So, behold our glorious spread and some of the Portland beer lovers from our team:

Team-BeerDay

During Beer Thirty we’ll do a beer tasting of some of the pictured beers and take notes on what folks like and dislike. We did a brief pilot test last week with some Japanese craft beers from Nest with interesting results. My prediction: Stiegl Radler will be a team favorite.

Whether it’s seasonally appropriate to be drinking lagers or stouts have a safe and responsible international beer day!

A brew of another kind…

During regular hours , our Melbourne team are fuelled by a darker brew. A humble liquid, brewed from beans rather than grains and hops. You’re always certain to find one of the team huddled around the shrine of all things caffeine, creating the java we like to drink rather than create in our aptly named /dev/coffee cafe.

BaristaTrainingJuly2015-2

Just this week, our newest team members (including me, Jacqui from Marketing making coffee above right) headed to Melbourne’s north, taking a break from coding to learn about refractometers, grinders and coffee varietals.

Rolling up their sleeves for hands on training, Grinders Coffee hosted two groups of newbies who learnt about finding balance in a cup of coffee, along with how to make the perfect cup. Whether you’re an espresso or cappuccino aficionado, it’s complex to get all of the elements right. Firstly, you need good beans (warning, keeping them exposed to air or in bean hopper of your grinder longer than 24 hours makes stale coffee). Then it’s down to the right grind, again, making sure you don’t exceed a 15 minute window of freshness between grind and brew.

BaristaTrainingJuly2015-1

Next, get the right dose into the group handle, before tamping, pour time and turning milk to silk. Getting 26-30 seconds through the group handle, “pour time” is key as is timing of your milk in the steam nozzle and stretching and rolling in the jug. Phew, now, practice, practice, practice until you’re comfortable making the CEO a cup! (who proudly makes one for anyone in the team).

All in all, we now have another dozen certified, accomplished baristas, who can make you a good cup of joe if you ever drop by.

Oh, and not to be trumped by Portland’s beer fest, the folks in our Melbourne office will also be raising their bottles at our regular Friday beer o’clock today.

Stay coffee-fuelled and print wise! #coffeetime

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