老年的心智更為圓熟......

MIND

The Older Mind May Just Be a Fuller Mind

By BENEDICT CAREY

It's not so much that the mental faculties of older people are rapidly declining, it's that their databases are fuller, a new study suggests.

MIND JANUARY 27, 2014, 3:27 PM 

The Older Mind May Just Be a Fuller Mind

By BENEDICT CAREY

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People of a certain age (and we know who we are) don’t spend much leisure time reviewing the research into cognitive performance and aging. The story is grim, for one thing: Memory’s speed and accuracy begin to slip around age 25 and keep on slipping.

The story is familiar, too, for anyone who is over 50 and, having finally learned to live fully in the moment, discovers it’s a senior moment. The finding that the brain slows with age is one of the strongest in all of psychology.

Lisa Haney

Over the years, some scientists have questioned this dotage curve. But these challenges have had an ornery-old-person slant: that the tests were biased toward the young, for example. Or that older people have learned not to care about clearly trivial things, like memory tests. Or that an older mind must organize information differently from one attached to some 22-year-old who records his every Ultimate Frisbee move on Instagram.

Now comes a new kind of challenge to the evidence of a cognitive decline, from a decidedly digital quarter: data mining, based on theories of information processing. In a paper published in Topics in Cognitive Science, a team of linguistic researchers from the University of Tübingen in Germany used advanced learning models to search enormous databases of words and phrases.

Since educated older people generally know more words than younger people, simply by virtue of having been around longer, the experiment simulates what an older brain has to do to retrieve a word. And when the researchers incorporated that difference into the models, the aging “deficits” largely disappeared.

“What shocked me, to be honest, is that for the first half of the time we were doing this project, I totally bought into the idea of age-related cognitive decline in healthy adults,” the lead author, Michael Ramscar, said by email. But the simulations, he added, “fit so well to human data that it slowly forced me to entertain this idea that I didn’t need to invoke decline at all.”

Can it be? Digital tools have confounded predigital generations; now here they are, coming to the rescue. Or is it that younger scientists are simply pretesting excuses they can use in the future to cover their own golden-years lapses?

In fact, the new study is not likely to overturn 100 years of research, cognitive scientists say. Neuroscientists have some reason to believe that neural processing speed, like many reflexes, slows over the years; anatomical studies suggest that the brain also undergoes subtle structural changes that could affect memory.

Still, the new report will very likely add to a growing skepticism about how steep age-related decline really is. It goes without saying that many people remain disarmingly razor-witted well into their 90s; yet doubts about the average extent of the decline are rooted not in individual differences but in study methodology. Many studies comparing older and younger people, for instance, did not take into account the effects of pre-symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease, said Laura Carstensen, a psychologist at Stanford University.

Dr. Carstensen and others have found, too, that with age people become biased in their memory toward words and associations that have a positive connotation — the “age-related positivity effect,” as it’s known. This bias very likely applies when older people perform so-called paired-associate tests, a common measure that involves memorizing random word pairs, like ostrich and house.

“Given that most cognitive research asks participants to engage with neutral (and in emotion studies, negative) stimuli, the traditional research paradigm may put older people at a disadvantage,” Dr. Carstensen said by email.

The new data-mining analysis also raises questions about many of the measures scientists use. Dr. Ramscar and his colleagues applied leading learning models to an estimated pool of words and phrases that an educated 70-year-old would have seen, and another pool suitable for an educated 20-year-old. Their model accounted for more than 75 percent of the difference in scores between older and younger adults on items in a paired-associate test, he said.

That is to say, the larger the library you have in your head, the longer it usually takes to find a particular word (or pair).

Scientists who study thinking and memory often make a broad distinction between “fluid” and “crystallized” intelligence. The former includes short-term memory, like holding a phone number in mind, analytical reasoning, and the ability to tune out distractions, like ambient conversation. The latter is accumulated knowledge, vocabulary and expertise.

“In essence, what Ramscar’s group is arguing is that an increase in crystallized intelligence can account for a decrease in fluid intelligence,” said Zach Hambrick, a psychologist at Michigan State University. In a variety of experiments, Dr. Hambrick and Timothy A. Salthouse of the University of Virginia have shown that crystallized knowledge (as measured by New York Times crosswords, for example) climbs sharply between ages 20 and 50 and then plateaus, even as the fluid kind (like analytical reasoning) is dropping steadily — by more than 50 percent between ages 20 and 70 in some studies. “To know for sure whether the one affects the other, ideally we’d need to see it in human studies over time,” Dr. Hambrick said.

Dr. Ramscar’s report was a simulation and included no tested subjects, though he said he does have several memory studies with normal subjects on the way.

For the time being, this new digital-era challenge to “cognitive decline” can serve as a ready-made explanation for blank moments, whether senior or otherwise.

It’s not that you’re slow. It’s that you know so much.

2014/01/28 08:15:45

波爾多的液體黃金

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Antique Wine Co.

2011年，一瓶1787年的滴金酒莊(Chateau d’Yquem)葡萄酒賣出了11.7萬美元的天價。

林一鳴

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於法國波爾多南部的蘇玳 (Sauternes) 酒區，出產全球最高價的貴腐甜酒，加上擁有深金黃色的酒裙，故被人稱為波爾多的液體黃金。以排名第一的滴金酒莊(Chateau d’Yquem) 為例，曾經有一枝1811年的滴金以75,000英鎊售出，相當於75萬元人民幣，即每克差不多要1000元。對於這瓶酒來說，滴金的名字還不夠牛，應該叫“滴四金”；因為黃金每克價格只須240元，喝一滴這瓶蘇玳的甜酒，就等於喝四滴黃金了。

貴腐甜酒的價格，通常較其他葡萄酒要高，是因為釀制的成本高昂。釀酒的化學方程式，是葡萄糖分在酵母菌的作用下，轉化成酒精和二氧化碳；大約每升葡萄汁液中的17至18克糖（通常白葡萄酒17克，紅葡萄酒因為帶皮發酵，則需要18克），可以轉化為1度的酒精。正常的葡萄汁液，每升約有200多克糖分，即變成12到15度酒精之後，就會把糖分用光，所以釀出來的酒是不甜的。

可能你會說：要釀制甜酒，好像喝咖啡一樣，加點糖不就成了嗎？理論上是可以的，這是一些廉價甜酒的做法，釀出來的酒像糖水一樣，是不好喝的。貴腐甜酒的做法，是讓葡萄感染了一種叫Botrytis Cinerea的細菌，它使葡萄表皮變成淡淡的灰色，看上去像一層覆上淡白色的茸毛；霉菌通過表皮上的微小穿孔進入葡萄,導致果粒內的水分減少，汁液變得更為濃縮，糖分就自然多了。在蘇玳酒區出產的葡萄，每升可達350多克糖份，在發酵到13至15度酒精之後，剩余糖分含量還有100多克，帶出金黃色的甜美味道。

貴腐霉菌不是聽話的學生，不會在同一天內整齊排隊，跑出來侵蝕所有葡萄的。因此摘貴腐酒的葡萄時，需進行多次分選採摘，要用最原始的手工精挑細選，每次只能摘下腐爛程度最深的葡萄，是極花精力和需要專業能力的工作。由於要懂得區分貴腐真菌和灰霉菌的知識，必須聘請有一定經驗的工人，才可以做採摘葡萄的工作。

貴腐葡萄的種植氣候要求非常特別，必須早上潮濕下午晴朗，晨霧與陽光之間互相交替。在九月底開始，葡萄園要有潮濕陰冷的清晨，讓霧氣在種植區內彌漫，催生寄生在葡萄粒上的貴腐霉菌；到中午要幹燥炎熱，陽光把晨霧驅散，蒸發葡萄內的水分來提高甜度。如果下午的陽光不夠，甚至下雨的話，葡萄內的水分不能蒸發，貴腐甜酒就做不成了，甚至變成壞的灰霉菌，當年的收成就會化為泡影。

世上能夠釀制貴腐甜酒的地區不多，其中以蘇玳酒區的質量最好。蘇玳位於波爾多西南部40公裡之處，位於格拉夫(Graves)產區南部，加隆河(Gronne)與朗德森林之間，面積約2000公頃左右；土壤多砂礫石，混在石灰巖和砂質粘土層裡，排水性特別良好。適宜的氣候環境，讓蘇玳酒區好像是上帝恩賜來制造貴腐甜酒的好地方，那裡夏季和秋季都很暖和，加隆河產生大量水氣，讓葡萄在溫暖下滋生貴腐霉菌，下午有陽光交替出現，有利於霉菌對葡萄皮的侵蝕。

蘇玳法定產區集合了蘇玳、巴薩克（Barsac）、博美（Bommes）、琺戈（Fargues）和佩納可（Preignac）五個村鎮，主要葡萄品種為長相思（Sauvignon Blanc）、賽美蓉（Semillon）和少量的密斯卡岱（Muscadelle）。在蘇玳區排名最高的酒莊，是在1855年蘇玳和巴薩克官方評級中被評為超一等的滴金；它是唯一獲此等級的酒莊，其葡萄園面積有100多公頃，年產量在10萬瓶左右。

滴金對貴腐甜酒的品質有嚴格要求，並不是每年都會生產甜酒。例如在2012年時，該年雨水連綿不斷，貴腐霉的葡萄缺乏豐滿度，滴金就放棄釀制2012年份的貴腐甜酒；以平均每瓶200到300歐元的售價計算，損失高達200萬歐元以上。滴金為了保持完美的酒質，寧可不生產葡萄酒，也不會把次級的酒賣給客人。

蘇玳的甜白葡萄酒，令人一喝難忘。它擁有琥珀金黃的亮麗顏色，帶有蜜糖、蜂蠟、菠蘿幹和烤杏仁的復雜香氣，口感豐富而又均衡，甜味和酸味混在一起，帶出甜酸最完美的感覺結合。對於菜色的搭配，不同的專家會有不同的意見：有些人認為配新鮮瓜果最好，海鮮如螃蟹或龍蝦也不錯；也有人認為山羊奶酪與貴腐酒是經典搭配；還聽說蘇玳甜酒可以與鵝肝的肥膩和鹽分互相呼應。不過我個人的經驗認為，要喝蘇玳的甜白葡萄酒，最好就是什麼都不用搭配，空口喝就已經一流；如果加上美妙的音樂，再看著一望無際的海景，就是人間最大的享受了。

本文作者林一鳴，中信証券國際企業高端客戶及証券業務發展主管，持有美國專業認証葡萄酒專家資格（Certified Specialist of Wine, CSW）、英國葡萄酒及烈酒教育基金會（WSET）高級葡萄酒及烈酒証書。文中所述僅代表他的個人觀點。

洋蔥浸葡萄酒

★ 洋蔥浸葡萄酒的驚人效果★ (轉貼)


 洋蔥是一般家庭普通的食物，用以炸、炒、煲湯都很可口，也可配以生果和蔬菜做沙律，原來用作浸葡萄酒(紅酒) ，更可治療很多我常見的病。筆者回港時一酒商朋友介紹，當時半信半疑，因他是做法酒入口酒的生意，可能是為了推銷他代理的紅酒，但他卻保證真的有這樣的療效，很多人都飲用，所以回到黃金海岸，便開始浸了瓶來試試，也把這個信息帶給大佬JOE，因其太座LILY和他有齊所有的病症，聽後大家不禁哈哈大笑。心想不用花多少錢，不妨一試，果然不試尤可，一試其功效十分顯著，連老伴也大讚好野。因不用晚間上廁所，而且發覺浸了洋蔥的紅酒入口更醇，更易入口，像筆者不懂飲酒的也可以飲用，通常筆者未試過就不敢寫出來，今次飲過之後覺得效果甚佳，就將其公開給大家，希望人人健康。
 【材料】：洋蔥2個，紅葡萄酒500毫升，1瓶普通紅葡萄酒配三個洋蔥。 
 【制法】：　一. 將洋蔥洗淨，去掉表麵茶色外皮，切成八等份約半月形；　二. 將洋蔥裝入玻璃瓶內，加入紅葡萄酒，(將剝下來的外皮也一起加入效果更好)；　三. 將玻璃瓶蓋好密封，在陰涼地方放置約2​​至8日，(筆者覺得一星期最好)；　四. 將玻璃瓶的洋蔥片，用濾網過濾後，洋蔥、酒分開裝入瓶中，放置在冰箱中冷藏。 【飲用方法】：　一. 每日約一杯(50毫升)，年紀大的人每次20毫升左右；　二. 每日飲一至兩次；　三. 浸過酒的洋蔥片一起食用更好；　四.不喝酒的人，可用兩倍左右的開水稀釋後飲用或每次倒入電鍋內煮約4至5分鐘，蒸發酒精後飲用。五. 若然喜歡甜的，可​​加入一點蜂蜜。看到這里大家是否覺得很容易呢？究竟可以治那些病呢？讓筆者告訴大家，其功效對膝蓋疼痛、白內障、老人癡呆的效果相當驚人，日本非常流行。 ▲一、高血壓的患者，飲了之後血壓正常且安定，也會降低糖尿值，把血糖下降。 ▲二、最妙對老花眼也有很大的改善，飲用之後不用戴眼鏡也可以閱讀一般的週刊、雜誌。 ▲三​​、每晚都要去幾次廁所的夜晚頻尿症，喝了兩天之後，不可思議的完全恢復正常。每天夜裡醒來，一直到天亮都不能再入睡的，不食安眠藥不能入睡的不眠症，飲用之後也會全消除。 ▲四、眼睛疲勞和模煳不清，喝了之後第二天就沒有問題了。 ▲五、對幾乎無法治療的白尿症，尿會溷濁的之後的也變得接近透明。 ▲六、經常肚子會脹，非常痛苦的便秘症，喝了之後第二天便恢復正常排便。以上這麽多的效，若然你的年齡在中年以上一定適合，花錢不多，有益功效顯著，不妨一試。

 【實驗結果】：原來是而此，信不信由您，依照份量飲，三五天見效夜裡甜蜜睡，惡夢冇跟隨，精神身體好，健步快如飛攻打四方城，手指靈活摔，延年兼益壽，命長精神爽討厭吃洋蔥嗎? 看看下面的文章，即使它再不可口，為了身體好，也請多多食用。關心自己也關心家裡的人喔！ 【洋蔥比骨質酥鬆症的藥有效】家庭主婦不愛用洋蔥做菜，處理時會讓人流眼淚，很多人也怕洋蔥味。除非是手藝高超的洋蔥料理，否則真的很難找到洋蔥的熱愛者。但是想要讓自己骨骼結實、身體長得高、預防骨質酥鬆症的人，最好還是乖乖地捏著鼻子吃洋蔥吧。因為權威期刊「自然」的最新研究報告指出，洋蔥是最能夠防止骨質流失的一種蔬菜。洋蔥預防骨質流失的效果，甚至比骨質酥鬆症治療藥品「calcitonin」還要好。研究人員讓雄性大白鼠每天吃一公克乾洋蔥，連續四週後，公白鼠的骨質平均增加了13.5-18%。另一組實驗則發現，讓大白鼠食用含有洋蔥的溷合蔬菜，也能夠減少骨質流失問題。第三組實驗則是讓摘除卵巢的雌性大白鼠每天吃1.5公克的洋蔥，結果骨質流失的速率減少了25%。更值得注意的是，洋蔥的保健功效在短短12小時內就看得到了。研究人員認為，洋蔥的效果可能來自於「預防骨質流失」，因此想要利用洋蔥保健的人，每天可能要吃上200-300公克（10盎司）的洋蔥，才能夠預防骨質酥鬆症。醫食同源，在我們日常食物中，有很多蔬菜水果都具有藥物般的療效。像西餐裡少不了的配菜洋蔥，它對身體的好處簡直超乎想像。洋蔥炒蛋，或洋蔥炒牛肉，都是美味無比的健康菜；而洋蔥還可以用來生吃或榨汁喝，根據醫學實驗，它更能發揮多種神奇療效。  
【洋蔥可以預防膽固醇過高】據哈佛醫學院心臟科教授克多格爾威治博士指出，每天生吃半個洋蔥，或喝等量的洋蔥汁，平均可增加心髒病人約30%的HDL含量（HDL為高密度脂蛋白膽固醇，一種被認為有助於預防動脈粥狀硬化的膽固醇，也是一種的好的膽固醇。） 每天生吃半個洋蔥，或喝等量的洋蔥汁，以保護心臟，這原是個民間偏方， 
【洋蔥可以分解脂肪】克多博士在自己的診所裡對病人進行實驗，證明洋蔥確有提升好膽固醇的療效，不過洋蔥煮得越熟，越不具效果。克多博士讓診所裡的心髒病人每天吃洋蔥，結果發現洋蔥裡所含的化合物也能阻止血小板凝結，並加速血液凝塊溶解。所以，當你享用高脂肪食物時，最​​好能搭配些許洋蔥，將有助於抵銷高脂肪食物引起的血液凝塊；所以說牛排通常搭配洋蔥一起吃，是很有道理的。
 【洋蔥可以預防胃癌】洋蔥和大蒜、大蔥、韭菜這些蔥屬蔬菜，因含有抗癌的化學物質，據研究人員在中國山東省一個胃癌罹患率很高的地方所做的調查發現，當洋蔥吃得越多，得胃癌的機率就越低。
 【洋蔥可以對抗哮喘】洋蔥含有至少三種抗發炎的天然化學物質，可以治療哮喘。由於洋蔥可以抑制組織胺的活動，而組織胺正是一種會引起哮喘過敏症狀的化學物質；據德國的研究，洋蔥可以使哮喘的發作機率降低一半左右。
 【洋蔥可以治療糖尿病】很久以前，洋蔥就被用來治療糖尿病，到了現代，醫學也證明洋蔥確實能夠降血糖；而且不論生食或熟食，都同樣有效果。原來洋蔥裡有一種抗糖尿病的化合物，類似常用的口服降血糖劑甲磺丁胺，具有刺激胰島素合成及釋放的作用。 【洋蔥還有其他多種療效】洋蔥的妙用還不止上述這些，在日常生活中，洋蔥還可用​​來防治失眠：將切碎的洋蔥放置於枕邊，洋蔥特有的刺激成分，會發揮鎮靜神經、誘人入眠的神奇功效。感冒的時候，喝加了洋蔥的熱味噌湯，很快就可發汗退燒。如果鼻塞，以一小片洋蔥抵住鼻孔，洋蔥的刺激氣味，會促使鼻子瞬間暢通起來。如果咳嗽，以紗布包裹切碎的洋蔥，覆蓋於喉嚨到胸口，也可以很快抑制咳嗽。攝取高鈣就能防止骨質的流失嗎？骨折雖不像得了癌症或愛滋病那麽令人感到震驚與絕望，但有不少老年人本來身體還蠻硬朗，然而一旦發生了骨折，突然活動量銳減，身體狀況急速下降，甚至有些人沒在下床或下輪椅而走了。骨質流失是一種不會痛，甚至也沒有感覺的生理現象，常一直到發生骨折或去測骨質密度才突然發現骨骼已經變得那麽的疏鬆了。骨骼與其他之組織不大一樣，它由『造骨細胞』和『破骨細胞』來分別擔任其『新陳』和『代謝』。當造骨細胞之活性大過破骨細胞時，骨骼會增長、增大或增加其密度；反之，則變得更疏鬆。骨骼的建造乃是先以膠原蛋白構成立體網狀之基質，然後再由鈣、鎂、鋅、磷、氟等化合物與膠原蛋白結合，添充在其空洞中，但破骨細胞也一直不斷地分解這些基質與礦物質。飲食中所攝取的鈣質是否有機會存到骨骼中而使骨骼加長（身高加長或骨質變得更緻密？其必須通過兩關的考驗，第一是其吸收率，如所攝取的鈣質不易被吸收，所攝取的鈣大多還是由糞便中排掉。因此衛生署公告的「健康食品之改善骨質疏鬆功能評估方法」的第一項測定即以其吸收率來作為評估指標，如某一食品之鈣吸收率能明顯高過一般最普遍用來做為食品添加物的碳酸鈣（CaCO3）時，可視為一健康食品。 第二是所吸收進入血液的鈣質是否能存入骨骼中？許多人誤會以為多吃鈣就一定可防止骨質流失，可惜答桉並非是肯定的。即使部分鈣被吸收了，還是要加上負重或抗阻力運動（游泳沒有幫助）來刺激甲狀腺分泌「降鈣素」（Calcitonin），它可加強造骨細胞之活性，而才能將血鈣有效的存到骨骼中。 因此，長期臥床的病人，即使攝取易吸收之高鈣，骨質還是會流失很厲害，因此在幫他翻身時，常一不小心就會發生骨折。 其實每天睡到天亮，快起床時，常破骨細胞的活性或大過造骨細胞，因此，如您怕會有骨質疏鬆症，除了多攝取優質的鈣之外，別忘了也要常做負重（在不傷到關節之範圍內）的運動。 轉自：張網✐
【溫馨提示】：洋蔥撕去外皮後，可以不用清洗，如清洗後請要待它徹底乾透後才開始浸酒，因為有水氣容易使製品發霉。文章沒提及用哪種洋蔥，但網上找來資料，紅洋蔥有網友試過，效果不錯。 ✦ 網路轉載，內容僅供參考，如需解決具體問題，　 建議諮詢相關領域的專業人士。　 其次，一切有益身心的食物也好，均不宜過量，　 否則物極必反，均衡飲食最為重要。

★ 洋蔥浸葡萄酒的驚人效果★ (轉貼) 洋蔥是一般家庭普通的食物，用以炸、炒、煲湯都很可口，也可配以生果和蔬菜做沙律，原來用作浸葡萄酒(紅酒) ，更可治療很多我常見的病。筆者回港時一酒商朋友介紹，當時半信半疑，因他是做法酒入口酒的生意，可能是為了推銷他代理的紅酒，但他卻保證真的有這樣的療效，很多人都飲用，所以回到黃金海岸，便開始浸了瓶來試試，也把這個信息帶給大佬JOE，因其太座LILY和他有齊所有的病症，聽後大家不禁哈哈大笑。心想不用花多少錢，不妨一試，果然不試尤可，一試其功效十分顯著，連老伴也大讚好野。因不用晚間上廁所，而且發覺浸了洋蔥的紅酒入口更醇，更易入口，像筆者不懂飲酒的也可以飲用，通常筆者未試過就不敢寫出來，今次飲過之後覺得效果甚佳，就將其公開給大家，希望人人健康。  
【材料】：洋蔥2個，紅葡萄酒500毫升，1瓶普通紅葡萄酒配三個洋蔥。  
【制法】： 　一. 將洋蔥洗淨，去掉表麵茶色外皮，切成八等份約半月形； 　二. 將洋蔥裝入玻璃瓶內，加入紅葡萄酒，(將剝下來的外皮也一起加入效果更好)； 　三. 將玻璃瓶蓋好密封，在陰涼地方放置約2​​至8日，(筆者覺得一星期最好)； 　四. 將玻璃瓶的洋蔥片，用濾網過濾後，洋蔥、酒分開裝入瓶中，放置在冰箱中冷藏。  

【飲用方法】： 　一. 每日約一杯(50毫升)，年紀大的人每次20毫升左右； 　二. 每日飲一至兩次； 　三. 浸過酒的洋蔥片一起食用更好； 　四.不喝酒的人，可用兩倍左右的開水稀釋後飲用或每次倒入電鍋內煮約4至5分鐘，蒸發酒精後飲用。五. 若然喜歡甜的，可​​加入一點蜂蜜。看到這里大家是否覺得很容易呢？究竟可以治那些病呢？讓筆者告訴大家，其功效對膝蓋疼痛、白內障、老人癡呆的效果相當驚人，日本非常流行。 ▲一、高血壓的患者，飲了之後血壓正常且安定，也會降低糖尿值，把血糖下降。 ▲二、最妙對老花眼也有很大的改善，飲用之後不用戴眼鏡也可以閱讀一般的週刊、雜誌。 ▲三​​、每晚都要去幾次廁所的夜晚頻尿症，喝了兩天之後，不可思議的完全恢復正常。每天夜裡醒來，一直到天亮都不能再入睡的，不食安眠藥不能入睡的不眠症，飲用之後也會全消除。 ▲四、眼睛疲勞和模煳不清，喝了之後第二天就沒有問題了。 ▲五、對幾乎無法治療的白尿症，尿會溷濁的之後的也變得接近透明。 ▲六、經常肚子會脹，非常痛苦的便秘症，喝了之後第二天便恢復正常排便。以上這麽多的效，若然你的年齡在中年以上一定適合，花錢不多，有益功效顯著，不妨一試。  
【實驗結果】： 原來是而此，信不信由您，依照份量飲，三五天見效夜裡甜蜜睡，惡夢冇跟隨，精神身體好，健步快如飛攻打四方城，手指靈活摔，延年兼益壽，命長精神爽討厭吃洋蔥嗎? 看看下面的文章，即使它再不可口，為了身體好，也請多多食用。關心自己也關心家裡的人喔！  
【洋蔥比骨質酥鬆症的藥有效】 家庭主婦不愛用洋蔥做菜，處理時會讓人流眼淚，很多人也怕洋蔥味。除非是手藝高超的洋蔥料理，否則真的很難找到洋蔥的熱愛者。但是想要讓自己骨骼結實、身體長得高、預防骨質酥鬆症的人，最好還是乖乖地捏著鼻子吃洋蔥吧。因為權威期刊「自然」的最新研究報告指出，洋蔥是最能夠防止骨質流失的一種蔬菜。洋蔥預防骨質流失的效果，甚至比骨質酥鬆症治療藥品「calcitonin」還要好。研究人員讓雄性大白鼠每天吃一公克乾洋蔥，連續四週後，公白鼠的骨質平均增加了13.5-18%。另一組實驗則發現，讓大白鼠食用含有洋蔥的溷合蔬菜，也能夠減少骨質流失問題。第三組實驗則是讓摘除卵巢的雌性大白鼠每天吃1.5公克的洋蔥，結果骨質流失的速率減少了25%。更值得注意的是，洋蔥的保健功效在短短12小時內就看得到了。研究人員認為，洋蔥的效果可能來自於「預防骨質流失」，因此想要利用洋蔥保健的人，每天可能要吃上200-300公克（10盎司）的洋蔥，才能夠預防骨質酥鬆症。醫食同源，在我們日常食物中，有很多蔬菜水果都具有藥物般的療效。像西餐裡少不了的配菜洋蔥，它對身體的好處簡直超乎想像。洋蔥炒蛋，或洋蔥炒牛肉，都是美味無比的健康菜；而洋蔥還可以用來生吃或榨汁喝，根據醫學實驗，它更能發揮多種神奇療效。  
【洋蔥可以預防膽固醇過高】 據哈佛醫學院心臟科教授克多格爾威治博士指出，每天生吃半個洋蔥，或喝等量的洋蔥汁，平均可增加心髒病人約30%的HDL含量（HDL為高密度脂蛋白膽固醇，一種被認為有助於預防動脈粥狀硬化的膽固醇，也是一種的好的膽固醇。） 每天生吃半個洋蔥，或喝等量的洋蔥汁，以保護心臟，這原是個民間偏方， 
【洋蔥可以分解脂肪】 克多博士在自己的診所裡對病人進行實驗，證明洋蔥確有提升好膽固醇的療效，不過洋蔥煮得越熟，越不具效果。克多博士讓診所裡的心髒病人每天吃洋蔥，結果發現洋蔥裡所含的化合物也能阻止血小板凝結，並加速血液凝塊溶解。所以，當你享用高脂肪食物時，最​​好能搭配些許洋蔥，將有助於抵銷高脂肪食物引起的血液凝塊；所以說牛排通常搭配洋蔥一起吃，是很有道理的。  
【洋蔥可以預防胃癌】 洋蔥和大蒜、大蔥、韭菜這些蔥屬蔬菜，因含有抗癌的化學物質，據研究人員在中國山東省一個胃癌罹患率很高的地方所做的調查發現，當洋蔥吃得越多，得胃癌的機率就越低。
 【洋蔥可以對抗哮喘】 洋蔥含有至少三種抗發炎的天然化學物質，可以治療哮喘。由於洋蔥可以抑制組織胺的活動，而組織胺正是一種會引起哮喘過敏症狀的化學物質；據德國的研究，洋蔥可以使哮喘的發作機率降低一半左右。  
【洋蔥可以治療糖尿病】 很久以前，洋蔥就被用來治療糖尿病，到了現代，醫學也證明洋蔥確實能夠降血糖；而且不論生食或熟食，都同樣有效果。原來洋蔥裡有一種抗糖尿病的化合物，類似常用的口服降血糖劑甲磺丁胺，具有刺激胰島素合成及釋放的作用。 
 【洋蔥還有其他多種療效】 洋蔥的妙用還不止上述這些，在日常生活中，洋蔥還可用​​來防治失眠：將切碎的洋蔥放置於枕邊，洋蔥特有的刺激成分，會發揮鎮靜神經、誘人入眠的神奇功效。感冒的時候，喝加了洋蔥的熱味噌湯，很快就可發汗退燒。如果鼻塞，以一小片洋蔥抵住鼻孔，洋蔥的刺激氣味，會促使鼻子瞬間暢通起來。如果咳嗽，以紗布包裹切碎的洋蔥，覆蓋於喉嚨到胸口，也可以很快抑制咳嗽。攝取高鈣就能防止骨質的流失嗎？骨折雖不像得了癌症或愛滋病那麽令人感到震驚與絕望，但有不少老年人本來身體還蠻硬朗，然而一旦發生了骨折，突然活動量銳減，身體狀況急速下降，甚至有些人沒在下床或下輪椅而走了。骨質流失是一種不會痛，甚至也沒有感覺的生理現象，常一直到發生骨折或去測骨質密度才突然發現骨骼已經變得那麽的疏鬆了。骨骼與其他之組織不大一樣，它由『造骨細胞』和『破骨細胞』來分別擔任其『新陳』和『代謝』。當造骨細胞之活性大過破骨細胞時，骨骼會增長、增大或增加其密度；反之，則變得更疏鬆。骨骼的建造乃是先以膠原蛋白構成立體網狀之基質，然後再由鈣、鎂、鋅、磷、氟等化合物與膠原蛋白結合，添充在其空洞中，但破骨細胞也一直不斷地分解這些基質與礦物質。飲食中所攝取的鈣質是否有機會存到骨骼中而使骨骼加長（身高加長或骨質變得更緻密？其必須通過兩關的考驗，第一是其吸收率，如所攝取的鈣質不易被吸收，所攝取的鈣大多還是由糞便中排掉。因此衛生署公告的「健康食品之改善骨質疏鬆功能評估方法」的第一項測定即以其吸收率來作為評估指標，如某一食品之鈣吸收率能明顯高過一般最普遍用來做為食品添加物的碳酸鈣（CaCO3）時，可視為一健康食品。 第二是所吸收進入血液的鈣質是否能存入骨骼中？許多人誤會以為多吃鈣就一定可防止骨質流失，可惜答桉並非是肯定的。即使部分鈣被吸收了，還是要加上負重或抗阻力運動（游泳沒有幫助）來刺激甲狀腺分泌「降鈣素」（Calcitonin），它可加強造骨細胞之活性，而才能將血鈣有效的存到骨骼中。 因此，長期臥床的病人，即使攝取易吸收之高鈣，骨質還是會流失很厲害，因此在幫他翻身時，常一不小心就會發生骨折。 其實每天睡到天亮，快起床時，常破骨細胞的活性或大過造骨細胞，因此，如您怕會有骨質疏鬆症，除了多攝取優質的鈣之外，別忘了也要常做負重（在不傷到關節之範圍內）的運動。

 轉自：張網✐【溫馨提示】： 洋蔥撕去外皮後，可以不用清洗，如清洗後請要待它徹底乾透後才開始浸酒，因為有水氣容易使製品發霉。文章沒提及用哪種洋蔥，但網上找來資料，紅洋蔥有網友試過，效果不錯。 
✦ 網路轉載，內容僅供參考，如需解決具體問題， 　 建議諮詢相關領域的專業人士。 　 其次，一切有益身心的食物也好，均不宜過量， 　 否則物極必反，均衡飲食最為重要。

Absinthe: A literary muse

 Wikipedia
苦艾酒（英語：Absinthe ⁱ/ˈæbsɪnθ/ AB-sinth 或 /ˈæbsænθ/ AB-santh; 法語：Absinthe: [absɛ̃t]），歷史上描述為蒸餾的，高酒精度數（45-74％ABV，酒精純度90-148）的一種飲料^[1][2][3][4]。它是一種茴香味的烈酒，從植物性藥材中萃取，其中包括苦艾（Artemisia Absinthium，又名「大艾草」Grand Wormwood）的花和葉，綠茴芹（green anise），甜茴香（sweet fennel），和其他藥材和食用香草。苦艾酒歷來有一種天然的綠色，但也有是無色的。歷史文獻中通常稱之為「法語：la fée verte」（綠妖精、綠精靈、綠仙子）。雖然有時它被誤作為利口酒的一種，傳統上苦艾酒瓶裝時是不加糖的，因此，將其歸類為烈酒^[5]。傳統瓶裝的苦艾酒酒精度數很高，但飲用前通常使用水進行稀釋。
18世紀後期，苦艾酒興起於瑞士納沙泰爾州（Neuchâtel）。在19世紀末和20世紀初，它成為法國大受歡迎的酒精飲料，尤其是在巴黎的藝術家和作家之間。由於其與波希米亞文化之間的因緣，苦艾酒受到社會保守主義者和禁酒主義者的反對。歐內斯特·海明威（Ernest Hemingway）、夏爾·皮埃爾·波德萊爾（Charles Pierre Baudelaire）、保羅·魏爾倫（Paul Verlaine）、阿蒂爾·蘭波（Arthur Rimbaud）、亨利·德·土魯斯-洛特雷克（Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec）、阿梅代奧·莫迪利亞尼（Amedeo Modigliani）、文森特·梵谷（Vincent van Gogh）、奧斯卡·王爾德（Oscar Wilde）、阿萊斯特·克勞利（Aleister Crowley）以及阿爾弗雷德·雅里（Alfred Jarry）都是知名的苦艾酒的擁躉。^[6]
苦艾酒也經常被描繪成一個危險的容易上癮的精神藥物^[7]。苦艾酒中含有的微量化合物側柏酮（thujone），被指含有毒副作用。到1915年在美國和歐洲大部分國家，包括法國，荷蘭，比利時，瑞士和奧匈帝國，苦艾酒都被取締。雖然苦艾酒受到詆毀，人們卻一直無法證明苦艾酒比普通白酒危險程度更大。撇開酒精本身的作用不說，苦艾酒對人造成的精神影響被誇大了^[7]。20世紀90年代，近代的歐盟食品和飲料相關法律取消了針對苦艾酒生產和銷售長期存在的限制，苦艾酒開始復興。由21世紀初，在十幾個國家中崛起了近200個苦艾酒品牌，其中最引人注目的是瑞士，美國，西班牙，法國和捷克共和國的品牌。

詞源

苦艾酒英文為Absinthe，其實是一個法語單詞，在法語中一般指酒精飲料，偶爾也可以指艾草植物，包括稱為大苦艾（grande absinthe）的中亞苦蒿（Artemisia absinthium），和小苦艾（petite absinthe）的西北蒿（Artemisia pontica）。其拉丁名artemisia來自古希臘的狩獵女神阿爾忒彌斯（Artemis）。單詞Absinthe來自拉丁語Absinthium，而Absinthium又是希臘語ἀψίνθιον（apsínthion）拉丁化而成的，它們的本義都是「艾草」（wormwood）^[8]。將苦艾用於飲料可以從盧克萊修（Lucretius）的著作《物性論》（De Rerum Natura（I 936-950 ））中得到引證，盧克萊修表示，含有艾草（wormwood）的飲料可以作為作為兒童的藥飲，伴著蜂蜜喝使其容易飲用。使用了詩歌的形式，將這個複雜的理念用比喻的方式講述了出來^[9]。
有些人聲稱，ἀψίνθιον這個詞在希臘語中的意思是「不能飲用」，但它可解析為波斯詞根spand或aspand，或其變體esfand，意思是駱駝蓬（Peganum Harmala），也被稱為敘利亞芸香（Syrian Rue），但它實際上不是芸香（另一種著名的苦味的草藥）的品種。是否這個詞是從波斯語引入到希臘，或兩者從共同的語源進化而來，目前還不清楚^[10]。
absinthe的變體包括absinth，absynthe，和absenta。在歐洲中部和東部生產苦艾酒的地區，Absinth（不包括結尾的e）是最常見的拼寫變異，並特指波西米亞風格的苦艾酒^[11]。

 不像蘇格蘭威士忌，白蘭地，金酒在 全球範圍內都規範並定義了製作方法和原料，大多數國家都沒有苦艾酒的法律定義。因此，生產者可以任意的在他們的產品上標上「苦艾酒」 ("absinthe" 或"absinth")的標籤，而不受任何法規限制，也沒有標準評判其質量。 合法的苦艾酒生產者遵循歷史上流傳的兩個製造流程中的一個：蒸餾法（distillation）或低溫混合法（cold mixing）。在那些有法規定義苦艾酒的國家（比如瑞士），只允許通過蒸餾生產苦艾酒^[57]。


 Absinthe: A literary muse

Jane Ciabattari investigates how the powerful spirit that drove Vincent Van Gogh to cut off his ear also inspired great authors from Arthur Rimbaud to Ernest Hemingway.

9 January 2014

Absinthe: How the Green Fairy became literature’s drink

Jane Ciabattari

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The green stuff

Absinthe, a green liquor with ten times the alcohol content of wine and popular with legendary authors and artists, was banned for most of the past century. (Goran Heckler/Alamy)

Absinthe has inspired many great authors of the last 150 years – and may have ruined some as well. Jane Ciabattari investigates the green spirit’s peculiar power.

Arthur Rimbaud called absinthe the “sagebrush of the glaciers”  because a key ingredient, the bitter-tasting herb Artemisia absinthium or wormwood, is plentiful in the icy Val-de-Travers region of Switzerland. That is where the legendary aromatic drink that came to symbolise decadence was invented in the late 18th Century. It’s hard to overstate absinthe’s cultural impact – or imagine a contemporary equivalent.
The spirit was a muse extraordinaire from 1859, when Édouard Manet’s The Absinthe Drinker shocked the annual Salon de Paris, to 1914, when Pablo Picasso created his painted bronze sculpture, The Glass of Absinthe. During the Belle Époque, the Green Fairy – nicknamed after its distinctive colour – was the drink of choice for so many writers and artists in Paris that five o’clock was known as the Green Hour, a happy hour when cafes filled with drinkers sitting with glasses of the verdant liquor. Absinthe solidified or destroyed friendships, and created visions and dream-like states that filtered into artistic work. It shaped Symbolism, Surrealism, Modernism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Cubism. Dozens of artists took as their subjects absinthe drinkers and the ritual paraphernalia: a glass, slotted spoon, sugar cubes – sugar softened the bitter bite of cheaper brands – and fountains dripping cold water to dilute the liquor.
Absinthe was, at its conception, not unlike other medicinal herbal preparations (vermouth, the German word for wormwood, among them). Its licorice flavor derived from fennel and anise. But this was an aperitif capable of creating blackouts, pass-outs, hallucinations and bizarre behavior, with nearly ten times the alcohol content of wine. Contemporary analysis indicates that the chemical thujone in wormwood was present in such minute quantities in properly distilled absinthe as to cause little psychoactive effect. It’s more likely that the damage was done by severe alcohol poisoning from drinking twelve to twenty shots a day. Still, the mystique remains.
Muse in a bottle
Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Emile Zola, Alfred Jarry and Oscar Wilde were among scores of writers who were notorious absinthe drinkers. Jarry insisted on drinking his absinthe straight; Baudelaire also used laudanum and opium; Rimbaud combined it with hashish. They wrote of its addictive appeal and effect on the creative process, and set their work in an absinthe-saturated milieu.
In the poem Poison, from his 1857 volume The Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire ranked absinthe ahead of wine and opium: “None of which equals the poison welling up in your eyes that show me my poor soul reversed, my dreams throng to drink at those green distorting pools."
Rimbaud, who “saw poetry as alchemical, a way of changing reality” Edmund White notes in his biography of the poet, saw absinthe as an artistic tool. Rimbaud’s manifesto was unambiguous: he declared that a poet “makes himself a seer through a long, prodigious and rational disordering of all the senses.” Absinthe, with its hallucinogenic effects, could achieve just that.
Guy de Maupassant imbibed, as did characters in many of his short stories. His A Queer Night in Paris features a provincial notary who wangles an invitation to a party in the studio of an acclaimed painter. He drinks so much absinthe he tries to waltz with his chair and then falls to the ground. From that moment he forgets everything, and wakes up naked in a strange bed.
Contemporaries cited absinthe as shortening the lives of Baudelaire, Jarry and poets Verlaine and Alfred de Musset, among others. It may even have precipitated Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear. Blamed for causing psychosis, even murder, by 1915 absinthe was banned in France, Switzerland, the US and most of Europe.
Cultural hangover
The Green Fairy faded as a cultural influence for most of the 20th Century, to be replaced by cocktails, martinis and, in the 1960s, a panoply of mind-altering drugs. There were occasional echoes of its power, though mostly nostalgic.
Ernest Hemingway sipped the Green Fairy in Spain in the 1920s as a journalist, and later during the Spanish Civil War. His character Jake Barnes consoles himself with absinthe after Lady Brett runs off with the bullfighter in The Sun Also Rises. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert Jordan brings along a canteen of the stuff. In Death in the Afternoon Hemingway explains he stopped bullfighting because he couldn’t do it happily “except after drinking three or four absinthes, which, while they inflamed my courage, slightly distorted my reflexes."
Hemingway even invented a Death in the Afternoon cocktail for a 1935 celebrity drinks book: “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly."
In the late 20th Century, absinthe became a decadent reference point among a new generation of writers based in latter-day Bohemian outposts like San Francisco and New Orleans.
"The absinthe cauterized my throat with its flavor, part pepper, part licorice, part rot,” wrote precocious New Orleans horror writer Poppy Z Brite in a 1989 story, His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood. The narrator and his boyfriend, jaded grave robbers, have found more than fifty bottles of the now-outlawed liquor, sealed up in a New Orleans family tomb. By the end, the narrator is fantasising about his first bitter kiss of the spirit from beyond the grave.
Still seeing green
Today’s absinthe is a “tongue-numbing drink” that “sharpens the senses,” says Lance Winters, master distiller and proprietor at St George Spirits, which offered the first legal absinthe in the US in late 2007.
“To my mind, absinthe imparts an air of the mystic, a touch of the supernatural – qualities I like in a drink now and again,” says Rosie Schaap, drinks columnist for The New York Times. She recommends “deploying the stuff with a light hand.” Her contemporary absinthe cocktails include the Fascinator – two parts gin, one part dry vermouth, two dashes of absinthe and one mint leaf.
In today’s literary circles, absinthe is more an amusement than a muse – showing up as a hipster cocktail at themed book-launch parties. Now widely available, in versions from the recently-made to the $10,000 a bottle vintage Pernod Fils, the drink seems just another popular culture reference, showing up in a Mad Men episode, as a Marilyn Manson-endorsed signature brand, Mansinthe, and inspiring innumerable drinks recipes, many of which use absinthe as a rinse, not a serious ingredient.  You can even buy absinthe dilution apps for your smartphone.
Like the splash added to a cocktail, a literary reference to absinthe today adds a whiff of atmosphere, a reminder of the provocative and form-fracturing writers of the Belle Époque – and that a spirit can indeed inspire.

人到老年

許多事等您老了才明白...



◎人到老年，會突然醒悟：生命是有盡頭的。

這種感悟會使他們行動起來，

去做一些他們很想做但以前總也沒有做的事情，有時，他們甚至用他們意料不到的方式。



◎人到老年，才真正認識自己：也才真正屬於自己，並且用一種寬容、舒適和誠實的方式接受自己。



◎人到老年，方才明白：

東奔西走竭力想去改變的不是別的，恰恰是他們自己。

幾十年的時光換來的不是別的，而是心靜如水。



◎人到老年，開始明白，老年自有老年的風景。

青春雖然美麗，但它會隨時間的流逝而褪色，而青春的心境才是生命中一道不變的風景



◎人到老 年，能冷靜地去看待婚姻和家庭。

他們知道世上沒有完全合乎男人心意的女人，也沒有完全合乎女人心意的男人。



◎人到老年，已懂得安慰自己：並且學會了在似乎無盡的黑暗中為自己點一盞希望的燈。



◎人到老年，看人看事不像過去那麼簡單。因此，不必非得按別人的主意行事。



◎人到老年，開始明白，世事並非黑白分明，在黑白之間往往有一系列的中間色。



◎人到老年，開始明白：人生一世，無論成功與失敗，歡樂與痛苦，盛衰與榮辱，都如自然流水，從那裡來還將到那裡去。於是，寧靜致遠。



◎人到老年，開始明白，衰老不是從中年開始，而是從對生活的厭倦開始的。



◎人到老年，開始明白：孤獨、寂寞、痛苦、失敗，是人生不可缺少的 調味品，因此，善待它們，就是善待真實的人生。



◎人到老年，不再有少年的狂妄、青年的浪漫，人到老年，不再擁有童年的笑臉和青春的美麗，卻常在午夜夢迴。多的則是對生活的感悟和理解。



◎人到老年，能坦然地面對自己的平凡。

他們明白，並非人人都能成功，人人都能大有作為；一生的事業，只要自己奮鬥過、追求過，失敗了又何妨？



◎人到老年，胸懷要開始變得像大海一樣，裝得下四海風雲，容得下千古恩怨。

Pursuits

Good Beer in Berlin? Finally, Yes

Gordon Welters for The New York Times

The brewpub Hops & Barley, one of the city’s first craft beer destinations.

By EVAN RAIL

Published: October 17, 2013

Gendarmenmarkt, lined with imposing buildings like the French Cathedral and the Konzerthaus, may be Berlin’s most beautiful square. But just a block away, the setting looked like the rest of the central German capital: a mix of cranes, construction sites and creative parking.

Enlarge This Image

Gordon Welters for The New York Times

Raising glasses at Eschenbräu, a beer destination in Wedding.

Enlarge This Image

Gordon Welters for The New York Times

Assessing the quality of the product at Eschenbräu.

Stepping in from a smaller square, the Hausvogteiplatz, I entered a pub that appeared to honor the greatest of German traditions, at least at first glance. In contrast to the modern architecture outside, the room had well-worn, old-fashioned furniture like Alpine chairs with hearts carved into the backs. A collection of cuckoo clocks quietly beat time on the walls. From large platters arose the hearty scents of bockwurst, while the in-house bakery sent out the doughy scent of freshly baked schrippen, Berlin’s crunchy-crusted bread roll.

Once I took a seat, however, the pub, called Meisterstück,  began to reveal unexpected angles. I had certainly never tasted better sausages than Meisterstück’s juicy Coburger bratwurst, though I also couldn’t remember any other links that had been accompanied by a side of wasabi-spiced sauerkraut. Even more surprising were the portraits on the wall, featuring not locals, but some of the best-known faces of international craft brewing. In the back: wasn’t that a picture of Matt Brynildson, brew master at Firestone Walker in California?

And why, in a city long known as a good-beer desert, did the pub’s beer list include not only bottles of Mr. Brynildson’s excellent Pale 31, but also an array of stars like Boon Gueuze from Belgium and the Xyauyù barley wine from Italy’s cult favorite Le Baladin, as well as rare German microbrews?

“You can feel that there’s something coming,” said Johannes Heidenpeter, who opened one of Berlin’s newest craft breweries, Heidenpeters, in the gritty-but-hip central neighborhood of Kreuzberg last December. “I think the time is good to change the taste of beer.”

Mr. Heidenpeter may represent the most iconoclastic and cosmopolitan take on Berlin’s newly developing beer culture: instead of traditional German lager yeast, he praises the aromas from the Belgian and English ale yeasts, and he eschews his own country’s favorite pale lager style of pilsner, or pils. Instead, as he explained when we met up the next day, his brewery offers an American-style pale ale as its standard pint, which uses non-German hops such as Cascade and Amarillo.

“I don’t have a pils and I don’t want to brew a pils,” he said.

Sipping his brewery’s excellent amber ale, Thirsty Lady, I didn’t think anyone who loved good brews would complain, a marked contrast to the longstanding charges that Berlin’s beer culture is lackluster. This is, after all, a place where it has long been more difficult to find a decent version of the city’s own beer style, Berliner Weisse, than in at least a half-dozen American towns, and where the ubiquitous Berliner Pilsner has a dismal ranking in the bottom third of all beers in its category on RateBeer. While it might be Europe’s hipster Hauptstadt, the home of famous writers, musicians and other creative characters, those of us who lived elsewhere could at least console ourselves with the fact that Berlin’s beer was terrible.

But not anymore. In the last few years, a slew of new microbreweries, beer bars and bottle shops has opened in Berlin, and the city’s first craft beer festival, Braufest, took place in September. After hearing about the new developments, I spent a few days visiting friends and trying to figure out how much Berlin’s beer scene had changed, starting out at the 18-month-old Meisterstück, said to be the city’s first craft beer bar. After sampling the brews, sausages and sauerkraut, I went from there to the central Moabit neighborhood, north of Tiergarten park.

I first stopped to check in on the city’s favorite source for great bottles, the Berlin Bier Shop, whose owner, Rainer Wallisser, had helped kick-start the local interest in beer when he began selling Belgian imports like Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen in his wine shop about four years earlier. After looking over the new arrivals and sharing tips with a pack of young beer lovers visiting from Norway, I wandered a few blocks north and west through the Kleiner Tiergarten park until I found Arminiusstrasse and its Markthalle, a sprawling market hall filled with Vietnamese noodle stands, butcher shops and plenty of stuff in between, including BrewBaker, one of the city’s first brewers to make interesting beers. When I arrived, the owner, Michael Schwab, was just finishing up the day’s brew, a relatively unusual amber style known as Vienna lager. He had been making beer since 2006, he told me, but he had only moved to this location in 2011, and had brewed some 120 different recipes since then, including traditional German styles and new arrivals (in local terms) like stouts and ales. In Berlin, he said: “people are more and more interested in different types of beers, not just German beers. Now in Berlin, nearly every brewery has something like an IPA.”

As with much of creative brewing, that “something” seemed open to interpretation. Meeting my friends at the five-year-old Hops & Barley, a brewpub in a former butcher shop in Friedrichshain, we discovered that the house oddball was actually a traditional pils-style pale lager, but one which had been transformed by the addition of Centennial hops, a broad-shouldered American hop cultivar that added a crisp, citrusy aroma. It was a clear favorite for the crowd of friendly locals who had packed into the tiny front barroom.

Not far away, we joined old-school punk rockers and punks a generation or two younger watching the German national soccer team beat up on Kazakhstan in the dark, smoky dive bar known as Bierkombinat Kreuzberg, or BKK. Here, the flavor bomb was an IPA by the neighborhood’s Schoppe Bräu brewery: a pale ale with light caramel and toffee flavors from the malt with grapefruit and a touch of bubble gum from New World hops.

The next day, I bumped into that beer’s creator, Thorsten Schoppe, at the Südstern brewpub in Kreuzberg, where he makes his own Schoppe beers and those for Südstern, including an excellent rye ale. This summer he opened a new brewpub, called Pfefferbräu, in the old Pfefferberg building in Prenzlauer Berg.

But not everything is taking place in such cool neighborhoods. As I discovered later that day, the unlikely northwestern inner-city district of Wedding now serves some of the city’s best beer, thanks largely to a brewpub called Eschenbräu. Set in the basement of what seems to be a student dormitory, the place had its own hop-inflected special brew, a very bitter Schwarzbier called Black Mamba. Eschenbräu’s pils, as well, seemed more fragrant and bitter than most versions I could remember encountering anywhere in Germany.

After Eschenbräu, I stepped down the same street to a year-and-a-half-old specialty beer shop, Hopfen & Malz, where I explained my interest in local beer to the owner, Ludger Berges. After ringing up his last customers, he disappeared into the back, returning with a rarity: a bottle of Bogk-Bier Berliner Weisse, a new, small-batch version of the city’s traditional beer style. Financed by a crowd-funding campaign, it had been oversubscribed by more than 700 percent, perhaps reflecting the dissatisfaction many fans of Berliner Weisse felt toward the lone industrial version still produced in Berlin. It had not yet been released (at that point, it didn’t yet have a single rating on RateBeer),  but Mr. Berges said he hoped to have it in stock soon, and asked if I wanted to join him in trying it. Tasting it in the shop, I was floored by the brew’s character: a cloudy pale yellow with almost no head, it had the lemony sourness of a good Berliner Weisse, but was tempered with light fruity malt flavors and a wild, almost animal-like aroma from the use of the local Brettanomyces yeast, a type of wild fungus that had been chased out of industrial Berliner Weisse production many years ago. I was already planning my next trip back to Berlin to pick up a few cases when Mr. Berges asked if I had heard about the young Americans who were opening a brewpub just around the corner. Armed with instructions, I crossed the street, passing through a hochschule campus and wandering through the small square called Zeppelinplatz. On the other side, I entered a neighborhood called the Brüsseler Kiez, whose streets were mostly named after Belgian cities. A few minutes later I came upon yet another Berlin construction site.

At that point the place had not yet opened, and I found two of the three owners, Matt Walthall and Tom Crozier, installing equipment in the high-ceilinged ground floor of an old Berlin apartment building. They had been friends growing up in Maryland, they said, reuniting when Tom joined Matt in the city in 2009.

After realizing that they had run through all of the good beer destinations in the city, they decided to start home brewing. Soon they discovered a community of like-minded beer fans, with whom they shared recipes and brewing advice. After a few years, the group made the decision to found its own brewery, Vagabund Brauerei. “I read some article about how craft beer had never happened in Berlin,” Mr. Walthall said. “And I said, ‘If no one else is going to do it, then we will.’ ” Looking around, it was clear how much work they had put into the place, from the restored plasterwork ceilings to the new wooden floor. Even empty, it made for a beautiful scene, and I could easily imagine how nice Vagabund will look when filled with a crowd of the city’s new generation of beer lovers.

In a way, this came as a disappointment. Sure, Berlin has one of Europe’s most vibrant cultural scenes, but a lack of good beer had always been something I could give my friends there a hard time about. Now that was gone.

“Just like Berlin is a great town for artists and writers,” Mr. Crozier said, “it now seems like a good place for small brewers to do their thing.”

BREWPUBBING IN BERLIN

The outstanding sausages and rock-star foreign beers outrank the local craft bottles at Das Meisterstück (Hausvogteiplatz 3-4; 49-30-5587-2562; dasmeisterstueck.de).

One of the city’s first craft beer destinations, Hops & Barley Hausbrauerei, serves great small-production lagers in Friedrichshain (Wühlischstrasse 22-23; 49-30-2936-7534; hopsandbarley.eu).

A favorite of beer cognoscenti, Wedding’s Eschenbräu serves new specialty brews about twice a month (Triftstrasse 67; 49-30-462-6837; eschenbraeu.de).

Traditional fare like roast ham hocks and modern beers like rye ales bring fans to Brauhaus Südstern (Hasenheide 69; 49-30-6900-1624; brauhaus-suedstern.de). You would need to follow fire trucks in order to find a smokier pub than Bierkombinat Kreuzberg (Manteuffelstrasse 53; 49-179-142-6670; bier-kombinat.de). The brews, produced by Südstern’s Thorsten Schoppe, are excellent. BrewBaker served one of the city’s first IPAs, but its best seller is the excellent Bellevue Pils, available at various places around town. It is moving to a new location in Moabit (brewbaker.de).

A visual artist, Johannes Heidenpeter, also creates beautiful beers, selling them on weekends inside Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg (Eisenbahnstrasse 42-43; heidenpeters.de). Vagabund Brauerei serves American-style craft beers produced by expatriate Americans (Antwerpenerstrasse 3; vagabundbrauerei.com).

The Pfefferberg building in Prenzlauer Berg is home to a theater, restaurants and, as of this summer, the new Pfefferbräu brewpub (Schönhauser Allee 175; pfefferbraeu.de).

For great bottles —  both local and imported —  and the latest news on the city’s beer scene, drop by the Berlin Bier Shop in Moabit (Kirchstrasse 23; 49-30-3910-0730; berlinbiershop.com). Specializing in German rarities, the year-old Hopfen & Malz bottle shop is just a block from Eschenbräu in Wedding (Triftstrasse 57; hopfenmalz.de).

A version of this article appears in print on October 20, 2013, on page TR10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Berlin, Writers, Musicians and, Finally, Beer.