6 tuesday, february 7, 2012
The california Aggie
Alumnus resurrects Sacramento’s beer Jan-Erik Paino’s Ruhstaller beer now on tap By PRISCILLA WONG Aggie Features Writer
When UC Davis School of Management alumnus Jan-Erik Paino conducted a real estate project on Sacramento, he thought to himself that the best way to learn about the city was to understand its history. While most of the books that he read reiterated the usual Sacramento history, he found one that discussed a small beer brewing business. It was then that Paino’s interest in brewing began. Paino went on to learn all he could about Sacramento’s beer brewing history and discovered that a man named Frank Ruhstaller created the largest brewing industry west of the Mississippi, in the Sacramento region. Paino decided he wanted to bring back Ruhstaller’s legacy of creating a Sacramento beer using locally grown materials. Paino founded Ruhstaller Beer in 2011, which now brews three types of beer that can be found in restaurants around Sacramento and Davis, including de Veres Irish Pub and The Davis Beer Shoppe. “I’ve learned that Sacramento was the beer capital of the West Coast. Before Prohibition, Sacramento had a bigger brewing building than anything AnheuserBusch had anywhere, even in their own hometown. So this is something we did really well,” Paino said. “Hops and barley grew like weeds, we had the best source of water coming from the Sierras and American River, we were German, Austrian and Swiss and knew how to make beer.” Wanting to give Sacramento a beer of its own again in the name of Ruhstaller, he contacted Charlie Bamforth, dean of the School of Fermentation Science at UC Davis, to learn all he could about brewing beer. After researching it and still not knowing how to brew, Bamforth put Paino in contact with Peter Hoey, an already established brewmaster. With a great love of Sacramento and the region and a passion for beer, Paino brought back the history and legacy of Sacramento brewing and Frank Ruhstaller by creating two beers with the help of Hoey. The beers are manufactured out of three breweries located around the Sacramento region. His offerings include the 1881 California Red Ale, the Captain California Black IPA and the Hop Sac ’11. “He is a tremendous guy — full of energy and passion and determined to resurrect a great Sacramento brewing name in a bottled beer, a product that speaks very
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Jan-Erik Paino founded Ruhstaller Beer after graduating from the UC Davis School of Management. much to a local provenance,” Bamforth said. “He has a crystal-clear vision of the route to take in making a success of whatever he turns his hand to. He is also humble and prepared to listen and seek counsel, and he strives for the best.” Paino was born in San Francisco, moved to Houston, Texas when he was six months old and graduated from Memorial High School in Houston. He then attended Princeton University and studied architecture. Once finished, he returned to California and worked in the vineyard industry and construction. Eventually he enrolled at UC Davis and became a real estate agent. “One of my goals for Ruhstaller, when I know it’s successful, is when someone from Sacramento or Davis takes a Ruhstaller
with them to San Diego or Seattle or San Francisco and says, ‘Fellows and friends, this is my beer and I want you guys to try it.’ I want it to be something we all can be proud of,” Paino said. Eric Tang, a student at the UC Davis School of Management and intern for Paino, said that Paino’s work ethic, dedication, commitment to the community, history of Ruhstaller and quality of the beer are all aspects that make him successful. “I think it is great how Paino is making Ruhstaller beer into more than just another brewery. He is using the history of Ruhstaller to create a brand that the entire Sacramento region can rally behind and be proud of,” Tang said. “On the beer side, it is really exciting that Ruhstaller has found a way to join the movement toward
Geochemists develop new modeling techniques UC Davis researchers study how minerals and glass interact with water By BRIAN RILEY Aggie Science Writer
An article published in Nature Materials features a new theory to explain how minerals and glass interact with water. The paper was co-authored by James Rustad, a UC Davis Geology Department emeritus professor, and William Casey, a professor in the UC Davis Chemistry Department. Existing models “could explain anything and predict nothing,” Casey said. “Environmental chemists and geochemists inherited these models from gas chemistry and then tried to apply them to complicated materials in water,” Casey said. “To test the application, Jim [Rustad] and I looked at the isotope-exchange reactions in a structure where one or two atoms could be changed at will,” Casey said. “It turned out we couldn’t predict anything using those old theories.” The topic of how minerals interact with water is important because it informs many developing applications, such as generating electricity in an automobile by using waste heat created by the motor, finding a way to capture and store carbon dioxide produced by power plants to reduce greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere or obtaining oxygen for use from water molecules. Rustad, as a computational chemist, handled the computer-simulation aspects of the research project. He explained how he was able to create computer models based on the actual substances that Casey, an experimen-
Lindqvist hexamolybdate, an example of a POM.
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tal chemist, and his research group created. “What Bill’s research group did — they actually could make a real ‘chunk’ [of a mineral] that was similar in size to what a modeler can calculate, and then measure very precisely the lifetimes of each oxygen atom in that chunk,” Rustad said. Previous methods involved guesswork which hindered making effective findings, but under the new method the “different ways of predicting how rapidly the oxygen atoms exchange with the surrounding water” could be directly tested, Rustad said. “That’s really the first time that’s happened... in geochemistry,” Rustad said. The created substances, or “molecular models,” are made up of polyoxometalate ions, or POMs, which are negatively charged substances that contain metals linked together with oxygen atoms. By experimentally modifying clusters of POMs, Rustad and Casey were able to test predic-
tions about oxygen-exchange rates in the material. Existing models, prior to Casey and Rustad’s research, attempted to explain oxygen-exchange rates based on the rupture of just one or two chemical bonds. The structures Casey and Rustad examined were more complex and formed temporary configurations of atoms called “metastable” states, meaning higher-energy, less stable states. Metastable states can be described using the analogy of a ball resting in a recessed area on the slope of a hill, Rustad explained. When the ball is pushed out of the recessed area, it loses the extra energy and returns to a ground state. “We used the computer simulations to identify the metastable states,” Rustad said. These metastable states cannot yet be observed experimentally, due to the liquid environment. Tools such as the electron microscope can only be used to view substances in a vacuum, Casey said. “These metastable forms could be detectable, but only via methods suitable for wet samples,” Casey said. “These results are important to a wide range of fields, including materials engineering, nanotechnology and geochemistry,” said Andy Ohlin, a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The research team also included Eric Villa, a post-doc at the University of Notre Dame. BRIAN RILEY can be reached at science@theaggie.org.
local products. Sourcing the barley from California adds another element to the beer that all Californians can relate to.” Paino said that there are no shortcuts to success. You have to work hard and put in some time in order to achieve what you want, and you have to fight because there are going to be both good and tough days, he said. “There are two things. Follow whatever you are passionate about — if you’re passionate about something, whatever it is, you’re going to be successful. The other thing is you’re going to have opportunities you normally wouldn’t have if you just tried to copy someone. You won’t experience the top,” Paino said. PRISCILLA WONG can be reached at features@theaggie.org.
SHAWCing Tip: Spice Up Your Life! Whether you’re a spicy food enthusiast or you just can’t stand the heat, consuming spicy food does amazing things to your body. A recent study shows that capsaicin, found in chili peppers, can kill lung and pancreatic cancer cells without harming the surrounding cells. Researchers say that countries who eat a spicy diet tend to have lower rates of some cancers. Although it can be a pain when you take your first bite of chili peppers, capsaicin can alleviate inflammation caused by arthritis and psoriasis. In addition, spicy food can also relieve chronic pain that can be the result of either osteoporosis or headaches. Perhaps next time you have a midterm or a paper that is giving you a headache, maybe a quick spicy meal can just do the trick. Lastly, February is Heart Health Month, and what better way to take care of your heart than by eating spicy food, which is known to reduce cholesterol? So while you celebrate Valentine’s Day with a special someone or for some, Single Awareness Day, make sure to wear clothes that are easy to take off as the spice consumes your mouth and sweat starts to drip off of your face because you took a big bite of that chili pepper. The ASUCD Student Health and Wellness Committee (SHAWC) aims to promote and address important healthrelated issues on campus. We serve as the liaison between ASUCD and campus health organizations, clubs, and resources. If you have SHAWCing suggestions, questions, or tips, please e-mail us at shawcucd@gmail. com and/or “Like” our Facebook page.
All-nighters can have long-term consequences for students By Anne Elsea
The Breeze (James Madison University)
Some students might think that staying awake all night to finish a project or study for a test only means a day or two of exhaustion, but doing so could result in dropped GPAs. Dr. Stephen Rodgers, the medical director for the James Madison U. Health Center, has the science to back it up. He said recent studies prove that students with less sleep have lower GPAs than students who do get sleep. “The mean GPA for students is 2.8, but for sleep-deprived stu-
dents, it’s 2.65,” Rodgers said. Only 11.4 percent of students in the past week have gotten enough sleep to feel rested, according to the 2011 health survey by the American College Health Association. One contributor to this pervasive sleepiness might be all-nighters. They may be a great way to cram for exams, but all-nighters aren’t exactly the best idea. Lack of sleep causes depression and irritability, which affects the brain’s ability to retain information, Rodgers explained. A crucial part of adding new information to memory is the part of the sleep cycle called rapid eye movement sleep. During REM
sleep, the brain embeds the information it’s taken the day before. Without REM sleep, the brain can’t perform up to its full ability or retain memory. Jeff Dyche, a JMU psychology professor, said that cramming limits the amount of information the brain can actually learn due to an enzyme produced called protein phosphatase 1. “It is a molecular constraint to learning,” Dyche said. “In other words, it keeps you from learning things very well. The only way to avoid this is to distribute your studying over a long period of time.” Caffeine, after a certain point,
doesn’t help either. “Up to three cups of coffee or soda would help performance,” Rodgers said, “but anything more than that would lead to a crash and then more drowsiness the next day during a test.” Some students said exam week was the most popular time to pull all-nighters. JMU sophomore Katie Dudek has gone a few sleepless nights to study for exams. “I have done maybe eight total, and it was during midterm and finals time,” Dudek said. “The most I’ve ever done is two nights in a row, but I had naps during the day. It was finals week.”
JMU freshman Nick Minahan said all-nighters are a necessary evil. He said he gets hit harder with tests and projects on some weeks more than others. “I feel as if all-nighters aren’t even optional at times, especially around midterms,” Minahan said. “So with that said, they’re worth it because it’s the only way I can complete my work and study an adequate amount.” Dyche hopes to dispel the popularity of all-nighters. “I think there are students who think they haven’t studied enough unless they pull an all- nighter,” Dyche said, “so they think it is a requirement or something.”