So my wife and I were in Boston this past weekend, and we visited the Harpoon Brewery. It was great, they've got a really nice tasting room, the place was packed. We did the brewery tour, and partway through, they brought us into a smaller tasting room, where we were able to sample several of their beers.
One was called "Secret Alloy Ale," apparently a Copper Pale Ale collaboration brew with Zildjian (the cymbal maker). I asked the tour guide what the deal was with it ("Why Alloy Ale? What's Zildjian got to do with it?"), and she told me that it's because they use the same ratio (80/20) in their recipe as Zildjian uses in their alloy composition. I asked about the beer recipe and she said, "Uhm, I think it's... yes, it's 80% Crystal 80 and 20% Pale Malt." I paused for a second, and then asked, "Are you sure you don't have that backwards?" She looked pensive for a minute, then doubled down, saying, "Yep, I'm sure, because that's how we remember, it's 80-80. 80% Crystal 80."
At that point I walked away, but seriously, it's one thing for a waitress to not know much about beers, but if you're giving tours at a brewery, wouldn't you expect the person to know you can't brew a beer like that? Maybe I'm asking too much, maybe my question was unfair? I mean, the malts she did list are in fact actual malts, so that's something, isn't it? It's not like she listed hops when I was asking for malts or something.
