Pussy Beer

[tonic]

http://www.thestranger.com/binary/64572172/DRUNK-160-2.jpg
http://www.thestranger.com/binary/3a6b6201/DRUNK-160.jpg

Yum, yum, yum! Look at that great big frothy glass in Toi's hand. Wouldn't you just LOVE IT if a beautiful girl in a freaky cleavage-poppin' Oktoberfest outfit handed you a nice icy cold beer RIGHT NOW? Mmm, beer! Would you still drink it if I told you that Toi made that beer with yeast from her own vagina? That she made a keg of homebrew, called "Toi Sennhauser's OPBóOriginal Pussy Beer"? Hmm, would you drink it then? Plenty of people were drinking the OPB at Toi's event at Crawl Space Gallery this past Saturday. I'm told that several people even got bonafide drunk. Personally, I'm fascinated by Toi's claim that WOMEN invented beer, way back around 4000 B.C.

Somewhere between 7,000 to 4,000 B.C., in Mesopotamia, in the Kingdom of Sumeria, women invented beer. Early agriculture in the "fertile crescent" was centered around grains. Those grains, pregnant with possibility, became bread and, eventually, beer. Sumerian women were both the first brewers and the first gods of beer. By adding a trace amount of my vaginal yeast to regular brewer's yeast, my "Original Pussy Beer" pays homage to beer's ancient creators from "the cradle of civilization." Woman is literally reunited with the beer.

Yeast, because it has been used for millennia, carries a great amount of symbolic weight. As a key ingredient to basic sustenance like bread and beer, yeast is an age-old, familiar and very powerful medium to work with. Food, and our complex relationship with it, is mythical; when we eat and drink, human happiness and sorrow, love and hate, heaven and hell are simultaneously displayed and represented. If beer is food, and food is life itself, then beer too is life itself.

Experimentation with these historic staple foods, in combination with my own body, helps to build a new artistic dimension: understanding through taste. To experience an art piece through taste is a two-pronged experience. The viewer has to make a simple decision - to ingest it or not. From this primal question new questions quickly arise: Is it socially acceptable to drink beer that includes even a trace amount of vaginal yeast? Is it natural? Is it kinky? Can a man drinking this beer still be macho? Why does it make such a difference when it comes to the human body?

It is these questions about society's ever-increasing disconnect with the human body that I try to expose and learn about by feeding the viewer. By sharing my art in this way, I share my body and mind, inviting the viewer to have a conversation on a genuinely intimate level. Essence meets essence. The participants begin to understand me and I them.

Humanity was built on beer and conversation. Please enjoy both.

PROST! -Toi Sennhauser

Toi Sennhauser was born in Thailand in 1977 and raised in Thailand and Austria. She moved to the United States in 1997 where she attended the University of Washington, finishing with a BFA in sculpture. She currently resides in Seattle with her husband. Her future plans include an MFA for sculpture and becoming a kick-ass culinary chef.



i've known people to brew their own beer, but I had no idea this could be done. I understand the fermentation process and how yeast is introduced in the mix. Yet I wonder how vaginal yeast would affect the fermentation rate.

Whatever. I'm not drinking that shit. I bet that CCB makes a bitter brew.

[ellencho]

Firstly, I am not a fan of performance art. It's normally a really disturbed person's pathetic cry for attention.

Secondly, I think to isolate vaginal yeast she'd need to take a swab from her crotch and streak it across some sort of nutritious solid media. Then as the colonies grow she could look specifically for yeast, and then double check under a microscope to be sure it's yeast. Then once it has been confirmed that what she has grown is yeast she can keep growing over time as long as she likes.

[King_Kai]

off topic: she's kinda hot

on topic: meh, I'd try one

[kimtae]

I thought this thread was going to be about lite beers.

[cattygurl]

Well, beer and fermented beverage can be made from fluids. There's the african milk beer (which is fermented with spit) and south american corn beer (also mde with spit) to name a few and other native/traditional beers that are made from bodily fluids, most commonly spit.

Beer brewing has been going on long, long before sanitation or science was even a concept. Many of the famed breweries in Europe still ferment via open caskets- they use the natural yeast in the air that is in the environment.
The key is to build an environemtn that promotes yeast growth so that the yeast will overcrowd and discourage bacteria and other non-desirables.

I haven't brewed in a while, but I used to brew somewhat regularly, and often assist my friends that were brewers.

[vsoy]

From what I understand, the yeast variety used in beer (Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces uvarum) is a completely different kind of yeast found in a woman's vaginal flora (Candida albicans).

C. albicans is probably just as good as fermenting sugars but I really doubt it is going to taste the same as a six pack from the store. But I'm no brewmaster so how much of an effect yeast strains have on beer taste. In all likely hood, she got lucky with "wild" yeast floating around in the air which fermented her beer which is how they did it in the old days. Pussy beer- yuck.

[vsoy]

I was wondering if she tried making bread, and lo and behold:


Seattle isn't the only place with an erotic art festival, but it's one of the few. Detroit has "The Dirty Show." Washington, D.C., has "Unseen Eros V," and Montreal has the "International Festival of Erotic Art." None of them existed before 2000.

To thank the Seattle audience for coming, Toi Sennhauser wanted to feed it, but she says the health department won't let her.

Sennhauser makes edible sculptures. At Thread for Art's Bumbershoot fashion show, she baked adorable little panties sprinkled in sugar.

For the festival, she's baking bread using her own vaginal yeast as starter.

"Served with butter and honey," she explained in an e-mail, (the bread) "addresses the human connection to itself. Women and bread are one: life-giving, nourishing and universal."

Welt sympathizes with Sennhauser's disappointment over the health department veto but says she doesn't think it ruins the project.

"Toi's still going to bake the bread and have it on hand, but she's not going to serve it," she said. "It's still a good artwork. Yeast is natural, healthy and ever-present."


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/220158_sexart15.html

I'm pretty sure no one wants to have Thanksgiving at her house. Ewww. What next? Cheese?

[Dialectic]

Wow, she's really down with her own yeast. I don't think the blonde works with her too well in that shot, but otherwise I gots the same comments as Kai and Kimtae. I'd try one, not because of the yeast, but because it's beer.

[Taliesin Stormheller]

Yo that is so NASTY

[cattygurl]

From what I understand, the yeast variety used in beer (Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces uvarum) is a completely different kind of yeast found in a woman's vaginal flora (Candida albicans).

C. albicans is probably just as good as fermenting sugars but I really doubt it is going to taste the same as a six pack from the store. But I'm no brewmaster so how much of an effect yeast strains have on beer taste. In all likely hood, she got lucky with "wild" yeast floating around in the air which fermented her beer which is how they did it in the old days. Pussy beer- yuck.

There are actually hundreds of different strains of yeast used in beer brewing, with each one having a signature flavor. With open-cask brews like the Belgian Lambic, it's quite challenging to brew outside of the region unless you have access to the specific strain of yeast, and even then, the results will not be as authentic. Different styles/regions have their own yeast and to make beer that resembles them, you have to purchase the right strain of yeast. Without it, you can still use other yeasts to make beer, it just won't taste like the type of beer you're trying to create.

Most homebrews don't taste like beers you find on the market, anyway.
Most of the beers brewed in the domestic US breweries are lighter-flavour beers in the lager/pilsner variety. The result of Toi's pussy beer may not follow the standards of any type of beer, but I'm sure if she found the right hops/malt combo, the flavour could be OK.

As for her bking bread, that' kind of interesting. Certain bakeries in Europe refuse to buy yeast- they "grow" their own yeast, which has been going on for centuries. Some bakeries are so paranoid of their "specific" yeast getting stolen that they lock the thing up in a valut every night, and only certain personnel are allowed to handle it. Considering that the one bakery in France have had their yeast strains going back to the 15th century, who knows *how* the yeast originally came about, considering the unsanitary conditions back then. YUK!

[KeJia Sista]

She'd have to have a serious case of candidiasis. Men can get it too. I started to post a pic of the male version but you'd never want to drink beer again.

Ke Jia

[MATHABA]

I'm impressed by the amount of beer knowledge on this forum. I was a brewer for a little while, once upon a time. The place I worked at was a small setup, only about 33bbl. But it was operated entirely by only two people, myself and another guy. Working for small breweries doesn't pay as much $ but there's other rewards. You have a lot more freedom to be creative and you basically get all the free beer you want.
New Belgium brewery in Colorado is supposed to be a good one to work for because of all their employee benefits. I also heard that Full Sail brewing, somewhere in the pacific northwest, is employee-owned. I've considered going to work for one of the large breweries (bud, miller, etc.) because they pay more but I think they require some kind of degree from a brewing school and it would be extremely dull, tedious work. I also hate those companies and wouldn't feel right working for them.

[cattygurl]

New Belgium ROCKS. They are one helluva cool company- in terms of employee bennies and commitment to ethical business practices. One of my friends is a sales rep for so cal for New Belgium. I want her job.

[Hater Depot]

Dammit. I had this idea years ago, only I was going to hire Jennifer Lopez.