A former physics major, a biochemistry student, and a chemistry professor are teaming up to brew the world’s spiciest beer. Ray Parrish ’91, co-owner of Maltese Brewing Company, was obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records as a kid, so he decided to look up the world record for spiciest beer. When he found none, he contacted Guinness about establishing one. Parrish asked UMW for help and connected with Sarah Smith ’12, UMW visiting assistant professor of chemistry. Smith thought biochemistry student Valerie Ebenki ’22 might be willing to join in the pursuit of record-breaking beer. The UMW-centric trio set out to determine the heat content of Maltese’s Signal One 2.0, a pineapple IPA infused with 500 Carolina Reaper chilies, the world’s hottest pepper. Smith and Ebenki are using the Scoville heat index, which calculates chili spiciness, to determine the concentration of heat-making chemicals in the brew. They’re working in the Jepson Science Center labs, Ebenki said, using … [Read more...]
On Campus
Eagles Tennis Teams Excel All Season
It was a great spring for Eagles tennis, with the women’s team winning the Coast to Coast (C2C) Athletic Conference tournament held May 6-8, 2021, and both men’s and women’s teams ranking in the Top 20 all season long. The C2C is the successor to the Capital Athletic Conference, in which Mary Washington had competed since 1989. The name change became official in late 2020. With the Eagles women’s C2C win, they advanced to the NCAA Division III tournament for the 22nd straight season. They advanced to the quarterfinals but did not continue to the semifinals. Individually, women’s standouts Abby Moghtader ’23 and Claire Coleman ’22 received NCAA tournament singles bids, and Moghtader and Lauren Quinn ’22 were to compete in doubles. The NCAA singles and doubles tournaments were to be held after press time. Moghtader also was named the C2C women’s tennis athlete of the year; head coach Todd Helbling took top coaching honors. Eagles men also scorched through their regular tennis … [Read more...]