In a previous article we started a discussion of some of the things you can learn about beer. We covered some of the basics. But beer goes way beyond basics. Maybe that's why over 100,000 people each month do Internet search engine lookups on beer. Ready for some more things you can learn about beer? Great! Let's begin! Everybody talks about ABV or alcohol by volume. Every beer drinker should know his ABV or he's going to be in a lot of trouble if he wants to keep from getting too sloshed out of his mind. ABV simply means what portion of the total amount of liquid in the bottle of beer is alcohol. Why is this important? Very simple. The more alcohol by volume, the more actual alcohol that you're drinking. That's why you can drink three bottles of one beer with an alcohol by volume of say 9% and feel nothing, while at the same time drink only two bottles of a beer with an alcohol by volume of 20% and get rip roaring drunk. It's not the number of bottles of beer. It's how much alcohol is in each one. What about freshness? Did you know that beer can go stale? Sure can. Well, no need to worry because you can also learn how to tell the freshness of your beer and how to keep your beer fresh. These tips include things like buying your beer right from the cooler to begin with, checking the freshness or package date, checking for dust (sure sign of stale beer), not buying beer that's stored in direct light and not buying beer that is on sale. Sale beer is stale beer. You can even learn proper etiquette on tipping for a bottle or glass of beer when at a bar. After all, you tip your waitress when you order food, so why not tip your bartender when ordering a beer. You should always keep some spare change in your pocket for doing this. Even if your bottle of beer is only a couple of bucks, throw the bartender two bits. You'll feel much better for it. What about home brewing? Well, believe it or not, if you look hard enough, you can actually find articles on how to brew your own beer, from picking the ingredients to how to mix them to the type of equipment you'll need. There's a lot to learn about brewing your own beer. Just make sure you check with the local laws to ensure that you're not in violation of any town ordinances. And if all that isn't enough, there is always the history of beer itself. You can learn when the first beer was made, when the first major manufacturer of beer came to be and who it was. You can even learn about the history of every company that ever sold beer on this planet. It's enough reading to keep you busy for years. Oh and in case you're wondering, the first beer brewed in the United States was brewed by the colonists in Virginia in 1587. See, there's a lot you can learn about beer besides how to burp after a good swig of it. |
