The Myths, Legends, and Hype of Beer
It comes as no surprise, given beer's long history, that an endless sea of myths and legends swarm around it. Here are some commonly told tall tales. If you believed any of them, don't fret! You are not the only one to fall victim to the misinformation.
Dark Beer, Strong Beer?
Name the darkest beer you find in many bars. Guinness, right? Now name the least alcoholic beer in that same bar. Bud? Bud Light? Nope, Guinness! Shock your friends when you reveal that the “dark, thick stuff” is a mild kitten. Conversely, some of the world's strongest beers are the color of newly minted gold.
Color comes from the brewer's choice of grains and doesn't indicate the relative strength of the beer. How else do you think an old Irishman stands at the pub all day drinking pints?
Cold to Warm to Cold Disaster?
No doubt, you've heard a friend dismiss an offer of leftover beer, because it was cold and then warmed up again. The reheating cycle isn't as bad for beer as people think. You don't want to store beer at sweltering summertime temperatures, but the average bottle will do just fine moving between the fridge and the warmth.
Imported Beer Is Supposed to Smell That Way!
“Skunking” a beer requires large doses of ultraviolet light and hops. The light energy strikes dissolved compounds from the hops. The molecule is cleaved into two chemicals. One reacts with other chemicals and creates 3-methyl crotyl mercaptan, the same chemical sprayed by odorous skunks.
The average consumer experiences this flavor drinking green-, blue, and clear-bottled beers. The reaction is so sensitive that the bright fluorescent lights of a beer fridge can trigger it. Now you know what that “imported taste” really is. One major domestic brewer avoids the problem by using light-stabilized hop extracts in their clear-bottled beer.
Label Confusion — Malt Liquor/Bock/Ale/Porter/Beer
Ever been confused by the terms you see on labels? Why do some lagers get labeled “ale”? Or even worse, why is a hefeweizen labeled “malt liquor”? Blame outmoded classification systems in states like Texas, with labels based solely on alcohol content. In Texas, beer is a malt beverage less than 4 percent alcohol by weight (ABW). Conversely ale and malt liquors contain more than 4 percent ABW.
Malt liquors are strong American lagers, ranging between 6 and 9 percent ABV. They contain a vast quantity of cheap adjuncts (corn, rice, corn syrup, sugar) and are fermented rapidly. They're cheap, potent, and punishing with their headache-inducing fusel alcohols.
An old joke about American beer and canoes implies all are weak. Even before microbreweries, most American beer was stronger than British beer and equivalent in alcohol to German and Czech beers. Today, Boston Beer Company holds the record for strongest beer with their 25-percent ABV Utopias.
Bock — Gunky Beer
Did your mom tell you the story of bock beer as told to her by her father? Every spring the breweries empty their tanks and scrap them clean. The brewers concoct a thick sweet beer called bock from the gunk.
In the post-Prohibition era, breweries did promote bock to celebrate winter's end and the Easter holiday, but that's the only nibblet of truth. Bock beers are sweet, malty traditional German lagers. Brewing requires constant cleaning; tanks aren't left with syrupy sludge. Spoetzl Brewery's Shiner Bock is a remnant of this Americanized tradition.
