Always room for more beer education

North Carolina brewery owner Uli Benowitz once asked Brickskeller host Bob Tupper what he should talk about at the tasting that evening in Washington, D.C. "I've already told all my stories," he said.

That was 1992.

Almost 25 17 years later, it's a bigger and different good beer landscape. There are new stories to be told, his and ours.

But old stories do have to be repeated, and repeated again. Not only for amusement, but because there's always room for more beer education. Take, for example, these three beer whoppers that I recently overheard in bars.

• IPAs (India PALE Ales) are very dark beers, just like stouts.


• This beer was brewed with dexatrim malt. (That might give a whole new meaning to 'lite' —or would that be 'diet'— beer. What was meant was 'dextrine malt,' a type of malted barley that adds body to beer.)


• (And this outrageous comment I overheard only last evening.) During World War II, the Nazis stole the recipe for Budweiser from the Czechs and sold it to Anheuser-Busch. (Hmmm. Wouldn't that make A-B collaborators and fools? And Czech pilsners watery like North American Light Lagers?)

By the way, have you heard the one about the man who walked into a bar and ...

• If you're in North Carolina and you happen to run into Mr. Benowitz, ask him to tell you his stories about the early days of craft beer: the alcohol revenue agents, and the painted yellow 'bonded' line, and the fermenters on wheels.
• Also, there's room for remedial arithmetic. 2,009 - 1,992 = 17 years, not 25.