Beer 101

I've missed school a lot, but we found an unlikely outlet: beer class. No, you're not hallucinating. I said beer class.

Beer school is at the Greenville Growler Station, which we visit every Thursday night for a free tasting and a growler fill-up. It's a lot of fun because Big Jon knows more about beer than most people know about ANYthing, so you can be assured you'll get a really good description of whatever you're thinking of buying. He won't let you walk away with anything bad. We LOVE the Growler Station. If you're a Greenvillian, please go check them out. They're good people, and they dispense beer. What more could you ask for?

So when they announced they were having beer class for three one-hour sessions in August...well, we were hooked. And last night was our first class. We covered the brew process and the history of beer. It was a LOT of information at one time, especially when you considered we sampled (and by sample, I mean had nearly half a glass each) of FIVE different beers. Despite the buzz, we learned a lot. My B made fun of me because I took two very full pages of notes, but hey - once a student, always a student. Here are some of the fun facts we learned...

• Saying that a beer is special because it's triple-hopped is a myth. ALL beers are triple-hopped.
• Hops are actually a flower, and their closest plant relative is marijuana.
• Anthropologists believe man became an agricultural society (versus nomadic) because of beer. The first recorded crops were barley, which don't produce good food....but they sure do produce good beer!
• The first known beer recipe was actually a Sumerian hymn to beer.
• According to the Code of Hammurabi, the penalty for overcharging for beer was drowning (kind of wish we could institute a similar punishment on bars that think too highly of themselves these days...)
• Beer used to be a critical food and nutrient source, a source of clean water, and currency. Basically, beer is awesome.
  
• Here's one I like - back in medieval times, women used to run households, cook, and brew beer. According to medieval law, the brewing vessels always belonged to the WIFE. Back in the day the husband basically owned everything (including the wife herself), but he didn't own the brewing vessel. Makes me feel a little better about my impending nuptials (just kidding).
  
• Louis Pasteur didn't just give us penicillin. It was his work in microbiology that taught us how to keep beer from going bad. Perhaps if I'd known that I might've paid more attention in AP Biology...
  

I won't spill any more fun secrets for any of you who are going to September's beer class, but I'll tell you that so far it's definitely worth it. We met some nice new people, we tried some delicious new beers (and one of my classic old favorites, Lindeman's Framboise Lambic), and generally had a good time. Three cheers for beer class with my new fiance!