by John Mizer
October 17, 2005

Did you ever notice when watching a movie or television show where there's a bar scene, one of the characters will order " a couple of beers". Who says that really? It's as if they're ordering a beer for the very first time. We all know what we like but in some cases we've been misinformed along the way. The beer industry comes complete with its own set of wives' tales to examine. Shall we?

"DARK BEER CONTAINS MORE ALCOHOL"
The color of the beer is completely irrelevant to the alcohol content. Simply put, the darker the barley malt used, the darker the beer will be.

"BOCK BEER IS FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL"
Now we're being silly. Bock is a style of lager originally brewed by monks for sustinance purposes. Brewing tanks or barrels must be kept antiseptic for fermentation and although some ingredients such as yeast may be reused for the next brew, the other ingredients are essentially spent and can be used as cattle feed, food additives, etc.

"DRAFT BEER GIVES ME A HEADACHE"
This topic is a bit more cloudy and certainly debatable. Draft beer is the same as bottled or canned beer with the exception of it not being pasteurized. Pasteurization is done to keep the product stable at room temperature. Provided your tap lines are clean and your kegs are kept cold, your draft beer should be fine. What often seems to happen is that consumers can lose track of what they've imbibed. For instance, it you've just had two tall ones at the local happy hour, in actuality, you've had closer to three or four brews.

Something else that's easy to overlook is the alcohol content of each beer. In some countries or states, brewers are required to post the alochol content, either by weigh or by volume. This is important due to the fact that an 8% abv beer has approximately twice the alcohol than a typical light beer which will render its effect before we see it coming. Now go out there and have fun!