The ancient Babylonians were making more than a dozen different varieties of beer from various grains and honey in 4000 B.C.

Beer is defined as a staple food in Bavaria.

The Czechs know a thing or two about beer -- the Czech Republic has the largest beer consumption per capita in the world. They consume at a level that is almost double the yearly consumption level of the United States.

The people at Guinness, Ireland’s most famous brewery, estimate that in Great Britain alone, 92,749 litres of beer each year are lost in beer drinker’s moustaches and beards. They estimate that each pint (approx. ½ l) is raised 10 times, and each time, 0.56 ml is absorbed into the facial hair.

Beer was the first legal alcoholic beverage to be sold when prohibition was repealed. Beer was legal on April 7, 1933, but other alcoholic beverages could not be legally purchased until December 5, 1933.

California has more breweries in the U.S. than any other state (279 brewing companies in California in 2007).

A "rule of thumb" means a rough or guesswork estimate, based more upon experience than on precise measurement.There are two theories about the origin of this expression. One theory is that it comes from the frequent use of the lower part of the thumb (roughly equal to one inch in the average adult male) as a crude measuring device. However, some authorities trace the phrase to a practice once common among brewmasters. In the days when beer was truly beer, not the pasteurized soft drink that passes for beer today, the chief brewer sometimes tested the temperature of a batch of brew by dipping in his thumb. This technique was neither so accurate nor so hygienic as a thermometer check would be, but based on the brewmaster's long experience, this 'rule of thumb' would tell him how well the brewing was proceeding." From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988). Page 500-501.

Molson, Inc. is the oldest brewery in North America.

The first consumer protection law ever written was enacted over beer by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in 1516. It was a purity law limiting the ingredients of beer to barley, hops and water.