And still more beer mythology:
Myth #11 – Fruit Beers Are “Girly Beers”
Get it straight: Hops only started being used in brewing about 1,000 to 1,200 years ago. Up until then, for at least five millennia, beer was flavoured with a wide variety of spices, herbs and, yes, fruits. In fact, archeological research has shown that King Tut drank fruit beer, and he was one dude you could hardly consider “girly.”
Myth #12 – Ales Are Necessarily Better Than Lagers
This common though misguided beer aficionado myth stems largely from the fact that most major brewery brands are lagers, and the vast majority of those lie low on the flavour meter. But as many excellent lager brewers show, cold-fermented beers like Ontario’s King Pilsner, Live Oak Pilz from Texas and the classic Budweiser Budvar from the Czech Republic, sold in North America as Czechvar, can be every bit as flavourful, complex and rewarding as any ale.
Myth #13 – Canadian Beer is Stronger Than American Beer
A popular perception from the bad old days of major brewery domination, this one stemmed from the fact that, until recently, American breweries measured their alcohol contents by weight while Canadians used volume measures. Since 4% alcohol by weight is equal to 5% by volume, north-of-the-border brews were thought to be more potent than their southern cousins. Today, with 1,400 breweries in the States and another couple of hundred in Canada, this shouldn’t even be remotely considered as valid.
Myth #14 – German Wheat Beers Are Flavoured With Bananas and Cloves
The Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, called the Reinheitsgebot, mandates that beer be made from only malted grain, hops and water, with yeast as a given. So no, there are no fruits or spices in the Bavarian style of wheat beer variously known as hefeweizen, weissbier or hefeweissbier. What causes the banana and clove flavours and aromas normally associated with these brews are the particular yeasts used to ferment them.
Myth #15 – Beer and Fine Dining Don’t Mix
With its wealth of flavours and finely nuanced characters, the world of beer has a style to pair with any food, from the commonplace to the extravagant. (See Myth #9 for more on this.) The reason we tend to place wine at the table rather than beer is because that’s what the French do, and the western world learned much of what it knows about fine dining from the French.
here is another interesting myth. The darker a beer, the more alcohol it contains. It’s true that a dark beer can look mysterious and more intoxicating than a lighter one, but there’s absolutely no truth to this. The color of a beer has nothing to do with how much alcohol it contains, and anyone bragging (or preaching) about the color of theirs is only fooling themselves.