USELESS FACTS ABOUT BEER......

• Despite the month implied by its name, Munich's annual 16-day Oktoberfest actually begins in mid-September and ends on the first Sunday in Oct.
• The familiar Bass symbol, a red triangle, was registered in 1876 and is the world's oldest trademark.
• In their efforts to regulate beer quality, the ancient Babylonians, who were among history's earliest brewers, decreed that any commercial beermaker who sold unfit beer would be drowned in his/her own libation.
• On Oct. 17, 1814, a rupture in a brewery tank containing 3,500 barrels of beer caused a flood of fatal proportions in the London parish of St. Giles.  The wave of beer swept victims off their feet, dashed them against walls, and buried them under debris.  Two houses were demolished in the sea of beer suddenly loosed upon the town, and nine people lost their lives in the flood of suds.
• It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink.  Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month", or what we know today as the "honeymoon".
• According to a diary entry from a passenger on the Mayflower, the pilgims made their landing at Plymouth Rock rather than continue to their destination in Virginia due to lack of beer.
• In English pubs, ale is ordered  by pints and quarts.  So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down.  It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's.
• A beer is NOT just a beer.  All told, there are 27 different styles of beer, with a further breakdown of 49 substyles.           

Useless Beer Facts compiled by Mark Oddo. Thank you Mark!