
| Bottle Cap Bust |
| Old Beer |
| The federal government has said no to Weed beer, or at least to the bottle caps of beer brewed at a popular local brewery in the town of Weed, CA. Brewer Vaune Dillmann faces possible sanctions or fines from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau if he continues to brew and sell beer with bottle caps printed with the label “Try Legal Weed". Bureau spokesman Art Resnick said that the bottle caps tell consumers to support an illegal drug -- a policy that violates rules of the Bureau. Dillmann, says his bottle caps both promote his beers and the community in which he brews them. After all, he said, the labels on his beers have a picture of the Weed arch and the city's founding father, Abner Weed, on the label. Dillmann's bottle caps also say a “A Friend in Weed is a Friend Indeed.” He went on to say that he's also outraged that his beer is being singled out for using a possible pot play on words when Anheuser-Busch has used “Bud” -- another name for marijuana -- to promote its Budweiser line of beers. Dillmann, with support from the town's mayor, is appealing the Bureau's decision. |
| The Chinese brewed beer called 'Kui' some 5,000 years ago. In Mesopotamia, a 4,000 year-old clay tablet indicates that brewing was a highly respected profession - and the master brewers were women. In ancient Babylon, the women brewers were also priestesses. The goddesses Siris and Nimkasi were patronesses of beer, and certain types of beer were reserved exclusively for temple ceremonies. In 2,100 BC Hammuabi, the 6th King of Babylonia, included provisions regulating the business of tavern keepers in his great law code. These provisions covered the sale of beer and were designed to protect the consumer. The punishment of short measure by an innkeeper was drowning, which was an effective way to prevent any repetition of the offence! An ancient tablet now in New York's Metropolitan Museum lists Babylonian beers as: dark beer, pale beer, red beer, three fold beer, beer with a head, without a head etc. It also records that beer was sipped through a straw - in the case of royalty a golden straw, long enough to reach from the throne to a large container of beer kept nearby. |
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