Hop Talk

One of the things I am known for among my family and friends is the great amount of useless ephemera my mind has collected over the years. It’s translated into great success at Trivial Pursuit® (just don’t ask what makes popcorn pop) and playing along with Jeopardy!® at home.

So when my wife gave me a deck of “Knowledge Cards” entitled What’s On Tap? by Jeff Burkhart, it was a perfect blending of two aspects of my personality.

This is a deck of 48 cards, each with a beer related question on one side, and the answer on the other. The answers are not simple one-liners, but usually a couple of paragraphs explaining the answer. As such, they probably don’t lend themselves to simple quizzes at a party, unless the players are hardcore beer geeks, but can be an interesting way to test your beer knowledge. An example:

What are bock and double bock?
In the early fourteenth century, Bavarian brewers began producing a type of lager in the town of Einbeck. The beer was quite strong, and drinking it was liked to being “kicked by a goat.” This symbolism carries over the present day: the labels on bock beers often include goats. Current German law requires that this beer contain 6.6 percent alcohol and be made only from malted barley. Prior to the invention of refrigeration, bock (as well as other lagers) was strictly a seasonal beer, limited to cold-month production and usually available around Christmas. In the late 1700s, some pesky Pauline monks decided that regular bock wasn’t strong enough and began brewing even more potent bocks. Called double bocks—doppel in German—they aren’t actually twice as strong as regular bock but can approach 7 percent alcohol. Many double bocks have ominous-sounding names, such as Animator, Optimator, and Triumphator.

Even the geekiest among us should learn at least a few things from this deck. At around $10, it would also make a great gift for the kids to give to Dad. That and a six-pack and you’ll make his day.