The second line reminds me of something Fritz Maytag once wrote (in the foreword to Jack Erickson’s “California Brewin’”): “It takes a lot of freedom to make good beer.”

Doesn’t bring you any closer to the original author of your aphorism, of course, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

I saw some blogs that attribute it to David Auerbach and some attribute it to Benjamin Franklin. Still searching….

Ah, but which David Auerbach? A quick search shows a Hollywood cameraman, an actor, a professor of philosophy, three lawyers, two doctors, and a performance artist. And that’s just on the first page.

http://www.foodreference.com/html/qbacteria.html has the quote has ‘”In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.” - David Auerbach, 2002′, but no further information as to where that appeared.

Heh, so much for that.

A quick search of Usenet archives shows a person named Wayne Lutz using it in his signature in 1996. He lists it thus:

“In beer there is strength,
In wine is wisdom,
In water is bacteria.” - Olde German saying.
(Or something an old German said; I’m not
sure which.)

Of course, every collection of German proverbs I’ve looked at doesn’t have it.

Another version I found:

“Wine has body, Beer has strength, Water has bacteria”

I saw this attributed to Ben Franklin on an email signature which is how I wound up here looking for an answer. The reason being is I am not sure (just started looking mind you) if ole Ben would have known about bacteria, when were they discovered?

Glad I wound up here too, ’cause I’m a brewer.

Bacteria where first discovered as I learned by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, dutch. In 1676 he found them in a pepperdrip.

True, true. But the connection between those microorganisms and disease, not to mention the word “bacterium”, didn’t come about until after Franklin’s death.