Evan Rail, beer author and journalist in the Czech Republic, recently shared some Czech beer expressions.
…[M]ost Czech beer expressions — usually in the form of rhyming two-liners — are unknown outside of the country. Nearly every pub here is decorated with the traditional brewer’s greeting, Dej Bůh štěstí, or “God give happiness.” But there are many more…
Some of these are pure poetry. My favorite:
Teprve pivo udělá žízeň krásnou.
Only with beer does thirst become beautiful.
I like to “collect” aphorisms. Call me kooky.
One that has been rattling around in my head lately is the following:
In wine there is wisdom.
In beer there is freedom.
In water there is bacteria.
Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find a reliable source. Google searches show most people are attributing it to Ben Franklin, which can’t possibly be correct.* (Of course, he didn’t say “beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” either.)
So, where is it really from? The first line could be a bastardization of the Latin proverb “in vino veritas” (“in wine, truth”). But what about the rest?
While the quote stands on its own, I’d really like to know who first said it. Or will it be added to the long list of wisdom from that great philosopher, Anon.?
Anybody have a good source?
* While microorganisms were observed as early as the late 1600s, the word “bacterium” wasn’t introduced until 1828, and Pasteur didn’t present his germ theory of disease until the 1860s. Franklin died in 1788.
