THE NEWLY RELEASED “Ambitious Brew,” by Maureen Ogle (Harcourt, $25), calls itself the “first-ever history of American beer.” It may be the first, but – because America was making beer 200 years before this book opens – I wouldn’t call it complete.

The Pilgrims brought ale with them to Plymouth Rock. The colonies’ first retail businesses were taverns, and the earliest manufacturers processed malt, glass and barrels for beer. The Declaration of Independence was written over mugs of ale, and the nation’s first giant beer-maker, Engel & Wolf, made its home along the banks of the Schuylkill in a neighborhood that would eventually be called Brewerytown.

But this otherwise colorful tale skips over all that and more. It almost completely ignores the East Coast and begins on a summer day in 1844 when Phillip Best – the father of what would become Pabst Brewing – began work on his brewery in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee and beer. It’s like saying Bill Gates invented the PC.

It’s a telling misstep in an expansive, well-written history, and not just because the author shrugs off two centuries of early American brewing by claiming that before Milwaukee, “beer had all the allure of an aging maiden aunt.” It’s a statement that conveniently ignores, among other things, the worldwide fame of Philadelphia’s porter and its renowned maker, Robert Smith.

Moreover, Ogle blithely rejects our city’s well-documented claim as the birthplace of American lager in 1840, crediting that landmark achievement to some little-known brewery in Alexandria, Va., of all places.

But these are the quibbles of a homeboy traditionalist.

What’s worse is that by starting this history in Milwaukee, where American industrial lager indeed got its start, the book plays right into the hands of the very corporate henchmen whose hunger for profit obliterated full-flavored beer and left us today with some vapid fluid known as Michelob Ultra.

Not that these men don’t deserve recognition. Best, Adolphus Busch, Frederick Pabst, Valentin Blatz, Joseph Schlitz, Adam Lemp – these are giants whose stories of success were earmarks of 19th-century America as a land of opportunity. In just 50 years, they took a vacant landscape and created an entire industry, built on nothing more than clean, light, crisp-tasting lager.

As Ogle illustrates, it was these driven German immigrants, not Henry Ford, who deserve credit for the first factory assembly lines, not to mention the development of nationwide distribution networks, TV advertising and branding.

Especially revealing are the exceptional letters of the Pabst family, wherein the patriarch’s obsession with quality and growth turns a small, 10,000-barrel-a-year business into a 347,000-barrel behemoth in little over a decade. Pabst prospered, she quotes from one letter, because he “knew more about the details” of his company “than any other [brewer] in the business.” That, and because he had a mammoth ego: His own partner accused him of a “false ambition to be the greatest brewer in the land.”

Similarly, Ogle paints Busch in St. Louis as the consummate salesman. “Anyone who met him walked away with a penknife or deck of cards, a corkscrew or bottle opener, each decorated with the company’s trademark eagle.” Saloons everywhere were decorated with framed lithographs from the brewery, including a gruesome depiction of Custer’s Last Stand.

And he was quick to take his competitors to court. Ogle uncovered damning, laughable testimony from Frederick Miller in an 1893 trial in which Busch accused him of bottling beer with a Budweiser label. At one point Miller admits, “I am no brewer,” a quote A-B should use in its next ad campaign.

As much as Ogle dwells on the titans’ accomplishments, she skims over the corporate greed that ruined their competitors.

She quotes without judgment from an 1889 letter from Busch to Pabst suggesting that price wars were hurting the competitors and that they ought to be “working in harmony.” Busch wrote, “Now a perfect understanding between your good self, Schlitz, Lemp and myself ought to be reached [and] matters regulated… we could easily fix and hold” prices.

Missing is any acknowledgment that Congress – spurred by public outrage over exactly these kinds of robber baron practices – outlawed price-fixing the very next year in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Likewise, Ogle writes approvingly of Busch’s development in the 1870s of Budweiser (a style and name he hijacked from Bohemia’s early pilsner brewers), defending A-B’s use of nontraditional rice and corn adjuncts that lightened the lager’s body.

But a century later, when those very adjuncts would be used to further lighten the beers and cut production costs, she hesitates to blame brewers for “reducing once fine lagers to little more than yellow water.”

Instead, it was America’s fault. Postwar drinkers wanted bland, “pale, dry, less filling” and the big brewers, Ogle says, merely complied.

In fact, Milwaukee got old and lazy, and it never reacted to the next great stage in brewing, craft beers. Which, by the way, took their cues from the true beginnings of American beer: the full-flavored ales that were brewed right here in Philadelphia so many years ago.

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UNLESS YOU happened to live in Berks County 30 or more years ago, Reading Beer might never have crossed your path. But you probably tasted something like it, because it was your basic, low-priced American lager, not unlike the hometown brew in Norristown, Rochester, Allentown or 100 other Rust Belt cities.

Like so many other local brands, it got bought up by a conglomerate before, inevitably, it was put out of its misery.

You know the rest of the story: More and more regional breweries died off; beer choices dwindled; disgusted home brewers began making their own more flavorful styles; the microbrewing industry was born and now, in 2006, they’re making $20 bottles of lager flavored with chocolate and cranberries.

Either we’ve come full circle or one of those new-aged microbreweries – a company called Legacy Beer Co. in, yep, Reading, Pa. – has come up with the sudsiest new idea since the flip-top can.

This month, the company will begin brewing Reading Beer for the first time in its hometown since Gerald Ford was president.

This won’t be a high-priced remake of a classic lager, either. The company will use lower-cost ingredients to produce kegs about the same price as Bud. Initially, it’ll be sold only on draft in taverns around Reading, but if it takes off, there are plans to bottle or can it for wider distribution.

Word of the revival, first reported this week by the Reading Eagle, has the town buzzing. The newspaper and the brewery began getting calls for the beer weeks before the first glass will be poured.

“There’s a big group of people in Reading who really do miss this brand,” said Scott Baver, Legacy’s brewer and co-owner. “You wouldn’t believe the number of bars in this town that are still packed with memorabilia from Reading Beer. Some of these places, you’d think it was the old brewery’s own tasting room.

“People have never let go of Reading Beer.”

The resurrection of the old label points to a peculiar phenomenon in the slick, heavily branded world of 21st-century consumerism. Namely, the urge – even in the face of so many dazzling choices – to savor a dusty, forgotten name.

It happened a few years ago with Pabst Blue Ribbon, a pre-Prohibition lager that nearly disappeared after the owner shut down its Milwaukee brewery. The beer is unremarkable – truly no different from, say, Rolling Rock. Yet it thrives, especially in the tattooed bike-messenger tribe, without an ounce of national advertising.

Similarly, investors have tried to revive New York’s Rheingold Beer, complete with the famous Miss Rheingold.

Christopher B. O’Hara, author of “Great American Beer: 50 Brands that Shaped the 20th Century” (Clarkson Potter, $16.95), said young beer drinkers may be drawn to old-line brands because “there’s something pretty cool about something that doesn’t change much over 150 years.”

“After being socked in the head a million times by the Bud lizards and the Coors half-naked ski bikini team,” O’Hara told me in an e-mail exchange, “they may well unconsciously reach for their dad’s value brand out of instinct – the sheer, gut reaction to embrace something authentic and express their individuality… Even if you never really could stand your old man, there is something mighty comforting in cracking open a can of Rheingold in the garage, just like Dad did.”

Boutique beer backlash

This retro movement is a bit of a challenge for craft brewers whose entire business model is based on the proposition that beer made with 100 percent barley malt and bales of aromatic hops is better than the lower-priced factory stuff. Now they find themselves rejected not because their product is too expensive, but because it’s too trendy.

Baver knows he’s walking a fine line with Reading Beer.

Legacy Brewing is one of those precious micros, producing a handful of excellent brews, including a Belgian-style white beer (Midnight Wit) and a highly hopped red ale with a somewhat lascivious label (Hedonism).

Now he’s going to start making a beer with corn?

Legacy’s not giving up making better beer. “Never in a million years will this take away attention from the beers of Legacy,” Baver said, explaining that a separate company had been established to brew Reading.

But he does acknowledge he’s giving in to a nagging complaint he’s been hearing for years: “Howcum you guys can’t make a ‘regular’ beer that the average person can drink?”

Baver said, “It drives me crazy. You rack your brains and bang your head against the wall, trying to educate [beer drinkers] about good beer. Well, you’re never going to educate them. And the ‘regular’ beer drinker is 90 percent of the market. So why not go after them?

“Look, we’re brewers. For me, I just love making beer and being part of the beer industry. But we’re business people, so why not make a product that covers every end of the spectrum?

“If my customer wants it, what am I, an idiot for not doing it?”

Fair enough. But here’s the challenge: For me, it won’t truly be authentic Reading Beer unless I can buy a case of 16-ounce returnables for $4.99.

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Oktoberfest note: Want a taste of those fall favorites? I’ll be hosting an Oktoberfest tasting at the Blue Horse Tavern & Restaurant (602 Skippack, Blue Bell) from 7-9 tonight. Stop by and share a sip. Info: 215-641-9100.

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In 1999, HEATHER Stewart – whose husband, Al, owns Stewart’s Brewing Co. in Bear, Del. – came home from the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, raving about Alaskan Smoked Porter.

This is a rich, dark beer that almost always steals the show at the fest, the largest beer-judging event in the world. Visitors often rush into the festival hall and make a beeline for Alaska Brewing’s booth to make sure they get a taste of the porter before all the kegs kick.

“She fell in love with it,” said Stewart’s brewer, Ric Hoffman, “and she insisted we start making it, too.”

Now smoked porter is a fairly esoteric beer, especially in an era when people not only turn up their nose at smoke, they actually write dopey laws to ban it. But it does have a rich tradition: until the 18th century, malt was typically fire-dried, and the smoke was a natural by-product. (Think whiskey, and how its flavor is enhanced by the smoky peat that fuels the grain-drying kilns.)

In Bamberg, Germany, where fire-drying is still common, it’s called rauchbier.

The suburban strip malls of northern Delaware aren’t exactly teeming with stein-hoisters from Deutschland. And Hoffman works with a small, basic brewing system designed, he said, “so you could show a monkey how to do it.”

But Hoffman was still game. The next summer, he sent off for some Bamberg malt that had been smoked over a beechwood fire, fiddled with his porter recipe and cooked up a batch.

And it was pretty damn good.

It sold slowly, but enough to encourage him to make a second batch. The next year it tasted even better, so he sent it off to the GABF for judging.

Hoffman’s smoked porter won a bronze medal, finishing behind a Kansas brewpub (no gold was issued that year) and astounding beer freaks across the region.

Somehow, a small, unknown brewer working with rudimentary equipment in an anonymous shopping center in the middle of cookie-cutter housing developments had managed to turn out a complex brew that, on that day in 2001, was judged to be one of the best in the world.

It certainly caught my eye and, though it wasn’t till this summer that I finally made good on a promise to visit his brewpub, I sought out Hoffman’s ales at every area festival I attended.

Tasting those beers, it was obvious: The bronze was no fluke.

Which is a roundabout way to report that Stewart’s Smoked Porter did it again. At last weekend’s GABF, Hoffman took yet another bronze for his smoky beer, finishing behind brewpubs in Nevada and Ohio.

Making a good smoked porter is a dicey proposition, Hoffman explained, because you’re never certain how much smoke is in the malt. “Sometimes you can use just a little bit, and the smoke is over the top,” he said. “Other times, you have to pour a whole bag in before you get any smoke.”

“Basically, you have to open the bag, smell it and taste it and adjust your recipe,” Hoffman continued, crediting his assistants John Fiorilli and Eric Boice with helping him on the batch.

Hoffman further tweaked his recipe this year, abandoning his favored Ringwood English ale yeast (used most famously in the old Wild Goose ales) for the cleaner-finishing Chico yeast from Sierra Nevada.

“We’ve kind of learned as we went along,” he said.

Even today, with two GABF medals, the smoked porter is still the slowest-moving house beer at Stewart’s. (That’s good news for those who haven’t tasted it yet. Hurry down to Delaware, and you’ll find it still pouring on tap this week.)

Little guys taking risks to make a better beer – that is the essence of craft brewing in America today. And it’s a tribute to this suburban joint – in the midst of so much pale yellow BudMillerCoors – that it willingly pours a dark beer flavored with smoke.

“I’ve kind of proved myself around here, and I get a lot of freedom,” Hoffman said, explaining why he continues to take risks. “The nice thing is, I can pretty much do anything that comes off my head.”

Or, in this case, from the owner’s wife.

More Winners

Hoffman also won a Dunkel Rico, a dunkel named after the deadbeat uncle in “Napoleon Dynamite.” Here are the other Philly-area GABF medallists:

Gold

• Russian Imperial Stout, Iron Hill, Media: Imperial stout category.

Silver

• Schwarzbier, Rock Bottom, King of Prussia: German-style schwarzbier.
• Tröegenator Double Bock, Tröegs Brewing: Bock.
• Raven, McKenzie Brew House, Glen Mills: Baltic porter.

Bronze

• Bourbon Ivan, Iron Hill, West Chester: Wood- and barrel-aged beer.
• Bengal Gold I.P.A., Triumph Brewing, New Hope: English-style India Pale Ale.
• Berliner Weiss, Bethlehem Brew Works: German-style wheat ale.
• World Wide Stout, Dogfish Head: Aged beer.
• Festina Lente, Dogfish Head: Belgian-style sour ale.

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IN ADDITION TO copious consumption by more than 30,000 visitors, this weekend’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver features the world’s most prestigious tasting competition. In private rooms away from the commotion of the festival floor, more than 100 beer judges will snort, swallow and sort their way through 2,400 entries from 450 domestic breweries.

Tomorrow, in an hours-long ceremony, they’ll issue gold, silver and bronze medals in 69 style categories.

Pale ale, Irish stout, light lager – the classics are there, of course, along with rarities like Baltic-style porter and South German-style Bernsteinfarbenes Weizen.

It’s a daunting judging task, and a tribute to the astounding diversity of American craft beer. As recently as 1987, there were only a dozen style categories.

But with all due respect to the explosive variety, it’s time the judges picked one – just one – grand champion beer.

I don’t care which one it is (as long as it’s not Keystone Light). I just think that, after 25 years, the festival is mature enough to authoritatively decree that X Beer is the Best Beer in America.

Instead, what we get is a mess of medals – more than 200 of them. Each winner is worthy, no doubt, but inflation cheapens their value.

America demands one big winner. We play the World Series and crown one champion, not six division winners. We’ve got one best picture. One Miss America. One Wing Bowl champ.

England, which has been holding the Great British Beer Festival for 30 years, names one winner. The so-called Champion Beer of Britain is widely publicized and reaps all kinds of attention from eager beer drinkers around the world.

In its first few years, the GABF did name a single “consumer preference” winner. The award was abandoned, however, after Samuel Adams Boston Lager scooped up a few in a row, and the losers (rightly) complained about ballot stuffing.

But I’m not talking about a popularity contest. This is a job for those professional judges with serious snoots and perfect palates. Go ahead, hand out all those other medals, but pick just one as the very best.

Charlie Papazian, the Brewers Association president who has overseen the festival since its start 25 years ago, doesn’t like the idea because “it’s the antithesis of the flavor and diversity we’re trying to highlight.”

He has a point. After suffering through 50 years of identical post-Prohibition industrial lagers, Americans are now enjoying a phenomenal variety of flavors. Comparing India pale ales to smoked porters, Papazian said, is apples and oranges.

Then there’s the logistics. After selecting 69 gold medalists, Papazian asked, how do the judges narrow the choices down to just one grand champion?

Well, the logistics aren’t my problem. But I might note that, every weekend across this country there’s another group of judges who face just that task. They sort through a diverse group of styles, hand out medals in each category, then re-judge them all and name a best of show.

They’re dog-show judges.

And last time I checked down at the local doggie park, naming a grand champion didn’t diminish diversity one bit.

Victory at GABF

After 11 years in business, Downingtown’s Victory Brewing is making its first appearance at the GABF. The brewery has entered its Prima Pils, Golden Monkey, Storm King Imperial Stout and HopDevil IPA for judging.

But it’s not the first time co-owners Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet have attended the fest. In 1988, before they established their company, the partners went as beer fans.

That year, the much-smaller festival was held in a downtown Denver hotel, Covaleski remembered. “They were holding two events that weekend,” he said, “the beer festival and a Junior Miss America regional competition… . I don’t know what the event planner was thinking.”

Getting old

Another local brewer, Chris Leonard of Gen. Lafayette Inn & Brewery, had a tough time deciding whether to submit his beers for judging in the GABF’s newest style category: aged beer.

For one thing, no one can be certain of the judges’ criteria, since so many different styles are likely to be entered in the catchall category.

But just as important is the cost. Besides the entry fees, which start at $315, those six rare, 2-year-old barleywine bottles he sent for judging would’ve brought 20 bucks a pop at Leonard’s restaurant.

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A YEAR OR SO ago, the people who run Inn Flight Steak and Seafood Grilles in the northern suburbs decided to shake up their image. The chain had been a successful family restaurant for years, but the owners wanted to attract new, younger customers by re-creating it as a pub.

One of the first things they did was commission Yards Brewing to produce a house beer. Playing off the chain’s classic airplane theme, it would be called Wingwalker Ale. Labels and sixpack carriers were designed, menus were rewritten and bartenders started pouring bottles of this “lively balance of English malt and English hops.”

It’s now the bar’s No. 2 seller among 50 brands, behind Coors Light.

It’s been so popular, later this year Inn Flight plans to change the name of its restaurant in Colmar, Montgomery County, to the Wingwalker Pub.

Funny thing: Inn Flight’s special house beer can be found in any decent area bar. Wingwalker Ale is, in fact, another popular Yards standby, Extra Special Ale. The only difference is the label.

Some might call that a bit of a ruse, except that many of Inn Flight’s patrons already know the truth because bartenders, if asked, tell them. But the success of Wingwalker Ale points to a curious phenomenon: A good-looking label, a quirky back story and an aura of exclusivity attract customers.

“We wanted to introduce our patrons to an old-style English ale,” Inn Flight president Robert Bales said. “They might not normally try it, but there’s a little mystique to the name, so people are curious and they might say, ‘Gee, I’ll give it a taste.’ ”

It’s a phenomenon that bar owners throughout the region have already discovered.

At London Grill in Fairmount, one of the most popular drafts is Willie Sutton Lager, named after the famous escape artist who was once housed at the prison across the street. That brew is actually Stoudt’s Fest.

In West Chester, Rex’s Bar sells Duff Beer, Homer Simpson’s favorite. It’s actually Victory HopDevil. In Cape May, Congress Hall’s Blue Pig Tavern Ale is really Flying Fish Extra Pale Ale. In University City, the White Dog Café’s Leglifter Lager is Stoudt’s American Pale Ale.

All are big sellers.

This weekend, Rembrandt’s Restaurant and Bar in Fairmount will try to copy that success by kicking off a contest to design a logo for its new house beer. It’ll be called Rembrandt’s Beer, but my sources tell me it’s actually Stoudt’s Pils.

Beer branding

Small brewers often agree to play along with the charade because it’s a way to sell more beer. On the downside, though, is the loss of a tap handle with their own logo.

Until last spring, Weyerbacher Brewing in Easton allowed a nearby tavern to pour the brewery’s Extra Special Bitter as its house beer, calling it Porter’s ESB. But with his brewery growing, owner Dan Weirback decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Building his own brand name was more important.

“It doesn’t really get the brewery much name recognition,” said Weirback.

Taverns that truly want something to call their own take the extra step of commissioning a brewery to supply an original house beer with a unique recipe.

Eulogy Belgian Tavern in Old City, for example, serves an ale called Busty Blonde, made exclusively for it by La Binchoise Brewery in Belgium. The beer is available only at Eulogy. Across town, Monk’s Café serves its own Monk’s Flemish Sour Red Ale by Belgium’s Van Steenberge Brewery. Both beers were designed to the unique specifications of the taverns’ owners.

In western New York, a small brewery called Custom Brewcrafters has made a business of supplying house beers to area taverns and restaurants. Customers can order as few as 14 kegs, and the company will create a proprietary recipe, design the logo, supply the tap handles and guarantee that no other bar will pour the same beer.

“The motivation for a restaurant having its own beer is the same as having its own chicken wing recipe,” said Custom Brewcrafters owner Mike Alcorn. “Restaurateurs don’t like to just buy something from the food distributor, drop it into the deep fryer and throw it on the plate. There’s a tremendous amount of pride in providing something special for their patrons… .

“If they can offer a house salad- dressing, why not a house beer?”

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OKTOBERFEST, THE definitive autumn beer experience, begins tomorrow with the ceremonial tapping of Spaten in downtown Munich.

If you’re going to do it up right, you’ve gotta get your lederhosen and dirndls over to Germany and celebrate by guzzling from a stein in one of the traditional Oktoberfest beer tents.

But if you can’t make it across the Atlantic, there are always plenty of well-mannered American knockoffs that faithfully observe the flavor and character of the original, orange-colored lager. Known also as Marzen beer, this is an easy drinker as the weather turns cool. It contains a bit more malt than your standard lager, and it’s aged longer for a smoother finish.

But forget that stuff this year. Call it heresy, but I’m going looking for a fall beer that isn’t an Oktoberfest.

And I don’t mean pumpkin beer.

What I’m looking for is a nice, shapely transition from the thin-bodied thirst-quenchers of summer to the strapping headbangers of winter. If it were a woman, she’d be Katie Couric – sweet and wholesome, somewhere between Paris Hilton and Etta James.

Thankfully, in recent seasons, small brewers have turned out an assortment of fall beers that fit the bill. They’re more complex than a lager, thanks to the use of ale yeast. And they’re frequently spiced with more assertive hops.

On first swallow, yes, these fall beers go down with the same sweetly smooth flavor you’d find in a typical Oktoberfest. But take a second, and you discover a distinctly American twist on a standard German beer.

Here’s a sixpack of American fall beers. They’re mostly low in alcohol (about 5 percent), so find a friend and sample ’em all. And, sure, if you need to get into the mood, feel free to play a little oompah music.

Flying Fish Oktoberfish (Cherry Hill, N.J.).

A stealth Oktoberfest, it’s an ale posing as a lager. The brewer says it’s made with Dusseldorf Alt yeast, known for producing a very clean, lightly sweet flavor. Still, this brew finishes with a tart slap. Think of it as Sister Theresa with a ruler on your knuckles.

Weyerbacher AutumnFest (Easton, Pa.).

Only a sharp-eyed label-peeler will notice the tiny “ALE” printed on the bottle. If you went by looks and taste alone, you’d think it was a classic autumn lager. This is a gorgeous beer, the color of the burnt orange leaves that fall along the river drives around Columbus Day. The aroma reminds me of those hard spiced cookies Mom used to pack in my lunchbox.

And the flavor? It’s well-balanced with just a bit of hop bitterness.

Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale (Chico, Calif.).

If there’s a father to the harvest ale style, it’s this one. Available only in limited supplies on draft, it gets its name from the late-summer harvest of fresh hops. Unlike most ales hopped with dried flowers (or even concentrated pellets), this beer’s so-called wet hops are rushed straight to the brewery and into the kettle. Take a long draw from your pint, and you get the gardenlike aroma of freshly cut grass.

Redhook Late Harvest Autumn Ale (Portsmouth, N.H.).

In the words of the brewers, this is an “homage to the autumnal equinox.” Try saying that after a couple of these bottles, which are available only in the East. This is yet another fall beer that is really a tribute to hops, balanced nicely with roasted German malt.

Southern Tier Harvest Ale (Lakewood, N.Y.).

This inventive western New York brewery had a little fun with a standard pale ale. The malt seems roasted, giving it a bigger bite than most pales (think Melrose Diner white toast, hold the butter). And that’s a nice complement to the lemony Palisades hop flowers.

It pours gold but goes cloudy in the glass, then fills your nose with a huge, hoppy aroma.

Magic Hat Jinx (Burlington, Vt.).

Dark, but that’s a deception. Yes, it’s a bit stronger than most of the others in this sixpack (7 percent alcohol), and you’ll detect some smokiness. But this medium-bodied ale goes down pleasantly. You’ll want to pull it out at sundown on the last gasp of an Indian summer afternoon.

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Want to try some of these flavors? A pair of local fall festivals will pour beers on Sunday:

• Waterloo Fall Beer Festival, Waterloo Village, N.J. Taps open noon-5 p.m., $22. 973-347-0900.
• Sippin’ by the River, Penn’s Landing, Columbus Boulevard. Taps open 1-5 p.m., $25/$30 day of. 215-893-1999.

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TEN YEARS AGO this week, Joe Sixpack made his first appearance in the Daily News. That’s a lotta beer and a lotta words.

Getting a beer column into the People Paper was a tough sell at first. At least one editor wondered whether there’d be enough material to justify a beer reporter. I bought him off with two cases of Yuengling and never heard from him again.

The fact is, no self-respecting newspaperman who spends his best hours in the barrooms of Philadelphia could fail to come up with a ton of great columns. There is no better place in the city to meet people and hear their stories.

Still, looking back, there’s plenty I never saw coming.

6 that astound me

1. Brussels, USA. Today, quirky, expensive ales made by Trappist monks and Flemish farmers are served at no fewer than five Belgian-themed bars in Philadelphia. And $7-a-glass Chimay is on tap in at least 50 more.
2. Citizens Bank Park is brewtopia. Just seven years ago, the Phillies’ beer vendor was ripping off fans with short pours of crud lager. Today, you get honest pours of a dozen different craft-brewed ales.
3. The $20 bottle of beer. And cases. You need a bank loan to afford some imports.
4. Imperial India Pale Ale. Bland, low-hopped lager still rules, but the hottest new style among beer freaks is over-hopped ales that take bitterness to new, mouth-puckering levels.
5. Expensive beer in blue-collar neighborhoods. It’s not unusual to find trendy beers in Fishtown and South Philly, pouring side-by-side with Schmidt’s and PBR.
6. A wealth of exceptional flavors. Try this killer sixpack, unheard of 10 years ago:
   • Victory Golden Monkey.
   • Yards Philly Pale Ale.
   • Sly Fox Incubus.
   • Dogfish Head Raison d’Etre.
   • Weyerbacher Insanity.
   • Troegs Mad Elf.

6 I could’ve done without

1. The implosion of Independence and Red Bell breweries, which, despite the well-deserved criticism of their financial planning, still managed to brew a few decent beers.
2. Light beer. Also, low-carb beer.
3. The demolition of the old Schmidt’s brewery. I miss that huge old sign up on Girard Avenue.
4. The impending no-smoking ban. Sorry, but a bar is the last refuge of non-conformist behavior. You want a healthy, smoke-free environment, go to a gym.
5. Eagles president Joe Banner reaming me on live TV when I dared ask him to justify the infamous hoagie ban at the Linc. Wait. I actually loved that – especially when he backed down a week later.
6. Those sugary malternatives, like Mike’s Hard Lemonade. They give malt beverages a bad name.

6 favorites

1. Visiting the guys at Yards Brewing one morning when they were first starting out, making a batch in their tiny garage in Manayunk. They were talented young enthusiasts in love with their craft, and that beer was good.
2. The standing ovation I got at Veterans Stadium when the Phillies beer vendor dropped its prices following my expose of its notorious beer-skimming scam.
3. Meeting Vince Rapinesi, the 80-something guy who fixes the kegs and taplines for nearly every bar in town.
4. The hate mail I got from the city of St. Louis before the Birds’ loss to the Rams in the NFC championship. The yokels were upset when I dissed Anheuser-Busch.
5. Exploring the mammoth, now-abandoned Schwechat beer cellar near Vienna, Austria, with Victory Brewing’s Bill Covaleski. The place was creepy and dark and dirty. Then, over cold mugs of Zwickl, I learned how an old-world lager influenced new-world micros.
6. The afternoon that guys from Budweiser pulled up in front of the Daily News in their bar-on-wheels and invited me for a brew that had been bottled that morning. Sure beat lunch in the company cafeteria.

6 for the next 10 years

1. Straighten out the stupid state beer-sales laws, especially the ones making it nearly impossible to buy single bottles and sixpacks.
2. Open up Internet sales. You can buy wine online in Pennsylvania, but not beer. That’s gotta change.
3. Build more brewpubs. Philly has three; two more are on the horizon. Compare that to Portland, Ore., (with one-third the population), where there are 40.
4. Legalize beer sales in movie theaters. We’re civilized enough to enjoy a cold draft while watching a film, aren’t we?
5. Re-open A Man Full of Trouble, the city’s oldest standing tavern, now owned (and ignored) by the University of Pennsylvania.
6. Drink more beer. C’mon, Philly, don’t slow down now!

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ATTENTION college freshmen: Now that most of you are unpacked and ready for class, it’s time to cover something that was overlooked during orientation. Namely, proper beer consumption.

And I’m not talking about the lies the dean of campus living spouted during his annual “Alcohol Is Evil” speech.

That’s the talk where, if he used the current government “research” materials, he explained that if you drink, you will:

• Turn into an alcoholic,
• Rape or be raped,
• Murder somebody, and
• Suffer an ugly, premature death.

Thanks to scare tactics like that, you’ve been turning a deaf ear to authorities since your dad warned you that you’d go blind if you didn’t stop. You’d think these do-gooders would know by now that all that finger-wagging only makes most people go out and do the exact opposite. I mean, raise your hand if

you’ve got a Drug-Free School Zone sign in your dorm room.

Unfortunately, ignoring these overexaggerated warnings also means that you probably never learned basic concepts like “moderation” and “flavor.” That’s why I’ve prepared “Joe Sixpack’s Guide to Freshman Beer-Drinking,” because beer isn’t just for chugging and puking.

• Getting drunk is not evil. It is a natural form of adult socialization. That said, don’t drink just for the sake of getting drunk. It’s a waste of good beer.

• The 21-year-old drinking age is nonsense, but it is the law. Pour that bottle into a plastic cup, and the cops won’t bother you.

• Go ahead and binge. That is, “binge” as defined by the government: a measly five drinks in a single day (four for women). If you weigh 200 pounds and drink one beer every 10 minutes, you still wouldn’t be legally intoxicated after an hour.

• Don’t drink one beer every 10 minutes for an hour, unless it’s a bet.

• Learn how to tap a keg. This is a valuable life skill and guarantees you a cold beer.

• If you don’t like the taste of beer, it’s because you haven’t tasted a beer you like. There are thousands of beers, and they don’t all taste like Budweiser.

• Have a beer with dinner. No kidding, it tastes better with food. And – bonus – you can actually drink more on a full stomach.

• Math you can use: 1 half-keg = about 7 cases of beer.

• Get beer bongs, chugging, shotguns, Beirut and drinking games out of your system now. You won’t do that nonsense once you hit 25.

• Don’t drink light beer. It is not real beer, and the calories you save are negligible.

• Don’t drink malternatives like Bacardi Silver, either. They’re alcoholic delivery devices that cynically take advantage of your unfortunate addiction to sugar. You are smarter than that.

• Drinking on a budget? Avoid heavily advertised brands. Milwaukee’s Best is widely regarded as the best-tasting cheap American lager.

• No one ever drinks as much as they say they drink. Upperclassmen always brag, but they’re only looking to see you get plastered.

• Guys, she might be too drunk to remember her name, but she’ll never forget your face.

• Circle April 24 on your calendar. That’s Newman’s Day, in honor of Paul Newman, who supposedly declared: “Twenty-four hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.” Your campus may celebrate appropriately or inappropriately.

• How to tell when you’ve had enough: When you are partying, and it feels like you’re having a really, really great time. The feeling will not get any better after you chug the next cup.

• Never drive to a party. And don’t let anyone else drive you, either. Designated drivers are a bogus concept in college. Take public transit or a cab.

• Beware of Internet rip-offs when buying fake IDs. Also, many bars now use scanners to read magnetic strips on driver’s licenses, enabling them to detect fakes.

• Drink water between beers. It slows down your pursuit of drunkenness.

• Blame your parents. They should’ve taught you all this before you went to college.

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Want to learn more about beer drinking? Don’t read the neo-prohibitionist drivel at www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov, especially the so-called alcohol myths.

Instead, visit State University of New York-Potsdam professor David J. Hanson’s unbiased Alcohol Facts at www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/, and get the truth.

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SOME MOVIES were made to be viewed when you’re drunk. Feet up on sofa, pizza boxes stacked on the coffee table in a loud room with a bunch of friends, laughing at every silly joke because you’re all completely sauced.

I had a suspicion that “Beerfest,” the comedy from the Broken Lizard comedy team (“Super Troopers”), would be just that kind of movie, so I tuned up with a pre-screening sixpack. I shoulda sneaked in a 40, too, because by the final reel, the fun was wearing off.

It’s not that “Beerfest” isn’t funny. Doesn’t everyone like a good Nazi joke?

The problem is, the plot is so lame that, without a good buzz on, eventually – probably about the time one of the characters wakes up to the uncomfortable realization he’s exchanged saliva with the keg-sized Mo’Nique – you’re going to sober up with a head full of regret.

The “beer goggles” affect doesn’t last forever (in love or movies). Sad, because while beer seems so ripe for great comedy, it has rarely gotten its due from Hollywood. Think about it: Other than a stray Three Stooges episode and “Strange Brew,” the McKenzie Brothers romp, can you name a single decent beer movie?

Meanwhile, wine – that snobby little drama queen – gets top billing. I ask: Where is the “Sideways” of beer?

Jay Chandrasekhar and Paul Soter, “Beerfest’s” co-writers and stars, told me over beers at McGillin’s Old Ale House earlier this month that the Broken Lizard comedy troupe had set out to film “a love letter to beer.” Which I suppose “Beerfest” is, if you mean a chugging contests with pitchers served by half-nekkid chicks.

That’s the scene Jan Wolfhouse (Soter) and his brother, Todd (Erik Stolhanske), stumble upon while attempting to find a suitable place to spread the ashes of their deceased grandfather (Donald Sutherland) during Germany’s annual Oktoberfest. The super-secret international competition is the Olympics of suds; imagine the Mummers Parade if the judging was for beer consumption, not costumes and banjos.

The brothers are summarily stomped by the Germans, who laugh them off as Zima-drinking amateurs. No red-blooded, can-crushing ‘Merican would let that slide, so the two put together a team for next year’s contest.

There’s Barry (Chandrasekhar), the beer pong/quarter-flipping expert who’s lost his touch. And Landslide (Kevin Heffernan), the mammoth gulper who turned to hot dogs after losing his job at the brewery.

And Fink (Steve Lemme), the German-hating Jewish scientist who uses his brain to solve one of the world’s great beer-chugging mysteries.

With help from Great Gam Gam (Cloris Leachman), the team goes through a “Rocky”-like training regimen that embraces massive consumption of our favorite adult beverage. Which is why I have a soft spot for this movie.

Beer on the screen is almost always a code for the vile: poverty, crime, blue-collar hopelessness.

“When people talk about beer in the media,” Chandrasekhar told me, “it’s universally negative. It’s wife-beating and driving while intoxicated. But the reality is, a great portion of the country goes and out and drinks beer and has nothing but fun!”

“We’ve vilified something that’s a terrific thing,” said Soter.

Indeed, we’ve gotten so touchy about drunkenness, no major beer-maker sought any product-placement deals with the movie. “They’ve perpetuated this sham of drinking responsibly,” Soter said, tongue partly in cheek. “They couldn’t support a movie about drinking irresponsibly.”

Other than a quick admonition against drunken driving, “Beerfest” is unapologetic about beer. There’s no moralizing, no finger-wagging.

It’s as proud as a healthy belch, right in your face.

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Produced by Michael Beugg, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, written by Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske (as Broken Lizard), distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

THANKS TO a roundtable of women, I think I finally understand what’s behind the Men of the Square Table.

You’ve seen these ironfisted men featured in a series of Miller Lite ads, solemnly considering the proper comportment of the Y-chromosome set. Together, the likes of Burt Reynolds, Jerome Bettis and Aron Ralston (that rock-climbing dude who cut off his arm to escape from beneath a boulder) issue chiseled-in-granite Man Laws:

• It is only OK to use another man’s remote with express verbal permission.
• A man shall never apologize or explain why he didn’t call another man back.

Miller says the commercials and an accompanying witty Web site are part of its new, enlightened-guy strategy that bypasses bosoms (e.g., the classic and condemned “Catfight” series) and focuses instead on the actual taste of its beer.

At first glance, though, the ads seem like more of the age-old affirmation that, when it comes to beer, No Girls Allowed!

Which is surprising, because beer marketers are increasingly coming to grips with a stunning fact about their customers: Though 75 percent of their product is consumed by men, the vast majority is bought by women. Studies show as much as two-thirds of beer is purchased by women, mainly on their weekly trips for groceries.

I wondered what women thought about the Man Laws, so I sat down with the ladies of IPA (In Pursuit of Ale). It’s a new organization of female Philadelphia beer freaks that meets regularly to drink and chat about, well, beer. These women aren’t just picking it up for their men. They actually drink it themselves!

(For the sake of journalistic accuracy, I should acknowledge that, as the first guy to be invited to one of their meetings, I did not do well for my gender. We sucked down draft Bell’s Oberon Ale and bottles of Delirium Nocturnum at For Pete’s Sake in South Philly, and the ladies drank me under the table.)

Normally, the talk at IPA meetings is about the beer itself – new craft brews, the differences in various styles, homebrewing, trivia. Listening in, it was about the same as the usual conversation among guys, only with fewer crotch jokes.

But I was more interested in the big picture: the battle of the sexes as played out in beer ads. After years of watching women being objectified or ignored in TV ads, what did the ladies of IPA think of the Man Laws?

• Salmon is a food, not a color.
• If a man has a car that can lay rubber, he is obligated to do that from time to time.

“I still think they’re missing the women’s market,” said Amy Nichols, of Center City. “But it totally beats women wrestling.”

Brook Midgley, of Queen Village, was glad Miller isn’t trying to sell her beer – and not just because she doesn’t like its taste. “I almost don’t want them to market to me,” Midgley said. “I’d rather not be recognized as a market.”

“They don’t want to market to women,” Ginny Brown of the Graduate Hospital neighborhood noted, “because they’re afraid Miller Lite will be called a ‘girl’s beer.’ ”

Ohhh, good one. It’s a marvel of 20th-century advertising, isn’t it, that so many allegedly manly men willingly drink something as wussy as diet beer.

The women spent another 10 minutes bashing Miller – until a subtle realization crossed their minds.

“Look, we’re talking about the Man Laws,” said Kate Vail, of Bella Vista. “Maybe that’s the idea.”

“It’s true,” said Suzanne Woods, the founder of the group. “We women are all a little curious about how men think.”

• It is perfectly normal for two men to watch an entire sporting event and never say a word to each other.
• It is always acceptable for a man to cannonball into a pool.

Men never actually sit around and talk about this stuff; it’s just part of our DNA. (What was the first law of the Fight Club? Don’t talk about the Fight Club.)

Women, on the other hand, observe man’s behavior and marvel like puzzled anthropologists.

You see what I’m getting at here?

These so-called Man Laws aren’t for guys. The Man Laws are for ladies. Miller Lite’s ads are, in truth, a subversive ploy to sell beer to women by revealing the primitive nature of their mates.

Drink up fellas, but don’t kid yourselves. The women, as always, are calling the shots around this joint. *

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IPA (In Pursuit of Ale) is open to women beer lovers in the Philadelphia area. For info, visit www.myspace.com/ipabeerclub.

Men (and women) can visit Miller Lite’s www.ManLaws.com.

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