It was the Year of the Cult Beer.

Extremely limited production runs of pricey, boldly flavored brews had beer freaks standing in lines for a chance to grab a rare treasure.

At Victory Brewing in Downingtown, Pa., $120 cases of Dark Intrigue bourbon barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout sold out in under 45 minutes.

In California, The Bruery – fearing long lines and tears from fans who would go empty-handed – sold tickets for the opportunity to purchase bottles of its Black Tuesday barrel-aged stout.

On eBay, single bottles of Portsmouth Kate The Great traded for $130 each. Elsewhere, distributors took reservations for popular cases and breweries tweeted hints on “secret locations” that held limited supplies of its rarities.

It’s all in good fun, of course, and the excitement often builds interest in the breweries’ other brands. But I can’t help but feel that other, equally fine beers are getting short shrift.

Exhibit 1: Fegley BrewWorks Hop’solutely, which is Joe Sixpack’s 2010 Beer of the Year.

This “triple” India pale ale is utterly smooth with a powerfully hoppy presence and pleasing 11.5 percent content of alcohol by volume. Its Chinook and Amarillo hops are at once earthy and floral, and its full malt body provides a sweet, sticky finish that isn’t so cloying that you wouldn’t take a second sip. That next gulp soothes the palate with a softness you wouldn’t expect from any IPA. You might even find honey and fruit notes that are sweet as melon.

While Hop’solutely is fairly well regarded on the blogs and at beer-rating websites, it can’t match the publicity surrounding that other “triple” IPA, Russian River Pliny the Younger. The California-made ale, frequently voted the world’s greatest beer, is made in an exceedingly short supply and – during its release each February – spawns giant lines at bars that are lucky enough to tap a keg.

(Pliny the Younger was the brand that sparked last winter’s infamous Pennsylvania State Police beer raids. A jealous bar owner, upset that he hadn’t scored a keg, reportedly ratted out a competitor over missing paperwork, prompting the ridiculous armed raids and ugly national headlines.)

Is Hop’solutely as good as Pliny the Younger? In a word, yes.

Its brewer, Beau Baden, has created an outstanding ale that deserves broader recognition. (Or maybe we should just keep this our little secret; relatively low demand has kept its price under $15 for a 750ml bottle.) In any case, beer drinkers are lucky the Fegley brewpub chain, based in Allentown, Pa., has begun bottling Hop’solutely for wider distribution.

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Of course, there were many, many other great beers of 2010. Here are my runners up:

Abita Save Our Shore Pilsner. In the wake of the disastrous BP gulf oil spill, Louisiana’s Abita Brewing Company – which had already experienced disaster during Hurricane Katrinia – dedicated proceeds from the sale of this beer – more than $250,000 – to recovery efforts. And the beer itself – a strong, uniquely hoppy wheat-based pilsner — is pretty darn good.

Lancaster Kolsch. Small brewers have been making a big thing out of canning strong ales, like IPA, abbey ale, Scottish ale and stout. But when Lancaster came out with this floral, light-bodied beauty, it brought back the joy of slugging down a refreshing beer straight from an aluminum can – at under $25 a case.

Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. The famed British bitter won its 23rd medal at the Great British Beer Festival in August. When is somebody going to import this to America?

Jubiläumswiesnbier. The malty, traditional lager was brewed as a one-time collaboration between Munich’s six breweries for the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest.

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BEER LOVERS are easy when it comes to holiday shopping. A sixpack will make them happy, a case will have them naming their firstborn in your honor.

Still stuck on ideas? Read on.

FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS: A box of St. Nick’s favorite Oregon-made Christmas beers, including BridgePort Ebenezer Ale, Deschutes Jubelale, Full Sail Wassail, McTarnahan’s Hum Bug’r, Widmer’s Brrr! and Santa’s Private Reserve from Rogue, with salted pretzels. (OregonMaidenGiftBaskets.com. $49.99. )

FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ZOMBIES: “The Walking Dead” pint glasses from TavernCraft.com. The supplier also offers some very wonky ceramic tankards with Azeroth’s Murlocs from the World of Warcraft. (Starting at $29.99. )

FOR THE HOLIER THAN THOU: Bottles from all seven Trappist monastery breweries. You may have to visit several beer stores to track them all down, and one of them (Westvleteren 12) is almost impossible to find in America. But nobody would turn down a sixpack composed of Chimay Grande Reserve, Rochefort 10, Achel Trappist Extra, Orval Trappist Ale, Westmalle Dubbel and La Trappe Quadrupel.

FOR THE GADGET GURU: The Shoot-a-Brew Cooler. You’ve seen it on YouTube – it’s the remote-controlled beer cooler that can sling a can of your favorite brew across the room. The cooler is just going into production, so if you order it now, it won’t be delivered till after the holidays. (ShootABrew.com. $295. )

FOR THE KNOW-IT-ALL: Tuition at Philly Beer School. The Fairmount institution holds classes on specialty beers, home brewing, food pairing and other topics. Graduates earn a Magna Cum Lager. (Vinology.com. From $39.99. )

FOR THOSE WHO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY: Beer-of-the-month club membership. Give the gift that keeps on giving all year ’round. Look for clubs whose selection goes beyond the ordinary. Here are two I can recommend: beeronthewall.com and rarebeerclub.com. (Starting at $22.95. )

Note: Pennsylvania law forbids beer-by-mail deliveries. However, the law is apparently unenforced. Both UPS and Fed-Ex are now delivering to authorized signers (must be at least 21).

FOR SANTA’S WORKSHOP I: A home-brew kit. Home-brew shops will assemble everything needed for that first, great brew: a fermentation tub, tubing, air locks, hydrometer, bottle capper, ingredients and – most importantly – instructions. (About $75, complete. )

FOR SANTA’S WORKSHOP II: The Clone kit. Oregon’s Rogue Ales shares its love – and ingredients – through an all-in-one kit that allows homebrewers to make their own version of its Dead Guy Ale. Each kit makes five gallons. (Homebrewers.com. $45.95. )

FOR TOASTING: A pair of New Belgium beer glasses.

New Belgium from Fort Collins, Colo., known for its Fat Tire Amber Ale, is one of the darlings of American craft beer. Give a boxed set of glassware and your gift recipient will surely want to share a cold one with you. (NewBelgium.com. $5.95, free shipping. )

FOR THE CRAFTY: Anything from Etsy. Just search for “beer” at this website devoted to artists and crafters, and you’ll find an incredible array of gifts made with the beer drinker in mind: Bottle-cap jewelry, beer koozies, beer soap and original art prints. Search for “karenlaneart” and check out the very cool stainless steel cases decorated with old beer ads. (etsy.com. From 50 cents to $100. )

FOR THE DECORATOR: Duff Beer lights. Light up your Christmas tree with a string of lights that only Homer could love. (Amazon.com. $30. )

FOR YOUR GRANDFATHER: Retro T-shirts.

Imperial IPAs? Russian imperial stout? The old man just scratches his head at all that newfangled beer. Instead, give him a shirt or hat from long-gone Esslinger’s of Philadelphia or doggone good Frankenmuth from Michigan, and he’ll be remembering the good ol’ days. (Yesterbeer.com or Retrophilly.com. $13 and up. )

STOCKING STUFFERS: Anything with a brewery logo: Dogfish Head iPhone skin ($15), Stone Arrogant Bastard belt buckle ($28), Flying Dog cookbook ($5), Terrapin Rye Pale Ale lip balm ($3), Pyramid ThunderHead tap handle ($35), Anchor Christmas Ale poster ($6), Great Divide stainless steel bar wrench ($5), Victory Brewing dog collar ($9.75), Great Lakes Post-it notes ($2.95). (Check brewery websites. )

I nursed my drink but it couldn’t be saved.

Unshaved, cursed,

I got right to work on its doomed replacement.

– J. Robert Lennon

IN HIS collection of drinking poems, “In Their Cups” (The Harvard Common Press, $9.95), A.J. Rathbun reveals how well verse and good drinks go together:

“Both are driven by a love of balance and good taste, while at the same time being open to wild fits of imagination and of worldly things. “

Cracking open a book about drinking can be as satisfying as cracking open another bottle. The aroma, the feel, the beauty of its creation – a well-written sentence is as enjoyable, as mysterious as a well-crafted beer.

Rathbun acknowledges his short collection is just a start, for the shelves are full of drinking words. I recommend the following selections this holiday season, whether you’re searching for the meaningful gift for a beer lover or hoping to spend a moment with a glass of ale and your own thoughts.

For the believer: “Beer Is Proof God Loves Us” by Charles W. Bamforth (FT Press, $25.99).

Bamforth, one of the world’s pre-eminent brewing scholars and researchers, says he recognizes the work of God (or Buddha or Hindu’s Ayurveda system of traditional medicine) in many a glass. Though his writing has a humanist quality, Bamforth remains convinced that from the growth of barley to the creation of alcohol, “we see the magnificence of God’s deliverance. “

For the rationalist: “Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation” by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff (Brewers Publications, $19.95).

Ignorant of basic chemistry, man used to credit God with successful fermentation and blame bad beer on witches. Then he invented the microscope and finally saw the molecular cells at work in yeast fermentation.

Unless the reader is planning on opening his own brewery, this is not a book for snuggling up next to a fireplace. On the other hand, its easily understandable prose demystifies the science of beer’s delightfully bubbly buzz.

For the anal retentive: “The Beer Journal” by Chris Wright (Skyhorse Publishing, $12.95).

With more than 10,000 beers brewed in America, a journal is a fun way to keep track of everything you taste. Wright provides some useful guidance, with style descriptions and tasting characteristics. But mainly the words in this book are yours to write.

This guide, unfortunately, is only a good start, for it allows room for fewer than 100 beers. That’s barely a good month for me. As much as I enjoy real books, this is a rare case in which your gift recipient may be better off with an iPhone app or something else from the digital world.

For the traveler: “Pennsylvania Breweries – 4th Edition” by Lew Bryson (Stackpole Books, $19.95).

Philly’s beer scene may be unsurpassed in America, but there’s a lot to drink beyond the city limits. The Appalachian Ridge section alone, according to this latest guide to Keystone breweries, offers a wealth of unfamiliar destinations with fresh beer and new discoveries: Elk Creek . . . Copper Kettle . . . Gamble Mill . . . Berwick Brewing . . . Old Forge . . . Bavarian Barbarian.

Though Bryson’s focus is beer, his book is foremost a travel guide. Beyond some 50 breweries, you’ll find his musings on everything from hotel bars to cycling along the D&H Rail Trail to the Battle of Gettysburg. Along the way, you’ll get a taste of pig-stomach stew, boilo (a mulled cider they serve in the coal region) and a slice of bumbleberry pie in an Erie County “dinor. “

“The pint is not always the point . . . ” he writes. “While great beer is a goal in itself, I have found that there is equal pleasure to be found in the hunt for great bars. “

For the historian: “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by Daniel Okrent (Scribner, $30).

The 18th Amendment, writes Okrent, was more than about the prohibition of alcohol in America. It created the soft-drink industry, enriched the Mafia and – as interpreted by the Supreme Court – helped establish a woman’s right to abortion.

Okrent’s gripping history is serious, yet filled with readable anecdotes and astounding statistics. (Did you know, for example, that America drank twice as much wine in the midst of Prohibition than in the years just before it was enacted? )

Underlying this history, writes Okrent, is a troubling question: “How did a freedom-loving people decide to give up a private right that had been freely exercised by millions upon millions since the first European colonist arrived in the New World? “

It’s a question you might ponder while waiting in line to be X-rayed at the airport this holiday season.

Free beer!

‘Tis the season for Christmas beer, and you can get a taste of goodies on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Southampton Citibank branch (511 Second Street Pike). Join Jolly Joe Sixpack for a ho-ho-ho sampling and tutored tasting of some of the season’s best winter warmers and holiday ales. The strong ales and spiced specialties will be complemented by light snacks.

It’s free and open to anyone over 21.

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A FEW YEARS ago, during a visit to De Proef Brouwerij outside of Ghent, Belgium, a group of American beer enthusiasts – a couple of importers, a bar owner and one or two others – sat around a table with famed brewing engineer Dirk Naudts to conduct one of the odder tasting sessions I’ve encountered.

The goal was to design a new brand for the U.S. market, and various ingredients were displayed for sampling. There were hops and some grains, naturally, but what caught everyone’s attention was the dish of grayish-white powder passed furtively from one to the next. Each would pluck a bit from the dish and place it on his tongue, almost as a dare.

Naudts flashed the nasty smile of a man about to pull off a practical joke. Within seconds, our mouths were as dry as bleached leather and our cheeks collapsed into a face-contorting pucker, every last molecule of moisture sucked away.

The powder was pure, utterly sour lactic acid, the granular essence of a unique beer style: Flemish brown ale.

Also know as oud bruin, the variety is marked by a distinct, piquant tartness that is produced by lactobacillus, an aggressive bacterium that infects the ale during fermentation.

Lactic-acid bacterium is a big troublemaker in the brewhouse, turning perfectly good beer into lemons. Occurring naturally and invisible to the naked eye, it was a mystery till Pasteur showed up with his microscope in the 1860s.

Till then, a man (or in the case of the Pendle witches, a woman) could be hanged for causing beer to sour.

But as the brewers of Oudenaarde in Belgium’s East Flanders know well, lactobacillus can be a good thing.

At breweries such as Liefmans and Roman, the bacteria are welcomed into the fermentation tanks, added to the yeast to produce an earthy funk over the months of conditioning. Although this is not spontaneous fermentation, as in the lambic breweries of nearby Payottenland, the effect is much the same. The final flavor is achieved through meticulous blending, with batches of young and aged beer combined to round out the edges, soften the tartness and produce smooth complexity.

(Though made in much the same manner, Flemish red ale, such as Rodenbach, is regarded as a distinct style by some experts because it receives its lactic shock through aging in wooden vats. )

Liefmans Goudenband (Gold Ribbon) is perhaps the benchmark; the late British beer critic Michael Jackson once called it “surely the best brown ale in the world. ” The brewery, established in 1579, filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, but it was salvaged by another Belgian beer producer, Duvel Moortgat. After a couple of years’ absence from the American market, the brand returned last month with a welcome splash.

Its bottles, wrapped in paper, pour a dark ruby-brown, a clue to its rich malt undercarriage. A quaff is lightly sweet and fruity up front with a full body of pilsner, crystal and roasted malt; the finish, though, is acetic and complex with little evidence of hops. Let the bottle sit in your cellar a few months, and the tartness only grows.

It is an acquired taste, it’s true. Novice tonsils, trained on pure lagers, might gag on the sour wonder of lactic acid.

Slowly, though, beer fans are rediscovering the wonders of sour beer. Today, the Great American Beer Festival recognizes no fewer than four separate sour-beer judging categories.

But a round-table tasting of lactic powder? Take my parched word for it: It’ll be a long time till that catches on.

Other oud bruins:

Monk’s Café Flemish Sour, Petrus Oud Bruin, Haandbryggeriet Haandbakk, Deschutes The Dissident, Lost Abbey Red Poppy.

By the way, Liefmans Goudenband is the essential ingredient in one of the classic examples of beer cuisine, Carbonade Flamande. I follow the recipe shared by beer writer Jackson in his 1993 Beer Companion (Running Press):

CARBONADE FLAMANDE

• 4 shallots
• Butter
• 2 pounds cubed beef
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• Pinch coriander
• 1 to 2 bottles Liefmans Goudenband
• Flour
• Mustard to taste

1. Chop shallots and fry them in butter in a large pan. Add beef, then add salt, pepper, thyme and a healthy pinch of coriander. Pour enough Goudenband over the meat to cover (2 to 4 cups) and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
2. Remove meat and set aside. Run the sauce through a sieve, return to pan and thicken with flour, adding mustard to taste. Simmer and stir for 2 minutes.
3. Return the meat to the gravy, heat. Serve with boiled potatoes and a glass of Flemish brown ale.

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FOR MORE THAN a century, American brewers have been pleading with you to serve beer on Thanksgiving.

In 2006, the Brewers Association launched a website (now defunct) devoted to imaginative turkey-and-beer pairings. (India pale ale and Cajun deep-fried turkey! )

In the 1980s, Anheuser-Busch answered health concerns about alcohol abuse with advertisements that portrayed beer as a sacred part of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving.

In the 1950s, New York’s Schaefer Brewing pleaded, “The trimmings should include real beer. . . . When the ladies say, ‘Everything’s ready,’ that’s the time for Schaefer Beer. “

Even before Prohibition, Braumeister of Milwaukee advertised, “If you like beer with your meals, you certainly appreciate a bottle of Braumeister with your Thanksgiving dinner. “

And did you listen? No, you uncorked a bottle of Chardonnay and stuck a fork in the turkey.

Well, I’m here to give it another stab.

There are two basic reasons beer is more appropriate than wine for Thanksgiving:

1. Bubbles. Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver notes in “The Brewmaster’s Table” that beer’s natural carbonation helps cleanse the palate of the strong, often-fatty flavors of the typical Thanksgiving meal. He suggests pairing turkey with either a basic, malty American lager, like Samuel Adams Octoberfest, or a stylish biere de grade, like 3 Monts from France.

2. Variety. Think of the wide range of flavors of a typical Thanksgiving dinner, from tart cranberry sauce to buttery corn to savory stuffing to roasted turkey. Wine just can’t keep up.

But Julia Herz of the Brewers Association says, “Craft breweries are producing so many flavor profiles today, there’s always lots of choices for a celebration. “

Now, you can sweat it and try to find the perfect beer to complement every single dish. (May I suggest a malty winter warmer with Mom’s candied sweet potatoes? Try Flying Dog K-9 Cruiser Winter Ale or Avery Old Jubilation. )

But that’s insane, and besides, your in-laws won’t appreciate the effort anyway. Instead, keep it simple. Here are a few basic styles that will have you reaching for a bottle opener this Thanksgiving instead of a corkscrew.

Appetizer

You want something light, sparkly and festive to go with those stuffed mushrooms and that cheese plate. And, of course, it’s got to be special when you toast the chef. Break out the Champagne glasses and fill them with a bubbly Belgian lambic.

Try: Sweet, raspberry-flavored Lindemans Framboise or tart, cherry-flavored Boon Kriek. Both will tickle the nose and the palate.

Main course

When the carving begins, you need a beer that can stand up to big flavors without overpowering them. A light pilsner will get knocked out by the gravy, while a dark stout will big-foot the roasted bird. Try American adaptations of two classic Belgian styles, saison and abbey dubbel. Serve bottles of both styles to give your guests a choice.

Try: Victory Helios, a hop-forward saison from Downingtown, or herbal Saison Athene from Florida’s St. Somewhere. Both are light-bodied and will easily complement the bird and any salad.

Or try: Ommegang Abbey Ale (New York) or Allagash Dubbel (Maine); both are sweet and malty without being cloying.

Dessert

The temptation is to pull out a strong, dark ale like North Coast Old Rasputin because it pairs so well with chocolate. But with pumpkin, apple and pecan pies filling the table, now’s the time to crack open a spiced beer.

Try: Voodoo Love Child (Pennsylvania), aged on passion fruit, raspberry and cherry, and spiced with coriander; Autumn Maple, made with yams and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, from the Bruery (California); Winter Wunder from Philadelphia Brewing, flavored with plums, dates, cinnamon, allspice, clove and ginger; or creamy Breckenridge Vanilla Porter (Colorado).

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“I think we’re witnessing the critical mass of craft beer in this town. ”

Looking around nearly four years ago when I scrawled those words, it seemed clear that Philly was enjoying a surge in neighborhood bars whose focus was good beer. We’d reached a tipping point in which it was too late to go back to the same old lager.

The surge is only growing.

Local 44, Kraftwork, Brauhaus Schmitz, Jose Pistola’s, Kite & Key, the Institute, the Sidecar Bar and Grille, Lucky 13, Devil’s Den, Beneluxx Tasting Room, Varga, a second Tria Cafe, City Tap House, the Wishing Well, the Irish Pol, the Woolly Mammoth, Terrace Taproom, Pub & Kitchen, MidAtlantic Restaurant & Taproom, Resurrection Ale House and Prohibition Taproom are among the city beer bars that have opened since that column was published in January 2007.

In the past few weeks alone, we’ve seen the opening of a German restaurant in Fox Chase (Hop Angel Brauhaus, 7980 Oxford Ave.), yet another South Philly joint (Watkins Drinkery, 1712 S. 10th St.) and a gastropub in East Falls that’s lighted entirely by candles and serves only ultrapremium European brands (Fork and Barrel, 4213 Ridge Ave).

I mention all this not because Joe Sixpack is clairvoyant. In truth, I can barely see past the bottom of my glass.

Instead, it’s because I’m betting that you haven’t hit half the places I just mentioned.

Surely, the old standbys are worth visiting and visiting again. But the city’s beer scene has taken it up yet another notch, and it’s about time you started nosing around.

Naturally, I’ve got a suggestion: Grab a ticket for tomorrow’s Craft Beer Express.

It’s an all-day bus tour that links 11 beer bars, about half of which are among the new breed. Buses stop at each of them every 25 minutes. You can grab a cold one and move on, or just hunker down for a couple of hours.

Tickets are just $10, available at any of the stops.

It’s not just a great way to avoid DUIs. The express gives you a taste of the character of each joint, with different beer themes at each stop.

Here’s the rundown:

_ Kraftwork (541 E. Girard Ave., Fishtown): Twenty beers from Belgian/Japanese/Italian/German beer importer B. United, with live music.

_ Johnny Brenda’s (Frankford and Girard avenues, Fishtown): The Wet Hop Rodeo, with ales made with freshly picked hops.

_ Standard Tap (901 N. 2nd St., Northern Liberties): Imperial Pageant, with superstrong ales at the granddaddy of Philly’s gastropubs.

_ The Institute (549 N. 12th St., Spring Garden): The Power of the Dark Side, with stouts and porters at what one local rag called “the best bar in the middle of nowhere.”

_ Bishop’s Collar (24th Street and Fairmount Avenue, Fairmount): A classic corner pub that always seems to pour something extraordinary, this time with envelope-pushing brews from Southern Tier of New York.

_ Kite & Key (1836 Callowhill St., Franklintown): Just behind the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, it’s an Almighty Afternoon of Allagash.

_ Jose Pistola’s (263 S. 15th St., Center City): It gets loud here some nights, even louder with Big Bold Barleywine and live blues.

_ The Sidecar (22nd and Christian Street, Point Breeze): One of a handful of beer spots that have spiced up what they used to call Devil’s Pocket, it’ll pour the Bell Brewery Jazz Series, with music from the Sidecar Jazz Quartet.

_ The P.O.P.E. (1501 E. Passyunk Ave., South Philly): Breaking out the Randall 3.0 hop infuser at a day of ales from Dogfish Head.

_ Devil’s Den (1148 S. 11th St., South Philly): Founders Nemesis, a one-off from the highly regarded Michigan brewery, makes an appearance along with a bunch of other brands from Northampton County’s specialty suppler, Stockertown Beverage.

_ Brauhaus Schmitz (718 South St.): Chill-erasing doppelbocks take over the taps at this authentic German beer hall.

From new to old

McGillin’s Olde Ale House (1310 Drury St., Center City), the city’s oldest taproom (circa 1860), is hosting a very cool event to prep for Philly Beer Week. (Disclosure: I’m Philly Beer Week’s executive director. )

It’s an Election Night reception in which beer drinkers will vote for their favorite brewer. At the end of the night, a single ballot will be randomly drawn, with the winning brewer – and the person who voted for him – scoring an expenses-paid trip to Belgium.

There, they’ll brew a special collaborative beer with renowned Belgian brewer Dirk Naudts of De Proef Brouwerij for Philly Beer Week 2011 (June 3-12). The beer will be nationally released as part of the brewery’s yearly Brewmaster’s Collection.

The reception is from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, with beers from the participating breweries.

Speaking of old bars, the Khyber (56 S. 2nd St., Old City) – believed to be the second-oldest in the city, dating to the 1870s – reopened this week as the Khyber Pass Pub. The city’s original craft beer bar was to have become a Japanese restaurant. But when that fell through, it was back to good beer.

The draft system has been upgraded to 20 taps plus a beer engine, and the kitchen has been expanded with a Southern-influenced menu. (Look for the deadly bacon-grease popcorn. )

They’ve spruced up the side room (goodbye, live music) and tiled what had been one of the grungiest restrooms in the city.

One thing that hasn’t changed: the mirrored back bar. The fixture, salvaged from Brewers Hall at the 1876 Centennial in Fairmount Park, still dominates the room.

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NOBODY KNOWS who wrote the first drinking song, but it’s a good bet that Zane Lamprey won’t write the last.

The booze hound/TV host is touring the country this fall in “Sing the Booze,” a musical-comedy performance that showcases his decidedly dirty, inebriated songs. (“Beer, I Love You” imagines actual copulation with a cold glass of beer. “Baby, You’re Beautiful When I’m Drunk” is a testament to the power of beer goggles. )

Now, it’s easy to write off Lamprey’s show, stumbling into Philly tonight, as simple, dopey frat-boy humor. I know a lot of serious beer geeks who cringe every time they see him getting sloshed on his drink-and-travel cable TV series, “Three Sheets” and “Drinking Made Easy. ” Even he laughingly acknowledges, “The more I drink, the better I sound. “

Three things, though:

First, the guy knows his beer. A few weeks ago, I caught him on “Last Call With Carson Daly,” explaining the historical background of Yards Brewing Co.’s Ales of the Revolution. The beers are based on old recipes from Franklin, Jefferson and Washington, he carefully explained, while he and Daly guzzled on air.

Second, part of beer is the buzz. As Lamprey told me in a telephone interview before a performance in Las Vegas late last month, “You have to walk a fine line. . . . It’s not just about guys going out and getting hammered. ” On the other hand, he added, “Learning about alcohol, wine or beer doesn’t have to be boring. “

Third, man has been drinking and singing forever – and I’m not just talking about “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. “

The oldest written drinking songs can be found in a 13th-century Latin text known as “Carmina Burana. ” The document contains scores of poems and songs that mock the church and praise debauchery.

One called “Mihi est Propositum” (described by one Latin scholar as “surely the greatest drinking song in the world”) declares:

My proposal is to die in the tavern Where the wine will be near my dying mouth.

Another song opens with the observation, In taberna quando sumus, non curamus quid sit humus, which means: “When we are in the tavern, we do not think how we go to dust. “

Centuries later, a German songwriter would echo the sentiment with the polka favorite “Im Himmel gibt’s kein Bier” (“In Heaven There Is No Beer”).

In his 1920 anthology, “A Tankard of Ale,” English historian Theodore Maynard wrote that the best drinking songs reflect “the simple seriousness of the genuine boozer. ” In one 16th-century song, he noted, revelers would rather spend for drink than clothes:

Back and side go bare, go bare!

Both foot and hand go cold!

But, belly, God send thee gold ale enough.

Whether it be new or old.

Maynard worried, though, that drinking songs would die with Prohibition. If teetotalers “have not altogether succeeded in putting down beer,” he wrote, ” . . . they have at least succeeded in throwing a blight over our songs. “

He needn’t have worried.

Drinking songs are alive and well in the 21st century, from Lamprey’s “Sing the Booze” to George Thorogood’s jukebox anthem, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” to “Margaritaville” on the karaoke machine, to the University of California Marching Band’s “California Drinking Song”:

And when the game is over,

We will buy a keg of booze And drink to California ’til we wobble in our shoes.

And if that’s not enough, let’s not forget the music to the beloved drinking song they teach kids from their very first day in school, “To Anacreon in Heaven. “

You probably know the tune better by its American title, “The Star-Spangled Banner. “

Lamprey’s “Sing the Booze” visits the Theatre of Living Art at 7:30 tonight (334 South St., $25, four-pack $75, 215-922-1011, www.livenation.com). Lamprey’s “Drinking Made Easy” airs at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on HDNet.