JOSEPH Spearot sure went to a helluva lot of trouble just to drink beer on Arcadia University’s dry campus.

Undergrads might be expected to dodge vigilant RAs at the school’s historic Grey Towers Castle residence hall by simply stuffing a suitcase with cans of Natty Light.

Spearot? He built an entire brewhouse in his organic chemistry classroom, then spent months to obtain permission to “test” his experimental ale on human subjects.

It was all part of the chemistry/biology major’s unique senior project that also took him to a winery in Australia, the quality-assurance laboratory at Yards Brewery and – next month – a prestigious national brewing conference in Chicago.

How was Spearot’s ale? Let’s just say the diploma he’ll be handed at tomorrow’s commencement at the Glenside university ought to be sealed with a beer stain.

For, as the graduate conceded, “Logistically, it was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.”

Spearot, who grew up in Jeffersonville, Montgomery County, caught the brewing bug as an 18-year-old sophomore when he was on the fence about pursuing a career in forensics. A chance to study abroad, at an organic winery in Mudgee, Australia, changed that path.

“Back home, I wasn’t anywhere near drinking age,” he said. But Australia gets them started early, so the internship gave him an opportunity to (legally) taste what he was studying.

The stint lasted just seven weeks, but the work, along with conversations with the winery’s owner, persuaded him to concentrate on the marvels of fermentation.

“I really didn’t know my passion until Australia,” Spearot said.

That led to an internship at Yards, where he worked in the Northern Liberties brewery lab with quality-assurance director Frank Winslow.

It was Winslow who gave Spearot the idea for his senior Capstone Project – an intense, creative, yearlong study within the student’s major.

Typically, these in-depth projects carry titles like “The Effects of Gluten Proteins and Ketones in Mice Models with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

Spearot’s was no less wonky: “Effect of the Early Pitching Method on Beer Composition During the Brewing Process.” It stems from a proposal that Winslow had read from researchers at Japan’s Asahi Brewery, suggesting a new method of inoculating beer with yeast to initiate fermentation.

“Joe latched on to the project and ran with it,” Winslow said.

But first he had to persuade the school – founded by Methodists as Beaver Female Seminary – to allow him to set up shop and (gasp!) serve beer to volunteer test subjects.

It took four months for the school’s institutional review board to approve his request.

“Because humans were involved, I had to prove that giving them beer was ethical,” Spearot said. “So, I had to show that all the test subjects would be of age, no one would get drunk and that I would be analyzing the results.”

His chemistry professor, Linda Mascavage (right, above), gave him the go-ahead to set up the brewhouse in her lab. (“Which was great, because she doesn’t even like beer,” Spearot said.)

And Spearot began working on his recipe.

“It was a simple pale ale, made with Citra hops,” he said. “I wanted to brew something drinkable. Plus, I wanted something me and my roommates could drink afterwards.”

He ran off three trials of about 10 gallons each, with a variety of pitching methods in which the beer was exposed to yeast at different times.

About 75 Arcadia faculty, staff and students tasted the ale and registered their comments. And Spearot subjected samples to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, a high-tech method of identifying microscopic ingredients.

The study’s results confirmed the Asahi proposal. The new pitching method reduced the amount of harsh fusel alcohol (suspected to be the cause of common hangovers) and increased the amount of isoamyl acetate, the chemical compound that gives beer (especially German hefeweizen) its banana flavor.

Winslow said that he was so impressed by young Spearot’s work, Yards has invited him back for another stint this summer.

Others have noticed his work, too. In June, he’ll present his findings at the annual conference of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas. In September, he’ll enter the master of food science program at Drexel University.

The fermentation project alone likely guaranteed Spearot a passing grade, but the senior sealed the deal by gifting his professors with a bottle of his new creation, Punxsutawney Fudge Porter. It’s based on a family fudge recipe that goes back to the days when his grandfather served as one of the groundhog judges out at Gobbler’s Knob.

Said Spearot: “The secret ingredient is groundhog milk.”

Hmm . . . on second thought, somebody better check this guy’s biology grades.

The study

Typically, beer wort is inoculated with yeast through a method known as “uniform pitching,” in which the yeast is added in equal measures as the fermentation vessel fills. Spearot’s study examined a pitching method in which three-quarters of the yeast was added initially, with the remainder added in a final dose.

The study examined how the pitching method affects the production of fusel (harsh) alcohol and certain esters.

Spearot’s tests found that the new method produced significantly lower levels of isoamyl alcohol, one of the major fusel alcohols. Through gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis, he discovered the new method also increased the levels of isoamyl acetate, ethel acetate and ethyl butereate – all esters that produce important flavors in ale.

Finally, the majority of faculty, staff and students who participated in his taste test agreed the new pitching method increased the flavor of esters in samples.

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SIXTY YEARS ago this week, Englishman Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile. In a tribute that could be dreamed up only by a beer drinker, Californian James Nielsen pulled on his running shoes, headed to the track, stretched a few times . . .

And cracked open a can of Budweiser.

Make that four Buds. One for each lap of a quarter-mile track in Marin County.

In an achievement that – even if it’s not quite as historic as Bannister’s – lit up YouTube and Facebook, Nielsen became the first man to run a sub-5-minute beer mile.

The world cheered, Nielsen belched.

The beer mile is one of those thoroughly American inventions that combines heroic athleticism with, well, beer. Competitors line up, chug one 12-ounce beer, run a quarter-mile lap, then chug another, and continue racing. Four laps, four beers.

Until Nielsen, the record, held by an Australian, was 5:04.9. According to BeerMile.com, an authoritative database of races, the women’s record, 6:42, was set in 1997 by a Canadian.

Those are incredibly fast times when you factor in 10 seconds or so of chugging per beer. With 48 ounces of gurgling alcohol in the gut, it’s no wonder many beer milers finish with a spew, a penalty that demands they run an extra lap.

“I’ve always been able to pound beers and run,” said Nielsen, 34, a marathoner and two-time NCAA Division III champion in the 5,000-meter run.

College teams and running clubs sometimes end their seasons with a beer mile. When Nielsen was a senior at the University of California-San Diego, he ran it in 5:17. (His best nonbeer mile is in the low 4s.)

“Everyone was, ‘Wow, how the heck did you do that?’ ” Nielsen said. “So, over the next decade or so, it was always in the back of my mind that I should aim for a sub-5.”

He took a job as an executive in the tech industry, founded a nonprofit running organization and kept up with his training.

“Then, last year, on the 59th anniversary of Bannister’s mile, I thought I should try to do it on the 60th anniversary,” he said. “I started training hard, to drink even faster and run with all that beer in my stomach.”

He had planned to take his shot on Tuesday, the exact anniversary of Bannister’s feat. But word in running circles was that others had the same idea, so he jumped the gun so he could be first.

On April 27, James “The Beast” Nielsen warmed up and headed to the track with his wife, Mimi (also a competitive runner). He stood before a camera to declare he would break the 5-minute barrier, “which many people believe is a physical limitation.”

The YouTube video, which has drawn more than a million views, is priceless. With tongue in cheek, he explains that he’d “studied the anatomy of the esophagus and the upper sphincter . . . [to] maximize the amount of volume in the shortest amount of time.”

Then, with Mimi urging him on, he cracks the first can, gulps and heads into his first lap.

His quarter-mile splits are crazy fast: 63 seconds, 68, 67, then a final lap of just 63 seconds. And – given all the heavy breathing between laps – his chugging is equally impressive, averaging 9 seconds per can.

On the final lap, his wife calls out his time (“Let’s go babe, you can do it!”) and giggles hysterically as he crosses the finish. “Hahahaha… Shit, you did it!”

Four minutes, 57.1 seconds. A world-record beer mile.

She follows him with the camera and asks him to make a historic statement on his feat.

Bent over in agony with hands on his knees, Nielsen grimaces. “It’s really painful.”

He told me that he did a lot of belching during the race. “I had stomach cramps on both sides,” he said. “It’s kind of a miserable experience, to be honest. You kind of feel like you’re drowning.

“But I was excited that I’d set the record. Plus, the alcohol was hitting the bloodstream at the same time. So I was really pumped. It was pure elation.”

ESPN, “The Tonight Show,” “Good Morning America” and other media reported the story. Facebook and online forums buzzed, though a few skeptics wondered if the record was a hoax.

As for those four cans of Bud, Nielsen said that if he had had his choice, he would’ve preferred a California craft beer – an Anchor or Lagunitas. Under the rules, any beer is acceptable as long as it’s a minimum of 5 percent alcohol.

“I was actually thinking of a stout because it might have less carbon dioxide,” he said. “But, for some reason, most beer milers choose Budweiser and I decided to do that, too.

“I didn’t want an asterisk next to my name.”

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OUT IN western Pennsylvania, just up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh, brewer Matt Gouwens has a green thumb and a dream: One of these days, he’ll be brewing fresh beer with Pennsylvania-grown hops.

He’s so certain of that dream, he’s planted almost an acre of hops on his own property and boldly named his company Hop Farm Brewing Co.

“Local hops, local beer,” Gouwens vowed.

For now, it’s just a dream.

His acreage is nowhere near enough to provide enough hop for his small-batch brewery. Most of his supply comes from big hops farms in the Pacific Northwest, the source of almost all American-grown hops.

So Gouwens spends his hours chatting up local farmers, hoping to convince them to begin planting the vine-like flower that gives beer its bitterness and fresh, garden-like aroma.

“The goal is 100 percent local hops,” Gouwens said.

This is not some quixotic quest.

The surging “eat local” movement has prompted scores of small brewers to begin sourcing hops from nearby farms. Slowly, they’re bringing the crop back east, to its original home.

In the 1800s, almost all American hops were grown on thousands of acres of lush farmland in central New York. They began to disappear in the early 1900s, first because of pests and blight, then Prohibition. By the 1930s, the industry had moved westward to Washington, Oregon and Idaho, where larger farms produced more potent varieties.

Of course, bringing back hops will take much more effort than merely planting the roots, known as rhizomes. It will take years of crop development to produce usable quantities. And it will take the investment of tens of thousands of dollars to purchase harvesting, drying and packaging equipment.

But it is already happening.

In Michigan, farmers have formed a statewide hop network to educate startups on commercial hop growing and processing. Already, 200 acres have been planted, and 100 more are expected to come online this year.

New York will reach about 250 acres this summer, up from 15 just a few years ago.

That acreage is a dot compared to Washington state, where hops are a commodity crop grown by large collectives on more than 27,000 acres.

But forget the numbers. Instead, consider that we may be seeing the next chapter in the growth of artisan brewing in America. Scrappy, independent craft brewers, who in fewer than than 20 years reshaped the $100 billion domestic-beer industry, are now seriously changing the American agricultural landscape.

And make no mistake: It’s the little guys – not the giants that dominate industrial farming – who are triggering change.

Tim Mroz, a spokesman for the nonprofit economic development group that helped found Michigan’s hop network, said the organization was created solely to meet the demand of the state’s craft brewers.

“The growers started from the standpoint of working with craft brewers to meet their needs,” Mroz said. “They need not only high quality, but consistent quality.

“Well, the real win here is that Michigan is actually producing commercial hops that are being used by some of the best craft brewers in the world. Brewers like Bell’s, Short’s and Founders, who make incredible, incredible beer, who will not sacrifice quality in the name of a gimmick of using local hops. They see the quality.”

In New York, meanwhile, the trend has been stoked by the creation of a new farm-brewery license. Modeled on winery legislation that successfully encouraged the use of locally grown grapes, the new regs created cheaper licenses and deregulated distribution for breweries whose beer is made with at least 20 percent locally grown hops and grains. (That standard will increase to 90 percent by 2023.)

In just over a year since the bill was signed, more than 30 farm breweries have opened in New York, according to Steve Miller, a hops specialist at Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension.

“Things have changed a lot in the last couple years,” Miller said. “Before, people would put in a half acre and try to sell to brewers. Now, we’re seeing farmers putting in as much as 10 to 20 acres at a time.”

Could we see the same thing happen someday in Pennsylvania?

Gouwens is trying, one farmer at a time. But he acknowledges that convincing them to devote time and money (up to $20,000 per acre) is a hard row to hoe.

“Farmers aren’t rich people, and that’s a lot of outlay,” he said. “The farmer has to have some passion and patience, to wait two or three years for a return.”

Sounds as if it’s going to take more than a green thumb. Harrisburg, are you listening?

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THE DAFFODILS are sprouting, the grass is growing. It’s time to hire some kid to mow the lawn so you can dive into beer-drinking season. Put these events and beers on your springtime to-drink list.

Events

Arbrew Day, tomorrow

TreePhilly and Yards Brewing will encourage beer drinkers to exercise their green thumbs with a pint and a spade. Get planting with a cold glass of Yards ale and a free yard tree and T-shirt at these participating bars: Bourbon Blue (2 Rector St., Manayunk); City Tap House (3925 Walnut St., West Philly); Frankford Hall (1210 Frankford Ave., Fishtown); Grey Lodge Pub (6235 Frankford Ave., Mayfair); and Kite & Key (1836 Callowhill St., Franklintown).

Fare Festival 2014, Sunday

More than 50 breweries, wineries, distillers and restaurateurs will be on hand at The Fuge (780 Falcon Circle, No. 200), in Warminster, for a big-time drinks-and-eats fest.

I’ll be there, too, ’cause I want to check out the centrifuge (thus the facility’s name) that was used to train astronauts on their way to the moon. Tix: $70.

World’s Largest Bar Crawl, May 3

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pub crawl took place last year in Kansas City, with 4,885 participants. Philly can do better, right?

You’ll need to drink at least five ounces of beverage at 10 different participating joints around the city. Drink plenty of water, too. Pick up a registration wristband for $10.

Sly Fox Bock Fest & Goat Races, May 4

The goats draw thousands to this daylong festival at Sly Fox Brewhouse & Eatery, in Phoenixville. But it’s brewmaster Brian O’Reilly’s excellent range of bocks (from Helles bock to Eisbock) that make the running of the ruminants one of the best beer events in America.

Races start at 2 p.m. Free.

Biblical Brew-Off, May 10

It’s the He-brews vs. the Angli-cans at Congregation Rodeph Shalom (615 N. Broad St.), where the synagogue will take on Roxborough’s St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in a home-brew battle for charity. Tix, $30, include beer, barbecue and a souvenir pint glass. 215-483-1529.

Happy Hour Yoga, May 10

Can you think of anything more relaxing than a one-hour, all-levels yoga workout (led by Mrs. Sixpack at Yoga on the Ridge, Roxborough) followed by a free beer sampling (led by Mr. Sixpack)?

I’ll pair all that stretching with some elbow-bending, featuring beers with a yoga theme. (How about Ommm-megang?). Yoga class, $25,

Beers

Floyd D’Rue (and Rue D’Floyd). This pair of collaboration bottles by the Bruery, of California, and 3 Floyds, of Indiana, would draw plenty of interest, if only because they’re produced by two cult faves. But something went wrong in the brewing process, and the barrel-aged beers were mistakenly infected by Lactobacillus bacteria that will turn them sour.

Rather than dump the stuff because it didn’t meet their standards, the breweries have announced: Buy them at your own risk. It’s as if a major carmaker knowingly sold a faulty product – unthinkable!

Stone Sprocketbier. The first in the California brewery’s Spotlight Series featuring inventive brews from brewery workers. In this case, a quality-assurance supervisor and warehouse guy came up with an odd, black-rye Kolsch-style ale.

Victory Unity. This collaboration between the Downingtown brewery and the folks from West Philly’s Local 44 is a more conventional, pale-colored Kolsch, made with German Hersbrucker hops.

Fegley’s Brew Works Hop’solutely, with Brett. This triple IPA is one of my local favorites, and now they’ve inoculated a batch with Brettanomyces yeast. Look for a dose of funky aroma to pair with its bouquet of Chinook and Amarillo hops.

Long Trail Limbo IPA. The familiar, 25-year-old Vermont brewery is suddenly drawing new regard from hop heads for this strong yet blissful India pale ale. Credit its fruity flavor to an aggressive blend of Pacific Northwestern and Australian hops, including the trendy Mosaic variety.

Barren Hill Biere de Extra. Local favorites Iron Hill and Stoudt’s have strong track records, so it was no surprise when they both brought home medals from the 2014 World Beer Cup earlier this month. But Barren Hill?

The 6-month-old Lafayette Hill brewery won bronze in the international contest for this strong, French-style biere de garde from farmhouse ale specialist Scott Morrison.

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SWEET BABY JESUS, it’s Holy Thursday!

The end of Lent is upon us, and so is your 40-day fast of beer, chocolate and/or peanut butter. What better way to celebrate your penance than with, yup, a chocolate-and-peanut-butter beer?

I’m talking about one of the hottest brands on shelves right now: Sweet Baby Jesus from Baltimore’s DuClaw Brewing.

Store owners can barely keep sixpacks in stock, and the unusual brew has suddenly and surprisingly become 18-year-old DuClaw’s top-selling brand.

That’s partly because of its creamy, full-bodied flavor. The dark porter tastes unmistakably like a pint full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

But the brand also owes some of its explosive popularity to its unconventional name.

“It definitely grabs people’s attention,” said DuClaw’s owner and founder, Dave Benfield. “So many people are anxious, they want to know how to get a hold of Sweet Baby Jesus.”

Indeed, until five years ago, almost all of DuClaw’s beer was sold in its own restaurants in the Baltimore suburbs. Largely propelled by Sweet Baby Jesus, the company now distributes throughout Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, with plans to expand even farther.

The beer got its start in a 2011 homebrew contest, with a recipe submitted by a pair of amateurs. DuClaw brewer Jim Wagner adapted the recipe and brewed a batch that sold out in a month – with $15,000 in sales donated to a local charity.

Brewing a peanut-butter-and-chocolate beer is no easy trick. For one thing, chocolate and peanut butter contain oil, which confounds both fermentation and carbonation.

“After about two or three weeks, a beer made with peanut butter can just break apart and go to hell,” Benfield said.

The larger challenge, though, is creating a chocolate- and peanut-flavored beer that tastes like beer.

“You want a bold flavor but something with balance, something that’s drinkable,” Benfield said. “With Sweet Baby Jesus, we wanted something that wouldn’t wear you down after half of a glass – to get that flavor that won’t kill you at the end.”

Benfield acknowledged that the brewery uses various dark-roasted malts to mimic the flavor and character of chocolate. However, the secret behind the peanut-butter flavor will remain just that.

“To crack that code and get that to happen was a little bit of a breakthrough for us,” Benfield said. “So you won’t mind if I don’t share that.”

Clearly, DuClaw isn’t the only brewery that’s learned to brew with peanuts. Locally, Iron Hill and Evil Genius have created rich, delicious chocolate-and-peanut-butter porters in recent months.

DuClaw’s brand name, well, that was just pure inspiration. The brewery had been close to registering the porter as “Bad Samaritan,” but neither Benfield nor Wagner felt it fit the beer.

According to Benfield, the striking name came about from the mild epithet Wagner uttered after he savored a full taste.

Yes, the name is edgy. But Sweet Baby Jesus is hardly the first brand with a religious reference on its label. Great Lakes Holy Moses, Epic Big Bad Baptist, He’brew Messiah, Avery Karma – not to mention a chorus of patron saints (e.g. Pauli, Peter, Bernardus and Ides) – come to mind.

Not surprisingly, though, about three or four times a week DuClaw hears from people complaining about sacrilege.

For example, after spotting a stack of sixpacks at her local grocery store, blogger Mary Hasson, who describes herself as a Catholic conservative, observed:

“Slapping ‘Sweet Baby Jesus’ on a bottle of beer profanes his sacred name. Downing a ‘cold one’ that bears the name of Jesus, and then tossing it in the trash . . . alongside half-eaten chicken wings, soggy paper towels and the dregs of last night’s party communicates a profound disrespect for the reality of the person whose name it bears.”

Benfield said the name has no religious connotation, and he’s cautious to underscore it’s “just an exclamation.”

There are no portraits or caricatures of the savior on the label, just the phrase punctuated by an exclamation mark. Last year, he said, the brewery asked a retailer to dismantle a display that featured a candy chocolate Jesus figurine atop a stack of cases.

A chocolate-filled son of God? The Easter Bunny does not approve.

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A LOCAL brewpub operator once told me that he always kept at least one Irish beer on tap, even if he didn’t have any actual Irish beer in the house.

Brown ale, rye beer, pale lager, whatever. He’d just plug the word “Irish” into the beer’s name (e.g. Irish pale ale), and, like magic, it became an Irish beer.

“In this town,” he reasoned, “if it says ‘Irish,’ it sells.”

Years have gone by and that brewpub is no longer in operation. But now there’s a new version of the old trick: the fake IPA.

India pale ale, of course, is one of the classic, noble styles of world brewing heritage. It gets its name from the strong, highly hopped, pale British ales that were once exported for colonial trade in Bombay.

The style was nearly extinct in America by the 1970s, before it rebounded with our new-age fascination with extraordinarily aromatic hop varieties. Today, IPA is the No. 1 style in the craft-beer segment.

It turns out, though, that many so-called IPAs began life as little more than brown ale, rye beer or whatever. The brewery just adds more hops and, like magic, it becomes an IPA – even if the beer is neither pale nor even necessarily ale.

Part of this is the fun result of the inventiveness of American brewers who never met a recipe they couldn’t tweak. If brewers strictly followed age-old style definitions, we wouldn’t have the tingly Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA, or earthy Founders Red’s Rye IPA, or bold 21st Amendment Back in Black IPA, or refreshing Barren Hill Pilsner IPA.

And who wants that?

But let’s face it: The IPA trend also contains a dose of crass commercialism. It no longer means a 300-year-old style of ale. Rather, it’s become a neologism aimed at the hop-headed masses. As some industry wags have observed, these days it might actually stand for “Improves Profit Automatically.”

The latest example is the so-called Session IPA.

Suddenly, the bottle shops and tap lines are packed with IPAs that imply they’re meant to be chugged, not sipped: Founders All Day, Terrapin RecreationAle, Flying Dog Easy, Stone Go To, Harvest Moon Afternoon Delight, Boulevard Pop-Up, Sierra Nevada Nooner, Firestone Walker Easy Jack, Lagunitas DayTime, Rough Draft Weekday and Ballast Point Even Keel, among others.

The conceit behind the new sub-style is that regular IPAs are too high in alcohol (7 percent by volume or more) to be enjoyed for an entire evening, or “session.” Session IPAs retain the potent hop character of their parent, but with an alcohol content under 5 percent.

Low alcohol, high hops . . . uh, isn’t there already a name for that?

Indeed, there are actually three or four names: pale ale, extra pale ale, American pale ale and a couple I’m probably forgetting. Heck, we could just call it “bitter” – except that that British term fell into disfavor in America because it reminds us that highly hopped beers are often, ironically enough, bitter.

So, Session IPA it is.

As with most styles, the challenge in designing a Session IPA is balance. Because low alcohol beers require less malt, the brewer typically must also reduce the amount of hops. Otherwise, we’re left with an unpalatable hop tea that’s reminiscent of chewing on a handful of aspirin. Watch out, though: Subtract too many hops and you get Miller Lite.

The solution, many brewers have found, is a tactic called hop-bursting.

Typically, hops are added while the beer’s unfermented base (a syrupy mix called wort) is boiling, to extract their bitter alpha acids over the course of an hour or more.

Hop-bursting essentially backloads the majority of the hops, postponing their addition till the last 10 minutes of the boil. That’s not enough time for the hops’ bitterness to be extracted, but it’s plenty of time to capture the highly volatile oils that makes hops either floral or spicy.

Voila! A beer that smells and tastes like a hop monster but with a level of bitterness that won’t overwhelm its relatively light body and alcohol content.

There are other tricks to making a Session IPA. Some are made with specialty malts that provide body but not sweetness; others deploy new hop varieties bred specifically to enhance aroma without adding bitterness.

But are they really IPAs?

The traditionalist in me says no. But the beer lover in me welcomes our hoppy overlords and acknowledges that it’s only a matter of time till we see the next new style:

The Irish IPA.

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EVERYONE in the beer industry is talking about the damn bubble.

They’re either worried that it’s going to burst, or vowing that it will continue to grow.

Like the earlier dot-com and housing bubbles, the craft-beer bubble is the product of what pessimists say is unsustainable growth, with about eight new breweries opening nationwide every week.

The bubble can’t help but explode, they say. Here are three reasons we’re all gonna get soaked:

1. There are too many breweries.

There are about 2,800 breweries nationwide, with as many as 1,000 more on the horizon.

Meanwhile, BudMillerCoors are glomming onto the sector, either with specialty brands (Shock Top, Leinenkugel, Blue Moon) or acquisitions (Goose Island, Blue Point). Other established operations, including Stone, Victory, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas, are in the midst of aggressive expansions that will increase capacity.

There are not enough slices of the pie to go around.

2. There are too many brands.

Wholesalers gripe that there are too many SKUs, or stock-keeping units, the unique ID for every brand and packaging type. Consider: Most breweries produce at least 10 separate brands – that’s nearly 30,000 separate SKUs, and that doesn’t even count imports or the variety of 12-packs, 30-packs, bombers, cans, etc.

Even if stores could cram it all onto their shelves, wholesalers can’t possibly devote sufficient sales effort to promote every one of those brands.

3. There aren’t enough craft-beer drinkers.

Craft beer’s economic model is based on premium pricing, which by definition is affordable by only a small percentage of consumers. Craft beer accounts for barely 10 percent of all beer sales.

The portion won’t grow unless craft brewers drop prices and begin advertising during the Super Bowl, and that’s never going to happen.

Pop goes the bubble!

Well, as Donald Sutherland’s Oddball character in “Kelly’s Heroes” famously mused, “Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves?”

Indeed, I’ve heard plenty of righteous optimism from brewers lately.

At last week’s standing-room-only Brewers of Pennsylvania’s Meeting of the Malts, in Bethlehem, for example, a trio of beer industry luminaries – Dick Yuengling; Jim Koch, of Boston Beer; and Sam Calagione, of Dogfish Head (from right, above) – were wearing smiley faces.

Calagione said that craft brewing benefited from an enthusiastic base of proselytizing fans. The sector was headed to a 20 percent share, he told the audience, “because of you guys.”

Koch credited home brewers, whom he called “the roots of craft brewing . . . and there are too many of them to stomp on.”

Yuengling, known for his company’s overly cautious growth, was beaming over the release of a new product line, Summer Wheat. (It’s quite good, by the way.)

Meanwhile when I stopped in last weekend at the newly opened Conshohocken Brewery, head brewer Andrew Horne told me that he had no doubts about the future.

“I don’t think the bubble is about to burst,” Horne said. “If anything, we’ll be taking an even bigger bite out of the big guys.”

So, here are three reasons the bubble won’t explode:

1. There are not enough breweries.

As the Brewers Association recently noted, if the U.S. had the same number of breweries per capita as Germany, we’d have at least 5,000.

Likewise, consider that there are 7,000 wineries in America – and who drinks all that juice?

Besides, most breweries are actually small brewpubs, a/k/a restaurants, and I’ve never heard anyone suggest that there is a restaurant bubble.

2. Brands don’t matter.

There no such thing as brand loyalty among craft-beer drinkers. A Troegs drinker is as likely to plunk down cash for Yards or Weyerbacher or Sly Fox.

Thus, unlike mega-brewers who compete against each other for market share, small brewers’ growth is based on building the entire craft segment. As Koch said, “Our competition has always been ignorance and apathy.”

3. Everyone is a craft beer drinker.

Twenty years ago, few beer drinkers knew a pale ale from a bucket of Rolling Rocks. Walk into any bar today, and you’ll hear dissertations on the vagaries of yeast strains and international bittering units – especially among young people.

For millennials, the likes of Founders, Victory and Allagash have always existed; they’re not new or even special.

To them, “craft beer” is just “beer.”

And if it’s all just beer . . .

Well, in the words of Brewers Association president Charlie Papazian: “We are not in a bubble, we are knee-deep in foam and the foam is still rising.”

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TURNABOUT is fair play, but in the case of Philly Wine Week it’s also long overdue.

The inaugural grape-juice jag, which continues through Sunday, was modeled on the city’s original bacchanal, Philly Beer Week.

Never mind that the winos have stamina for only 8 days of festivities while the suds set goes 10 – that’s close enough. After all, beer has been plagiarizing wine for years.

The Everyman’s drink, aiming to claw its way to the rarefied height of the vine, has adopted wine’s expensive corked bottles, its aged and blended casks, its boorish Robert Parker ratings and lavish “pairing dinners.” There are now professionally trained beer “sommeliers” who will select properly cellared bottles and decant them into delicate sipping glasses to enhance the bouquet.

But wine stealing from beer? That’s the liquor-store equivalent of the Koch Brothers camping out with Occupy Wall Street.

In fact, wine has a lot to learn from beer. For example:

¶Cans: If a Russian imperial stout like Oskar Blues Ten Fidy (10.5 percent alcohol) can survive aluminum, so can a Bordeaux. Perfect for picnics; no corkscrew needed.

¶Twelve-ounce bottles: That’s two glasses – just enough for one person, and no oxidation issues from half-empty bottles.

¶ Drinking songs: The Blues Brothers’ “Hey Bartender” or Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles”? Your choice.

¶Taps: Why force tables to choose and share a single bottle that can somehow pair with four different dishes? Restaurants with 10 or 15 different draft wines give diners options by the glass. It’s notable that the few restaurants around Philly that offer this convenience (Tria Taproom, Johnny Brenda’s) are well-established beer joints.

¶Price: At no more than $30, a bottle of the world’s greatest beer is accessible to any beer lover. Only lottery winners will ever get a chance to savor the world’s greatest wine.

¶Experimentation: Beer makers live to break rules. Low-alcohol IPA, smoked Helles, peanut-butter porter – it’s all fair game.

Heck, some breweries even use grapes in their beer. Dogfish Head Noble Rot is a saison made with white viognier grapes and the brewery’s Belgian-style witbier; Red & White is made with pinot noir. Allagash Victoria Ale contains Chardonnay grapes crushed right at the brewery in Maine.

Winemakers? They follow rules, and when they break them – as Jason Wilson, of Drexel University’s TableMatters.com, pointed out a few weeks ago in a column about the harrumphing of the aforementioned Mr. Parker – they get slapped down by the Authori-tay.

Which is why I was astonished when a pal handed me a bottle of Bine & Vine, released earlier this year by South Jersey’s Valenzano Winery.

It’s a Chardonnay infused with hops.

As far as I can tell, it’s the first-ever commercially produced wine made with the flowers used normally to bitter beer. I checked around with reps from several wine organizations, and none had ever heard of such heresy.

Naturally, it was a beer lover – or a pair of them – who came up with the idea.

Michael Jones, a Fishtown homebrewer who works at the winery, told me that it was born when he and owner Mark Valenzano were sucking down cans of Heady Topper, the renowned hop monster from The Alchemist, in Vermont.

“We’re big IPA guys, and we started talking: What if we could get this hop flavor into a wine?” Jones told me. “We researched it and didn’t find any other winery that had done it. But we figured, why not?”

Typically, brewers boil hops to extract their bitter qualities to balance the sweetness of malt. Valenzano and Jones didn’t want a bitter wine, however.

Instead they simply added condensed hop pellets to cool stainless-steel tanks of wine and let them soak for about a month. The process, which brewers call “dry-hopping,” extracts only the hops’ aroma.

The pair experimented with about 20 hop varieties, looking for one that could complement their Chardonnay.

Some were ruled out immediately. For example, Cascade, the most widespread variety in today’s craft beer, was too piney, and it dominated the citrus notes of the wine, Jones said.

Their choice came down to two varieties: New Zealand’s trendy Nelson Sauvin, which mimics the aroma and flavor of sauvignon blanc; and U.S.-grown Citra, known for its tropical-fruit character. They ultimately went with the latter.

The finished product, Jones said, “is definitely not a novelty that we produced for the sake of doing something weird. It’s a great wine and it can really stand up to be paired with a lot of foods.”

The hops infusion gives the wine an intense citrus, almost floral character.

Refreshing and full of flavor, Bine & Vine would fit in well at a weekend barbecue as a substitute for a sparkling Czech-style pilsner.

Look for it only in New Jersey liquor shops, at $15 a bottle, and don’t cellar it – the aroma disappears with time.

The thing is, I predict that beer lovers will grab a glass before wine drinkers – ever weighed down by their tedious orthodoxy – take the dare.

Philly Wine Week notwithstanding, wine still has a lot to learn from beer.

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DRINK UP, Jersey, it’s your 350th birthday.

And Flying Fish – the Garden State’s largest craft brewery – has brewed a fitting pint for the occasion: NJ350 Anniversary Ale.

It’s the Camden County brewery’s version of a traditional English stock ale (this birthday marks New Jersey’s establishment as a British colony, remember), with a brash bite of modern-day American sedition.

“The idea was to pay homage to 350 years of history,” Flying Fish brewery manager Barry Holsten told me when I stopped by on brew day earlier this month, “so we looked backward and forward.”

As you might guess from its name, stock ale was a brewery’s base beer. It would be aged for several months or longer, then blended with fresh beer to give the final product a distinct, sometimes tart flavor. It’s the same idea as that pot of chicken stock your grandmom might’ve had on hand to be ladled into a variety of dishes.

Though Flying Fish won’t be aging NJ350, it should boast the strong, rich character of a strong English ale. Credit that to a healthy addition of Maris Otter barley malt, the classic ingredient in those cellar-temp British cask ales that are so revered in London pubs.

Where most grain these days is germinated and dried in massive silos, this variety was spread out in small portions across a vast floor, in an old-fashioned process known as floor-malting.

“It gives the beer a smooth, drinkable quality with a slight biscuity toast to it,” Holsten told me, sifting a handful through his fingers. I chewed on a few grains, and the flavor reminded me of Keebler Sandies Pecan Shortbread cookies.

Colonial brewers – short on proper malt supplies – often added other fermentable sugars to their batches. Flying Fish complemented its grain bill with a generous dose of Black Pearl molasses. Holsten wasn’t looking for a source of additional alcohol in this case, however. Instead, the molasses is there to add a roasty, slightly burnt note, like smoky toffee.

So, those are the historic ingredients of this brew. Where’s the modern dose of sedition?

Well, for one thing there’s the hops: Centennial, Cluster and Simcoe, all very assertive and all very American. Using these varieties in an English ale is like inviting a blustering Chris Christie to tea with the Dowager Countess of Grantham from “Downton Abbey.”

But there’s more than that.

Standing on the flight of steps that leads to the top of Flying Fish’s brew kettles, Holsten waved to the rows of gleaming stainless-steel fermentation tanks and the high-speed bottling line below. Flying Fish’s year-old facility in Somerdale is a long way from the days when early Dutch settlers first brewed in Hoboken. Hell, it’s a long way from its original plant in Cherry Hill.

“We’re running a modern, automated brewing system here,” he said. “We aren’t making beer the same way they made it 350 years ago.”

How will that affect the flavor of NJ350?

We’ll know when it’s released on draft and in 750 ml bottles throughout the Garden State (and Delaware and Pennsylvania, too) in a couple of weeks.

More from the Garden State

Since New Jersey’s so-called Craft Beer Bill of 2012 eased sales restrictions at breweries, at least a dozen start-ups have popped up throughout the state, and more will open before the snow finally thaws.

In a nod to that growth, New Jersey Craft Beer – a website devoted to small breweries and enthusiasts – has organized its first statewide beer collaboration. Seven brewers, a yeast supplier and others formulated the recipe, sourced ingredients and brewed the batch earlier this month.

The site’s operator, Mike Kivowitz, described their beer as “a dark rye saison.”

“But, really, it’s a New Jersey beer,” he said. “It’s a little dark, a little spicy. It’s quirky, eccentric and maybe a little angry.”

It will debut locally on April 4-5 at the Atlantic City Beer Festival, with a formal release party on April 10 at Harvest Moon Brewery & Cafe, in New Brunswick. Info at NewJerseyCraftBeer.com.

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IT SHOULD not pass without acclaim that Monday marks the 100th anniversary of one of the great achievements in the history of beer.

On St. Patrick’s Day 1914, a New York City coroner named Dr. Thomas Hayes Curtin stood before his associates and others at a Bronx social club and unveiled his wondrous invention:

Green beer.

Never before had anyone laid eyes on such a spectacle. Beer, the color of shamrocks, filling the mugs of hundreds.

“Everything possible was green or decorated with that color,” an eyewitness reported. “and all through the banquet, Irish songs were sung and green beer was served.

“No, it wasn’t a green glass, but real beer in a regular colorless glass. But the amber hue was gone from the brew and a deep green was there instead.”

It’s possible that someone else deserves the credit for green beer. Until a more exhaustive search is conducted, the following account – pieced together from news reports, books and more – will have to do.

The story of this legendary liquid begins with a short report from Charles Henry Adams, in his syndicated “New York Day By Day” column, filed a week or so after that grand day. It contains few details of the actual invention.

“All the doctor would tell inquisitive people,” Adams wrote, “was that the effect is brought about by one drop of wash blue in a certain quantity of beer.”

Never mind that “wash blue” is actually an iron powder solution that housewives once used to whiten dirty clothes.

Instead, consider that with a single drop, Curtin made the world a better place.

Green beer, after all, is a testament to mankind’s spirit of fun. It is a tweak, an inside joke, a harmless “kick me” sign in a plastic cup.

War, disease, climate change – forget about it for a few sips. Green beer knocks the legs out from under the weight of the world, it tickles the gray monotony of the Serious Man. In an age when even a simple glass of ale can take on an inflated sense of importance, green beer lowers the stakes and reminds you that it’s time to chug.

The boy from County Carlow

Yes, I know the Irish don’t drink green beer. Who cares?

Curtin obviously didn’t. His family emigrated from County Carlow when he was barely 5. Educated in New York’s public school system, he earned a medical degree and was already practicing surgery by the age of 22.

As coroner’s physician for the Bronx, Curtin saw his share of calamity: tenement fires, horse-and-buggy casualties, accidental falls. In 1904, he directed the medical activities surrounding the infamous Slocum steamboat fire, on the East River, the worst disaster in New York City history till the 9/11 attacks. More than 1,000 corpses – drowned or burned – passed through his office.

How that might have changed his outlook on life, who knows?

When St. Patrick’s Day rolled around 10 years later, Curtin joyously joined fellow city workers, physicians, businessmen and politicians at a sprawling building on East 163rd Street near 3rd: the German-American Schnorrer Club of Morrisania (the original name for this section of the Bronx).

Schnorrer (sometimes spelled schnorer) is a mild Yiddish epithet for a beggar – the kind who bums cigarettes, or who just scrapes for everything. For the club’s members, the term was merely self-effacing.

Just four years after its founding in 1881, the club had already established a reputation as a party palace. Its members, the New York Times reported, “are all convivial and nearly all fat, and the club is said to be able to hold more beer than any other society of its size in the United States or Canadas . . . ”

So you can imagine how the place must’ve rocked when Curtin – the toastmaster that evening – unveiled his green invention.

Still, it would be just a blip in the landscape of time and history. Three months later, the world was sucked into war with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

And on the day after Christmas that year, tragedy struck at home. A fire broke out in Curtin’s apartment, trapping his screaming wife, Lillian. The doctor’s 9-year-old son rushed into her room and smothered the fire with a blanket, but it was too late. Lillian fell unconscious and died a few hours later.

The war overseas raged on. In 1918, Curtin suddenly quit his job in the coroner’s office and joined the American Expeditionary Forces, the first U.S. troops to join the war in France.

When he died, 35 years later, Curtin’s obituary mentioned his work as a highly regarded eye surgeon, his establishment of the Bronx Eye and Ear Infirmary, his award as Bronx Citizen of the Year in 1945.

His sudsy invention didn’t merit a line.

So, maybe it’s time to raise a belated glass in memory of that night 100 years ago, when Irish songs were sung and a room full of happy schnorrers, led by Dr. Thomas H. Curtin, toasted the night with glasses of beer that was green.

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