IT TURNS out, corn isn’t so bad after all.

After decades of pounding the cob, the solons who represent America’s small brewers now say it’s OK to lighten beer with corn, rice and other so-called adjunct ingredients.

In other words, the days when craft beer distinguished itself as all-malt are all gone.

The change came as the Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association this week announced several revisions in its “core values and beliefs,” including its troublesome definition of “craft brewer. ”

To outsiders, the changes may be inside baseball. Who cares what you call the guy who makes our beer as long as he makes good stuff?

But, as the association’s director, Paul Gatza, acknowledged, the corn question reaches directly to “fundamental elements of our industry. ”

The most fundamental of those elements is: What makes craft beer different from regular beer? Or, to put a dollar sign on it: Why should I pay more?

From the very start, that difference was ingredients.

In 1977, upon the founding of New Albion, America’s first microbrewery, co-owner Suzanne Stern told the Associated Press that her beer was better because mainstream brews were made with “adjuncts, like corn and rice, instead of the pure ingredients we use: hops, yeast, malt and water. ” She called domestic beer “a national disgrace” because it contains “chemicals, stabilizers and all sorts of things. ”

Over the next decade, Boston Beer founder Jim Koch echoed that theme as he bashed such high-priced imports as St. Pauli Girl as a “fraud” because it was made with adjuncts.

The craft image

Stern, Koch and other pioneers of the craft-beer movement were not wrong. Most domestic and many imports were swill precisely because they were made with cheap, watered-down ingredients. No hop character, no malt body – just fizzy, yellow liquid.

The difference was not just about flavor – it was about perception.

With a well-honed image as artisans painstakingly handcrafting small, all-malt batches, microbrewers distinguished themselves from giant, soulless, profit-driven factories in St. Louis and Milwaukee that spewed tanks of “artificial” beer. Accurate or not, the image enabled brewers to personally connect with consumers, which was key in persuading beer drinkers to shell out for a better beer.

In this fable, corn was evil.

You could have predicted what happened next: The big brewers – awakened by the growth of craft brewing – started making their own all-malt beer, through subsidiaries including Leinenkugel, Blue Moon, Michelob and, lately, Goose Island and Blue Point.

“All-malt” was no longer a line of demarcation between big and small.

The new ‘traditional’

In late 2012, the Brewers Association – freaked by the big foot about to trounce its turf – redrew the line. In a well-publicized campaign called “Craft vs. Crafty,” the association declared that a craft brewer must be “small, independent and traditional. ”

Small and independent – that was easy to define. But what makes a brewery “traditional? ”

“A brewer who has either an all-malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers [sic] brands) or has at least 50 percent of its volume in either all-malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor. ”

The campaign, which irked some of the association’s own members, was clumsy and shortsighted, not to mention ungrammatical.

It was also historically inaccurate, as more than one critic pointed out, because some of America’s best-known small brewers – including now-blacklisted Yuengling, Straub, August Schell and Lion – had been using adjunct grains for 100 years or more.

You know: traditional.

In fact, most every pre-Prohibition lager maker added corn or rice, because typical American-grown barley was not conducive to making clean, clear European-style lagers. These adjuncts actually made the beer better.

As Schell brewmaster Jace Marti wrote following his brewery’s condemnation, “We continued to brew our beer using this small portion of corn because that was the way we traditionally brewed it. ”

It’s not just the old-time brewers who use adjunct ingredients. Coffee, chocolate, spices – they’re all turning up in much-beloved modern craft beers. Even the world’s so-called greatest beer, Russian River Pliny the Younger (which hits taps in Philly this week), is notably made with an adjunct ingredient, namely sugar.

OK, back to the Webster’s.

The association issued a new (still clunky) definition: “A brewer that has a majority of its total beverage alcohol volume in beers whose flavor derives from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients and their fermentation . . . ”

“The revised definition,” the organization helpfully explained, “recognizes that adjunct brewing is quite literally traditional, as brewers have long brewed with what has been available to them.”

So, that fable about all-malt beer? Forget about it.

Corn is officially unevil.

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THERE’S something new and familiar awaiting Phillies fans heading down to the central Florida Gulf coast for spring training, and I’m not talking about Bobby Abreu.

It’s beer, and I mean the good stuff like we’re used to finding in Philly – not the cases of Corona that college kids on spring break haul up to their beachfront hotel rooms.

In the past two years, the region has seen an explosion of new brewpubs, breweries and craft-beer-pubs. From the newly expanded Sea Dog brewpub, just up the road from the Phils’ home at Bright House Field, to new breweries in nearby St. Petersburg, small-batch beer has finally arrived.

“It was a craft-beer wasteland down here,” said Jeremy Joerger, founder of the newly opened JDubs Brewing Co., in Sarasota. “Now, we’re possibly the hottest state in America.”

Indeed, this is the land of Hooters, overpriced cigar lounges and beachfront bars serving umbrella drinks. The clientele was gorgeous, but if you were looking for a decent beer you were lucky to find a Sam Adams amid a sea of BudMillerCoors.

Today, about 20 small breweries (not counting Yuengling’s Florida plant) dot the vicinity, and new bars devoted to locally brewed beer are cropping up.

Where’d they come from?

Local brewers and enthusiasts credit the growth to Tampa’s highly regarded Cigar City Brewing, located in an industrial park near the airport. Founded in 2008, the brewery has built a devoted following attracted to its full-flavored ales, including a Cubana-style espresso brown ale and a series of sour beers aged like cigars on Spanish cedar. The annual release of Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout (slated for March 8) draws a circus-like crowd to its tasting room.

“Cigar City showed everyone down here that there is a huge market for craft-centric niche beers,” Joerger said. “They led the way, to open up a big opportunity for other craft brewers.”

The opportunity for growth (not to mention the warm temps) caught the eye of Casey Hughes, former brewmaster at South Jersey’s Flying Fish brewery. Last summer, he moved south for a job as head brewer at the new Coppertail Brewing Co., in the Ybor City section of Tampa.

“What I’ve seen in the past six months is amazing, with everyone embracing good beer,” Hughes said. “It’s crazy, it’s just blowing up like nuts.”

Though Coppertail isn’t expected to open till April, word about the new guy in town has spread quickly, as Hughes has introduced his lineup at pop-up tastings in bike shops and other locations.

“We sent out a Facebook notice 24 hours ahead of time, that we would be pouring in our tasting room,” Hughes said. “We went through everything.”

Hughes is especially taken by the fast-growing scene just down the coast from Clearwater, in St. Petersburg – a town that The New York Times travel section recently highlighted because it is in the process of reinventing its reputation as a dowdy home for senior citizens. The Times noted that its historic Central Avenue – once known for its thousands of green benches – is attracting a lively crowd thanks to new breweries, including Cycle Brewing and Green Bench.

A little farther south in Sarasota, another Philadelphia-area transplant, Jim Keaveney, has been organizing events and support of new breweries through a craft-beer club. In just two years, it’s attracted 300 members who attend bottle and can shares on sunny beaches.

“When I first moved here a little over four years ago,” Keaveney said. “I used to say we were 20 years behind Philly. These days, it is closer to five. . . . Many of the towns down here are stocked by expats from all over the country who developed a taste for good beer up north, so it is natural that we are starting to catch up.”

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For snowbirds headed to spring training, here’s a quick layout of the region’s beer scene. And to the rest of you, what are you waiting for? Spring training games started this week, and Tampa Bay Beer Week begins Saturday.

Clearwater (home of the Phillies): Sea Dog Brewing, 26200 U.S. 19; Pair O’Dice Brewing, 4400 118th Ave. N.; Barley Mow Brewing, 518 W. Bay Dr., Largo.

St. Petersburg: Cycle Brewing, 534 Central Ave.; Green Bench, 1133 Baum Ave. N.; 3 Daughters Brewing, 222 22nd St. S.; Brewers’ Tasting Room, 11270 4th St. N.

Also nearby: Peg’s Cantina, 2038 Beach Blvd. S., Gulfport; Rapp Brewing, 10930 Endeavor Way, Seminole; BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, 3800 Park Blvd., Pinellas Park.

Dunedin (home of the Blue Jays): Dunedin Brewery, 937 Douglas Ave.; Seventh Sun Brewing, 1012 Broadway.

Nearby: Saint Somewhere, 1441 Savannah Ave., Tarpon Springs.

Sarasota (home of the Orioles): Big Top Brewing, 6111 Porter Way; Darwin’s on 4th, 1525 4th St.; Sarasota Brewing, 6607 Gateway Ave.; JDub’s, 1215 Mango Ave.

Tampa (home of the Yankees): Cigar City, 3924 W. Spruce St. (Note: Cigar City operates a separate brewpub at 15491 N. Dale Mabry Hwy., and an outlet at Tampa International Airport, Airside C); Tampa Bay Brewing, 1600 E. 8th Ave.; Florida Avenue, 4101 N. Florida Ave.; Six Ten Brewing, 7052 Benjamin Road; Three Palms Brewing, 1509 Hobbs St.

Nearby: Wild Rover, 8740 N. Mobley Road, Keystone.

Bradenton (home of the Pirates): Motorworks Brewing, 1014 9th St. W.

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A PAIR OF upcoming local beer-drinking events has me thinking out of both sides of my brain.

My left side – controlled and analytical – is focused on Saturday’s Bierfest at the German Society of Pennsylvania. I’ll sit on a panel of beer experts to discuss classic, old-world lager styles.

My right side – freewheeling and emotional – is preparing for Beer School at the Loft at Iron Abbey, in Horsham, next week. I’ll lead an advanced class on unconventional beer ingredients that produce inventive, newfangled flavors.

Left: German lagers are the best-made beers in the world. They are as close to perfection as is humanly possible.

Right: Who needs perfection? I’d rather have the excitement of the unusual. Different flavors, unexpected treats. Perfection is boring.

Left: Boring? Is Da Vinci boring? Is Beethoven boring? A German Helles lager, like Andechser Spezial, is bright and crisp and refreshing. Its flavor is sublime. Its sparkling golden color, topped by a pillow of dense, white foam, smiles at you knowingly, like the Mona Lisa. A full, frothy quaff satisfies your soul, like Ludwig’s Fifth Symphony.

Right: Ancient artists and composers – you’re living in the past. Give me a Dogfish Head Theobroma made with cocoa and chile pepper. It’s like Jasper Johns’ ironic paintings. Then I’ll take a Local Option Morning Wood. Made with coffee, it’s a jolt – like the Ramones. Both are flavorful and satisfying but utterly different from anything you’ve ever tasted.

Left: Cocoa? Chile? Coffee? That’s not beer! The German beer purity law – the Reinheitsgebot – established the ingredients of beer centuries ago: water, malt, hops and yeast. Anything else is . . . is verboten!

Right: The Reinheitsgebot? That’s the equivalent of Ptolemaic astronomy. Man learns, we evolve, we don’t go backward. Enforcing a 500-year-old beer-making law is antediluvian. It’s as wrongheaded as the Vatican convicting Galileo of heresy.

Left: On the contrary, the pursuit of perfection is what drives us all. Galileo learned from Copernicus and gave us Newton, who gave us Einstein. German brewers refined their dark dunkel lagers and gave us Kolsch and Pilsener.

Think of them as engineers who brewed and tested again and again, tweaking the recipes, learning from their errors, purifying their creations.

Right: What hubris! Perfection is a myth. It’s an ideal that’s beyond man’s reach. Worse than that, it completely ignores the random wonder of the universe.

Penicillin was created from household mold; plastic was the result of a laboratory spill. Who knows where double IPAs or spontaneously fermented ales will lead us next?

Left: Who cares? Once you’ve achieved nirvana, why would you want to drink anything else?

Right: Because drinking beer isn’t about some stagnant, utopian ideal. It’s about dreams, about challenges, about savoring one glass, then moving to the next discovery.

Left: Ach! Your modern brews are fleeting fascinations. Yesterday it was light beer. Today it’s hop monsters. Tomorrow it’s . . . I don’t know, sour ales. Meanwhile, German lagers endure.

Right: Ugh! That’s just the problem. You would have us drink the same beer, liter after liter, day after day.

The sun shines, the moon rises, and one day you wake up and you’re old and gray, and your beer is yellow and warm. Your entire life is a rerun.

Left: On the contrary, the perfect beer is like a childhood memory. It is yours to hold forever. It is a constant comfort that gives meaning to your life.

Right: So, beer is comfort food? I don’t think so. Beer is excitement and passion. It is a lover who brings you to new heights, a dare that takes you beyond your limitations, a slap in the face that wakes you from complacency.

Left: No, beer is dependable.

Right: No, it’s . . .

Bartender: Yo, enough arguing, brainiacs. What’ll you have?

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Are you a left-brain beer drinker or right? Decide for yourself.

¶Bierfest 2014 is 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the German Society of Pennsylvania, 7th and Spring Garden streets. Tix start at $45 online at phillybierfest.com.

¶Beer School with Professor Joe Sixpack is Feb. 27 at the Loft at Iron Abbey, 680 N. Easton Road, Horsham. Tix are $20, reservations at 215-956-9600.

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FORGET those chocolate beers that are all the rage on Valentine’s Day. Those are for lovey-dovey sweethearts. If you want to get into the libidinous spirit of Cupid’s heart-piercing arrow, there’s only one brew for you:

Blood Beer.

Yeah, I’m talking about really red ale. Straight from the vein.

Plasma Porter. Clot Rot. A transfusion on tap that’ll have you all hopped up on hemoglobin.

This is no fictional brand out of “True Blood,” either.

Blood Beer is a real thing.

Or, at least it was.

It goes back, perhaps, hundreds of years. And it wasn’t outlawed until the late 1990s.

Who in the name of Vlad the Impaler would put blood in beer?

Well, Dow Chemical for one. Fifty years ago, it won a U.S. patent for a technique to infuse beer with blood.

For those opposed to cannibalism, don’t panic. It was not human blood. It was cow blood.

And to be completely clear, they weren’t actually sacrificing calves over the mash tun – although, come to think of it, that might explain the gamy flavor of Zima.

Instead, the bloodletting involved the use of albumin, which is the protein in plasma.

They weren’t adding it for flavor. Instead, like many beer ingredients, it was intended to make your beer look better.

This precious bodily fluid is perfect for removing what beer experts call “chill haze,” the cloudiness that appears in light-colored beer when it’s poured into a glass at a cold temperature.

The haze is created by microscopic proteins that are not removed through normal filtering. The haze has no flavor, and you wouldn’t notice it if you drank straight from the bottle. But appearance is important, so brewers are forever in search of procedures and ingredients to keep their beer clear and bright.

Many favor Irish moss, which is red algae that is often used as a thickener in ice cream. When it’s added to beer during boiling, it tends to attract those unsightly proteins in clumps, which are more easily filtered. (Next time you visit a brewery, look around for bottles of Whirlfloc; that’s the brand name for concentrated Irish moss mixed with purified seaweed.)

Irish moss is just one of many recognized clarifiers, or finings. Over the years, brewers in search of clear beer have turned to clay, diatomaceous earth, charcoal, gelatin, papaya proteins and fish guts.

Wait a sec, fish guts?

Well, technically, the ingredient is called isinglass, but basically it’s collagen from fish bladders. Added to beer during fermentation, it turns tiny floating yeast cells into flakes, which then sink to the bottom of the tank to be easily separated from your beer.

OK, I know this is a lot of tech talk, and you’re out for blood.

We can blame this grisly practice on winemakers, who learned long ago that harsh tannins and other impurities can be removed by adding egg whites to casks. No yolk!

It’s the egg-white protein known as albumin that does the trick. It’s the same protein found, in higher concentration, in animal blood. According to various historical accounts, ancient winemakers discovered that dried ox blood helped clarify their wine.

Although it’s uncertain whether commercial breweries ever dabbled in blood, in 1963 a trio of inventors at Dow Chemical suggested just that. In a patent titled “Clarification of beverages with animal blood albumin,” they described a process of eliminating dastardly chill haze with a 1 percent solution of bovine blood.

The treatment, they declared, would “yield a clear beer.”

And good news, other scientists suggested, it’s the perfect alternative for those with fish allergies.

Now, much as one might enjoy a nice, frothy mug of Blood Beer this Valentine’s Day, don’t bother looking for it.

In the late 1990s, when the world was freaking over the mad-cow disease, government regulators banned the use of blood albumin in food products.

Presumably, however, daring homebrewers can skirt the law.

So, grab your syringe and don’t forget: Blood Beer is best enjoyed at a proper serving temperature of 98.6 degrees.

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OVER the years, beer enthusiasts have chronicled some remarkable pursuits in the name of their favorite adult beverage.

Some have managed to drink a different beer every day for a year. There was the guy who visited a different bar every night of the year. There was another who lived on nothing but bock for the six weeks of Lent.

Scott Clendaniel is putting them to shame. In 2014, he is painting 365 different beers. It’s no digital trick. He’s doing it old school, with a brush and oil paints, laying down imaginative, original portraits on panels.

In the first month of the year, he’s polished off a close-up of 21st Amendment Bitter American, a can of New Belgium Ranger perched in a snowbank, a Denali Brewing Chuli Stout in the foreground of a mountain range, and many more.

Every day of the week, Clendaniel posts a photograph of another piece of his art. When I spoke with him, he was just putting the finishing touches on a corked bottle of A Deal with the Devil, a rare, very strong (17 percent alcohol) barleywine that had just been released in his hometown of Anchorage, Alaska.

“I love beer,” Clendaniel, 33, said. “And I love making art. This is just my way to express both.”

A graduate of the University of Alaska-Anchorage art program, Clendaniel found himself working a part-time job in a local home-brew supply shop. He quit that job to push himself to paint full time.

“I’m either painting or slacking,” he said. “So I’m painting.”

His first beer-influenced artwork, back in 2006, was a group of 10 paintings he called “The Color of Beer,” showing graduated shades of pint glasses, from golden pilsner to chocolate stout.

“I had a sold-out show,” he said, “and I thought, maybe I should paint more beer.”

Then he produced “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” and that sold well, too.

So, now he’s given himself the challenge of a bottle a day.

It’s a rigorous pursuit, beginning each day with a blog entry and photograph of a complete work, which his wife (who works as his business manager) edits and posts. From there, he heads to his apartment studio, looking for inspiration among his bottles.

“I like to paint my personal favorites, or world-class beers that are perennial favorites of others,” Clendaniel said.

He’ll also produce works by commission, which means that if you’re an art lover with a favorite beer, you can mail him a bottle and he’ll paint one for you.

“I think pretty intensely about how to translate the character of the beer in my painting,” he said.

Naturally, he often pours himself a glass for liquid inspiration. But he doesn’t let drinking get in the way of work, because he’s on a mission. He works quickly, thanks to a background in graphic arts, producing colorful works that would look fine in a man cave or behind the bar.

One a day, every day, posted at his blog, Real Art is Better.

In June, he’ll display the first half of the year’s work at a gallery show at Midnight Sun Brewing, in Anchorage.

Meanwhile, the paintings are for sale online.

He acknowledges, for the most part, that “the beer community would rather spend its money on beer than art. I don’t want them not to buy beer, so I’m making the paintings affordable so they can buy both.”

Heck, in the case of A Deal with the Devil, you’d have to shell out $100 for a single, rare bottle on Craigslist. But you can get a print of it at Clendaniel’s Etsy site for just $35, or $90 for the original.

Now, that’s my kind of art.

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Speaking of beer and art, Victory and Dogfish Head breweries announced this week that they’ll co-host a sudsy exhibit in Denver during the Craft Brewers Conference, in April. It’s called “Amber Waves,” and it will feature 27 American breweries showcasing custom artworks paired with their own amber-colored beers.

Proceeds from the event benefit the nonprofit Redline Art Gallery, in Denver. Tix and info online.

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MAN, when did Anheuser-Busch get so lame with its slogans?

The company that gave us the memorable “This Bud’s for you” and “Real Men of Genius” campaigns of yore will spend an unconscionable $28 million on Super Bowl ads to unveil the latest and utterly forgetful tagline for Bud Light:

“The Perfect Beer for Whatever Happens.”

Just rolls right off your tongue, don’t it?

By “whatever,” we can assume they don’t mean “worst-case scenario,” as in, “Too bad your wife has cancer, but at least you’ve got Bud Light.”

Ad Age, quoting an A-B veep, said the new campaign is “totally new positioning for the brand” that will be “a little more reflective of millennial values,” including optimism and an openness to “get out there and experience the world.”

Sheesh . . . do these guys ever listen to themselves talk?

Judging from the “Epic Nights” ad previews that peppered the NFL playoffs, this new world is a zany one, populated by elevator-riding llamas and the ping-pong-playing former governor of California, and, gosh, good thing Bud Light is now available in a handy Cool Twist aluminum bottle!

Because . . . whatever!

Look, no one expects literature, or even Don Draper, in beer commercials. But is that really the best you could do, St. Louis?

It’s like they pulled a bunch of hapless schnoobs into a focus group and fed them a six-pack for inspiration.

Ad exec: So, what’s the first thing that comes to mind after tasting this delicious light beer?

Schnoob No. 1: Um, the urinal?

Schnoob No. 2: It’s light beer, so it really isn’t supposed to have any flavor, right?

Schnoob No. 3: Yeah . . . it is what it is.

Schnoob No. 4: Whatever . . .

Ad exec: That’s it! Get me creative!

The thing is, this is the Super Bowl. The pinnacle of the NFL season. We demand that our beer commercials bring their “A” game. We demand “Wassup?” and croaking frogs and bikini-clad catfights, because we’re certainly not going to talk about the game with the hot receptionist at the front desk on Monday morning.

But lately the big game’s beer slogans have been insipid at best, forgettable at worst.

Don’t believe me? Quick: What was Bud Light’s previous tagline?

Time’s up. It was “Here We Go,” which I believe was inspired by Schnoob No. 1.

Before that? “Drinkability,” an infamous campaign designed to assure consumers that swallowing Bud Light would do no serious harm to your gastrointestinal tract. As my colleague Daily News movie critic Gary Thompson once told me, bragging about “drinkability” is like a restaurant promising its food is “edible.”

I’m tempted to blame this on the Brazilian zillionaires who bought A-B back in 2008. Perhaps they don’t have full command of the English language. Maybe “whatever” is more meaningful in Portuguese.

But Bud Light’s taglines haven’t zinged for at least a decade.

In 2006, it was “Always Worth It,” a slogan that unfortunately rhymes with “Always Worth Shit.” At least that was better than the one they cooked up the same year for that awful Budweiser Select: “A crisp taste with no aftertaste.”

Oxymoron anyone?

Before that, “Fresh. Smooth. Real.” That could have been talking about anything from diet ice cream to women’s tampons. Same goes for “Won’t fill you up and never lets you down.”

The company will have to go a long way to measure up to the taglines that defined Bud Light in its first 20 years:

“Gimme a light . . . I mean Bud Light.”

“Yes . . . I am.”

“I love you, man!”

Those slogans entered into the American vernacular, with even schoolyard kids imitating that “Yes, I am” guy. For good or bad, those slogans (and a lot of sales muscle) were the reason Bud Light grew into America’s best-selling beer.

These days, Bud Light is still No. 1, but it’s sinking. Sales are off, and instead of coming up with a decent slogan, the company is channeling its efforts toward the next, great, fake fruit flavor.

Let’s see, they’ve already done a lime, strawberry and cranberry-flavored margarita . . . I’ve got it! How ’bout Bud Light Whatever-Rita?

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GOD ALMIGHTY – an American-made Trappist beer?

That’s the news that stunned beer drinkers last month, as St. Joseph’s Abbey, about an hour west of Boston, revealed that its Spencer Trappist Ale had been certified as the first Trappist beer brewed outside of Europe.

The monastic brewery will carry on the ancient Benedictine principal that monks should “live by the work of their hands.”

It all seems so quaint and holy, especially considering the near-sacred regard for other Trappist beers, including Chimay and Orval.

We’ve come a long way since the days when a community of beer-making Catholic monks in western Pennsylvania were a national scandal.

The episode, nearly forgotten, took place at the tiny St. Vincent’s Archabbey, outside Pittsburgh, in Latrobe, Pa., long before there was a Rolling Rock beer. The monastery was founded in 1846 by a Bavarian priest named Boniface Wimmer, whom the abbey calls “the pioneer of Benedictinism in the United States.”

Like his European counterparts, Wimmer found it necessary to brew beer because, as he explained to one bishop, “always being obliged to drink fresh water and nothing else, is a thing which no religious orders, even not the Trappists, Carthusians and Paulans, are obliged to do.”

By 1856, the monastery had built a small brewery – not just for its growing population, but for locals, too. Selling beer by the barrel, Wimmer knew, was a good source of income.

St. Vincent’s brewery was not a large operation. According to Pennsylvania brewery historian Rich Wagner, at its peak it produced only about 2,500 barrels a year (about the size of today’s Twin Lakes Brewing, in Delaware) and earned $40,000 a year.

Nonetheless, it did not go unnoticed as the American temperance movement began to surge. By the second half of the 19th century, Father Theobald Mathew, the Irish teetotaler priest, had swept the nation, attracting huge Prohibitionist crowds calling for “total abstinence.” In a few years, Carrie Nation would be sharpening her ax.

Although most ethnic Catholics opposed Prohibition, the church hierarchy found itself bending under pressure. Drunkenness was decried as unholy and the saloons were sinful dens of iniquity.

American priests and bishops began to speak out against the brewery. One in particular, Father George Zurcher, of Buffalo, distributed pamphlets decrying the “foreign ideas” of the St. Vincent Arch Abbey monks.

“Instead of laboring for the cause of sobriety, on which the welfare of the church in this country so greatly depends,” the “beer monks,” as he called them, “are actually gaining revenue from the spread of intemperance.”

The monastery reminded its critics that Pope Pius IX himself had given the brewery a special dispensation. Recalling a biblical passage, the Holy See had reasoned that Paul advised Timothy that “he should take a little wine for his weak stomach, and so [the monastery] must have something.”

In 1895, St. Vincent’s defenders wrote in a letter to the New York Times that its beer “is a pleasant, healthy, invigorating and popular beverage.” Monks had historically brewed beer, they continued, because “they knew that good, pure beer, with bread as an accompaniment, would nourish them and furnish sustenance enough for a full day’s hard labor, while cold water and crackers made but a gruesome meal.”

Zurcher and others railed on, calling the monks “traitors” who betrayed hardworking Catholic followers. Others whispered that barrels marked “O.S.B.,” for Order of St. Benedict, actually meant “Order of Sacred Brewers.”

In 1898, the monastery finally gave in, halting public sales of its cherished beer. With passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919, it stopped brewing altogether. A few years later, fire destroyed the brewery.

Today, the brewery is but a vague memory at the monastery. It earns funds from a gristmill and general store that sells flour, corn meal and grits. There’s no beer, but the monks do sell their own Saint Lazarus Blend of coffee that, they promise, is “bold enough to wake the dead!”

Amen.

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THE EAGLES’ absence notwithstanding, this should be a pretty decent NFL conference championship Sunday for beer lovers. I mean, we could’ve been stuck with third-tier suds outposts like Green Bay, Arizona and (the gods forbid) Kansas City.

Instead, the four teams vying for a shot at Super Bowl XLIII represent some pretty awesome beer towns. If you’re going to do up a blowout this weekend, you’ll have no problem putting together an appropriate beer list.

I’ve offered suggestions, including “impossible” beers that aren’t readily available around Philly. If you’re serving one of these, invite me over!

Just remember: Wanna get drunk? Drink up every time Mike Pereira gets it wrong. Wanna stay sober? Chug one beer whenever Bill Belichick smiles.

Denver

Oh, man, did Peyton Manning really say that “priority one” after last week’s victory over the Chargers was getting “a Bud Light in my mouth?” Either the best quarterback in the NFL has no taste (see Papa John’s, celebrity shill), or he hasn’t had the opportunity to explore Colorado’s second-favorite local product.

Blue Moon Pine in the Neck – a double IPA from Coors? This 22-ounce bomber is exactly why small brewers are worried about the big guys co-opting their turf.

Give Joe’s Premium American Pilsner, from Avery, a try because I’m pretty sure it was named after me.

Great Divide Denver Pale Ale is brewed just five minutes from the stadium formerly known as Mile High.

Impossible: Odell Friek. No, it’s not named after Jevon Kearse. This one is a sour cherry (kriek, in Flemish) blend.

San Francisco

Northern California is loaded with excellent breweries, including Bear Republic, Lagunitas, Firestone Walker, Anderson Valley, Russian River and Sierra Nevada. But if you’re going to live up to the spirit of the 49ers, you really ought to focus on beer brewed in the City by the Bay.

21st Amendment Sneak Attack, a wintertime saison, sounds as if it were made for fourth and inches.

Drink enough Anchor Old Foghorn barleywine, and Colin Kaepernick’s biblical tattoos start to come alive.

Speakeasy Payback Porter recently returned to the Philly market. Pour a splash of this roasty dark ale into your halftime chili.

Impossible: Niner Nation IPA. It’s available only on draft at eight bars in San Francisco. So grab a growler, cash in your frequent-flyer miles and good luck.

Seattle

Washington state – one of the pioneers of the modern craft-beer renaissance – boasts nearly 200 breweries. But they’re into that whole “drink local” thing, which means that the state sends very few beers to the East. So, while Russell Wilson may have no problem slurping down the likes of Chuckanut and Hale’s, you’re going to have to do a little digging.

Pyramid Apricot Ale is easy drinking, with a fruit flavor that goes well with its hops.

Redhook Audible Ale was brewed at Seattle-based Redhook’s New Hampshire plant, but how can you say no to a beer made in honor of sportscaster Dan Patrick?

You actually picked the Saints on Sunday? Drown your sorrows in Elysian Loser Pale Ale, crisp ale that’s bittered with Sorachi Ace hops.

Impossible: Old Schoolhouse Hooligan Stout is surprisingly smooth for such a strong oatmeal stout. This one’s actually available in some New Jersey liquor stores.

New England

What kind of beer town are you when your star QB can’t suck down a few without his skinny supermodel babe making fun of his paunch? And how fearsome can your football team be when one of your best breweries is called Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project?

Samuel Adams Boston Ale is not to be confused with ubiquitous Boston Lager. This pale ale is a bit sweet – a nice match for nachos.

You know that Rob Gronkowski, sidelined with a late-season injury, will be in front of the TV this weekend, shotgunning six-packs. Harpoon Polskie Mastne, a rare Polish-style ale, might be the ticket.

Clown Shoes, of Ipswich, Mass., evidently did not get the memo on CTE risk factors when it bottled Very Angry Beast, a headbanger of an imperial stout.

Impossible: Jack’s Abby/Lawson’s Smoked Maple Lager. This smoky, amber brew brings together two of New England’s favorite cult breweries.

-30-

SO, THAT’S what they mean by Miller High Life.

With this month’s ballyhooed legalization of marijuana in Colorado, some beer makers are adding playful drug references to their brand names and labels, and regulators can do little to censor them.

Label oversight, a quirky if contentious area of federal alcohol law, has confounded breweries for years with often capricious standards that bear little on consumer protection.

Federal law, for example, oddly prohibits the use of coats of arms or wording that promises “pre-war strength,” whatever that means.

Likewise, labels with drug references and slang have been a no-no. In recent years, one California brewer, for example, was forced to change the name of its Kronik Ale, and another was told to rename its Orange Kush wheat beer.

However, drug terminology is not explicitly banned by any federal alcohol law. Instead, the prohibition stems from a broad interpretation of regulations that prohibit “obscene or indecent” statements or designs on labels.

Now, no one had to tell the old-school industrialists from St. Louis and Milwaukee not to use drug references on their labels. Marijuana wasn’t just illegal, it was the competition.

Today? Well, let’s just say that the new generation of craft brewers – and many of their customers – have a more liberal appreciation for pot.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms understood the changing attitude back in 1994, when it issued an industry circular that advised that “as a law enforcement agency, [we] cannot condone alcoholic beverage labels that contain any names of drugs, drug terms or slang associated with drugs or any depiction of drug paraphernalia. We do not believe that responsible industry members should want or would want to portray their products in any socially unacceptable manner.”

But that was before state after state endorsed marijuana for medical use, and, more specifically, before Colorado and Washington state legalized grass for recreational purposes.

Today, as a majority of voters supports legal weed, the only thing “socially unacceptable” about pot is Bogarting a joint.

“It’s always been very subjective,” said Robert C. Lehrman, a Washington, D.C., lawyer specializing in beverage law. “These are not bright lines, they’re constantly shifting.”

We’re already seeing some brewers test the (bong) waters.

Two Washington state breweries, Redhook and Hilliard, celebrated legalization with a hemp ale called Joint Effort, served with an imaginative bong-shaped tap handle.

In Boulder, Colo., West Flanders Brewing last weekend released Recreational Smoke, “a homegrown, fully legal” porter made with “baked and toasted” malts and described as “mellow” and “heady.”

Neither beer is distributed beyond state lines, so their breweries didn’t require label approval from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. But there’s a pretty good chance that they would’ve gotten the OK.

First, there’s that whole First Amendment free-speech thing, in which even the “F-word” is no longer particularly shocking. (Don’t believe me? Check your local beer shelves for Danish-brewed F–k Art Let’s Dance Belgian-style tripel.)

Secondly, the TTB isn’t exactly the DEA.

Not long ago, the alcohol agency gave the go-ahead to an imported vodka from Holland-made Bong Spirit. Its bottle is shaped suspiciously like something the U.S. attorney prosecuted Tommy Chong for selling a few years ago.

Whether through ignorance of drug slang or changing attitudes, the TTB has given thumbs-up to dozens of beers with sly marijuana references, including 420, Dank Tank, Mary Jane, HempEweizen, AK-47, Baked, Maui Waui, Hazed and Infused, Contact High and more. (Visit my website, where I’ve posted a bunch of others.)

Yes, there are limits. Dark Horse Brewing, in Michigan, lost its bid for Smells Like Weed IPA, though its hops, in fact, smell like pot. The name was later changed to Smells Like A Safety Meeting IPA. (A “safety meeting” is slang for taking a break on the job to light up a doober.)

But expect to see fewer of those objections as more states move toward legalization.

“I would say the current policy is, if you put a big, fat joint on the label, it’s probably too aggressive,” Lehrman said. “But if you work with them, say, maybe use a small joint that looks like something else . . . you might get approved.”

In other words, this Bud’s for you.

-30-

JUST BEFORE the end of 2012, the Brewers Association, the Colorado-based organization that represents small breweries across America, issued a fatwa against poseurs in the beer world.

The campaign, called “Craft vs. Crafty,” sought to expose breweries that did not meet its definition of “craft” brewers: “small, independent and traditional.” Its hit list included the likes of Blue Moon and Shock Top, because they’re fronts for big, bad Coors and Anheuser-Busch, respectively. Yuengling, Lion and Straub were outted because, although they’re more than a century old, their use of adjunct ingredients, including corn and rice means that they’re not traditional enough for the organization.

Others, including Goose Island, Leinenkugel, Old Dominion, Widmer and Mendocino, were condemned because they’re owned by large conglomerates.

The full list has since been cleansed from the BA’s website, but I saved a copy. Download the PDF here.

For breweries and beer lovers, the attempt to define “craft” led to a lot of finger-pointing and turned 2013 into the Year of Recrimination.

Mostly, I’ve sat this one out, preferring instead to just drink good beer regardless of who made it. I don’t want to have to decide, for example, if Georgia-based Terrapin – which makes Hopzilla, one of my favorite Double IPAs – qualifies as a true “craft” brewer now that MillerCoors owns a minority stake in the brewery.

Defining “craft” seems fruitless. But after many fine beers last year, including one that I’ve chosen as Joe Sixpack’s Beer of the Year, I now know what is or isn’t a craft brewery:

¶You are not a craft brewery if you’ve never made or would not consider making a collaboration or a one-off.

¶Only a craft brewery would allow an amateur or competitor to operate its brew kettles.

¶Only a craft brewery would make a beer once, and never again.

¶And only a craft brewery would make Sleight of Hand, a/k/a Sierra Nevada Beer Camp #94 Belgian-Style Black IPA, the best beer I drank in 2013.

Don’t go looking for it at your local beer store. It was shipped in July as part of Sierra Nevada’s annual Beer Camp variety 12-pack, and it’s surely gone by now.

A Belgian-style black IPA, I know, sounds as if it should be a train wreck of contradictory styles: a sweet-bitter, dark-pale, Belgian-English ale made in California.

Yet, it not only worked, it blossomed. A combination of Nelson Sauvin and Sorachi Ace hops, with an estery Belgian yeast strain, produced fun flavors of fruit and edgy spice. It was like a mash-up of the best scenes from all the “Die Hard” movies. Undoubtedly, this was the most original beer I’ve tasted since my first glass of Flying Fish’s superb Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA.

The background on this beer is a true testament to the “craft” of brewing.

First, a disclaimer. I attended Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp in 2010, and it was one of the best beer experiences I’ve had. Imagine two days of brewhouse learning in the Sierra Nevada mountains, with a glass of fresh ale never more than three steps away. This isn’t just a simple brewery tour; it’s a scientific exploration led by absolute pros who teach exactly what goes into the flavor of beer.

Beer campers design their own beer, select ingredients and brew a batch. Each year, Sierra Nevada picks the three most interesting creations and bottles them for a late-summer variety pack.

Sleight of Hand was the brainchild of a bunch of homebrewers in California who won a contest to attend the camp. They didn’t know each other beforehand, so they first formed a private Facebook group, created a Google spreadsheet and began trading ideas – the true act of collaboration.

Once they focused on a style, essentially a Double IPA/Belgian Dubbel hybrid or Double Dubbel, Sierra Nevada propagated the proper yeast strain and away they went.

“Once camp started, we met and discussed the style with Brewer Scott Jennings, who then helped us dial in the concept regarding strength, color, hops and mouthfeel,” said one of the homebrewers, Gregory Nagel, of Orange County, who writes the O.C. Beer Blog. “It was truly a group effort, getting input from everyone, on the final brew.”

They wanted a strong IPA, but something a little more “food-friendly” than the standard hop bomb, Nagel told me. The imported, fruit-like hops would give it an unusual character.

As for the malt, he said, “The group voted to make it black just because we could.” The color was extracted from grains late in the brewing process, during a step called “sparging,” which is akin to running water through coffee grounds a second or third time.

That ensured that the beer would be dark but not roasty; hence the name, Sleight of Hand.

“People see a dark beer and assume it’s thick, roasty and chocolatey,” Nagel said. “Our beer was tropical, with notes of coconut, banana bread, lemon and grapes . . .

“I was in tears, how good it was . . .. ”

So, let me review: My favorite beer of 2013 was an insane invention of home-brewers on a beer-soaked adventure at the third-largest independent brewery in America, which bottled just enough for a variety pack, and then moved onto its next project.

Maybe that’s not the definition of craft brewing, but it’s surely the spirit.

While Sleight of Hand may be off the market, you can make a five-gallon batch of the beer yourself. Privately, the homebrewers call it Fart Toss BIPA because of its original, gaseous label. Here’s the recipe.