Fergal Murray, Brewmaster for Guinness, has been with the brewery for 26 years now, but he began his time at the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin as a research chemist. Now he’s the face of the 250-plus-year-old brewery, whose black nectar is currently produced in 44 countries around the globe. With the title of head brewmaster and brand ambassador, he stays busy preaching the gospel of Guinness, which – it goes without saying – undoubtedly reigns as the world’s most ubiquitous high-quality beer.

“If Arthur Guinness was around today he probably would be doing what I’m doing, out there speaking about what he’s produced and how he produces across different markets around the world,” Murray said in an interview earlier this week at the Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead. He’s been busy lately traveling the world in celebration of the brewery’s milestone anniversary, which was marked by a limited-edition brew, released only in America, Australia and Singapore, that employs carbonation rather than the usual nitrogen to add more effervescence to the iconic beer.

You might think it would be good to have your company held up in business schools as a famous example. But that wouldn't be the way the people behind the Schlitz brand feel about it. Schlitz is held up as a dreadful warning of how not to do it.

Indeed, the company that now owns Schlitz, once "the beer that made Milwaukee famous," is currently telling drinkers that "our classic 1960's formula is back," the sub-text being that it "now tastes the way it did before we started disastrously mucking about with it 40 years ago, ruining the beer and wrecking the company along the way."

Schlitz's roots were in a Milwaukee restaurant started by 34-year-old August Krug, an immigrant from Bavaria, in 1848. Two years later Krug hired Joseph Schlitz, another German immigrant, from Mainz, to be his bookkeeper. When Krug died in 1856, Schlitz took over the management of the brewery, marrying Krug's widow Anna two years later and changing the name of the business to his own. That same year Krug's 16-year-old nephew, August Uihlein, began working for the brewery. Over the next two decades the brewery grew to be one of the two or three biggest in Milwaukee. Then in 1875 Schlitz was drowned after the ship in which he was travelling on a voyage back to Germany struck rocks off the Scilly Isles. Control of the brewery was inherited by August Uihlein and his three brothers, who had joined him in the business.

Ever notice that when you’re organizing a beer tasting or pairing a beer with a dinner course, someone always wants to have other drink options “for the people who don’t like beer?" So why is it, then, that when a wine event is organized, no one ever suggests getting in a few good beers for the people who don’t like wine?

Nobody is really interested in touring a winery or a brewery. We all just want to get to the tasting room at the end.

Corks, artificial corks, screw caps... Hey guys, the pry-off cap works just fine!

Restaurant truth: It’s always easier to get a decent glass of wine at a beer-focused place than it is to get a good beer at a joint with a great wine list.

And along those same lines: Why is it that restaurateurs who would never consider stocking Yellow Tail think that it’s perfectly acceptable to have Corona as the highlight of their beer list?

Locavores take note: Local beers are often a whole lot better than local wines, unless you’re living in Georgia and consider Sonoma wines to be “local.”

A bottle of 2002 La Tâche from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern: $1,100. Two bottles of the classic 1997 Harvest Ale from the British brewer J.W. Lees at the same place: $40. Who’s laughing now?

Wine distilled is brandy. Beer distilled is whiskey. Okay, we’re even on that score.

This unusual beer, particularly by German standards, is a decidedly tart, low alcohol wheat style enjoyed year-round but particularly popular in the summertime due to its effervescent and refreshing character. Lest you think that Berliner Weisse is a typically dull, ubiquitous wheat beer, however, know that this beer is something of a challenge to most when taken in its unadulterated form. In fact, most Berliners drink this beer only when it’s tamed down a bit with a shot of sugary syrup. For the beer purist, though, Berliner Weisse can provide a terrifically tart and surprisingly complex experience without the aid of additional flavorings to mask the true nature of the beer.

The term “Lawnmower Beer” gets a lot of work around this time of year, usually in reference to a beer that’s light on flavour and heavy on hype, such as you might drink for refreshment following a particularly hot and sweaty activity, such as mowing the lawn. The typical characteristics displayed by such a brew are as follows: cold, wet, thirst quenching.

In other words, pretty much like water, except with four or five percent alcohol.

What I’ve never really been able to understand, however, is why the beers usually grouped under the “Lawnmower” banner are either bland or sweet. Where the former is the case, I’m more inclined to have a glass or two of water followed by a beer with real flavour, while in the latter instance, well, I don’t find that sweet drinks of any sort really refresh.

Don’t believe me? Try this test: The next time you’re feeling hot, sweaty and parched, try slaking your thirst with a room temperature cola. My bet is that it won’t work, primarily because sweet drinks tend to be cloying and palate coating unless they’re cold. You don’t get an “Ahhh, that hits the spot” moment of refreshment; you get a phlegmy feeling in the back of your throat.

Long before the appearance of the widely-accepted standard for the style - Genesee Cream Ale - nearly fifty years ago, this hybrid-style beer was something of an enigma to many beer lovers. The ambiguity, however, isn’t to be found in the style’s deep complexity or inexplicable origins. In fact, the style is very much a product of pure American pragmatism. You might even say that Cream Ale – also known throughout its comparatively short history as sparkling or present use ale – is a reaction beer, pure and simple.