Beer has been the companion of humankind since the earliest days of settled agriculture, and might even have been the reason for it. The American Revolution was fomented in taverns to the rattle of tankards, and our Founding Fathers were mostly brewers. Throughout history, beer has been the social lubricant that allowed ideas to travel through otherwise rigid societies. We owe beer much, and we deserve to understand and appreciate it better. This course, with a nod to history, traces the fate of beer’s odd raw materials, barley and hops, as they travel the complex journey to the consumer’s glass and explores that wide range of products, from the lightest lager to the most trenchant stout, made by large and small craft brewers.