I had a pretty good beer with dinner tonight, a Black and Tan by Yuengling Brewery. First I’ve had of it, and it was good. However, I noticed on the bottle it said it was America’s oldest brewery, from 1829, and I had to chuckle a bit at the thought of the oldest American beer possibly being Chinese, as that’s what the name would be.
Nope, it’s German, once I looked it up. No fascinating backstory about a Chinese worker from the railroads (I figured the year might be off anyways, but had to check) starting a brewery, though that’d be amazing. It’s simply what was the american version of the German words for “young man.” Looked at it again, and sure enough, it looks like how you’d say youngling.
And now another fun fact from Wikipedia on this brewery. It makes our current president, Barack Obama’s, favorite beer.
Always interesting to learn a piece of history. And to enjoy a good brew.
