I'm not an expert on football, but there was something for everybody in the Super Bowl, including those who collect recordings of the worst renditions, ever, of the National Anthem. I'm thinking about doing a piece about the history of football, and a commentary on the vocal mutilation of our National Anthem at major football events, but not today.

However, one cannot escape the history and the importance of competitive sports in general for the unity of the nation, state, city, and school, including football. But what knowledge one has about the psycho-dynamics, and the altogether positive sociological implications of earnestly striving to win at sports, pales, like a nice clear ale, when compared to one's extensive experience in doing "hands on," or is it "hand to mouth," studies of beer, which leads me to salute Anheuser-Busch for its Super Bowl ads, and the Beer Institute of America, for the apparent plan to continue to educate the general public about the benefits of beer. Though I suspect their completely legitimate motives are to sell more beer while trying to contribute to the knowledge and health of the nation. As is said, beer belongs, and taken with the right food, is definitely good for you, a fact known throughout history, but more on that a little later.

Beer sales are down ever so slightly, wine sales are up five percent, and the sales of spirits are up three percent, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, quoting from the figures of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 3, 2006, Section B2). I was relieved that the Beer Institute did not blame people like me, and members of my family, for the decline in beer sales, for such a shoddy claim would defame the dedication that my family has demonstrated, when it comes to beer and food and "Gemuetlichkeit."

From New Berlin, Wisconsin, to Winter Haven, Florida, and from St. Louis University to Ole Miss to Notre Dame to George Washington University, we are a family "Wo Geselligkeit ganz gross geschrieben wird" [Where hospitality is at the top of the list]! And if a bratwurst is on the grill, you can safely bet there's a cold Budweiser, or its substitute, nearby. So don't blame us for declining beer sales, though we can take some blame for increased wine sales, especially among some of our younger, very upwardly mobile, business-male-tycoons and equally successful lady "tycoonettes."

While we want to talk about beer here, a word about spending too much for a bottle of good wine is competing in my aging brain for recognition (regurgitation?) and release. Most people can't tell the difference in a bottle of a good red wine based on its cost. Stated another way, do you have nerve enough, and are you secure enough, to serve a bottle of "Fat Bastard" red wine at a sit down (linen napkins) dinner? Or, how about decanting a bottle of "Red Truck" at such a dinner? Both those wines cost less than $15 a bottle, and both are considered good to very good by those who know wines. If one were to give those two "American marketing" named wines French language labels, the newly wealthy, and the fine- wine-bored old rich, wouldn't hesitate to buy them, on taste alone.

American vintners have marketed good American wines to millions of Americans by taking the mystery (language-snob-appeal) out of selecting a good wine at a good price. That's why wine sales are up. Marketers of American wines had the guts to say, "Look, our wines are as good as, or better than, wine produced anywhere in the world, so get over the 'it's got to be French wine' baloney!" But that's another column.

The old way of marketing beer in America included the theme "Beer, the beverage of moderation." In other words, beer is not the drink of dedicated drunks. I think connecting the words beverage, beer, and moderation, leaves one with the feeling that drinking beer is less "wrong" than drinking vodka, thus throwing a food (beer) into the drunk tank. If you're a drunk, "moderation" is out of the question. You can't drink any alcohol, period, no matter its source. You can't drink beer, wine, spirits, most "nighttime" cold medicine, and many "vitamin tonics." So, "This Bud's NOT for you!"

Let's review some history. Babylonian clay documents, dating back to 6,000 B.C., describe the preparation of a crude type of beer. By 4,000 B. C., there were 16 different types of beer, and by then the "brewing business" was an important industry. They made their beer from barley, barley and spelt (poor man's wheat, a very early variety of wheat) and spelt and mixtures of honey. Beer was known to all ancient people whose soil would grow cereals.

The use of hops in beer came into its own with the Germans in about 840 A. D., specifically, in the Hallertau region of Germany. Hops were so valuable that small farmers were not allowed to grow them. Only the nobility and the Church (monasteries) were allowed to grow and use those great money making ingredients, for without hops, there was no good (saleable) German beer. Hops were always used in the earliest American beers, at first being grown chiefly in the New England states, but now some of the best hops are said to come from the states of Oregon, Washington, and California on the Pacific coast, and in the state of New York on the Atlantic coast.

Brewing in the American Revolutionary times was already a huge money making business. Several leaders of the Revolution either were brewers or had investments in the brewing business. They included Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams (now you know for whom the modern "Samuel Adams" brewery was named), Patrick Henry who made the memorable declaration, "Give me liberty, or give me a Bud!" (OK? Can't you take a joke?) By the way, a recipe for making beer, written by George Washington, has been discovered at Mount Vernon. George also had a small brewery there.

Finally, I wish the Anheuser-Busch family of companies continued success, and salute America's premier brewer, and thank the company for all its charitable works, not just in St. Louis, and the state of Missouri, but for all it does to promote the protection and enhancement of our nation's environment. Prosit!

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.