Beer is a complicated subject. There are so many different styles, abbreviations, breweries, and on and on that, when we first make beer our hobby, we…can get some things wrong. This week, we asked The Fervent Few about the beery misunderstandings, misattributed quotes, and other myths that they used to believe.

Lana Svitankova: “During my first trip to Belgium 10 years ago, I was told that Dubbels are fermented two times, that Tripels are fermented three times, and that Quadrupels are fermented four times. Well, it took a while to get things sorted out.”

Mattias Varg: “That a Guinness was a whole meal. Or any dark beer made you full. (By the way, ‘full’ is the word for ‘drunk’ in Swedish.)”

Nick Yoder: “That pumpkin beer was good.”

Andrés Muñoz: “That beer cannot get you as drunk as liquor. The learning experience: when I decided to drink a 750 of a 12%-er while I did homework in law school. I woke up a few hours later with drool all over my torts textbook.”

Bill Kuhn: “Ben Franklin never actually said, ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’ It was a misquote later used as a marketing ploy. The actual quote is: ‘Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.’”

Neal Buck: “That all beer should be consumed as fresh as possible. At some point, I tried a five-year-old Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, and it blew my mind.”

Patrick Guo: “That beer all tastes the same. I thought that until I tried a Rochefort.”

Paige Latham Didora: “I once heard someone say that draft beer gets you drunker—I didn't believe it. I did think for a long time that Witbier was traditionally served with an orange wedge. I worked at a restaurant where we did that briefly.”

Tiffany Waldron: “That you couldn’t take beer out of the fridge and put it back in again. My parents taught me early about skunked beer, but never the mechanics of it.”

Brandon Morreale: “That aging a beer, any beer, makes it better. Learned my lesson from a five-month-old Bell’s Hopslam.”

Matt Paonessa: “That IPA was made extra hoppy to survive the voyage to India. That's one that now gets under my skin.”

Jim Plachy: “For a window of time I believed that a Double IPA needed to have exactly double the ABV of the IPA made by the same brewery.”

Kristen Foster: “That any beer with a wax seal, or anything barrel-aged, was ultimately better than other beers.”

What’s something about beer that you used to believe? Join The Fervent Few and chat with us about beer myths, all while supporting the great content that GBH produces.