Gosh, it's getting thirsty in here...

While we may see the world as a constant battle between good and evil, or conservatives and liberal, or Cubs and Cardinals, or farmers and government, it turns out the struggle has actually been between beer and wine.

The history books usually consider the rise and fall of Rome merely in terms of politics, territories, military campaigns, and personalities. They never consider the fate and influence of beer in the movement of society and events. The Germanic primitives, so underrated by Rome, also represented the power of beer, while the Roman rulers of the then-universe also represented the power of wine. Because the beer drinkers prevailed in central and northern Europe and the wine drinkers did not, beer was to take on a significance in the daily lives of the people that otherwise it might not have had. As the brew arose to become mighty in the post-Roman world—a world soon to be Germanic, Christian, and feudal—it also became the object of political and military affairs that helped to shape the destiny of that continent and, thus, of the world that we have inherited today as we start the third millennium. Strangely, beer's first big move to social and political prominence came during a period of roughly five centuries that are generally considered to be among the most stagnant in human affairs, the Dark Ages, when it became the preeminent domain of cloistered brew monks and nuns ... but that is another tale.

Sounds like a win-win for me!