Nissa Mitchell

Beer is gay. I know this may come as a surprise to many, but it needs to be said. For as much as beer has developed a masculine and almost overwhelmingly heterosexual image, at the end of the day, beer is neither of those things. Beer is fermented barley tea flavored with flowers.

Coming up with a good theme each month is probably the hardest part of writing this column. Sure, I could just write about five Minnesota beers I tried recently and call it good—sometimes I do!—but I always feel a bit disappointed in myself when I do that. I like to think that my themes are what makes this column, as opposed to every other monthly Minnesota beer column, the sudsiest. So it’s fair to say I always appreciate it when someone else does this work for me.

What if I told you there's an entire category of beers whose name is, essentially, a long-running dad joke from the 1600s? Would you be at all surprised that I would want to cover it for Doin’ Beers, the only monthly Minnesota beer column full of bad jokes and decidedly mid tasting notes? No, I don’t think you would. You know better, dear reader, than to underestimate my affinity for dad jokes. The style now known as “bock” was first brewed in a nice little German town called Einbeck in the 1300s.