So, you think you know beer? Here's a pop quiz: Name the two main families of beer and the reason they differ.

If you answered 'ale' and 'lager', consider yourself significantly more knowledgeable than the average consumer. If you knew that the difference is fermentation, or specifically warm versus cool fermentation carried out by yeasts of different families, then you can truly

count yourself among the beer cognoscenti. Despite being the world's oldest man-made beverage, and irrespective of its status as one of the most popular beverages in the world, if not the most popular, the majority of beer drinkers know astoundingly little about their brew. And that includes wait staff, bartenders and even sommeliers, the very people charged with selling the stuff.

Thirty or so years ago, that wasn't a problem. America was home to a few dozen breweries making straight-forward, thirst-quenching lagers, hence there was no need to know much about beer. But in today's world of pale ales, barley wines and fruit beers, a little knowledge goes a long way to improving beer sales.

of pottery have enabled historians to determine that humans have been making beer for at least 6,000 years, but in truth it's likely that ale predates even that ancient time. Beer historian Alan Eames, who has spelunked his way through caverns and pyramids looking for evidence of a Mesopotamian Happy Hour, is comfortable with the idea of beer being 20,000 years old, even if he can't quite prove it yet.