Some pointers to a couple of offbeat articles (still going through my backlog of beer news):

• Bring back the gusto!: An essay on the word "gusto" and how Schlitz ruined it in the 1960’s:
  

  Although the ”gusto” campaign ended almost 40 years ago, the damage to the word was done. There may be some who are able to stick ”gusto” into a sentence without thinking beer, but certainly no one who was born before 1960.

  I know I don’t associate "gusto" with beer, but it’s an interesting read.

• Congress Considers Beer a Luxury—But Not Mink Coats, Private Jets, or Yachts: Notes on trying to roll back the federal excise tax on beer, which was raised in 1990 along with the tax on other luxury items, all of which have been rolled back except for the beer tax.