Over on Slashfood today a couple of beer posts caught my eye. The first, Beer: it’s a diet food, right?, speculates on beer health marketing in light of a recent FDA announcement:

According to a recent FDA announcement, "whole grain barley and barley-containing products are allowed to claim that they reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)." As we all know, beer contains barley!

The other one, Poor Richard’s Ale, mentions something I’ve been seeing floating around the radar lately but haven’t commented on: brewers are brewing beer to commemorate Ben Franklin’s 300th birthday coming up (on January 17).

In commemoration of this historic event, craft brewers from across America will join together to make and serve Poor Richard’s Ale. There will be nearly 100 breweries in 35 states participating in this event. The name of the ale comes from Franklin’s book Poor Richard’s Almanack published in the mid 1700’s.

(Get to the "official" Poor Richard website here. I think I’ll have a more substantial post for this later.)

You can stay current on Slashfood’s beer posts from their beer category page.