The atheistforums.org beer thread.

[Jackalope]

Do they have beer in heaven...or hell?

If they don't in heaven - I wouldn't want any part of it.

In hell, they certainly have beer. The downside is, it's all piss-warm Coors Light.

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There's actually a story behind why American beer sucks so bad. To quote TVTropes:

most breweries went out of business during Prohibition, as you would expect. Those that survived did so by brewing beer, removing the alcohol, then selling the resulting product. To keep costs down, they made these beverages with adjuncts, mainly corn and rice(these are cheaper than barley). When Prohibition was repealed, the recipes for near-beer became the recipes for real beer, adjuncts and all. Since they were cheaper to brew than a normal beer, the breweries using the adjunct recipes came to dominate the American beer scene.

That is also my understanding. Prior to prohibition, there was much variety in U.S. beer. That died with prohibition and the widespread use of non-barley based adjuncts. Ever wonder why the biggest beer brands in the U.S. have so little flavor compared to European and craft brewed U.S. brands? The former use lots of rice and corn in the mash and by comparison little barley malt, whereas the latter uses 100%, or nearly 100% barley malt with the exception of some styles that call for wheat instead. Corn and rice impart little to nothing in the way of flavor, the flavor comes from the malt and the hops. There's dozens of different kinds of malts, and while a large percentage of beers in the world are primarily based on what's known as "two-row malt" (which has little flavor), the post-prohibition brewers used very little of the specialty malts that give beer character and flavor (likely because little was available at the time).

Some of the the larger breweries also were able to make money by producing malt extract for "baking" - in reality, it was used for home brewed hooch.