Raise a beer to toast online facts and other stuff

There have been quite a few winters come and go during my lifetime. I don't ever remember one quite so miserable as the one just passing.

Sure, I know it is officially spring now. But tell that to the weather imps that keep sending wintry blasts our way.

I'm looking, as I write this, at some weather forecasts on the internet. Let's face it: I use the internet for information of all sorts. My wife says the internet is my lifeline, considering how many hours a day I use my iPad and desktop computers. (I'm pretty sure writing a column is all part of this complex, interconnected world we live in.)

The forecasts show the possibility of freezing temperatures into next week. I hope these predictions are wrong, of course, but hoping won't stop a determined cold blast that has already crossed five good-sized states and some Canadian provinces as well.

There also is the possibility that these internet forecasts are wrong. Dead wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I've been misled by my computer-enhanced world. Maybe you've experienced this, too?

Among the websites I visit quite a lot is a news site that pulls the latest news from a variety of sources. These include established outlets like the Washington Post and New York Times as well as some rather offbeat web-only outlets I've never heard of.

While glancing through the latest updates collected at this news site I am constantly being lured to visit other sites with enticing grabbers. One that got me to take a look this week promised to tell me the favorite beers in all 50 states.

I expected Budweiser and other Anheuser-Busch products to make quite a show. But I was wrong. As a matter of fact, in this particular rundown Bud barely made a showing. Not even in Missouri.

How could this be?

Even more perplexing was the brand of beer listed, on this site, as the favorite beer in Missouri:

Yeungling.

What? A Chinese beer is the favorite beer in Missouri?

Back to the internet and good, old Wikipedia. As it turns out, Yeungling isn't made in China. It is, in fact, made by the oldest, still-operating brewery in the United States.

Yeungling's two main breweries are in Pennsylvania, with another one in Florida. By volume, it is the largest brewery, too.

So how come I've never heard of Yeungling beer?

And how did it become Missouri's favorite, if nobody knows about it (based on my vigorous but highly unscientific survey of friends who drink beer).

But wait. That's not all. Guess what the favorite beer in Iowa is, based on this particular website? Yep. Yeungling.

I'm guessing this comes as a surprise to folks in both states.

After looking at a few more websites to find out more about Yeungling, I came across some information that brought everything I've ever read online into question. This particular website listed all the states in which Yeungling beer is distributed.

I don't know much, if anything, about beer distribution. I just remember that once upon a time you couldn't get Coors in Missouri. You had to go to Kansas. That was fine for Kansas City folks, but not so good for the rest of us in the Show Me State. And you had to go to Washington state to get Olympia beer. And so forth.

But according to this particular website Yeungling beer is distributed in most every state east of the Mississippi River.

But not in Missouri.

Or Iowa.

So I put the question to you, dear readers: How does a beer I've never heard of that's not distributed in Missouri and Iowa become the favorite of beer drinkers in those two states?

Something is fishy here, and I can't think of anything worse that beer that smells like fish.

Not that Yeungling beer is fishy. For all I know it's a great product, having survived all these years and remained in the family that founded this particular brew.

That's a remarkable history.

I'm hoping some of you will know enough to fill in some of the gaps and answer some of the questions I've raised. Maybe you've had a Yeungling beer. Did you like it? Maybe you know where to get a Yeungling beer that doesn't involve driving to or near Pennsylvania.

The lesson I've learned from this little incursion into the internet is that you have to be awfully careful what you accept as fact, regardless of the source.

I frankly hope Yeungling beer prospers for another 200 years. Maybe by that time there will be internet systems in place that give me some assurance of reliability and fact.

Let's hope the internet turns out to be trustworthy, just like I hope the weather forecasts of the future are entirely accurate. And warmer. And sunnier.

Let's hope.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.