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Authors: Alfons Weersink, Professor, Dept of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Guelph and Michael von Massow, Associate Professor, Food Economics, University of Guelph

Not only was beer a passion for Bob and Doug McKenzie, popular members of the Second City comedy troupe during the 1980s, it was also a unit of measurement for the Canadian duo.

The number of brown stubby bottles of Molson Canadian or Labatts Blue they quaffed was the yardstick used to assess qualities ranging from the length of time to the value of a good.

Beer was a relatively homogeneous product back then, making it possible for one stubby bottle to serve as the unit of measure as easily as any other. What would the beer-guzzling hosers make of “beer” today as craft brews take off, eh?