(HuffingtonPost) - When dark chocolate and salt-water taffy are manufactured in beer flavors, when beer is paired with caramels at trendy urban bars, you really know beer's time has come. OK, its time began literally ages ago, possibly in Neolithic times when grains were first farmed. Evidence that beer was being made 6,000 years ago includes "a pale yellowish residue in the grooves of a sherd" found in an archeological site in Iran's Kangavar Valley, according to Max Nelson's book The Barbarian's Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. Go Kangavar! And now beer bars are rising everywhere like foam. So sudsy, so class-blind, yet so delicious, artisanal and diverse: Will beer (and its offspring, such as the ever-trendier cider) snap wine's stranglehold as The Alcoholic Beverage That Counts at long last?