QUESTION: I love fish tacos, and I have a great recipe that calls for a beer batter. What exactly is the beer supposed to do, and is there a non-alcoholic substitute?

ANSWER: When building a fish taco, it is important to make a good foundation with a quality batter on the fish. Beer adds necessary body, as well as distinct flavors to this Baja, Mexico, dish. A beer batter is the perfect way to give the fish a full flavor, thus making a base for the rest of the taco's ingredients. Wait. Who am I kidding? Everything tastes better with beer! Really, which would you rather have, great tacos without beer or OK tacos with beer? Even OK tacos with OK beer taste better to me!And let's address your questions about what the beer is supposed to do. Why, it is there to make you like your guests! Or maybe it's to get your guests to like you — I'm not really sure, since I don't know you too well. Did you know that one of the provisions on Noah's ark was a supply of beer? Noah may have been short on guests to talk to, but he had to have something to help him clean up after all those animals! He needed to preserve the biology of the universe, and kept himself well-preserved while he was at it.The origin of the word "beer" has a hazy past. It may have come from the word "biber" (meaning beverage), or "beuwo" (meaning barley), or "more beer" which, in the language of the fraternity house, means "hurry up and chug it." Regardless of what it was called, beer has a long history. Babylonian tablets with beer recipes scrawled on them have been traced back as early as 4300 BC. Like I always say, write down your good recipes, folks! Back then, beer was so valued that it was sometimes used to pay workers. The ancient Babylonians also took to the practice of giving their new sons-in-law all the mead, or honey beer, they could drink. Since their calendar was lunar-based, this became known as the "honeymoon." Just goes to show you that those married couples who look at each other fondly and pronounce that they are still on their honeymoon are probably still drunk!Queen Elizabeth I was known to have beer at breakfast — a breakfast of champions, or at least a breakfast fit for a queen. Beer and bread have been considered staples of the ordinary person's diet for centuries. I know some guys who still consider beer a food staple — in fact, a whole food pyramid unto itself. Of course, beer before the 1800s was actually ale, which is very similar to beer, but much heavier.Beer also was made from many different ingredients through the years. Corn, millet, sweet potatoes, wheat, rice, rye, barley, and persimmons were all cultivated to make beer in different cultures. When it comes to adding beer to a batter, the flavor and texture is what makes the difference. Wheat, barley and hops give beer a distinct flavor. Bread makers will say making beer is like making bread. In the mid-1800s, Pasteur discovered the fermenting abilities of yeast, and its stabilizing factor in making beer. This was 22 years before the technology was adapted and applied to pasteurize milk.When you think of a fish fry, you are really going back to root of fried fish, and following that, fish and chips, the quintessential British meal. Beer is often found in fish and chips recipes, and the yeast in the beer acts as a mild leavening agent, making the batter more like a "tempura" — lighter and puffier. Use a dark beer to get that hops flavor, otherwise it will not be as robust. Beer also has tenderizing properties, and can be used as a marinade with meats. You can substitute non-alcoholic beer or leave it out all together if you wish, but it won't be quite the same.In a scientific supplement to Food New Zealand, an English chemistry professor theorized that when frying fish, the alcohol content of the beer can reduce absorption of the oil. His study showed that less oil was absorbed when using beer in the batter because the alcohol makes the fish fry more quickly and produces a hardening layer on the surface that causes the batter to absorb less fat. Well as far as I'm concerned, it is common sense that the longer you leave the fish in the fryer, the more fat it is going to absorb. Who pays for this research anyway? Well, Billy, I know your question was really about fish tacos, but see what happens when you bring up beer?I guess I'm one of those people who likes beer a lot: in the batter, while making the batter, thinking about the batter, writing newspaper columns about batter.