clipped from: www.time.com   
Benito, a 5-year-old Chihuahua, drinks dog beer from a bottle in the southern town of Hulst, Netherlands, Sunday Jan. 21, 2007.
Albert Seghers / AP

Next time you reward Rex for fetching the paper, leave the doggy biscuits in the cupboard and pour him a cold beer instead. Thanks to one Dutch inventor, parched pooches now have their very own brand of booze. Arjan Berendsen first got the idea for Kwispelbier (Waggy Tail Ale in Dutch) after an afternoon's hunting. "I felt bad that the dog could only drink water while my wife and I were enjoying our beer. After all, he'd done all the work."


Berendsen, who owns a pet accessory shop in Zelhem, in the eastern part of the Netherlands, commissioned local brewery Schelde to produce the drink. "It's non-alcoholic, not too fizzy and has a delicious beef and malt flavor," Berendsen told TIME. "There are some owners who like [to drink] it as much as their dogs," he added.


The brewers insist the beverage is a bone-fide beer. "It's made more or less in the same way as our Pils with many of the same ingredients," said a spokesman from Schelde. "We've just added some minerals and left out the alcohol. In fact, it's probably a lot healthier than regular beer."


Sure, but will it tickle the discerning canine palate? TIME decided to test Kwispelbier on some of Europe's most favored pooches in Paris's Bois de Boulogne, near the up-scale 16th Arrondissement and a favorite walking spot of the city's finest pedigrees (both four- and two-legged varieties).


It was here that we encountered the Education Canine dog school, a lively bunch of pampered pooches enrolled on a rigorous exercise and discipline program. Our twenty-strong tasting panel was more than ready for some liquid refreshment after a long midday walk. They (quite literally) lapped the stuff up.