One of the most persistent rumors involving Britannica is that the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica is banned in the state of Texas because it contains a recipe for making beer.

Over the years, we’ve unleashed our crack researchers on this persistent urban legend, and not only have we been unable to uncover anything resembling a beer recipe in any edition of Britannica, we also can’t even determine the origins of the rumor.

Despite the constant tweeting and re-tweeeting, Britannica is available in schools throughout the state of Texas, and we also actually contain quite a nice image of the process of making beer (see below) that Thomas Spanos, one of Britannica’s illustrators, has even blogged about.

Though we are 99.999999999% sure that Britannica has never been banned in Texas (and, it certainly isn’t today), because we’ve been unable to discover the origins of the urban legend or this alleged beer recipe, we thought we might make a sport of it. Calling on the inner amateur (or professional) sleuth in you, we unleash our readers to help us find how this rumor got started (and, to put you in the mood, here’s a link to that 1990s classic “Rumors” by the Timex Social Club). Please provide any details in the comments field below or e-mail us.

The process of beer production. Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.