The Scientist has a cool piece about Michael Davidson, a molecular biophysicist who takes awesome microscopic-level photos of beer (and pretty much everything else):

To create his striking images, Davidson had to find ways to bridge the gap between what he saw through his microscope and what the camera lens saw. Because the eye detects more fluctuations along the color spectrum, the challenge has been creating specimens that work as well for the camera as they do for the human eye. For starters, the molecules have to be in crystalline form, so that they will generate the contour-revealing colors of polarized light. …

Preparing the specimens can take weeks or months. Davidson’s expansive collection of microimages of beer, for example, was particularly grueling to put together. “A lot of beers are pretty close to one another, chemically speaking,” he explained. “Only a few motifs are different, yet we had to assign a distinct pattern to each brand.”

The beer pictured above is a Budweiser, looking a lot more appetizing than usual. After the jump you’ll find Amstel, St. Pauli Girl, Molson Light, Heineken, and Staropramen, a Czech favorite — can you guess which is which?