It would have been a fine day to quaff a shandy in the old church.

Just sit in the dark and gulp it down, breathing in that wheat and lemonade foam and the mustiness of the creaking floorboards and tired old pews. Maybe look at the altar and read the words printed there - "Glory to God in the Highest" - and smile and feel like you're getting away with something.

Yeah, it would have been a good day for that Saturday at the old Episcopal church at Camp Hancock. It was still and hot, the kind of day where just the thought of a verb makes you sweat.

The church provided no relief from the heat, but was a salve for some post-holiday boredom. An exhibit inside about the history of brewing in North Dakota was interesting enough.

The display, called "Get the Barrel Rolling,"opened on the Fourth of July and will stay up through Aug. 19. It's set up in the church because that's the only place for any new exhibits at the tiny historical site on Main Avenue.

"We were a little concerned about putting a beer exhibit in a church, but it's not really a church anymore," said Johnathan Campbell, supervisor of the Camp Hancock site. "It's a historical exhibit. Besides, in small-town North Dakota, the last two businesses that are always left are the bar and the church. Most people find it kind of funny."

It's also relatively fitting, historically. The Bread of Life church was consecrated in 1881, which makes it a contemporary of the first breweries that were built here, just prior to statehood.

"Get the Barrel Rolling" traces the role of beer in North Dakota, from the early homesteading days to the days of Prohibition, and analyzes the cultural role the beverage played for German and Czech immigrants. Old Tribune ads from the early 1880s pitch the lagers made at Bismarck Brewery (built in 1874, near present-day Fraine Barracks) and Star Brewery (built in 1876 on South Third Street, near present-day BNC National Bank). Frederick Miller also opened a Milwaukee Brewery in Bismarck in 1884, and shipped beer by rail to the Marquis de Mores in Medora.

The brewery boom was short-lived, however, as voters opted for a dry state upon inclusion to the union in 1889. Several panels in the display are devoted to the Prohibition era, and how people could find beer in Bismarck in those days.

Camp Hancock is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. It's located at 101 W. Main Ave.