I mean, Lincoln has been giving free beer yearly out for several centuries now, so I'd say apology in perpetua is enough. As far as I know, the exact origins of the tradition are lost in mist, but it's certainly one of the more entertaining college traditions.

(My favourite bizarre Oxford college tradition is the All Souls duck hunt: once a century, a man, known as Lord Mallard, is paraded around on a chair followed by people with flaming torches who all go in search of a giant mallard. In front of the procession someone carries a stick with a dead duck on it -- now replaced with a wooden one -- and everyone in the procession sings a special duck hunting song. According to tradition, when the college was being built in the 15th century a giant mallard was seen flying out of the foundations, and so naturally this became a bizarre and somewhat arcane ceremony.)

Ooh that's interesting! There we have it! That would make sense then, with the name. Apparently there's a beer brewing company in Austria that makes a beer with ground-ivy, but I'm fairly certain there's got to be some experimental archaeologist somewhere who's making it in their back garden.