A quick tidbit about "Skunking."

There is truly an enormous amount of information to learn about beer making.  This is part of why it intrigues me. Things that are overly simple and can be learned or mastered quickly bore me because I live for a challenge.  Imagine how dull life would be if suddenly you knew everything there was to know and suddenly had no more questions! 
That being said, if you're like me at some point you've asked or at least wondered aloud "why do we always bottle our beer in brown bottles?  And why do we cover our carboys up with warm cozy blankets?"  Well it turns out that the answer sounds like this:  "To prevent skunking."  Then I'm like "Ooooh, okay.  Wait- what's skunking?"
This is where the complexity of all the chemical processes in brewing comes in.  I am NOT going to pretend to understand them well, but to the lay-person like myself there is some information out there that can give you an okay feel for what's going on inside that glass enclosure.
Apparently there are compounds that are extracted or derived from hops during brewing called "isohumulones."  I don't know what role these are supposed to play but I've learned what role they're supposed not to and that involves skunking!  So what is it?  Isohumulones are broken apart by Light in the Ultraviolet range of frequency, which the sun and light bulbs shoot out tons of.  These now broken up molecules are very eager to bind with traces of sulfur suspended in the beer somewhere to make new sulfur-containing compounds that apparently taste wretched and somewhat... well... skunky.  So beer that has been exposed to too much light changes unfavorably in chemical makeup to make a nasty flavor.
Bottling beer into brown bottles and covering carboys with blankets helps filter out some of the UV rays and mitigate the process of skunking.
This information provides a very basic answer to why we use brown bottles.  But after all that:  There are some types of beers where a certain amount of the production of sulfur-containing molecules is desirable.  (Certain kinds of lagers, I read)
So I come full circle to that satisfying sense of dissatisfaction where now that I sort of have an answer I have several more questions.  Such is the way of life.

Skunking everyone... skunking.