Category: My Commonplace book

“The new Beer Bill  has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those who are not singing are sprawling. The sovereign people are in a beastly state”  (A letter from Sydney Smith.to John Murray referring to The Beer Act of 1830)

Lady Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith

The sergeant stated that the defendant staggered badly after getting out of the car and smelt strongly of drink. Defendant: I have not touched a drink for ten years. District Justice: Did you have any of this new ice cream? Defendant: Well, I had, your honour. District Justice: How much had you? Defendant: I had a twopenny wafer in Drogheda, your honour. District Justice: Is that all? Defendant: I felt a cold coming on me and had two cornets at Swords. District Justice said he was determined to put down the growing practice of people driving around in motorcars and pulling up at roadside sweetshops to consume ice cream. If such persons feel they need ice cream, they must leave their cars at home. The Sergeant said that the defendant had a small freezer in the back of the car which bore the traces of fresh ice cream; the cushions also had traces of wafer-crumbs. District Justice: No doubt he said ‘Crumbs!’ when he ran into the other car. (Laughter.) Defendant stated that he had bad teeth and did not like ice cream but took it as a tonic and also to prevent himself getting colds. He realised now that he had been foolish and was prepared to take the pledge and drink only whiskey in future.

Flann O’Brien on alcoholic ice-cream, Cruiskeen Lawn

They placed food in front of him,
they placed beer in front of him;
Enkidu knew nothing about eating bread for food,
and of drinking beer he had not been taught.
The harlot spoke to Enkidu, saying:
“Eat the food, Enkidu, it is the way one lives.
Drink the beer, as is the custom of the land.”
Enkidu ate the food until he was sated,
he drank the beer-seven jugs!– and became expansive and sang with joy!
He was elated and his face glowed.
He splashed his shaggy body with water,
and rubbed himself with oil, and turned into a human.

from The Epic of Gilgamesh

You will not be able to stay home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag

And skip out for beer during commercials

 Because the revolution will not be televised         

 Gil Scott-Heron The revolution will not be televised

Genial and gladdening is the power of good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale.

George Borrow, Lavengro

Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter, wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well of course if we knew all the things…  

James Joyce, Ulysses

Suppose we go and try some lager-bier? … It is a new beverage, of German origin … you will not like it for some time, because it is quite different from Barclay and Perkins’s beer.

David W. Mitchell Ten Years in the United States: Being an Englishman’s View of Men and Things in the North and South, 1862

The snows of the Tyrol,

the clear beer of Vienna

Are not very pure or true.

From Sylvia Plath Daddy

Always be drunk.
That’s it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time’s horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On beer, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.

From Charles Baudelaire Be Drunk! (translator  unknown) 

They are particular about their drinking vessels at the Moon Under Water, and never, for example, make the mistake of serving a pint of beer in a handleless glass. Apart from glass and pewter mugs, they have some of those pleasant strawberry-pink china ones which are now seldom seen in London. China mugs went out about 30 years ago, because most people like their drink to be transparent, but in my opinion beer tastes better out of china…

… to be fair, I do know of a few pubs that almost come up to the Moon Under Water. I have mentioned above ten qualities that the perfect pub should have and I know one pub that has eight of them. Even there, however, there is no draught stout, and no china mugs.

George Orwell , The Moon under Water

Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

Rafael Sabatini, Fortune’s Fool

 ‘I see,’ said Karl, staring at the quickly emptying basket and listening to the curious noise which Robinson made in drinking, for the beer seemed first to plunge right down into his throat and gurgle up again with a sort of whistle before finally pouring its flood into the deep.    

Franz Kafka, Amerika

Oh, this beer here is cold, cold and hop-bitter, no point coming up for air, gulp, till it’s all–hahhhh.”

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Here’s to your health, said Kelly. Good luck, I said. The porter was sour to the palate, but viscid, potent. Kelly made a long noise as if releasing air from his interior. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and said: You can’t beat a good pint. He leaned over and put his face close to me in an earnest manner. Do you know what I am going to tell you, he said with his wry mouth, a pint of plain is your only man. Notwithstanding this eulogy, I soon found that the mass of plain porter bears an unsatisfactory relation to its toxic content and I became subsequently addicted to brown stout in bottle, a drink which still remains the one that I prefer the most despite the painful and blinding fits of vomiting which a plurality of bottles has often induced in me.”

Flann O’Brien, At Swim-two-birds

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber

Through the chambers of my brain.
Quaintest thoughts Queerest fancies,
Come to life and fade away:
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today.

Edgar Allan Poe   Lines on Ale

There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says ‘Good people drink good beer.’ Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it. 

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Beer’s intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.

 Ray Bradbury The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse

I don’t think I’ve drunk enough beer to understand that.

 Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“[Barnabas speaks] “I will drink water.”

“Water? But water is not fit for men to drink. For the cattle, for birds and beast, but a man needs ale . . . or wine, if you are a Frenchman.” [William answers]”

Louis L’Amour, To the Far Blue Mountains

“There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter where— anywhere.”

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel

I’d tried to straighten him out, but there’s only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer

 David Sedaris  Naked

He tells me … that I must drink now and then ale with my wine, and eat bread and butter and honey—and rye bread if I can endure it, it being loosening.

Samuel Pepys, Diary,17 November 1663

It was of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, rather heady. The masses worshipped it, the minor gentry loved it more than wine, and by the most illustrious county families it was not despised. Anybody brought up for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of its natal borough, had only to prove that he was a stranger to the place and its liquor to be honourably dismissed by the magistrates, as one overtaken in a fault that no man could guard against who entered the town unawares.

Thomas Hardy, The Trumpet-Major

The Rat, meanwhile, was busy examining the label on one of the beer-bottles. ‘I perceive this to be Old Burton,’ he remarked approvingly. ‘SENSIBLE Mole! The very thing! Now we shall be able to mull some ale! Get the things ready, Mole, while I draw the corks.’

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

‘Only a pint at breakfast-time, and a pint and a half at eleven o’clock, and a quart or so at dinner. And then no more till the afternoon; and half a gallon at supper-time. No one can object to that.’

R. D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone

—Open two bottles of stout, Jack, said Mr O’Connor. —How can I? said the old man, when there’s no corkscrew? —Wait now, wait now! said Mr Henchy, getting up quickly. Did you ever see this little trick? He took two bottles from the table and, carrying them to the fire, put them on the hob. Then he sat down again by the fire and took another drink from his bottle. Mr Lyons sat on the edge of the table, pushed his hat towards the nape of his neck and began to swing his legs. —Which is my bottle? he asked. —This lad, said Mr Henchy. Mr Crofton sat down on a box and looked fixedly at the other bottle on the hob … In a few minutes an apologetic Pok! was heard as the cork flew out of Mr Lyons’ bottle. Mr Lyons jumped off the table, went to the fire, took his bottle and carried it back to the table.

James Joyce, ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, Dubliners

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,

And drank his quart of beer:

His soul was resolute, and held

No hiding-place for fear;

He often said that he was glad

The hangman’s hands were near.

Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Abdul Kadir had tried to make things go, as he always did. He had emptied most of the bottled beer, a quart of stout, a flask of Beehive Brandy, half a bottle of Wincarnis and the remains of the whiskey into a kitchen pail. He had seasoned this foaming broth with red peppers and invited all to drink deep. This had been his sole contribution to the victualling of the party.

Anthony Burgess, Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy)

‘You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,’ said Winston tentatively. The old man’s pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents … ‘The beer was better,’ he said finally. ‘And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer – wallop we used to call it – was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.’ ‘Which war was that?’ said Winston. ‘It’s all wars,’ said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his shoulders straightened again. ‘’Ere’s wishing you the very best of ’ealth!’

George Orwell, 1984

… you can’t be a Real Country unless you have a beer and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.

Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

Morse poured himself a can of beer. ‘Champagne’s a lovely drink, but it makes you thirsty, doesn’t it?’

Colin Dexter, The Way Through The Woods