Beer

"An will fetch Ninguena for me from her mountain home -- the expert woman who redounds to her mothers credit, the expert who redounds to her mothers credit. Her fermenting-vat is of green , her beer cask is of refined silver and of gold. If she stands by the beer, there is joy, if she sits by the beer, there is gladness; as cupbearer she mixes the beer, never wearying as she walks back and forth, Ninkasi, the keg at her side, on her hips; may she make my beer-serving perfect."

"Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish! Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our Maker and glory to His bounty by learning about…beer!"

"Thus you may see a dozen fish rising in one of the streams, and not be able to prevail upon one of them to look at a fly. ...Oh! my beloved brother of the rod, do you know the taste of beer—of bitter beer—cooled in the flowing river? ...Take, then, your bottle of beer, sink it deep, deep in the shady water, where the cooling springs and freshes are. Then, the day being very hot and bright, and the sun blazing upon your devoted head, consider it a matter of duty to have to fish that long, wide stream... and so, having indued yourself with high wading breeks, walk up to your middle and begin hammering away with your 20-foot flail. Fish are rising, but not at you. No; they merely come up to see how the weather looks, and what oclock it is. So fish away; there is not above a couple of hundred yards of it, and you dont want to throw more than about two or three-and-thirty yards at every cast. It is a mere trifle. An hour and a half or so, good hard hammering will bring you to the end of it, and then—let me ask you avec impressement—how about that beer? Is it cool? is it refreshing? does it "gurgle, gurgle, and go down glug," as they say in Devonshire? Is it heavenly? is it Paradise, and all the Peris to boot? Ah! if you have never tasted beer under these, or similar circumstances, you have, believe me, never tasted it at all."

"The picture which the heathen English have drawn of themselves in Beowulf is one of savage pirates, clad in shirts of ring-armour, and greedy of gold and ale. Fighting and drinking are their two delights. The noblest leader is he who builds a great hall, throws it open for his people to carouse in, and liberally deals out beer, and bracelets, and money at the feast. The joy of battle is keen in their breasts. The sea and the storm are welcome to them. They are fearless and greedy pirates, not ashamed of living by the strong hand alone."

"Taste... can be no criterion by which to judge of the wholesomeness or quality of beer, but as malt liquor may now be considered one of the necessaries of life among the working classes, it is of the greatest importance that they be supplied with such an article, as may not prove injurious to their health. An honest brewer, therefore, should not rest altogether satisfied with being able to please the palates of his customers, but should endeavour to produce what he knows to be a really wholesome and nourishing, as well as an agreeable drink. ...My aim has been to avoid mystery, and to convey useful information..."

"Today, of course, most beer is bittered with hops, and the plant is integral to beer’s identity in the United States and Europe, if not the world. Few know that beer used to be flavored and preserved with a variety of different herbs (bog myrtle and wild rosemary especially), resins, fruit, and animal products. The additives varied widely across northwestern Europe, but the mixture of ingredients, whatever it may have contained, was called gruit."

"... is too frequently neglected, because the master or mistress of a family drink but a small quantity of it. I verily believe there would be less good small beer consumed in a family of servants and workmen, than if it were inferior and bad in its quality. It may be thought strange by adding the name of good to small beer, but it must be acknowleged that there is a great disparity in the quality of ales, and why not in small beer; on the one hand, it certainly depends on what length you draw from [the] quantity of malt. ... [W]hen a workman or servant has occasion for a pot of small beer, if bad, he will, perhaps, drink a part of it and throw the remainder away, and, very likely, carelessly leave the cock dropping, in order to get rid of such a bad commodity the sooner. Now, on the other hand, if the small beer was good, the consumers would take care to leave the cock, &c. secure, well knowing they should not have a better sebstitute."

"Of ale. Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale then is rehersed, except yest, barme, or godesgood, doth sophystical theyr ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drynke. Ale must have these propertyes: it must be freshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy or smoky, nor it must have no weft nor tayle. Ale shuld no be dronke under .v. [5] dayes olde. New ale is wholesome for all men. And sowre ale, and dead ale the which doth not stande a tylt, is good for no man. Barly malte maketh better ale then oten malte or any other corne doth: it doth ingendre grose humoures; but yette it maketh a man stronge. Of bere. Bere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water: it is a naturall drynke for a Dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is moche used in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men; specyally it kylleth them the which be troubled with the colycke, and the stone [kidney- or gallstone], & strangulion [inflammation of the throat]; for the drynke is colde drynke; yet it doth make a man fat, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the Dutche mens faces and belyes. If the bere be well served, and be fyned, & not new, it doth qualyfy the heat of the lyver."

"The drink, which has come to supply the place of beer has, in general, been tea. It is notorious, that tea has no useful strength in it; that it contains nothing nutritious... Now, then, let us take the bare cost of the use of tea. ...[T]he wretched thing amounts to a good third part of a good and able labourers wages. For this money, he and his family may drink good and wholesome beer, and, in a short time, out of the mere savings... may drink it out of silver cups and tankards. In a labourers family, wholesome beer, that has a little life in it, is all that is wanted in general."

"When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o the year; For the red blood reigns in the winters pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay."

"There were no rations of rum, but the regulations provided that on foreign voyages, where beer could not be procured, the men might have half a pint of rum, brandy, or arrack in lieu of beer. As yet no tea, coffee, or cocoa was served out to the sailors. The national drink—the drink of the people—was beer; they drank beer for breakfast, beer for dinner, beer for supper, and beer at all other times when they could get it. A gallon of beer, four quarts or eight pints, is, it must be confessed, a plentiful—an affectionate and kindly allowance—for this daily drink; its substitute, when there was no beer, of half a pint of rum or brandy would be more than most of us moderns would care to take in the day, however much diluted."