Let the back and sides go bare, my boys, — 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."