Tag: poetry

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British Beer

The Great British Beer Hunt —
Jester, Ernest, Olicana and Godiva
On a rail replacement bus.

Beer and queuing —
A British thing in a British stadium,
A beer at the British Museum.

There was lots of good beer here before —
Malty British beer, living fossils,
Standard British quaffing beer.

Iconic symbol of all that is great,
What is truly great,
About British beer —
A bottle of mild on the shelf.

British beer is not like its past.
British beer is best,
British beer is too strong —
This is where British beer is and will go,
Or you’ll upset the Queen.

This poem, and we use the word in the loosest sense, was put together from phrases found by searching the Tweets of people we follow for the phrase “British Beer”, and is our small contribution towards marking Beer Day Britain.

Categories
Beer history

October Beer

Original illustration of three gentlemen drinking.

ALL ye who would drink,
And yet stop on the brink
Of the chasm ‘twixt drunk and sober,
Throw out to the slums
All your brandies and Rums
And stick fast to good honest October!
Your Frenchman is vain
Of his frothy Champagne–
Of his Burgundy and his Bordeaux, Sirs!
A staggering pot
Of October, I wot,
Would soon send all the lot down below, Sirs!
Your Clarets and Hocks,
And your sour German bocks,
May all be very well when you’re ill, Sirs!
But I venture to think,
That old JOHNNY BULL’s drink
Is the brave old October-brew, Sirs!
Where find you for muscle,
Or pluck in a tussle,
A man who with BULL is compeer, Sirs?
And if you’d know why–
‘Tis because when he’s dry,
He’s content with a draught of good Beer, Sirs!

Punch, or the London Charivari, October 20, 1877, p.169.

Categories
Blogging and writing pubs

Portraits of the Public House

You know, some people have a real knack for capturing what it is that makes pubs great.

That thought occured to us when we read this marvellous post by one of our favourite bloggers, Ten Inch Wheeler:

Now you’re in the Harp. First friday after payday. Five deep at the bar, shouting your conversation over your shoulder as you order. Two pints of Brewers Gold. First gulp. The best part of any nights beer. Fresh and hoppy. What happened to your hand? Fell off the roof. Lucky. Could have been brown bread.

Which reminded us that Simon ‘Reluctant Scooper’ Johnson has written more than one post which we’d include in an anthology, should anyone ever ask us to edit one:

A long afternoon in the Sheffield Tap. Tickers pass through, holidaymakers hit the Bernard before the Manchester Airport train, football fans with their team shirts threatening to poke out of tightly-buttoned jackets. Rowdy student rendevous. A couple’s last drinks dallied over, a whispered goodbye, a faint tear.

And we tend to think of Adrian Tierney-Jones as the pub world’s Poet Laureate.

By studying, capturing and communicating the pub’s elusive wonder, these writers walk in the footsteps of Orwell.