Historic Beer Birthday: Charles Duff

April 7, 2025 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Charles Duff (April 7, 1894–October 15, 1966). He was primarily known as “an Irish author of books on language learning,” although his most famous book was “A Handbook of Hanging,” which also covered “electrocution, decapitations, gassings, innocent men executed and botched executions.” He was an interesting, eclectic person, to say the least, and a couple of years ago Gary Gillman did a nice job summarizing his quirky life in a post entitled “Charles Duff on the Circa-1950s Irish Pub.”

But he also wrote a few travel guides, including one called “Ireland and the Irish,” published in 1952. In it, he starts with Irish history and its folklore, in fact spending nearly 100 pages of the 282-page book, before actually suggesting what the reader should see in Ireland.

Duff also had a lot to say about beer in Ireland at the time, and it’s fascinating to see his views over 75 years later. Gillman also analyzes his writing historically and reprints some of his great writing, and you should read that, too, but I’m also sharing my favorite passages from Duff regarding the beer.

In discussing Dublin, Duff attempts to provide an image of the typical modern Dublin pub, and describes a place I’d certainly like to visit.

The atmosphere is cocktailish, the seats are most comfortable, the carpets soft. I did not find the drinks or service any less efficient, nor, I must say in fairness, any more efficient than in the old days when, before Dublin was really awake in the morning, a kindly and sympathetic barman diagnosed your hangover and might prescribe, as he did for me on one occasion, a seidlitz powder, telling me not to drink anything alcoholic before noon, when he recommended a dozen oysters and a bottle or two of stout “to settle the inside and get back the feelings of a Christian.” Today the atmosphere is convivial and friendly, and you will get a good drink there. But when you go out into the street you will not have the feelings we had after a session there. I think the main difference is that in the old days the drinkers in ‘Davy Byrne’s’ had a higher opinion of one another than they have now. And in the old days you sat on any sort of old chair with a pint in front of you on a very plain table and knew that there was no other pub quite like this. It is almost ill- mannered to make the comparison, and perhaps unfair to the present house which, after all, is not responsible for the age in which we live.

Another interesting insight about Dublin, is that you should read some Joyce before your visit.

It is not a bad preparation for a visit to Dublin to read James Joyce’s Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses—in that order if you have not already read Joyce. On your second visit, or perhaps on some later occasion, you can have a try at Finnegan’s Wake, which a Dublin friend assures me is best read by moonlight as you lean over one of the Liffey bridges, and preferably while in that state of imaginative gestation to which a reasonable consumption of the wine of the country—Guinness’s Stout—is conducive. But you will not need any of this preparation to tell you that Dubliners are not always easy people to understand, and experience of Ireland can lead you to the conclusion that it is more difficult to grasp and analyse the mentality of the Dubliner than of any other kind or class of native. For one thing, Dubliners are a more mixed breed than you will find anywhere in Ireland, because Dublin has been a cosmopoli- tan community longer than any other in Ireland. This ‘town of the ford of the hurdles’ had its original Picts, Celtic Irish, its Norsemen, its Normans and then its English as the principal elements in its ethnic constitution. It has also had a generous sprinkling of the adventurous; and of the adven- turers, military, political and commercial, who invariably find their way to promising territories. In Dublin you will find surnames which come direct or are derived from those of almost every country and race in Europe; one cannot say this of any other Irish city or town.

Duff’s other travel guide was called “England and the English,” in which he followed a similar format as his Irish guidebook. This one was published a few years later, in 1955. Gillman also analyzes Duff’s English writing, too, in a two-part post entitled Charles Duff Eulogises the English Pub – Part I, which primarily provides context and background to the 1950s climate in which Duff was writing. But in Part II he tackles Duff’s take on the Eglish pub.

But I’m more interested in just sharing his stories. Like his previous work, it is filled with interesting anecdotes about like in England, with this one from an experience in World War II involving beer and cider being particularly funny.

By way of final warning, I can tell of an episode I am not likely to forget. There was a shortage of beer in the last years of the Second World War when I was staying at the cottage in Devon. That did not greatly worry local people; they drank their local cider. But very often the American troops stationed in the neighbourhood suffered distress from the lack of alcohol and (I suspect, somewhat to their disgust) were driven back on cider, which they contemptuously regarded as a soft drink 1 Friendly patrons of the pub advised them to ‘take it easy’ until they got used to it. But those hearties just laughed, possibly regarding the civilian adviser as needlessly timid; and they just went ahead. At about the third mug the fun began then the cider started to have effect. Another mug or two and the balloon went up. The usual effects of strong alcohol were felt : in this case of an alcoholic beverage to which those strong, healthy men were quite unaccustomed. We all felt sorry for them, and for their poor heads next day. And as, one by one they rolled off, the locals smiled and called for another mug saying: “Don’t it just show ‘ee !”
My friend would often reminisce and philosophize about cider, telling me that farm-workers used to have little barrels (he later showed me his; it held about a pint and a half) which they took with them to their work, but that the young genera- tion know nothing of this. He thought that modern cider is better and purer than that of his youth. He had known of men who drank themselves to death on cider, but insisted that this is rare; because, he said, cider is one of those rare drinks which carries its own safety-point and, when that point has been reached depending on the drinker’s capacity and head there is no inclination to drink any more. “How very con- venient!” the conservative drinker will say. The illustrious may comment: “How awful! ” There it is.

Duff discusses pubs more generally when covering the “prosperous market-town of Bishop’s Stortford (about thirty miles from London) is on the River Stort, which forms the boundary with Essex.”

It was precisely this easy-going atmosphere which I liked about Bishop’s Stortford. With it goes a great variety of friendly pubs Herts is a good county for beer some of which confront the traveller unexpectedly, and inside are found to be just the sort of typical little country pubs one reads about. You can find a pub almost anywhere in the town. There are the major houses such as the ‘George* and the ‘Chequers’, but I felt attracted by old names such as:

The Feathers
The Falcon
The Anchor
The Swan
The Grapes
The Reindeer
The Boar’s Head
The Half Moon
The Rising Sun
The Castle The Royal Oak
The Bull
The Fox
The Bricklayers’ Arms

most of them with their colourful, interesting signs. The names I have listed do not exhaust the possibilities of Bishop’s Stortford, and merely represent what I recall easily. The little ‘Bricklayers’ Arms’ on the road to Hadham had just received a fresh coat of paint the last time I was there. I thought it looked a very beautiful little pub from outside. Inside I was not disappointed: the beer was delicious, and Mrs. Morgan, the landlady, a great personality whom I am not likely to forget.
I should like to dwell on these pubs, some of which are very old, because of their importance as an institution of considerable import in the social fabric of this country. Hertfordshire, and, indeed, all of this eastern area, can provide examples of more than ordinary interest. At St. Albans there is the ‘Fighting Cocks’, which is said to be the oldest inhabited licensed house in England. Thomas Burke mentions A.D. 795 as the date of its foundation. “The traveller by car who takes the Great North Road the historic highway linking London with Edinburgh will come upon many pub signs which will inevitably attract his attention and often make him stop for a closer scrutiny. A little conversation with landlords and know- ledgeable local people will quickly show that the English public-house (as we usually call it now), with which one may include the terms ‘inn’ and ‘tavern’, embraces a vast social his- tory that can be traced back to Saxon times. For over one thou- sand years the house which provides food and drink for the traveller and wayfarer, and a centre or dub for local people, has been a part of English life. If I have not mentioned the subject until now, it is not because other areas of England are less rich in public-houses than this eastern part, but merely that it falls in more conveniently at this stage. What I say about the pubs here can be paralleled for most parts of England and, as it is, I can deal with it only in the most summary way. Take, for example, the ‘Letchworth Hair at Letchworth, formerly a manor-house and, some may say, too much of an hotel to be considered as a ‘typical’ pub. It is mentioned in Domesday Book. And the ‘Sun’ at Hitchin, which was used by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War (1642-1648), and, in 1745, was the place in which North Hertfordshire men enrolled for the Resistence Movement that was to face the advancing army of the Pretender. Some of these old buildings are architecturally and artistically extremely interesting, externally or internally, and sometimes in both senses. As we move northwards, a slight detour takes us to Buckden and Huntingdon, both in Huntingdonshire. The first town has the ‘Lion’ with a lounge beautifully adorned by some magnificent oak beams; the second town has the ‘George’, with its long frontage and a lovely row of fifteen windows. Stilton, where one of the world’s great cheeses is made, has the ‘Bell’ dating back to the spacious days when men travelled on horseback, more often than not in companies in order to be able to cope with the activities of such gentry as Dick Turpin. Lincolnshire has some noteworthy houses: the ‘George’ at Stamford where, in 1746, William Duke of Cumberland put up after his victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden; and the curiously named ‘Ram Jam Inn’, a haunt of Dick Turpin and his men. At Grantham there is another ‘George’, visited by Charles Dickens in 1838 and about which he wrote to his wife, “. . . the most comfortable inn I ever put up in”. In Grantham there is also the ancient ‘Angel and Royal’ with seven hundred years of history behind it and originally a favourite house of the Knights Templars. Kings held their courts there; the present building dates from about the middle of the i4th century. These few dips will indicate the scope of the subject, but I think I have said sufficient to show the reader that the English pub is a very old, very strong institution and in every way worthy of his attention. I have never yet entered a pub, however humble, from which I did not emerge refreshed in mind and body, and I think that a good argument could be put up in favour of the pub as the most characteristic institution of the people of England: of the men, that is, for it is only in comparatively recent years that women are frequenting licensed premises with the approval of the younger generation of men, of course, but often with the strong disapproval of old regulars. To these it is unbecoming to the spirit and atmosphere of their club that lively and frivolous girls the more attractive they are, the worse it is ! often in slacks or even shorts, should lower the serious tone of the establishment with their disconcerting jazzing, crooning and giggling. This little survival of Puritanism is quickly passing and in many places no longer exists. It will soon be gone. The pub will survive by adapting itself to the social environment: as it always has done in the past.

He also stresses that one should never discuss politics or religion in a pub, good advice now as then.

Again it comes back to the desire for political stability, for if there is one thing that the English have learnt by bitter experience, it is that nothing can cause greater disturbances than religion, especially when used for a political end. A man’s religion is his own affair. Hence, in conversation it is never even discussed! The unwritten law of the English pub is: No religion.

Duff-hanging — Still his most famous work.

Beer In “A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English”

August 24, 2018 By Jay Brooks

book
Yesterday was the birthday of William Ernest Henley, who was an English poet, critic and editor of the late-Victorian era in England.

William_Ernest_Henley

In looking for a quotation in his poems yesterday, I stumbled upon another work of his, “A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English,” which he wrote with John Stephen Farmer, a British lexicographer, spiritualist and writer. The original dictionary ran to seven volumes and was entitled “Slang and its analogues past and present. A dictionary historical and comparative of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years.” It was first published in 1890, and they continued working on it until 1904.

They appear to have referenced at least 55 earlier dictionaries, published between 1440 and 1900, in compiling their work. In 1912, a single-volume abridged version was also published, and I worked from that one, further abridging it to include only a few select beer-related entries. The abridged version is only 552 pages, and I can only imagine how long the original is. There’s a number of slang terms still in use here, and quite a few I was already familiar with, but most interesting was a large number of terms I was unaware of before this. So like “The Princess Bride,” this is the good parts version, with a selection of the entries having to do with beer, brewing or drinking. There’s a lot of gems here, and I confess I got lost in the text more than a few times. Read it from top to bottom, skip around, skim it for a few tidbits, but whatever you do, I believe you’ll find a wealth of interesting beer and language history.

A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English

(The Good Parts Version)

Abraham Grains. A publican brewing his own beer.
Act of Parliament. Small beer, five pints of which, by an act of Parliament, a landlord was formerly obliged to give gratis to each soldier billeted upon him.
Ale, (1) A merry-making; and occasion for drinking. There were bride-ales, church-ales, clerk-ales, give-ales, lamb-ales, leet-ales. Midsummer-ales, Scot-ales, Whitsun-ales, and several more. (2) An ale-house. Hence alecie (or alecy), drunkenness; ale-blowm (ale-washed or alecied), drunk; ale-draper (whence ale-drapery), an inn-keeper (Grose : cf. ale-yard); ale-spinner, a brewer; ale-knight (ale-stake,
or ale-toast), a tippler, pot-companion; ale-post, a maypole (Grose); ale-passion, a headache; ale-pock, an ulcered grog-blossom (q.v.); ale-crummed, grogshot in the face; ale-swilling, tippling, etc. (1362). (3) In pL, Messrs S. Allsopp and Sons Limited Shares.
Allslops. Allsopp and Sons’ ale. [At one time their brew, formerly
of the finest quality, had greatly deteriorated.]
Angel’s-food. Strong ale. (1597.)
Apron-washings. Porter.
Archdeacon. (Oxford). Merton strong ale.
Arms-and-legs. Small beer: because there is no body in it (Grose).
Audit-ale (or Audit). A special brew of ale: orig. for use on audit days. Univ. (1823.)
Barley. In general colloquial use: thus, oil of barley (or barley – bree, -broth, -juice, -uxiter, or -wine), (1) strong ale, and (2) whisky (Grose); barley -island, an alehouse; John Barley (or Barleycorn), the personification of malt liquor: cf. proverb. Sir John Barleycorn’s the strongest knight;
barley – cup, a tippler; barley-mood (or sick) (1) drunk; and (2) ill-humour caused by tippling; also to have (or wear) a barley-hat (-cap, or -hood) (1500.)
Barrel. 1. A confirmed tippler: also beer-barrel; whence barrel-house (American), a low groggery; barrel-fever, drunkenness (or disease caused by tippling): see Gallon-distemper;
barrel-boarder, a bar loafer. 2. Money used in a political campaign (American politics); spec, that expended for
corrupt purposes : cf. Boodle; barrel-campaign, an election in which bribery is a leading feature: a wealthy candidate for office (c. 1876) is said to have remarked. Let the boys know that there’s a bar’l o’ money ready for ’em, or words to that effect. Never (or the devil) a barrel the better herring, much like, not a pin to choose between them, six of one and half a dozen of the other. (1542.)
Bass. A familiar abbreviation for Bass’ ale, brewed at Burton-on-Trent.
Beer. To drink beer, also, to do a beer. To be in beer, drunk: see Screwed. To think no small beer of oneself, to possess a good measure of self-esteem (1840); see Small-beer.
Beer and Bible. An epithet applied sarcastically to a political party which first came into prominence during the last Beaconsfield Administration, and which was called into being by a measure introduced by the moderate Liberals in 1873, with a view to placing certain restrictions upon the sale of intoxicating rinks. The Licensed Victuallers, an extremely powerful association whose influence extended all over the kingdom, took alarm, and turned to the Conservatives for help in opposing the bill. In the ranks of the latter were numbered the chief brewers; the leaders of the association, moreover, had mostly strong high-church tendencies, while one of them was president of the Exeter Hall organization. The Liberals, noting these facts, nicknamed this alliance the Beer and Bible Association; the Morning Advertiser, the organ of the Licensed Victuallers, was dubbed the Beer and Bible Gazette; and lastly, electioneering tactics ascribed to them the war cry of Beer and Bible I This so-called Beer and Bible interest made rapid strides : in 1870 the Conservatives
were at their low-water mark among the London constituencies; but, in 1880, they had carried seats in the City, Westminster, Marylebone, Tower Ham-lets, Greenwich, and Southwark. A notable exception to this strange fellowship was Mr. Bass [afterwards Lord Bass], of pale-ale fame, who held aloof from opposition to the measure
in question. Anent the nickname Beer and Bible Gazette given to the Morning Advertiser, it may be mentioned that it had already earned for itself a somewhat similar sobriquet. For a long time this paper devoted one-half of its front page to notices of publicans and tavern-keepers; while the other half was filled up with announcements of religious books, and lists of preachers at the London churches and chapels. This gained for the paper the sobriquet of the Gin and Gospel Gazette.
Beer-barrel. The human body: cf. Bacon.
Beeriness (or Beery), pertaining to a state of (or approaching to) drunkenness, intoxicated, fuddled with beer: see Screwed (1857).
Beer-jerker (or -slinger). A tippler: see Lushington.
Beerocracy, subs, (common). The brewing and beer-selling interest: a humorous appellation in imitation of aristocracy: cf. Mobocracy, Cottonocracy, etc.
Belch. Beer, especially poor beer: because of its liability to cause eructation. One of Shakespeare’s characters in Twelfth Night is Sir Toby Belch, a reckless, roystering, jolly knight of the Elizabethan period.
Belcher. 1. A neckerchief named after Jim Belcher, a noted pugilist: the ground is blue, with white spots: also any handkerchief of a similar pattern (1812). 2. A ring: with the crown and V.R. stamped upon them. 3. A beer drinker, a hard drinker (1598).
Belly-vengeance. Sour beer: as apt to cause gastralgia : Fr., pisain de clieval.
Bemused. Fuddled, in the stupid stage of drinkenness: see Screwed: usually bemused with beer (Pope).
Benbouse. Good beer (1567).
Bend. To tipple, drink hard (Jamieson) (1758). Above one’s bend, above one’s ability (power or capacity), out of one’s reach, above one’s hook: in U.S.A. above my huckleberry (q.v.).
Bilgewater. Bad beer.
Bitter. A glass of beer. To do a bitter, to drink a glass of bitter: originally (says Hotten) an Oxford term: varied by, to do a beer.
Black-and-tan. Porter (or stout) and ale, mixed in equal quantities.
Black Jack. 1. A leathern jug for beer, usually holding two gallons (1591).
Blue-cap. 1, A Scotchman (1596). 2. A kind of ale (1822).
Brighton Tipper. A particular brew of ale.
Brown. 1. A halfpenny: see Rhino (1812). 2. Porter: an abbreviation of Brown Stout.
Bub. 1. Strong drink of any kind: usually applied to malt liquor. To take bub and grub, to eat and drink (1671).
Bubber. 1. A hard drinker, confirmed tippler: see Lushington: Fr., bibassier (1653). 2. A drinking bowl (1696). 3. A public-house thief (1785).
Bubbing. Drinking, tippling (1678).
Bumclink. In the Midland counties inferior beer brewed for haymakers and harvest labourers.
Bung-juice. Beer.
Bunker. Beer: see Drinks.
Cakes and Ale. A good time: also Cakes and cheese.
Call bogus. A mixture of rum and spruce beer, an American beverage (Grose).
Cascade. 1. Tasmania beer: because manufactured from cascade water: cf. Artesian. 2. A trundling gymnastic performance in pantomime. As verb, to vomit (1771).
Cauliflower. 1. A clerical wig supposed to resemble a cauliflower; modish in the time of Queen Anne. 2. The foaming head of a tankard of beer. In Fr., linge or faux-col.
Clink. 4. A very indifferent beer made from the gyle of malt and the sweepings of hop bins, and brewed especially for the benefit of agricultural labourers in harvest time. (1588).
Cocktail. 4. (American). A drink composed of spirits (gin, brandy, whisky, etc.), bitters,
crushed ice, sugar, etc., the whole whisked briskly until foaming, and then drunk ‘hot.’ As adj., (1) under-
bred, wanting in ‘form’ (chiefly of horses). (2) Fresh, foaming: of beer.
Cold-blood. A house licensed for the sale of beer, not to be drunk on the premises.
Cooler. 1. A woman (1742). 2. A prison: see Cage. 3. Ale or stout after spirits and water: sometimes called Putting the beggar on the gentleman; also Damper (q.v.) (1821).
Copus. A wine or beer cup: commonly imposed as a fine upon those who talked Latin in hall or committed other breaches of etiquette. Dr. Johnson derives it from episcopus, and if this be correct it is doubtless the same as bishop.
Dash. 1. A tavern waiter. 2. (common). A small quantity, a drink; a go (q.v.).
Dead. An abbreviation of dead certainty. As adj., stagnant, quiet (of trade), flat (as of beer or aerated waters after exposure), cold, good, thorough, complete (1602).
Dog’s-nose. A mixture of gin and beer: see Drinks.
Drinks. The subjoined hosts will be of interest. Invitations to drink — What’ll you have? Nominate your pizen! Will you irrigate? Will you tod? Wet your whistle? How’ll you have it? Let us stimulate! Let’s drive another nail! What’s your medicine? Willst du trinken? Try a little anti-abstinence? Twy (zwei) lager! Your whisky’s waiting. Will you try a smile? Will you take a nip? Let’s get there. Try a little Indian? Come and see your pa? Suck some com juice? Let’s liquor up. Let’s go and see the baby. Responses to invitations to drink. — Here’s into your face! Here’s how! Here’s at you! Don’t care if I do. Well, I will. I’m thar! Accepted, unconditionally. Well, I don’t mind. Sir, your most. Sir, your utmost. You do me proud I Yes, sir-ree! With you — yes I Anything to oblige.
Elbow-crooker. A hard drinker.
English Synonyms: borachio, boozington, brewer’s horse, bubber, budger, mop, lushington, worker of the cannon, wet – quaker, soaker, lapper, pegger, angel altogether, bloat, ensign -bearer, fiddle – cup, sponge, tun, toss – pot, swill-pot, wet subject, shifter, potster, swallower, pot- walloper, wetster, dramster, drinkster, beer-barrel, gin-nums, lowerer, moist ‘un, drainist, boozer, mopper-up, piss-maker, thirstington.
English Burgundy. Porter: see Drinks.
Flip. I. Hot beer, brandy, and sugar; also, says Grose, called Sir Cloudesley after Sir Cloudesley Shovel.
Full. 1. Drunk: see Screwed.
Gatter. Beer; also liquor generally. Shant of gatter, a pot of beer: Fr., moussante: see Drinks.
Growler. A four-wheeled cab: cf . Sulky. English synonyms: birdcage, blucher, bounder, fever-trap, flounder-and-dab (rhyming), four-wheeler, groping hutch, mab (an old hackney), rattler, rumbler. To rush (or work) the growler, to fetch beer (workman’s).
Gutter-alley (or lane). 1. The throat. All goes doum gutter-lane. He spends all on his stomach. English synonyms: Beer Street, common sewer, drain, funnel. Gin Lane, gulf-gullet, gully-hole, gutter, Holloway, Peck Alley, Red Lane, the Red Sea, Spew Alley, swallow, thrapple, throttle, whistle. 2. A urinal.
Half-and-half. Equal quantities of ale and porter : cf. Four-half and Drinks (1824). As adj., half-drunk, half-on (q.v.): see Screwed. Half-and-half -coves (men, hoys, etc.), cheap or linsey-woolsey dandies, half-bucks (q.v.), half- tigers (q.v.).
Half-seas Over. Loosely applied to various degrees of inebriety: formerly, half way on one’s course, or towards attainment: see Screwed. [In its specific sense Gifford says, A corruption of the Dutch op-zee zober, over-sea beer, a strong heady beverage introduced into Holland from England. Up-zee Freese is Friezeland beer. The Grerman zavber means strong beer, and bewitchment.
Half-slewed. Parcel drunk: see Screwed.
Head. (2) to froth malt liquors: e.g. Put a head on it. Miss, addressed to the barmaid, is a request to work the engine briskly, and make the liquor take on a cauliflower (q.v.).
Heavy-wet. 1. Malt Hquor: specifically porter and stout: also Heavy: see Drinks (1821). 2. A heavy drinking bout.
Hedge-tavern (or ale-house). A jilting, sharping tavern, or blind alehouse (B. E.).
Hockey. Drunk, especially on stale beer: see Screwed.
Hot-pot. Ale and brandy made hot (Grose).
Hot-tiger. Hot-spiced ale and sherry.
Huckle-my-but. Beer, egg, and brandy made hot (Grose).
Huff-cap (or Huff). 1. Strong ale: from inducing people to set their caps in a bold and huffing style. (Nares) (1579.)
Hull-cheese. Hull-cheese is much like a loaf out of a brewers basket, it is composed of two simples, malt and water, in one compound, and is cousin germane to the mightiest ale in England’ (John Taylor).
Hum. 1. A kind of strong liquor: probably a mixture of beer and spirits, but also appUed to old, mellow, and very strong beer: also Hum-cap (1616).
Humming. Strong — applied to drink; brisk — applied to trade; hard — applied to blows. Humming
October, the specially strong brew from the new season’s hops, stingo (q.v.) (1696).
Humpty-dumpty. 2. Ale boiled with brandy (1696).
Jerry-shop. A beer-house: also jerry.
John-Barleycorn. Beer: see Drinks (1791).
Kiddleywink. A small village shop; and, 3. specifically (in the West country), an ale-house.
Knock-down (or Knock-me-down). Strong ale, stingo (q.v.), also, gin (1515). As adj., rowdy (1760).
Lager Beer. To think no lager beer of oneself: see Small beer.
Lamb’s-wool. Hot ale, spiced, sweetened, and mixed with the pulp of roasted apples (1189).
Legs-and-arms. Bodiless beer.
Lift-leg. Strong ale, stingo (q.v. ).
Lounce. A drink: specifically a pint of beer: i.e. allowance.
Lull. Ale (1636).
Lush. 1. Drink: from Lushington, a once well-known London brewer: see Drinks. 2. A drinking bout. 3. (Eton College), a dainty. As verb, (1) to drink, and (2) to stand treat. English synonyms: to barley-bree, to beer, to bend, to blink, to boose, to bub, to budge, to cover, to crack (or crush) a bottle (a quart, or cup), to crook, to crook (lift, or tip) the elbow (or little finger), to damp, to damp one’s mug, to dip, to dip one’s beak (or nose), to disguise oneself, to do a dram (or wet), to drown the shamrock, to flicker, to flush, to fuddle, to gargle, to give a bottle a black eye, to guttle, to guzzle, to go and see a man (or — of women — one’s pa), to grog, to have, get, or take an ante-lunch, a little anti-abstinence, an appetiser, a ball, a bead, a bit of tape, a bosom friend, a bucket, a bumper, a big reposer, a chit-chat, a cheerer, a cinder, a cobbler, a corker, a cooler, some corn juice, a damp, something damp, a damper, a dannie, a drain, a dram, a doch-an-dorroch, a digester, an eye-opener, an entr’acte, a fancy smile, a flash, a flip, a forenoon, a go, a hair of the dog that bit one, a heeltap, an invigorator, a Johnny, a jorum, a leaf of the old author, a morning rouser, a modicum, a nip, or nipperkin, a night-cap, a nut, one’s medicine, a pistol shot, a pony, a pill, a quantum, a quencher, a refresher, a revelation, a rouser, a reposer, a smile, a swig, a sleeve-button, a something, a slight sensation, a shant, a shout, a sparkler, a settler, a shift, a stimulant, a sneaker, a snifter, a soother, a thimbleful, a tift, a taste, a toothful, a Timothy, a warmer, a willy-wacht, to huff, to irrigate, to knock about the bub, to lap, to lap the gutter, to liquor, to liquor up, to load in, to look thro’ a glass, to lower, to lug, to make fun, to malt, to moisten (or soak) the chaffer (clay, or lips), to mop, to mop- up, to mug, to peg, to potato, to prime oneself, to pull, to put (or drive) another nail in one’s coffin, to read the maker’s name, to revive, to rince, to rock, to save a life, to scamander, to LashborougJi.
Lushington. A sot: also lushing man and lushing cove. English synoyms: admiral of the red, after-dinner man, ale-knight, ale-wisp, artilleryman, bang-pitcher, beer-barrel, belch-guts, bencher, bench-whistler, bezzle, bibber, blackpot, bloat, blomboll, boozer, boozington, borachio, bottle-sucker, brandy-face, brewer’s horse, bubber (or bubster), budge (or budger), bung-eye, burster, common sewer, coppernose, drainist, drainpipe, dramster, D-T-ist, elbow-crooker, emperor, ensign – bearer, fish, flag-of-distress, fluffer, fuddle-cap (or fuddler), full-blown angel, gargler, gin-crawler, (or slinger), ginnums, gravel-grinder, grog-blossom, guttle (or guttle-guts), guzzler (or guzzle – guts), high-goer, jolly-nose, lapper, love- pot, lowerer, lug-pot, moist-‘un, mooner, mop, (or mopper-up), nazie-cove (or mort), nipster, O – be – joyfuUer (or O – be- joyful-merchant), pegger, piss-maker, potster, pot-walloper, pub-ornament, sapper, shifter, sipster, soaker, sponge, swallower, swill-pot (or tub), swigsby, swigster, swipester, swizzle-guts, Thirstington, tipple-arse, toddy-cask, toss-pot, tote, tun, wet-quaker, wet-subject, wetster.
Lush-crib (or ken). A public house, tavern, hotel, club, etc. English synonyms: ale draper’s, black-house, boozer, budging-ken, church, cold-blood house, confectionery, cross-dram, devil’s-house, dive, diving-bell, drum, flash-case (drum, ken, or panny), flat-iron, flatty-ken, gargle-factory, gin-mill, grocery, groggery, grog-shop, guzzle-crib, jerry-shop, hash-shop, hedge-house, kiddly-wink, little church round the comer, lush-house (panny, or ken), lushery, mop-up, mug-house, 0-be-joyful works, panny, patter-crib, piss-factory, pot-house, pub (or public) red-lattice, roosting-ken, rum-mill, shanty, she-been, side-pocket, sluicery, suck-casa, tippling-shop, Tom-and-Jerry shop, whistling-shop, wobble-shop.
Lushy. Drunk: see Screwed.
Mad-dog. Strong ale: see Drinks (1586).
Made-beer (Winchester College). College swipes bottled with rice, a few raisins, sugar, and nutmeg to make it up (Mansfield).
Malt. To drink beer (1828). To have the malt above the wheat (water, or meal), to be drunk: see Screwed (1767).
Malt-worm (bug, or horse). A tippler, Lushington (q.v.) (1551).
Merry-go-down. Strong ale, stingo (q.v.): see Drinks (1530).
Mother-in-law. A mixture of old and bitter ales. Mother-in-law’s bit, a small piece, mothers-in-law being supposed not apt to overload the stomachs of their husband’s children (Orose).
Mughouse. An alehouse: see Lush-crib (1710).
Mumper’s-hall. A hedge tavern, beggar’s alehouse (Orose).
Nale. An alehouse.
Nap. 4. Ale, strong beer: an abbreviation of nappy (q.v.).
Nappy. Strong ale: also napping-gear. As adj. (1) strong or heady; (2) drunk (1593).
Never-fear. Beer.
Nickum. A sharper; also a rooking ale-house or innkeeper, vintner, or any retailer (JS. E.).
Nippitate. Strong drink, especially ale : also Nippitato and Nippitatum (1575).
Norfolk-nog. A kind of strong ale (1726).
Oats-and-barley. Charley.
October. 1. The best ale : spec, ale or cider brewed in October. 2. Blood. Odd. Strange, peculiar, difficult (1602.)
Oil. Used in humorous or sarcastic combination : e.g. oil of barley, beer.
P and Q. To the P. and Q, to be of the first quahty, good measure (1612). To mind one’s P’s and Q’s, to be careful and circumspect in behaviour, exact. [Of uncertain origin; amongst suggested derivations are (1) the difficulty experienced by children in distinguishing between p and q; and (2) the old custom of alehouse tally, marking p for pint, and q for quart, care being necessary to avoid over- or under-charge. Probably both in combination with the phrase, to be p and q (q.v.), have helped to popularise the expression] (1779)
Perkin. 1. Weak cider or perry (Orose). 2. Beer. [From Barclay, Perkin & Co.]
Pharaoh. 1. A corruption of faro (1732). 2. A strong ale or beer: also Old Pharaoh (1685).
Pong. Beer: also Pongdow or Pongllorum. As verb, (1) to drink; (2) to vamp a part, or (circus), to perform; (3) to talk, gas (q.v.).
Pot. 1. A quart: the quantity contained in a pot: whence as verb, to drink: also (American) to potate; potting, boozing (q.v.); potations (recognised), a drinking bout; pot-Twuse (or shop), a beer-shop, a Lush-crib (q.v.); pot-house (or coffee-house) politician, an ignorant, irresponsible spouter of politics; pot-companion, (1) a cup-comrade, and (2) an habitual drunkard : as also, potfury (also, drunkenness), -knight, -head, -leach, -man, -polisher, -sucker, loaUoper, potator, potster, toss-pot, and rob-pot; pot-punishment, compulsory tippling; pot-quarrel, a drunken squabble; pot-sick (or -shot), drunk; pot-sure (-hardy, or -valiant), emboldened by liquor: cf. Dutch courage; pot-bllied, fat, bloated in stomach, as from guzzling: also pot-belly (or guts),’ a big-bellied one; pot-revel, a drunken frolic; potmania (or potomania), dipsomania; Sir (or Madam) Pint-pot, a host or hostess; pot-boy (or man), a barscullion: whence pot-boydom.
Proof. The best ale at Magdalen, Oxford.
Purge. Beer, swipes (q.v.).
Purko. Beer. [Barclay, Perkins, and Co.]
Purl. 1. Beer infused with wormwood. 2. Beer warmed nearly to boiling point, and flavoured with gin, sugar, and ginger. Purl-man, a boating vendor of purl to Thames watermen (1680).
Red-lattice (or Lettice). An ale-house sign. Hence red-lattice phrases, pothouse talk; also green lattice; red-grate, tavern or brothel, or both combined (1596).
Reeb. Beer: top of reeb, a pot of beer.
Rob-pot. A drunkard, malt-worm (q.v.) (1622).
Rot-gut. Poor drink: generic: spec, bad beer or alcohol: also rotto (1597).
Screwed (or Screwy). Drunk, tight (q.v.). Synonyms: [Further lists will be found under Drinks, Drunk, D.T.’s, Gallon-distemper. Lush, Lush-crib, and Lushington.] To be afflicted, afloat, alecied, all at sea, all mops-and-brooms, in one’s armour, in one’s altitudes, at rest, Bacchi plenum, battered, be-argered, beery, bemused, a bit on, blind, bloated, blowed, blued, boozed, bosky, a brewer, bright in the eye, bubbed, budgy, huffy, bung – eyed, candy, canon (or cannon), chirping – merry, chucked, clear, cfinched, concerned, corked, corkscrewed, corky, corned, crooked, in one’s cups, cup-shot, cut, dagged, damaged, dead – oh! disguised, disorderly, doing the Lord (or Emperor), done over, down (with barrel-fever: see Gallon-distemper), dull in the eye, full of Dutch- courage, electrified, elephant’s – trunk (rhyming), elevated, exalted, far gone, feeling funny (or right royal), fettled (or in good fettle), fighting-tight (or drunk), flawed, floored, fluffed, flummoxed, flushed, flustered, flustrated, flying-high, fly-blown, fogged (or foggy), fou (Scots), on fourth, foxed, fresh, fuddled, full, full-flavoured, full to the bung, fuzzy, gay, gilded, glorious, grape-shot, gravelled, greetin’- fou’, groggy, hanced, half-seas-over, happy, hard-up, hazy, heady, hearty, helpless, hiccius-doccius, hickey, high, hockey, hoodman, in a difficulty (see Gallon – distemper), incog, inspired, jagged, jolly, jug-bitten, kennurd (back slang, drunk), all keyhole, kisk, knocked – up, leary, hon drunk, in Liquor-pond Street-loaded, looking lively, lumpy, lushy, making indentures with one’s legs, malted, martin drunk, mashed, mellow, miraculous, mixed, moony, mopped, moppy, mortal, muckibus, muddled, mugged, muggy, muzzy, nappy, nase (or nazy), noddy – headed, noggy, obfuscated, oddish, off (off at the nail, or one’s nut), on (also on the bend, beer, batter, fuddle, muddle, sentry, skyte spree, etc.: see Flare-up and Floored), out (also out of funds, register, altitudes, etc.), overcome, overseen, overshot, over – sparred, overtaken, over the bay, palatic, paralysed, peckish, a peg too low, pepst, pickled, piper – drunk (or merry), ploughed, poddy, podgy, potted-off, pot-shot, pot-sick, pot-valiant, primed, pruned, pushed, queered, quick – tempered, raddled, rammaged, ramping-mad, rather touched, rattled, rellng (or tumbling), ripe, roaring, rocky, salubrious, scammered, scooped, sewn up, shaky, three (or four) sheets in the wind, shot, shot in the neck, slewed, smeekit, smelling of the cork, snapped, snuffy, snug, so, soaked, sow-drunk, spiffed, spoony – drimk, spreeish, sprung, squiffed (or squiffy), stale-drunk, starchy, swattled, swiggled, swilled, swinnied, swine-drunk, swiped (or swipey), swivelly, swizzled, taking it easy, tangle-footed, tap-shackled, taverned (also hit on the head by a tavern bitch, or to have swallowed a tavern token), teeth under, thirsty, tight, tipsy, top-heavy, topsy-boosy, tosticated, under the influence, up a tree, up in one’s hat, waving a flag of defiance, wet, wet – handed, what- nosed, whipcat (Florio), whittled, winey, yappish (yaupy or yappy). Also, to have a guest in the attic, the back teeth well afloat, a piece of bread and cheese in the head, drunk more than one has bled, the sun in one’s eyes, a touch of boskiness, a cup too much, a brick in the hat, a drop in the eye, got the flavour, a full cargo aboard, a jag on, a cut leg, the malt above the wheat, one’s nuff, one’s soul in soak, yellow fever. Also, to have been barring too much, bitted by a bam mouse, driving the brewer’s horse, biting one’s name in, dipping rather deep, making M’s and T’s, paid, painting the town red, shaking a cloth in the wind. Also, to wear a barley cap, to cop the brewer, to let the finger ride the thumb, to lap the gutter, to need a reef taken in, to see the devil, to take a shard (or shourd), to shoe the goose, to see one apiece.
Shandy-gaff. Beer and ginger-beer (1853).
Shant. A quart; a pot : e.g. shant of gatter, a pot of beer.
Shanty. 1. A rough and tumble hut. 2. A public-house. 3. A brothel. 4. A quart. 5. Beer money; also as verb, (1) to dwell in a hut, (2) to take shelter. 6. See Chantey.
Shearer’s Joy (Australian). Colonial beer.
She-oak. Colonial brewed ale.
Short-pot. ‘False, cheating Potts used at Ale-houses, and Brandy-shops’ (B. E.).
Single-broth (or tiff). Small beer: see Screwed (1635).
Sir Walter Scott. A pot of beer.
Six-and-tips. Whisky and small beer (1785).
Skin-disease. Fourpenny ale.
Small beer. 1. Weak beer. 2. trifles; to chronicle small beer, (1) to engage in trivial occupations, and (2) to retail petty scandal; to think small beer of anything, to have a poor opinion of it. Also small things. As adj., petty (1604).
Sour-ale. To mend like sour-ale in summer, to get worse.
Stingo. Strong liquor: spec, humming ale (q.v.).
Stitch-back. Very strong ale, stingo (q.v.).
Stout. 1. Very strong malt-drink (B. E.). 2. In pl., Guinness’s shares. Stout across the narrow, full bellied, corpulent.
Stride-wide. Ale. [Halliwell: mentioned in Harrison’s England, 202.]
Swankey. Any weak tipple: spec, small beer: also (fishermen’s) a mixture of water, molasses, and vinegar.
Swell-nose. Strong ale, stingo (q.v.) (1515).
Swinny. Drunk: see Screwed: also swinnied.
Swipe. 1. A blow delivered with the full length of the arm; as verb, to drive (q.v.), to bang: hence swiper, a hard hitter, a slogger (q.v.), a knocker-out (q.v.): at Harrow, to birch (1200). 2. In pi., thin, washy beer, small beer: also (schools) any poor tipple: as verb, to drink; hence Swish.
Swizzle (or Swizzy). 1. Generic for drink; also, 2. various compounded drinks — rum and water, ale and beer mixed, and (West Indies) what is known in America as a cocktail. As verb, to tope, to swill (q.v.);
and stoizded, drink; also see Screwed (1850).
Taplash. 1. Bad, thick beer: cask-dregs or tap-droppings. Hence, as adj., poor, washy, trivial (1630), Hence, 2. a publican: in contempt.
Tenant at will. One whose wife usually fetches him from the ale-house (Grose).
Three-threads (or thirds). Half common ale, and the rest stout or double beer (B. E.); three-thirds, and denoted a draught, once popular, made up of a third each of ale, beer, and ‘two-penny,’ in contradistinction to ‘half-and-half’; this beverage was superseded in 1722 by the very similar porter or ‘entire’ (Chambers).
Tiddlywink. An unlicensed house: a pawnbroker’s (also leaving-shop, q.v.), a beershop, a brothel, etc. As verb, to spend more than prudence or custom will sanction.
Tiff. 1. Small beer, swipes (q.v.). Hence, a moderate draught: a tiff of punch, a small bowl of punch; as verb, to drink: tiffing, eating and drinking out of meal time (Grose).
Tipper. 1. A special brew of ale: named after Mr. Thomas Tipper: also Brighton Tipper (1843). 2. See Tip.
Tomato Can Vag. Draining the dregs of an empty beer-barrel into a tomato can.
Top-o-reeb. A pot of beer. Top-joint, a pint of beer.
Toss. As verb, to drink at a draught, to gulp: e.g. to toss a can of beer: also to toss off: cf. Toast; hence toss-pot – a drunkard: see Lushington; tossed (or tosticated), drunk: see Screwed (1660).
Trickett. A long drink of beer. [New South Wales, after Trickett, the champion sculler.]
Twopenny. 1. Beer; sold at 2d. a quart: cf. Fourpenny, etc. (1771).
Upsee-Dutch (Upsee-English, Upsee-Freese). Conjecturally a kind of heady beer qualified by the name of the brew. Hence upsee-freesy, etc., drunk: see Screwed; to drink upsee-Dutch (English, etc.), to drink deeply, or in true toper fashion according to the custom of the country named. Also Upsees (1600).
Water-bewitched. Weak lap (q.v.) of any kind: spec, (modem) tea very much watered down, but orig. (1672) very thin beer: also water-damaged: cf. Husband’s-tea.
Whistle-belly-vengeance. Bad beer, swipes (q.v.); hence indifferent lap (q.v.) of any kind: cf. Whip-belly-vengeance.
Whistle-cup. A drinking cup with a whistle attached: the last toper capable of using the whistle received the cup as a prize. Also a tankard fitted with a whistle, so arranged as to sound when the vessel was emptied, thus warning the drawer that more liquor was required.
Whistle-drunk. Very drunk indeed (1749).
Whistle-jacket. Small beer.

Synonyms for beer (including stout). Act of Parliament; artesian, barley, belch, belly-vengeance, bevy or bevvy, brownstone, bum-clink, bung- juice, bunker, cold-blood, down (see Up); English burgundy (porter), gatter, half-and-half, heavy-wet, John Barleycorn, knock-down or knock-me-down, oil of barley, perkin, ponge, pongelow, or ponjeUo, rosin, rot-gut, sherbet, stingo, swankey, swipes, swizzle, up (bottled ale or stout)

Beer-word-mugs

Thesaurus Of Beer

January 18, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Peter Roget. He was born in 1779, in London, the son of a Swiss clergyman, and became a doctor, but was obsessed with making lists since at least the age of eight. I can certainly relate. Thanks to several bad incidents in his life — both his father and his wife died young, and a favorite uncle committed suicide in front of him — he suffered depression most of his life, and worked on his thesaurus as a coping mechanism. When it was first published in 1852, the full title was Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition. After his death, both his son and then his grandson continued to work on new editions of what become known as Roget’s Thesaurus, the first reference book of its kind, although there are now dozens of similar books available.

I’m not sure if I’m so fascinated by words because I’m a writer, or if I’m a writer precisely because I love words. I have a long list of Beer In Other Languages, exhaustive lists of Drunk Words, slang terms for over-indulging and puke words, for when you really over-indulge. I’ve also looked at The Language Of Hangovers, but finding Beer Slang has proved far more difficult for some reason (although I should point out, that last one is a work in progress that I’ve only worked on a few times since first posting it in 2011).

As most beer historians will point out, beer as a generic term is fairly recent. Just ask Martyn Cornell or Ron Pattinson. And ale and lager as over-simplified subdivisions below beer is even trickier. But the fact remains, apart from wholly slang terms, there aren’t very many words which also mean beer, apart from beer. You might immediately offer “cerveza,” but that is, of course, in Spanish. So, because it’s Thesaurus Day, I checked out a few, and here’s what I found:

Roget’s Thesaurus

On Roget’s Thesaurus online, a search for “beer” yields this sparse response.

#959 Drunkenness: Nn. beer, barmy beer — beer.

Roget’s International Thesaurus 1922

Roget’s 1922 International Thesaurus is also online, on Bartleby.com, though it’s pretty unsatisfying, too:

thesaurus-rogets-1922-beer

Thesaurus.com

Thesaurus.com, part of the dictionary.com family of reference website, gives this for beer synonyms:

thesaurus-com-beer

Oxford Dictionaries Thesaurus

The Oxford Dictionaries website reveals just this.

SYNONYMS
ale, beverage, brew
informal jar, pint, booze, wallop, sherbet
NZ Australian hop

WordReference Thesaurus

WordReference gives this list of words.

malt beverage, malt liquor, brew, suds, the amber brew, slops, brewskie, the amber nectar (slang), lager, lager beer, bitter, stout, ale, pale ale, alcoholic drink, booze (slang), a pint, a half, draught beer, draft beer, tap beer, cask ale

Curiously, only amber nectar, and booze are listed as “slang,” yet virtually all of them seem like either slang, specific types of beer or modified types of beer, like “draft beer.”

Infoplease Thesaurus

The thesaurus at Infoplease online yields this:

1. beer, brew, brewage

usage: a general name for alcoholic beverages made by fermenting a cereal (or mixture of cereals) flavored with hops

OneLook Thesaurus

The OneLook Thesaurus gives their top 100 beer-related words, though many don’t even make sense. You can even keep going, 100 new words at a time, and not surprisingly they get even less related to beer as you go deeper, some ridiculously so.

thesaurus-onelook-beer

Visual Thesaurus

This is the graph of beer synonyms that the Visual Thesaurus creates:

Graph Words Online Thesaurus

The Graph Words Online Thesaurus gives a very similar answer to the Visual Thesaurus:

Collins Dictionary Thesaurus

The Collins Dictionary Thesaurus gives this list of beer synonyms:

thesaurus-collins-beer

Visuwords

Visuwords created a colorful graph of beer words, though very few true synonyms:

thesaurus-visuwords-beer

Snappy Words

Snappy Words created this similar graph of beer words:

thesaurus-snappy-beer

Also, Wordnik and Power Thesaurus both give extensive answers, pulling from numerous sources, but end up giving almost all of the same answers as everyone else.

The conclusion is pretty much what I expected. There just aren’t many other words that mean beer. Apart from goofy slang and colloquialisms, there’s just no good generic words for it. One strange one that kept coming up was “brewage.” I’ve never heard that come up in conversation, have you? “I’m sitting here enjoying a glass of brewage.” It just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Maybe because it’s too close to sewage. But along with “brew,” it appears to be the most common synonym to come up. How is it possible that one of the most common words for beer is one nobody actually uses? I guess I’ll just have to keep enjoying my beer without any colorful words to substitute. C’est la vie. Happy Thesaurus Day.

Punny Bars

October 1, 2015 By Jay Brooks

If you’re one of those people who can barley stand a bad pun, you may want to reconsider reading this post. Personally, I’m a ferment believer. I love a good pun, the more groan-inducing the better, but I have learned that there are people in the world who do not agree; and while I can’t understand them, I do try to sympathize. So be warned, weizen up and it will be smooth aleing. Hopefully, bad puns are the yeast of your problems. This post is just for Schlitz and giggles, and for what it’s wort, it will all turn out for the best. Ales well that ends well.

So the website Atlas Obscura partnered with Digg to crowdsource groan-inducing puns that businesses used in naming themselves. You’ve seen them, ones like “Hannah and Her Scissors” or “A Shoe Grows in Brooklyn.” So they put out a virtual call for submissions and got around 3,000 back, whittled down to 1,900 after eliminating duplicates. In the end, they decided that while many submissions weren’t technically puns, but also included movie allusions, homophones, and dirty words, they were funny enough and were in the same spirit so allowed many of those, too. Apparently the most submitted name was for Vietnamese noodles, “9021-Pho,” and there were also inexplicably quite a few hair salons named “Curl up and Dye.”

Then they created an interactive map with all of the punny names, which they called The Ultimate Crowdsourced Map of Punny Businesses in America. They even divided them into major categories, including Cleaning Businesses/Flower Shops/Portable Bathrooms, Coffee shops, Doctors and Dentists, Food Trucks, Hair/Nail Salons, Pet Care, Restaurants and Other (including retail stores, vape shops and lots of yarn stores).

pun-map

Then there was one other category that caught my eye: Bar/Pubs, which even included one brewery, although I’m not sure I would have listed it. Since it was crowdsourced, I feel certain they probably missed a few, or even a lot, given how many bad or punny bar names I’ve seen over the years. Some of these name you just know had to be created after a few drinks. Do I think alcohol may have been involved? Of Coors I do.

The Full List of Pun Bar and Pub Names:

Abe’s on Lincoln, Savannah, GA
Al Smith’s Saloon, East Troy, WI
Anchor Management Bar and Grill, Oroville, CA
Bar Celona, Pasadena, CA
Bar None, San Francisco, CA
Beer and Loathing in Dundee, Omaha, NE
Beerhive Pub, Salt Lake City, UT
Brews Brothers, Galveston, TX
Brews Brothers Taproom, Murphysboro, IL
C’MON INN, Fountain, CO
Catcher in the Rye, Los Angeles, CA
Chez When Cocktail Lounge, Sedalia, MO
Dancin’ Bare, Portland, OR
Deja Brew, Wendell, MA
Devil’s Advocate, Tempe, AZ
Dew Drop Inn, Cincinnati, OH; Washington, DC; Oak Creek Canyon, AZ & New Orleans, LA
Dick’s Halfway Inn, Rosedale, MD
Dupont Italian Kitchen Bar, Washington, DC
Fumducks, Houston, TX
Gordough’s Donuts, Austin, TX
Hi Dive, San Francisco, CA
Holmes Plate,Corning, NY
John’s Plumbing, Greensboro, NC
Kegler’s, Crest Hill, IL
Lei Low, Houston, TX
Longshots, Joliet, IL
LowBrau, Sacramento, CA
Mother Muff’s, Colorado Springs, CO
Mustang Alley’s, Baltimore, MD
My Brothers Place, San Bruno, CA
Neil’s Bahr, Houston, TX
Nice Ash, Waukesha, WI
Olive Or Twist, Portland, OR & Pittsburgh, PA
Paddy O’Beers, Raleigh, NC
Pour House, Hartford, CT; Jamison, PA; Exton, PA; St Louis, MO & Sacramento, CA
Sir Vezas, Tucson, AZ
Skinny Dick’s Halfway Inn, Fairbanks, AK
South Side Liquor Box, Toledo, OH
Stocks and Blondes, Chicago, IL
Stowaway Pub,Stow, OH
Swagger Inn, Lyndon Station, WI
Tequila Mockingbird, Ocean City, MD
The Big Legrowlski, Portland, OR
The Crossbar, Havertown, PA
The Crow Bar, Mount Holly, NJ
The Frosty Beaver, Cleveland, OH
The Hungry Beaver, Wrangell, AK
The Picnic Tap, Nashville, TN
The Pour House, Siren, WI; Raleigh, NC & James Island, SC
The Red, White & Brew, Hammond, LA
The Stagger Inn, Edwardsville, IL
The Tapp, Tarrytown, NY
The Tavernacle, Salt Lake City, UT
The Trappe Door, Greenville, SC
The Wine Seller, Williamsburg, VA
The Wurst Bar, Ypsilanti, MI
Thew Alibi, Coos Bay, OR
Thirst N’ Howl, Little Rock, AR
Torrey Pints, La Jolla, CA
Unwined, Discovery Bay, CA
What Ales You, Burlington, VT
Winegasm, Astoria, NY
Wish You Were Beer, Madison, AL
Wit’s Inn, New Orleans, LA
21st Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, CA

While the original list is now closed, if you know of one they missed that would fit into the spirit of this list, please add in the comments here. I feel confident there are many more. And if they included beer names, or even just hop pun names, the list would run into the thousands.

breckenridge-bock
Still one of my favorite beer names.

The Language Of Hangovers

August 23, 2015 By Jay Brooks

Untitled
While searching for something this weekend, I happened upon A Few Too Many, by Joan Acocella, that appeared in The New Yorker magazine in May of 2008. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’m a word nerd, and love language. So her piece on hangovers included this gem of a paragraph, explaining how other languages described a hangover:
hangover-words

There’s some awesome phrases there, it may be time to create a page of hangover words, similar to Drunk Words, Puke Words and Beer Slang, or even my list of Beer In Other Languages.

Believe it or not, apparently the word “hangover,” meaning “a severe headache or other after effects caused by drinking an excess of alcohol,” was first used around 1902 or 1904 (depending on the source). It seems like it would be older than that, but apparently that’s when it was first seen in print in the United States, where the word originated. It did show up a little earlier, in 1894, as hang-over, but meaning “a survival, a thing left over from before.” Prior to hangover’s debut as the perfect word to describe our pain and discomfort, these were some of the most common words people used to describe that feeling.

black dog
blue-devils
bottle ache
bust-head
carpenters in the forehead
cropsick
gallon-distemper
hair-ache
jim-jams
katzenjammer
morning fog
wooden mouth
the zings

Here’s “hangover” in several languages, with the literal translation in brackets, if known. My favorite is undoubtedly the Finnish word, which is “krapula,” which sounds exactly like you feel when you’re hungover.

Afrikaans: babelaas or babbelas
Albanian: gjellë e mbetur
Amharic: ጥላቻ or t’ilacha
Arabic: دوار من اثر الخمرة or dawwar min ‘athar alkhmr
Armenian: կախաղան or kakhaghan
Azerbaijani: asılılıq
Basque: ajea
Belarusian: пахмелле or pachmiellie
Bengali: пахмелле or pachmiellie
Bosnian: mamurluk
Bulgarian: махмурлук or makhmurluk
Catalan: ressaca
Chichewa: chipewa
Chinese (Mandarin): suzui [stay-over drunk]
Chinese (Simplified): 宿醉 or Sù zuì
Chinese (Traditional): 宿醉 or Sù zuì
Colombian Spanish: guayabo [guava trees]
Corsican: ressore
Croatian: mamurluk
Czech: kocovina
Danish: tømmermænd
Dutch: kater
Esperanto: pendeto
Estonian: pohmelus
Finnish: krapula
French: gueule de bois [a wooden gob]
Georgian: ნაბახუსევი or nabakhusevi
German: Kater
Greek: πονοκέφαλο or ponokéfalo
Gujarati: હેંગઓવર or Hēṅga’ōvara
Haitian Creole: angove
Hawaiian: ke kūkākūkā
Hebrew: הנגאובר [severe dizziness]
Hindi: अत्यधिक नशा or atyadhik nasha
Hungarian: másnaposság [next-day-ish-ness]
Icelandic: thynnka [thinness]
Igbo: nkwụsị
Indonesian: mabuk
Irish: croí
Italian: postumi della sbornia
Japanese: futsukayoi [two-day drunk]
Javanese: seneng banget
Kannada: ಹ್ಯಾಂಗೊವರ್ or Hyāṅgovar
Kazakh: асып кету or asıp ketw
Khmer: ខកចិត្ត or khakchet
Korean: 숙취 or suk-chwi or sugchwi [stay-over drunk]
Kurdish: derxistin
Kyrgyz: жазуу or jazuu
Latvian: paģiras
Lithuanian: pagirios
Luxembourgish: zouhängt
Luxembourgish: zouhängt
Macedonian: мамурлак or mamurlak
Malay: mabuk
Malayalam: ഹാംഗോവർ or hāṅgēāvar
Maori: tauranga
Marathi: हँगओव्हर or Ham̐ga’ōvhara
Myabmar (Burmese): ရက်နာ or raat nar
Norwegian: bakrus
Persian: خماری
Polish: kac
Portugese: ressaca
Punjabi: ਹੈਂਗਓਵਰ or Haiṅga’ōvara
Romanian: Mahmureală
Russian: poxmel’je [from drink]
Samoan: tautau
Scots Gaelic: air an fhiodh
Serbian: мамурлук [crapulence]
Sindhi: هوريور
Sinhala: අම්මගෙන්
Slovak: kocovina
Slovenia: mamica
Somali: hareeraha
Spanish: resaca [undertow or backwash]
Swedish: kopparslagare [coppersmith]
Tajik: бармегардад or ʙarmegardad
Tamil: நீட்டிப்புப் or Nīṭṭippup
Telugu: హ్యాంగోవర్ or Hyāṅgōvar
Thai: อาการเมาค้าง or Xākār meā kĥāng
Turkish: aksamdan kalmalık [evening remainder]
Ukranian: похмілля or pokhmillya
Urdu: پھانسی
Uzbek: kaltaklash
Vietnamese: nôn nao or dựng xiên [built cockeyed]
Welsh: hwyr
Xhosa: isango
Yiddish: כאַנגאָוווער or khangovuer
Yoruba: idokunrin

And here’s a few random slang words for hangovers:

American slang, early 1900s: crapulous
American slang: PRS, for “Post Refreshment Syndrome”
Central American slang: “goma” which is rubber
Danish slang: tømmermænd, which apparently means “carpenters”
French, antiquated: mal aux cheveux, which essentially meant a “hair-ache”
German slang: kater, which means “tomcat,” and people hungover are also said to be “verkatert,” or “catted.” It’s supposedly derived from the word “katarrh,” an antiquated expression for an illness.
Italian slang: postumi della sbornia, which means the “after-death of the drunkenness”
Mexican slang: crudo, which means “raw”
Modern Irish: Ta dha cinn orm, which apparently means “There are two heads on me”
Polish slang: kac
Swedish slang: baksmälla, which roughly means “a whack on the ass”

And finally, here’s a list I found of “distinctly Irish ways to describe your hangover:”

I’m in Lego
The horrors
I feel like boiled shite
Sick as a small hospital
I’m puking my ring
Bottle of ghosts
I’ve had a bad pint
Brown bottle flu
I’m in a heap
Mouth like a fur boot
I’ve got The Fear
In rag order

Time For An Utepils

May 23, 2014 By Jay Brooks

The trivia website Dose recently had a list they posted of 21 Words That Don’t Exist In English, But Should. Essentially they’re words in other languages for which there’s no English equivalent, which Dose argues should be added to our dictionaries. Given our history of liberal “borrowing” of foreign words, I can’t see why not. The one word that caught my attention was Utepils (pronounced “oot-er-pillss”), a noun meaning “to sit outside on a sunny day enjoying a beer.”

According to the book “The untranslatables’,” by C. J. Moore, “you have to live through the long dark months of a Norwegian winter to appreciate the annual Norwegian rite of utepils. Literally it means ‘the first drink of the year taken out of doors.’ Easter is barely past, with its tradition of hyttepåske — your Easter visit to your remote cabin — and the days are at last getting longer. Although it’s still practically freezing, everyone is queueing up to invite you to a first utepils get-together ar their favourite bar.

Apparently that’s not exactly correct, and a native Norwegian writing a blog entitled An Enthusiast’s Lexicon, describes utepils more fully:

Actually, utepils simply means any beer enjoyed outside, at any time of the year, but it is true that the first one of the season is a much anticipated ritual. You know spring is on its way when norwegians brave the chilling temperatures and gather around their pints, sometimes even wrapped in blankets. The practice continues throughout the year though – nothing says summer like utepils.
The word itself is made up of two words, ute (‘outside’) and pils, which is simply short for Pilsner, the type of lager beer most commonly consumed in Norway. Interestingly, pils is also used as a slang verb (‘å pilse’), meaning simply ‘to drink beer’. So when you are getting together for an utepils you are pilsing.

Anyway, as our weather in Northern California has been decidedly warm the last few days, I think it’s time I sat out on our back deck, basking in the sunshine with a beer in hand, and enjoyed me a good old-fashioned Utepils. Who’s with me?

Beer & Hieroglyphics

February 22, 2014 By Jay Brooks

Perhaps it’s why I became a writer, but I’ve always been fascinated by languages, and especially different alphabets. They always seemed like secret codes, and few more so than Egyptian hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics are, of course, one of the earliest forms of written communication. They were once thought to be the oldest form, but more recent evidence seems to suggest that Sumerian writing most likely predates the Egyptian writing, and that they probably developed independently.

Not surprisingly, since beer was so important at the dawn of civilization, even though the number of individual hieroglyphics was limited (compared to modern vocabularies) there were several beer-specific hieroglyphics. How many there are is uncertain. E.A. Wallis Budge compiled a list of over 1,000 that was published in various forms between the late 1890s and 1920. But the standard reference is generally thought to be Gardiner’s Sign List, created by British Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner in the 1950s, containing around 750 common form hieroglyphics from the Middle Egyptian language.

Gardiner’s Sign List is organized into 26 categories that are assigned a letter and then a number to keep them straight. For example, “E” is for “mammals” and E6 is a “horse.”

So here are the Egyptian hieroglyphics that have to do with beer and brewing, at least from the Gardiner’s Sign List. I’ve also included different views of the same hieroglyphic, that is different ways that it was written or expressed. The Letter and Number is, of course, how each is classified in the Gardiner’s Sign List.

A36: Brewer

Alternative Images:

A37: Brewer (Variant)

Alternative Images:

M39: Basket of Grain

Alternative Images:

O50: Circular Threshing Floor Covered with Grain

Alternative Images:

O51: Heap of Grain on a Raised Mud Floor

Alternative Images:

W22: Beer Jug

Alternative Images:

W23: Beer Jug (Variant)

Alternative Images:

Beer From Around The World

October 7, 2013 By Jay Brooks

Today’s infographic, entitled Beer From Around The World, created for Legal Info 360. On their website, the infographic is somewhat different, and is interactive. One interesting stat I hadn’t seen before is they state that there are 15,235,126 breweries in the world. With around 7.2 billion people in the world, that’s roughly one for every 473 people. Does that seem to high to anybody else?

Click here to see the infographic full size.

On Geeks & Nerds & Snobs

October 3, 2013 By Jay Brooks

The definitions of how we follow our passions seems to be a popular topic of discussion lately. Are we geeks, nerds, snobs, enthusiasts, connoisseurs or aficionados, or just annoying? I tackled this question in my first article for Beer Advocate magazine, way back in 2007, in “Freaks and Beer Geeks.” In that piece, I defined a geek as “an obsessive enthusiast, often single-mindedly accomplished, yet with a lingering social awkwardness, at least outside the cocoon of their chosen form of geekdom.” I’m still pretty happy with that definition, it seems to fit most of the geeks I know. And as I’m one myself — something I gleefully admitted in Living in the Silver Age for All About Beer — I tend to prefer being around other geeks. In my experience, we tend to run in packs. We’re tribal.

Here’s what I said in early 2007.

Beer Geeks. You probably know one of us. Hell, if you’re reading this magazine you may be one, too. And even if you don’t or you aren’t, you probably know what we’re talking about. We’re the Trekkies — excuse me — Trekkers of the beer world. You can find us at our countless conventions — a.k.a. beer festivals — wearing the uniform: beer t-shirt (occasionally tie-dyed), denim, baseball cap with brewery logo and in winter a hoodie, ditto logo. We’ll go anywhere in the world to find great beer.
We are also known by other names: snob, fanatic and hophead, among others. But fanatic never quite caught on, hophead is generally reserved for fans of IPAs and other hoppy beers, and snob never crossed over, retaining its mostly derogatory meaning. Originally, a snob was someone who made shoes, a cobbler, before migrating to a person of the lower classes who wants to move up and then on to its present meaning of a person who places too much emphasis on status or “a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to others.”
Occasionally kinder, gentler terms are employed like enthusiast or aficionado, but they never seem to strike the right chord for some reason. Most of us prefer to be known simply as beer geeks though, oddly enough, the word geek meant originally a fool and later referred to the lowest rung of circus performer, one who may even have bitten the heads off of live chickens, as popularized in a 1946 novel, “Nightmare Alley,” by William Gresham, about the seedy world of traveling carnivals. In that book, to be a “geek” was to be so down and out that you’d do virtually anything to get by, no matter how distasteful or vile.
Like many old words that were primarily derogatory, its meaning has now been turned on its head. Beginning probably with the original new nerd, the computer geek, it was taken back as a source of pride. So today there are band geeks, computer geeks, science geeks, film geeks, comics geeks, history geeks and Star Wars geeks, to name only a few, all of them proud to call themselves geek, because of the shared passion that is so central to its modern meaning. Today a geek is an obsessive enthusiast, often single-mindedly accomplished, yet with a lingering social awkwardness, at least outside the cocoon of their chosen form of geekdom.

But then there’s the on-going debate about whether we, or anybody really, is a geek, a nerd, a dork, a snob, or whatever. Not that these labels matter, but they must at least a little bit, since people keep talking about them.

Beer Geek Speak last year asked Snob, Geek or Nerd…Which are you??, Anti-Hero Brewing also tackled Beer Geek vs. Beer Snob and Modern Drunkard has the Subtle Art of Beer Snobbery. The point is, do a Google search for geek vs. nerd or geek vs. snob and you’ll get a lot of hits, and most of the top ones, particularly comparing geeks and snobs, are about beer drinkers. Clearly, this is on our minds.

I think a lot of this is coming from the fact that beer is trying to climb out of the muck and ooze that has kept it down for decades, kept it a drink of of the hoi polloi, with many manufacturers more worried about quantity than quality. Changing that has been a struggle, for a variety of reasons, but the notion that beer is every bit as sophisticated and worthy of respect as any other beverage has been difficult to achieve. Why that is would make for an entire book, a very thick book even, but this endless debate over labels is just one manifestation of that, I believe. And so we see the endless comparisons to wine, which annoys many of us to no end. I’ve written extensively about my own frustration with this, and earlier today Jen Muehlbauer had a terrific piece on that very subject: Fancy beer: pinkies out or middle fingers up?

Earlier this morning, a UK colleague, Phil Mellows, shared an interesting article from Slackpropagation entitled On “Geek” Versus “Nerd”, first published this June. A more general discussion, in it author Burr Settles defines a geek as an “enthusiast of a particular topic or field,” saying “Geeks are ‘collection’ oriented, gathering facts and mementos related to their subject of interest. They are obsessed with the newest, coolest, trendiest things that their subject has to offer,” whereas a nerd he defines as a “studious intellectual, although again of a particular topic or field. Nerds are ‘achievement’ oriented, and focus their efforts on acquiring knowledge and skill over trivia and memorabilia.” He later draws a further distinction, saying this. “Both are dedicated to their subjects, and sometimes socially awkward. The distinction is that geeks are fans of their subjects, and nerds are practitioners of them.”

He then mined the data from several million tweets to create a statistical model showing geeks and nerds plotted on an x/y axis showing their relative geekiness and nerdiness. Here’s how he described the results:

The PMI statistic measures a kind of correlation: a positive PMI score for two words means they ”keep great company,” a negative score means they tend to keep their distance, and a score close to zero means they bump into each other more or less at random.
With that in mind, here is a scatterplot of various words according to their PMI scores for both “geek” and “nerd” on different axes (ignoring words with negative PMI, and treating #hashtags as distinct):

And here is the plotted chart, though I added beer since his data didn’t include beer geeks or beer nerds. And frankly, I just picked a hole where I thought beer might fit, but I really can’t say where beer would properly fit along the continuum. Where do you think it belongs?

Click here to see the original chart full size.

To me, this is interesting stuff, even though in the grand scheme of things none of it really matters. As long as you’re comfortable in your own skin and know who you are, what people call you you or even how you label yourself means almost nothing. But where we fit into the world does matter, at least to each of us, so I think that’s probably why I find this fascinating. We may not be able to pick our family, but our friends, our passions and the tribes we join do matter deeply and on a very personal level. They form a part of the architecture by which we define ourselves. I identify myself as a beer drinker, and that means something to my self-image, as I imagine such labels do to most of us. It’s how we see ourselves and present ourselves to the world. It only seems to go wrong when other people choose the labels for us. For example, I’m fine with geek, and nerd doesn’t bother me, but I don’t care for snob, even though I can think of plenty of instances when I have been a snob. In part, it’s a perception of the words as labels themselves. They’re not static, but in constant flux, their meaning changing subtly all the time.

And here’s one final bit of interest. In the comments, there’s one from a Hannah Fry, who’s the host of Number Hub, part of a British YouTube channel started by James May called Head Squeeze. After this post was initially published, she entertainingly devoted one of her weekly videos to the question of what distinguishes geeks and nerds. Enjoy.

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