Literature - Brookston Beer Bulletin

Historic Beer Birthday: John Taylor, The Bard of Beer

August 24, 2023 By Jay Brooks

poetry
Today is the birthday of John Taylor, who was nicknamed “The Bard of Beer,” although he apparently referred to himself as “The Water Poet.” (August 24, 1578-1653). He was born in Gloucester, and “after his waterman apprenticeship he served (1596) in Essex’s fleet, and was present at Flores in 1597 and at a siege of Cadiz.”

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Here’s part of his biography from his Wikipedia page:

He spent much of his life as a Thames waterman, a member of the guild of boatmen that ferried passengers across the River Thames in London, in the days when the London Bridge was the only passage between the banks. He became a member of the ruling oligarchy of the guild, serving as its clerk; it is mainly through his writings that history is familiar with the watermen’s disputes of 1641–42, in which an attempt was made to democratize the leadership of the Company. He details the uprisings in the pamphlets Iohn Taylors Manifestation … and To the Right Honorable Assembly … (Commons Petition), and in John Taylors Last Voyage and Adventure of 1641.

He was a prolific, if rough-hewn writer (a wit rather than a poet), with over one hundred and fifty publications in his lifetime. Many were gathered into the compilation All the Workes of John Taylor the Water Poet (London, 1630; facsimile reprint Scholar Press, Menston, Yorkshire, 1973); augmented by the Spenser Society’s edition of the Works of John Taylor … not included in the Folio edition of 1630 (5 volumes, 1870–78). Although his work was not sophisticated, he was a keen observer of people and styles in the seventeenth century, and his work is often studied by social historians. An example is his 1621 work Taylor’s Motto, which included a list of then-current card games and diversions.

He achieved notoriety by a series of eccentric journeys: for example, he travelled from London to Queenborough in a paper boat with two stockfish tied to canes for oars, described in “The Praise of Hemp-Seed”,[2] which was re-enacted in 2006. From his journey to Scotland in 1618, on which he took no money, Taylor published his Pennyless Pilgrimage. (Ben Jonson walked to Scotland in the same year.)

Taylor is one of the few credited early authors of a palindrome: in 1614, he wrote “Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel.” He wrote a poem about Thomas Parr, a man who supposedly lived to the age of 152. He was also the author of a constructed language called Barmoodan.

Many of Taylor’s works were published by subscription; i.e., he would propose a book, ask for contributors, and write it when he had enough subscribers to undertake the printing costs. He had more than sixteen hundred subscribers to The Pennylesse Pilgrimage; or, the Moneylesse Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the Kings Magesties Water-Poet; How He TRAVAILED on Foot from London to Edenborough in Scotland, Not Carrying any Money To or Fro, Neither Begging, Borrowing, or Asking Meate, Drinke, or Lodging., published in 1618.

And this is his entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

John Taylor, (born Aug. 24, 1580, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died December 1653, London), minor English poet, pamphleteer, and journalist who called himself “the Water Poet.”

The son of a surgeon, Taylor was sent to a grammar school but became, as he said, “mired in Latin accidence” and was apprenticed to a Thames boatman. He served in the navy and saw action at Cádiz (1596) and Flores (1597). Returning to London, he worked as a waterman transporting passengers up and down the River Thames and also held a semiofficial post at the Tower of London for several years. Taylor won fame by making a series of whimsical journeys that he described in lively, rollicking verse and prose. For example, he journeyed from London to Queenborough, Kent, in a paper boat with two stockfish tied to canes for oars and nearly drowned in the attempt. He made other water journeys between London, York, and Salisbury, and The Pennyles Pilgrimage. . . (1618) describes a trip he made on foot from London to Edinburgh without money. In 1620 he journeyed to Prague, where he was received by the queen of Bohemia. His humorous accounts of his journeys won the patronage of Ben Jonson, among others. Taylor also amused the court and the public in his paper war with another eccentric traveler, Thomas Coryate. In 1630 he published 63 pieces in All the Works of John Taylor the Water Poet, although he continued to publish prolifically afterward.

When the English Civil Wars began Taylor moved to Oxford, where he wrote royalist pamphlets. After the city surrendered (1645), he returned to London and kept a public house, “The Crown” (later “The Poet’s Head”), until his death.

Here is one of his most beer-centric poems:

The Ex-Ale-Tation of Ale

John_Taylor_poet

Historic Beer Birthday: Emile A.H. Seipgens

August 16, 2023 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Emile Anton Hubert Seipgens (August 16, 1837-June 25, 1896). Seipgens was born in Roermond, the Netherlands. He was the son of a brewer, and after school and some failed jobs, joined his father at the brewery in 1856. By 1859, he was running the brewery along with his brother. But apparently he wasn’t happy there, and in 1874 decided to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. Throughout his life, he wrote poetry, novels, plays and much more.

Here’s a translated biography of his literary career, from Literary Zutphen:

Emile (Anton Hubert) Seipgens, born August 16, 1837 in Roermond, from 1876 until 1883 teacher of German at the Rijks HBS in Zutphen. He founded a literary reading companion for his disciples and was a member of the “Circle of scientific maintenance. He lived Nieuwstad A128-2. Seipgens was an outspoken Limburg author. His work – theater, novels and novellas village – is invariably located in Limburg, and sometimes – his songs – even written in Limburg dialect. Some of his best known and most read titles he wrote in his Zutphense period: The chaplain Bardelo (1880), from Limburg. Novellas and Sketches (1881). In this period made Seipgens, who was first trained to be a priest, then was brewer, then teacher, to eventually become a writer, definitively separated from the Catholic Church. He started on the assembly line to write stories, which he published in magazines such as The Guide , Netherlands and Elsevier . One of those stories, Rooien Hannes , had worked to folk drama and staged by the Netherlands Tooneel great success. Later titles are: In and around the small town (1887), along Maas and Trench (1890), The Killer Star (1892), Jean, ‘t Stumpke, Hawioe-Ho (1893), The Zûpers of Bliënbèèk (1894) and A wild Rosary (1894). In 1892 Seipgens secretary of the Society of Dutch Literature in Leiden, and in that place he died 1896. Posthumously published yet his novel on June 25, Daniel (1897) and the beam A Immortellenkrans (1897). Seipgens, which is one of the earliest naturalists of the Netherlands became completely into oblivion, until the late 70s of the last century actually was a small revival. Which among other things led to reprint the novel The chaplain Bardelo and stories in and around the small town , and to the publication of his biography, written by Peter Nissen: Emile Anton Hubert Seipgens (1837-1896). Of brewer’s son to literary (1987), and the placing of a memorial stone at Seipgens birthplace. But this revival was short-lived. If Emile Seipgens remembered voortleeft, it will have to be on the legend of the rovershoofdman Johann Bückler based ‘operabouffe’ Schinderhannes (1864), which to this day in Roermond is staged!

And here’s another account from “The Humour of Holland,” published in 1894.

Seipgens-bio

Guy de Maupassant’s “Waiter, A Glass Of Beer!”

August 5, 2023 By Jay Brooks

book
Today is the birthday of French writer Guy de Maupassant. He was a prolific writer, very popular during his lifetime, and “considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form’s finest exponents.” He wrote half-a-dozen novels and around 240 short stories. One of them was entitled “Waiter, A Glass of Beer!,” although since the original was in French, it’s sometimes translated as “Waiter, A Bock!” It’s a somewhat melancholy tale, but there’s a couple of great quotes in the story, like how the barfly describes his life:

I get up out of bed at noon. I come here, I have a meal, I drink beer, I wait for the evening, I have dinner, I drink beer, and then, about half-past one in the morning, I go home to bed again, because, you see, they close at that hour—which is a nuisance. I have probably spent six years out of the last ten on this seat, in this corner, and the rest of the time in bed—none of it anywhere else. Occasionally I have a chat with some of the guests.

And in the “Bock” version of the story, the barfly is referred to as a “regular” in the beer bar, but in the “glass of beer” version they use an interesting term I hadn’t heard before: a “beerite,” which he describes as “one of those habitual frequenters of beer-palaces who come in the morning when the doors open, and leave when they close for the night.” I may have to try to get that word back into common usage, if indeed it ever was.

Because it’s in the public domain, several versions are available online. I’ve reprinted the Bartelby version below, but you can see others, such as one of the Bock versions at Classic Short Stories or at Google Books’ version at The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant. Enjoy.

Guy_de_Maupassant_fotograferad_av_Félix_Nadar_1888
A photograph of Guy de Passant taken in 1888.

‘Waiter, a Glass of Beer!’

I WAS going nowhere in particular. I was merely taking a stroll after dinner. I passed the Lyonnais Bank, the Rue Vivienne, and other streets besides. Suddenly I halted before a half-empty beer-palace. With no special object in view—for I was not thirsty—I went in.

Casting a glance about for a comfortable place, I took a seat next to a man who looked rather old, and was smoking a cheap clay pipe, which was as black as coal. Half a dozen glass saucers piled up on the table in front of him indicated the number of glasses he had already consumed. I paid no closer attention to my neighbor, recognizing him at once for a “beerite,” one of those habitual frequenters of beer-palaces who come in the morning when the doors open, and leave when they close for the night. He was untidy, and bald on the top of his head, a shock of long, greasy, pepper-and-salt hair falling upon his coat collar. His clothes, which were too loose, had apparently been made at a time when he was stouter. One suspected that his trousers were not fastened on tight, and that every ten yards the wearer would have to stop and pull up that erratic garment. Had he a waistcoat on? The bare thought of his boots, and of what they might contain, made me shudder. His frayed cuffs were a deep black all round the edges—just like his nails.

No sooner had I sat down beside this individual, than he coolly addressed me:

“How are you?”

I turned toward him in surprise, and looked him over. Then he resumed:

“You don’t recognize me?”

“No.”

“Des Barrets.”

I was dumfounded. It was Count Jean des Barrets, an intimate friend of college days. I shook hands with him, but was too much perturbed to bring out a syllable. At last I stammered:

“And you—how are you?”

To which he placidly replied:

“I might be worse.”

That was all he said. I tried to be civil, and racked my brain for an observation to make. At last I put the question:

“And—er—what are you doing at present?”

He answered in a tone of resignation:

“As you see.”

I felt myself blushing. Nevertheless, I braved it out:

“But every day, I mean?”

After puffing out an enormous cloud of smoke, he replied:

“It’s the same thing every day.”

Thereupon, giving the marble surface of the table a rat-tat-tat with a copper coin, he exclaimed:

“Waiter, two glasses of beer!”

A distant voice repeated, “Two glasses of beer!” A voice still more distant shouted a strident “Here you are!” Then appeared a man in a white apron, carrying two glasses, from which he spilt a few yellow drops as he shuffled speedily across the sanded floor.

Des Barrets emptied his glass at a single draft, and put it back on the table, sucking off the foam which had remained on his mustache. After this he inquired:

“Anything new?”

I really had nothing new to tell him, and so I muttered:

“No, old chap, nothing that I know of. I—I’m in business.”

In the same even tone he asked me:

“Oh! And do you find that amusing?”

“No. But it can’t be helped. A fellow must do something or other.”

“Why so?”

“Well—er—so as to have his time occupied.”

“What’s the use of that? I never do anything, as you see—no, not a thing. If one is poor, I understand that one must work. But as long as one has anything to live upon, then it’s quite unnecessary. Work—why work? Are you doing it for yourself or for others? If you are doing it for yourself, I suppose you enjoy it, and then it’s all right; if you do it for somebody else, you’re an idiot!”

Then, resting his pipe on the marble slab, he again cried out aloud:

“Waiter, a glass of beer!”

Turning back to me, he continued:

“Talking makes me thirsty. I am not used to it. No, I have no occupation; I do nothing but simply grow old. I shall have nothing to grieve for when I die. This beer-palace will be my only parting memory. No wife—no children—no cares—no worry. That’s the best way.”

He drained the tall glass brought him, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took to his pipe once more.

I was stupefied. Presently I said:

“But you have not always been like this?”

“I beg your pardon, always; ever since I left college.”

“But this is no life for you, my dear fellow! Why, it’s horrible! Surely you have something to do—you must have friends—you must be attached to somebody or something?”

“Not at all. I get up out of bed at noon. I come here, I have a meal, I drink beer, I wait for the evening, I have dinner, I drink beer, and then, about half-past one in the morning, I go home to bed again, because, you see, they close at that hour—which is a nuisance. I have probably spent six years out of the last ten on this seat, in this corner, and the rest of the time in bed—none of it anywhere else. Occasionally I have a chat with some of the guests.”

“But when you first came to Paris, what did you do, to start with?”

“I took my degree—at the Café de Médicis.”

“And what did you do next?”

“Next? Oh, I crossed the river, and came here!”

“Why did you take that much trouble?”

“Well, you know, a fellow can hardly stay in the Latin Quarter all his life. The students are too noisy. I shall never move again, now. Waiter, a glass of beer!”

I thought he was making game of me, and so persisted:

“Now, look here, tell me the truth! You have had some great sorrow, haven’t you? some unfortunate love-affair perhaps? You certainly look like a man who has been hard hit by fate. Tell me—how old are you?”

“Thirty-three; but I look at least forty-five.”

His wrinkled face, which was none too clean, might indeed almost have belonged to an old man. From the top of his skull fluttered a wisp or two of hair above some skin of a doubtful color. He had enormous eyebrows, a heavy mustache, and a thick, shaggy beard. There appeared to my vision—I can scarcely tell why—a basin full of dark water, in which he had attempted to wash.

“Yes,” said I, “you look older than you are. Surely you must have had some trouble.”

“None in the world, I tell you. I have aged because I never take any exercise. There’s nothing worse for people than this life in cafés.”

Still I could not believe him:

“Ah, then you’ve been a bit gay! One doesn’t get bald like that without running after the women a good deal.”

He tranquilly shook his head, sowing his coat collar with little white particles that fell from his last remaining locks.

“No,” he remarked, “I have always behaved myself.” And raising his eyes to the chandelier overhead, he added, “If I’m bald, the gas is to blame. It’s frightfully bad for the hair. Waiter, a glass of beer!—You don’t seem thirsty?”

“No, thanks. But really, your case is interesting. When did this—er—apathy set in? It isn’t normal; it isn’t natural. There’s something beneath all this.”

“Well, yes—it dates back a long way. I’ll tell you about it.”…

“Waiter, a glass of beer!”

The glass that was brought him he gulped down at one swallow. Only, in taking up his pipe again, as his hand trembled, he let it drop, and it broke. This caused him a gesture of despair, and drew from him the complaint:

“Well, now, that’s really a tragedy, that is. It’ll take me a month to color another.”

And through the immense room, now full of tobacco-smoke and beer-drinkers, resounded again his everlasting cry:

“Waiter, a glass of beer!” Only this time he added, “And a new pipe!”

Historic Beer Birthday: Bob Brown

June 14, 2023 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of was an American writer and publisher Robert Carlton Brown, who often wrote under the name Bob Brown (June 14, 1886–August 7, 1959). He was very prolific, and wrote over 1,000 pieces, and worked in “many forms from comic squibs to magazine fiction to advertising to avant-garde poetry to business news to cookbooks to political tracts to novelized memoirs to parodies and much more.” His writing was lyrical and ahead of its time, but despite his popularity during his lifetime, very little of his work, if any, is still in print or even been digitized. One of his food books, “The Complete Book of Cheese,” is an exception and you can download a copy at the Gutenberg Project. You can get a sense of his oeuvre from some of his titles, which includes What Happened to Mary (1912) [later turned into the first serial film What Happened to Mary, My Marjonary (1916), The Readies (1930), Globe-Gliding (1930), Words: I but Bend My Finger in a Beckon and Words, Birds of Words, Hop on It, Chirping (1931), Gems: a Censored Anthology (1931), Demonics (1931), and Readies for Bob Brown’s Machine (1931). He also wrote or co-wrote a number of best-selling cookbooks, including The European Cookbook (1936), 10,000 Snacks (1937), The Wine Cook Book (1941), and The Complete Book of Cheese (1955).

But the reason he’s here is because of another book he wrote, published in 1932, and dedicated to H.L. Mencken with this: “To H.L. Mencken for many reasons not the least of them BEER, B.B.” That book was called “Let Them Be Beer!”

Here’s an excerpt from BeerBooks.com:

About the beginning of this century pubcrawling was imported from London, where it had been in existence for centuries, and ws definitely adopted as a daily custom in New York City. The practice of visiting a series of saloons in succession, and having a drink or two in each before crawling on to the next, grew in popularity, every year approaching the peak of perfection, until it was suddenly knocked in the head by prohibition and fell into disuse.

In Philadelphia, with its solid, stolid Dutch drinking tradition and its splendid big beer cellars, pubcrawling was always indlulged in pleasantly in a safe and sedate manner.

But in Boston the pastime was slightly dangerous, especially if continued after closing hours, in clandestine blind pigs. A pub-crawler might sit down to imbibe in such a place and find himself in a group of Boston Irish terriers. Inadvertently he might say something about the Orange men. Suddenly bottles and broom would thicken the smoky air, cut arabesques in it, and if the outsider were not quick, the Irishman opposite would slide sidewise from his chair, whip it out from beneath him with one swift motion and bring it down bang over the pub-crawler’s head. The unfortunate victim would awake a few hours later, at the first dribbles of dawn, lying in an alley ash can with a thick clot on his brow.

The big beer town of Buffalo was always a bit too low for fastidious pub-crawling; it did not offer the finer subtleties and shadings of Manhattan.

In Portland, Maine, and other dry towns of that day, life was just one drug store after another. A damp, drab, soggy species of sub-rosa drug-store dangling. Not a bit of snap to it.

New York was the appropriate center for the strolling drinker. The whole mid-West Anheuser Busch League shipped its best beer and all outstanding pub-crawling customs to Manhattan. Pabst’s sent samples of Milwaukee drinks and drinking, Kentucky kicked in with Bourbon and toasts, Chicago showed how things were done at her home, Hofbrau and barny Bismarck, Cincinnati sent sangvereins and the South in general contributed with scuppernong and nigger gin.

Between 1900 and 1920 the booze boundaries of New York were roughly fixed in an oblong half a mile wide and six miles long. Though all sorts of drinks, from horse’s necks to sherry cobblers, were consumed in this section, it was chiefly noted for its big beer saloons, and included a brewery or two. O’Connor’s Working Girls’ Home, or perhaps McSorley’s, marked the extreme south end of the beer district — “way down south in Greenwich Village, where the artists drank their fillage.” Pabst’s Harlem came to be its fixed North Pole. On the East Side, Ehret’s old brewery over by the river, in the 50’s; and on the West Side a solid wall of saloons all along Sixth Avenue, from Fourth Street up to the Park, where the line wobbled over to Broadway and on up to Harlem.

There were Bowery beer arcades out of bounds, good suds shops and ale houses in the financial district, from the Battery up to Washington Square, splendiferous theatrical and sportive saloons in the Forties as far over as Seventh and Eighth. Even Hell’s Kitchen was not dry in those days, and there were service stations for pub-crawlers as far up as Hell Gate. The famous beer and beef steak Castle Cave stood out like a star in the West, and Terrace Garden was one of the bright Eastern Stars. Luigi’s Black Cat shed its luster under the dingy El; almost every street corner of the city was brightened by a gin mill, but the big beer belt tightened around the center of Manhattan and more ambulatory drinking was done in the three square miles of the section described than in all the rest of the town put together.

If brewery sales-managers had charted the territory at the time, there would have been a hurricane of dots, a huddle of red-headed pins around Union Square radiating out to the Brevoort, the Lafayette, the Hell Hole on Fourth Street, and on up Sixth Avenue past the Old Grapevine. McSorley’s and Scheffel Hall over east, working up to a daze of dots around Luchow’s, one particularly bright standing for Gentleman Jim Corbett’s place near by, though beer was seldom served there, except as a chaser after stronger fire-water; and another for Arensberg’s wine-stube, right on the square.

Luchow’s stuck out like a monogrammed gold buckle on that broad beer belt. Herald Square was a whirlpool of dots centering in the old Herald Square Hotel Bar and radiating out to the Hofbrau and the Kaiserhof. Times Square showed a thick cluster of dots, a hay-pile huddle around the Knickerbocker and Considine’s, in which nobody at that time would have even looked for a needle of beer.

On up Broadway to Columbus Circle. Broadway and beer have always been synonymous. The Great Way foamed White with beer tossed restlessly in a beery froth from Bowling Green to Van Cortlandt Park.

Pabst’s was set like a big iridescent bubble in the center of Columbus Circle, and a sea of brilliant beads swirled around Pabst’s Harlem Casino. Columbus was forgotten, Harlem was but a name. For a while it looked as though these two centers of night life would have to change their names to Pabst’s Best and Pabst’s Blue Ribbon, so the persistent pubcrawler could be sure exactly where he was at.

And here’s a few more excerpts:

And here’s another short biography of Brown.

Bob Brown, born Robert Carlton Brown, liked to say he had written in every genre imaginable: advertising, journalism, fiction, poetry, ethnography, screen-writing, even cookbooks. He wrote at least 1,000 pulp stories, some of which became the basis for “What Happened to Mary?” the first movie serial, released in 1912. He was on the editorial board of the radical magazine The Masses before founding a successful business magazine in Brazil. His output was so varied and his life so far-flung — he boasted of having lived in 100 cities — that some library card catalogs list him as at least two different people.

Brown was also involved in the expatriate literary community in Paris, publishing several volumes of poetry. While in France, Brown also made plans toward, and wrote a manifesto for, the development of a “reading machine” involving the magnified projection of miniaturized type printed on movable spools of tape. Arguing that such a device would enable literature to compete with cinema in a visual age, Brown published a book of “Readies” — poems by Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and others.

He contributed to leading avant-garde journals and wrote, sometimes in collaboration with his wife and mother, some 30 popular books about food and drink, including “Let There Be Beer!” (published after the repeal of Prohibition) and The Complete Book of Cheese. Bob and his family eventually established residence in Rio de Janeiro, where they lived until his wife’s death in 1952. Bob soon returned to New York where he re-married, and ran a shop called Bob Brown’s Books in Greenwich Village until his death in 1959.

Historic Beer Birthday: Thomas Hardy

June 2, 2023 By Jay Brooks

thomas-hardy
Today is the birthday of English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (June 2, 1840-January 11, 1928). Hardy is best known for his novels Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).

Thomashardy_restored

So what does he have to do with beer. Well besides mentioning it in his work, it’s because there’s a Thomas Hardy Ale that was originally created in 1968 by the Eldridge Pope Brewery to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Thomas Hardy’s death, which happened to coincide with the renovation of a pub in Dorchester named for one of Hardy’s novels, the “Trumpet Major,” first published in 1880.

The 1968 nip bottle.

There’s a great quote in the book, which describes a beer, and that was what they used as inspiration to create the beer that bears Hardy’s name. A portion of the quote was on the original 1968 label, but here’s a fuller version of it.

“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.”

Eldridge Pope created “an ale matured in oak casks, very strong, capable of improving better taste with age.” After the first vintage in 1968, beginning in 1974 the second was brewed and a vintage-dated version was made each subsequent year until 1999.

thomas-hardy-ales

Another brewery, the O’Hanlon Brewery, picked up brewing Thomas Hardy Ale in 2003, and produced annual versions until 2008. Unfortunately, they went bankrupt in 2011, and reopened later as the Hanlon Brewery.

One of the last vintages, from 2007.

When they began reproducing it again in 2003, a new website for Thomas Hardy Ale was created, and they tell the story of the ale:

First produced in 1968, Thomas Hardy’s Ale is barley wine produced just once yearly, with annual vintages in limited quantities. It quickly became an icon among beer and took on legendary status due to its sudden disappearance. Now, the legend is back…

1968 bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale“At the moment, all rights are in the hands of the American importer George Saxon, who – we hope – won’t take long putting Thomas Hardy’s back on the market”, as stated by Adrian Tierney-Jones to conclude his comment on Thomas Hardy’s Ale in the book “1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die”. In the words of one of the most famous Anglo-Saxon beer writers, we can clearly perceive a bit of melancholy for the disappearance of Thomas Hardy’s Ale from the global market.

Why such melancholy? Each day, worldwide, tens or even hundreds of thousands of bottles of various beers are produced, yet Thomas Hardy’s was unique. A real, proper icon of beer drinking, almost a cult object.
The beer was created way back in 1968 with one clear intention: to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the dead of the brilliant writer Thomas Hardy, author of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and other important novels. In an equally famous tale, “The Trumpet Major”, Hardy spoke of a strong Dorchester beer, defining it “the most beautiful colour an artist could possibly desire, as bright as an autumn sunset”…

The Eldridge Pope brewery decided to try and create that beer Hardy mentioned in his writing. It had to be a special beer, with a high alcohol content, a consistent and sensuous body and long lasting and resilient aroma, or rather, capable of lasting over time (25 years, according to the brewery). Beer created for big occasions and therefore only produced once a year, left at length to mature in wood and lastly, brought to light in numbered bottles, with the year of production, the batch and the quantity produced clearly visible.

Thomas Hardy’s Ale quickly became hugely famous. The quality of the product combined with its exclusivity was an explosive mix. The individual years soon became the object of vertical tastings, like those held for important Langhe or Bordeaux wines and prices went sky high. However, producing Thomas Hardy’s was very expensive and making it meant sacrificing time and means for beer intentionally produced in limited quantities. In 1999 Eldridge Pope ceased production and, for the first time, Thomas Hardy’s appeared to have been confined to memory or auctions. Its disappearance, however, further reinforced its fame and lovers of this stylish leader of barley wines called for its return. And Thomas Hardy’s was back.

This time, starting in 2003, the O’Hanlon brewery created it. The same recipe, same immense work and the same exclusivity. Another six, prestigious years followed for a beer by now renowned around the world. Yet, for a second time, this excellent beer disappeared. And this time…

Forever? No, the good news is that Thomas Hardy’s Ale is to be revived in all its greatness, while maintaining all its extraordinary and unique peculiarities: vintage production is on English soil with limited quantities produced, its slight hints of dark fruit, turf and roast malt and its flavour that at times recalls a fine port or quality brandy.

The 1990 vintage bottle.

It was one of the earliest modern beers to be vintage dated, at least it’s one of the earliest I’m aware of. The earliest year I’ve tasted in 1977, and I was lucky enough once to do a vertical tasting of several vintages of the barley wine. I still have a few bottles from the early 1990s, including a 1990 bottle, in my cellar. I’m waiting for the perfect time to share them.

As for the future, it’s apparently coming back yet again, this time by an Italian brewery. Patrick Dawson wrote about it in April for Craft Beer & Brewing magazine, with an article entitled The Rebirth of Thomas Hardy Ale.

Thomas Hardy in 1911.

John Updike’s Paean To The Beer Can

March 18, 2023 By Jay Brooks

Today is one of my favorite author’s birthdays, John Updike. He grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town that I did — Shillington — and we both escaped to a life of writing. Though I think you’ll agree he did rather better than I did with the writing thing, not that I’m complaining. I once wrote to him about a harebrained idea I had about writing updated Olinger stories from the perspective of the next generation (his Olinger Stories were a series of short tales set in Olinger, which was essentially his fictional name for Shillington). He wrote me back a nice note of encouragement on a hand-typed postcard that he signed, which today hangs in my office as a reminder and for inspiration. Anyway, this little gem he wrote for the The New Yorker in 1964 is a favorite of mine and I now post it each year in his honor. Enjoy.

Beer Can by John Updike

This seems to be an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements. Consider the beer can. It was beautiful — as beautiful as the clothespin, as inevitable as the wine bottle, as dignified and reassuring as the fire hydrant. A tranquil cylinder of delightfully resonant metal, it could be opened in an instant, requiring only the application of a handy gadget freely dispensed by every grocer. Who can forget the small, symmetrical thrill of those two triangular punctures, the dainty pfff, the little crest of suds that foamed eagerly in the exultation of release? Now we are given, instead, a top beetling with an ugly, shmoo-shaped tab, which, after fiercely resisting the tugging, bleeding fingers of the thirsty man, threatens his lips with a dangerous and hideous hole. However, we have discovered a way to thwart Progress, usually so unthwartable. Turn the beer can upside down and open the bottom. The bottom is still the way the top used to be. True, this operation gives the beer an unsettling jolt, and the sight of a consistently inverted beer can might make people edgy, not to say queasy. But the latter difficulty could be eliminated if manufacturers would design cans that looked the same whichever end was up, like playing cards. What we need is Progress with an escape hatch.

Now that’s writing. I especially like his allusion to the beauty of the clothespin as I am an unabashed lover of clothespins.

In case you’re not as old and curmudgeonly as me — and who is? — he’s talking about the transition to the pull-tab beer can (introduced between 1962-64) to replace the flat punch-top can that required you to punch two triangular holes in the top of the can in order to drink the beer and pour it in a glass.
pull-top-can punch-top-can

The pull-tab (at left) replaced the punch top (right).

Originally known as the Zip Top, Rusty Cans has an informative and entertaining history of them. Now you know why a lot of bottle openers still have that triangle-shaped punch on one end.

So essentially, he’s lamenting the death of the old style beer can which most people considered a pain to open and downright impossible should you be without the necessary church key opener. He is correct, however, that the newfangled suckers were sharp and did cut fingers and lips on occasion, even snapping off without opening from time to time. But you still have to laugh at the unwillingness to embrace change (and possibly progress) even though he was only 32 at the time; hardly a normally curmudgeonly age.

updike

A Tale Of Pretty Polly Perkins

March 10, 2023 By Jay Brooks

While looking through the Internet Archive today, I came across this odd bit of temperance literature from England. It’s a six-page story published in 1890 to persuade people from partaking of the demon alcohol and instead suggesting Mason’s Extract of Herbs “for the speedy production of herb or botanic beer, a non-intoxicating beverage.” Unsurprisingly, it was published by Newball & Mason, makers of the apparently non-alcoholic beer. It’s called “A Tale of Pretty Polly Perkins.”

The name, I believe, comes from an earlier song called Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green that was first published in 1864. According to Wikipedia, “it was almost universally known in England until around the mid-1950s, when it began to fade as being too old-fashioned.” So here’s the story in full. It’s worth a read.

The back cover shows a bottle of Mason’s Original Herb or Botanic Beer. What was it exactly? I’m not sure, but the Monterey Bay Herb Company has a history of it on their Facebook page:

Herbal History: Mason’s Botanical Beer

“The little busy bee improves the shining hour and prefers Mason’s Extract of Herbs before the laborious old fashioned method of extracting it itself.”

Newball & Mason’s original Extract of Herbs, also known as “Botanic Beer,” was promoted as a refreshing tonic and non-alcoholic alternative to beer in keeping with the Temperance movement which prevailed at the time. The company was formed in 1859 through a partnership between Thomas Ayres Newball and his apprentice, 15-year old Thomas Mason. In 1875, the younger Thomas opened a factory on Park Row in Nottingham, from which he produced his “extract of herbs.”

Advertisements for Mason’s Extract of Herbs appeared regularly in newspapers and on posters and handbills circulated in street railways throughout London. The ads always contained the familiar tagline,”The little busy bee improves the shining hour and prefers Mason’s Extract of Herbs before the laborious old fashioned method of extracting it itself’ and instructed the reader to “Send 9 stamps for sample bottle, enough to make eight gallons.”

In 1880, Thomas took on an apprentice of his own, Benjamin Deaville, who later became a partner in the company. Over the next several years, the company would move twice more until landing in New Basford where the two men established Maville Works, a merging of their names. Here the company diversified to also produce coffee, flavorings, fruit essences, dried herbs and household chemicals.

Benjamin became the sole proprietor after Thomas died in 1911, and he remained chairman and managing director until his death in 1938. Newball and Mason relocated to Staffordshire in 1957, where it continued to operate until 1970.

Wondering what Mason’s botanical beer was made of? Like most formulas of the period, it was a closely guarded secret. But, because few things stay secret forever (and the label’s illustration provides a clue)…the primary ingredients were yarrow, dandelion, comfrey and horehound.

Ad for Mason’s Extract from around 1900.

So it’s made with “yarrow, dandelion, comfrey and horehound,” ingredients more at home in a gruit. How exactly did that concoction create a beverage that tasted in any way like beer, enough that they felt comfortable calling it beer, botanic beer or otherwise?

Below is some more information from an advertising leaflet produced in the 1890s.

Newball & Mason’s original extract of herbs or ‘botanic beer’ was promoted as a wholesome, refreshing drink, a tonic. Most importantly (in line with the Temperance movement of the time which disapproved of alcohol drinking and campaigned determinedly against it), it was marketed as a non alcoholic (and much cheaper) alternative to beer.

In the advertisement an image of bees buzzing round a bottle and the clump of flowers to the left (dandelion, white dead nettle, burdock and comfrey) suggest the natural and healthy origin of the extract. Another image shows a smiling, young, male scientist holding a glass of the extract, endorsing the product. Newball & Mason were manufacturing chemists & botanic druggists based at the Hyson Green Works, Nottingham.

I love the line “no other extract makes beer like it.” That I believe. And here’s one more account of the extract, from a local history group in Nottingham, England:

The company of Newball and Mason was originally founded by Thomas Ayres Newball and Thomas Mason. In 1850 Thomas Ayres Newball had opened a chemist shop at 36 Derby Road, Nottingham and in 1859, at the age of fifteen, Thomas Mason became his apprentice. After several years, Thomas Mason opened his own shop on Derby Road and it was at this time that he invented the ‘extract of herbs’, a concentrated essence that could be made up into the non-alcoholic beverage, ‘Botanic Beer’. In the 1870’s the two businesses were amalgamated to form Newball and Mason, chemist and druggist, with premises near the Market Place and at 10 Derby Road (Morris’s Trade Directory for 1877). With the growing popularity of botanic beer, in 1875 Thomas Mason opened a factory on Park Row in Nottingham, to produce his ‘extract of herbs’. Benjamin Deaville joined the company as an apprentice in 1880 and after serving a three year apprenticeship, he decided to concentrate on the manufacturing side of the business, later becoming a partner in the company.

In 1890, the company moved into a larger factory on Terrace Street in Hyson Green and in 1902, they moved again to a former lace factory on Beech Avenue, New Basford. This factory was known as the ‘Maville Works’, combining the names of Mason and Deaville. By this time, Newball and Mason had diversified to produce not only the ‘extract of herbs’ but also coffee, fruit essences and flavourings, household chemicals, culinary and medicinal herbs, the latter being grown on the company’s herb and fruit farm in Bunny. In 1911, Thomas Mason died and Benjamin Deaville became the sole proprietor. In 1925 he decided to form a private limited company and held the position of chairman and managing director until his death in 1938.

THE INGREDIENTS : yarrow, dandelion, comfrey and horehound. All grow wild in Ryde Cemetery so if you fancy taking up brewing…!

Based on this ad from the 1890s, it looks it was also sold in the U.S., as well.

Charles Deulin’s Tales of King Cambrinus

January 4, 2023 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Charles Deulin (January 4, 1827–77). He was “a French writer, theatre critic, and folklorist who is most known for his contemporary adaptations of European folk tales.”

This biography of Deulin is from “The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales,” published in 2008:

Charles Deulin was the son of a poor tailor who lived in the Escaut, a region in the north of France whose folklore inspired his major works. Deulin’s early career as the secretary of an enlightened notary and patron of the arts came to a sudden end after he eloped with the daughter of a notable local merchant. Deulin relocated to Paris, where he worked as a columnist for numerous French journals and reviews. However, Deulin found his real fame writing tales that drew on regional folklore and folktales. His first tale, “Le compere de la mort” (“Godfather Death”), was based on an oral tale that he had first adapted as a song. His tales achieved both popular and critical success, so Deulin mined the rare resources and folk literature in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris for material that he could reshape into tales of his own. Contes d’un buveur de biere (Tales of a Beer Drinker, 1868) and its sequels Contes du roi Cambrinus (Tales of King Cambrinus, 1874) and Histoires de petite ville (Village Stories, 1875) constitute his most important collections of fairy tales. Les contes de ma Mere l’Oye avant Perrault (The Tales of Mother Goose from before Perrault), a scholarly work that explores Charles Perrault’s likely sources, was published in 1879, after his death. Deulin and his beer drinker remind us of his contemporary Alphonse Daudet and his windmill of Provence. Despite obvious differences between these writers, they both provide sharp yet personal evocations of the lore of their native regions, thanks to their skill at giving French language a distinctive regional twist.

His second collection of stories was called “Contes d’un buveur de bière” (“Tales of a Beer Drinker”) and was published in 1868. “Deulin based one of the stories, “Cambrinus, Roi de la Bière” (“Cambrinus, King of Beer”), on folktales about the origin of a beer-brewing mythological king called Gambrinus. In the story, a lovelorn Gambrinus makes a deal with the Devil, and Beelzebub teaches him about brewing.”

tales-of-beer-drinker

Here’s a summary of his first Cambrinus story:

In this, the seminal Cambrinus short story, Cambrinus is an apprentice glassblower in the Flemish village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut, but he believes that he lacks the skill and upward mobility to succeed in glassblowing. He becomes smitten with the master glassblower’s daughter, Flandrine. When he tells her, she rebuffs him and he leaves in disgrace. He apprentices himself to a viol master and becomes a great player. One day, he summons the courage to climb on a barrel and play publicly. He plays well, but just as he has whipped the crowd into a dance, the sight of Flandrine flusters him, and he bungles his playing. The villagers, believing Cambrinus tripped them up on purpose, pull him off the barrel to jeer and strike him. A contemptuous judge called Jocko sentences Cambrinus to a month in prison. When Cambrinus emerges a month later, he feels so ashamed that he prepares to hang himself. As he stands with the noose around his neck, a colourfully-dressed stranger appears. Cambrinus recognizes him by his horns: it is Beelzebub. As they chat, Beelzebub reveals that he has killed the judge, and now expects to collect Cambrinus’ soul, for, he says, such is his fate if he hangs himself. Not wanting to go to hell or to return to life as he knew it, Cambrinus tries to bargain. Beelzebub cannot make Flandrine love him, so Cambrinus settles for forgetting his affection for her; he also wants revenge on the villagers. Beelzebub tells him that the way to forget is if “one nail drives out another.”

Cambrinus wins a fortune in games of skill and chance. The consistent winning becomes tedious, so he returns to Flanders—but Flandrine still refuses him. Once again, he is about to hang himself when Beelzebub reappears, and tells him that drinking is the way to forget. Cambrinus drinks wine, gin, whisky, cider, and brandy, but his condition only worsens. Cambrinus is momentarily contented when Beelzebub introduces him to beer, but he seeks revenge on those who would not dance for him. Beelzebub tells him that playing the carillon will prove irresistible.

Cambrinus builds a large brewery with a carillon and a belfry, then invites the villagers for a drink after Mass. They come, but find the beer too bitter. To punish them, Cambrinus plays his carillon, and everyone in earshot is compelled to dance until they beg for a drink. This time, they find the beer delicious, and Cambrinus’ dances become an institution that transforms the village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut.

Fame of the drink and of Cambrinus’ carillon reaches the king of the Netherlands, who in return heaps titles of nobility on Cambrinus: Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders, Lord of Fresnes. But even after founding the town of Cambrai, Cambrinus prefers the villagers’ honorary title for him: King of Beer. When Flandrine finally approaches him, he rejects her.

At the end of the 30 years, Beelzebub sends Jocko, the judge, to fetch Cambrinus; but Jocko drinks too much beer and sleeps for three days. Since he is too ashamed to return to hell, he hides in a purse. Cambrinus thrives for nearly a hundred years more. When Cambrinus finally dies, Beelzebub comes for his soul, only to find that Cambrinus’ body has become a beer barrel.

Contes_d'un_buveur_de_bière_Deulin_Charles

For his third collection of stories, “Deulin made his Cambrinus character the focus,” in “Contes du roi Cambrinus” (“Tales of King Cambrinus”), which was published in 1874. This collection included at least “Cambrinus, The Devil’s Pot, Manneken-pis, Martin and Martine, The Muscades of Guerliche, The Poirier de Misère, and The Thirty-Six Encounters of Jean du Gogué.

cambrinus

This is a Google translation from the French Wikisource library:

I

In the old days, there was in the village of Fresnes-sur-l’Escaut a glass boy named Cambrinus, according to other Gambrinus, who, with his pink and fresh face, his beard and his golden hair, was indeed the prettiest you could see.

More than one young lady of glass, bringing her father’s dinner, was annoying the handsome Cambrinus; but he had eyes only for Flandrine, the daughter of his blower.

Flandrine was, on her side, a beautiful girl with golden hair, cheeks reouvelèmes, – It was meant to be a vermeilles, and never would a better matched couple have been blessed by the cure, had there not been between them an insurmountable barrier.

Cambrinus was not a glass race and could not aspire to mastery. He had, throughout his life, to pass the bottle sketched to his blower, without ever claiming the honor of finishing it himself.

Nobody is ignorant, indeed, that the glassmakers are all Gentiles-men by birth and only show their sons the noble profession of blower. But Flandrine was too proud to lower her eyes to a simple big boy, as they say in the language of glass.

This made the unhappy man, consumed by a fire ten times hotter than his oven, lost his fresh colors and became dry like a heron.

No longer able to hold out, one day he was alone with Flandrine, he took his courage in both hands and told him his feelings. The proud girl received him with such disdain that in despair he planted his work there and did not reappear at the glassworks.

As he loved music, he bought a viol to charm his troubles and tried to play it without ever learning.

The idea then came to him to become a musician. ” I will become a great artist, he said to himself, and perhaps Flandrin will want me. A good musician is well worth a glass gentleman. ”

He went to find an old canon of Conde’s collegiate, named Josquin, who had a wonderful genius for music. He told him of his troubles and asked him to teach him his art. Josquin felt sorry for his grief and showed him to play the viol according to the rules.

Cambrinus was soon in a position to make the girls dance on the meadow. He was ten times more skillful than the other minstrels; but unfortunately! No one is a prophet in his own country.

The people of Fresnes did not want to believe that a glass boy had become in such a short time a good musician, and it was under a rolling fire of jeers that, on a fine Sunday, armed with his viola, he mounted his platform I mean his barrel.

Although very moved, he gave a sure hand the first bows. Little by little he became animated and led the dance with a vigor and an enthusiasm that silenced the laughter. Everything was going well when Flandrine appeared.

At his sight, the unfortunate man lost his head, played against the weather and beat the campaign so well that the dancers, believing that he was making fun of them, dragged him out of his barrel, broke his rapes on the shoulders and sent him back booed, boozy and pooped eyes.

To make matters worse, there was at that time at Conde a judge who did justice like the grocers sell candles, by leaning the scales to his liking. He was a stammerer, spoke almost always in Latin, mumbled paternosters from morning till night, and looked so much like a monkey that he was nicknamed Jocko.

Jocko learned the case and called the disrupters to his court. The Fresnois went there, each bearing a couple of chickens which they offered to the judge. The latter found the chickens so fat and Cambrinus so guilty that, although the unfortunate man had been beaten in full sun, he condemned him to a month’s imprisonment for assault and night-time fury.

It was a big heartbreak for the poor boy. He was so ashamed and sorry that when he was released from prison he resolved to end life. He unfastened the rope from his well, which was brand new, and reached the wood of Odomez.

At the darkest intersection, he climbed an oak tree, sat down on the first branch, tied the rope tightly and wrapped it around his neck. That done, he raised his head, and he was going to take the plunge, when he suddenly stopped.

Before his eyes was a man of tall stature, dressed in a green coat with copper buttons, wearing a feathered hat, armed with a hunting knife, and carrying a silver horn over his carnivore. Cambrinus and he looked at each other for some time in silence.

“That I do not bother you! finally said the unknown.

“I am in no hurry,” replied the other, a little chilled by the presence of a stranger.

– But I am, my good Cambrinus.

– Here! you know my name?

– And I also know that you’re going to dance your last jig, because you’ve been thrown in prison and the kind Flandrine refuses to enlist you in the big brotherhood … ”

And so saying, the stranger took off his hat.

“What! it’s you, myn heer van Belzebuth. Well ! by your two horns, I thought you were uglier.

– Thank you!

– And what good wind brings you?

– Is it not today Saturday? My wife is washing the house, and, as I hate wassingues …

– You have decamped. I understand that. And … did you have a good hunt?

– Pooh! I only report the soul of the judge of Condé.

– How! Jocko is dead! And you take away his soul! Oh ! but do not waste time, myn heer. What are you waiting for?

– I’m waiting for yours.

– What if I do not hang myself?

– It will be hell in this world.

– Which is not much better. But that’s just right, that, godverdom! Come on, Monsieur the devil, be good devil and shoot me from there!

– But how?

Let Flandrine want to marry me.

– Impossible, good! What woman wants …

“God wills it, I know it; but what she does not want?

– What she does not want, the devil himself would lose his horns.

– So, make sure I do not love him anymore.

– I agree … on one condition. It is that you will give me your soul in exchange.

– Right now?

– No. In thirty years from here.

– My faith! start there. I am too unhappy … but you will help me, on the other hand, to avenge myself on the people of Fresnes.

Let’s first think of healing yourself, and remember this. One nail drives out another. It is not so strongsion that does not yield to a more passionate passion. Day and night plays, and replaces the game of love by the love of the game.

“I’ll try,” Cambrinus said. Thank you, myn heer. ”

He untied his rope and drew his bow.

II

There was precisely in Condé, the following Sunday, a great archery. Cambrinus went there, like all the Fresnois.

The brotherhood of the archers of San Sebastián had displayed, in price, five dishes and three tin pots, plus six teaspoons in silver for the last birdie shot. Cambrinus won four dishes, two coffee pots and six silver spoons. No one had ever heard of such an address.

As, eight days later, the ball was to be played on the Place Verte de Conde, he formed at Fresnes a platoon of players, and although until then the Fresnois had scarcely shone on the game of palm, he did not He feared not to fight against the parts of Valenciennes and Quaregnon, the two strongest in the country. The Valenciennes and the Quaregnonais were defeated by the Fresnois. They got angry, and they fisted in every street.

Cambrinus then bought a blind finch, which, in the fashion of the people of the Walloon country, he carried everywhere with him. Having heard that there must have been a great competition of finches in Saint-Amand, he took his fellow-traveler and set off.

On approaching the town, he met on the Croisette the guns that, three hundred in number, went to the place of the battle, two by two, and holding in their hands their little wooden cages, furnished with wire. The procession was preceded by a drum-major, adorned with his cane, two drums, and six hams, ornamented with flowers, worthy of the prize.

Cambrinus followed suit, and when the cages were ranged in battle, along the enclosure of the Abbey, a pretty concert was heard. Each bird shouted at the top of its cheerful chorus, while with a piece of chalk its master, under the surveillance of the commissaries, conscientiously inscribed the guns on a slate. The noise was such that the big bell of the tower had not been heard.

The Fresnois had bet three thousand florins that, without intermingling his song of p’tit-p’tit-petit-placapiau who escape the artifithese second-rate, his virtuoso would repeat nine hundred times in one hour ran-plan-plan-plan-biscouïtte-biscoriau, the true solo, the only one that can count.

The bird went up to nine hundred and fifty, and the master won the first prize and the three thousand florins, after which the Amandinois triumphantly walked the man and the beast, one carrying the other.

Cambrinus then set out to cross Flanders, beating with his tenor the most renowned gunslingers; and it is from this period that the Flemings are as passionate about finches as the English for cockfights.

From Flanders he went to Germany and traveled from town to town, playing all games of skill and chance. Everywhere he took his chance with him. He made general admiration, gained enormous sums, became immensely rich, but he did not cure of his love.

This infallible luck had at first delighted him. Later, she only amused him; then she left him cold and soon she bored him. In the end, he was so tired of this perpetual gain that he would have given everything to lose once; but his happiness pursued him with relentless obstinacy.

He was beginning to be very unhappy, when, one morning, he awoke with a luminous idea: “To something happiness is good,” he said to himself. Perhaps Flandrine will consent to marry me, now that I am all sewn with gold. ”

He returned to deposit his treasures at the feet of the cruel; but, unbelievable and well done to astonish the ladies of today, Flandrine refused.

“Are you a gentleman? she says.

– No.

– Well! win your treasures, I will marry only a gentleman.”

Cambrinus was so desperate that one fine day, between dog and wolf, he returned to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, sat down on the first branch, and fastened his rope securely. Already the noose around the neck was passing, when the green hunter appeared.

“Ah! fuck! cried Beelzebub, I had forgotten the proverb: Unhappy in love, happy in the game. Do you want me to tell you a way to lose? ”

Cambrinus listened.

“Yes, you will lose, and you will lose more than gold. You will lose your memory, and with it the torments of remembrance.

– And how?

– Wood. Wine is the father of oblivion. Wormmake waves of joy. Nothing beats a bottle of piot to drown human sadness.

– You might be right, myn heer.”

And Cambrinus rolled his rope and went back to Fresnes.

III

Without wasting time, he had a large cellar of six hundred feet, forty feet wide, and tall, built in broad Tournay stones. He garnishes it with the most exquisite wines.

In the lightnings, arranged on two parallel lines, ripened the warm burgundy, the sweet burgundy, the sparkling champagne, the gay malvoisie, the marsala bulletin board, the ardent sherry, the generous tokai and the tender johannisberg, which opens to the square heads of Germany the golden gates of daydreaming.

Day and night Cambrinus drank the juice of the vine in Bohemian glasses. The unfortunate thought he drank oblivion, he drank only love. Where did this phenomenon come from? Alas! that the good Flemings are otherwise built that the people of elsewhere.

At home, when the fumes of wine invade the brain, when the divine juice ends under the skull, as the lava at the bottom of the crater, it is only then that the imagination catches fire.

At the sixth glass, the Flamand invariably saw in front of his eyes, at the arms of pretty dancers, myriads of Flandrines, who made him a nique by performing interminable carmagnoles.

Then he sought oblivion in Norman cider, manceau parsley, Gallic mead, French cognac, Dutch gin, English gin, Scottish whiskey, German kirsch. Alas! cider, perry, mead, cognac, juniper, gin, whiskey, and kirsch only fueled the furnace. The more he drank, the more excited he was, the more he raged.

One evening he could no longer resist; he ran all at once to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, fastened the rope, and, without raising his eyes, to be sure not to return, He rushed the rope around his neck. The rope broke and the hangman fell into the green hunter’s arms.

“Do you want to let me go, damn impostor? exclaimed Cambrinus in a strangled voice. How! you will not even be able to hang yourself at your ease! ”

Belzebuth burst out laughing.

“I wanted to see,” he said, “how far the confidence of a good Flemish would go. And now, for the trouble, I’ll heal you. Here, look!”

All at once the trees parted to the right and to the left, so as to leave a large empty square, and Cambrinus saw in line long rows of large poles made of chestnut wood, where were curled frail plants which bore green and fragrant bells.

Some of the stakes were lying on the ground and three to four hundred squatting women seemed to peel a huge salad. This strange forest was bounded by a vast brick building.

“What is this, myn God? exclaimed the Fresnois.

“This, my good man, is a hopshop, and the house you see there a brewery. The flower of this plant will heal you from love sickness. Follow me. ”

Beelzebub led him into the building. There were enormous vats, stoves, tons, and boilers full of blond liquor, from which an acrid perfume was exhaled. Men in blue aprons were doing a strange job.

“It is with barley and hops,” says Beelzebub, “that, by the example of these men, you will make Flemish wine, that is, beer. re. When the millstone has crushed the barley, you will brew it in this large vat, from which the barley wine will pass into these vast boilers to be married to the hops. The hops flower will give the flavor and scent to barley wine. Thanks to the sacred plant, the beer, like the juice of the vine, can age in barrels. She will come out blonde like topaz or brown like onyx, and make good Flemings as many gods on the earth. Here, wood! ”

And Beelzebub pulled from one of the casks a great jug of foaming beer. Cambrinus obeyed and made a face.

“Drink again, again!”

The other goal, discarded and felt a sort of calm down gradually in his senses.

“Are not you happy as a god?

“Yes, sir, except that I miss the supreme pleasure of the gods.

– And which one?

– Revenge! The people of Fresnes have not wanted to dance to the sound of my viol. Give me an instrument that will blow them to my will.

– Listen, then.”

At this moment, nine knocks sounded at the belfry of Vieux-Conde.

– Well? Cambrinus said.

– Shut up and listen again. ”

The bell tower of Fresnes repeated the ring, then that of Condé, then that of Bruille.

“After? said the Fresnois again.

– You ask me for an instrument that forces you to dance. Here he is all found. Have you noticed that these bells each have their own sound? Gather several, give them, put the ringtone in motion with two keyboards, one of keys and the other of pedals, you will have the most beautiful chime …

– Carillon! This is the name of which I will baptize this marvelous instrument, exclaimed Cambrinus. Thank you, my good Beelzebub, and … goodbye!

– No. Goodbye! … in thirty years … and, as I like business, you will give me the grace to sign this paper with a drop of your blood. ”

He presented him with a feather and a parchment covered with cabalistic characters. The Fresnois pricked his fingertip and signed. At once the hops, the brewery, and Beelzebub, all disappeared.

IV [ edit ]
Returning to Fresnes, Cambrinus advised a rich and deep land sheltered from the wind. He bought it and planted some hops. He also had an immense brewery built in the very spot of the village, in all likeness to that which Belzebub had shown him. He crowned it with a belfry in the shape of a gigantic can, surmounted by a pint and a barrel, which ended with a golden rooster.

If a stranger had come into the country to perform these strange works, we would have been very careful not to laugh at them, but the builder being born at Fresnes, he was thought to be mad, as it should, and we began to laugh at him again.

He paid no attention to it, asked mechanics and bell-founders, and made the establishment of the carillon and the brewery march in front.

When it was all over, he made two great brews, one of white beer, the other of dark beer, and one Sunday morning, after mass, he invited people to have a drink.

“Ugh! how bitter! said one.

– It’s horrible! another said.

– Despicable! added a third.

– Abominable! Concludes a fourth.

Cambrinus was smiling under his breath.

In the afternoon, he arranged long tables around the square. On these tables pots and glasses full of dark beer awaited the drinkers. When the Fresnois came out of vespers, the brewer urged them to cool off again. They refused.

“You do not want to drink, boys,” thought Cambrinus, “well! you will dance! And he went up to his belfry.

“Dig, din, don,” said the chime.

Suddenly, oh prodigy! at the first blows of the bells, men, women, children, all stopped short, as if they were preparing to dance.

“Dyke, dyke, din. ”

All raised their legs, and the mayor himself shook the ashes of his pipe and sat up.

“Dig, din, gift, dike, dyke, gift. ”

All jumped in rhythm, and the mayor and the country guard jumped higher than the others.

Cambrinus then paused, then he attacked the air:

Band of beggars, would you like to dance?

The young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the big and the small, the rights, the turtles, the wobbly, the lame began to dance again, until the dogs stood on their hind legs to dance as well. . A cart passed by: the horse and the cart entered the dance. They danced on the square, in the streets, in the alleys, as far as the carillon was heard; and on the road the people of Conde who came to Fresnes were dancing without knowing why or how. Everything was dancing in the houses: men, animals and furniture. The old men danced by the fire, the sick in their beds. the horses danced in the stable, the cows in the stable, the hens in the henhouse; and the tables danced, the chairs, the cupboards, and the dressers; and the houses danced themselves, and the brasserie danced and the church; and the tower in which Cambrinus was pealing was opposite the bell-tower, giving himself graces. Never, since the world is a world, had we seen such a jerky jerk!

After an hour of this exercise, the Fresnois were swimming. Panting, exhausted, they shouted to the carillonneur:

“Stop, stop! We can not take it anymore!

– No no. Dance, “replied the carillonneur, and the more he carilloned, the more the dancersleapt. Their heads clashed, and the crowd began to moan piteously.

” To drink ! to drink! They finally shouted.

The carillonneur stopped pealing, and men, women, children, animals, and houses stopped dancing. Dancers and dancers rushed over the peas, which, surprisingly, had jumped with the tables without spreading a single drop of beer.

Thus put in taste, the Fresnois no longer found the new detestable liquor, on the contrary.

After they had emptied three or four pints each, they asked Cambrinus to let his music go. and they danced all evening and part of the night.

The next day and the following days, the rumor spread, and people came from all parts to Fresnes to drink beer and to dance in the carillon.

A crowd of chimes; music clocks, breweries, taverns, cabarets and estaminets soon settled in Fresnes, Condé, Valenciennes, Lille, Dunkirk, Mons, Tournay, Bruges, Leuven and Brussels.

Like a godmother who throws dragees, the carillon shook her silver apron full of magical notes, and the barley wine flowed in the Netherlands, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland.

They drank the dark beer, the white beer, the double beer, the lambic, the faro, the pale-ale, the scotch-ale, the porter and the stout, without forgetting the beer; however, the carillon de Fresnes remained the only enchanted carillon, the beer of Fresnes, the best beer, and the Fresnois, the first drinkers in the world.

Competitions of Frankish drinkers took place, such as finches in all the Netherlands; but it was only at Fresnes that they found some good drinkers, capable of absorbing a hundred pints in one day of a fair and twelve steins while the twelve o’clock strokes were striking at the church clock.

To reward the inventor with dignity, the King of the Netherlands made him Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders and Lord of Fresnes. It was then that the new Duke founded the city of Cambrai; but the title which he preferred to all others was that of “king of beer,” which the locals bestowed on him.

He did not delay, however, in experiencing the generous effects of the brown liquor. At first he emptied his two cans every evening. At the end of six months of this regime, his amorous delirium calmed down, the face of Flandrine appeared to him less clear and less mocking.

When he could hold his twelve pints, he felt in him only a vague and indefinable reverie.

The evening he went to twenty, he fell into a sort of drowsiness, which was not without charm, and quite forgot Flandrine. In a short time, his face again rivaled the full moon: he became very fat and was perfectly happy.

When Flandrine saw that the lord de Fresnes was not thinking of claiming his hand, it was she who came round about him; but, as he dreamed, his eyes half closed, he did not recognize her, and offered him a pint.

The king of beer was, besides, a good king’s man, who put his happiness in smoking his pipe and drinking his mug at the same table as his subjects. His subjects all imitated his example, and it is from then on that, melancholy smokers, besides stomachs and noses in bloom, the good Flemings spend their lives draining pints without speaking ill of anyone and without thinking of anything.

V

However, thirty years were over, and Belzebub thought of demanding the soul of Cambrinus. The devil will not always touch his debts in no one. Like the creditors from above, he sometimes sends a bailiff.

On the other hand, as the world gets older, becomes worse and gives more work to those below, Beelzebub, in order to suffice, is obliged, from time to time, to make recruits.

To reinforce his staff, he chooses, among the newcomers, the good people who on earth have particularly resembled him.

The judge who had formerly condemned Cambrinus had the honor of passing the devil, and, in memory of his former office, Belzebub resolved to elevate him to the rank of infernal usher.

“Come on, face of ape,” he said to him one morning. The moment has come to signal you with new feats. You will go to the village of Fresnes, and there you will claim in my name the soul of Cambrinus, king of beer. Here is the title.

– Su … Sufficiency, Do … Domine, “answered Jocko. And he took the road to Fresnes at once. He arrived there on the Sunday of the ducasse.

The king of beer had just risen in his turn. He saw the emissary of Beelzebub coming from afar, recognized him, and suspected what was bringing him.

VI

It was about six o’clock, and the people were leaving the table having drunk and eaten since midday. Some were spreading in cabarets to digest by smoking a pipe. Others played bowling or raven, or else bricotiau.

The envoy of Beelzebub addressed a circle of drinkers sitting at the door of the estaminet of the Grand St. Lawrence, patron of glassmakers.

At this moment, dig, din, don! a sheaf of notes burst into the air like a rocket, then the carillon began to play:

Hello, my friend Vincent,

Health, how is it?

The judge immediately jumped like a gigantic puppet.

“What … what do I have? He said, and nothing was a buffoon like the furious face with which he was fidgeting.

All the Fresnois gathered together, holding the ribs with laughter.

Ah! what a nose he has! ‘

then played the chime, and two hundred voices sang in chorus:

Ah! what a nose he has!

as long as the dancer fell to the ground, exhausted and out of breath. The chime was silent.

As Jocko complained of a horrible thirst, he was brought a mug of beer which he emptied at one stroke.

Having always liked to raise his elbow, he drank a second, then a third, then a crowd of others with his good friends the Fresnois.

By dint of drinking, he completely forgot his mission, and when, towards the fiftieth mug, the heads warmed up and the hops began, as they say at home, to pass the poles, he was suddenly seized with a gay access been crazy.

He got up, took the pots, the cans, and the glasses, threw everything on the pavement, threw the table and cover over it, then began to dance on his own, claiming the music loudly.

The Fresnois all ran behind him in single file: he made several rounds of the place on the air of the Codaqui, and took the band out of the village, a quarter of a league away.

He finally fell on the road, tired and completely out of action. He was laid down against a haystack, and slept there for three days and three nights without debriding.

When he awoke, he was so ashamed that he did not dare to go back to Fresnes or go back to hell. Not knowing where to go, he saw an empty purse that a poor man was tending to passers-by. He went in and hid there so well that he is still there.

And from that comes a common saying of a penniless man that he houses the devil in his purse.

VII

Lord de Fresnes continued to carillon and brew beer for nearly a hundred years, with no further news of hell. As he isthat the devil never lost anything, Belzebuth hoped to repel the soul of the duke of Brabant on the day of his death; but when the supreme moment came, in the place of his debtor, he found only a barrel of beer; he was well caught.

Was it because of the effect of the drink of forgetfulness, or did Belzébuth seek revenge for the trick Cambrinus had played him? The memory of the king of beer was soon lost in Fresnes and in all the Netherlands.

The Douaiiens still celebrate the feast of their old Gayant, but it is a long time ago that Cambrai no longer walks the wicker giant who represented Cambrinus, the royal founder of the city.

It is among the Prussians that the memory of Bacchus of hops has been preserved. There, in each tavern, you will see, in the place of honor, a magnificent image representing, sitting on a barrel, a brave knight dressed in a purple cloak lined with ermine. The left hand leans on a crown and a sword; the right raises triumphantly a mug of foaming beer.

It is Cambrinus, the king of beer, as he was in his lifetime, with his beautiful figure, his long golden hair, and his long golden beard.

Students annually appoint bierkœnig most outspoken drinker of them, and only they are entitled to this great honor of sitting under the portrait of the monarch sparkling.

The people of Fresnes will be very surprised when they read this truthful story. Just as they did not believe in the genius of Cambrinus before, they will not believe his glory today, and when he who has written these lines will go and drink a pint at the Ducasse de Fresnes, we will not hesitate to to call him an impostor, so true is it that no one is a prophet in his country!

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, most of Deulin’s works have not been published in an English translation, which is a shame. I’d love to read more of his “Tales of a Beer Drinker” and its sequel “Tales of King Cambrinus.”

Alice Versary: The Guinness Birthday Book

July 5, 2021 By Jay Brooks

July 5, 1862, Lewis Carroll sat down to start writing the work that would make him famous, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” which began with a story he told to his three girl companions the day before during an outing with the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, where they rowed a boat up the River Isis with the three young girls, and which they called the “golden afternoon.” The three girls were the daughters of scholar Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte Liddell, Alice Pleasance Liddell, and Edith Mary Liddell, ages 13, 10, and 8 respectively. The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford and ended five miles away in the Oxfordshire village of Godstow. During the trip Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, told the girls a story that featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. The girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Beginning in the 1930s, Guinness began using Alice in Wonderland and the cast of characters from Carroll’s books in a lot of their advertising. That continued until 1959, and in addition to numerous ads, they also produced five booklets, beginning with “The Guinness Alice” in 1933, and finishing up with “Alice Versary: The Guinness Birthday Book,” which was published to coincide with their 200th anniversary in 1959. All of the booklets and advertising was done by their advertising agency, S.H. Benson Ltd., with illustrations by John Gilroy and later Ronald Ferns. A few years ago, I got a copy of Alice Versary, so here is the whole 16-page booklet.

Robert Frost’s Beer Bath

March 26, 2021 By Jay Brooks

Here’s a fun story. Today is the birthday of American poet Robert Frost. “His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America’s rare ‘public literary figures, almost an artistic institution.’ He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works.”

Publisher and author Bill Peschel related a story from 1935 that involved some beer that found its way to Frost.

Robert Frost was an irascible poet, jealous of rivals, and called by at least one friend as Yahweh. Any slight, real or perceived, was paid back, with interest.
Such as the case in Santa Fe, N.M., where Frost had been invited to speak at the city’s New Mexico Museum. At the event the day before, local poet Witter Bynner had been scheduled to introduce the poet, but had showed up late. While there may have been a good reason for his tardiness, it may also have been an intentional slight over Frost’s greater success with the public.
So Frost was deliberately late the next day at a lunch held in his honor at Bynner’s house. Then, they clashed over a book of poetry that praised homosexuality. While Frost found the subject distasteful, he went along with Bynner’s praise, even saying that he had a favorite poem. Could he read it aloud?
Bynner passed the book to him. Frost read one of the more erotically charged passages, then teased Bynner, saying he was “too young and innocent to understand such verse.” Bynner responded angrily by pouring a mug of beer over Frost’s head.
Frost got the explosion he wanted, so he took the bath in good humor. As a friend later remarked, “Robert took great pleasure in setting the cat among the pigeons.”