Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Top 10 / Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Beer Limericks

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Beer Limericks

May 12, 2009 By Jay Brooks

top-10
Today is National Limerick Day, which commemorates the birthday of Edward Lear. Lear wrote the Book of Nonsense, one of the earliest collections of limerick poetry and with it and later works he’s the person who probably did more to popularize the form than anyone else. Here’s one by Lear where he mentions beer.

There was an Old Man with an owl,
Who continued to bother and howl;
He sate on a rail,
And imbibed bitter ale,
Which refreshed that Old Man and his owl.

          — Edward Lear, Book of Nonsense #98

So for my 16th Top 10 list I present the Top 10 beer limericks, although the rankings are pretty much meaningless. These are just my ten favorite limericks that are about beer or drinking. I sort of prefer number 1 to number 5 or 7, but not to the degree of some of the previous lists. They’re all winners. But, of course, I’d love to hear your choices. Anyway, here’s List #16:
 

Top 10 Beer Limericks
 

A Girl Named Anheuser
There once was a girl named Anheuser,
who said that no man could surprise her.
But Pabst took a chance,
found the Schlitz in her pants,
and now she is sadder Budweiser.
A Salty Tear
One day my mouth felt so dry
And I thought I was about to die.
Then I saw the word “Beer”,
And one salty tear
Of happiness escaped from my eye.
Ye Olde English Ale
All hail to Ye Olde English Ale;
Ye porter, ye bitter, ye pale.
With flavours that linger,
Like old Bishop’s Finger,
They ain’t for the weak or the frail.
Deliciously Wonderful Beer by RGiskard
What is hoppy and brings us good cheer?
Not a froggy, I promise, my dear!
It’s brown, black and tan,
And can come in a can.
It’s deliciously wonderful beer!
Pity the Innkeeper’s Plight
Oh pity the innkeeper’s plight
When his customers, night after night,
Order only pale brew
And brown ale eschew —
For his dark is much worse than his lite.
You Get What You Pay For
It’s true what the say about ale,
When it has grown quite stale.
It smells like a skunk,
But still gets you drunk;
I guess that’s why this was on sale.
The Monks of Manuller
Some merry old monks of Manuller,
Found life was becoming much duller.
They brewed a fine ale
In a massive big pail,
And they found their lives were much fuller.
Slow Drowning
A brewery worker named Lee
Drowned in a vat of brewski.
I regretfully say
He’d not drowned right away;
He climbed out five time just to pee.
Hard Head Fred
A brewery worker named Fred
Had a barrel fall onto his head.
“Weren’t you hurt?” I did ask,
“Being hit by that cask?”
“I was lucky — ’twas light ale,” he said.
What Is It?
What is to our hearts so dear?
What makes the whole world cheer?
What is it we praise
In millions of ways —
Could it be a thing other than Beer?!

 

As usual, it was pretty hard to keep the list to ten, and a great many wonderful poems didn’t make the cut. Here’s a few more that almost made it:

I Drink Therefore
One day a real man of good cheer
Asked Descartes if he’d like a beer.
What the man got
Was ‘I think not’;
As he watched Descartes disappear.

Osiris
What made the Egyptians revere
Osiris and claim he was peer
To the gods of the land
Was that, unlike that other band,
He’d instructed them how to make beer.

The Beer Cow
There was an old farmer named Lear,
Who possessed a fine cow that gave beer.
Budweiser or Schlitz,
Could be tapped from her teats,
And pretzels came out of the rear.

Abbey Ale by Nitelaf
Abbey ale’s what we brew here, we Trappists.
(We’re in Belgium, for all of you mappists.)
Strong and rich, full in body;
As sweet as a toddy.
I’m glad that we’re brewers, not frappists.

No Socks
A frustrated brewer named Jacques,
Drowned himself in a barrel of Bock.
Grieved his friends, “Sad, it’s true,
Though this flavor is new,
But the next batch, let’s take off his socks.”

Jack Spratt’s Wife
There was a young girl, Marie Spratt,
At work one day, fell in a vat.
Before she was dragged out
She had drunk so much stout,
That her parts that were thin, became fat.

June 2nd by Tim Alborn
As from Monday, the second of June,
When the clock in my bedroom says noon,
I will stop drinking beer
For the rest of the year
(Or until I go near a saloon).

The Foam Ranger
A young lad named Armisted Auger,
Favored copious foam on his lager.
To the barmaid he said,
“Give me plenty of head,”
So she karated his schwagger.

Send me your favorite beer limericks by posting it in a comment.

 

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
 

Filed Under: Top 10 Tagged With: Poetry



Comments

  1. ken harvest says

    May 16, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyCPhIjmk-s the beer run song

  2. Jiminajam says

    January 21, 2013 at 11:51 am

    My all-time favorite:

    There once was a man from Glass,
    Who’s balls were made out of brass.
    When he clanged them together,
    They played Stormy Weather, and
    Lighting shot out of his ass.

  3. Matt says

    November 27, 2013 at 12:25 pm

    On the chest of a barmaid in Sale
    Were tattooed the prices of ale
    And on her behind
    For the sake of the blind
    Was the same information in Braille

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Beer Bulletin Email

Enter your email address to receive daily digests:

Recent Comments

  • Kendall Staggs on Beer In Ads #4341: Miss Rheingold 1955 Filling Yuletide Requests
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Burns » Brookston Beer Bulletin on John Barleycorn
  • Susan Appel on Historic Beer Birthday: John Roehm
  • S. Pavelka on Beer Birthday: Rich Norgrove
  • Celebrating Texas History With Alamo Beer: An Iconic Taste Of The Lone Star State – SanctuaryBrewCo on Fictional Beer Brands

Recent Posts

  • Beer In Ads #4346: Something Is Brewing For 1956 February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Andrew MacElhone February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: A.J. Houghton February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Lüder Rutenberg February 8, 2023
  • Beer In Ads #4345: Miss Rheingold 1955 Visits San Bernardino February 7, 2023

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe France Germany Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage Miller Brewing Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists Rheingold San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Sports Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video Washington

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

This month’s posts

February 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  
« Jan    

BBB Archives