Beer

Rarely has mankind developed a finer quaff than beer; the beverage of the ages and all nations. The world was built on beer, from the ancient Egyptians, to the Chinese, to primal Europeans. Beer is the distilled essence of grainy nourishment.

I likes it cool on a hot summers day
to wash the pains of me labors away
to loosen me tongue with me mates at the pub
an' to aid in the digestion of McLafferty's grub.

Rarely has mankind developed a finer quaff than beer; the beverage of the ages and all nations. The world was built on beer, from the ancient Egyptians, to the Chinese, to primal Europeans. Beer is the distilled essence of grainy nourishment.

She would make their own root beer and put it in the pump house .

Before it was ready some of the bottles would explode.

The kids were impatient to try it.

It sure was good on a hot summer day.

Did you know that beer probably existed before bread? That beer may have been the reason that primitive hunter-gatherers stopped following the herds of grazing animals and stayed in one place to focus on harvesting the grain necessary to make beer? That bread was likely an outgrowth of beer in that it was another use for the yeast and grains? That beer may, in fact, be described as the mother of civilization? The beginning of all culture?

This seems to be an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements. Consider the beer can. I 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, shmooshaped »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 thwarth 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.

(John Updike: Beer Can)

48. dream of a beer the size of Norway.
all romance fails to save the image.
is not a dream round? a receptacle?
Pen a cold louver? refer to question re:
love vs. value.

Malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.

A.E. Housman

Jack of the Green sips from the rain barrel as though it held beer; nibbles the clover of the field as though it were salad; and sucks the fallen power line as though it were you.