Ninety-nine Beer Quotes On The Wall


"Most people hate the taste of beer to begin with. It is, however, a prejudice that many people have been able to overcome."
-- Winston Churchill

"I have received delegations of working men who, apparently speaking with the utmost sincerity, have declared that they would regard it as a genuine hardship to be deprived of their beer."
-- Woodrow Wilson

"I wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, with your pockets full of money, and your cellar full of beer."
-- Old English Carol

"The best place to drink beer is at home. Or on a river bank, if the fish don't bother you."
-- American folk saying

"He that buys land buys many stones. He that buys flesh buys many bones. He that buys eggs buys many shells. He that buys good ale buys nothing else."
-- John Ray (1627 - 1705)

"For years the American workman would stagnate through his workday, but in the evening, he could get home, sit down and watch the TV, pop open a beer, and, then and there, get ahead."
-- Jerry Blaz

"Everyone has his own lifetime dream. Mine is that someday, in a tavern somewhere, I'll hold up a pitcher of beer like this and I'll say, Bartender? Could I have a glass? And he'll look back at me and say, Friend, this is the glass!"
-- Joe Martin (Mister Boffo comic strip)

"My favorite black-and-tan is a "mother-in-law": a mixture of stout and bitter."
-- Anonymous

"People, in a sense, wear their beer as much as they drink their beer."
-- Ira Matathia, advertising executive, Toronto Star, May 10, 1991

"A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote. A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat. So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote."
-- William Butler Yeats

"Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer."
-- Frederick the Great

"To some its a six-pack, to me it's a Support Group."
-- Anonymous

"Come tarry here and welcome be and guaff the foaming brew; a friendly smile a word a song will cheer the heart of you."
-- Altes beer sign (1939)

"I drank only water; the other workmen, near 50 in number, were great guzzlers of beer. We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press, drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese; a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he'd done his day's work...but it was necessary, he suppos'd, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. Those who continu'd sotting with beer all day, were often, by not paying out of credit at the alehouse, and us'd to make interest with me to get beer, their light, as they phras'd it, being out."
-- Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography)

"Alright brain, I don't like you and you don't like me, so just get me through this exam so I can go back to killing you slowly with beer."
-- Homer Simpson

"Good beer needs no passport."
-- Anonymous

"It was as natural as eating and to me as necessary, and I would not have thought of eating a meal without drinking beer."
-- Ernest Hemingway

"They who have drunk beer... fall on their back... for they who get drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their body... it is only those who get drunk on beer who fall on their backs and lie with their faces upwards."
-- Aristotle

"Cover a war in a place where you can't drink beer or talk to a woman? Hell no!"
-- Hunter S. Thompson (on the US war against Iraq)

"Heaven! that's another tale. Mightn't let me chew there. Gotta have me a pot of ale; would I like the brew there?"
-- Robert Service, Grandad

"I think It can be truthfully said that any man who wants a drink can get one, and about the only difference between the present condition, and the condition preceding prohibition is that the man who wants to take a mild drink is compelled to take a strong one, and a man who wants a good drink is compelled to take a bad one."
-- William Randolph Hearst, 1929

"Then to the spicy nut-brown ale."
-- John Milton, 1608-1674 (L'Allegro)

"The best beer is where the priests go to drink."
-- Anonymous

"And what dost thou drink? I drink beer if I have it or water if I have not."
-- Archbishop Alfric's Vocabulary, 995 A.D

"May the day soon arrive when no fair Australian girl shall be allowed, or even be willing, to help gild the wine cup or beer glass with her attractive, and, alas! her most dangerous presence."
-- Archdeacon Francis Boyce, 1893 (The Drink Problem in Australia)

"Real women don't drink light beer."
-- New Glarus Brewing Co. bumper sticker

"Beer is a wholesome liquor. It abounds with nourishment."
-- Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), American physician

"Gott erfand das Bier damit auch die h„álichen M„dchen hin und wieder gebumst werden - God invented beer so that the ugly girls also get humped, now and then."
-- Old German Saying

"Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman's stomach is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him."
-- Mark Twain

"Why we are here: To tremble at the terrible beauty of the stars, to shed a tear at the perfection of Beethoven's symphonies, and to crack a cold one now and then."
-- David Letterman

"Beefsteaks and porter are good belly mortar."
-- Scottish Proverb, 1760

"Oh good, a coffee beer! Now you can stay up all night going to the bathroom."
-- Jay Leno, talking about Hart Brewing's Espresso Stout

"It was then that the Greeks, nurtured on brews they had learned about from the Egyptians, showed a handful of indomitable beer drinkers could overcome the greates of empires when it had forsaken the contents of brewing vats for exotic and befuddling liquors. In their beer drinking heyday the Persians were invincible, but they succumbed to the inebriate habits of the nations they conquered."
-- David L. MacIntosh (A Beer View of History)

"Let's all work to get people to drink more good beer, so if someone walks into your office and says he drinks Corona, don't immediately call him a dickhead."
-- Michael Jackson

"They didn't trademark everything back then. Now someone farts and they put a TM after it. Even Miller Lite says 'A Fine Pilsener Beer' on the label. It is a crime."
-- Michael Jackson

"How can I who drink... bitter beer every day of my life, cooly stand up and advise hard working fellow-creatures to take the pledge?"
-- Gladstone, 1880 (on the British Permissive Prohibitory Bill in Parliament)

"He that drinks strong beer, and goes to bed mellow, lives as he ought to live, and dies a hearty fellow."
-- 17th century English drinking song

"It is my design to die in the brewhouse, let ale be placed to my mouth when I am expiring so that when the choir of angels come they may say: 'Be God propitious to this drinker.'"
-- St. Columbanus

"Fermentation equals civilization."
-- John Ciardi (1916-1986)

"There can't be good living where there is not good drinking."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"Topping beer off with wine - that's fine!"
-- German proverb

"In the Bowling Alley of Tomorrow, there will even be machines that wear rental shoes and throw the ball for you. Your sole function will be to drink beer."
-- Dave Barry

"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-- Dave Barry

"We don't know why beer drinking rodents developed fewer tumors. Follow-up studies must be done."
-- Dr. Richard Nelson, University of Illinois, 1968

"No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer."
-- Duke of Marlbourough, 1650-1722

"Beer has food value, but food has no beer value."
-- Anonymous

"Many people tell me they have visited the US, failed to find anything drinkable and turned in desperation to imported Bass and Guinness. They are unaware that some 400 (now nearly 1,500) micro, craft, new wave or "specialty" brewers now operate, many of them concentrating on ales of remarkable quality."
-- Roger Protz, British beer writer

"Goethe was sick and couldn't eat anything, so he was kept alive by the Ko'stricher Schwartzbier."
-- Michael Jackson

"Ale - not beer- in a pewter mug was comme il faut, the only thing for a gentlemen of letters, worthy of the name, to drink."
-- Guy de Maupassant (Twelve Men)

"This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with the beer. Let's go and beat this guy up and come back and drink some more beer."
-- Ernest Hemingway (To Have and Have Not)

"Poor John Scott lies buried here, although he was both hale and stout. Death stretched his on the bitter bier, in another world he hops about."
-- from the tomb of a Liverpool brewer

"Hot beer is excellent for keeping the stomach in good order for concoction, and consequently good health; so it is most excellent for the quenching of thirst. For I have not known thirst since I have used hot beer; let the weather never be so hot, and my work so great. Cold beer is very pleasant when extreme thirst is in thy stomach; but that is more dangerous to thy health. Many by drinking a cup of cold beer in extreme thirst have taken a surfeit and killed themselves. Therefore we must not drink cold beer."
-- Henry Overton (1641)

"Anyone can drink beer, but it takes intelligence to enjoy beer."
-- Stephen Beaumont (What I've Learned About Beer - January 2002)

"It's a sign of the times. Beer is no longer the special reserve of the bowling league or the dart league. Neither is it the province of bourgeois country music lovers, or divan-impaled aficionados of the goal-line stand. It's true. Beer has lost it's elitist status; it's proletarianized. Beer has descended to the symphony."
-- Lynne O'Connor (on the Austin, Texas Symphony's First Annual Beer Tasting and Benefit in Southwest Brewing News)

"Drinking wine before beer is a no-no, dear. Topping beer off with wine - that's fine!"
-- German proverb

"You could make an argument for Portland being the beer capital of the world...When I come into the airport, I'd like to see a sign that says, 'Welcome to the Beer Capital'."
-- Michael Jackson

"A little bit of beer is divine medicine."
-- Paracelsus, Greek physician

"Payday came and with it beer."
-- Kipling

"Upon my faith beer is a heavenly gift."
-- From the Opera The Bartered Bride by Bedrich Smetana, 1866

"Whoever makes a poor beer is to be transferred to the dung hill."
-- Edict, City of Dantzig, 11th Century

"Some people love it so much it's like a cult, but it still has to be considered a specialty beer because Orval's limited production. It's not Miller Lite -- thank God."
-- Charles Finkel, of Merchant Du Vin (importers of Orval)

"Well I woke up this mornin' and got myself a beer."
-- Jim Morrison / The Doors (Roadhouse Blues)

"The word pub can be found in bar names around the world, from America to Zambia, but only in England can the true pub atmosphere be found. Perhaps this has something to do with the English taking their progress slowly and making sure that they have kept the good from the past before throwing out the bad."
-- Terry Foster (Pale Ale)

"The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common person should never be overlooked."
-- Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral

"Everyone needs something to believe in... and I believe I'll have another beer."
-- Steve Phelps

"In 1722 a new style of beer is introduced called "Butt and Later". It was later renamed, Porter."
-- Zymurgy

"Beer has long been the prime lubricant in our social intercourse and the sacred throat-anointing fluid that accompanies the ritual of mateship. To sink a few cold ones with the blokes is both an escape and a confirmation of belonging."
-- Rennie Ellis, On beer drinking in Australia

"'Did you ever taste beer?' 'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant. 'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr. Swiveller. 'She never tasted it -- it can't be tasted in a sip!'"
-- Charles Dickens (Ye Olde Curiosity Shop)

"You can never buy beer... you just rent it."
-- Archie Bunker

"The perverted ingenuity of man has given to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procured. Western nations intoxicate themselves by moistened grain."
-- Pliny the Elder, 23-79 A.D.

"Men, Englishmen too, have been heard of, who do not know the taste of porter. This cannot be credited; though it may be readily believed that many are quite ignorant of the taste of water."
-- Westminster Review, 1846

"Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insane asylums -- give me beer. You think man needs rule, he needs beer. The world does not need morals, it needs beer. The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer."
-- Henry Miller

"I think this would be a good time for a beer."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon signing the New Deal, paving the way for the repeal of Prohibition

"Of beer, an enthusiast said that it could never be bad, but that some brands might be better than others."
-- A. A. Milne

"If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue."
-- Samuel Butler

"To stare too intently at a glass of beer, or sniff it too obviously, in a bar or pub can be a questionable enterprise, but those are the first steps in appreciation. All food and drink is enjoyed with the eyes and nose as well as the mouth, and beer is no exception."
-- Michael Jackson (New World Guide To Beer)

"Water is good for only two things: floating ships and making beer."
-- Anonymous

"Cider on beer makes good cheer, beer on cider makes a bad rider."
-- British saying

"They who drink beer will think beer."
-- Washington Irving

"Thought of giving it all away, to a registered charity. All I need is a pint a day."
-- Paul McCartney

"Out in the Pool certain other boats caught the eye... each carried a bright fire amidships, in a brazier, beside a man, two small barrels of beer, and a very large handbell. The men were purlmen, Grandfather Nat told me, selling hot beer in the cold mornings -- to the men on the colliers, or on any other craft thereabout."
-- Arthur Morrison, 1902 (The Hole In The Wall)

"There are those descended from an unawakened race of men who did not receive and do not revere the yeast. These sometimes attempt to brew-rather, merely manipulate ingredients-and swill the festered residues. But not to them is revealed the simplicity of art, either of beer or of poetry. Not for them is the beatitude of the true Malt; such people are cultural dropouts."
-- John F Adams

"None so deaf as those who will not hear. None so blind as those who will not see. But I'll wager none so deaf nor blind that he sees not nor hears me say come drink this beer."
-- W.L. Hassoldt

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"In heaven there is no beer. That's why we drink ours here."
-- Frankie Yankovic, Polka King

"Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale."
-- George Borrow, 1851 (Lavengro)

"The ale, too - not the modern horror that drives so many men melancholy mad, not the beastliness of these days that makes a fellow's inside like a quaking bog - and as unsteady! Ale that would put the soul of three butchers into one weaver! Ale that would flare like turpentine - genuine boniface. This immortal viand was vended at two-pence a pint!"
-- John Nyren, 1833 (The Young Cricketers Tutor)

"The toque is to keep your head warm in the winter and your beer cold in the summer."
-- Bob and Doug McKenzie

"And Tib my wife, that as her life, loveth well good ale to seek. Full oft she drinks, till ye may see, tears run down her check."
-- John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1543-1608

"In more than 20 years of opening beers with guys, I have NEVER seen the Swedish Bikini Team show up. Almost always, the teams that show up in beer drinking situations consist of guys who have been playing league softball and smell like bus seats."
-- Dave Barry

"For drink, there was beer which was very strong when not mingled with water, but was agreeable to those who were used to it. They drank this with a reed, out of the vessel that held the beer, upon which they saw the barley swim."
-- Xenophon, c.435-c.354 B.C., Greek historian

"Portland and Seattle are America's beer capitols. It is a private competition between them... No one else comes close, though Denver and the rest of Colorado are trying hard."
-- Michael Jackson

"Beer does not make itself properly by itself. It takes an element of mystery and of things that no one can understand. As a brewer you concern yourself with all the stuff you can understand, everywhere."
-- Fritz Maytag, President Anchor Brewing

"Got Beer?"
-- Walter Breidenstein

"Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer. Then the world seemed none so bad, and I myself a sterling lad. And down in lovely muck I've lain, happy -- till I woke up again."
-- A.E. Housman

"Englishmen are like their own beer: Frothy on top, dregs on the bottom, the middle excellent."
-- Voltaire

"When I die, I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would they know it was me?"
-- J.P. Donleavy (The Ginger Man)

"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer."
-- William Shakespeare, (Othello)

"I make my beers the way I like them and it happens that a lot of other people like them that way too."
-- Bert Grant

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