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"Beefsteaks and porter are good belly mortar."
-- Scottish Proverb, 1760 |
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"Boughs have their fruit and blossom at all times of the year; rivers are running over with red beer and brown beer."
-- William Butler Yeats (The Happy Townland) |
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"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 |
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"Brewing beer in the Massachusetts colony was allowed six days a week, except Sundays when brewing was forbidden lest the beer should work on Sunday, the Lord's day."
-- 16th Century Massachusetts Blue Law |
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"It is not "just beer," it is a noble and ancient beverage which, like wine, food and television advertising, can be extraordinarily good or unmercifully bad."
-- Stephen Beaumont (World of Beer) |
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"A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle."
-- Jonathan Swift |
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"Cider on beer makes good cheer, beer on cider makes a bad rider."
-- British saying |
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"And in my innocence, I thought that beer drinking in England was carrried to excess, but I was mistaken, English men are in the infant class - in the ABC's in acquiring a German's education in the practice of beer drinking."
-- Henry Ruggles |
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"Beer drinkin' don't do half the harm of love makin'."
-- Eden Philpotts (The Farmer's Wife) |
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"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 |
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"That's right, lovers of 'music-you-can't-dance-to' have taken a shine to beer. As one particularly insensitive rooter remarked, 'There's nothing like laying your head back on the satin head rest, almost tapping your foot, and knocking down a
couple of brews.'"
-- Lynne O'Connor (on the Austin, Texas Symphony's First Annual Beer Tasting and Benefit in Southwest Brewing News) |
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"The best way to die is sit under a tree, eat lots of bologna and salami, drink a case of beer, then blow up."
-- Art Donovan, aka Fatso (Baltimore Colt lineman in the 1950s & 60s) |
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"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) |
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"Let no man thirst for lack of Real Ale."
-- Commonwealth Brewing Co., Boston, Massachusetts |
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"The government will fall that raises the price of beer."
-- Czech saying |
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"Beer Is Love."
-- Brent Runyon |
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"Beer made from corn, rice, or wheat is about as much beer as butter made from beef scraping...or sugar made from old rags."
-- The Milwaukee News, 1878 |
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"A pub should have a regular and knowing clientele; an absence of ale-quaffers, ginsippers, whiskey suppers, or wine-bibbers."
-- Tom Corkey (Dublin pub regular) |
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"I have never been into wine. I'm a beer man. What I like about beer is you basically just drink it and order more. You don't sniff at it, or hold it up to the light and slosh it around, or drone on and on about it, the way people do with wine.
Your beer drinker tends to be a straightforward, decent, friendly, down-to-earth person, whereas your serious wine fancier tends to be an insufferable snot."
-- Dave Barry |
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"Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer."
-- Frederick the Great |
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"Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink."
-- A.E. Housman (Terence This is Stupid Stuff) |
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"Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer."
-- Henry Lawson |
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"I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer."
-- John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail |
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"For it (beer) possesses the essential quality of gulpability. Beer is more gulpable than any other beverage and consequently it ministers to the desire to drink deeply. When one is really thirsty the nibbling, quibbling, sniffing, and squinting
technique of the wine connoisseur becomes merely idiotic. Then is the moment of the pint tankard of bitter."
-- Anonymous |
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"Leinenkugels makes better beer now that Miller bought them. It will license insecure people to like craft beers."
-- Michael Jackson (on megabreweries involvement in craft beers) |
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"Matthew Vassar's gen'rous heart put a brain in every lass. He made his beer and college here for the good of the Freshman class."
-- Quote about the founder of Vassar College, who had beeen a brewer in Poughkeepsie, NY |
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"Nothing ever tasted better than a cold beer on a beautiful afternoon with nothing to look forward to than more of the same."
-- Hugh Hood |
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"Beer once tasted like something. It was made out of malt and hops and yeast and pure filtered water... Nowadays it is often made of such gook as rice and corn grits... nothing but dirty water. It's so light and clear it's nothing...ignoble
swill."
-- Charles McCabe, 1960 |
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"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) |
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"Beer is a wholesome liquor. It abounds with nourishment."
-- Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), American physician |
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"Life ain't all beer and skittles, and more's the pity."
-- George DuMaurier |
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"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 |
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"There's a-nothin' so lonesome, morbid or drear, Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer."
-- Slim Dusty - Australian recording artist (Pub with No Beer) |
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"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 |
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"When I was in that city, I asked a policeman where I could get a glass of beer. 'You see the second street on your right?' the officer said. 'Well, go down there and the fourth door on your right is a movie theatre. That's the only place in town
you can buy it.'"
-- American Prohibition Joke |
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"In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer."
-- A.J.P. Taylor, British historian |
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"Busy, curious, thirsty fly, drink with me, and drink as I."
-- William Oldys, 1696-1761 (on a fly drinking out of a cup of ale) |
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"If all be true that I do think, there are five reasons we should drink. Good beer, a friend, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why."
-- Henry Aldrich |
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"I'm for sure you are referring to two separate individuals, one the antithesis of the other. One is a mellowing cervezaphile who likes to drink with the boys. The other is a bellowing pedophile who likes to drink up the boys. One is renowned for
his refined palate while the other for this reclined pallet. One swoons for a beer; the other croons for a cheer. One has a taste for young ales, and the other for young males. One considers a half pint is too small, while the other thinks a half pint's
just right. One is interested in a brown ale's balling, and the other in...well, you get the point."
-- The Queen of Quaff discussing the Michael Jacksons, Southwest Brewing News, Vol 2, No 3. |
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"Beer is an improvement on water itself."
-- Grant Johnson |
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"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 |
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"In your last installment of 'Spent Grains,' you boldly proclaimed that the Celis beers had outsold all other American beers in Belgium. This is a stretch for at least two reasons. First, there are virtually NO American beers in Belgium. I have
seen Bud for $7.00 a can in specialty beer cafes, but you can imagine how overwhelmingly popular that was. Second, Celis is contract-brewed by the DeSmedt Brewery in Opwijk, Belgium. Now my hat is off to Pierre for riding back into town with his guns
a-blazin', but you can't call a Belgian Wit brewed at a Belgian brewery under contract to a Belgian guy an American beer -- even if he does live in Texas!"
-- R.C. Snakepins, Austin, TX, in the Aug/Sept 1994 issue of The Celebrator |
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"The mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer."
-- Ancient Egyptian Wisdom, 2200 B.C. |
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"Old men and young, while gathered around the social beer table, relate their experience and quantity of beer they have swallowed at one sitting, or in one day, or in one evening with as much pride as an old hunter would rehearse his achievements
in the forest or jungle. They seem to be as proud of the capacity of their stomachs as a prize fighter is of his muscle."
-- Henry Ruggles, 1883 |
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"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 |
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"Lynne was 'underwhelmed: it's soapy and looks like frog spawn.'"
-- Lynne Pearce, discussing Erdinger Weiss beer (What's Brewing, June, 1994) |
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"Her ale, if new, looks like a misty morning, all thick; well if her ale be strong, her reckoning right, her house clean, her fire good, her face fair, and the town great or rich, she shall seldom or never sit without chirping birds to bear her
company."
-- Donald Lupton, 1632 |
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"Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber through the chambers of my brain. Quaintest thoughts--queerest fancies, come to life and fade away. What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale
today."
-- Edgar Allan Poe |
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"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 |
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"Good beer is the basis of true temperance."
-- The Daily Express, 1919 |
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"Fermentation equals civilization."
-- John Ciardi (1916-1986) |
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"Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit and promotes health."
-- Thomas Jefferson |
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"Doth it not show viley in me to desire small beer?"
-- William Shakespeare (Henry IV) |
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"Englishmen are like their own beer: Frothy on top, dregs on the bottom, the middle excellent."
-- Voltaire |
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"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-- Benjamin Franklin |
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"And there are few things in this life so revolting as sipped beer. But let it go down your throat as suds go down the drain, and you will quickly realize that this is a true friend, to be admitted to your most secret counsels. Long draughts with
an open throat are the secret."
-- Maurice Healy |
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"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
-- William Shakespheare (Twelfth Night) |
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"Ale is made of malte and water; and they the whiche do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme or godesgood, doth sophysticat theyr ale."
-- Andrew Boorde's 1542 (A Compendious Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth)' |
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"Of all my favorite things to do, the utmost is to have a brew. My love grows for my foamy friend, with each thirst-quenching elbow bend. Beer's so frosty, smooth and cold. It's paradise -- pure liquid gold! Yes, beer means many things to me.
That's all for now -- I gotta pee!"
-- Anonymous (Ode to Beer) |
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"Whoever makes a poor beer is to be transferred to the dung hill."
-- Edict, City of Dantzig, 11th Century |
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"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 |
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"They have a drink in Texas which is half Bigfoot and half SNPA that they call A Foggy Night in the Sierras"
-- Michael Jackson (On Sierra Nevada) |
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"I don't trust the Germans with their own heritage. I don't trust anybody with their own heritage."
-- Michael Jackson (on Reinheitsgebot) |
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"Everyone needs something to believe in... and I believe I'll have another beer."
-- Steve Phelps |
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"In Vino Veritas, In Cervesio Felicitas (In wine there is wisdom, In beer there is joy.)"
-- Anonymous |
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"I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rain water was beer!"
-- Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons) |
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"History flows forward in rivers of beer."
-- Anonymous |
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"You can never buy beer... you just rent it."
-- Archie Bunker |
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"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) |
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"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day."
-- Anonymous |
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"Yes, we (Americans) have a beer culture, but it is a lot like a teenage boy: at the core, there is such tremendous potential, skill, and creativity, but unfortunately, there are a lot of distractions out there: girls, sports, and peer pressure.
These things are fine in themselves, but they keep us from focusing on our true nature."
-- Scott A. Smith, Lynchburg, Va |
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"Beer isn't just beer -- beer needs a home."
-- Die Welt, German newspaper, 1976 |
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"Real ale fans are just like train-spotters, only drunk."
-- Christopher Howse |
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"Marriage is based on the theory that when a man discovers a brand of beer exactly to his taste, he should at once throw up his job and go to work in a brewery."
-- George Jean Nathan |
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"Drinking really cold beer is like slapping yourself in the face with an ice pick."
-- Michael Jackson |
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"I have never found that Bass's India draught pale ale, taken in small quantities at meals disagrees... The drink is laxative, while the contrary is to be said of other ales and porters."
-- Roger Protz (The Great British Beer Book) |
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"The toque is to keep your head warm in the winter and your beer cold in the summer."
-- Bob and Doug McKenzie |
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"Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and celebrate the good days."
-- Ancient Egypt |
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"When the hour is nigh me, let me in a tavern die, with tankard by me."
-- Archpoet, Confesio, 2nd Century |
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"When you own a Micro-brewery, you always have fluidity."
-- Ken Rich |
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"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) |
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"It is disgusting to note the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible, this must be prevented. My people must drink
beer."
-- Frederick the Great |
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"I work until beer o'clock."
-- Steven King |
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"Here's to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer-and another one!"
-- Old Irish toast |
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"The David Letterman Diet: Eat whatever the hell you want. I think I'll have another beer."
-- David Letterman |
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"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) |
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"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) |
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"My good friends drink is the curse of the world. All the crime, all the wars, all the heartaches of this world can be laid at the door of intoxication. Oh my friends what can cause more misery than beer, and alcohol? Can Anyone answer me
that?"
-- Unknown Temperence Speaker, 1914 |
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"This is all thousands of years old. It's the same the world over. Anyone who has ever walked upright has loved beer, celebrated over it, told talks over it, hatched plots over it, courted over it. It's what we do as a species. It's what makes
us human. We brew."
-- Alan Eames, the Beer King |
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""An honest brew makes its own friends.""
-- John Molson, Molson's Brewery Ltd. (1930) |
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"Every country must have its own devil. Welshland its own, and France its own. Our German devil will be a good wind-pipe, and must be called drinking, being so thirsty and hell-like that no guzzling of wine and beer, however large, will cool it
off, and I fear that such will ever remain Germany's plague, until the day of judgment."
-- Martin Luther |
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"Beer is the only virtual reality I need."
-- Leroy Lockhorn |
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"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 |
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"What the sober man has in his heart, the drunken man has on his lips."
-- Danish Proverb |
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"My favorite black-and-tan is a "mother-in-law": a mixture of stout and bitter."
-- Anonymous |
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"To some its a six-pack, to me it's a Support Group."
-- Anonymous |
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"The oldest firm (in America) seems to be The Francis Perot's Sons Malting Company. It was established apparently in 1687 in Philadelphia. In 1850 it gave up brewing to specialize in malting"
-- N. S. B. Gras, 1935 (The Oldest American Business Firm) |
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"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) |
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"Beer and Porter are the natural beverage of the Englishman. The increase of gin drinking and that of suicides, murders, and all kinds of violence are contemporaneous."
-- The London Times, 1829 |
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