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The Secret Life of Beer!: Exposed: Legends, Lore & Little-Known Facts
Beer has inspired, influenced, and excited human beings for thousands of years. Discover the mysteries of the fermented beverage, revealed at last in this intriguing book of cultural history, poetry, song, little-known facts, and quirky quotes by beer drinkers from Nietzsche to Darwin.
Alan D. Eames , the "king of beer," was the author of A Beer Drinker's Companion . He was founding director of the American Museum of Brewing History & Fine Arts in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
Alan D. Eames , the "king of beer," was the author of A Beer Drinker's Companion . He was founding director of the American Museum of Brewing History & Fine Arts in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
- GenresHumor
192 pages, Hardcover
First published March 29, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 14, 2011
Fascinating book, sometimes little repetitive but otherwise a fun facts history of beer and culture. Here are some of my FAVE parts:
"For early mankind, the mood altering properties were supernatural. The new found state of intoxication was considered divine. Beer, it was thought, must contain a spirit or god, since the drinking of the liquor so possessed the spirit of the drinker."
"Wine is but single broth, ale is meat, drink, and cloth." 16th century English proverb
"Give me a woman who truly loves beer and I will conquer the world." Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941)
"A traveller to Munich for the Okroberfest celebration, when asking directions to the beer tents, received the immortal words: "You can hear it two blocks away and smell it in three."
"And what this flood of deeper brown,
Which a white foam does also crown,
Less white than snow, more white than mortar?
Oh my soul! Can this be Porter?"
- The Dejeune
"He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. Amen."
- unnamed German monk
"The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love." - Law in the City of Augsburg, 13th century
"If but we Christians have our beer, nothing's to fear." Sir William Ashbless
"God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Chaco tribes drank too much beer, believing a drunken person dreams of beautiful things. Men sang and drummed through the night to hasten the fermentation of the beer and the rites of beer-making were as important as the beer itself."
"According to ancient Amazonian legend young, pretty virgins are believed to make the best brew."
"Rare beers like 'The Beer of Truth', were placed alongside the dead to tempt the twelve gods who would sit in judgement of the deceased. The hope was to intoxicate the gods into a kinder assessment of the soul in purgatory."
"Other Egyptian funerary beers were 'Everlasting Beer' and 'The Beer Which Does Not Sour' - both guaranteed to put the sternest of gods into a mood of forgiveness."
"For the Norsemen, heaven (Valhalla) was a vast ale-house of divine proportions, with 540 doors. Inside, dead Vikings drank from limitless streams of ale that sprang forth from the udders of the giant goat Heidrun."
"Keep your libraries, keep your penal institutions, keep your insane asylums...give me beer. You think man needs your rule, he needs beer. The world does not need your morals it needs beer. It does not need your lectures or your charity. The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer." - Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)
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.
- Unknown -
"Listening to someone who brews his own beer is like listening to a religious fanatic talk about the day he saw the light." - Rose Murray, Montreal Gazette, 1991
"The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and - therefore - to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the family gathering places that they ought to be." - George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
At the Fifteenth International Congress Against Alcoholism, held in Washington D.C., in 1920, Dr. Stockard of Cornell University and Dr. C.W. Saleeby of London recommended the establishment of concentration camps for chronic beer drinkers.
"There is no beverage which I have liked to live with more than beer." - George Saintsbury, 1920
"For early mankind, the mood altering properties were supernatural. The new found state of intoxication was considered divine. Beer, it was thought, must contain a spirit or god, since the drinking of the liquor so possessed the spirit of the drinker."
"Wine is but single broth, ale is meat, drink, and cloth." 16th century English proverb
"Give me a woman who truly loves beer and I will conquer the world." Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941)
"A traveller to Munich for the Okroberfest celebration, when asking directions to the beer tents, received the immortal words: "You can hear it two blocks away and smell it in three."
"And what this flood of deeper brown,
Which a white foam does also crown,
Less white than snow, more white than mortar?
Oh my soul! Can this be Porter?"
- The Dejeune
"He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. Amen."
- unnamed German monk
"The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love." - Law in the City of Augsburg, 13th century
"If but we Christians have our beer, nothing's to fear." Sir William Ashbless
"God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Chaco tribes drank too much beer, believing a drunken person dreams of beautiful things. Men sang and drummed through the night to hasten the fermentation of the beer and the rites of beer-making were as important as the beer itself."
"According to ancient Amazonian legend young, pretty virgins are believed to make the best brew."
"Rare beers like 'The Beer of Truth', were placed alongside the dead to tempt the twelve gods who would sit in judgement of the deceased. The hope was to intoxicate the gods into a kinder assessment of the soul in purgatory."
"Other Egyptian funerary beers were 'Everlasting Beer' and 'The Beer Which Does Not Sour' - both guaranteed to put the sternest of gods into a mood of forgiveness."
"For the Norsemen, heaven (Valhalla) was a vast ale-house of divine proportions, with 540 doors. Inside, dead Vikings drank from limitless streams of ale that sprang forth from the udders of the giant goat Heidrun."
"Keep your libraries, keep your penal institutions, keep your insane asylums...give me beer. You think man needs your rule, he needs beer. The world does not need your morals it needs beer. It does not need your lectures or your charity. The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer." - Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)
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.
- Unknown -
"Listening to someone who brews his own beer is like listening to a religious fanatic talk about the day he saw the light." - Rose Murray, Montreal Gazette, 1991
"The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and - therefore - to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the family gathering places that they ought to be." - George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
At the Fifteenth International Congress Against Alcoholism, held in Washington D.C., in 1920, Dr. Stockard of Cornell University and Dr. C.W. Saleeby of London recommended the establishment of concentration camps for chronic beer drinkers.
"There is no beverage which I have liked to live with more than beer." - George Saintsbury, 1920
February 1, 2017
Stuff most people know about beer. A good coffee table book I guess but don't come expecting to find a tome of knowledge about beer.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews