Category Archives: Beer

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Marooned on Hog Island

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There’s nothing quite so lovely as a can of beer that’s delicious on the inside and fun on the outside. Such a gem is Marooned on Hog Island Stout from the 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco. The can reads, “Exhausted by the tedious work and rancid beer, deck swabs O’Sullivan and Freccia abandoned Sir Francis Drake’s Galleon. Days later, they washed up on a tiny island in Tomales Bay, where they encountered local oyster farmers John and Terry. Soon, these beer mutineers and oyster mercenaries were feasting on roast pig, fresh oysters and goblets of the captain’s finest ale. They could think of worse fates than being MAROONED ON HOG ISLAND.” The packaging was done by TBD Advertising of Bend, Oregon, and long may they prosper.

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Beer Hall

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A postcard of the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, art by Fritz Quidenus, (1867-1928), mailed from Germany to the U.S. in 1930, in which the sender writes, “The people are friendly — the music, lovely — and the beer (‘nuf said).”

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Dachshunds and Beer

Beer 1

Angel dog with wursts; I love it. “Greetings from the Hofbrauhaus” And then perhaps, “Before the whole world goes to pieces, we’d best take our beer mugs to heaven.” Sorry, my German is really shaky. I’d be delighted with a better translation.

Beer 2

Beer 3

“This is my master’s beer.”

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The Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh

High over the brew kettles at the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, a black rafter spans the arch, and in gold the meditative drinker finds the words, “in fide vivo Filii Dei, qui dilexit me and tradidit seipsum pro me.”

My Latin is not what it should be, but I have learned the English translation and it goes as follows, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and handed himself over for me.” The quote is from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, 2:20.

I hope this clears up the mystery for many. My thanks to Dr. Melissa Conway for the translation, and for double-checking her work in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine.

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Java Head

There are few things more delicious than the mingling of good beer and good literature. Such is Java Head, a creation of Troegs Craft Brewery in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a soul-stirring stout with a hint of coffee and an allusion to Joseph Hergesheimer’s wonderful novel, Java Head (1919), from which I quote this early passage, young Laurel Ammidon thinking about chairs:

“She could see by her fireplace the elaborately carved teakwood chair that her grandfather had brought home from China, which had never varied from the state of a brown and rather benevolent dragon; its claws were always claws, the grinning fretted mouth was perpetually fixed for a cloud of smoke and a mild rumble of complaint. The severe waxed hickory beyond with the broad arm for writing, a source of special pride, had been an accommodating and precise old gentleman. The spindling gold chairs in the drawing-room were supercilious creatures at a king’s ball; the graceful impressive formality of the Heppelwhites in the dining room belonged to the loveliest of Boston ladies. Those with difficult haircloth seats in the parlor were deacons; others in the breakfast room talkative and unpretentious; while the deep easy-chair before the library fire was a ship. There were mahogany stools, dwarfs of dark tricks; angry high-backed things in the hall below; and a terrifying shape of gleaming red that, without question, stirred hatefully and reached out curved and dripping hands. Anyhow, such they all had seemed.”