In Defense of Beer

My dog is a percussionist. Every time I play the piano the little pup picks up a squeaky toy and plays along. This was not my discovery, but the observation of an attorney of unimpeachable integrity who crashed at my place recently.

This is all true. My attorney, whom I will call Patrick, because that is his name, believes that the secret to a long, happy life is to drink excellent beer, slowly. He did this before my eyes for six weeks, and never became drunk, though on most days he cracked his first India Pale Ale around noon. Then he relaxed with a good book, and after two or three more beers throughout the early afternoon, and much conversation, we cooked and ate as the sun set.

Patrick views beer as food. And who are we to say no?

The 1957 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica — consulted in my basement over two lukewarm cups of competing India Pale Ales that Patrick, invoking his power of attorney, forced upon me as a taste test — the Encyclopedia, I was saying, claims that mothers of students in the first public school system in the world, in Pharaonic Egypt — 3,000 years ago — were expected to send their children to school with beer, to eat for lunch.

I say eat, rather than drink, because ancient Egyptian beer was made from stale bread. The mothers of the little darlings chewed it up and spit it out into a pot and fermented it. It was mildly alcoholic.

Of this chewing and spitting process, can we say no more?

And no, I don’t care what herbs they added to it.

I’m sorry I brought it up.

I suppose the ancient Egyptian mothers could have fed their stale bread to the geese, or thrown it to the winds. But don’t you think they did the right thing by spitting into it, packing it up in a lunchbox with some of that good Nile water, and giving it to their kids?

That was 3,000 years ago, in Egypt. Here is a photo of a beer cup that was made in Guatemala 1,500 years ago: halfway between Egypt and Us. I took the photo at the Denver Art Museum this week.

I am sorry to have to tell you that 1,500 years after Egyptian mothers were spitting into their kids’ lunchboxes — on Pharaoh’s Orders — mothers in Guatemala were doing likewise — and Pharaoh was nowhere around. At least the Maya had the decency not to call it beer. They call it chicha.

But that’s not what the Egyptian moms gave their kids, as they toddled off to school to learn their hieroglyphics. They gave them — I don’t want to think about it.

My Mom never spit on my bread and fermented it and packed it into my lunchbox.

So far as I know.

My research (Ø) indicates that Pharaonic Egyptian Lunch Beer was about 1 percent alcohol. Tops.

I maintain — though I do not have the statistics at hand to back me up on this — that one reason Egypt fell and Greece rose, was that crappy 1 percent Egyptian beer.

OK, then! Where were we? Ah, yes … the taste test. Let’s see … which is my modern beer and which is the Pharaonic brew?

Aha! This is the modern one, and this is the old one. Pardon me while I take the old one into the other room. (Flushing sounds.)

Shakespeare and his fellows drank beer rather than water because the water back when was contaminated, and could kill you, but the alcohol in beer killed germs.

There was, in those days, “small beer” and beer. Small beer had less alcohol content — about 1 percent.

But I’ve already said that. Or have I?

So. Where were we?

Ah, yes … the taste test.

(Editor’s Note: Courthouse News Service apologizes for this column. CNS columnist R. Kahn has been chastised, chided and viewed with circumspection for using this bandwidth, formerly known as space, to defend the use of a substance inappropriate for those of tender age, who might accidentally gain access to these opinions electronically, years from now. So, listen, kids, if you’re out there, and younger than 21: What are you doing, reading an Op-Ed piece in a legal newspaper? You should be outside, having fun.)

Subscribe to our columns

Want new op-eds sent directly to your inbox? Subscribe below!

Email *

Author

Submit