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Introduction |
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" Let us sing our own treasures, old England's good cheer, The profits and pleasures of stout British beer ; Your wine-tippling, dram-sipping fellows retreat, But your beer-drinking Briton can never be beat."
All our taverns ring with the praises of beer. The eternal anthem is:
" I likes a drop of good beer, I does! "
so that it is left to Mr. Masefield, with whom it is more (I suspect) a matter of professional interest than of genuine conviction, to tell us (the old sea-dog !) that rum's alone the tipple ; while Mr. Belloc, mellow with memories of French vineyards, sings :
" Burgundy's Burgundy all the year round."
But although beer is our national beverage and should accordingly be praised by patriotic Englishmen (not to mention the noble fellows who according to Mr. Lloyd George helped to pay for the war with every glass they drank), it must not be forgotten that when, with the introduction of hops into this country, the brewing of beer, as distinct from ale, was made possible, a despondent rhymer was moved to write :
" Carp, Heresy, Hops and Beer All came into England in one year."
After all that poets have told us of the merits of ale (for who ever heard tell of a teetotal bard worth his salt ?) —of its potency, its bravery, its honour, its laughter, its kindliness, its simplicity, its power to confute cranks and
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