Beer O’Clock: As the man said . . .

As you down a  brown one tonight, have a think about some of the wise words said about beer compiled by the Drinking Beer site and the Opinionated Beer Page.  Here’s some of the better lines . . .

• "Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer."
  Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1975
• "Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
  Dave Barry
• "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
• "People who drink light 'beer' don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot.",
  Capital Brewery, Middleton, WI
• "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."
  -Humphrey Bogart
• "May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."
  Old Irish Toast
• "He was a wise man who invented beer."
  Plato
• "Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy."
  Benjamin Franklin
• "A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her."
  W.C. Fields
• "Everybody has to believe in something.....I believe I'll have another drink."
  -W.C. Fields
• "Beer will always have a definite role in the diet of an individual and can be considered a cog in the wheel of nutritional foods."
  -Bruce Carlton
• "Whoever serves beer or wine watered down, he himself deserves in them to drown."
  -Mediaeval plea for pure libations
• "No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer."
  -John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough
• "Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
  -Winston Churchill
• "Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.",
  Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944
• "A bar is better than a newspaper for public discussion."
  -Jim Parker, on the importance of a healthy pub culture
• "The roots and herbes beaten and put into new ale or beer and daily drunk, cleareth, strengtheneth and quickeneth the sight of the eyes."
  -Nicholas Culpeper
• "If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs."
  -David Daye
• "An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger, or a beer.",
  Confucius
• "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer."
  -Abraham Lincoln
• "We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old."
  -Martin Luther
• "Beer: So much more than just a breakfast drink."
  -Whitstran Brewery sign
• "Work is the curse of the drinking class."
  -Oscar Wilde
• "Who does not love beer, wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long."
  -Carl Worner
• "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
  -Henny Youngman
• "Champagnes of the north",
  Napoleon’s army praising foamy wheat beers
• "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
  -Frank Zappa
• "Beer was the driving force that led nomadic mankind into village life...It was this appetite for beer-making material that led to crop cultivation, permanent settlement and agriculture.",
  Alan Eames

So what are you getting out of your fridge tonight?  Mine’s a Cooper’s Stout, the ideal drink for a winter’s evening – and on special this morning down at Pak n’ Save. What’s yours?