Category: Beer
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Stale Ale
Early in their American period, after an afternoon with an unexpectedly scatty Benjamin Franklin, Messrs Mason and Dixon head on Mason’s suggestion to a tavern by the name of the Fair Anchor. It’s a bit of a dive, just how Mason likes it: And withal, when they show up at The Fair Anchor that Night,…
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Tequila and Beer
Happy Pynchon in Public Day once again all. To celebrate, I’ve turned again to the well-nigh inexhaustible well that is Against the Day. I find often when I crack that spine afresh for one of these drinks, I’m plunged into a passage that a) I have all but zero memory of, and b) is of…
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Imported German Beer
On page 986 of Against the Day, Frank Traverse has just recently put his engineering skills to use rigging a train with an imperial fuckton of dynamite and now finds himself in the Mexican Capital. (Why the Capital is Capitalised isn’t clear to me. Was Pynchon working on Mason & Dixon at the same time…
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French Beer
French stuff gets a good run around here. Usually wine, occasionally brandy, now and then absinthe. Never before a French beer though. Beer doesn’t really register on the Franco-radar. According to this book Farmhouse Ales I happen to have sitting on my shelf though, the French have a “little known tradition of beer appreciation” and…
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A six-pack of Coors
Shall we add writing tasting notes for an American macro lager to the accruing ridiculousnesses of this blog? You already know it’s a cold crisp refreshing uncomplicated thing. Does anyone really want to hear about it if there’s a hint of corn, a touch of carbonic bite? Way back when I drank Rolling Rock, I…
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Opium Beer
I sit drinking this opium beer on my roof, and Australia’s current apocalyptic choke of bushfires has certainly leant the scene an opium den-esque smokiness. But that might be as close as we come to actual opium here. On Googling “opium beer”, one mostly uncovers tales of homebrewers getting arrested and genetically-modified morphine-producing yeasts. The…
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An abominable imitation of Munich beer
On page 203 of V, two fellows named Godolphin and Mantissa who I will not pretend to have any memory of meet in a German beer hall in Florence. The place serves, of course, krugs of genuine Munich beer. That delight I will save for a later date. Twenty-five pages later, the good stuff is…
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A huge can of Australian beer
That most significant international day of celebration has rolled around again — happy Pynchon in Public Day all. This drinking is happening on PIP Day Eve on my relatively unpublic roof, but I assure you all tomorrow I will be brandishing Mason & Dixon more publicly than any of my colleagues or fellow commuters are…
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A six-pack of Dos Equis
Vineland hasn’t gotten much of a run around here, I think because I can barely remember what happens in it. Something to do with Reagan? And ninjas? Clearly a reread is in order sometime soon. I do remember Pynchon’s sympathies for Family as a potential seat of grace and humanity and a bulwark against Their…
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Green Beer
Early in Against the Day, the young Franz Ferdinand is hanging out in Chicago for the World’s Fair. Greenhorn private security agent Lew Basnight is tasked with protecting the Archduke, whose mostly interested in hunting down “ladies of flagrant repute.” One night, F.F. gives his handlers the slip. Lew goes looking for him. Page 47:…
Tom Pynchon's Liquor Cabinet 