It sounds curious to read that France and Spain were censured by that universal provider of knowledge, Pliny, for their drunkenness with beer and ale, "wines not being in that age so frequent" The Romans learned about beer from the Gauls who were said to be in the habit of spoiling their barley by converting it into a fermented drink. The Romans taught the Britons to make beer, and goodness knows to how many people the Britons have passed their knowledge on.
Good beer, of a light alcoholic strength, is an almost ideal beverage with a simple meal—though nobody needs a meal as an excuse to drink beer. The slight amount of bitter that it contains is a direct digestive stimulant, and, the small percentage of carbohydrate which it possesses has a real food and fuel value, But again, why worry about such things—good wine needs no bush and good beer needs no boosting. Besides, beer ought to be taken in relatively large quantities; it is essentially a thirst quencher, and as such far preferable to the majority' of aerated temperance drinks flavoured with essences and sweetened with saccharine. Beer is an honest drink—perhaps because the hop which beer drinkers always hope to meet in it is the female hop. Mr. Hop is apparently of no value as far as beer is concerned.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.