Beer Me, Dude!

"Beer he drank – seven goblets. His spirit was loosened. He became hilarious. His heart was glad and his face shown.” - The Epic of Gilgamesh

I have a long, spotty history with brewskis, starting in childhood. My father was a beer distributor of Hedrick, a cheap swill owned by the Albany political machine and his tiny business boasted a fleet of two trucks. At five or so, I was taken to the brewery where I met the bung man, who smelled of stale beer, foul breath and body odor. His job was to hammer wooden bungs into the kegs when they’d been filled, a task that occupied his entire adult life. As a consequence of his profession, the bung man’s left arm was normal, but his right arm was gigantic, that of a professional body builder, immense and incredibly muscled. The 19th Century red brick brewery itself looked like a Victorian prison circa 1840; if all the workers were in chains it would have made perfect sense. Curiously, my father cared not for beer and nor do I. But now comes news that will shock you about the yellow stuff with the white foamy stuff on top.