AT THE BIER OF BEER.
[By a Poet more Ale than Arty.)
"What is pure Beer ? The Leer that's brewed alone of malt and hops.
To that is Allsopp's limited—the beer brewed else all slops.
Quassia, calumba, guinea-grains, beer-drinkers may condemn.
Yet though those bitters match not hops, there's little harm in them.
But hops although the wise above all other herbs exalt,
The element of all good beer essentially is malt.
Of gentian mere infusion, to acknowledge truth compels,
Much of your so-called bitter ale by many an X excels.
Malt in the fine old English beer could Toby Phillpot taste.
No longer now!—the beverage of a Briton is debased.
" Home-brewed " hath superseded been by vile and vapid " pale."
There's none such stuff as " stingo," no, nor any "nut-brown ale."
Oh, for the sound malt liquor, and the brave strong beer of old,
Like that near Covent Garden which was once at " Offley's " sold!
Then was John Barleycorn your man, but now, alas, he's dead,
And the farmer's flowing tankard from the roadside inn hath fled!
