Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1890 — Lager and “Bitter.” [ARTICLE]

Lager and “Bitter.”

One of the most difficult things an Englishman has to do when he first arrives in this country, says the N. Y. Evening World, is to get what he wants to drink. So says a well-known and popular barkeeper in an interview. When an Englishman goes into a saloon and asks for beer it is not lager beer that he wants, but bitter ale; and when he uses what I may call the slang of his country and calls for a "glass of bitter,” which is bitter ale, no one Understands him. The American, you know, drinks whisky or lager beer; the Englishman drinks brandy or ale, and he call liis ale beer. If he wants something very strong, something that will put him in a state of wild hilarity, he will ask for a glass of "Burton’s No. 8.” He could not get it in this country, bat it is a drink that will make a man much drunker than whisky. Two glasses will put him under the table. It is a powerful intoxicant, though it is only an ale. But the ale-drinking Englishman is totally at sea here, for he cau not call for his beer without getting a drink which he naturally despises.