Brooklyn in the 1960's. There was the Jingle..."My beer is Rheingold the dry beer, think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer, it's refreshing not sweet, it's the extra dry treat, won't you try extra dry Rheingold Beer.." That jingle was everywhere. On the Radio, on the TV and at the Ball Game. Mr. Met even drank Rheingold beer. There was the special glass that Grandpa Eddy reserved for his brew of choice. It was sort of a wide-mouthed stemmed pilsner with the familar red and white logo. Then there were the secret sips that he would give me as we had Sunday Dinner. Grandma served up roasted chicken and potatoes and that secret bread pudding recipe that she baked in a pyrex bowl, sometimes it was rice pudding. I remember how the sunlight filtered through the Irish Lace sheers that covered the windows. I remember the heavy mahogany furnishings and the broad dark wood trim and tin ceilings. I remember Sunday dinners in Brooklyn and I remember my first sips of Rheingold Beer.
As I type this at my computer I know that Grandpa Eddy and Granny Mary Smyth are long gone, but I will always have them in my memories. I am sitting in Grandpa's desk chair that he was given by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His gold watch and cuff-links are proudly dispalyed in the glass curio cabinet atop my bookcase. Sometimes, as I sip a cold beer with my family at Sunday Dinner I still remember that special glass. Yes I let my kids have a sip of beer now and again ... the wrinkled nose says it all.
As an aside I have tried the new Rheingold. Surprisingly, it tastes much as I remember it, though the new brewer has sweetend it up a bit and bottled it a long-necked clear glass bottle with a painted label. Rheingold, it isn't the best beer out there but for me, one sip and I am back in Brooklyn.
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I'm sitting at my computer, late at night, or early morning I guess. Can't sleep, pour myself a Loch Down Scotch Ale from Arcadia Ales and I'm instantly transported to a night last winter I spent with my brother sampling some fine beers in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
This is not a new phenomenon. Every now and then a certain beer brings a memory flooding back, always a good memory. I decide to search "Beer and Memory" and after several links saying how alcohol impairs memory I find your link here and enjoy your story immensely. You posted it over 10 years ago but I'm glad it's still here.
I think of it this way: When you sip that beer, whatever it is, and that memory comes, and it has to be a good memory, then that beer has soul. You cannot craft a beer with the intention of giving it soul. It has as much to do with the memory as it does the moment you are remembering the memory. I had a Loch Down last month and there was no memory. Tonight there is. I'm going to research this with my buddies, but I also think it has to do with setting, because this mostly happens to me when I have solitude and good tunes (Richmond Fontaine and a righteous slide guitar right now). It's a clash of forces culminating in some kind of beer magic. Incidentally, bad beer can have soul. Went to a tasting with my buddy and had a particularly nasty beer. We ended up having a great time. A year later I stumble upon that nasty beer and the memory comes right back and it's all good. Nasty beer with soul. I love it.
So, maybe you'll see this, maybe you won't. Just glad to see someone else noticing how beer enhances memory. Slainte to you and thanks for letting me riff on your blog.
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