Thursday 11 June 2009

Third Reich Brewing in Wetherspoons


Just reading Italy’s Sorrow by James Holland, an excellent account of the last year of the war in Italy. On a beery note I’m struck by a reference to counterfeit messages from Italian males spirited off to Germany for forced labour; one of them has this presumably fictitious chap extolling the virtues of Berlin and how he’s ‘swapped wine for good beer’. Given that this is was supposed to be sent mid 1944, not only was Berlin under constant attack and probably not that lovely, hadn’t brewing been stopped in the Third Reich in 1943? Typical Nazi mendacity or did brewing continue?
BTW this post come courtesy of Wetherspoons’ WiFi in Taunton, near the station prior to a trip to London for the British Guild of Beerwriters AGM. The WiFi works and the Exmoor Stag is rich and malty, not freezing cold, leaving the sort of lovely lacework a laceworker would be proud of (though I cheated by noting that three pints had been pulled before it was my turn to be served — it is a lottery) — there are a fair smattering of boozers who have reached the stage where their mundane conversations have taken on the import of a political summit plus several chaps with their straw hats taking a break from Somerset’s cricket ground (I feel like doing that with cricket full stop). Oh dear, a little stout chap has rolled past splattering the walls with a gush of swearwords.
BTW that’s Nottingham at night not Berlin in 1944

5 comments:

  1. Mo. Brewing continued and availability of beer was considered good for morale.Of course there was weakened gravities, substituted ingredients and shortages - much as here in GB. In the end of course much more so, as many city based breweries were destroyed by Allied bombing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I bet they continued brewing in Brazil

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah, Taunton... you're making me feel homesick.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bailey: presume you were a regular at the Naval & Military, Taunton’s answer to Bridgwater…

    ReplyDelete