Beer, Bars and Burgers

Its another wet saturday afternoon on Beacon Hill, in early April.  The wall has a hand painted image of dog, lying on its back, with a drink being poured into it by what looks like a drunken colonial patriot, and alongside is written:

“Sevens: A Beacon Hill Pub.  

Here on the shores of the fetid swamps of Boston’s Back Bay , Otis Brewster Hogbottom III of the Beacon Hill irregulars the most revolting troop in the Continental Army, expired of an excess of Patriotic Spirits and he was promptly interned inan outhouse on this spot, 7/7/1777, Let him RIP.”

signed Omer ’91.

There is a couple playing chess at the table in the front bay window, the chess board is in the table, the pieces from behind the bar.  A good selection of American rock playing, and occasionally reggae, and the tv is showing baseball - the Los Angeles Angels vs the Boston Red Sox.  No american bar is without at least one tv;  even those that have restaurants, most often showing sport, usually baseball (Red Sox), if not baseball then basketball (Celtics) or ice hockey (Bruins).   They sell Bratwurst and Chowder, but this is primarily about Beer.  The Sam Adams tastes good here!

A sunny Friday evening in Harvard.  Charlies Diner, juke box rock and roll, red leatherette seat covers, stools at a bar that runs the whole length of one wall, along the other are booths and tables with formica tops, black and white tiles on the wall, and a mirror above, along the length of the wall.  Beer, burgers and budweiser neon signs in the window.  Buddy Holly look alike waiter, black glasses, black t shirt and trousers.  There’s an outside and an upstairs all crammed on this Friday night, the music and conversation loud and american, all age groups, children to people in their 90s.  In the corner another circular neon sign, off white, written across it in electric blue,  ‘blue moon’.  Ceiling fan turning slowly overhead - it feels like a movie.  There is even a burger on the menu for just $5.

Plymouth Massachusets.  The Mayflower replica is a couple of blocks away on the seafront.  Round a corner, down a quiet residential street is the British Beer Company.  Everything British (and, it appears, English) - on the wall are pictures of John Lennon and Joe Strummer, bagpipes in the corner, English Beer from the pumps;  London Pride, Fullers ESB.  it is packed, on the tv is ..... baseball, otherwise this could be a small pub in England.  The town is quaint, with clapperboard wooden houses, old, reserved - even with the Harley Davison bikers cruising Water Street along the sea front, by the the Mayflower.       The contrast with Boston is stark.  

The American story starts in Boston with the revolution -  not in Plymouth - the Pilgrims were English, after all.