"Thus you may see a dozen fish rising in one of the streams, and not be able to prevail upon one of them to look at a fly. ...Oh! my beloved brother of the rod, do you know the taste of beer—of bitter beer—cooled in the flowing river? ...Take, then, your bottle of beer, sink it deep, deep in the shady water, where the cooling springs and freshes are. Then, the day being very hot and bright, and the sun blazing upon your devoted head, consider it a matter of duty to have to fish that long, wide stream... and so, having indued yourself with high wading breeks, walk up to your middle and begin hammering away with your 20-foot flail. Fish are rising, but not at you. No; they merely come up to see how the weather looks, and what o'clock it is. So fish away; there is not above a couple of hundred yards of it, and you don't want to throw more than about two or three-and-thirty yards at every cast. It is a mere trifle. An hour and a half or so, good hard hammering will bring you to the end of it, and then—let me ask you avec impressement—how about that beer? Is it cool? is it refreshing? does it "gurgle, gurgle, and go down glug," as they say in Devonshire? Is it heavenly? is it Paradise, and all the Peris to boot? Ah! if you have never tasted beer under these, or similar circumstances, you have, believe me, never tasted it at all."
Beer

January 1, 1970