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Innocent Aussie Abroad : With a degree in Strine, a stolen Department of Defence swag on his back and waving an early Team Australia flag , Peter Burleigh about to leave Australia in 1969 on a mission to the Mother Country to teach the Poms that we are cultured colonials who can quickly master foreign lingo, including English. Burleigh's latest dispatch , translated from Swahili , clearly shows he has a way with languages ...
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Travelling through France on its 7500 km
of canals takes you into a myriad of small towns. None of them are prospering
and only a few are without economic stress. For example, the town we are in has
a Pizza van parked in the town square on Tuesday nights – for the rest of the
week there’s nothing…but a few years ago there were two restaurants, a hotel
and a Trattoria.
Better see these towns now because they are fast
disappearing The local shops have been bled white by the huge Hypermarkets
(Gerry Harvey calls them ‘category killers’ and he should know). Increasing
centralization is bleeding towns of young people, so they are searching for
things which will attract visitors.
Some say it’s the homogenising influence
of the EU which has forced French governments to withdraw tax and grant support for village industries. Yes, we
lament the death of small towns in Australia but in France these places
produced unique local produce; cheese, recipes, breads, chickens with black
legs, red currant jelly with pips removed by goose quills, preserves that were
not found anywhere else in the country – a whole bunch of appealing
idiosyncrasies that simply can’t be reproduced by an industrial process.
FLAT BEER MUSEUM
How delightful therefore is a visit the
town of Stenay, not far north of Verdun in northern France, where I
discover its primary point of difference is its “Beer Museum” or ‘European
Musee de Biere’. Being a fan of eccentricity, I’m the sort of person who will
keenly visit such a museum but unfortunately today is Monday so it’s closed -
like the rest of France.
Monday closing can stretch into Tuesdays
and other combinations of days and weird opening hours. Combine the French love
of strikes with their unpredictable business hours and you have no idea whether
scheduled trains or buses or planes will get you to where you want to go, and
no idea whether you can buy a drink or a sandwich when you get there.
But no
matter, this is France and you’re expected to be patient. Eventually you get to
like the quirky idea of what passes for efficiency and you relax into it…but it
does train you to lower your expectations and travel less, unless you’re
walking.
The locked and shuttered Beer Museum
itself is poignantly located in the musty and deserted spaces of a defunct
military food depot and malt house*, where the enthusiastic caretaker Monsieur
Unintelligible unofficially guides me into the cleaner’s cupboard and
ultimately to the more philosophical aspects of the Histoire de Biere (the
drinking aspects of which I have already mastered).
My connection with the Monsieur is informative.
He and I do not wholly understand one another, but have a mutual understanding
of the complex subject of beer. Monsieur U, being of the Gallic persuasion
(that is, resistant to change), tends to ignore the logic of people who speak
foreign languages, but we understand each other sufficiently well.
He seems not
to resent the fact that I speak English, the dominant and most elegant language
on the planet, and does not deliberately distort my meaning. He takes his job
seriously. He won’t allow me to enter but will do his best to pass the Museum
Experience to me verbally.
On the following topics, our conversation goes like this:
1: Dry beers of the 1750s
Me (speaking in French): “Je comprenhend votre Bieres from the demi-1700s have sufferez le
drought as bad as anything notre experienceons in Coober Pedy. Through the ajar
fenetre, je espy le dust at the derierre.”
English translation: “This beer from 1750 has
evaporated in its bottles. I can see the residue. Not much good if you’re
thirsty, mate. Was there a drought that year? It was hot in Coober Pedy too,
especially in 1750.”
M. Unintelligible’s reply in English: “My cup of beer contains deceased geography. How you say? Nitty-gritty,
ha ha.”
2: How to Choose the Right
Cheese with the Beer.
Me (speaking in French): “Le
Frankinsenese love le fromage avec le Bier. Quelle cheese de fromage is le most
favoured? Je desiree try the cheese blue avec les varicose veins.”
English translation: “I hear the French like to taste a good cheese with a
good beer. Which do you recommend? I myself like Blue-vein cheeses.”
M. Unintelligible replies in English:
"They live in my nose since my Father’s Christmas."
3: Avoiding beer-based laundry challenges.
Me (in French): “Le propensitee to get le stains du biere
on mon underdaks est un concern. Quelle action deux cleanez votre jocks?”
English translation : “When I drink beer I drool on my shirt and pants. What advice can
you offer?”
M. Unintelligible replies in English: "I
have one thousand and eighteen metres of tallness."
4: What is the difference
between dry beer?
Me (speaking in French): “Les
biers sec avez un characteristic of a drought dans la bouche. D’agree?”
Translation: "The tongue of my
washing machine stays moist even in a desert* (In written form this may appear
as ‘..in a dessert.’)".
M. Unintelligible replies in English: "Ice
cubes are an anathema to beer especially if they are liquidated."
5: Exploring the Concord between France and Australia.
Me (speaking in French): " Voulez-vous votre ‘beer wench’ se coucher
avec moi ce soir?"
Translation: "Is one of your vaginas
available this evening?"
M. Unintelligible replies in English: "Fuck
off !"
In my further attempts to understand beer as a pivotal element of
European culture, I turn to The Oxford
Companion to Beer, page 887. Its entries shed light on such topics as pub games, food
pairings and the development of beer styles.
There are vivid accounts of how our drinking traditions have changed throughout history, and how these traditions vary in different parts of the world, from Japan to Mexico, New Zealand, and Brazil, among many other countries whose names elude me.
The
pioneers of beer-making are the subjects of mind-numbing biographical
entries, and the legacies these pioneers have left behind in the form of the
world's most popular beers, breweries and pretentious museums, are recurrent
themes throughout the book.
Relentlessly
packed with information, this comprehensive resource also includes thorough
appendices (covering beer festivals, beer magazines, and more), conversion
tables, and an exciting index. However, if you’re looking for more detail on
the Stenay Museum you’ll be pissed. Off, that is.
In the next in this
series, I will write about alternatives to beer (unlikely as that may sound), including fermented Yak urine and Elderberry Wine.This
week’s “International Beer Shrine” is
the Roy de la Biere Pub, 19 Place de Halle, 08200 Sedan, France. Phone 03 24 29
01 74. Their speciality? Beer flambe!See
you there.
***As a footnote to the beer connection, the town of Stenay had also
belonged to the husband of Mathilde of Tuscany who is indelibly connected to
Orval Abbey. When her husband, Godefroy the Hunchback was murdered he left his
possessions, including Stenay to his nephew Godefroy of Bouillon who would
capture Jerusalem in 1099 during the 1st Crusade.
To finance his participation
he was forced to sell the town to the Bishop of Verdun. From the Museum’s
website; check it out! While Godefroy the Hunchback was apparently extremely
fond of beer – hence his nickname ‘Godefroy the Red-eyed Hunchback’
- he found a better use for his time by soothing around in his Dining Hall
sampling the product, rather than sitting in a smelly brewery staring at metal
vats of fermenting hops.
Hangover Note : For some annoying reason , the fonts in this post have been tipsy, enough to drive one to drink .
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Passport/mug shot photo of Burleigh, wearing a stolen Army slouch hat with a moulting emu feather , shows him proudly displaying a personal reference and letter of introduction from the renowned hanging premier of Victoria , Henry Bolte , declaring Pete is fair dinkum , a china plate , and would like to be in on the food bag like youse. Kind hearted Burleigh has a food parcel for young Prince Charles under his sweaty armpit . He is also revealed as the acclaimed mysterious public convenience artist, Basil. There is also mention of a subversive publication , Broadside, quickly closed down by the Australian thought police and the Melbourne Club .
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