In 1988 I traveled to Oxford, England, to present a paper at an international conference on the Holocaust. I won't bother you with details about the conference, because what I want to talk about is the beer. It was the high point of the "Real Ale Movement", sponsored by CAMRA (campaign for real ale).
Real ale is cask-conditioned beer. The beer finishes its fermenting in its cask and then is extracted at the bar with a hand pump. The result is an almost flat beer (only a thin bit of foam) consumed at "cellar temperature," which effectively means room temperature. When "well-kept", this is pure beer essence. The hop aroma is pronounced and every flavor God intended is available in the brew.
I fell head over heels in love with it, drinking more than my physician would recommend at the White Horse and the Turf pubs, and other Oxford venues. When I returned to the U.S., I felt a deep sense of loss. I frequently had a dream where some bearded guy was pumping out ale into my glass, only to wake up just as he handed it to me.
Returning to England after almost twenty-five years, I wondered whether the experience could possibly live up to my memory. It didn't, of course. That is not to say that it wasn't wonderful. I drank a pint of 'Old Golden Hen' in London at a pub called The Bag O' Nails. I would be content to drink that, once a day, for the rest of my days if fate allowed it. I also drank a lot of fine ale at The Prince of Wales, the pub I adopted down Church Street in Oxford. It was all very fine, but the original magic was lacking.
One reason for the difference in my impressions was that in 1988, really good beer was rare in these United States. That changed dramatically in short order with the rise of the brew pub (where beer is brewed and sold on the premises) and the microbrewery. Very few of these establishments offer cask conditioned ale, though I have sampled some of that at the Goose Island brew pub in Chicago and in a pub in D.C. Almost all brew pub and microbrewery ale is served under pressure. Still, the gap between good beer in the U.S. and good beer in Britain is happily very narrow today.
Another reason for the loss of magic was obviously that an idea held for decades in the mind usually loses its connection with reality. That leads me to my experiences in Spain. England was a side trip down memory lane (and through the Churchill War Rooms and Westminster Abbey).
In Madrid I switched to drinking wine. If you toss a tennis ball down one of the winding streets leading to the Puerta del Sol (the central plaza of Madrid), it will probably bounce off the tables outside several small restaurants. Madrileños love to eat out under the open sky and no wonder. The temperatures were in the eighties (or low nineties) with little humidity and always a pleasant breeze. Traveling in a group of five, we could get several plates of delicious and inventive tapas and a couple of bottles of good house wine for about 20 euros ($25) per happy person. I could put up with that for a while.
While we were there, I managed to observe so good old fashion Spanish protests. One was a protest of miners. The other was an anti-austerity protest, inspired by Spain's attempt to get the solvent and not quite so insolvent nations of Europe to bail out her banks. Both struck me as protests against reality.
The protests also struck me as evidence of the distortion and heartbreak created by old and isolated ideas. Europe's elites have been pursuing European Unity for so long that they have largely forgotten why. In the course of pursing that dream, they responded to every challenge by isolating the cherished idea from reality instead of adjusting it to circumstances. The result is the dilemma in which Spain finds itself now, and which the rest of Europe cannot find a way to resolve or escape. I doubt that the Euro can be saved but whether it can or cannot, there will be unfortunate consequences not only for Europe but for the world economy. Ideas have consequences.
For another model on how to manage a civilization, look to the Iffley Church. While enjoying Oxford, I stayed at the Hawkwell House, a lovely hotel in Iffley village. A short walk from the Hawkwell brings you past The Prince of Wales and then along the Thames into Oxford center. Adjust the route a little and you come to the Iffley Church. Part of it was built about a hundred years after the Norman Conquest. Over the centuries, the building was extended to accommodate larger congregations. When we visited it, I noted a post on the wall recruiting youngsters for something that appeared to be the English version of vacation Bible school.
The Iffley Church is an example of a very old idea that persists to this day because generation after generation of worshipers met the times they lived in with imagination and courage. Whatever you think of their theology, they were not isolated from reality. Whatever its future may be, the Iffley Church still lives and breathes. May there always be an England and a Spain.
Ps. I probably should add, in the interests of full disclosure, that I bought a Cuban cigar with an American credit card in Oxford and smoked it on the balcony of a Spanish hotel. I figure I was supporting both the people's revolution and globalization. Call me well rounded.
So glad you enjoyed our British beer - we too have had a comeback from a few foul, mass-produced ales in the 1970s and 80s and now have more than 1,000 micro-breweries.
If you want to follow our progress, check out www.hand-pumped.com for all things British real ale...
Posted by: Jim Oldfield | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 at 06:09 AM