In the wine-growing
districts of Bavaria beer-drinking is reduced to about one-fourth of the
Munich standard, and so we may suppose that the removal of all wine from
the capital might add one-fourth to the beer-drinking as given
above,--at least, it takes the place of one-fourth of that which would
be the aggregate of the beer-drinking.
The government has a commission for the examination of the quality of
the beer; and, indeed, aside from this, the popular taste is not a bad
test in this respect. There is an error in the lines of Prior,--
"When you with High-Dutch Herren dine,
Expect false Latin and stummed wine:
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think."[C]
The most common manifestation of Bavarian beer-drinking is a perpetual
tasting, and not a pouring-down of the liquid a glass at a time. These
people seem to have the art of doing this thing so gradually and quietly
that the soothing liquor passes gently into the circulation, and
produces an effect very different from that which would result from
swallowing it a glass at a draught, enabling them to drink without
visible effect a much larger quantity in the aggregate.
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