Beer Infinity Beer, Brewing & Beyond
| One of my regular tipsters, BB, was taking advantage of the New Yorker’s momentary open archives when he found this remarkable article from 1940 on McSorley’s Old Ale House in 1940. McSorley’s had already been open 86 years (it’s been another 74 and the place is still open). It’s a fly-on-the-wall story, panning around the old place and zooming in from time to time on a few historical photographs. It gives you such a rich sense of a different time.
It is equipped with electricity, but the bar is stubbornly illuminated with a pair of gas lamps, which flicker fitfully and throw shadows on the low, cobwebby ceiling each time someone opens the street door. There is no cash register. Coins are dropped in soup bowls—one for nickels, one for dimes, one for quarters, and one for halves—and bills are kept in a rosewood cashbox. It is a drowsy place; the bartenders never make a needless move, the customers nurse their mugs of ale, and the three clocks on the walls have not been in agreement fo … |
Source: Beervana
Read the full article here.
