pintday.org We rant so you don’t have to.

Observe

Be born again. It won’t be so traumatic this time.

ev · November 13, 2001 · Republished July 21, 2009

It has come to our attention that not everyone who reads pintday.org is maintaining the sabbath as they should. To clear up any confusion regarding the proper manner in which to partake, we have put together the following How-To:

1. Pick a bar, or have a bar pick you.
2. Sit down, take off your jacket, and grab a beer mat.
3. Order your pint, according to the following order of preference:
   1. In-house brewed real ale
   2. In-house brewed ale
   3. Real ale
   4. Real ale, not hand-drawn
   5. Local craft beer
   6. Guinness
   7. Any Belgian national brand
   8. Gin
4. Wait patiently for your beer and the arrival of the remaining members of the congregation, if any.
5. Make productive small talk about the mechanics of your day or week. No ranting is permitted until the pints arrive.
6. Politely thank the nice waitress or boy-waitress for your pint.
7. Now that your pint has arrived:
   1. Appreciate its fullness as it rests momentarily, resplendent on its beer mat.
   2. Observe its rich, slightly murky colour and genuinely foamy head.
   3. Pick it up. There’s nothing like the heft of a full pint: the potential, the pleasure, the satisfaction, it’s essential Tuesdayness.
   4. Smell it. Don’t sip! Inhale deeply. Close your eyes if it helps, or if you’re of that persuasion.
   5. Have a taste. Don’t sip! Take a nice, long, mouth-filling pull. Don’t swallow! Hold it in your mouth and notice the feel. Sense the natural carbonation on your tongue. (That would be carbonation due to a secondary fermentation of residual sugars in the serving vessel, not from the artificial injection of a blanket of carbon dioxide as a preservative. Obviously.) While it’s in your mouth, take a moment to notice the smell again. Half your sense of taste is dithered by the smell. Are you getting the full flowery flavour of the hops as they work their way through your nasal passages? If not, we recommend ordering a more significantly dry-hopped pint next time. If none are available, we recommend patronizing a more significantly dry-hopped bar in the future. If you don’t like dry-hopped beer, or are afflicted by some inexplicable aversion to IBUs, we recommend home brewing for a few years, as that eventually makes hop heads out of everyone. But we digress.
   6. Swallow! Man! How long were you going to hold that beer in your mouth? It’s for drinking, not gargling.
   7. Don’t you love how bitter that is, and how it lingers with you at the back of your throat? You should be able to taste a good pint right through until the following Tuesday morning. (Craft brewers: can you hear this? Crank up the dry-hopping, Warp Factor 9.)
   8. This is the easy part: Drink as many beer as it takes to feel human again. If you have trouble thinking this is easy, then we can only recommend you invest some time in becoming a little more free. One good way to do this would be to visit the scrolls and read every article archived there. We think it’s sound life advice, and even if you don’t agree, it will hone your senses of cynicism, irreverence and satire. And that can’t be all bad.
   9. Remember to savour the last sip. Your pint is a compleat experience, and should be enjoyed in its entirety. You wouldn’t eat nine-tenths of a Eucharist, would you? So just make sure the bus-boy, or girl–bus-boy doesn’t grab the glass with that last little bit in it. Be vigilant.
8. Engage in the weekly discourses. All observers are guaranteed an unrestricted five minute period in which they are permitted to rage about their day at work, their week at school, traffic, the dickheads in Ottawa, or whatever comes up. This is the cathartic component of Pint Day. Do not omit this step. If you’re observing alone, write these out. You have been warned: skip this at your own risk. (The Pint Day Saints absolve themselves of any responsibility for your existence whether you do this or not.)
9. Done? Time to go home? Work tomorrow? Or maybe a big assignment or exam? Go ahead. Be free and productive, but not before remembering to tip well. Your financial situation doesn’t come in to play, and neither does the quality of service. (If you observe regularly, the latter should never be a problem. The former may be.) In other words, shelve your pathetic excuses, and lay out. As Live once so elegantly put it, “Leave some change behind.” If you can afford to drink, you can afford to be courteously served.

See you next Tuesday. We’ll be here.

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