The Woman Who Kept Orwell Supplied in Beer

The good thing about having your own website is that no one can curtail you when you feel like going on a flight of fancy. This is one of those posts. Almost none of you would know that I am a huge George Orwell aficionado. Don’t even try to stump me over facts about his life and work because I know it better than you. Really. (In particular don’t try to convince me Orwell wasn’t a democratic Socialist, because you are straight up wrong.)

So imagine my delight when Martyn Cornell of Zythophile uncovers the women who served Orwell take-home jugs of Mild during his tenure in Wallington, England. You can read his post about it here. As soon as I mention it, I know most of your eyes glaze over with boredom at the thought of a post about Orwell’s drinking habits.

But don’t be so quick to judge. Our good friend Orwell (birth name: Eric Blair) wrote one of the most pointed and valuable essays about pubs I have ever read. He wrote of his perfect pub. He called it The Moon Under Water and described it in tantalizing detail, only to reveal at the end that it did not exist (you can read the essay online here). This is a man who loved his beer and the culture that surrounded it.

This past year a brewpub in Victoria opened calling itself The Moon Under Water. I have not been there, but it had better be a stunningly great pub to take on such an exulted moniker. While I wish all possible success for them (as they are small craft brewers) I wish they had named their pub something else – as their version can only be a pale imitation of Orwell’s vision.

Orwell understood the importance of beer. I remember one memorable scene from 1984 which is set in a Prole pub where an old man complains about the size of beer servings under Ingsoc – arguing essentially against the metric system. The irony is that he is grousing about a handful of millilitres and doesn’t even know it.

Actually pubs show up often in Orwell’s work. This is a man who appreciated a good pint, I suspect. Which makes the discovery of his barkeep even more interesting (for guys like me). The woman who served him his beer contends he drank Mild, which many men of the era would. He mostly took it away to drink at home (a precursor to the growler system of many craft brewers today). I also imagine him grumbling about some trivial matter as he picked up the jug – he could be an acerbic and cantankerous kind of guy.

I don’t really have a point for this post, other than highlighting a lovely bit of historic trivia that excites me. No, wait, that isn’t true. I do have a point. Orwell represents an era in beer that was local, informal and accommodating. It was integrated into daily life. A man would walk to the pub and take home a jug of beer to drink over supper. Or he might amble his way over after supper for a couple of pints and a rousing argument over politics. That is missing in our homogeneous, macro-brewed culture. There is no place to go to get local beer and sit and create community. We have a handful of great beer locations, but that is not nearly what Orwell envisioned with his Moon Under Water essay.

And so maybe the resurrection of his former barmaid should inspire us to recreate what Orwell once had. Or at least it should.