The Ex-ale-tation Of Ale, An Old English Song

But now, so they say, beer bears it away,
The more is the pity, if right might prevail;
For with this same beer came in heresy here,
The old Catholic drink is a good pot of ale.

And physic will favour ale as it’s bound,
And be against beer both tooth and nail;
They send up and down, all over the town,
To get for their patients a pot of good ale.

Their aleberries, cawdles, and possets each one,
And syllabubs made at the milking pail,
Although they be many, beer comes not in any,
But all are composed with a pot of good ale;

And in very deed, the hop’s but a weed,
Brought over ‘gainst law, and here set to sale ;
Would the law were removed, and no more beer brewed,
But all good men betake them to a pot of good ale.

But to speak of killing, of that I’m not willing,
For that, in a manner, were but to rail;
But beer hath its name ’cause it brings to the bier,
Therefore welfare, say I, to a pot of good ale.

Too many, I wis, with their death proved this,
And, therefore (if ancient records do not fail),
He that first brewed with hop was rewarded with a rope,
And found his beer far more bitter than ale,” etc., etc.