Named beers

For quite a while now I have, in certain company, semi-regularly brought up the topic of named beers. That is to say that most beers (actually any alcoholic drink really) have a name -- perhaps yet undiscovered -- which describes them more than just using a number. So more expressively than just "the first beer", and conveying more information than just order. For example, the first beer of the day, if taken at 9am to battle a hangover, is clearly a "straightener" -- whereas if taken at 5pm at the start of what you know is going to be a big session, well that's a "loosener". (If taken at about 1pm on the 2nd day of a music festival, it's normally both)

I think they all end in -er too, or at least I want(ed) them to. I can't remember the terms I and others have come up with in the past, but that's OK, because the reason I'm writing this isn't to publicise them. No, the reason I'm writing this is because today I have brought into work a desk calendar.

The desk calendar is from Schott's Miscellany. It's January 9th, but rather than just rip off the first 8 days I thought I'd have a look at them. This is the entry for Tuesday January 6th, 2009.

------BELGIAN DRINKING LEGENDS------

In the 18thC, it was said that Belgian laborers spent a quarter of their wages on drink-- on ordinary days they took 6 drams, on festal days more. These drams were named:

The Worm-killer......................5.30 AM The Digester............................2.00 PM
The Eye-opener.......................8.00 AM The Soldier..............................5.00 PM
The Whip................................11.00 AM The Finisher.............................7.30 PM