• The North American Public House
  • The Pub List
  • A Pint of Your Best - The Beer List
  • Is It Really a Pub?
  • British Cars
  • The MG Car Catalog
  • The MG Encyclopedia
  • Bits and Bobs
  • The Reading Room
    • The Educated Drinker
    • The Pub Crawl
    • Good Food and Good Beer
    • MGs and Other British Iron
    • The Beer Historian
    • The IPA Diaries
  • The Old Sod
  • A Belgian Beer Journey
  • The Pub Blog
  • Let's Chat
  • The Mumbo Jumbo
  • Menu

The Bowsing Ken

The Bowsing Ken - Ancient English slang for a Public House, Ale House or Gin Shop - Lovely! Bowsing means Boozing and a Ken is a House - simple. There are plenty of Bowsing Kens in North America, and we will try to visit every one. Know a decent Bowsing Ken - Drop us a line. Cheers!
  • The North American Public House
  • The Pub List
  • A Pint of Your Best - The Beer List
  • Is It Really a Pub?
  • British Cars
  • The MG Car Catalog
  • The MG Encyclopedia
  • Bits and Bobs
  • The Reading Room
    • The Educated Drinker
    • The Pub Crawl
    • Good Food and Good Beer
    • MGs and Other British Iron
    • The Beer Historian
    • The IPA Diaries
  • The Old Sod
  • A Belgian Beer Journey
  • The Pub Blog
  • Let's Chat
  • The Mumbo Jumbo

A Little Poem on the Subject of Tavern Signs

October 20, 2022

From the book “ Tavern Anecdotes and Sayings; Including the Origin of Signs, and Reminiscences Connected With Taverns, Coffee-houses, Clubs, ets, etc…” by Mr. Charles Hindley (Tinsley Brothers, London, 1875)

Prev / Next

Thanks Hank Hinton

Drop
Us a
Line...

Find an out of the way pub... discover a new English ale just imported to the US...spot a cheeky little Spitfire poking its nose out of a garage? Drop us a line - we would love to hear from you - Cheers!

“24 hours in a day,
24 beers in case,
Coincidence?”
— Steven Wright
“Time is never wasted when you’re wasting time.””
— Catherine Zandonella
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
— Ernest Hemingway
“Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”
— Martin Luther
“He was a wise man who invented beer.”
— Plato
“Whisky is liquid sunshine.”
— George Bernard Shaw
“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so?
There’s a support group for that.
It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the BAR.”
— Drew Carey

MG Owners Club
Click Here

“Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.”
— Louis Pasteur
“Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.”
— Frank Sinatra

This is important - join CAMRA as soon as you can.
Click here

“Fell in love with a beautiful blonde once. Drove me to drink. And I never had the decency to thank her.”
— W.C. Fields

MG Car Club
Click here

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”
— Frank Zappa
“I always take Scotch whiskey at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it.”
— Mark Twain
“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.”
— Henny Youngman

McGoohan
The Wonder Dog!

“In a study, scientists report that drinking beer can be good for the liver. I’m sorry, did I say ‘scientists’? I meant Irish people.”
— Tina Fey

Back when it was a Formula One race.

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“I’ve never been drunk, but often I’ve been overserved.”
— George Gobel

Great group - check them out here.

“There is no such thing as a bad beer. It’s that some taste better than others.”
— Bill Carter

Click here - you will be glad you did.

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.”
— Kinglsey Amis
“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”
— Dean Martin
“Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive — or worse.”
— Kingsley Amis
“You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.”
— Tom Waits
“War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.””
— William Faulkner

The Queen.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe
Rain may fall, and wind may blow
And many miles be still to go
But under a tall tree will I lie
And let the clouds go sailing by”
— J.R.R.Tolkien
“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.”
— Raymond Chandler
“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
— Samuel Johnson