"Hello. Why is yur pub's name spelled "peculier", and not "peculiar"? Also, does this word "peculier" have to do w/ an old beer and/or pub back in England? Thank You in advance..."
- Recount54
The first and easiest answer to this poor reader's query is that it's not our pub. If it were, it would probably be named something far more obtuse such as "Point E".
The second stock (and easy) answer is that in medieval England, a peculier was a tax collector for the local church. It seems they were much more strict about contributions to the collection plate in those days. The pub was named for one of these pleasant folks. However, since I couldn't remember where I had heard that, I decided to do a little research. So I popped open a hops oriented research tool from the fridge, and settled down to do some web searching.
I started with the obvious, and went to www.m-w.com to look up peculier which, of course, it couldn't find. So, working on a hunch, I looked up peculiar instead.
Now, the interesting part here was the etymology section. It stated:
"Middle English peculier, from Latin peculiaris of private property, special, from peculium private property, from pecu cattle; akin to Latin pecus cattle."Clearly, peculier has something to do with beef. I was already getting somewhere: the pub was all about carnivores, a meat market; or this might refer to how one feels when packed in there on a weekend night.
Unfortunately for any of these theories, the next definition I stumbled onto, from Webster's unabridged dictionary, included with the notation of being English Canon Law, "A particular parish or church which is exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary." While this definition doesn't exactly fit what I had previously been told that peculier meant, it pretty much fit the bill for what the pub is, especially when considering that the booths are constructed from church pews.
As a last resort, the expert was asked. Apparently the name is simply based on Theakston Old Peculier. Although I already knew of the beer, I had failed to stumble across their site, which is chock full of history and other information.
Information I would need after my excessive bouts of research.
Besides wasting my time on the internet over the past year, I have had at least one beer related experience worth repeating.
It actually starts at what I thought would be the limits of my depravity, and then just proceeded to get worse. As a measure of how bad that is, it started at a Super Bowl party. To put this in perspective, keep in mind that I hate American Football. I think it's a senseless waste of time that symbolizes much of what's wrong with most things in this country. Any sport that has time-outs specifically for commercial breaks doesn't deserve to be called a sport anymore. I thought I was alone in this opinion until they started the XFL, and then it was immediately clear that I was not the only one with that thought; I just hadn't been quick enough to try and commercialize the concept.
With such feelings towards football, you might be wondering what I was doing at a Super Bowl party. I spent most of the night wondering that myself. However, that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the people who threw this shindig had made some arrangement with the bartenders for free beer for their attendees, once said attendees had paid some ridiculous sum at the door. These organizers were co-workers of a friend -- I had never met them before, and probably wasn't missing much since they were all lawyers. What these organizers had failed to account for was that some of their guests might be beer snobs.
I was faced with the Hobson's choice of Bud or Bud Light.
I stuck to my guns through the first quarter, and chose not to drink. As the quarter was winding up, I was forced to consider my options. I was already at a party commemorating a sport I couldn't stand, I was surrounded by people I didn't know, and those people were Lawyers. I finally gave in and had a Budweiser.
It was, not surprisingly, pretty tasteless. But at the same time, it was not as bad as most mass-produced American beers I've had. I did notice the fruity, apple-like flavors that other people have used as arguments as to why it's good -- I just didn't particularly care for them. I was mostly amused that America's Man's Beer would be fruity. I was also surprised by how amazingly light it was. I had quite a few during the last three quarters, and didn't even succeed in getting a buzz.
While I am maintaining my anti-Budweiser stance, I'm at least happy to have more information for doing so now. If any one has suggestions for bigoted opinions I can replace this one with now that I have more well-defined reasons for having said opinions, please email them to me.
-- phillip karlsson, brew guru
april 01, 2001