Overheard at the Oxygen Bar

We were talking about dogs, beer, and President George W.

Actually, we were talking about the other President George W.

Here’s an interesting comparison:

· Number of words in George Washington’s second Presidential Inaugural Address: 135

· Number of words in a recent Associated Press article bearing the headline “Pet Shop Owner Creates Beer for Dogs: 145.

The obvious conclusion is that there is more to say about beer for dogs.

George Washington brewed a pumpkin porter and also distilled whiskey, either of which might account for his having delivered the shortest inaugural address in U.S. history.

Among those captured during the Battle of Germantown in 1777 was a dog belonging to English General William Howe. Despite having lost the battle, George Washington returned Howe’s dog with a brief note. A draft copy of the note is in Alexander Hamilton’s handwriting, marking the only time in U.S. history that a future President and a future Secretary of the Treasury have written a note about a dog. It is not known whether General Howe’s dog sampled the pumpkin porter while in Washington’s custody, but it is not out of the question, since Washington’s own dogs were named Drunkard, Tipsy, Tippler, and Taster.

The name of General Howe’s dog is not known. The beer for dogs is called Kwispelbier, Kwispel being a Dutch word for wagging a tail.