Product Description

Will Rogers once said he never met a man he didn't like. I feel the same about beer.

George Wendt and beer have shared a lot over the years: good times, great stories, useless trivia, and a successful show business career. In Drinking with George, Wendt invites readers to crack open a cold one and pull up a seat at the bar as he celebrates the indelible, intoxicating beverage.

Through personal stories and fascinating facts, Wendt delivers an ode to beer and all its irresistible peculiarities. In between spinning hilarious and frank tales of his own imbibing adventures -- from taking a first sip of his grandfather's Bud as a child in Chicago to a beer-fueled impromptu performance with Woody Harrelson and the U.S. Women's Synchronized Swimming Team -- he leaves no stone unturned in his quest to reveal and relish every detail about his favorite beverage.

What's the real difference between lager, stout, and ale? How do you convert your lady into a beer-lover? How many different ways are there to say "drunk"? What do you do when your beer is warm and you want to drink it now? Wendt answers all of these questions and more as he explores the vast cultural history of brews and tackles basic bar theory.

The next best thing to a barstool and a pint, Drinking with George is all the fun -- without the hangover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16721 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781439149584
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Actor Wendt is recognized world-wide for his role as Cheers barfly Norm Peterson. In this memoir, Wendt finds plenty of common ground with his televised alter ego, not just in his keen love for beer, but in a talent for funny, affectionate storytelling. Deftly weaving personal anecdote with beer lore, Wendt reminisces on a career built on his work playing a lush, and a personal life also largely defined by beer. Hysterical from start to finish, Wendt is also measured, humble and genuine. Stories of his time at Second City and his relationships with Woody Harrelson, Chris Farley, Farrah Fawcett and others are a goldmine for comedy fans. Wendt never strays far from his most trusted costar, beer, and aficionados will be impressed by his extensive, loving collection of trivia and history. Fans of the man, the myth, or the malt beverage will drink it up.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

It was customary among Chicago Irish Catholics in the 1950s to use children as beer caddies. Take my wife, Bernadette: When her grandfather's love for storytelling left his throat dry, he sent her out for more beer. She'd step out her back door, walk down an alleyway to the local tavern, and show the bartender a note from her grandfather. That Bernadette was an eleven-year-old with pigtails didn't faze anyone in the slightest -- the bartender simply handed her a couple of quarts of beer as if it was milk and sent her on her way.

Running out of beer was never a problem at my house -- the fridge was always stocked with cans of Budweiser. "Run along, Bobby," my own grandfather would shout from his favorite chair, "and fetch me a beer."

"Bobby" wasn't the result of too much afternoon drinking -- it was actually what people called me through most of my childhood. I was born George Robert Wendt III, which meant my father got to be the George in the family. I'd almost completely forgotten that my name was George until I heard a teacher calling it out on my first day of kindergarten. "I guess that's me," I finally replied. I like to think this kind of flexibility prepared me for later in life, when complete strangers started calling me "Norm."

After I'd retrieved the beer for my grandfather -- and opened the can with a church key -- I got my reward: a taste. I'll never forget the first time he let me try his beer, when I was maybe eight years old. Since then I've tossed back plenty of brews that are supposed to be better than Bud, but nothing's ever going to match that first sip. For some people, beer's an acquired taste. Not me. Right off the bat I thought I was drinking a little bit of heaven -- no mystery as to how the church key got its name.

Nowadays our grandparents would probably be accused of enabling alcoholism. But I've always suspected that babies are born loving beer. Bernadette's grandfather taught her twin brothers to walk by holding out a beer can. Maybe it's a regional thing: French babies might love wine, while Russian rugrats enter the world with a taste for vodka. I wouldn't know -- in Chicago, beer is pretty much synonymous with mother's milk.

There have been breweries in Chicago since the 1830s, when "Chicago" meant a few hundred settlers surrounded by corn and wigwams full of pissed-off Potawatomis. The settlement was eventually invaded, not by angry Native Americans but European immigrants, mostly German and Irish. The Germans brought lager and a drinking culture that stretched back centuries. The Irish brought their thirst. I'm either fortunate or cursed to have been born into both heritages.

My father's people were actually from Danzig, which is the same place that Poland calls Gdansk. It's been part of Poland for over a thousand years, except for the almost two hundred years it was part of Germany. So while my father's people called themselves Germans, I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I should be offended by Polish jokes.

Not that there was a lot of talk about the Old Country in my home -- all four of my grandparents were born in Chicago, or County Cook, in the vernacular of the South Side Irish. As a kid, the only thing I knew about my mother's people was that they were from Ireland. Years later, while planning a visit to her ancestral land, I asked her exactly where.

"Oh," she said, "Mayo, God help us."

"Oh," I said. "You mean County Mayo?"

"Maybe," she admitted. "I've just never heard it said without the 'God help us.' "

There are plenty of fine beers brewed in Ireland: Beamish, Harp, Kilkenny, Murphy's, and Smithwick's, to name a few. But when an Irishman (or woman) refers to "a proper pint," they're probably talking about Guinness. And the only way to appreciate a Guinness is to drink one pulled from the tap.

Unless you happen to live in Dublin, however, you're not going to find a proper pint. You may think you're drinking the real Guinness, but in the eyes of many Irish beer snobs, their sacred stout loses quality the farther away you get from the old brewery at St. James's Gate.

My first visit to Ireland was a short one -- an overnight trip to Belfast for an appearance on a local chat show. I made only one request of the show's producers: I had to have a proper pint of Guinness. "No problem," they assured me. " We'll take you out after the show."

We wrapped around eleven P.M., which also happens to be closing time for most Irish pubs, but the producers promised me that they knew a place that was open. We entered a bar that didn't look anything like the Irish pub in my mind's eye -- instead, a Liberace-clone played piano to screaming old ladies -- but I wasn't about to let the aesthetics interfere with my single-minded goal. "A pint of Guinness, please."

The bartender raised his hands apologetically. "We don't carry Guinness here."

"All right," I conceded. "How about a Murphy's?" No. "Harp?" No. I worked my way through every Irish beer I knew. The bartender just shook his head each time. "So what do you have?" I finally asked.

"Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light..."

Now don't get me wrong, I'll happily drink any of those beers at an All-American picnic or a barbecue, preferably from a tub filled with ice. But not on my first trip to Ireland. Fortunately, a helpful waiter noticed my frustration. "I might be able to get you a Guinness," he volunteered, sprinting across the street to a closing pub and returning with a couple of freshly poured glasses of the good stuff.

It was delicious, so much so that I later bragged about the experience to some of my Irish friends. They weren't exactly impressed. "In Belfast, you say? That's not a proper pint."

It wouldn't have mattered if I was in Kilkenny, Limerick, or Cork -- I had to be in Dublin to drink a real Guinness. I wouldn't find a reason to visit Dublin for several years, but when I did, I went straight for the teat, pulling a draft off a keg inside the brewery's company store. I also bought a postcard for my Irish friends, inscribing it with the words "This proper enough for you?"

I got drunk for the first time when I was sixteen, at the 1965 World's Fair in New York City, where I was visiting my sister, a hostess at the Illinois pavilion. During the day, the Fair was a testament to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe" and included the premiere of an animatronic Disney show called "It's a Small World." After midnight, once the mostly teenage staff was rid of the guests, the Fair became an international kegger. Party at the French pavilion! Party at the Japanese pavilion! I remember making a fool out of myself trying (unsuccessfully) to vault a hitching post at the Texas pavilion. Fortunately, my idiotic behavior escaped the notice of one of the other hostesses at the Illinois pavilion -- my future wife, Bernadette. Small world, indeed.

I brought my taste for beer back home with me. But for Catholic teenagers in 1960s Chicago like me, with zero interest in politics or activism, there weren't exactly a lot of opportunities to get wild and crazy. I spent the rest of the summer hanging out at Janson's, a drive-in at 99th and Western. It was a lot like American Graffiti, except instead of souped-up hot rods, the kids drove their parents' Plymouths.

One day my friend Terry Thulis and I got restless and wandered up the block to 100th Street, where we stumbled across a bar called Littleton's. It was your standard neighborhood "old man" bar, dark and musty. Neither of us looked like old men: I was your typical sixteen-year-old kid, while Terry, a late bloomer, couldn't have looked older than nine. But that didn't stop us from dreaming. "Maybe they'll serve us," I said.

We poked our heads inside. It was dark. Very dark. Bizarrely dark. As our eyes adjusted, we saw that the place was nearly empty except for a couple of grizzled drunks at the bar. I nudged Terry. "Should we?"

We tried to look casual as we strode to the bar. The bartender was an older guy, maybe seventy, with white hair and eyes set so deep that you could hardly see them. He hummed a happy tune as he stacked some glasses, and he greeted us warmly when he noticed we were there. "Oh, hello!"

"We'd like a couple of drafts," I said, hoping my voice wouldn't crack.

"Coming right up!"

A few seconds later, he deposited a pair of beers in front of us. I looked at Terry in stunned disbelief. We emptied our glasses as fast as we could...and asked for two more.

"Sure thing!" the bartender replied. Chipper fellow. But there was something weird about his eyes....

"George," Terry said, nudging me under the bar. "I think he's blind." He waved his hand toward the bartender. No reaction. I did the same. Still no reaction.

"I think you're right!" I said. I looked over at the two drunks at the bar, who clearly weren't blind. They were shaking their heads in disgust, universal sign language for "you little motherfuckers."

"So wait a minute," Terry whispered. "We have just found a bar, one block away from Janson's, with a blind bartender who will serve us beer?"

"We can't tell anyone," I whispered back. "Not a word!" We quickly made a pact to keep our newfound oasis a secret.

Our "secret" lasted about fifteen minutes. By the following week, Littleton's was overflowing with what used to be the Janson's crowd: dozens of bicycles parked in front, a hundred rowdy teenagers inside. My guess is that the two old drunks tipped off the cops, who showed up that weekend to bust up the party.

Everyone knows that beer is a social lubricant, but even scientists have trouble explaining why. ...

Customer Reviews

What a great read!
I am NOT a reader. that is why I video blog everything, I don't like to read and I don't read fast, it isn't my gig. I was very eager to read this book because seeing "Norm" brings me back to the days in the late 80's and early 90's watching Cheers, a show I never missed.

If you are looking for a book written by "Norm" about Cheers, this book is for you (but may I also recommend "Toasting Cheers"), if you are looking for a book that is about the lives and times of George Wendt, this book is also for you.

This book is an easy read, broken down into very simple sections (not paragraphs) and isn't so much "Drinking with George" but "Georges life and how drinking has always made it fun". From growing up as a kid, to the reasons he went to Notre Dame (tailgate parties baby!) to ocean adventures with Woody Harrelson, this book entertains at every turn (if you don't find yourself lauhging out loud with nobody around, something could be wrong with you, see a doctor)

This is an excellent coffee table piece or one to have next to your dad's recliner. I am buying a handful of them for family for Christmas. Highly recommended.

Erik Boles
[...]

RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "HEY NOOORRMMIIEE! HOW BOUTA BEEERRR???
This is a thoroughly "imbibing"...oops! Enjoyable memoir mixed with beer... of George Wendt... whom I and most of the world know as *NORM PETERSON* of "Cheers" fame. In fact when I went to pick this book up from the bookstore reserved desk I literally kept asking the clerk for "DRINKING WITH NORM"... and after a delay in finding the book... I had to laugh at myself because of the "Budweisian/Freudian" slip I un-sub-consciously made. As George/Norm shares his life story he intersperses real-life trivia regarding beers of all types... from all parts of the world. This is in addition to his actual life story which is truly more than interspersed with his own real-life experiences with beer. As George/Norm makes clear throughout this beer drinkers version of "On The Road"... he didn't have to do much acting to nail his character Norm on "Cheers".

After sharing with the readers all his pre-college drinking escapades which included finding a bar where he and a buddy could drink while still in high school... it so happened the bartender was blind... to fulfilling his Notre Dame graduate Father's dream of his son attending Notre Dame... in which his Father's graduation got him in... not his grades. Well... he sort of fulfilled his Dad's dream... he got into Notre Dame but was asked not to return after a "perfect" junior semester with a "O.O G.P.A. UNBLEMISHED BY EVEN THE SMALLEST SPECK OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVMENT." If they would have had a grade for pre-graduation beer consumption George/Norm would have had a 4.5 G.P.A.

What follows are multiple trips to Europe with enough beer consumed to offset any potential debt in foreign trade for centuries to come. He becomes part of the "Second City" acting group where along with meeting his future wife he consumed keg after keg of beer... and at intervals throughout are helpful tidbits such as "COLD BEER IN A MINUTE OR LESS"..."THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD BEER"... "MY FAVORITE BEERS FOR A CELEBRATION"... "MY FAVORITE WEDDING TOAST"... "HOW I LEARNED THE PERILS OF DRINKING AND DRIVING"... and countless other beer lover classics. One of my personal favorites that must be mentioned here individually is his list entitled: "MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED WAYS TO SAY THAT YOU'RE DRUNK". Here simply as an enticement for a potential reader... is a mere inkling of some of the gems in this book: numbers 61-81: NUKED/OBLITERATED/OFF THE WAGON/ON A BENDER/ON FIRE/ OUT OF IT/PICKLED/PIE-EYED/PIFFLED/PISSED/PLASTERED/PLOTZED/POTTED/PUT ONE ON/ REEKED/REELING/RIPPED/ROCKED/RUINED/RUMMY/SAUCED.

The only slightly disappointing part of the book is that despite eleven years on "Cheers"... considering how much fun material and experiences there must be from over a decade of *NOOORRRMMMM!* there's very little shared. But I guess since his entire life as George was really a life of Norm... life certainly imitates art. This is a must read for every beer lover.

The ultimate beer drinker
George Wendt, it seems is really Norm; as he says in this beer/biography, no one is that good of an actor. This book is both a biography and a guide to George's world of beer.
George gives his life story interspersed with beer information, for example: What is the world's strongest beer? As usual education is good for you and you can learn much in this study; the difference between American and European beers or how to survive a bar fight. It's everything you would want to know or didn't know you wanted to know about beer (and about George Wendt, who seems to be a good guy).
It would make a perfect gift for a beer lover, for the humor and the facts.
Reading this is more than a smile and a giggle it is a belly laugh.