I’m hosting the May 2025 edition of The Session,¹ and I’d like to take us out of the ‘real world’ for a moment to share the beers and pubs in art and fiction that have grabbed our attention, whether they were sublime, surprising, moving, amusing, somehow significant, or symbolic of something — or awkward and out of place, if you like. Gather your thoughts, or keep an eye out over the next few weeks, and let’s enjoy them together at the end of the month.

The most recent example I’ve got is that painting above, which stopped me in my tracks as made my way through the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My feeble cellphone camera photo, of course, doesn’t do it justice but the lighting was captured perfectly; the daylight breaking through but not destroying the cozy dim of the tavern with its cross-section of drinkers — one solitary, one pair, one group. It’s half a world and over a hundred year removed from me, but I have been all of those people at different times, and I feel as if I can hear that room from here.

I’m always interested in how beer and pubs are represented in the wider culture; it’s why I catalogue references in the crossword, and collected examples from games I’ve played. Other writers have introduced me to some excellent examples: Alan McLeod shared a poem that’s stuck with me for years, Boak & Bailey always keep an eye out, too — and I’m haunted by a now-lost post I loved that tried to nail down which “ice cold beer” The Kinks had in mind for Sunny Afternoon. So let’s have more, please.

Feel free to interpret “art” and “fiction” as broadly as you like.² Film, TV, music, games, poetry, prose, painting, a particularly pointed piece of graffiti; whatever. Don’t feel obliged to pick a single favourite. A random grab-bag of examples would be wonderful — though a carefully-selected set that illustrates a trend or theme is of course welcome, too. I’d even be curious to hear about a beer or pub that came to you in a dream, if it felt like it captured something about its subliminal force in culture or on your own specific consciousness.

On or about Friday May 30th, post your example(s) and a few words — The Session has been great for resurrecting dormant blogs, but you’re also welcome to contribute elsewhere on social media — and let me know by commenting here, via the contact form, or with a tag/dm on any of the doomscrolls listed in the sidebar here.

And if you have an idea for the next round and are keen to host in June, let me know that, too.

1. A long-running and recently-rebooted monthly series in which bloggers and posters of other kinds collectively respond to a given prompt, however it moves them.
2. My only proviso is that it’s the product of conscious thought. I’m interested in that interaction with culture and psychology, so machine-generated examples aren’t what I’m after here. At least, not until I can meaningfully have a beer and a chat with a robot.