A Book & A Beer – 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

I have been on a classics kick of late. Read some Dickens, Wells and Stevenson and now onto Jules Verne and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. This is going to be a weird admission but I always thought leagues meant depth, when in fact it means length of the voyage.

This book really is light on action and character development and is pretty much just straight up geography and descriptions of underwater life. The lead character of M. Arronax is just about as milquetoast as they come and Captain Nemo just up and disappears for stretches of time. I did like how Verne described the functionality of the boat which was surprisingly close to what a submarine now does (with some exceptions of course). But overall, this screams movie adaptation where the sights could be fully displayed and actors creating more dimensional characters.

Oyster stout would be one choice or a kelp beer if you want to be truly obvious but I would suggest finding beers from around the world and matching that part of the Nautilus voyage with a beer from nearby.