GR translation: potato-mash lobotomy/liquid brain damage

[Mike Jing]

V527.40-528.5, P536.38-537.1-2   Our captain, Frau Gnahb, heads into
the Greifswalder Bodden, to comb the long firths for her quarry. After
an hour (comical bassoon solos over close-ups of the old recreant
guzzling some horrible fermented potato-mash lobotomy out of a
jerrican, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, belching) of fruitless
search, our modern-day pirates head out to sea again, and up the
eastern coast of the island.

V568.33-41, P578.26-35   Slothrop waits hidden behind the Roland, a
particularly humorless, goggle-eyed, curly-headed, pinch-waisted
specimen. With Slothrop is an arsenal of fireworks and his assistant
Fritz, who’s about 8, and a Wilhelm Busch original. Slothrop is a
little nervous, unaccustomed as he is to pigherofestivals. But Fritz
is an old hand, and has thoughtfully brought along a glazed jug of
some liquid brain damage flavored with dill and coriander and
distilled, unless Haferschleim means something else, from oatmeal.
       “Haferschleim, Fritz?” He takes another belt, sorry he asked.

Does lobotomy/brain damage allude to the effect of the fermented
drinks, or something else altogether?
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l