A History of Beer and Brewing 2004 - Hornsey PDF
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A HISTORY OF BEER
AND BREWING
IAN S. HORNSEY
Founder, Nethergate Brewery Co. Ltd., Clare, Suffolk
ISBN 0-85404630-5
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Preface
...
v111
Preface
Prefuce
ix
that my choice is somewhat subjective, and will not meet with universal
agreement by those (past and present) in the industry.
It is a great irony that, just as the two World Wars during the 20th
century resulted in the permanent rearrangement in the way in which
British beer was brewed and sold, and thus became of significance to
brewing historians, so a major conflict at the beginning of the 21St
century was to prove of equal importance to them. By the time that this
book is published the war in Iraq will be over, but many of that countrys
artefacts relating to the early days of brewing will have been lost to us
forever; something for which we shall all be much the poorer.
Contents
vii
xvi
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
How Might Fermented Beverages Have Originated?
Some General Definitions and Musings
References
1
9
30
Chapter 2
32
Ancient Egypt
Introduction
The Grains
Grain Cultivation and Processing
Beer as Compensation for Labour
Beer Export and Import
Bouza
Brewing Technology
Brewery Sites
Information from the Artistic Record
The Folkloristic Approach to Interpretation of Ancient
Egyptian Brewing
Beer Flavouring
Fermentation
The Role of Women
The Contributions of Dr Samuel
References
Chapter 3
The Ancient Near East
32
37
41
43
44
46
48
51
53
56
61
63
64
64
72
75
75
Introduction
xi
Contents
xii
77
78
79
81
83
86
87
89
91
92
96
103
104
113
Chapter 4
117
117
119
125
128
130
131
132
133
134
136
139
140
142
143
148
150
151
161
163
Chapter 5
165
165
169
Contents
...
Xlll
172
181
185
190
191
193
199
210
21 1
225
233
25 1
259
268
276
Chapter 6
282
282
284
292
296
302
303
314
317
321
323
326
330
333
346
351
361
Chapter 7
365
365
372
Contents
xiv
375
383
387
391
392
395
401
416
42 1
424
437
440
451
451
462
469
472
477
482
Chapter 8
485
485
508
514
515
523
530
534
538
540
55 1
554
565
Chapter 9
The 20fhCentury
The Lull Before the Storm
The Storm: 1914-1918
568
568
579
Contents
xv
589
593
604
620
627
670
678
684
699
709
Appendix 1
Timescale for Europe, Western Asia and Egypt
716
Appendix 2
Ancient names for parts of Europe and the Near East
718
Appendix 3
Sketch of working brewery of the I S h century
719
Appendix 4
John Taylor: The Water Poet
720
Appendix 5
Section through brewery showing layout
722
Appendix 6
Summary of brewing processes
723
Appendix 7
Explanation of chronological signs
724
Subject Index
725
Acknowledgements
This book has been written with the help of many academic friends, and
brewing industry colleagues, past and present, and whilst it is sometimes
invidious to mention individual names, there are one or two people
who helped beyond the normal call of duty. In particular, I would like
to thank the staff of the Cambridge University library for the help and
courtesy accorded to me at all times. In this respect, I would especially
wish to thank William Noblett, who was particularly helpful when a
stressed hip severely curtailed my mobility around the book-shelves.
Sincere thanks are also due (in alphabetical order) to my cousin, Alan
Crussell, who carried out useful research; Christopher Dempsey, Bairds
Malt; Merryn Dineley, University of Manchester; Dr John Hammond,
Brewing Research International; Dr Mark Nesbitt, Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew; Dr Tony Portno, ex-Chairman, Bass Brewers; Dr Delwen
Samuel, Institute of Archaeology, University College London and Prof.
Andrew Sherratt, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. I also owe
a great debt to my parents, who allowed me to develop a whole-hearted,
and healthy interest in all aspects of the brewing industry. Any errors, of
which the author would be grateful for notification, are, needless to say,
entirely my responsibility.
xvi
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
HOW MIGHT FERMENTED BEVERAGES
HAVE ORIGINATED?
The sensation of thirst is the psychological correlate of the metabolic
functions of water. In direct importance drink comes after air, and before
food. Thus, in the field of social psychology, drink has played a more
important part than food, especially since the primitive discovery of
fermentation, and more latterly, distillation, made ethyl alcohol a constituent of drinkables. After being weaned from his mothers milk, Man
found water a natural drink. But, as experimentation with different
edible materials proceeded, the sensation of thirst was replaced by the
sense of taste. The resulting complex sense of drink was to be satisfied
by a series of discoveries which gave some beverages certain properties of
both food and drugs.
Perusal of any encyclopaedia available today will indicate to the reader
that alcohol, as a beverage, originated way back in prehistory. This
may, or may not, be true. If true, then the first instances of alcoholic
fermentation were almost certainly a result of serendipity, and it is
possible that the chance occurrence was made whilst Man was still
nomadic. The chances of this happening only once on the planet are
surely very low, and we are, therefore, forced to conclude that potable
alcohol must have been discovered independently by a number of
groups of nomadic prehistoric peoples. It might have been from rotting
fruit; it may have been from stale honey, or even from suppurating dates,
damaged cacti or festering palm sap. We shall probably never know for
certain. In this day and age, it is difficult for us to understand how those
early people would have felt after their first taste of the mood-altering
liquid, although it is to be reasonably assumed that they would have
already been familiar with the effects of ingesting certain species of
mushroom, the hallucinogenic nature of which must have been familiar
1
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
Chapter 1
and intoxicated states both have a role in many rituals and religious
beliefs.
Ethanol is unique among addictive compounds, because it is nutritionally beneficial. The calorific value of ethanol is 7.1 kcal g-, which is
almost twice that for carbohydrates (4.1 kcal g-). Individuals who regularly imbibe alcoholic beverages may derive from 2-10% of their calorific
intake from ethanol; the value can be as high as 50% in the case of
alcoholics. Another characteristic of ethanol is that it is one of a number
of chemicals that may be classed as hormetic. Hormetics are beneficial at
low concentrations, but toxic or stressful in high doses. According to
Dudley, this nutrient-toxic continuum, which is called hormesis, reflects
evolutionary exposure and adaptation to substances that naturally occur
in the environment at low concentrations. He maintains:
For animal frugivors, specijic hormetic advantages may derive from historical
exposure to ethanol and fermentation products. An evolutionary perspective on
hormesis suggests that behavioural responses towards particular compounds
should vary according to relative availability and predictability in the diet. I f
regular exposure to low concentrations of ethanol is an inevitable consequence
of ripe fruit consumption, then selection will favour the evolution of metabolic
adaptations that maximise physiological benefits and minimise any costs
associated with ethanol ingestion. This argument pertains, however, only to
those ethanol concentrations his tor ically encountered by frug ivorous horninoids.
Exposure to much higher concentrations of a hormetic substance would, by
contrast, induce maladaptive responses.
The Beginnings
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
Chapter 1
10
1. Both contain low levels of the amino acid, lysine, which has a key
role in protein synthesis in the body. Malting (germination) does
not alter this deficiency
2. Barley is deficient in the important sulphur-containing amino acids,
such as methionine, again, not reversed by malting
3. B-group vitamins, such as niacin, riboflavin and thiamine, are present
in both cereals, but at levels which are sub-optimal for basic
nutritional needs. Levels of B-group vitamins increase during malting
4. Both cereals, but wheat in particular, are rich in phytates, which
adhere to and bind some essential elements, such as calcium ions
(Caw), thus making them unavailable for metabolism in the body.
Levels of phytate can be reduced by up to 30% during malting.
We know relatively little about the nutritional status of early complex
societies, but it would appear that large proportions of their populations
received the bulk of their calorific intake from grain and grain products.
Some academics suspect that the desire for beer was the primary reason
for the cultivation of cereals, and that brewing preceded the invention
The Beginnings
11
12
Chapter 1
yeasts or filamentous fungi) for a period, so that the final products have often
undergone very considerable changes in chemical composition and other
respects. Sometimes these changes are due not only to microbial action, but
also to autolytic processes brought about by the enzymes of the product itselJ:
The Beginnings
13
For brewing purposes, seed germination is terminated, at the appropriate stage, by carefully applied heat. This controlled germination of
cereal seeds is known as malting, and the careful heating, at the end
of germination, is termed kilning.
Seeds of some grasses, of which barley and wheat are examples, contain plentiful reserves of starch which are located in a cellular storage
tissue within the seed, called the endosperm. Starch, itself, is located in
discrete granules (grains), of which there are two sizes; large and small
(there are 5-10 times more small granules than large ones, although the
latter comprise some 85% of all starch by weight). Each starch grain
is surrounded by a protein sheath, and grains are evenly distributed
within the endosperm cells. The requirement for starch breakdown
differs for brewer and baker, since the latter only really needs small
amounts of fermentable sugars in order to initiate fermentation and
CO, production. Conversely, the brewer requires the liberation of
much more fermentable material in order to yield the desired levels
of alcohol, hence the need to germinate his grain first. In days of yore,
brewers malted their own grains, but latterly, the task is undertaken by a
specialist maltster.
The breakdown of starch (amylolysis) is effected by two naturally
produced enzymes; called a- and P-amylase (amylon = Greek for
starch), both of which are necessary for adequate starch breakdown, and
which have often been referred to in the literature as diastase. From a
brewing point of view, barley seeds contain significant amounts of
each enzyme, one of the reasons for it being the preferred grain for
making beer. No other cereal grain is capable of more amylolytic activity.
P-Amylase is naturally present in raw, ungerminated grains, whilst
a-amylase is synthesised as a response to the onset of germination in the
seed.
During malting, a number of physiological changes occur within the
grain (including the synthesis of a-amylase), after which the green malt
is carefully dried so that it is capable of being stored as malt. The change
in taste and texture of a malted grain, as opposed to a raw barley grain,
is quite spectacular. Barley a-amylase works most efficiently in the
temperature range 64-68 OC, whilst the optimum activity of its 0-amylase
lies within the 60-65 C range.
Before starch can be enzymatically degraded, it has to be unravelled,
in order to permit the amylases to exert their lytic activity. The unravelling process is called gelatinisation, and in the large granules in barley,
occurs at a temperature of around 58-62 C. Starch in the small granules
in barley gelatinises at around 68 C. From a practical point of view, this
means that the two-step breakdown of this primary source of starch
14
Chapter 1
can be carried out in one operation (i.e. in a single vessel), as long as the
temperature is held at around 60-68 C. The operation is called mashing,
and the vessel in which it occurs is the mash-tun.
The breakdown of starches in malt has to be preceded by breakdown
of the endosperm cell walls, which in barley are constructed of two
major polysaccharides, the dominant of which is P-glucan (some 75%
of the cell wall). Breakdown of cell wall P-glucan is effected by means of
the enzyme known as P-glucanase, which is produced early on during
seed germination, and is dispersed throughout the endosperm during
the remainder of the malting phase. Barley b-glucanase is extremely
heat sensitive (it is destroyed in a few minutes at 65 C, a temperature
favourable for amylolysis), and in order to facilitate its activity, some
brewers commence their mash at a lower temperature (say 50 C), in
order to allow P-glucanases to work, and then increase the mash
temperature to 65 C for starch breakdown. Once endosperm cell walls
have been penetrated, starch granules are exposed to attack, but since
the starch in them is surrounded by a water-insoluble protein sheath,
this has to be penetrated before the starch itself can be reached and
hydrolysed by the amylases (diastase).
Breakdown of protein sheaths (which consist mainly of the storage
protein, hordein) is effected by two types of enzyme: proteases, which
cleave the large protein molecules into smaller fragments, and carboxypeptidases, which then break up these fragments further, into their constituent amino acids (which will be essential for yeast growth, during
fermentation). Carboxypeptidase is quite resistant to heat, but proteases
are heat-sensitive. The breakdown of proteins is known as proteolysis,
and the enzymes required for the process are synthesised during germination (malting) of the barley grain, as is 13-glucanase. It is in the
mash-tun that the bulk of the starch and protein breakdown occurs, and
the resulting sweet, nutritious (to yeast!) solution is called wort.
Apart from barley, all of the major cereal crops, such as wheat, oats,
rye, millets, maize, sorghum and rice can, and have, been used to make
beer in different parts of the world, and all, apart from rice, can be
malted. The type of beer produced from these various crops varies
greatly, as does the mode of brewing. When viewed from a modern
maltsters and brewers point of view, none of the other cereals is as
user-friendly as barley. This can be attributed to the lack of a husk
around the seed coat, and to other variables, such as the nature and
amount of protein surrounding the starch granules, the nature of the
starch in the granules, and the composition of the endosperm cell walls.
Wheat (Tritium aestivum), for example, which is probably the
most extensively grown crop, worldwide, has a naked cereal grain (no
The Beginnings
15
husk) and so, after milling and mixing with hot water, does not contribute effectively to the provision of a filter medium in the mash-tun after
mashing. Wheat grains are not as easy to mill as are those of barley
and wheat endosperm cell walls contain high levels of polymers called
pentosans, which cause hazes in the final product (not a problem in
Neolithic times, but certainly a problem now). The absence of a husk in
modern wheats means that, when the grain is being malted, the embryos
are easily detached from their seeds when the grain is being raked or
otherwise moved (to encourage aeration, and to prevent matting of
rootlets). On the credit side, wheat starch gelatinises at a relatively low
temperature (52-64 "C), which means that, like barley, gelatinisation and
starch breakdown can be achieved in one operation (and in one vessel).
It is important to note that one of the ancient varieties of wheat, emmer
(Triticum dicoccum Schiibl.), was a hulled wheat, and consequently
possessed better brewing attributes than the naked varieties.
Oats were once widely used in Britain as a source of fermentable
material for brewing, although these days they are usually only used
for the production of specialist beers, such as oatmeal stouts. Like barley,
they have the benefit of a husk, which is retained after processing and
this makes the grains amenable to malting. The high husk content is
reflected in a high fibre content (ca. 10% in oats, as opposed to 6 5 % in
barley); indeed, some brewers used to use oat malt, or the husks from oat
malt, to improve the wort run-off capability of their mashes. Oat starch,
which is more granular than that encountered in barley or wheat, has
a relatively low gelatinisation temperature (55-60 "C), but the seeds contain high levels of lipid and protein, which are not desirable to modern
brewers.
Like oats, rye is now rarely used on a large scale by brewers (it causes
poor run-off in the mash-tun, and hazes in beer), but is still used for
making some kinds of whiskey. The grain has no husk, and in the past,
when the plant was more widely used in brewing, rye used to be malted
together with barley, on the premise that the barley husks would protect the emerging shoot (acrospire) of the unprotected rye grain! Some
varieties of rye produce copious amounts of the two amylases, almost
on a par with the levels produced by barley, which makes the grain
potentially useful in the mash-tun as a source of those enzymes.
Cereals such as rice, maize, sorghum and the millets, have high starchgelatinisation temperatures and, therefore, have to be subjected to a heat
pre-treatment, to liquefy their starch, before they can be mashed. Thus,
an additional vessel, usually called a cereal-cooker, is necessary since
such materials cannot be introduced straight into the mash-tun.
Although, for information about the origins of beer, this work will
16
Chapter I
The Beginnings
17
grain, because the fully mature grain naturally dispersed itself (between
visits), and the immature grain remained attached to the plant. Yields of
up to one tonne per hectare were achievable, even by these primitive
methods.
Evidence of sickle blades, stone pounding and grinding tools, and
storage pits have been found from Natufian sites in southern Levant
(ca. 10,000 BC). One of the main characteristics of Natufian sites is the
presence of microlith flint tools. These, and a number of other features,
suggest a major change in human behaviour during this period of prehistory. Similarly ancient sites are known from the Euphrates valley in
Syria (Abu Hureyra and Mureybet) and in Turkey. There is no direct
evidence for cereal cultivation during these phases, and suggestions of
incipient domestication of plants and animals must be regarded with
scepticism, but as Bienkowski and Millard (2000) state: lf we see plant
domestication in the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic A , we cannot rule out
a sh f t towards behaviour associated with plant cultivation during the
Natufian.
If there was a tendency to cultivate plants at this early stage, then it is
not without possibility that beer could have been produced, although
it should be stressed that there is absolutely no evidence for this. At this
point in time, the only containers available for both brewing and storing
beer would have been of organic origin, for example, animal skin, wood
or woven basket. Such containers would be inherently unsuitable for
mashing, which requires hot water, and there is no way that heat could
have been applied to them externally. The only means of heating liquid in
such a container would have been by the method of stone boiling
whereby red-hot rocks are immersed into a liquid-filled container. The
method works initially, when the first few stones are introduced and the
temperature of the liquid rises, but very soon the number of stones
introduced starts to reach a volume that approximates to the volume of
the container! It will be appreciated that, apart from this logistic problem, temperature control and temperature maintenance are extremely
difficult with this method. Starch breakdown is not a process that can be
completed in a few minutes one would need to maintain a temperature of
around 65 C for at least an hour, for any reasonable amount of saccharification to occur. This would have been nigh on impossible by using
heated stones.
If some form of mashing was carried out in an organic vessel, the heat
and viscosity of the mash would have helped to seal any potential leaks
(i.e. if the container was fabricated from skins or woven parts). This
would not be the case if the wort was transferred to another container
for fermentation, where reduced temperatures would be in operation.
18
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
19
excluded from the system, then utilisation of the wort sugars by yeast is
not fermentative, and the final waste products of this metabolic pathway
are CO, and water, not CO, and ethanol.
With the archaeological evidence that we have available, and in view
of the likely insoluble problems relating to the use and control of fire
for heating the containers that were available, as well as the difficulties
involved in the storage of the final product during the Neolithic period, it
seems highly unlikely that reproducible beers could be brewed until after
the invention of some sort of pottery vessels.
Modern commercial brewers have two main means of mashing at their
disposal:
1. Grist and water (at ambient temperature) are mixed in the mash
vessel to give a cold mash. This permits soluble components to be
extracted from the grist
2. Hot water is then mixed in with the mash to bring the overall
temperature up to 3 5 4 0 C
3. One-third of this mash is then removed to a second vessel, the
mash-copper, where it is heated and held at 65 C for about 20
minutes. During this stage, starch liquefies and starch conversion
commences
4. The mixture is then brought to the boil and held there for between
15 and 40 minutes (dependent upon beer style)
20
Chapter 1
An adjunct may be classified as any unmalted cereal grain or fermentable ingredient which is
added to the mash.
The Beginnings
21
Chapter 1
22
The Beginnings
23
'i
(F
"
n
nf
v
24
Chapter 1
3. Acidifying the mash with lactic acid, from bacterial lactic acid
fermentation, in order to restrict the growth of undesirable
microbes
4. Alcoholic fermentation, with yeasts present in the malt flora.
To produce malted millet, the following procedure is followed:
Cleaned millet is steeped in water for 8-12 hours, in order to absorb
water. The damp grain is placed in sacks and germinated for three days.
Water is continually added to keep the moisture levels up, and to cool
down the sprouting grains. Millet requires an ambient temperature of
around 24 C for germination. The partially-germinated grain is spread
out on a floor for 8-12 hours, to finish the malting process. Shoots and
rootlets become evident, and amylases will have been synthesised inside
the grain. This green malt is then taken from the germination area and
spread out on a floor to sun-dry; a process that takes 10-12 hours. After
this drying period, the malt will have a moisture content of 12-1 5%, and
it can now be stored in dry sacks for up to three months.
To brew ajon, milled samples of both malted and unmalted millet are
used, in a ratio of 1:4. The unmalted fraction is first acidified by milling,
mixing the flour with a small quantity of water to form a dough, and
then buried in the ground for 5-7 days. The anaerobic conditions underground allow a lactic acid fermentation to be undertaken, after which
the acidified dough is scooped out and roasted under an open fire. The
heat gelatinises the millet starch (a process which requires a temperature
of around 80 C) and reduces bacterial numbers. Dried acidified dough
is capable of being stored before use. Ground malted millet is, as a
distraction, referred to as yeast, almost certainly because it harbours
the seeds of fermentation. There are a variety of yeasts associated with
malted millet. Once the dried, acidified dough has been mixed with
water and ground malted millet, fermentation ensues spontaneously.
Fermentations normally last 2-3 days, and efforts are made to keep the
temperature below 30 C. The finished beer is ladled out from the
fermen ter.
In Tanzania, bananas are used as a source of sugar to supplement that
produced by saccharification of millet starch (i.e. as a brewing adjunct).
They are peeled and boiled to extract the sugar, and then cooled, and left
to undergo acid fermentation for around eight hours. The acidified
banana mush is placed in cloths, and the juice is squeezed out, and
added to the millet mash. Meanwhile, a thick mash of malted millet will
have been prepared using boiling water (to gelatinise millet starch) for
dispersion. Once this mash has cooled, the liquid banana extract, and a
small amount of moist malted millet are added to it (the last named
The Beginnings
25
26
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
27
is thought that the word derives from chichal, which translates as with
saliva, or to spit. It does not only apply to beverages from sweet
and bitter manioc, but also to those made from maize, sugar cane, and
various fruits, such as the peanut. Similarly, not all manioc beer is
referred to as chicha, there being as many terms as there are recipes.
Whatever the recipe, fermentation of chicha from manioc is basically
induced either by masticating cassava and letting the salivary enzymes
do their work, or by allowing a mould culture to develop.
In the regions conquered by the Incas, chicha is made from maize, their
most important crop in terms of quantity and prestige. The beverage
is prepared in a variety of ways, but the two major variants in this
maize beer preparation involve the source of the diastase. In much of the
Americas, a common source of diastase is saliva (as with chicha from
manioc). Dried, ground corn is put into the mouth in slightly moist balls
and worked with the tongue until it has absorbed saliva. The gob is
then pressed and flattened against the roof of the mouth and removed as
a single mass. These lumps of salivated maize flour are known as muko
and they are sun-dried and stored in stacks.
Muko represents a valuable commodity, and is the starting point for
the brewing of chicha, which commences by filling a wide-mouthed,
earthenware pot one-third full with dried, pulverised, salivated flour.
Unsalivated flour and/or sugar may also be added. The pot is then filled
with water, to a level just below the jar rim, and heated. Alternatively,
hot water (just below boiling point) can be added and mixed in. Either
way, the temperature of the mixture needs to be around 75 C. Boiling
the mixture causes it to become very glutinous. The well-mixed pot contents are heated for about one hour, then cooled and settled, after which
three layers are discernible:
1. the liquid top, called upi
2. a jelly-like (semi-congealed) middle layer
3. the coarse particles at the bottom.
The liquid upper layer is ladled out and placed in another widemouthed pot, where it is allowed to stand. The jelly-like layer is then
removed and placed in a shallow pan, where it is simmered and concentrated down to a caramel-like, sweet paste. Nowadays, this mass is
reincorporated into the beer, but in earlier times, before the introduction
of sugar, it was used as a sweetener. When the middle layer has been
removed, more muko is added to the sediment in the first jar, and the
process is repeated. As the top liquid layer forms in this run, it too is
removed and added to the upi already collected. Additional sweet jelly
28
Chapter 1
The Beginnings
29
30
Chapter 1
enzymes from koji are hydrolysing the rice starch, it supports a distinctive succession of microbes, which are responsible for a number of
biochemical reactions.
The first major colonisers are species of Pseudomonas, which acidify
the mash by producing nitric acid from nitrates in the water. These are
followed by the bacteria, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus
sake, which further acidify the medium and eliminate nitric acid. It is
now that alcoholic fermentation commences, as numbers of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (it has been called Sacch. sake) increase. Fermentable sugar concentration due to starch hydrolysis typically reaches 20%.
Sak6 brewing is a relatively slow (ca. 20-25 days), low temperature (starts
at 7-8 "C) process, but eventually the yeast concentration reaches 3 or 4 x
lo8 cells ml-', and the fermentation rate increases, as does the temperature (15-1 6 "C).
In commercial sak&brewing, the natural acidification of the mash by
lactobacilli is usually replaced by addition of lactic acid, something
which allows the fermentation to proceed at elevated temperatures
in a shorter period of time, thus truncating brewing time. Another commercial "short cut" is to add an inoculum of yeast (called moto). The
sweetness of the commercial product can be adjusted by adding steamed
rice to the mash before the sak6 is drawn off. There is sufficient amylolytic
activity left for some rice starch to be converted to sugar (which remains
in the wine). The main way of separating liquid from the mash, is to
place the latter in a cloth bag and squeeze it in a press. Commercial sak&
is pasteurised and it is interesting to note that a pasteurisation technique
was first mentioned in 1568 in the Tamonin-nikki, the diary of a Buddhist
monk, indicating that it was practised in Japan some 300 years before
Pasteur. In China, the first country in East Asia to develop anything
resembling pasteurisation, the earliest record of the process as said to
date from 1117.
REFERENCES
T. McKenna, Food of the Gods, Bantam Books, New York, 1992.
M. Douglas (ed), Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from
Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
R. Rudgeley, The Alchemy of Culture: Intoxicants in Society, British
Museum, London, 1993.
D. Zohary and M. Hopf, Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The
Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe and the
Nile Valley, 3rdedn, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000.
R. Dudley, Quarterly Review of Biology, 2000,75 (l), 3.
The Beginnings
31
Chapter 2
Ancient Egypt
INTRODUCTION
The bulk of the information regarding ancient Near and Middle Eastern
brewing techniques originates from work carried out by archaeologists
working in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Until fairly recently, the interpretation of archaeological finds has been based upon a series of established
tenets; the finds themselves being mostly of an artistic nature. Since the
early 1990s, Dr Delwen Samuel, then of the Department of Archaeology,
University of Cambridge, has carried out a considerable amount of
meticulous Egyptological work which has fundamentally altered the way
in which we now perceive ancient brewing technology; certainly in
ancient Egypt. For this reason, this chapter will document much of what
has, hitherto, been regarded as the accepted interpretation of Ancient
Egyptian brewing, before providing an overview of Dr Samuels work.
Although, as we shall see, the first clear evidence for beer, and probably
bread as well, derives from Mesopotamia, the most conclusive and most
abundant archaeological and art historical evidence for the two technologies has been found in Egypt, which is where we shall begin our
story.
Evidence for the production and use of beer in Egypt extending back
to the Predynastic era (5500-3100 BC) has long been known. Petrie
(1901; 1920) for example, found beer sediments from jars at Abadiyeh, a
Predynastic cemetery on the east bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt, and
at Naqada, which is one of the largest Predynastic sites in Egypt, situated
some 26 km north of Luxor on the west bank of the Nile. We know from
Early Dynastic (3100-2686 BC) written records that beer was very
important during that period, and therefore must have been a wellestablished feature of the culture of that period. This makes it highly
likely that Egyptian brewing had its antecedents in Predynastic times.
Indeed, the earliest information available from the Near and Middle
32
33
Ancient Egypt
East, indicates that humans knew how to make bread and beer by 6000
BC. Greek writers credited the Egyptians with having invented beer (a
point that Assyriologists would contend, and an assertion that appears
to be totally without foundation), and Strabo (ca. 63 BC-ca. A D 21)
commented that, Barley beer is apreparation peculiar to the Egyptians, it
is common to many tribes, but the mode ofpreparing it differs in each.
He also noted that it was one of the principal beverages of Alexandria.
Romans, considering that they were also a wine-drinking people, could
be quite complimentary about the product. In the lSt century BC,
Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca Historica (I: 3), praised the quality
of Egyptian barley beer, saying that, They make a drink of barley . . .
for smell and sweetness of taste it is not much inferior to wine.
He also attributed the invention of beer to Dionysus, a god who was,
in crude terms, the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian deity, Osiris.
This is at variance with the legend that suggests that Dionysus fled
Mesopotamia in disgust at its inhabitants liking for beer!
Egyptians believed that beer was invented by Osiris, one of the most
important of their deities (Figure 2. l), whose principal associations
were with fertility, death and resurrection. Osiris was also credited with
introducing beer to countries where wine was unknown. For an account
of the cult of Osiris, the work by Griffiths (1980) should be consulted.
The ancient Egyptians also made wine, but it would appear that viticulture and large-scale vinification was more or less confined to certain
areas of the country, such as the Nile Delta and the oases of the Western
Desert. These areas must have been overlooked by Herodotus (Histories,
11, 77), who wrote that they drink a wine made from barley, as they have
no vines in the country. Having said that, it must be appreciated that
vines were widely grown in gardens especially those of the well-to-do,
and that wine played a fairly important role in everyday life and in the
anticipated afterlife. Wine-drinking became more popular from the New
Kingdom period (1550-1069 BC) onwards, and even more so during the
subsequent Roman Period (30 BC-AD 395). Murray (2000) sums up
the situation concisely when she writes:
-
While there is archaeobotanical (and possibly chemical) evidence for the grape
from the earliest periods in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, beer was made from
barley, the ubiquitous cereal staple throughout the archaeological and cultural
records of these two regions. In Egypt, the consumption of wine became more
widespread during the Ptolemaic period due to the influx of a large Greek
population, and improvements in irrigation techniques at that time.
Substitute wines would also have been prepared from such materials as
34
Figure 2.1
Chapter 2
Ancient Egypt
35
in those days was not noted for being terribly hygienic. Beers brewed for
everyday drinking would not have been very alcoholic per se and would
have therefore had a very short shelf-life, necessitating their daily
brewing, and immediate consumption. Although there was no distinct
division between beer-drinking and wine-drinking regions in ancient
Egypt, beer was especially important in regions where the vine would not
grow, where it was considered, with bread, to be an indispensable staple.
All sections of the community drank beer, from the Pharaoh downwards,
and it was a product that was inextricably woven into the fabric of
daily existence, as well as being a feature of religious festivals and state
occasions (when special brews were produced). Most Egyptologists are
of the opinion that grain production and distribution, for brewing and
baking purposes, underpinned the ancient Egyptian economy and the
political organisation of that ancient society, and that a study of beer production can provide an insight into the structure of ancient Egypt itself.
Beer was a common divine offering and mortuary offering, and
references to beer (several varieties of the beverage) are prevalent in the
Pyramid Texts, which are the oldest Egyptian funerary texts, consisting
of some 800 utterances written in columns on the walls of the corridors
and burial chambers of nine pyramids of the late Old Kingdom
(2375-21 8 1 BC) and First Intermediate Period (218 1-2055 BC). Some
authorities maintain that beer was the usual drink of the commoners,
while wine was the drink of the rich (Darby et al., 1977). This may well
be the case from Greco-Roman sources, but is not a true reflection of
Dynastic Egypt when, being a common offering to the gods, it is highly
unlikely that beer would have been spurned by the well-to-do. It has been
proposed that the relative dearth of information about ancient Egyptian
beer, as opposed to wine, during the post-Pharaonic period, is due to
the customs and habits of the poorer classes being inadequately documented by chroniclers of the time. Indeed, Greek and then Roman
travellers to Egypt equated beer with poverty, and wine with wealth.
Athenaeus (Deipnosophists I , 34B), quoting the earlier philosopher, Dio
the Academic, stated:
The [Egyptian = Greco-Roman] nobility became fond of wine and bibulous;
and so a way was found among them to help those who could not afford wine,
namely, to drink that made from. barley; they who took it were so elated that
they sang, danced, and acted in every way like persons filled with wine.
Chapter 2
36
Unlikebeer, grapes need only to have their skins broken to release their juice in
order to start fermentation, particularly in the heat of the day. The process also
would have been easier to understand and then repeat than the fermentation of
barley for beer, which requires several stages to complete. Due to its high sugar
and acid content, wine stores more easily and for longer periods thun beer, and
also has a higher alcohol content. In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, wine was
largely reserved for the klite, and for special occasions. In Egypt, grapes were the
37
An cient Egypt
THE GRAINS
As Lutz (1922) observes, the earliest Egyptian texts, including the
Pyramid Texts, enumerate quite a number of different beers, which
would necessitate their being brewed with a variety of ingredients or
by different methods. Some of these beer types, of which dark beer,
iron beer, garnished beer, friends beer and beer of the protector
may be mentioned, would undoubtedly have been brewed for special
occasions. A beer of truth was drunk by the 12 gods who guarded the
shrine of Osiris. Most beer was consumed when young, i.e. immediately
after primary fermentation had terminated, but it is known that the
ancient Egyptians knew how to brew beer, that possessed an extended
shelf-life, as well. How this was effected is unknown, but it was certainly
necessary for funerary beers to be long-lasting, and we find many
references to beer which does not sour and beer of eternity. Sweet
beer and thick beer figure quite prominently, particularly in the
context of medical practice, where they are a frequent background
component of many ancient Egyptian herbal remedies (Manniche,
1999). Strouhal(l992) mentions that medical papyri list 17 types of beer.
Again, according to Lutz (1922):
The commonest beer was prepared from barley, of which grain two kinds have
been found in Egypt, the hordeum hexastichum L. and the hordeum tetrastichum
Kche. Theformer was the most common grain in Egypt.
38
Chapter 2
Lutz reports that spelt (Triticum spelta) was also apparently used,
although evidence for it in Egypt is sparse. So sparse, in fact, that it can
be considered non-existent, as explained by Helbaek (1964), who states
quite categorically:
Unfortunately, Lutz, like most other writers on the ancient Orient, consistently
uses the name spelt, but this was a utility translation since Triticurn spelta
never existed in Egypt or Mesopotamia. In both areas, emmer was the only, or
principal, wheat until the emergence of the free-threshing tetraploid species
about the time of the birth of Christ.
Apart from the work of Lutz, there are several references to the cultivation and use of spelt in Egypt and the Near East, and Nesbitt and
Samuel (1996) are of the opinion that the source of this erroneous
identification, much of which can be traced back to older German interpretations of the original Greek and Latin, can be attributed to the use
of the German term Spelzen or Spelweizen to mean hulled wheats as a
whole, because spelt was the hulled wheat most familiar to those German
classicists (speltsig = chaffy or glumaceous). In the same work, Nesbitt
and Samuel provide an exhaustive, and highly readable account of the
origins and archaeology of the hulled wheats.
Gruss (1929), on the other hand, identified only an archaic form of
wheat called emmer, from a range of New Kingdom beer residues. Subsequent work by Samuel (1996a) has indicated that in the New Kingdom,
at least, two types of barley: two-rowed (Hordeum distichum L.) and sixrowed (Hordeum vulgare L.) and emmer (Triticum dicoccum Schubl.)
were used for brewing, whilst only emmer was used for bread-making.
She suggests that the use of these cereals and the proportions in which
they were mixed may have been one of the characteristics whereby the
ancient Egyptians distinguished and named different types of beers. As
we shall see, flavourings, such as dates, could also have contributed to
beer style variation. In an extensive, definitive account of the cereals
used by the ancient Egyptians, Murray (2000a), opines that it is generally
agreed that their agriculture was probably established sometime during
the 6th millennium BC, with a range of domesticated crops introduced
from the Levant. Murray feels that the evolution of agriculture from the
east was very gradual, and by no means revolutionary; she continues:
Emmer and barley were the staple cereals of this adopted agricultural complex
which, along with the herding of domestic animals, would have originally
supplemented, rather than wholly displaced, well established hunting and
gathering practices.
Ancient Egypt
39
At this point in time, the earliest finds of emmer and barley in Egypt
date to 5300-4000 BC, from the Fayum oasis, and Merimde in the
western Nile Delta. These two cereals continued to be of prime importance in Egypt until Greco-Roman times. Emmer, which Murray classifies
as Triticum dicoccum (Schrank) Schiibl., is a hulled wheat, which, as she
explains, means that after the threshing process breaks up the ear into
spikelets, the latter have to be processed further to rid them of their chaff
in order to obtain a clean grain product. Hulled barley must go through
similar processing in order to separate off the chaff from the grain.
Murray uses the taxonomy which classifies two-rowed barley as Hordeum
vulgare subsp. distichum and six-rowed barley as H. vulgare subsp. vulgare, and notes that, from archaeobotanical records, although both subspecies were cultivated, there are relatively few finds of the former. The
article contains a useful note regarding the credibility of the presence of
four-rowed barley in ancient Egypt (see the quote by Lutz, above):
It is now suggested thatfour-row barley (H. tetrastichum), commonly reported
from Egypt, is simply a lax-eared form of six-row barley, and that separating
these two closely-related types in archaeobotanical material is unjustijied.
40
Chapter 2
had been known in the neighbouring Levant and elsewhere from the
6thand 7thmillennia BC onwards. Why it took the Egyptians so long to
adopt these new varieties is indeed a mystery, especially since there
was apparently a considerable level of cross-fertilisation of ideas between
ancient Egypt and these neighbouring cultures. Murray feels, speculatively, that emmer was such an integral part of the Pharaonic economy
and that it had such an important religious significance, that freethreshing wheat was seen as an unwelcome intruder into the status quo.
In most instances it is difficult to determine whether emmer predominated over barley, or vice versa, during the various stages of the
Pharaonic period. The artistic records do not distinguish between the
two cereals, whilst the written word reveals that many types of emmer
and barley were recognised by the ancient Egyptians. Differentiation
was by colour, by region, or even for religious reasons, criteria which are
almost impossible to correlate with modern botanical taxonomic tools.
Murray suggests that differences in the varieties of ancient cereals were
probably more complex than those in modern comparative material, and
that these differences may be difficult to determine in archaeobotanical
material. She also maintains that distinguishing cereals on the basis of
colour and region continued as a practice used by Egyptian farmers until
the 20thcentury. Her interpretation of the relative importance of emmer
and barley in ancient Egypt seems to me to be quite definitive:
Generally speaking, textual and linguistic evidence imply that barley was the
predominant cereal during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, whereas by the New
Kingdom, and certainly from the 251 Dynasty until the Ptolemaic period,
emmer appears to be the most important cereal of the two. Much textual evidence comes from the New Kingdom period, and suggests that emmer was the
primary cereal used, not only for food, but for the payment of wages and taxes
at that time. Textual sources have also suggested that barley was the primary
cereal of Upper Egypt, whereas emmer was the main cereal of Lower Egypt
(Tackholm et al., 1941), something that has not yet been fully substantiated by
archaeobotanical evidence. The apparent sh f t in the importance of emmer over
barley during the later phases of pre-Greco-Roman Egypt have been attributed
to thefact that, in previous times, barley, being the more resilient crop, prospered
under the growth conditions provided by basin irrigation. With improvements
in irrigation techniques during the New Kingdom period, conditions for growing
emmer were more favourable.
A ncient Egypt
41
42
Figure2.2
Chapter 2
Using the shaduf for irrigation of crops. Gardeners are shown among
persea, sycomore jig, cornflowers, mandrake and poppies. In the pond are
blue and white lotusflowers. From a wall-painting in a Theban Tomb (no. 21 7 ) ;
Ramesside
(Reproduced by kind permission of Lise Manniche and the British Museum
Press)
per day, but from this they would be expected to support others in the
household. Even without the sophisticated equipment that is available
today, grain storage proved remarkably non-problematical in ancient
Egypt, although infestation was always a potential problem. This can
be principally attributed to the predominantly dry climate. Summers in
Egypt were mostly dry, which allowed harvested grain to be cleaned
(threshed and winnowed) prior to storage (although there is little direct
evidence that this happened), but if there was any likelihood of dampness (or infestation), then grain was stored in spikelet form, and cleaned
immediately prior to being processed into food/beer.
In ancient Egypt there was a highly organised, hierarchical system of
grain storage, which for the most part was successful in feeding the
population, even during the lean years. Grain was stored at national,
regional, local and household levels. According to Murray (2000a), Zt
seems clear that the ancient Egyptian hierarchy of grain storage was one
of the many secrets of its success as a cereal producer. Most of the
harvested grain was the property of the state.
Throughout the Egyptian Neolithic and Predynastic periods, communal storage appears to have been rather a rare phenomenon; in many
regions the practice having been confined to individual households that
would have had small storage pits near to the dwelling, or more commonly,
small clay or basket-work granaries on the roofs of houses. Communal
Ancient Egypt
43
44
Chapter 2
Ancient Egypt
45
licence?). Whatever its origin, this style of beer was highly regarded
in Egypt and even imitated. According to the papyrus Anastasi, beer
was also imported from Kedi (Erman, 1894). Two instances are given,
one referring to an officer on a frontier post who bemoans, If ever one
opened a bottle, it is full of beer of Kedi.
Gardiner, in his Ancient Egyptian Onornastica (1947), refers to beer of
Kedy and reports that Kedy was situated in the territory known, to the
ancient Egyptians, as Nahrin, the country east of the Euphrates near and
beyond the town of Carchemish. The latter is now the Turkish village of
Jerablus, on the border with Syria, and was the scene of Nebuchadnezzar
11s defeat of the Assyrians in 605 BC. Nahrin would have been a part
of what the Hittites called the land of the Hurrians (see Chapter 4;
Mitanni). Most of the names of people that have been recorded suggest
an Indo-European origin, but the majority of the inhabitants of this land
were Hurrian, and seem to have originated around the Caspian Sea
during the 3rd millennium BC, and gradually moved south. In a later
paragraph in the same work, Gardiner mentions beer of Kedy of the
port intimating a coastal location for Kedy, rather than an inland one.
The actual position of this alternative location has still not been
resolved. Samuel (pers. comm.) informs me that the names; Qode, Qede,
Kedi and Kedy all relate, in fact, to the same place!
It is not known exactly when beer was first taxed in Egypt, and little
is known of taxation in Pharaonic times and before, but we do know
that during Ptolemaic and Roman times, tax levied on beer played an
important part in those economies. Some breweries produced huge
volumes of beer, if their tax receipts are accurate; taxes being paid in
copper. During the Ptolemaic period apparently, brewing was controlled
by the state. This necessitated officialdom and one comes across
Inspector of the Brewery and Royal Chief Beer Inspector (Darby
et al., 1977). It must be stressed that Dynastic Egypt and Greco-Roman
Egypt were very much separate cultures, and that in most cases, it
was only a small, elite section of the population that were sufficiently
educated to be able to make documentations of daily life. Most of the
records from Greco-Roman times have little relevance to conditions
prevalent in Dynastic Egypt, and even the latter changed over time.
Samuel (2000) is at pains to point out that one of the most frequently
cited texts dealing with brewing in ancient Egypt, is not Pharaonic at all,
but dates to the end of the 3d or beginning of the 41h century AD, and
was written by the Egyptian, Zozimus of Panapolis (Akhmim). Zozimus
work contains much useful information, and Herodotus (mid-5hcentury
BC), Pliny (1 century AD), Strabo (64 BC-AD 22) and Athenaeus
(3rd century AD) all referred to ancient Egyptian brewing and baking,
46
Chapter 2
BOUZA
Until Samuels classic work, there was an all-pervading scenario of
how brewing was carried out in ancient Egypt. Consensus opinion was
that it was very much like the production of the still extant beverage,
called bouza, an indigenous drink of Nubia and the Sudan - but now
brewed in Egypt by ex-patriot Nubians. It is a drink of the poorer classes,
according to Lane (1860), who reports that:
Boozeh or boozah, which is an intoxicating liquor made from barley-bread,
crumbled, mixed with water, strained and left to ferment, is commonly drunk by
the boatmen of the Nile, and by other persons of the lower orders.
Later on in his book he states, Ihave seen in tombs at Thebes many large
jars containing dregs of beer of this kind, prepared from barley.
In a heroic piece of work, Lucas (1962) examined 16 samples of bouza
of the 1920s from various retailers in Cairo. He reports that they were all
similar in appearance and had the texture of thin gruel. All samples
contained much yeast and were in a state of active fermentation; they
had all been made from coarsely ground wheat. Alcoholic content varied
from 6.2-8.1% alcohol by volume (average 7. WO). Consultation with
a variety of bouza brewers yielded the following underlying mode of
production:
1. Good quality wheat is chosen and samples are cleaned of extraneous
material and coarsely ground
2. Three-quarters of the ground wheat (grist) sample is put into a
large wooden basin or trough and kneaded with water into a dough;
yeast is then added
3. The yeasted-dough is made into thick loaves, which are baked
lightly. The baking temperature and time are not severe enough to
kill the yeast, or to destroy any necessary enzymes. What we have
here is technically a beer-bread
4. The remaining quarter portion of the wheat is moistened with water
and exposed to the air for a time. It is then crushed whilst still moist.
This step is as near as one gets to a primitive form of malting. The
coarse grind in step 1 would have left numerous whole grains,
which, when moistened and exposed to the atmosphere, would have
Ancient Egypt
47
Chapter 2
48
BREWING TECHNOLOGY
A contemporary account of the method of brewing beer amongst the
post-Dynastic Egyptians was given by the Egyptian alchemist, Zosimus
of Panopolis (ancient Akhmim) in Upper Egypt, who lived about the
end of the 3rdcentury or the beginning of the 4thcentury AD, and who
spent his youth in Alexandria. Several translations of Zozimus work
exist; one emanates from C.G. Gruner (Zosimi Panopolitani de Zythorum
confectione fragmentum, 1814), as documented by Arnold (19 1l), and is
as follows:
Take well-selectedfine barley, macerate it for a day with water, and then spread
it for a day on a spot where it is well exposed to a current of air. Then forJive
hours moisten the whole once more, and place it in a vessel with handles, the
bottom of which is pierced after the manner of a sieve.
The meaning of the next few lines is not clear, but according to Gruner
the barley was then probably dried in the sun, so that the husks, which
are bitter and would impart a tart taste to the beer, might peel away and
drop off. Zozimus continues:
The remainder must be ground up and a dough formed with it, after yeast has
been added, just as done in making bread. Next the whole is put away in a warm
place, and as soon as fermentation has set in sufficiently, the mass is squeezed
through a cloth of coarse wool, or else through a$ne sieve, and the sweet liquid
is gathered. But others put the parched loaves into a vesselfilled with water, and
subject this to some heating, but not enough to bring the water to a boil. Then
they remove the vesselfrom thefire, pour its contents into a sieve, warm the fluid
once more, and then put it aside.
Ancient Egypt
49
smaller perforated vessel and wet it and dry it until it shall become shredded
and when this is so pat it (i.e. shake, or rub) in the sun-light until it falls apart.
For the must is bitter. Next grind it and make it into loaves adding leaven,
just like bread and cook it rather raw and whenever the loaves rise, dissolve
sweetened water and strain through a strainer or light sieve. Others in baking the
loaves cast them into a vat with water and they boil it a little in order that it may
not froth nor become luke-warm and they draw up and strain it and having
prepared it, heat it and examine it.
Both of the above are fairly early translations from the Greek, but
Curtis (2001) provides another, which originates from Olck at the end of
the 19thcentury. This translates as:
Taking some white, clean, good-quality barley soak it for a day, then draw it
ofJ or even lay it out in a windless place until early the next day and soak it
again for five hours. Throw it into a perforated vessel with a handle and soak it.
Dry it until it becomes like a lump. And when it becomes so, dry it in the sun until
it falls. The dough [?] is pungent. Further, grind [it] and make loaves, adding
leaven just as for bread. Bake [them] partially and when they turn light dissolve
[them in] fresh water and strain [them] through a strainer or fine sieve. Others
baking bread throw them into a vessel along with water and boil it a little, so that
it neither froths nor is it lukewarm. And they draw it up and strain it. And having
covered it they heat it and lay it aside.
50
Chapter 2
51
Ancient Egypt
sensibly suggested that the very climate of Egypt would have been
appropriate to render grain sufficiently dry and brittle.
The second stage of milling involved grinding the grain to a flour, a
step very well attested in paintings and models. The main instrument
was a flat stone, or by the Middle Kingdom, a saddle quern, both of
which were made of a hard stone, such as granite, basalt or limestone.
The most frequently illustrated flour-making scenario is of a female
operator kneeling down behind a quern, with a short, spherical or ovoid
stone being worked over the grains in a back-and-forth motion. There is
conjecture as to whether the ancient Egyptians purposely added sand to
the grains in order to promote flour formation, but modern experiments
have indicated that this would have been unnecessary. Saddle querns
were more efficient than common flat stone querns, and when they were
raised on a base, were more comfortable to work; it even being possible
to stand to work behind a raised saddle quern. The final stage of milling
involved passing the flour through a sieve, again something that was
usually depicted as a female occupation. The sieve was normally a
circular wicker utensil, made of reed, rush or palm, and this cleaning
stage was regarded as being somewhat inefficient.
BREWERY SITES
In spite of numerous depictions of beer, brewers and brewing, either
on tombs walls, or as statuettes or models, there have been relatively
few indisputable findings of Egyptian brewery sites. At many excavated
localities kitchens and bakeries have been identified and brewing has
been assumed to have been carried out as well, mainly because of its
relationship to bread-making. When Geller (1989; 1992) reported the
confirmation of a brewery site, unearthed as a result of 1988/9
excavations at Hierakonpolis (now Kom el-Ahmar = Red Mound ),
the find was regarded as only the second positive record of such an
establishment, following, as it did the discovery of a suspected
brewery site at En Besor in the north-western Negev (Gophna and
Gazit, 1985).
Excavations at the site at En Besor, which is in the Land of Canaan,
revealed the remains of a brick building, with Egyptian attributes, from
the First Dynasty (3 100-2890 BC). The building consisted of sun-dried
mud bricks, which were made from local soil and sand, but without
any interspersed chaff. The orientation of the building and the mode of
bricklaying were very much like the building practises in ancient Egypt.
Further work indicated that this was a staging post, caravanserai and
depot providing essential services and supplies, such as water, bread and
52
Chapter 2
beer, for the Egyptian trade caravans moving backwards and forwards
between Egypt and Canaan. The site was especially important because it
also guarded the En Besor springs, which are the richest and most stable
perennial water source in the entire coastal plain of southern Canaan.
The building was not fortified and it apparently stabled about a dozen
men; a part of it was definitely reserved for baking and brewing activities.
So, here we have an ancient Egyptian brewery situated in a foreign land.
Re-examination of a number of older reports, however, have indicated
that there has been some misinterpretation of data in the past, and
that brewery sites had, in fact, been documented before, Geller (1992)
mentioning, in particular, the sites at Ballas, Mahasna (the so-called pot
kilns; Garstang, 1902) and Abydos.
Hierakonpolis was a settlement and necropolis some 80 km south of
Luxor, which flourished during the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic
periods. The Greek name translates as city of the hawk and it was
associated with the hawk-god, Horus. Much interest has been shown in
a site known as Hk-24, or The Big Mound, which was the heart of an
industrial quarter on the Nile flood plain near Hierakonpolis. The
mound was covered in potsherds, amongst which have been located
numerous pottery wasters, suggesting the presence of a Predynastic
kiln. Parts of the area have been excavated, and much awaits a similar
treatment, but Gellers attention was drawn to a nearby site known as
Hk-24A, also known as the Vat Site, where there was evidence of
something having been made with the application of heat. The area
yielded six thick-walled ceramic vats packed in mud (for insulation?),
four of which were still in situ. The spaces between the vats were
covered over. Part of the whole structure had been destroyed and so it
was impossible to tell whether more vats had originally been present. The
combined volume of the remaining vats was around 100 gallons, which
suggests that this was rather more than a home-brewery.
Geller suggested that these vessels were an ancient equivalent to the
present-day mash-tun, since there had obviously been an attempt to
conserve the mild heat necessary to effect mashing. The inner surfaces
of these vats contained a hardened, black residue, which on analysis
yielded evidence for carbonised sugar and carboxylic acids, compounds known to be a product of mashing, and intermediates in the
pathway for alcoholic fermentation. In addition, emmer wheat, and in
lesser amounts, barley remains (both spikelets and grains) were
impounded in the residue, and so these vats were certainly intended
for brewing beer. Nearby, was site Hk-25D (the Platform Site),
which supported a bakery comprising six small hearths (measuring ca.
1 m in diameter). Thus, within an area of about 100 m, there had been
Ancient Egypt
53
54
Chapter 2
Figure 2.3 The making of bread and beer from the tomb of Ti
(Reproduced from Geller (1992), by courtesy of Jeremy Geller)
Ancient Egypt
55
Figure 2.4
Baking and brewing: the model bakerylbrewery jrom the tomb oj Meket-ra at
Thebes 11 Dynasty, ajter H.E. Winlock, Models of Daily Life, New York,
1955
(Reproduced from Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation, B.J. Kemp,
1989, with kind permission of Thomson Publishing)
56
Chapter 2
of bread and beer making diverged. V f l a t bread was the object, the dough would
be shaped and baked in the ashes or in an oven. If leavened bread was required,
yeast, in the form of barm (the frothy portion of fermenting beer) would be
added to the dough and the mixture placed into bread moulds that were then
heated in the oven. For beer production, the dough, probably made from the
flour of malted grain, and perhaps mixed with the juice of dates andpomegranates, was partially baked into loaves. After being mixed with water and allowed
to ferment for a period of time, they were broken up and mashed by hand
through a mesh screen placed over a vessel that caught the expressed liquid. The
beer was then placed in jars to ferment further; soon after it was decanted into
amphorae and sealed.
Ancient Egypt
57
and beer over a period of time. The writings of Zosimus on these two
subjects were also taken into account, not merely as being representative
of a later (Hellenistic) phase of Egyptian life, but as being relevant to the
interpretation of much earlier artistic work (see Samuels comment on
page 46). Such information was interpreted in the light of the extant
manufacturing processes employed for a variety of artisanal (Ishida calls
them folkloristic) fermented drinks or foods from around the world,
which were studied with a view to ascertaining whether there were any
common links, or fundamental themes in their manufacture (called by
Ishida the commonpathway). Accordingly, some 38 indigenous, cerealbased products from Asia, Africa and Latin America, were examined in
detail, whence it emerged that there were three key steps that could be
attributed to all such fermentations, namely:
1. Production of amylase in germinated (malted) grains
2. Fermentation by lactic acid bacteria (principally lactobacilli)
3. Production of a starter culture, with a desirable microflora.
One could also argue that the starch substrates in all folkloristic
fermentations require some sort of heat treatment, in order for starch
gelatinisation to occur prior to amylase activity.
The potential rate of saccharification possible by malt amylases (diastase) is referred to as the diastatic power of that particular malt, and
cereal crops differ widely in their ability to yield diastase upon germination. As we have said, barley is by far the most efficient in this respect,
with wheat being the next most proficient (having around 50% of the
activity of barley). Of the cereals used extensively in the artisanal fermentations studied by Ishida, sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) and finger
millet (Eleusine coracana) possessed reasonable diastatic activity
(around 20% and 12% of the activity of barley, respectively), but other
species of millet, and in particular rice (Oryza sativa), contained very
low levels of diastatic activity. In general, it is considered that grain
crops cultivated in Africa for ultimate production of alcoholic drinks,
possess relatively high levels of diastase, but in other parts of the
world, moulds (filamentous fungi) are a common source of amylases.
Alcoholic beverage production using rice as a basic raw material, wadis
especially dependent upon other sources of amylases, and this is
effected through the use of moulds, especially Aspergillus oryzae and
species of Rhizopus; such fungi being an important constituent of the
starter culture, koji.
The (mostly inadvertent) use of lactobacilli and related bacteria, in
the preservation of foodstuffs has been practised by Man since the
58
Chapter 2
most ancient of times. The pH of food can be easily reduced by the socalled lactic acid bacteria, which have the ability to ferment the trace
amounts of sugar present in most starchy substrates, with the subsequent
liberation of lactic acid. The resultant increased acidity of the foodstuff
lessens the likelihood of the growth of other undesirable microbes, and
imparts a desirable hint of sourness to the taste.
By definition, the starter cultures used in artisanal fermentations are
a mixture of microbial species. The mixture normally consists of a yeast
(for alcoholic fermentation), lactobacilli (for lactic acid production) and
various other species, with unspecified functions. Some micro-organisms
in the latter category may, or may not, be beneficial to the character of
the final product. Unless special measures are taken, the composition
of the starter culture is bound to alter over a period of time, especially if
anaerobic conditions and moderate fermentation temperatures cannot
be maintained, and acetobacilli (acetic acid-producing bacteria) are
consequently encouraged to proliferate. By capping the fermentation
jars (with clay or even a blanket) or by fermenting in jars with long,
narrow necks, anaerobic conditions can be maintained. By incorporating
certain plants with bacteriostatic and/or fungistatic properties, the
starter cultures can be kept relatively free from contaminants, and by
the addition of ashes of plant origin (which are alkaline in nature), the
pH of the starter can be adjusted upwards if necessary. If the starter can
be stored in a relatively dry state then it will be less prone to spoilage.
Ishida identified a variety of ways of preparing and maintaining starter
cultures, and considered that the storage of half-baked beer breads used
in ancient Egypt satisfied the requirements for being a successful starter
culture. It is important that, when using a mixed starter culture for
fermentation, the desirable organisms get off to as good a start as
possible and to this end, Ishida felt that when the ancient Egyptians
used beer bread made from barley malt as the starter for their beer
fermentations, it was important to add fruit juice and/or honey (i.e. as a
source of sugar) to act as a primer for alcoholic fermentation. This
would counteract the low level of saccharification by barley malt that
would have occurred under conditions whereby amylolysis was required
to be carried out synchronously with fermentation.
For depictions of brewing in ancient Egypt, Ishida used as a base source
the relief of beer making from the Old Kingdom tomb of Niankhkhnum
and Khnumhotep (Figure 2.5(a), with Ishidas interpretations of
the scenes shown in Figure 2.5(b)), and reliefs in the tomb of Pepiankh
Meir, from the same period. Ishida maintains that the scenes matched
the descriptions of Zosimus, quoting, Therefore these reliefs from the
Old Kingdom indicate that little had changed in the recipe and to the
Ancient Egypt
59
{Fermentation)
(Malting)
(Milling)
Collrctul_9.
pots
Figure 2.5 (a) Relief scenes from the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep
(b) Applying the relief scenes in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep
to the common pathway
(Reprinted with kind permission of Hideto Ishida and the Master Brewers
Association of the Americas)
60
Chapter 2
process from the time of the Old Kingdom until the time of Zosimus in
the third century AD.
This covers a time span of almost 2,500 years! Ishida continues:
In the Old Kingdom, the heating of bread for saccharification was carried out
in clay pots with a batter-type material (softer in consistency than dough), and
the heat was provided by preheated pots. The pots were stacked on each other in
an open place and burned. Zosimus recorded that the bread cooked in a pot with
watev. There were no scenes of this procedure in the reliefs in the tomb of
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, but scenes depicting this were observed in the
reliefs in the tomb of Pepiankh Meir. Therefore, all scenes observed corresponded with Zosimus account. Other records had previously shown that the raw
materials for brewing in the Old Kingdom were barley and emmer wheat.
Without being very specific, Ishida admits that the survey of the artistic
record in ancient Egypt revealed unexplained production steps:
As far as images depicting Egyptian beer manufacture in other periods were
concerned, there were scenes that could not be explained and it was likely that
other techniques had been adopted. After the Middle Kingdom, it appeared that
the beer-making process was similar to that for making Egyptian bouza with
normal wheat bread.
Ishida proposed that the transition from the use of emmer and barley
in Old Kingdom brewing, to bread wheat as a raw material in the Middle
Kingdom, necessitated a change in brewing technology, and that major
61
Ancient Egypt
BEER FLAVOURING
Was ancient Egyptian beer flavoured? We know that the hop was not
used, although there have been several reports to the contrary,* and we
Hughes and Baxter (2001), for example, state in their glossary - under hop: First recorded use
to flavour beer was in Egypt, 600 years BC. No source reference is given.
Chapter 2
62
Ancient Egypt
63
With well-soaked lupines to provoke the thirst
For foaming breakers of Pelusian beer.
(Columella, On Agriculture and Trees,
X, 114-116)
FERMENTATION
It is highly probable that fermentations were originally of a spontaneous
nature and that beer arose as a result of a chance natural spoilage of
(probably) germinated grain. Some brave soul must have partaken of the
result and experienced some sort of euphoria. The rest is history. Once
brewing became an established skill and there was a constant demand for
beer, it was no longer satisfactory to leave things to chance. This particularly applied to fermentation where, if different micro-organisms
were permitted to grow, varying end-products would result. Ancient
brewers would soon have learned the importance of maintaining, albeit
in a crude way, a culture that was capable of yielding a desirable endproduct (beer). The simplest way to do this was to keep a small sample of
a previous brew back for seeding into a subsequent fermentation. This
is, in effect, a form of yeast pitching which is still practised today, and
like todays traditional ale brewer, the ancient Egyptian brewer only had
one chance of getting a brew right. Failure to do so resulted in the loss of
valuable raw materials. Griiss (1929) reported that yeast cells could be
identified from a variety of beer jar residues and that later (1sthDynasty)
samples were cleaner (i.e. had fewer associated moulds and bacteria)
than earlier, Predynastic samples. He even identified a previously
unknown wild yeast as the principal yeast component in some of these
later samples, and named it Saccharomyces winlocki, after H.E. Winlock,
who had supplied the material. The name, however, has not persisted in
zymological literature (Barnett et al., 2000), and the species name cannot
be substantiated on morphological grounds alone. Gruss suggestion that
the cleanliness of the later yeast samples could be attributed to the fact
that ancient Egyptian brewers had mastered the art of pure yeast culture
has not been taken seriously, but there is evidence that attention was
being paid to the importance of yeast; there being an established profession of yeast maker, the zyrnourghos, in Ptolemaic times.
Chapter 2
64
A ncien t Egypt
65
records cover a period of almost three millennia, during which time brewing techniques would undoubtedly have changed. This situation has led
to a general approach, as to how beer was made in Egyptian antiquity
and accordingly, one finds a succession of somewhat cursory accounts of
beer and brewing in general Egyptological texts. One such example may
be found in Strouhal(1992), where we find the following paragraphs:
Bread dough was used also in the brewing of beer, which was the favoured drink
of the masses in contrast to wine, consumed only by the rich. Beer-brewing
and bread-making are almost always shown in the wall scenes side by side. Greek
sources say the Egyptians made beer from barley, but analysis of organic
remains in beer jugs has usually pointed to wheat.
Beer-making was again womens work as a rule. The grain would be soaked in
water for a day, rolled out and left to dry, then wetted again, crushed and trodden
in large vats with yeast added. Whenfermentation was well advanced the mash
wasfiltered through a sieve or piece of cloth and thefiltrate put aside to mature.
Stale bread would also be used in place of grain, mashed in a pot of watev, boiled
and left in a warm place to ferment.
The stages most commonly illustrated are the preparation of the mash and its
filtration through sieves into tall containers.
Finally the filtrate was seasoned with spices, dates, mandrake, safflower and
other additives - hops were unknown.
Before being drunk, beer was poured through a sieve, or fine-meshed cloth to
remove remains of the additives and other impurities.
Then, a few years later, Brewer and Teeter (1999) inform us that:
Beer was made from barley dough, so bread-making and beer-making are often
shown together. Barley dough destined for beer-making was possibly baked and
then crumbled into a large vat, where it was mixed with water and sometimes
sweetened with date juice. This mixture was left to ferment, which it did quickly;
the liquid was then strained into a pot that was sealed with a clay stopper.
Ancient Egyptian beer had to be drunk soon after it was made because it
wentflat very quickly. Egyptians made a variety of beers of different strengths.
Strength was calculated according to how many standard measures of the liquid
was made from one hekat (4.54 litres) of barley; thus beer of strength two was
stronger than beer of strength ten.
Chapter 2
The Egyptians used more varieties of barley and emmer than the Babylonians,
and probably malted both types of grain. They wetted whole ears of grain and
buried them in the earth until germination began, when they separated out the
kernels. This method of hand separation of germinated corns from ears was
very laborious and only used in private houses and very small breweries. Larger
breweries must have started with threshed grain. The Egyptians did not follow
the Babylonians in drying the malt in air, but crushed it in mortars and made
malt cakes. They did not use malt directly for brewing as the Babylonians did,
but worked solely with beer cakes, both malt cakes and cakes made from
unmalted grain. They baked all malt cakes to a dark brown and produced no
light beers. The malt cakes were the only source of starch-splitting enzymes, so
only the outside of the cakes was roasted, leaving the inside relatively uncooked.
The Egyptians added various plants to the wort for flavouring. One was
mandrake, which has a strong leek-likeflavour. Common salt was also added to
the wort.
Their method of preparing the wort from the beer cakes is something of a
mystery. Neither brewhouse nor mash-tun can be traced. The whole production
of the mash took place in a large clay vessel, into which were put the broken beer
cakes and enough water to soak the cakes through without leaving any over.
After standing for a day, the sponge-like mass was thumped with wooden pestles
and stirred to a thick porridge. It was then strained into the fermenting vessel
while being kneaded with the hands and sprayed with water. The production of
young beer was accomplished in 2-4 days of fermentation. The beer was by no
means clear, but this did not seem to matter. Evidently it could be consumed at
any stage of the fermentation. Mature beer was very carefully prepared. When
the initial fermentation was complete and ingredients causing cloudiness had
sunk to the bottom or floated to the surface, the beer was transferred to a
second vessel, leaving behind as much of the sediment as possible. Secondary
fermentation took place in these second vessels, and then the beer was poured
into storage vessels. It seems that the wealthier classes, at any rate, attached
some importance to the brightness of their beer, for it was artijicially clarified
with fullers earth.
Evidently then the mashing procedure of the Egyptians was a straight infusion
method at the air temperature of that country. It seems probable that starch
conversion may still have been going on after the addition of yeast and the
beginning of fermentation.
67
Ancient Egypt
Chapter 2
68
.............
.
.
.............
....--.-..----..--.-..-.-.
.----.,.
nrynres break down starch i...
It0 sugars
-..___.-...._._....__...---..-...
...........................................,
xrraction of sweet liquid .....
Sieved
............................................
.*.
........................... .........................., .
east c h p sugars to alcohol i
......................................................
Figure 2.6 The suggested method of ancient Egyptian brewing presented in this chapter,
based on microscopy of desiccated brewing residues. Text in boxes with solid
lines and rounded corners indicates ancient brewing steps; text in dotted line
boxes indicates biochemical changes which occur at each step
(Reproduced by kind permission of Dr Delwen Samuel)
evidence we know that there were several beer styles and that beer
was made in differing strengths
5. How much labour was required?
6. How long did beer take to produce?
7. Why was it necessary to strain crumbled bread through a sieve?
Samuels work, carried out under the auspices of the Egypt E.S.
Exploration Society, aimed to answer some of the above questions and
she concerned herself solely with the scientific analysis of bona j d e
archaeological remains, not interpretation of artistic depictions. As
Samuel quite correctly states, the function of funerary statuettes, models
and wall reliefs was not to evince beer recipes, but to aid the deceased
in the afterlife. In essence, she had to ignore the findings and conclusions
Ancient Egypt
69
of what she calls the artistic corpus and interpret her archaeological
findings independently.
The work was carried out at two desert village sites known to date
from the New Kingdom. One site is at Deir el-Medina, on the west
bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, and this was a village that housed the
workers who built and decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings
and Valley of the Queens. The second site is at the workmens village
about one mile from the city of el-Amarna in Middle Egypt. Both sites
are in extremely arid areas and biological remains of the brewing cycle
have survived. Such remains emanate from two sources; firstly, from jars
containing provisions placed in tombs, and, secondly, from jar debris
generated by people going about their daily tasks. Funerary offerings are
often found in great quantity. It is difficult to say whether the containers
that bear desiccated beer remains are actually part of the processing
equipment in the brewery, or merely conveniently available receptacles
at the time of burial. Domestic residues from settlements, on the other
hand, which have been located and investigated only from el-Amarna,
have only yielded relatively few pot fragments with impregnated
biological remains. All of these have come from rubbish dumps,
which are located some distance from the actual sites of beer and bread
preparation.
Residues from brewing activities are characterised by the pattern of
deposition on the pot shard itself, and/or by the presence of bran and chaff
fragments from the grain. Baking residues, which would also contain
remnants of grain, show a different pattern of deposition. The remarkable
state of preservation of these residues, and the use of scanning electron
microscopy (SEM), have permitted Samuel to ascertain that malting of
both barley and emmer was a feature of brewing at this period of time.
A number of important facts have emerged from the work:
70
Chapter 2
did not build their grain stores in areas liable to flood, and so
accidental dampening during storage is unlikely. From the condition
of the intact grains, it has been reasonably suggested that the
barley had been germinating from 3-5 days, whilst the emmer had
been sprouted for a couple of days longer
3. SEM studies show that the large starch grains from the endosperm
of both emmer and barley have been subjected to enzymic attack;
they show surface pitting and channelling, which is characteristic
of germinated (malted) cells
4. In the endosperm of graminaceous seeds, starch grains are
embedded in a protein matrix. This protein layer has to be enzymatically penetrated before the entrapped starch can be broken
down. Protein levels in the endosperm of both types of grain have
been found to be much lower than those that are found in their
modern counterparts. In modern brewing parlance this means
that the grain would have had a low N. The low levels of protein
could have been an agronomic feature of these ancient grasses,
produced as a response to the perpetual shortage of water, or the
protein could have become biodegraded with age
5. Some starch grains, especially the larger ones, become detached
from the endosperm matrix and lie independently in the biological residue. Such isolated grains show a wide spectrum of
lytic attack. Some granules are totally untouched, whilst others
are very heavily pitted and channelled. There is a possibility
that both malted and unmalted grains were employed in making
beer
6. There is evidence that some malted, or unmalted grain may have
been heated whilst still moist. This has led to starch gelatinisation
and subsequent hardening, which can be recognised by the loss of
birefringence under polarised light. Some modern speciality malts,
such as crystal malt, are prepared in this way, and maybe then, as
now, they were used to create novel beers
7. Recovered whole seeds of emmer and barley do not show signs
of high temperature treatments (e.g. dark colour and shrivelled
embryos) and so there is a question mark as to how dark beers,
which we know existed, were produced
8. If emmer and barley were germinated in their husks, then these
coats must have been removed at some stage prior to final beer
production, since desiccated beer residues show few signs of chaff
fragments. The suggestion is that the substantial quantities of
husk debris were removed from the damp mashed malt by sieving;
a process widely recorded in artistic records, as we have seen.
Ancient Egypt
71
Maybe the sieves were not for filtering crumbled bread, as has been
commonly assumed, after all
9. Dates have been thought to have been an almost standard component of ancient Egyptian beers. Whilst date stones have been
recovered from a variety of sites, including the Amarna Workmens
village, they have everywhere been found in low numbers. Chaff
volumes, at similar sites, have been substantial. If dates were a
common beer ingredient then one would expect to find huge
numbers of stones; unless there was another, as yet unknown, use
for them (a use that would have led to their destruction). The
proven use of malt means that dates were not essential as a source
of fermentable material, as had been previously thought; thus date
cannot be regarded as an essential ingredient of ancient Egyptian
beer
10. Yeast cells have been identified under the SEM, and they are
particularly characteristic to the eye when they possess buds or
bud-scars. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish small starch
granules from non-budding yeast cells. Clumps of rod-shaped
bacteria are also identifiable, and it is possible that these may be
lactobacilli, although identification is impossible without resort
to biochemical taxonomic characters. If these are lactics then
it is tempting to propose an analogy with present-day lambic
and gueuze beers, which rely on spontaneous fermentation
by non-Saccharomyces organisms, as well as true yeasts, for their
preparation
11. No identifiable remains of any plants that could have been used
to flavour beer have been found in beer residues excavated from
el-Amarna or Deir el-Medina. This is in general accordance with
the findings of various workers at other sites; there is a distinct
paucity of such material. If husks were retained with the grain, for
at least part of the brewing cycle, then they could have imparted
some bitterness to the final product.
The above findings present one major problem, in terms of the hitherto
accepted interpretations of the artistic records of brewing. If we accept,
as we must that malting of grain occurred, at least for some beer types,
then where did it occur? Malting, certainly these days, is an expensive
operation; requiring space and time (ancient Egyptians would have
had plenty of the latter). Drying and storage facilities are also usually
necessary. The interpretation of existing records does not make an
allowance for the pre-requisites of malting. Future investigations must
be aimed at ascertaining whether special vessels and equipment were
72
Chapter 2
used; they certainly have not been recognised thus far. As Samuel (pers.
comm.) has indicated, malting as a key activity has not heretofore been
recognised by Egyptologists, so they have not been looking for malting
sites, either in the archaeological record, or in documents.
In a summation of her work, Samuel states:
The distinguishing feature of the New Kingdom method of brewing described
here is that it used a two-part process, treating two batches of cereal grain
differently, and then mixing them together. The emerging picture of Egyptian
brewing seems to have some relation to modern-day African traditions of fermented cereal beverages. Present-day Nubian bouza, using lightly baked bread,
does not resemble the ancient Egyptian technique. There is some similarity,
because bouza-making involves the mixture of two differently treated batches of
grain. These accounts describe how lightly baked bread (cooked cereal) is mixed
with uncooked malt. . . In summary, the evidence of the residues shows that
ancient Egyptian brewing most closely resembles traditional sub-Saharan
methods. Modern Western brewing and traditional Nubian bouza-making are
quite diffe rent techniques.
REFERENCES
W.M.F. Petrie, Diospolis Parva, The Cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu,
1898-9, Egypt Exploration Fund, London, 1901.
W.M.F. Petrie, Prehistoric Egypt, 2 volumes, Bernard Quaritch, London,
1920.
J.G. Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult, Brill, Leiden, 1980.
M.A. Murray, N. Boulton and C. Heron, Viticulture and wine production in Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, P.T. Nicholson and
I. Shaw (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
W.J. Darby, P. Ghalioungi and L. Grivetti, Food: The Gift of Osiris,
2 volumes, Academic Press, London, 1977.
R. Palmer, Background to wine as an agricultural commodity in Wine
in the Mycenean Palace Economy, R. Palmer (ed), University of Liege,
1994.
H.L.F. Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing in the Ancient Orient, J.C. Hinrichs,
Leipzig, 1922.
L. Manniche, An Ancient EgyptianHerbal, British Museum, London, 1999.
E. Strouhal, Life in Ancient Egypt, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.
H. Helbaek, New Phytologist, 1964,63, 158.
M. Nesbitt and D. Samuel, From staple crop to extinction? The
archaeology and history of the hulled wheats in Hulled Wheats,
A mien t Egyp t
73
74
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
76
Chapter 3
Figure3.1
77
A sealing from the excavations at Tepe Gawra, northern Iraq, showing the
earliest direct evidence for beer in Mesopotamia (ca. 4000 BC). Two people
are shown drinking from a jar by means of bent straws. In the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
(Reproduced by kind permission of the University of Pennsylvania Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology)
sure about the accuracy of the chronology in that statement, but the
geography is spot on.
78
Chapter 3
79
80
Chapter 3
from 300-500 litres for the large, immovable type, to 25-175 litres for
smaller, portable ones. Documents found in one of the rooms indicated
that the owner/brewers name was Yaya. The sheer capacity of the
recovered vessels suggests that Yaya was a large-scale brewer.
The second possible brewery in Syria was found at the Early Bronze
I11 site at Selenkahiye (van Loon, 1979). The brewery consisted of a
small house, with a courtyard containing an oven. The house contained
two square vessels placed side-by-side, and these have been interpreted as
fermentation vessels. Above the vessels was a round, sherd-lined basin,
from which liquid could drain into the vessels. Was this a mash-tun? The
Sumerian sign (pictogram, or Sumerogram) for beer was KAS, whilst the
Akkadian sign was sikaru, and most of the evidence for beer production
emanates from tablet inscriptions employing such markings, such as were
interpreted by Hartman and Oppenheim. The meaning of sikaru
changed over a period of time: up until the end of the Old Babylonian
period it represented an alcoholic drink made from barley, whilst by the
Neo-Babylonian period, it denoted a beer made from barley, emmer, or
dates. Maybe this signifies a gradual change in basic brewing ingredients,
and hence brewing technology. Mention of beer (as KA$ can be traced
as far back as the beginning of writing itself, in the form of protocuneiform economic documents from the Late Uruk period (late 4h
millennium BC).
The basis for K A S seems to be a beer jug with a wide mouth, narrow
neck and swollen shoulders, which taper to a basal point (Figure 3.2(a)).
There are many variations in shape and decoration and one of the commonest seems to show the jug with a spout emanating from a shoulder
(Figure 3.2(b)). When these pictograms have no content, they represent
the jug per se; when they contain some form of hatching, they then
represent beer (Figure 3.2(c)). Another brewing-related Sumerogram,
SIM (Figure 3.2(d)), usually takes the form of a flat-bottomed, tapered
beer jug with a square placed to one side of the base. The presence of the
additional square has been ascribed two possible meanings: firstly, that it
represents a series of aromatic plants that were incorporated into the
beer; and, secondly, that it signifies the oven used to heat the wort and the
concoction of aromatic plants. Damerow (1996), who has documented
references to beer in archaic texts, reports that the Sumerogram, K U S I M
described the granary administrator who was in charge of brewing
ingredients.
In terms of brewing methodology in Mesopotamia, such information
as we have indicates that brewing methods were very much like those
indicated by the artistic record in Egypt, inasmuch as there was a close
link with bread-making. The Sumerian logogram for BAPPIR literally
81
6
6
a.
C.
b.
d.
Figure 3.2 Sumerian pictograms: a ) KAS; b ) KAS with spout; c ) KAS with beer d ) SIM
linked the beer jar (KA$ with the sign for bread (NINDA), which therefore read as KAS + NINDA, meaning beer-loaf , and this appears frequently, as does the Sumerian for brewer; L U K A S + NINDA, literally
meaning man of the beer loaf . The unidentified flavouring SIM was
added to the BAPPIR mix before it was cooked, and use of the additive
became so common that the brewer using it was denoted as L U S I M .
To some scholars, the appearance of SIM in the term for brewer,
signifies a change in brewing technology. The predominant grain appears
to have been barley (ieum), although spelt (ai-a-an)was also frequently
mentioned and presumably used; much more frequently than in ancient
Egypt, if the records are correct (see page 38). It was Hrozny (1913),
who, in the course of a study of grain in ancient Babylonia, first
concluded that what the Babylonians were producing and consuming was beer (something that had not been considered before). Most
Assyriologists had interpreted the major grain-based drink to be
something akin to, what we now know as, kvass.
TYPES OF BEER
Once it was established that beer was an omnipresent drink in the
area, Hrozny carried out an extensive study into Babylonian brewing
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83
METHODOLOGY
Early accounts of Mesopotamian brewing do not generally tell us much
about the actual methodology, apart from invariably mentioning beer
loaves. Ingredients are afforded far better documentation (although
not in the form of practical recipes), as are the types of beer produced.
Powell (1994) reports that only one recipe has survived from the Old
Babylonian period, and that this is too fragmentary to make much
sense. As with most other ancient Near Eastern technologies, brewing
knowledge was transmitted orally. What we do know about brewing
technology suggests that loaf production and subsequent treatment
followed very closely that indicated by the artistic records in Egypt,
although there are many more references to malt and its production
in Mesopotamian accounts. Hartmann and Oppenheim certainly
appreciated the similarities in the ancient brewing technologies of these
two areas when they wrote, in 1950:
In Mesopotamia, as well as in Egypt, the characteristic tool of the brewer is the
earthen vat, in which he mixes his brew. This is clearly borne out by the Egyptian
hieroglyph for the word fty, brewer, which shows the craftsman bent over such
a container straining the mash through a basket-shaped sieve. The few existing
pictorial representations of a brewer at work on Mesopotamian cylinder seals
are much less revealing in this respect. In the cuneiform system of writing,
however, the basic tool of the brewer plays an important role. Here, the brewer as
well as the characteristic product of his activity (not the finished beverage, cJ:
presently) are referred to by a group of pictograms which all show pointed
earthen containers with inscribed signs obviously indicating their content.
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One final word from Civil for the moment: when dealing with LAM-RE,
yet another vessel from the Hymn, he says, It is certainly a foreign word,
like practically all the technical terms of the Mesopotamian brewer. What
an amazing statement. Does this mean that we should be looking
elsewhere for the origins of beer and brewing?
Historical evidence indicates that both filtered and unfiltered beers
were brewed, and in terms of the former, the brewer had ample opportunity, during the brewing procedure, to remove gross material by
straining. We have noted that malt was screened after being crushed, a
process that removed much gross, particulate matter. Later on during
brewing, the mash could be sieved prior to fermentation, and then
the green beer could be similarly treated. Ellison (1984) has suggested
that the difference between unfiltered beer and filtered beer constituted
a major change in Near Eastern brewing technology during the mid3rdmillennium BC.
87
Figure 3.3 Impression of a lapis lazuli cylinder seal from the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Early
Dynastic Period (ca. 2600-2350 BC). The upper register shows a seated
couple drinking beer from a globular jar through straws. The lower register
shows a group of musicians
(Reproduced by kind permission of the University of Pennsylvania Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology)
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89
Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date] - honey,
You are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even thepotentates,
You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the wavesfall,
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the wavesfall,
You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,
Brewing [it] with honey [and] wine
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Ninkasi, (. . .),
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Thefiltering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on [top of] a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
Youplace appropriately on [top of] a large collector vat.
When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out thefiltered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
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made from BAPPIR bread. This type of bread was really meant for
storage purposes and rarely eaten by the populace as a staple, but only
consumed in times of food shortage. It would keep for considerable
periods of time without succumbing to spoilage and was, thus, an ideal
storable raw material for brewing purposes (rather like malted barley is
today), as well as being a reserve food.
The early stanzas refer to water, an obviously important ingredient,
and there is mention of borne offlowing water, which is thought to
refer to the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and your town by the sacred lake
with great walls, which is interpreted as meaning that there was a
reservoir built to store water for crop irrigation; presumably barley.
Subsequent stanzas refer to the brewing process itself commencing
with bappir dough being mixed with sweet aromatics using a big
shovel. . . in apit. There is then reference to Ninkasi being the one who
bakes the bappir in the big oven and puts in order the piles of hulled
grains. She then waters the malt set on the ground and soaks the malt
in a jar before the waves rise, the waves fall, the latter statement being
construed as being a reference to a manual mashing process, whereby
bappir and malt are mixed in a vessel. There is no mention of any
temperature-raising treatment here, and one might speculate as to how
Ninkasi was able to control temperature, but the tablets then make the
statement that you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed
mats and, then coolness overcomes. This clearly intimates that the
mash reached an elevated temperature by some means, and that there
had to be a cooling phase before fermentation could commence.
Spreading the mash out onto reed mats would, in effect, represent a
means of filtering out the liquid component of the mash, and removing
spent grain material, such as husks. The filtered liquid is called great
sweet wort in the hymn, and it is then introduced into vessels - where it
is fermented. Prior to fermentation, there is reference to the addition of
honey and wine to the mash, which would undoubtedly increase the
sweetness of the wort, but after re-examination of the text (particularly
of the word gestin) this is now thought to be a reference to date juice
(read for honey) and grapes and/or raisins (read for wine). Gestin,
originally translated as wine, has now been shown to mean grape
and raisin as well. This is important to the overall context of the
recipe, because we now have a source of yeast for fermentation; from the
surface of grapes and/or raisins.
There is no direct mention of fermentationper se, but as we reach the
final two stanzas, we have reference to; thefiltering vat, which makes a
pleasant sound and a large collector vat, which is appropriately
underneath the filtering vat. This combined apparatus is said to be a
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means of trickling wort through a filter into the fermentation vessel (the
collector vat). The latter was apparently equipped with a narrow neck, in
order to keep air out of the system. The very last stanza describes the
pouring of the finished product; when you pour out the filtered beer out
collector vat, . . . it is like the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates. Since the
two rivers provided the very foundations of their civilisation, and were
thus held in the utmost esteem, one can only assume that beer was treated
with almost equal respect, in order for it to be likened, in any way, to these
two great watercourses. Note, also, that there is again an allusion to beer
flavouring in the hymn, with the reference to sweet aromatics. At this
point in time, in the absence of direct evidence (only much speculation),
we really do not have any idea what these aromatics might have been.
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A QUESTION OF PRIMACY
The close relationship between bread and beer in the pre-Samuel interpretations of brewing techniques in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the
realisation of the antiquity of brewing, has prompted scholars to
hypothesise as to which staple was primarily responsible for mankinds
decision to domesticate crops; a step which is seen as being fundamental
in the civilisation of Homo sapiens. Was it bread or beer that proved
to be the initial stimulant for agriculture? Professor Robert Braidwood,
of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, instigated a debate,
in 1953, which went under the broadheading, Didman once live by beer
alone? Braidwood had received a personal letter from Jonathan D.
Sauer, professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin, in which the
assumption was that the appearance of domesticated cereals in the Near
East was intimately linked with the use of their grains for the preparation
of flour for bread-making. Braidwood made use of a new symposiumby-mail section of the journal, American Anthropologist, to pose the
following question to his colleagues:
93
Could the discovery that a mash of fermented grain yielded a palatable and
nutritious beverage, have acted as a greater stimulant toward the experimental
selection and breeding of the cereals, than the discovery of flour and breadmaking? One would assume that the utilisation of wild cereals (along with edible
roots and berries) as a source of collected food would have been in existence
for millennia before their domestication (in a meaningfiul sense) took place. Was
the subsequent impetus to this domestication bread or beer?
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Subsequent work at the site has indicated that the habitation at Jarmo
is older than first thought and is now given as dating from around the
beginning of the 7th millennium BC (ca. 6750 BC). Botanical remains,
which may be pertinent to brewing, are given as: brittle einkorn wheat
(Triticum boeoticum) and non-brittle einkorn wheat ( T monococcum),
both of which are rare; brittle emmer (7: dicoccoides) and non-brittle
emmer wheat ( T dicoccum), which are both common; brittle two-rowed
barley (Hordeum spontaneum) (common), and non-brittle two-rowed
barley (H. distichum), which was occasionally encountered. The bulk of
the plant remains, which are in the form of imprints and carbonised
remains, can be attributed to brittle two-rowed barley, which conforms
closely to the wild, two-rowed H. spontaneum, except that the specimens
from Jarmo have slightly larger kernels. The significance of brittleness
will be explained later on in this chapter. Evidence for lentils and peas
has also been recovered from Jarmo. For a review of cereals cultivated in
ancient Iraq, the reader should consult Renfrew, 1984.
The archaeological material found at Jarmo did not throw any
direct light on the subject of which camejrst? but the ensuing multidisciplinary discussion, via the pages of American Anthropologist, provided a unique opportunity for the dissemination of ideas. During the
discussion instigated by Braidwood, there was an extremely erudite discourse by Professor Paul Mangelsdorf, from Harvard, who championed
the notion that the ancient cereals were not originally grown for bread
or beer production, but for producing popped or parched (roasted)
grains, which would have been eaten. This would at least account for
the common occurrence of ovens in ancient habitations. If the cereal
crop was used solely for brewing purposes, then what did people eat? As
Mangelsdorf said:
Did these Neolithic farmers forego the extraordinary food values of the cereals
in favour of alcohol, for which they had no physiological need? Are we to believe
that the foundations of Western Civilisation were laid by an ill-fed people living
in a perpetual state ofpartial inebriation?
The earliest known cereals of the Near East, be they wheat or barley
varieties, all suffered from the fact that the chaff, or husks were not easily
separated from the corn after its removal from the seed head, i.e. they
were hulled. This necessitated further processing (such as de-hulling
and milling) before such grains could be used for making bread. The
adherence of the husk to a grain does not affect its usefulness for
brewing; in fact it is a tremendous benefit (viz barley). Thus, if one
adopts a simplistic approach, it would seem that the earliest cultivated
95
cereals, because they were hulled, were more suited to brewing than to
bread-making. The presence of the husk in extant varieties of barley
makes that cereal ideal for brewing purposes, because it is the husk that
provides a natural filter-bed, through which wort (the extract produced
during mashing) can be drawn off. When barley is milled for brewing
purposes, the resulting fragments should not be too fine - otherwise,
when hot water is added, a glutinous mass will be formed, rather like a
flour paste from which it is almost impossible to obtain any liquid
(wort). This is what effectively happens in a set mash. The art of
milling for brewing is to leave a certain percentage of large fragments of
seed in the grist, which will then provide a coarse bed through which
wort draw-off can be effected. Conversely, it is in the brewers interest
to have a reasonable percentage of fine fragments (flour) in the grist,
such that, other factors permitting, maximum enzyme activity can ensue.
Modern wheats, being naked, do not perform as well in traditional
mashing processes.
Mangelsdorf maintained that one of the oldest ways of separating the
husk from the grain was to put it in a fire, or heat it in an oven. This
causes the grain to be ejected from the glume, and is a process known as
popping. The grain is now more edible because the fibrous husk has been
removed. If the moisture content of the grain is not suitable then it
will not pop. In such instances the grain can be heated to a higher temperature and the charred husk can be removed by rubbing; this is
parching, and by elevating the temperature the texture of the grain will
have become more friable and the taste more appealing than when in
the raw state. Once grains have had their husks removed, they can
be ground and then soaked in water; this gives a primitive foodstuff like a
gruel or a porridge. A gruel made with only a little water (i.e. like a
dough) and then subjected to heat represents a primitive loaf. One can
imagine the progression in the evolution of the foods of the ancients.
Mangelsdorf proposed the following evolutionary series of treatments of
grains, for food purposes, and suggested that these ultimately led to beer
production:
-
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THE GRAINS
What about the cereals themselves in and around our two ancient beerproducing areas? Archaeobotanical evidence indicates that we should
limit ourselves solely to the consideration of archaic wheats and barleys,
since there is no evidence of the use of any other major source of starch
in the early days of agriculture. Ten thousand years ago, man would have
used wild wheats and barleys; he would find them, harvest them, maybe
store the harvest, and then prepare food and/or drink from them. He
then learned to grow them for himself, which eliminated the hunting
stage. Wild einkorn (I:boeoticum) was the ancestor of cultivated einkorn
(I: monococcum), both being very ancient forms of wheat. The latter
was never a major crop in Egypt or Mesopotamia, but was important
in prehistoric Greece, and is extensively grown today for human food in
northern Turkey.
Emmer wheat was a much more successful crop and became the
chief wheat of many parts of the Near East. The earliest signs of the
pre-agricultural gathering of wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides)
and wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum) is from Ohalo 11, an early
Epi-Palaeolithic site, now submerged, on the southern shore of the
Sea of Galilee, dating from ca. 17,000 BC (Kislev et al., 1992). Other
early evidence of H. spontaneum collection from the wild comes from
the 9000 BC, Epi-Palaeolithic site at Tell Abu Hureyra, in northern
Syria (Hillman, et al., 1989); 8000-7500 BC, Tell Mureybit, also in
northern Syria (van Zeist, 1970); Tell Aswad, some 25 km southeast of
Damascus, at a site dated to 7800-7600 BC (van Zeist & BakkerHeeres, 1985), and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (ca. 7900-7500 BC) site
at Netiv Hagdud, in the Lower Jordan Valley, north of Jericho (Kislev,
1997). Brittle spontaneum-type barley has been found at three sites that
indicate that wheat was already being cultivated: from the 7500-6750 BC
Bus Mordeh phase of Ali Kosh, Khuzistan, in Iran (Helbaek, 1969);
from the earliest layers (dated at ca. 7000 BC) of Cayonii, Turkey
(van Zeist, 1972), and from the 6700 BC pre-ceramic Beidha, Jordan
(Helbaek, 1966). It seems, therefore, that wheat was brought into
cultivation at an earlier date than barley.
As far as we know, the earliest form of wheat agriculture was first
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99
It should be stressed that the above notion was discredited during the
1960s, and today, no serious scholar suggests that the origin of wheat
and barley lie anywhere else but the fertile crescent.
The pre-agricultural harvesters had one major problem; wild grasses
have a flowering spike, which, after fertilisation of the flowers and
setting of seed, becomes very brittle. Individual seed-containing spikelets
become easily detached and dispersed (in nature, by animals or wind).
This is good for the plant, because it aids seed dispersal, but not so
good for the harvester, because attempts to remove and gather the whole
spike invariably end in its fracture and subsequent spillage of spikelets
and seeds. Fortunately for mankind, barley and wheat have a recessive
tendency (which is gene-controlled) to produce tough spike axes,
whereby the seeds are retained on the head. Retention of seed is a bad
strategy for the plant, but good for the ancient harvester, because
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Figure 3.4 Distribution of wild barley, Hordeum vulgare subsp.spontaneum, [=H.spontaneum] in the Near East, and surrounds. The area in which
the barley is massively spread is shaded. Dots represent additional sites, mainly of weedy forms. Wild barley extends eastwards beyond
the boundaries of this map as far as Tibet
(After Zohary & Hopf, 2000, Reproduced by kind permission of Oxford University Press)
Chapter 3
102
archaeological sites in the Near and Middle East. This is because it has a
preference for much cooler climates and is, consequentially, almost
totally absent from hot regions, such as Lower Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Wild einkorn is widely distributed over western Asia, and its distribution
centre lies in the Near East arc, i.e. northern Syria, southern Turkey,
northern Iraq and adjacent Iran, as well as parts of western Anatolia
(see Figure 3.5). The plant is low-yielding and the yellowish flour, whilst
nutritious, has poor rising capabilities, making it less than ideal for
bread-making. It was used primarily for making gruels and porridges,
its specific use in brewing being unclear. On the positive side, it will
tolerate impoverished soils. The rather sparse carbonised remains of
both forms at Jarmo is about as near as we get to the alluvial plains
of Mesopotamia, where attempts to grow the cultivated plant seems to
have met with failure. The botanical remains tell us that wild einkorn
must have grown at Jarmo with wild emmer just as it does in the
Kurdish mountains today.
Spelt (Triticum spelta L.) is a hexaploid, hulled wheat and is now rarely
grown. Modern taxonomists would regard it as a subspecies of the bread
-
Figure 3.5
103
wheat (i.e. 1? aestivum subsp. spelta (L.) Thell). The reports of its presence
at some of the early digs appear to be mis-identifications, because as
Helbaek (1959) says:
Spelt has never been found in prehistoric deposits outside Europe, and present
cultivation is restricted to certain Central European mountainous districts and
a few other places where it is known to have been introduced in historical times
by people coming from Central Europe.
Since the above statement was made, there appears to have been one
positive identification of spelt at the northern Iraqi site of Yarym Tepe,
dating from ca. 5000 BC (Renfrew, 1984), although Nesbitt and Samuel
(1996) regard such archaeobotanical records of spelt from outside
Europe as doubtful. In the same article, these authors state that, these
days, archaeobotanists are becoming more cautious in identifying
signs of agriculture, and they give a salutary warning to workers wishing
to ascribe to a definite site, the sobriquet of being the birthplace of
agriculture. They argue:
It is important to realise just how few sites are represented by plant remains
prior to 7000 BC. In view of the small sample size - j u s t seven sites with
definite agriculture - we think that any attempt at narrowing down the origins
of agriculture within the Fertile Crescent is unwise. There is no evidence that
one of the hulled wheats or barley was domesticated before the others, or that
domestication took place in one area rather than another. More Neolithic sites
are known from the Levant than any other area, but this simply reflects an
extraordinary concentration of archaeological work in Israel, Jordan and
Syria. Turkey and Iraq are still poorly known, while archaeological fieldwork
ended in Iran in 1979. Some authors have argued strongly that agriculture
began in the Jordan valley (Smith, 1995), but neither the evidence of the wild
ancestors nor archaeobotany allow this conclusion at this stage. Not only is the
botanical evidence from early sites scanty, but re-evaluation of evidence for
early agriculture suggests that the earliest definite evidence of plant domestication is as much present in northern Syria and southeast Turkey as in Israel and
Jordan.
FLAVOURING
No other graminaceous plants have been reported as being ingredients
in Old World beer, but as we already seen, several plant species have
been putatively reported as being used to flavour the product. The list
includes: lupin (Lupinus sp.); skirret (Sium sisarum); rue (Ruta graveolens
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No.169.
105
Beni-nassan.
Tlcebes.
b)
No. 167.
Figure 3.6 (a) From a wall painting at the necropolis at Beni-Hasan; two male inebriates
being carried home from a banquet (b) From a wall painting at Thebes; a
servant called to support her mistress
(After Wilkinson, 1878)
Chapter 3
106
[ N B Translationsfrom originals have usually, at some stage, been via the Greek
andlor the Roman. These were not languages of beer-drinking cultures, and beer
was not generally understood; so for wine one can read beer.]
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108
May Ninkasi live with you - let her pour your beer everlasting.
M y sister, your grain - its beer is tasty, my comfort.
Oh Lord thou shalt not enter the beer shop.
The beer drunkard shall soak your gown in vomit.
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These early records of women, rather than men, drinking beer during
sexual intercourse mitigate against the assumption that females became
marginalised during the enactment of all, supposedly, male-dominated
rituals and institutions. There are also attestations of women drinking
at banquets and symposia. Marginalisation of the fairer sex where the
consumption of alcohol was concerned, may have occurred later on in
history, but it certainly did not apply to the ancient Near East.
In Egypt, excess consumption of both beer and wine was practised
both at the top and bottom of the social scale. We thus have reports of
massive consumption of alcohol by the 4th Dynasty King Menkaura
(2532-2503 BC), who, on being told by an oracle that he had six years
to live, banqueted all night, every night, and lived another 12 years! At a
later date, the 26thDynasty King Ahmose I1 (570-526 BC), a ruler of
humble origins, had such a predilection for beer that he delayed affairs
of state in order to indulge in a drinking bout. The Egyptian calendar
contained a day of drunkenness Th, an annual festival which was
celebrated on the 20th day of the month of Thot. Thot was probably
originally called thy, meaning vintage or vine festival and corresponded with the ancient Egyptian New Year. Athenaeus noted that
Egyptians were notoriously excessive drinkers because of their unique
habit of putting boiled cabbage first on the bill of fare at banquets.
He further states that Many people add cabbage seed to all remedies
concocted aga inst drunkenness.
As intimated previously, beer had strong religious associations and
found a place in Egyptian mythology. One of the most oft told
tales relates to the supposed saving of mankind, from the wrath of the
goddess Hathor, by the god Re. An extremely succinct background
explanation and account is given by Darby et al. (1977):
In Egyptian cosmology Hathor was the mother (or daughter) of the sun Re,
and was viewed then as a distinct entity; hut, in other instances, she was
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identijied or confused with Isis, Nut or other goddesses. Both she and Nut were
sometimes visualised as celestial cows standing with theirfeet at thefour corners
of the earth and with golden stars upon their bellies.
In her commonest bovine form, Hathor was a mother goddess, the mother of
mankind and the personiJication of mirth and love, constantly giving of herself
and nourishing the living with an endless supply of her divine milk. However,
possibly as a result of the religious syncretism of which the Egyptians were fond,
she was also the avenging eye of her father Re who sent her to punish mankind.
The tale as told in the Theban tombs of Seti I and Rameses III is summarised
here: Re, the sun, became old; his bones changed to silver, his flesh to gold, and
his hair was coloured the blue of lapis lazuli. Mankind, aware of his weakness,
plotted against him, but Re learned of the plan and gathered Hathor (his eye),
along with the four primordial gods and goddesses; Shu (wind), Tefnut (water),
Geb (earth) and Nut (sky). Nun, god of the primordial sea and the deity which
existed before all else, advised Re to direct his eye at mankind. Thus Hathor
began the slaughter and accomplished it with such fury and thoroughness that
Re was taken with compassion and feared that mankind would be completely
destroyed. He, therefore, concocted a mixture of beer that he coloured blood-red,
and spread it over the flooded fields, on which it shone like a giant mirror.
Hathor, vain like most women, paused to admire herselfin it and was attracted
to the mixture. She drank it, was intoxicated, and forgot her avenging task. Man
thus survived to repopulate the earth.
Darby et al. mention only Hathor in the above extract, but in some
accounts, there is a distinction between fierce and passive forms of Res
eye and the fierce, bloodthirsty lioness is often called Sekhmet; Hathor
being less martial. We are told that Re ordered his servants to brew 7,000
jugs of beer, the red colour being imparted, apparently, by red ochre
from Elephantine. Whatever it was, it certainly worked, for Sekhmetl
Hathor took it straightaway for blood. The appeased Hathor became a
Lady of drunkenness, music and dance, who adopted, as an emblem,
the sistrum, a musical rattle that was reproduced on the capitals of her
temples. Herodotus commented that, Peoplefeasted her by dancing and
drinking, women unveiling themselves and loading watchers with abuse.
The Egyptians never forgot that mankind had been saved in this way,
and each year, a gentle form of the fierce feline god Hathor, was feasted in
Bubastis (modern Tell Basta) with vast quantities of beer and wine being
consumed. The general purpose and character of these celebrations is
fairly well documented, a text on Muts gate at Karnak informing us that:
In honour of the goddess, beer, red with Nubian ochre, is poured in these days of
the Feast of the Valley, so that, having become different from the usual aspect of
beer, it would appease the anger in her heart.
111
Another poem, the Hymn of the Seven Hathors, exalted the happiness she
brought:
We gladden daily thy Majesty,
And thy heart rejoiceth, when thou hearest our songs,
We shout, when we behold thee,
Every day, every day,
Our hearts exalt on seeing thy Majesty
For thou art the Mistress of Wreathes
The Lady of the Dance
The Mistress of Drunkenness without end.
Another deity associated with beer was the misshapen god Bes, who
was dwarf-like, with a grotesque face and protruding tongue. Bes was
very fond of drinking beer and is often represented on scarabs as sucking
beer through a straw from a large vessel. Despite his ferocious looks, he
was a protector of the family, particularly of pregnant women, and was
associated with sexuality and childbirth.
Even though heavy drinking was accepted in ancient Egyptian society,
there were moves towards a non-drinking lobby as the centuries passed,
and Athenaeus, in particular, noticed a moral sense of drinking in
moderation. Thus, one hears of scribes uttering such profanities as, A
cup of water satisfies the thirst. or, Do not set thy heart offig wine. One
of the most salutary statements of the time was:
Do not pass (thy time) in the beer-house and thou shalt not speak evil about
thy neighbour even in intoxication. Then (if) thou fallest on the ground, and
thou breakest the limbs, none reacheth out the hand to help.
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earliest laws. King Hammurabi, who ruled Babylon from ca. 1792-1750
BC, laid down some 281 laws, dealing with all aspects of everyday life,
four of which (clauses 108-111) relate to taverns (referred to as
wine-shops) and the drinking of alcohol. According to the translated
version of Edwards (1906), these may be summarised:
108. I f a (female) wine-seller has not accepted corns as the price of drink, but
silver by the grand weight has accepted, and the price of drink is below the price
of corn; then that wine-seller shall beprosecuted, and thrown into the water.
109. I f rebels (outlaws) meet in the house of a wine-seller and she does not
seize them and take them to the palace, that wine-seller shall be slain.
110. I f a priestess who has not remained in the sacred building shall open a
wine-shop, or enter a wine-shop for drink, that woman shall be burned.
111. I f a wine-seller has sixty qa of usakani for refreshment, at the harvest she
shall receivefifty qa of corn.
Note that the above laws only mention females; males in the liquor
trade being presumably exempt. Lutz (1922), thinks that this is due to
the fact that Hammurabi was essentially concerned with taverns that
also acted as brothels, which were owned and run by women. The rough
nature of some of the taverns of ill-repute, which were breeding
places for crime, is indicated in clause 109, where the hostess is being
held liable for wrong-doing. Also of note is clause 108, which insinuates
that beer was too prestigious and revered a commodity to be paid for
in cash; only grain would do in exchange. It also calls for the publican
to give full measure; something that has occupied the mind of the drinker
for well over 4,000 years. The penalty of burning at the stake, accorded
to a virgin who strays, is particularly severe, because it is one of only two
of the laws in the Code, to which it is accorded; the other being clause
157, which deals with incest between mother and son. It should be
mentioned here, that there is a distinct similarity between clause 110
in the Code of Hammurabi, and the Old Testament, Leviticus, 21, 9,
which states:
And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she
profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
113
This does not sound very romantic, but it may well be true. Perhaps
we should leave the last words, on this particular matter, to Katz and
Maytag (1991), who as we have seen, have actually tried to re-create a
beer from yesteryear:
LLFinally,it is worth noting that Nature herself may well have produced the first
beer. After harvesting, wild barley seeds might have been placed in a container
for storage. If seeds were exposed to moisture they would sprout. Sprouted
barley is sweeter and more tender than unsprouted seeds, and, therefore, more
edible. Sprouted seeds might have been stored for later consumption. Exposed to
airborne yeast and more moisture, the barley would have fermented, producing
beer. We may never know when some brave soul actually drank the spoiled
barley, but we do know that someone did.
REFERENCES
A.G. Sherratt, Economy and Society in Prehistoric Europe: Changing
Perspectives, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1997.
C.W. Bamforth, Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing, Plenum
Press, New York, 1998.
M. Michalowski, The Lamentation Over the Destruction of Sumer and
Ur, Winona Lake, IN, 1989.
H. Neumann, Beer as a means of compensation for work in Mesopotamia during the Ur I11 Period in Drinking in Ancient Societies, History
and Culture of Drinks in Ancient Societies, L. Milano (ed), Sargon srl,
Padua, 1994.
R.J. Forbes, Studies in ancient Technology, Volume 111, E.J. Brill, Leiden,
1955.
P. Ghalioungi, Fermented beverages in antiquity in Fermented Food
114
Chapter 3
115
R.H. Michel, P.E. McGovern and V.R. Badler, Nature, 1992, 360
(5thNovember), 24.
I.S. Hornsey, Brewing, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 1999.
M.A. Murray, N. Boulton and C. Heron, Viticulture and wine production in Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, PT. Nicholson and
I. Shaw (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
R.J. Braidwood, American Anthropologist, 1953,55, 5 15.
R.J. Braidwood, ScientiJic American, October, 1952, 62.
J.W. Renfrew, Cereals cultivated in ancient Iraq in Bulletin on Sumerian
Agriculture, Vol. 1, J.N. Postgate and M.A. Powell (eds), 1984, 32.
M.E. Kislev, D. Nadel and I. Carmi, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 1992,73, 161.
G.C. Hillman, S.M. Colledge and D.R. Harris, Plant-food economy
during the Epipalaeolithic period at Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria: dietary
diversity, seasonality and modes of exploitation in Foraging and
Ezrming, D.R. Harris and G.C. Hillman (eds), Unwin & Hyman,
London, 1989.
W.J. van Zeist, Near Eastern Studies, 1970,29, 167.
W. van Zeist and J.A.H. Bakker-Heeres, Palaeohistoria, 1985, 24, 165.
M.E. Kislev, Early agriculture and palaeoecology of Netiv Hagdud in
An early Neolithic village in the Jordan Valley, Part 1: The archaeology
of Netiv Hagdud, 0. Bar-Yosef and A. Gopher (eds), Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA, 1997.
H. Helbaek, Plant collecting, dry-farming and irrigation agriculture in
prehistoric Deh Luran in Prehistoric and Human Ecology of the Deh
Luran Plain, F. Hole, K.V. Flannery and J.A. Neery (eds), Memoirs of
the Museum of Anthropology, No.1, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbour, 1969.
W. van Zeist, Helinium, 1972, 12, 3.
H. Helbaek, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1966,98, 61.
D. Zohary and M. Hopf, Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The
Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe and the
Nile Valley, 3rdedn, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000.
J.M. Renfrew, Preliminary report on the botanical remains in Amarna
Reports, 11, B.J. Kemp (ed), Egypt Exploration Society, London, 1985.
D. Samuel, Brewing and baking in Ancient Egyptian Materials and
Gchnology, P.T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds), Cambridge University
Press, 2000.
G.C. Hillman, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 1975,41, 70.
H. Helbaek, Science, 1959, 130, 14thAugust, 365.
M. Hopf, Jericho plant remains in Excavations at Jericho, Vol. 5, K.M.
116
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
What we do know is that the peoples from the areas surrounding the
good agricultural land in Egypt and the ancient Near East were prone
117
118
Chapter 4
to look covetously at that nearby fertility when their own cultures were
under stress. Thus, for example, adjacent to the fertile crescent, there
are boundaries with the Zagros mountains, the Taurus mountains and
the Syrian steppe. These regions support rather frail economies, which
are largely based on the rearing of sheep, goats, etc., and in times of
ecological and/or demographic crisis, the inhabitants would look to
the agriculturally-rich lowlands for salvation. Sometimes there was a
gradual infiltration of peoples; occasionally there would be a violent
intrusion. If there was no urgent need to intrude into the territory of
these agriculturally-based civilisations, then there was always access to
them by two-way trading; either way there was ample opportunity for
dissemination of ideas.
Among those ancient peoples known to be beer-drinkers were the
Hittites, Cilicians, Hebrews, Philistines, Thracians, Illyrians, Armenians,
Pannonians, Phrygians, Syrians, Urartians and Scythians. As we have
seen, some peoples, like the Nubians and the Ethiopians, with their
unique beer-styles, would appear to have developed their own methods
of brewing, making use of indigenous raw-materials (Dirar, 1993). As we
have noted, certain groups of people did not resort to the production and
consumption of alcoholic beverages at all. The Eskimo, for example,
drank chiefly iced water, and warm blood, before they were corrupted by
Europeans. In his contribution to the what came first? debate, already
mentioned in Chapter 3 (Braidwood, 1953), Hans Helbaek quotes from
Curwen and Hatt (1953):
In the southern part of Central America and in South America maize is used
not only for bread but for making beer. A kind of malt is made by letting
the maize sprout, and the fermentation is started by chewing the grain. . .
While maize beer is also made by semi-agriculturalists east o j the Andes,
other tribes make an intoxicating beverage from cassava bread. Some of the
semi-agriculturalists do not know how to make beer at all, and it is likely that
this art belonged originally to the maize-cultivating full-agriculturalists of the
Andes. . . North of Mexico it seems that no alcoholic beverages were made in
pre- Columbian times.
119
making porridge out of them did not convert them into beer. This was
certainly not because of an aversion to alcohol, because they have been
famed wine-makers for centuries.
Another enlightening contribution to Braidwoods debate, on the
relative antiquity of bread and beer as sources of nourishment, came
from Prof. Carleton Coon, part of which informs us:
-
One of the earliest ways ofpreparing cerealsforfood has been omitted entirely,
and another barely mentioned. The first is porridge. Mortars take precedence
over grindstones archaeologically. All over the Middle East people eat some kind
of porridge as a family dish, easier to prepare than bread which, before the
invention of metal, required a communal oven. Such ovens occur in the painted
pottery stage, but apparently not before. In the Americas maize porridge is
a familiar food throughout the agricultural regions. In South and Central
America, maize porridge is converted into the well-known chicha, a form of beer.
In the agricultural regions of the United States both porridges and bread were
prepared and eaten by the Indians, who made no beer. The relationship between
beer and bread established in the Old World involves raising the bread with yeast,
an agent offermentation. You cannot raise maize dough unless it is mixed with
wheat. So thisfunctional relationship is lacking in the New World, but still some
of its inhabitants made beer. The Indians of North America are culturally
marginal to those of South and Central America, and may be presumed to follow
the older pattern. If they had known how to produce an intoxicant it is hard
to understand how they would have given it up voluntarily. In my opinion, the
fermentation of beers in the Americas probably followed bread as well as
porridge-making and parching
Chapter 4
120
the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine
was in the land of Canaan.
The word beer per se is not mentioned in the Bible in its Hebrew
form, birah, mainly because this is a late word, but there are innumerable
references to wine (yayin) in both the Old and New Testaments, and to
wine and strong drink in the Old Testament. Strong drink, which is
mentioned only once in the New Testament, and is designated as
shekhar, which according to Grant and Rowley (1963) always means
intoxicating drink, and in the Biblical sense refers to any other sort of
intoxicating liquor apart from wine. This would, needless to say, include
beer. Indeed, to be absolutely precise, wine here refers to the fermented
product of the juice of the grape; nothing else.
Shekhar is etymologically related to the Akkadian word for beer,
sikaru, and to the Babylonian word, shikaru, which was the name given
to the fermented juice of the date. The Mishnah, a Hebrew religious text,
does mention beer, however, but not as an indigenous product, rather as
being an imported beverage from Egypt. The Mishnah is, in essence, a
collection of legal opinions which formed the foundations of the laws of
Judaism; it was compiled in Palestine around AD 200. Another Hebrew
religious document, the Code of Maimonides, also makes direct reference to beer in Book 7, The Book of Agriculture, which in Treatise 3,
Chapter XI, 2 says, One is permitted to press leave offering dates
and form them into a cake, like a f i g cake, but not to make beer out of
them. Is this so-called date beer in fact a wine; but not referred to as
yayin, because that has to originate from grape juice? What would the
difference be between a date beer and a date wine? We know from
Bienkowski and Millard (2000) that a beer was made, in the ancient Near
East, by fermenting the juice of the date palm, but this is rather different.
There is another reference to beer (unspecified, this time) in a subsequent
tract in The Book of Agriculture, when in Treatise 5 , Chapter VII, 6,
we find:
Grape skin wine that has not yet soured may not be bought with second-hand
tithe redemption money, because it is the same as water, but once it has soured, it
may be bought, the same as wine or beer. If one buys it before it has soured and
it then becomes sour, the purchase becomes second tithe.
I
This clearly demonstrates that complicated liquor laws are not solely the
invention of modern Homo sapiens!
Like many of their neighbours, the Israelites were enthusiastic drinkers
generally; witness the reference to Noah, and his habit of consuming
wine, in Genesis, 9, 21, And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and
121
he ivus uncovered within his tent. Then there is the unfortunate incident
with Lot and his daughters, as elucidated in Genesis, 19, 32-38, the first
two verses of which say:
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may
preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night: and theJirstborn went in, and
lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
If
Although these verses, and others in the Old Testament, are clearly
meant to be a warning against over-indulgence in alcohol, they were
in no way aimed at promoting temperance, for wine, in particular, was
widely tolerated and was even essential for some religious ceremonies,
such as havdaluh. In areas where wine was difficult to procure, such as
Babylonia, it was permissible to substitute beer for wine, under certain
circumstances, in some religious ceremonies. Due allowances are made
for such eventualities in the Babylonian Talmud (NB there are
two versions of the Talmud, which is a compendium of legal opinions,
sayings and stories relating to Judaism, which cover the first five centuries Anno Domini. The Palestinian (Jerusalem) Talmud (PT) originates from cu. A D 400, whilst the Babylonian Talmud (BT) was published
in Mesopotamia ca. AD 500). In Judaic society, however, unlike the
societies in Egypt and the Mesopotamia, drunkenness was considered
unwise and a crime and, under certain circumstances, punishable by
death. This is shown in the Old Testament, where provision was made
for the parents of a debauched son to testify against him to a court;
Deuteronomy, 21,21-22, saying:
,4nd they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and
rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt
thou put evil away from you; and all Israel shall hear and fear.
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122
The Book of Proverbs seems rather unsure about the pleasures (or
otherwise) of drink, In Chapter 31, verses 6-7, we are told, Give strong
drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy
hearts, whilst 20, 1, warns, Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging
(Lutz, 1922, interprets this as a brawler): and whosoever is deceived
thereby is not wise.
Slaves in Rabbinic times had the reputation for being drunkards, and
according to lore, those who frequented the tavern were not worth
their keep. In society generally, a legal distinction was made between
those subjects who were slightly drunk; the sathtiy, and those totally
inebriated; the sikk6r. Only two of the tribes of Israel were totally
abstemious; the Nasiraeans and the Rekhabites, but for the rest it was
only excessive use of alcohol that was warned against and occasionally,
punished.
In a fascinating treatise, The Beer of the Bible, James Death (1887),
consulting brewer and chemist, claims that in Exodus, 12, 19, viz:
Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: f o r whosoever eateth
that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of
Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.
123
Figure 4.1
Spouted pottery beer jugs from Iron Age Israelite settlements (8h-9
century B C )
(Courtesy of Rafi Brown, Jerusalem. Photo 0 The Israel Museum,
Jerusaledby Araham Hay)
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Chapter 4
parties (see Judges, 14, 10-12). The jugs have a long spout protruding
from one side, which is usually open on its upper surface. The spout has a
strainer at its base. The neck of the jug is narrow with a small opening,
which usually contains another straining mechanism, and is subtended
by a handle, normally positioned at right angles to the spout. Such a
structure is very unlike jugs which are simply intended for pouring, where
the handle would logically be on the opposite side of the vessel from the
spout. No, archaeologists have earmarked them as vessels from which
beer could actually be drunk without ingesting any extraneous floating
matter, which often accompanied ancient brews. In fact, these jugs were
capable of straining the beer twice, if it was poured in through the top of
the jug in the first place.
According to Bienkowski and Millard (2000); the territorial designation Philistia refers to the south-western coast of Palestine, and the
modern term Palestine is derived from the name recorded for this
region in the Bible, peleset. The Philistines were a non-semitic people
who arrived in this region by boat from somewhere in the Aegean basin
in the early 12hcentury BC. They represented only one of a group of
migratory peoples, who were known collectively as Sea Peoples.
Skirmishes with the Egyptians, resulting in a defeat in 1180 BC, left them
occupying the territory between modern Tel Aviv and an area just south
of Gaza. The land had good agricultural characteristics, with ample
evidence of the cultivation of barley and wheat, and there are signs of
considerable commercial activity; Gaza being one of their major cities.
Their land is defined in the Bible, where, as a people, they are described
as being unfriendly. They produced a very distinctive type of painted
pottery, some of which is in the form of the aforementioned beer jugs.
In the late sthcentury BC the Assyrians captured most of the Philistine
cities on their way to confront Egypt, and by the 6th century BC their
independence was lost, and they become consigned to history.
The inns and taverns of Palestine had the same sort of unsavoury
reputation as those of Babylon and Egypt, if we interpret the Old
Testament and the Apocrypha correctly. Thus, we find that Joshua (2, 1)
relates the tale of the innkeeper, Rahab, who obviously doubles as a
harlot, whilst the Hebrew scholar, Ben Sira (Sir; 9, 4) warns of the
female musicians who frequented the Jerusalem taverns of his time
(early 2ndcentury BC), when he bids, Do not have intercourse with a
either player in order that thou art caught in her snares.
Ben Sira (also known as Sirach) was born ca. 250 BC, and wrote and
taught in Jerusalem during the 2ndcentury BC. The Wisdom of Ben
Sira is one of the earliest, and certainly the longest of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, being, as it is, modelled on the
125
Book of Proverbs. The work has had a profound effect on the Jewish and
Christian religions. Lutz (1922) maintains that the musicians of Ben
Sira, the singing girls as he calls them, constituted a large, if not the
largest class of prostitutes in Palestine, where they were referred to as
foreigners. He also avers that the Palestinian tavern was distinguished
by having a sign outside, normally the branch of a tree or shrub, with
leaLTes attached. This indicated that there was alcohol for sale; when supplies ran out, the sign was taken down until replenishments could be
obtained. This custom, as we shall see, was to be repeated by the tavernkeepers in medieval England.
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Chapter 4
honey (a type of drink that has been revived in the British Isles in the
last few years). Beer was also apparently used in some Hittite medicinal
preparations.
Most of the source material relating to the food and drink of the
Hittites comes from religious, judicial and medical documents, so we
really do not know much about their everyday solid and liquid consumption. Excavations from Hittite Bronze Age sites (the Anatolian late
Bronze Age corresponds to the period of the Hittite Empire; 1400 BC1200 BC) indicate that there were four species of wheat, and two species
of barley grown in the region. Cultivation of cereals in this part of
Anatolia can be attested for the 6th millennium BC, the principal
excavated sites being at Catal Huyuk and Hacilar, where both emmer and
einkorn have been recovered. Another type of wheat, which Helbaek
(1966) considers to be either bread wheat or club wheat, has also been
identified at both sites; records that are probably representative of the
earliest stages of cultivation of such plants. Helbaek considers the
emmer from the region to be of very high quality and reports:
Emmer reached a magniJicent stage of development in early 6th millennium
Anatolia. The earb Catal Huyuk product is a race with very full kernels. . . and
with extraordinarily short, broad internodes and coarse and heavy glumes.
Both Catal Huyuk and Hacilar have yielded good samples of barley,
the most abundant being a naked, six-rowed type, but smaller-sized
samples of a hulled, two-rowed variety have been recovered from both
sites. Archaeobotanical remains equating to the Shand 4thmillennia BC,
have been conspicuous by their absence, and Hoffner (1974) reports only
Can Hasan from the former and Korucu Tepe from the latter, a period
referred to by Helbaek (1966) as a dark age, particularly with respect
to the development of bread wheat (Tritium aestivum). Just before the
important finds at Korucu Tepe, Helbaek commented:
There is a gap in our knowledge of Anatolian plant husbandry spanning
the period from 5000 to 1300 BC. It is not unlikely, however, that, during this
dark age, Anatolia was the stage for the main development and the core of
dissemination of T. aestivum.
The only wheat attested from these two sites is emmer (from Korucu
Tepe), whilst the barley from both sites is of a six-rowed type. When
we come to a 3rdmillennium BC site at Korucu Tepe, a distinct change
is apparent in the preferred wheat and barley types. Whereas in the
4th millennium, emmer (but no bread wheat) is found, in the 3rd the
situation is reversed. In addition, the cultivation of two-rowed barley
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Chapter 4
128
PHRYGIA
Sieved pottery beer-drinking vessels, similar to those recovered from
Israelite and Philistine sites, have also been attested for another ancient
civilisation, the Phrygians, who were inhabitants of the west-central
Anatolian plateau. The Phrygians originally came from southeast
Europe, probably somewhere like Thrace, and settled in Anatolia after
the collapse of the Hittite empire (ca. 1200 BC). They devised their own
alphabet, which was an anachronism for the area, for it was a mixture of
Greek and Semitic, somewhere around the Sthcentury BC; a period that
corresponds to the height of Phrygian culture. The Phrygian language
is of Indo-European origin, but in spite of its location, it does not
belong to the Anatolian sub-group. Many of these drinking vessels have
been located from the site of the ancient Phrygian capital at Gordion,
which was the city of the legendary King Midas, from around the second
half of the 8h century BC. They have also been recovered from some
burial tumuli of the same period. These vessels are referred to as sidespouted sieve jugs, and are made of ceramic and sometimes highly
decorated. There are three variations on the theme, but all are characterised by having one handle placed at right angles to a single spout
(always, incidentally, favouring a right-handed drinker). The long
spout is open, and trough-like for part of its length, and where it is
fixed to the main body of the vessel, there are a number of perforations,
forming a sieve. These have rarely been found outside of Iron Age
Gordion.
A second type of drinking vessel, the sipping bowl, is also found,
albeit rarely. Made from terracotta, the sipping bowl has a tube built into
its wall on one side, which projects above the lip of the bowl rather like
a straw. For uncertain reasons, neither the sieve jugs nor the sipping
-
129
bowls continued to be made beyond the 3rdcentury BC. This fact has
been attributed to a variety of reasons, including a possible change in
brewing technology (which involved sieving during brewing), and
increasing Greek influence (Greeks preferring wine to beer).
Gordion (named after Gordius, father of Midas) was geographically
ideally situated for brewing purposes, being as it was amply supplied
by springs, and surrounded by productive arable land. The remains of a
number of buildings, within the confines of what was Gordion, have
been found which were patently brewerieslbakeries (called service
rooms); containing, as they did, evidence of grinders, ovens and the
remains of charred grains. There is also evidence of germinated grain.
Most of what we know about Phrygian life comes to us through the
Classical writers. Apart from the pottery artefacts, our major evidence of
the Phrygians partiality for beer comes from the bawdy Greek lyric poet
of the 7thcentury BC, Archilochos. In Fragment 42 of his extant work,
he likens a certain act of love-making to a Thracian or Phrygian drinking
his beer through a tube; in the words of Archilochos, . . . as through a
tube a Thracian or a Phrygian sucks down barley beer, and she was leaning
forward working. . .
As Sams (1977) observes, the above lines suggest that both the
poet and his audience must have been aware of the Phrygians (and
Thracians) habit of drinking beer in this fashion, and that it must have
been an everyday occurrence. Sams then goes on to try to establish the
nature of Archilochos tube;was it a simple straw, as has been found at
Gordion, or was it the neck of the Phrygian drinking-vessel? He favours
the latter, if only for similarity in size to the organ to which Archilochos
was obviously referring.
It is now thought that the elaborate, spouted, drinking vessels were
confined to aristocratic use, whilst the common man made use of straws
through which to sip and strain his beer. One or two elaborate drinking
jugs made of bronze have been found, notably at the Midas Mound
at Gordion (the largest and wealthiest tumulus yet known from Phrygia),
and these have simulated ceramic surface designs. Occasionally
drinking jugs are to be located in the graves of children, indicating that,
either beer-drinking was practised from an early age, or some other
turbid liquid may have been drunk from them. Although these jugs are
typically Phrygian, Sams reports that they were not purely a Phrygian
invention, since similarly-styled side-spouted vessels are known from
2ndmillennium BC Anatolia.
Gordion, and the rest of Phrygia, which had experienced problems
with raiding parties from the Pontic Steppe, were overrun by invading
Cimmerians (fierce warriors from southern Russia), who came in from
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Chapter 4
the northeast, during the early years of the 7th century BC. Phrygia,
which was a land-locked country, with relatively little good land, also
had various conflagrations with the Assyrians and with Urartu. The
eventual destruction of Gordion left a distinct level of remains, comprising the minutia of everyday life in the city. Phrygian society, of sorts,
persisted for a while under Lydian (first half of the 6thcentury BC) and,
later, Persian influence (550 BC) before Alexander the Great arrived in
333 BC, after which Anatolia became Hellenised. The whole region was
supposedly liberated by Alexander, but after his death Phrygia became
destabilised to such an extent that the marauding Celts encountered
little opposition as they advanced eastwards (about 330 BC). By the
3rdcentury BC, the Phrygians were regarded as an effete people, certainly
by the Celts, and only any good at embroidery! Their only use was to
serve as slaves.
LYDIA
The Lydians, of western Anatolia (capital city; Sardis), were a later
culture, being essentially an Iron Age people. Their land lay to the west
of Phrygia, and the height of their power and achievements was during
the 7th and 6th centuries BC, a time that coincided with the demise of
Phrygia itself. They did not leave anything in the way of historical
accounts of themselves, and most of what we know about them is
through the pen of Greek writers, such as Herodotus, who was most
impressed by the tomb of King Alyattes, and obviously highly intrigued
by some of its builders! Herodotus (Histories, I, 93) reports:
The country, unlike some others, has few marvels of much consequence for a
historian to describe, except the gold dust which is washed down from Tmolus; it
can show, however, the greatest work of human hands in the world apart from
Egyptian and Babylonian: I mean the tomb of Croesus father Alyattes. The
base of this monument is built of huge stone blocks; the rest of it is a mound of
earth. It was raised by the joint labour of the tradesmen, craftsmen and prostitutes, and on the top of it there survived to my own dayJive stone phallic pillars
with inscriptions cut in them to show the amount of work done by each class.
Calculation revealed that the prostitutes share was the largest. Working-class
girls in Lydia prostitute themselves without exception to collect money for their
dowries, and continue the practice until they marry. They choose their own
husbands. The circumference of the tomb is nearly three-quarters of a mile, and
its breadth about four hundred yards. Near it is a large lake, the lake of Gyges,
said by the Lydiuns to be never dry. Apart from the fact that they prostitute their
daughters, the Lydian way of life is not unlike the Greek.
131
CICILIA
Cilicia, a district of southern Anatolia, bordering with Syria in the
southeast, contained some of the most fertile parts of Asia Minor,
being renowned for corn, olives, vines and flax. Its borders varied
throughout history and it was, at various times, subjected to rule by
the Assyrians (21th century BC), Persians, Greeks and Romans, The
territory was roughly divisible into two parts; the east (known as Cilicia Pedias to the Romans) consisting of rich and productive plains, the
western part being wild and mountainous (part of the southern Taurus
mountains). The rugged west remained more or less unconquered
throughout most of its history and was an area renowned for its pirate
population, particularly around Tracheia. The capital of the eastern
region was Tarsus of Biblical fame (known as Gozlu Kule, in Turkish),
and the area was traversed by two major rivers, the Pyramus and the
Cydnus. The valley of the River Pyramus formed part of an area
known as Kizzuwatna (which approximates to Cataonia of Roman
times), in which Tarsus was situated. Kizzuwatna was important strategically because it controlled the Cilician plain, but it was also famed
for its beer, as we can see from a paragraph in the book by Redford
(1992):
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ARMENIA
In eastern Anatolia, the Armenians were known for beer-drinking, by
the Classical writers, and we have the early 4th century BC account
of Xenophon, the Athenian commentator and soldier, to testify to it.
Xenophon (Anabasis, IV, 26-27) tells us about a very potent, yet tasty
drink, which he refers to as barley wine. This is served in a large bowl
and is drunk communally from straws, which he notes were of differing
lengths. He remarks that the straws were necessary so that the floating
material, accompanying the beer, could be avoided. As with the
Phrygians, there actually seemed to be some sort of preference for
cloudy beer, and so the straws not only enabled the drinker to reach
the clearer beer beneath the floating debris (probably barley husks,
etc.), but also appeared to enhance the pleasure of drinking as well.
Xenophon came across these Armenians in a subterranean village, where
their homes were dug out of the earth. Straws, which were either natural
(e.g., reeds) or manufactured, were the simplest device known for drinking
unrefined beer.
Armenia is a mountainous region, north of Syria and Mesopotamia,
both of which ruled the land at some stage, and where brewing
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SYRIA
The vast area to the southeast of Cilicia, now known as Syria, also
contained some regions that were famed for their beer, as well as for their
wine (see Amurru, in Redfords statement, above). The name Syria
does not appear until it is used by Herodotus, in the ShCentury BC.
Neither of the great adjoining civilisations, Mesopotamia to the east,
nor Egypt to the south, gave any name to this great tract of land. Syria
is a Greek derivative of Assyria, although peoples from the latter state
did not settle there in great numbers. The name, having been coined
by foreigners, is somewhat artificial and does not describe any strict
political or geographical entity. For convenience, Syria has often been
linked with Palestine, another artificially-named geographical area. In
Greek and Roman times, Syria was regarded as a province (as was
Palestine).
Whilst there are only limited natural resources, such as metalliferous
ores, much of the area lends itself well to agriculture, with cereals the
predominating crops. Wine and olive oil were produced, but in those
days, on nowhere near the scale of wheat and barley; the latter, according
to Dion (1995), providing the most frequently encountered cereal
remains. Dion also comments that the region delivered large quantities
of beer and wine to the Assyrians. The ancient Syrian agriculturalists
relied on rainfall for the growth of their plants, man-made irrigation
systems being rarely encountered. This meant that they were occasionally
subjected to droughts, which could cause serious economic and political
consequences if they occurred in two or three consecutive years. Cattle,
sheep, goats and pigs were also reared.
Much of the country was based on a decentralised tribal organisation,
from lowly agricultural worker to urban dweller, and people from such
a background left little in the way of written documentation about
themselves. There was also a centralised state system and it is from
these bureaucratic sources that we learn much about ancient Syrian
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THRACE
The Thracians who, along with the Phrygians, were pictorially described
by Archilochos as sucking beer through a tube, originally inhabited a
large area from the Danube in the north to the Hellespont (now known
as the Dardanelles) and the Greek fringe in the south, and from
Constantinople in the east, to the source of the River Strymon in southwest Bulgaria. Boundaries changed somewhat in Roman times. The
people were of Indo-European stock and were considered by the classical
writers to be primitive and war-like, especially those from the Rhodope
and Haemus mountains. Their apparent primitiveness can partly be
attributed to the fact that they did not congregate into sizeable urban
areas, such as towns, until the Roman era; prior to this they lived in
open villages. The only information that we have about them arises from
when they came into contact with the Greeks (part of their coast
was colonised by the Greeks in the Sth century BC), who never totally
subjugated them.
From the Shcentury BC onwards, Thracians developed their own
art-style, which drew elements from Greek, Scythian and eastern (e.g.
Persian) works. Of interest to us are the elaborate drinking vessels for
feasts, and ram-headed drinking horns. The latter occur in various parts
of Europe, which are known to have been influenced by the Celts; thus
illustrating their close association with Thrace.
The Thracians did not, unlike their neighbours, the Macedonians,
achieve a lasting national identity. For a couple of generations, part of
Thrace was occupied by the Celts. This arose as part of the migration of
Celtic tribes, in the area, at the beginning of the 3rdcentury BC. There
was a massive Celtic expansion from the middle Danube, and in 281 BC
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The inebriated, phallic god took with him to Greece the recipes for his
highly inebriating and aphrodisiac beverages, the blood of the earth, as
well as hordes of lusty satyrs and nymphs. The alcoholic beverage was
passed around, and the participants sang and danced until their bodies
quivered in ecstasy (Ratsch, 1997). The secret of Dionysian orgies
was the wine (and, originally, the beer), which must have contained
mystical additives capable of producing such erotic ecstasy. What was
in the drink that could send the imbiber into such a state? Ratsch offers
the following:
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THE PHOENICIANS
If we are looking for candidates who could have disseminated Egyptian
and Near Eastern cereal cultivation techniques and brewing technology,
then the Phoenicians appear to have ideal credentials. The Phoenicians
were a people, rather than a race, who occupied the Levantine coast
(from modern Syria to southern Lebanon and Galilee) in the Iron
Age (ca. 1200-500 BC). Prior to this era, in essence their Bronze Age
(ca. 3600-1200 BC), the region was inhabited by Canaanites, and the
Phoenician language (most written examples are of a funerary nature) is
a late form of Canaanite. The rise of Phoenician fortunes coincided
with the collapse of Mycenaean trading empire, and their coastal
location was at an important crossroads between the Mediterranean
and the major part of western Asia, which allowed them to absorb and proliferate a number of different cultures; for example, Egyptian, Assyrian,
neo-Hittite, Mediterranean and Aegean. In the context of the latter area,
the Phoenicians are credited with the transmission of their alphabet to
the Greeks. Pliny (V, 66-67) asserts, The Phoenician race itself is held
in great honour for the invention of the alphabet and for the sciences
of astronomy, navigation and military strategy. I find it impossible to
believe that they did not know about the fundamentals of brewing,
and pass the relevant knowledge on. We know that they were adept at
growing crops, for instance, for we have the statement by Herodotus
(Histories; IV, 42):
The Phoenicians sailed from the Red Sea into the southern ocean, and every
autumn put in where they were on the Libyan coast, sowed a patch of ground, and
waited for next years harvest. Then, having got their grain, they put to sea
again . . .
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estimated that over half of them were children, women and the elderly,
so rather than being primarily a fighting force, it is more likely that they
were looking for land in which to settle.
As was the case in many ancient societies, the females would have been
responsible for domestic duties such as brewing. The three tribes coexisted and persisted for a considerable period of time, even agreeing to
plunder different surrounding areas, the targets for their piracy being
mostly westwards towards the wealthy Aegean coast. Writers, such as
Strabo report that, although they intermingled with the native (mainly
Phrygian) population, they still retained their essential Celtic characteristics. The bravery and fighting prowess of the Celts meant that they
were sought after as mercenaries. They are documented as being present
in several Egyptian disputes and, during the 3rd century BC, were a
component of many Hellenist armies. We also have records of their role
as emissaries, when they would almost certainly have used such travels
for spying missions. For example, they visited Alexander the Great twice;
once in 335 BC, and again when he was in Babylon in 323 BC.
URARTU
To the east of Galatia lay, what had been, the Iron Age Anatolian
kingdom of Urartu, the origins of which dated from the gthcentury BC
(even though Urartian-speaking peoples had been known well before
this date). The region, which is now part of the highlands of eastern
Turkey, the Republic of Armenia, and part of Azerbaijan, contains the
headwaters of the River Euphrates, Lake Van and Mount Ararat, and was
also known as the kingdom of Van (the name Urartu is the Assyrian
name for the area). Urartu was mostly composed of mountainous
terrain and was not very productive, good arable land being scarce, but
there is evidence of the cultivation of cereal crops, orchard crops and
(amazingly) vines. Indeed, if we believe Xenophon, then the Urartians
lived in close proximity to their stock and crops:
The houses here were underground, with a mouth like that of a well, but
spacious below; and while entrances were tunnelled down for the beasts of
burden, the human inhabitants descended by a ladder. In the houses were goats,
sheep, cattle, fowls, and their young; and all the animals were reared and took
their fodder there in the house. Here were also wheat, barley and beans and
barley wine in large bowls.
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this is because dry goods were placed in sacks before being stored
and that these were subsequently stacked in rooms that were not particularly distinctive and, therefore, have been identified as being used
for other purposes. No pithoi bear dry measures inscribed on them,
although we know that the specific measure for barley was the kapi,
which was probably used for other grain, as well. The size of h i storehouses is a subject of conjecture; this is mainly due to confusion over
the actual dimension of the kapi - estimates vary from 2.3 to 55 litres!
The sizes of the h i s that have been recorded vary from 31,045 to
1,432 kapi.
Wheat and barley appear to have been the staples of Urartian agriculture, with Triticum dicoccum, 7:aestivum and Hordeum vulgare having
been positively identified from several sites. Most of the excavations in
what was Urartu, have been in fortified sites, and so we know relatively
little about everyday life. Apart from the quote from Xenophon above,
which quite clearly mentions barley wine, which is patently a beer,
we have photographic evidence of a brewery site (Figure 4.2) in the
enormous fortress at Teishebaini (modern Karmir-Blur) in the Republic
of Armenia (Piotrovskij, 1960).
MITANNI
The Hurrians, mentioned above, were present in the ancient Near East
from the 3d to the 1 millenium BC, and were manifested by a series
of states, the most powerful of which was Mitanni, situated in upper
Mesopotamia and part of northern Syria (Wilhelm, 1995). At the
height of its power, around 1500 BC, Mitanni could rival the influence
exerted by the Egyptians and the Hittites, with both of whom they had
pacts. By the mid-15th century BC, Mitanni had conquered, among a
number of other territories, the beer-producing states of Kizzuwatna
and Assyria, but we hear about them for the last time during the reign
of the Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser I (1 115-1077 BC). Mitanni then
came under Hittite and Assyrian rule. The original home of the Hurrians was probably eastern Anatolia, from which they started to
expand southwards; thus providing a classic example of an upland
people coming down to inhabit the fertile lowlands. Most of what we
know about their history comes from Hittite, Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts; whilst their social and economic life has been well documented in the thousands of cuneiform tablets found at the town of
Nuzi (now in north-eastern Iraq). Most of the important inscriptions
date from the mid 2ndmillennium BC when Nuzi was in Arrapha, then
a province of Mitanni.
Figure 4.2
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THE SCYTHIANS
Another ancient culture that were renowned imbibers were the Scythians,
who were regarded by the Classical writers as northern barbarians with
bizarre and bloodthirsty customs; one of the former being their habit of
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drinking wine undiluted. Rolle (1989) reports that this horrified the
Greeks and led to the saying, drinking the Scythian way, which meant
getting blind drunk. We know that the upper echelons of Scythian
society drank expensive wine that had been imported from Greece, but
how much home-made barley-wine was consumed has not been consigned to posterity via the written word. Their native drink was koumiss,
a fermented mares milk, which was probably invented during Greek
colonial times, as a local substitute for wine. Again, the Scythians did not
engage in the written word, and so their notoriety and whatever else
we know about them has been documented by largely unsympathetic
foreign sources. Scythians have been stereotyped as ancient, war-like,
horse-riding, nomadic peoples, who left very little of major archaeological interest behind them. More recent work, most of which has been
published in Russian, has indicated that they may not have been as
nomadic as first thought, and they did conglomerate in somewhat urban
settlements; they certainly built large fortifications (which have been the
main focus of archaeological investigation) and developed characteristic
art forms.
Essentially, ancient Scythia lay between the rivers Danube in the west
and Don in the east, although the territory did expand at certain times.
The southern limit was the Black Sea, but their northern limits were
never described accurately, although it is thought that the boundary line
could be drawn somewhere along a line of the latitude of modern Kiev.
Some authorities maintain that the boundary was some 200 km south
of this; in effect it was a geographical boundary between the northern
forest steppe and the southern grass steppe (Rolle, 1989). Scythian
land has also been described as the northern Pontus area and north
Pontic steppes, which are derivations from the Greek. To the west was
Thracian territory, whilst to the east lay Cimmerians (Sauromatiae).
Within these limits there are four distinct geographical zones; which,
passing from north to south, are:
1. The forest zone proper (just north of Kiev)
2. The forest steppe
3. The steppe plateau
4. The volcanic Crimea.
What was classical Scythia more or less corresponds to modern eastern
and southern Ukraine, with some territory a little further to the east.
Several large and important rivers dissect the land, such as the Dniester,
Bug, Dnieper and Donets. In classical Greek literature the rivers Bug and
Dnieper were known as the Hypanis and Borysthenes respectively. Some
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been a beer made out of the grain that was (and still is) evidently so
abundant, i.e. barley-wine, instead of grape-wine.
Ephorus contention also indicates that Scythians were obviously a
people with clearly distinctive traits at this period of time. Apart from
their predilection for drunkenness, Herodotus cites their partiality for
inhaling the smoke from certain substances. Evidence for this activity
has since been supported by archaeological finds at the Pazyryk tumuli,
in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. The inhalation was carried out in
small tents, in which was a centrally-placed bronze cauldron containing
red-hot stones. Into the cauldron were placed leather bags which contained hemp (and/or melilot) seeds. The smoke was inhaled and ecstasy
ensued. Whether this was a feature of everyday life, or whether it was
ritualistic, is not known. An unusually gullible Herodotus (Histories, IV,
73-75) was under the misguided impression that the Scythians were
performing their ablutions, rather than getting stoned:
On a framework of tree sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woollen
cloth, taking care to get the joins as perfect as they can, and inside the tent
they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Now, hemp grows in Scythia, a plant
resemblingflax, but much coarser and taller. It grows wild as well as under
cultivation. They take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seeds
onto the hot stones. A t once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapour unsurpassed
by any vapour-bath one couldfind in Greece. The Scythians enjoy it so much that
they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water,
which they never use.
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Cord decoration remained typical of northern Bronze Age pottery well into the
second millennium BC. Hemp was probably ousted as a fibre, by wool, and as an
intoxicant by better brews of alcohol, perhaps beer. It survived on the steppes,
of course, and was passed on, via Persians, to the Arabs. The rest you know. But
what of Beakers? Hemp seems to have remained a northern plant, until it was
introduced into the Mediterranean from Anatolia, by Hellenistic Greeks and
Romans, who wanted it for ropes. A s Bell-Beakers spread south, they left their
cord decoration (and presumably their hemp) behind them. For a short time its
memory was kept alive by imitative comb decoration, but then incised panels,
drawing their inspiration from woollen textiles, took over. And the Beakers
themselves diminished in size as they spread further south. I like to think that
alcohols long journey through remote northern regions, where it was adulterated
by other infusions, was coming to an end. In the west Mediterranean, the
alcoholic tradition found once again, sunshine, and sugar, and strength. It was
like coming home.
THE CIMMERIANS
A people often, rightly or wrongly, associated with the Scythians were
the Cimmerians. They were certainly of Indo-Iranian stock, and seminomadic, occupying land in the Pontic steppe in the south of Russia,
but very little else is known about them. They are mentioned in the Bible
as the Gomer peoples (Genesis, 10,2; Ezekiel, 38,6), who were from the
remote north, whilst to the Assyrians they were known as the Gimmiri,
and they and the Scythians were regarded, disdainfully, as war-like
horsemen, who were always available for engagement as mercenaries in
the conflicts in Asia Minor. In the Odyssey, the Cimmerians are thought
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of as people on whom the sun never shines, near the land of the dead.
Herodotus reported that they were ousted from their original territories
(which he described as the northern shores of the Black Sea) by the
Scythians coming in from the east, whence they moved westwards into
Anatolia, and as we have seen, destroyed the Phrygian state and overthrew King Midas (ca. 675 BC). They even moved as far west as Ionia,
but they were eventually destroyed as a result of wars with the Lydians
and the Assyrians, and then largely disappeared as an entity. Some
Cimmerians fled to the northern coast of Anatolia (now northern
Turkey) and formed a colony in the area where modern Sinop stands
today, whilst a few remained in eastern Crimea; an area referred to as the
Cimmerian Bosporus.
Herodotus assertion that the Scythians replaced the Cimmerians from
Pontic land is now thought to be an over-simplification of what really
happened, but we do have archaeological evidence for some folk movements, in this area, that resemble the happenings that Herodotus was
proposing. For many years, the Pontic region had been inhabited by
semi-nomadic tribes who were dependent upon the horse and horsedrawn vehicles. Such transport was essential in order to traverse the
vast tracts of land in the area. Archaeologically, these people had been
known as the Catacomb people, because of the format of their burial
chambers. Further to the east, roughly centred on the middle stretches
of the river Volga, there was another culture, also semi-nomadic, who
buried their dead in a wooden, cabin-like grave, in a pit beneath a
mound; these are archaeologically known as the Timber Grave people.
During the early years of the lStmillennium BC, the Timber Grave
people moved westwards and took over most of the Pontic steppe,
forcing the Catacomb people, the original inhabitants out.
There has been an inclination by archaeologists to designate the
Catacomb people as the Cimmerians, and the Timber Grave people as
the Scythians. These migrations, and the events associated with them,
are beautifully described by Cunliffe (1997), who goes on to relate
how the path of migration of the original inhabitants of the northern
Black Sea coast took them westwards, along the valley of the river
Danube, to the Great Hungarian Plain; movements that took place
during the 6thand Shcenturies BC. Once there, they found themselves in
a landscape not dissimilar to their homeland, and they gradually made
trade links with the so-called Urnfield cultures of central and western
Europe; a people who played an important part in the overall history
of Europe.
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THE CELTS
If the Urnfield peoples were patently Bronze Age, then the culture
that evolved from them, and eventually supplanted them, the Hallstatt
Celts, were an Iron Age people. Although they were theoretically a
diverse group of people, ranging from Galatians in the east to Gauls and
Celtiberians in the west, they were always regarded as being a distinct
entity by the Greeks and Romans, because they possessed a number of
common features, including a common language, a fairly uniform
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material culture, and closely related religious ideas. They were, in fact,
the first ethnic group north of the Alps to be recognised, and commented
upon, to any extent, by the Classical writers. They were seen as being tall,
moustached, fair-haired, war-like and inebriate; much of which was true.
The Greek historian, Polybius (ca. 200-1 18 BC) maintained that Gaulish
warriors tended to argue amongst themselves on returning home to
share the spoils of their foreign missions. On occasion, they even destroyed a greater part of one of their own armies, and ruined the plunder.
Commenting on this facet of their character, Polybius says (11), This is
a common occurrence among the Gauls after they have appropriated a
neighbours property, and it usually arises from their undisciplined habits
of drinking and gorging themselves. Julius Caesars succinct statement
about them, roughly a century later, was, The whole race is madly keen
on war, brave and impetuous and easily outwitted.
In effect, the Celts represented the last phase of the material and intellectual development of barbarian mainland Europe - before any
occupation and acculturation by the two great Mediterranean civilisations. Celtic peoples developed in central and east-central Europe around
the middle of the 7thcentury BC, and by ca. 500 BC they had conquered
and occupied much of central and southern Europe. They retained
their territories until the Roman conquest of Gaul. Relatively little was
written about the Celts prior to the 4thcentury BC, but one of the earliest
references to them was written by the geographer, Hecataeus of Miletus,
at the end of the 6th century BC. He mentions the Greek colony of
Massalia as being in the land of the Ligurians, which is near the territory
of the Celts. In addition, he cites the town of Narbo (now Narbonne) as
being Celtic. Even at this time, therefore, the Celts must have reached
right down to southern Gaul. Another early, albeit partially factually
incorrect account comes from the pen of Herodotus, in the 5th century
BC, who maintained that the source of the river Danube lay in Celtic
lands. Although there is, in fact, some substance to the statement,
because, historically, the Celts had been associated with the source of
that river, Herodotus had completely misplaced the Danube; he thought
that it was in the Iberian peninsula! This error apart, there are factual
accounts of the settlement of the Celts in Spain and Portugal, and the
emergence of the amalgamated race; the Celtiberians.
The Syrian-born Greek writer, Posidonius (ca. 135-5 1 BC), was one of
the first of the Classical authors to write at length about the Celts,
principally in his Histories, written in the first half of the lStcentury BC.
Subsequent scribes, particularly Caesar, Strabo and Athenaeus, have
freely quoted Posidonius when detailing some of the habits of the Gauls.
To the Greeks, the Celts had two collective names; Keltoi and Galatae
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(the Roman equivalents being; Celtae and Galli). Celts were well known
and respected by the Greeks and Romans, being feared enemies and
uncomfortable neighbours. The classical civilisations knew very little
about Celtic intellectual life, however, because Celts did not use the
written word; they communicated their past orally, and dealings amongst
themselves and with other nations were always by word of mouth.
Fortunately, there is some linguistic affinity between the Celtic languages
and the Greek and Roman languages, and so there was some two-way
dealing, but the vast knowledge of the classical world, as contained in the
written word, was unavailable to the Celts. Any dissemination of ideas
about brewing, therefore, must have been orally transmitted to them.
Because they left no written accounts of themselves, we have to view
the ancient Celtic peoples of Continental Europe through Greek and
Roman eyes, and those ancient British Celts through the eyes of Roman
explorers and eventually, Roman invaders. It was not until the Sh
century AD that the Celts started to engage in writing. In reality, the gulf
between Celts and the Mediterranean civilisations, who were attempting
to describe them, was an enormous one, and it is no surprise to find that,
by and large, their food and drink, and eating and drinking habits, apart
from their proclivity for drunkenness, were conveniently ignored, and
probably misunderstood. Chadwick (1997), in her excellent account of
the Celts, informs us that:
The most widespread entertainment of the Celts probably was derived from
story-telling and talking, accompanied by feasting and drinking. These pleasures
appear to have been enjoyed by all grades of society, whether the drink was the
expensive imported wine of the nobility or the native beer and mead of the less
wealthy.
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The fertility of this region is not easy to convey in words. It yields such an
abundance of corn that often in my time the price of wheat was four obols for
the Sicilian rnedirnnus, and twofor the same quantity of barley, while a metretes
of wine cost the same as a medimnus of barley. There is also a huge production
of millet and of panic, and the quantity of acorns that grow in the oak
forests. . .
What, I wonder, was the method that some of the Celtiberians used to
preserve beer? Did it involve the use of hops? Plinys observation that
there were a number of ways of making beer, suggests that the technology might have been developed independently by a multiplicity of
indigenous peoples in this part of Europe; maybe European brewing
know-how did not necessarily emanate directly from Egypt and Mesopotamia. We know that there had been Phoenician influence in the Iberian
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Then, in rather more detail, Julius Caesar, in his Conquest of Gaul (I, l),
treats us to a short lesson in ethnography, when he writes:
Gaul comprises three areas, inhabited respectively by the Belgae, the Aquitani
and a people who call themselves Celts, though we call them Gauls. All of these
have dfferent languages, customs, and laws. The Celts are separated from
the Aquitani by the river Garonne,from the Belgae by the Marne and Seine. The
Belgae are the bravest of the three people, being farthest removed from the
highly developed civilisation of the Roman Province, least often visited by merchants with innervating luxuriesfor sale, and the nearest to the Germans across
the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For the same reason the
Helvetii are braver than the rest of the Celts; they are in almost daily contact
with the Germans, either trying to keep them out of Switzerland, or themselves
invading Germany. The region occupied by the Celts, which has one frontier
facing north, is bounded by the Rhdne, the Garonne, the Atlantic Ocean, and the
country of the Belgae; the part of it inhabited by the Sequani and the Helvetii
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also touches the Rhine. Aquitania is bounded by the Garonne, the Pyrenees, and
part of the Atlantic coast nearest Spain; it faces northwest.
During his account of the Gallic wars, Caesar tells us that the
Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine, besides their martial nature, were
still pastoral people without settled agriculture. Forbes (1955), without
going into any details, maintains that the German tribes only adopted
brewing in the lstcentury BC. Of the other neighbouring territories to
the east of the Celts of the Middle Danube, only the Thracians were
friendly. The Dacians, who surface during the first half of the 2ndcentury
BC, and whose origins are obscure, were as troublesome in the south, as
the Germanic tribes (particularly the Teutones and the Cimbri) were
further to the north. Their original homeland was thought to have
been the plain of Wallachia in the Lower Danube, but they gradually
expanded into Transylvania. They posed constant problems for the
Romans, as well as the Celts, until they were finally conquered by the
former in the early 2ndcentury AD.
The Belgae were certainly beer-drinkers, as people from that region are
today. Indeed, today some of the finest beers on this planet emanate
from this very part of the world. The Gauls, generally, apart from those
in the far south (the Cisalpine Gauls), were famed for their beer and for
their drinking exploits, as elicited by Diodorus Siculus (Book V, 26):
Furthermore, since the temperateness of climate is destroyed by the excessive
cold, the land produces neither vine nor oil, and as a consequence those
Gauls who are deprived of these fruits make a drink out of barley which they
call zythos or beer, and they drink the water with which they cleanse their
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honey-combs. The Gauls are exceedingly addicted to the use of wine andJill
themselves with the wine which is brought into their country by merchants, drinking it unmixed, and since they partake of this drink without moderation by
reason of their craving for it, when they are drunken they fall into a stupor or a
state of madness.
The word zythos, above, is that used by the Classical writers to define
Egyptian beer. In some parts of Gaul, beer was also referred to as
cervisiu, whilst in Spain it was called cerea or caelia. Elaborating further,
Diodorus Siculus says that, from the 6thcentury BC, the Gauls embarked
on a huge import trade in wine from the Mediterranean region, and he
vividly describes loads being transported northwards, both across the
plains by wagon, and along the navigable rivers by boat. Archaeological
evidence supports such accounts, for there have been innumerable
finds of Etruscan bronze flagons and wine jars (ca. 550-400 BC) from
klite Gaulish graves in all parts of the province. The same author also
recounts that the price of the commodity was high; a slave being
exchanged in return for a jar of wine. There is no mention of the size of
the jar, but this seems to be extortionate, to say nothing of being
immoral. Athenaeus, quoting Posidonius, enlightens us further:
They also use cummin in their drinks. . . the drink of the wealthy classes is wine
imported from Italy or from the territory of Marseilles. This is unadulterated,
but sometimes a little water is added. The lower classes drink wheaten beer
prepared with honey, but most people drink it plain. It is called coma. They use
a common cup, drinking a little at a time, not more than a mouthful, but they do
it rather frequently. The slave serves the cup towards the right, not towards the
left.
159
sugary, liquid. The same work relates the ancient Celtic lore of The
Triads of the Island of Britain, whereby an enchanted sow bringsforth
a grain of barley and a bee . . . These two basic items from natures
larder provided much of what was needed by the early Celts, for their
everyday life; barley providing bread, porridge, beer, fodder and straw;
the bee providing honey, mead, ale and wax for candles. Ross gives us a
clue as to the relative importance of beer and mead in Celtic drinking
rituals, with the statement, Whereas ale was the favourite drink at the
raucous, random feasts of the boastful chariot- warriors and their lords,
meud was also the ritual drink at the great calendar festivals.
Whether early Celtic beer and/or mead were turbid drinks has, to
my knowledge, not been documented; certainly we do not have any
records of Celts drinking through straws or reeds. One clue might lie
in the assertion made by Diodorus Siculus; namely that they use
their moustaches as strainers for their drink! The Greek physician,
Dioscorides, writing sometime in the lSt century AD (De Materia
Medica, 11, 88), had this to say about the beer of the Gauls:
Kourrni, made from barley, and often drunk instead of wine, produces headaches, is a compound of bad juices and does harm to muscles. A similar drink
may be producedfrom wheat, as in western Spain and in Britain.
So, maybe this Celtic beer was very cloudy, for, in this day and age,
we certainly perceive most cloudy beer to be headache-inducing
(wheat beers being a notable exception). The magnitude of some of the
Gaulish feasts can be visualised by the observations of Athenaeus, who
described (again, via Posidonius) the preparations made by Louernius,
the chieftain of the Arverni, a tribe in central Gaul, in the middle of the
2ndcentury BC:
. . he made a square enclosure one and a halfmiles each way, within which he
filled vats with expensive liquor and prepared so great a quantity offood that for
many days all who wished could enter and enjoy the feast, being served without
a break by the attendants.
I.
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There was no doubt that the privileged in Celtic society had all they
wanted in terms of food and drink. About the standard of living of the
rank and file we know rather less. . . In spite of this evident overindulgence, certainly by some sectors of the population, there was an
aversion to obesity, for the Celts were very figure-conscious. This is
exemplified by Strabos statement, They try not to become stout and
fat-bellied, and any young man who exceeds the standard length of a
girdle isjined.
Hospitality, generally was ingrained into Celtic society, a fact
remarked upon by Posidonius, who noted that strangers were welcomed
by being provided with ample food and drink, before being asked the
nature of their business. Diodorus Siculus (5, 34) saw this facet of their
culture as being similar to the belief that the gods look kindly on those
who are friendly to strangers. Over the years, the Celtic adherence to this
practice was abused by certain of their enemies, notably the Romans.
The Germanic neighbours of the Gauls, who were not of Celtic origin,
have been the subject of an exhaustive work by the Latin historian
Tacitus (born ca. AD 56). In Germania, 23, he gives us a brief
introduction to their drinking and eating habits:
Their drink is a liquor made from barley or other grain, which is fermented to
produce a certain resemblance to wine. Those who dwell nearest the Rhine or
Danube also buy wine. Their food is plain - wild fruit, fresh game and curdled
milk. They satisfy their hunger without any elaborate cuisine or appetizers. But
they do not show the same self-control in slaking their thirst. Ifyou indulge their
intemperance by plying them with as much drink as they desire, they will be as
easily conquered by this besetting weakness as by force of arms.
Further north than Germany was the area known as Thule, which
was close to the frozen zone. This was territory familiar to Pytheas,
who had previously circumnavigated the British Isles, and he described
the people of Thule thus:
. . . of the animals and domesticated fruits, there is an utter dearth of some and
a scarcity of the others, and that the people live on millet and other herbs, and
on fruit and roots; and where there m e grain and honey, the people get their
beverage also from them.
161
world should be placed in Ierne (i.e. Ireland), and Thule was outside of
this limit, and so basically, did not exist. Leaving aside the problem that
Strabo had with Thule, it seems fair to say that, since the earliest
recorded times, the Classical writers have reported grain-based beers to
be a staple beverage in most of central and northern Europe.
By the beginning of the 3rdcentury BC, the Celtic world consisted of
a series of autonomous tribes stretched across northern Europe, from
Ireland in the west to Hungary, in the east. In addition, there were a few
isolated pockets of people under Celtic influence, such as in Turkey and
Iberia. By the end of that century, and during the 2ndcentury BC, Celtic
cultures were becoming more and more influenced by the Roman, and
were under pressure from the Germanic tribes. Gradually, their territories became subjugated; first northern Italy, then parts of Spain, and
parts of France. Their most severe set-back was the loss of Gaul in
the 5th decade BC, and by the end of the millennium Spain had been
totally conquered and the Celts of the Danube had disappeared. This left
only the British Isles as a Celtic repository. Britain never became as
Romanised as Gaul, and the Celtic social structure and language was
able to survive the Roman occupation, albeit in specialised locations such
as the west and north. Ireland escaped the clutches of Rome completely
and her tribes were largely unaffected by the conquerors. Apart from the
British outposts mentioned here, the Romans effectively extinguished
the culture and language of the Celts, and when they, themselves were
defeated in the Shcentury AD, many of the old Celtic territories came
under Germanic rule. Even the name Gaul disappeared, the replacement being attributable to a German tribe, the Franks. Claudius
invasion of south-eastern England was in AD 43, and by the early 80s
the Romans had swept through England and reached the Highlands of
Scotland (Caledonia). The legions were unable to hold on to the north
and retreated, leaving surviving pockets of Celts.
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finds are interpreted in the light of the fact that germinated grains may
well represent archaeobotanical evidence for brewing activity (van Zeist,
1991), although this is not invariably the case. Stika reports the presence
of a number of weakly germinated, hulled grains at the settlement. The
archaeological circumstances of their location, and the purity of the find
seem to indicate that they were germinated deliberately. He also maintains that recent germination and charring experiments show that the
consistently weak traces of germination on the charred sub-fossil grains
from HochdorJ are enough to indicate malted grains.
The settlement has been interpreted as the rural residence of a prince
and is directly related to the rich Late Hallstatt grave mound of
Hochdorf, which lies 0.5 km to the east. The remains were preserved by
charring and mineralisation and were very clean, with virtually no
chaff or weed seeds. Such cleanliness suggests that the barley seeds were
screened before being purposely germinated. The possibility that grain
germination was a chance occurrence is highly unlikely, partially because
of their cleanliness and, more significantly, because the grains were
found at the bottom of U-shaped ditches, partially covered with a debris
of burned wood fragments, mud and bricks. A reconstruction of the site
indicates that the ditches were used as malt kilns. A fire would have been
located at one end of the ditch and hot air would have blown along the
gully, in order to dry the partially germinated barley. Malted barley
would have been laid out on a support made of dried mud bricks with a
wooden frame holding a woven canvas (probably made of woven willow
or reed). Hot air could circulate freely underneath the frame, which
would have ensured thorough drying. It is presumed that a fire started
accidentally and the wooden frame and its cover started to burn. The
cover ruptured lengthwise and the grain fell into the ditch. These were
followed by the burning structure, and then burned mud bricks, which
concealed them.
All this is an explanation of what was actually found in the ditches
(i.e. partially sprouted grains covered in debris). No source of the kiln
fire was identified, and no other brewing-related evidence was found,
which makes the identification of the site as a brewery somewhat tenuous.
Apart from their proposed use in brewing, no other reasons for the
presence of this grain haul have been forwarded. As Stika says, The
conscious malting of these grains was probably a precursor to beer production . The Hochsdorf site has yielded archaeological evidence for
another alcoholic beverage, mead, but there was no suggestion that wine
was produced or consumed. The site has, however, given forth 15 seeds
of henbane, which, it is postulated, may have been used for flavouring
beer (see page 195).
163
REFERENCES
F.A. King, Beer Has a History, Hutchinson, London, 1947.
C.W. Bamforth, Beer Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing, Plenum
Press, New York, 1998.
M. Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food (Translated by Anthea Bell),
Rlackwell, Oxford, 1992.
H.A. Dirar, Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African
1;bod and Nutrition, CAB International, Wallingford, 1993.
R.J. Braidwood, American Anthropologist, 1953,55, 5 15.
E.C. Curwen and G. Hatt, Plough and Pasture: The Early History of
Karming, Collier Books, New York, 1953.
M. Dayagi-Mendels, Drink and Be Merry: Wine and Beer in Ancient
Times, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1999.
F.C. Grant and H.H. Rowley (eds), Dictionary of the Bible, 2ndedn,
1:& T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1963.
P. Bienkowski and A.R. Millard, Dictionary of the Ancient Near East,
British Museum, London, 2000.
H.E Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing in the Ancient Orient, J.C. Hinrichs,
Leipzig, 1922.
J. Death, The Beer of the Bible, Trubner & Co., London, 1887.
O.R. Gurney, The Hittites, 2ndedn, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1990.
F. Imparati, 'Private life among the Hittites' in Civilisations of the ancient
Near East, Vol. 1, J.M. Sasson (ed), Simon & Schuster, New York,
1995.
H. Helbaek, Economic Botany, 1966,20,350.
H A . Hoffner Jr., Alimenta Hethaeorum: Food Production in Hittite Asia
Minor, American Oriental Society, New Haven, CT, 1974.
G.K. Sams, Archaeology, 1977,30, 108.
D.H. Redford, Israel, Canaan and Egypt in ancient times, Princeton
IJniversity Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992.
P.E. Dion, 'Aramaean tribes and nations of first-millennium Western
Asia' in Civilisations of the ancient Near East, Vol. 2, J.M. Sasson
(ed), Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995.
S. Walton, Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication, Hamish
Hamilton, London, 2001.
C. Ratsch, Plants of Love: The History of Aphrodisiacs and a Guide
to Their Ident8cation and Use, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA,
1997.
A.G. Sherratt, Economy and Society in Prehistoric Europe: Changing
Perspectives, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1997.
P.E. Zimansky, 'The Kingdom of Urartu in Eastern Anatolia' in
164
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55 BC, that beer was already an indigenous fermented beverage in Britannia or at least those parts of it that were familiar to him. He quotes,
They had vines, but use them only for arbours in their gardens. They drink
a high and mighty liquor. . . made of barley and water.
Wine was popular with the upper echelons of British Iron Age society,
as evidenced by the number of wine amphorae that have been recovered.
Whether all of this wine was imported is a matter of conjecture.
Applebaum (1972), has intimated that the Belgae might have brought
vine stock over for culture but, as yet, there is no conclusive evidence.
There is relatively little literary or archaeological evidence for viticulture
in Britain in Roman times, although it is widely assumed that grapes were
grown in southern Great Britain during the occupation. The status of
viticulture in Roman Britain has been discussed by Williams (1977),
who considers that palaeobotanical and archaeological evidence for
viticulture was, at best, ambiguous. In Western Europe, the cultivated
vine appears to be unknown outside Mediterranean Gaul from the 4thto
the lStcenturies BC. The gradual extension of the range of the plant is
well documented in northern Gaul and Germany, where from cultivation
in the south, it had spread to the Bourgogne, Loire, Normandy, Rhine,
and Mosel areas. Botanically, there is no reason to doubt that cultivation
could have extended to Britain at about the same time as it reached
northern Gaul and the Rhineland (in the late 2d or early 3rd century
AD). Emperor Domitians edict of AD 90/91 did not serve to encourage
viticulture in northern Europe, since it sought to restrict wine production
in the provinces (no specific mention of Britain). The situation was
reversed by the 3d century emperor, Probus (Historiae Augustae, XVIII,
8) who, inadvertently, confirmed that viticulture was possible in Britain.
He granted permission to all the Gauls and the Spaniards and Britons to
cultivate vineyards and make wines.
Lately, it has been shown that an extensive amount of viticulture
was practised in Roman Britain, at Wollaston in the Nene Valley,
Northamptonshire (Brown and Meadows, 2000; Brown et al., 2001).
Stratigraphic and palynological data (pollen analysis) have provided
conclusive evidence of viticulture on a large scale, thus indicating that an
apparent paucity of viticultural tools and artefacts, such as wine presses,
in the archaeological record in Britain, is not reliable evidence for the
absence of viticulture at that time. Trenches have been identified at
Wollaston I, which conform to a pattern of vine cultivation, pastinatio,
described in some detail by Columella (De Re Rustica, IV, 25) and Pliny
(Nut. Hist., XVII, 166) as the optimum method. The find has additional
interest because it represents an important indication of agricultural
innovation by the Romans in the British Isles.
-
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168
start in the spring and this seems to be necessary since growth is inclined to be
slow. The slowness of growth is not caused by lack of moisture but by a lack
of sunshine and warmth. It is for this reason that the grain, when it is ripe
in autumn, is either stored in barns or in stacks which are covered with thatch in
such a way as to shed the rain.
On reaching the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Arran, Pytheas noted
that there was still a considerable amount of agriculture, but that the
main crop here was oats rather than wheat. Oats, he decided, yielded
rather tasteless fayre, especially oaten porridge, and he found the winters
to be long and wet and there were many almost impenetrable fogs.
Suitably disenchanted, he uttered:
It seemed to me that about the only relief the people had from the sparseness
and monotony was the consumption of a strong beverage made from fermented
grain, which they called usquebaugh. This was a potent drink if taken to excess,
which I was told was of frequent occurrence. I did not care for the taste of it nor
for the effects. I much preferred the mead of the southern part of the country and
the wines from my native land.
The nature of the grain used to make the fermented drink mentioned
above, is not specified, although, in other works, Tacitus and some fellow
Classical writers note that both wheat and barley were used to make
beer in northern parts of Europe. Note also, Pytheas predilection for
mead, and the mention of usquebaugh, which implies some knowledge of
distillation. At this point it is worth mentioning that the Latin word for
beer, cerevisia (Spanish; cervesa) is relatively late, and is a compound
of the Latin word for cereal (Ceres, being the god of plenty), plus a
which still survives in the word
Celtic element meaning water
whisky.
Our quest for information about early British brewing is not helped by
the general lack of interest that the occupying Romans had in beverages
made from grains, viz. the contemptuous statement made by Pliny the
Elder (AD 23-79), Nat. Hist., XIV, 149:
-
The whole world is addicted to drunkenness, the perverted ingenuity of man has
given even to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procurable.
Western nations intoxicute themselves by means of moistened grain.
169
Western people also have their own liquor made from grain soaked in water.
Alas, what wonderful ingenuity vice possesses! We have even discovered how to
make water intoxicating!
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the fact that hulled barley is the best cereal crop with which to make
British-style beer, and that brewing with it in these islands could
not have taken place until that grain had been cultivated here. I am
not precluding the use of other graminaceous sources of starch (and
ultimately, fermentable sugar) for making beer, because it is almost
certain that, over a period of time, wheat (especially spelt and other
hulled varieties), oats, rye, etc., were used for brewing purposes, at least in
certain parts of the British Isles. What I am doing is asking the question,
Why was barley grown in Britain from Neolithic times onwards? We
can go back to Prof. Braidwoods question of primacy in Chapter 3
What came first, bread or beer? Barley makes a less than perfect loaf
of bread and, if the crop was used for feed, then how much livestock did
the early agriculturalists have? Enough to warrant widespread growing
of barley?
There was obviously something about barley that resulted in its seed
being traipsed half way across the planet, from its original base in the
Near East, to the far-flung corners of north-western Europe. The same
question can be asked of wheat (especially free-threshing varieties), but
the simplistic answer in this instance is that it was grown primarily for
its bread-making characters, whereas barley was primarily grown for
brewing purposes. A close look at the archaeobotanical evidence just
over the English Channel, however, tells us that the situation is rather
more complicated than this, and we find that the relationship between
barley and brewing may not be as straightforward as one would like
to think.
Maria Hopf (1982), for example, when assessing the status of barley
in northern Europe during the later stages of prehistory, notes that the
dominant form was naked and six-rowed (i.e. Hordeum hexastichum
L. = H. vulgare subsp. vulgare). This variety would not have provided any
advantages for the aspiring brewer, and so it would seem unlikely that it
was grown principally with brewing in mind. The hulled form of H.
hexastichum (which was known from the Near East) was lesser known
in northern Europe at this time, and the two-rowed form ( H . distichurn
L. = H.vulgare subsp. distichum), which is mostly hulled, and is the preferred variety for many modern brewers, was completely unknown in
prehistoric Europe. This domination of the temperate European barley
assemblage, by the naked, six-rowed variety, lasted until the Bronze Age
Urnfield period, when hulled forms predominated, suggesting that brewing beer with barley could well have been one of the many innovations to
emanate from that culture.
Before the preponderance of hulled varieties of barley, there is much
evidence to indicate that emmer was the grain of choice for brewers
171
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British Isles in an era that pre-dates any Celtic (or even Beaker) activity
in Britain.
173
Cereals
Einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum)*
Emmer wheat ( T dicoccum)"
Macaroni wheat ( T durum)
Bread wheat ( T aestivum)"
Two-rowed hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare)
Six-rowed hulled barley (H. hexastichum)"
Naked barley (H. hexastichum var. nudum)"
Rye (Secale cereale)
Pulses (legumes)
Pea (Pisum sativum)
Lentil (Lens culinaris)
Bean (Viciafaba)
Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia)
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum)
Other
Flaxllinseed (Linum usitatissimum)*
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Emmer and spelt were occasionally grown together in Bronze Age Greece.
175
British Neolithic sites), whilst wild plant food mostly manifests itself in
the form of hazelnuts.
The paucity of cereal remains from the British Neolithic, as compared
to t'he quantities found in mainland Europe, has been attributed to the
type of site excavated. In the British Isles, most sites have been of ritual
significance, as opposed to those on the Continent which have been
settlement sites (e.g. wooden longhouses). One would expect to find
greater quantities of cereal remains from the latter, because of the likelihood of crops being stored. This explanation is supported by the fact
that the greatest quantities of cereal remains from Neolithic Britain have
been retrieved from the wooden houses at Balbridie, on the banks of the
river Dee, just west of Aberdeen (Fairweather and Ralston, 1993),
and Lismore Fields, a meadow on the outskirts of Buxton, Derbyshire
(Garton, 1987), where grain storage was evidently practised. Cultivated
and wild plants (cereals and hazelnuts) are both seasonal resources, and
require storage if they are to become staple foods, and both of the above
wooden house sites yielded copious quantities of charred cereal remains.
They did not, however, show any signs of hazelnut remains (or any
other wild food plant resource). Although there are no tangible signs of
brewing having been carried out at either site, both timber buildings were
situated near to a continuous supply of fresh water; Balbridie being next
to the river Dee, and Lismore Fields being adjacent to a natural spring,
and it would be nice to think that they may have been early malting and
brewing complexes.
The Balbridie timber hall was one of the first examples of a large,
Germanic-style longhouse to be discovered in Britain, and the finds are
thought to represent evidence of a clean cereal crop (very few non-cereal
species were recovered) that had been accidentally burnt whilst in
storage. Over 20,000 grains have been retrieved, at the time, to date, the
largest assemblage of Neolithic carbonised grain in Britain. Although it
may not necessarily have been representative of the British Isles, in terms
of grain profile, the Balbridie haul at least demonstrates that large-scale
cereal growing and processing was being carried out by Neolithic man.
There is no evidence of pits for underground storage, and it is assumed
that the grain was stored on floors above ground. The building, the way
in which grain was stored, and the cereal strategy, made the farmers
of Balbridie more akin to continental European farmers than to most of
their British counterparts. The main cereal recovered at Balbridie was
emrner (ca. SO%>, together with a free-threshing wheat of the Triticum
aestivum L.-type (ca. 2%), and naked barley (ca. 18%). Hulled barley
accounted for less than 1% of the counted grains. The free-threshing
wheat has since been assigned to the club wheat, T aestivo-compactum
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177
when a hard, brown grain is formed. The length of time taken for a
grain to reach maturity varies with variety, and with environmental
conditions.
As one would expect, grain development in the temperate British
climate is much slower than in, say, the Mediterranean climate. IR analysis shows that some grains were harvested when immature (certainly at
Wirtdmill Hill and Balbridie), and this has been taken to mean that the
Neolithic cultivators in Britain experienced certain difficulties in getting,
what were essentially, Near Eastern crops to mature and, therefore,
complete their biological cycle. Although this may not have been totally
disastrous (unripe grains can provide nutritious human food, and failed
crops can be used as fodder), it would certainly have been a major obstacle
to the early cultivators, and it provides us with a salient reminder that
the establishment of crops, native to the Fertile Crescent, should not be
taken for granted in foreign climes. First of all, one had to overcome
the problems caused by moving crops from a southwest Asian doubleseason existence to a northern European four-season system of agriculture. Neolithic farmers in the British Isles would have been recipients
of cereal seed that had crossed Europe, and had become accustomed
to a variety of soils and climates. Such seed would probably have been
adapted to frosts and snow, but may not have been repeatedly subject
to winds and heavy rain. Thus lodging, difficulty in harvesting, and
susceptibility to diseases would have been deterrents for farmers.
It is wrong to imagine that the spread of wheat farming throughout
prehistoric Europe was simply a matter of sowing seed in freshly prepared (cleared) ground. Bread wheats, in particular, are dependent upon
certain soil fungi, which associate with their roots (called mycorrhiza),
and these must be present for healthy growth of the plants, especially
during periods of stress. There appears to be no mycorrhizal dependence
in either emmer or einkorn. It is generally agreed that of the Old World
Neolithic crop assemblage, it is barley and the legumes that would have
been more vigorous and successful pioneer crops in new environments. In
the context of early British agriculture, barleys appear to have fulfilled
their potential, the pulses did not.
As one would expect, the results of IR analysis of ancient wheat
samples have altered the species lists, obtained from macrofossil evidence, for many Neolithic sites. From the Windmill Hill assemblage,
bread wheat can be added, whilst at Balbridie, a wheat species new to
Britain has been identified. This is the free-threshing Triticum carthlicum
Nevski (= [T: turgidum L. ssp. carthlicum Nevski); both mature and immature grains being identified. [T: carthlicum is exceptionally tolerant of cold
climates, but is not a particularly heavy cropper. It is only cultivated
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179
for instance, both hulled and naked varieties of barley assume dominant
status over wheats, although this is more marked during the later
Neolithic.
On a more local scale, at the early agricultural settlement at Scord of
Brouster, on Shetland, huge amounts of naked six-rowed barley were
recovered (Whittle et al., 1986), as was the case at the Neolithic mound at
Boghead, Speymouth Forest, Morayshire (Burl, 1984), facts that do not
overtly fit in with any proposed brewing activity. At most other Neolithic
sites in Britain, hulled wheat crops seem to have predominated, as they
did in mainland Europe, even though their uniformity may now be
questioned. It does seem as though the various wheat varieties that have
been attested for mainland Europe have their origins further to the east,
for, as Nesbitt and Samuel acutely observe, there is no archaeological
evidence for localised domestication of wheats in Europe, nor is there
any evidence of wild wheats yet to be domesticated. Having said that, it
must be understood that traditional taxonomic criteria and standard
identification methods have been unable to identify the numerous
varieties of wheat that may have been present in Eurasia in prehistoric
times. To complicate matters, many of the types identified in archaeological assemblages have not corresponded well with modern cultivars.
It has often only been possible to identify wheats, and other grains, down
to genus level, or even cereal group.
As we shall see later in this chapter, changes on the European mainland seem to have been going on from around the Shmillennium cal BC,
most notably along the river Danube, where there was a westward
migration of people whose life-style was based on a sedentary, agricultural theme. In mainland Europe, the change from a Mesolithic to
Neolithic way of life was mainly by acculturation, a process in which an
existing society accepts and absorbs new behaviours and resources from
a neighbouring culture. In Britain, this was thought almost certainly not
to be the way in which the Neolithic was adopted (although the point
is still hotly debated). For many years, the accepted model of change
from Mesolithic to Neolithic proposed that settlers must have arrived
(perhaps not as many as had been originally thought) and brought their
livestock, stores of seed and the necessary equipment with them: this is
the invasion hypothesis. The native population were either absorbed
into the new order, or became second-rate citizens and gradually
perished over a period of time. By the 3d millennium BC there would
appear to have been a complete transition to the Neolithic way of life
in these islands, because no evidence of Mesolithic activity has been
recorded after this sort of date.
It is evident that some aspects of Neolithic life, for example agricultural
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technology and the cereals and domestic livestock that went with it, were
clearly introduced from abroad, because there is no evidence for any of
their antecedents in the British Mesolithic record. There are significant
differences between the artefacts (pottery, etc.) of the British Neolithic
and that of mainland Europe, and it is now presumed that small numbers
of invaders came over here and acted as a stimulus for the conversion
of the inhabitants to an agricultural society. The new way of life must
have seemed very attractive, because the transition in Britain occurred
quite quickly. (Fairbairn (2000) maintains that, on present evidence,
cereals appeared in, and crossed Britain in less than 400 years; there
certainly must have been considerable benefits to be obtained from the
new mode of existence. Collecting baskets were discarded and land was
suitably cleared for sowing. We find sudden and widespread evidence of
the Neolithic way of life, including new types of funerary and ceremonial
monuments, and evidence of forest clearance to permit agriculture. The
British lowland landscape in early Neolithic times was largely natural;
mostly wooded with little sign of settlement. In upland areas there
were some signs of Mesolithic activity, for example localised clearance
of wooded areas to give plant diversity, or maybe to encourage wild
animals, but very few signs of human activity. The Stone Age peoples
changed all that and started to re-shape the landscape; a process that has
continued until the present day.
The main phase of woodland clearance was effected by the Neoliths,
and their successors, over the period between the late Sh and 2nd
millennia BC. Removal of trees could be fairly easily effected by the
improved ground stone axes that had been developed. The clearance of
afforested areas not only yielded a very rich brown soil, but provided
open areas for keeping livestock. Open areas were created by setting
fire to land cleared of its trees; a technique known as slash and burn.
The remains of domesticated animals and certain cultivated plants are
found on even the earliest Neolithic sites in Britain, which strongly
suggests that animal husbandry and horticulture were an essential part
of the Neolithicpackage from abroad. Whilst nothing like the intensive
farming characteristic of the Bronze and Iron Ages was practised by
Neolithic Britons, we know that they reared domestic cattle, pigs, sheep
and goats, as well as their cultivated range of cereals. Like the cereals,
sheep and goats are ultimately of Near Eastern origin. There is evidence
that during the Neolithic, whilst large permanent fields were not created,
there were areas of localised woodland clearance that were farmed for a
few years and then abandoned in favour of somewhere else; this is known
as swidden cultivation.
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Simpson (1979), who were firmly of the opinion that our earliest
agricultural communities crossed over from mainland Europe in the
middle of the 4thmillennium BC, bringing with them seed-corn and the
necessary animals. In view of the difficulty that would have been experienced in bringing animals, especially over a tract of water, it is to be
supposed that these ancient settlers used the shortest route possible;
i.e. along the lines of the modern cross-Channel routes. The same
authors maintain that such journeys would, for a variety of reasons,
have taken place in the months of August, September and October, and
could have been made in skin boats, whose existence in northern Europe
(especially Scandinavia) is well documented from this period. The most
obvious parts of the British Isles that would have been settled by these
people would have been in the south and the southeast; but the situation
was obviously not as simple as that, because radiocarbon evidence
indicates that a wide area of Britain and Ireland (both highland and
lowland) was settled almost simultaneously around 3500 BC. These
new settlers evidently took some time to adjust themselves to their new
environment, because it was some while before they started to erect substantial funerary monuments and ceremonial sites. They would probably
have been too busy preparing land, propagating crops and farming their
animals, to engage in major building projects.
Even though this ingress of continental agriculturalists is now likely
to have been over a wide area, most of the important archaeological
sites have, thus far, been from the south and south-east of the British
Isles. Indeed, in the lowland zone of Britain, which roughly stretches
from the Bristol Channel to the Wash, the archaeological remains of
these early agricultural peoples has been termed the " Windmill Hill
culture", after the hilltop site near Avebury in Wiltshire, where it was first
recognised.
The Windmill Hill site represents the earliest example of a foodproducing economy in Britain, the farming practices being very similar
to those of other Neolithic groups in north-western Europe. If the people
that inhabited this site came from overseas, then they must have specifically chosen this hilly terrain, just north of Salisbury Plain, for its light
calcareous soil, which proved to be perfect for the growth of their main
bread-producing crop, emmer wheat. Judging by the size of the grains,
emmer grew exceedingly well under the " Windmill regime". At one time
it was thought that the choice of chalk downland soil by the earliest
agriculturalists was due to the fact that such habitats had very little
tree cover, and therefore did not require much tree-felling. It is now
believed that these chalk lands did support dense oak forests, as did the
heavier clay soils of central England, but the soil underneath was the
183
major attraction; it was friable and easily cultivable with the primitive
implements at hand.
The main crops grown by the Windmill Hill people were einkorn and
emmer wheats, naked and hulled barley, apples and flax (Helbaek, 1952).
The only typical cereal of the northern European Neolithic originally
not found at Windmill Hill was bread wheat. Emmer, the staple wheat
of Neolithic Europe, comprised the majority of the wheat samples. The
ratio of wheats to barleys in the recorded samples was roughly 9:1,
which was the same as found, at sites of equivalent age, in many areas of
mainland Europe; whilst naked barley was the commoner of the two
barleys, as it was in the early agricultural communities of north-western
Europe. Over a period of time, hulled barley gradually replaced the
naked form, a fact that has been attributed to it being favoured
by the prevailing climate. The barley impressions did not permit the
determination of the spike type, so we do not know whether the
plants were two- or six-rowed, or dense- or lax-spiked. Since two-rowed
barley had not been recorded from prehistoric Europe at that time,
Hellbaek assumed that the Windmill Hill material would have been
six-rowed.
Whatever happened, on the basis of most of that early evidence,
Britain certainly adopted the agriculturalist society some while after it
graced the Continent, for it was around 4000 cal BC that we find that the
fertile river valleys of northern Europe, such as the Rhine and Meuse,
supported farming communities; evidence suggesting that they grew
barley and wheat and reared cattle. Most of these communities lived in
small villages. By the middle of the qfhmillennium (i.e. around 3500 cal
BC), these groups moved further afield into areas with less fertile soil, or
with land more difficult to work; this date approximates to that generally
given for the introduction of farming into Britain, and this may not be
purely coincidental.
In the light of some, what was then, recently obtained radiocarbon
data, Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (197 1) propounded a model for the
expansion of agriculture in Europe which was, in effect a wave of
advance. They viewed the Neolithic as an unvarying entity, identifiable
by certain fixed characteristics, which may be called the Neolithic package. This, as we shall see in a moment, was quite a dangerous thing to
do. Their model was formed by plotting on a map, the radiocarbon
datings for Neolithic activity in Europe. By using Jericho as a focal point
in the Near East, a number of radiating arcs could be drawn, which they
maintained, represented the gradual diffusion of agriculture across the
continent, from southeast to northwest (Figure 5.1). Results showed
that there is a clear gradient of agricultural sites from east to west. They
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Figure 5.1
Chapter 5
The spread of agriculture into Europe. The isochrones spread out from Near
East (Jericho), and mark the first appearance of agricultural, Neolithic
villages. Isochrones are in radiocarbon years before present
(Taken from Nesbitt and Samuels 1996 adaptation of Ammerman and
Cavalli-Sforza (1984), reproduced by kind permission of Dr Mark Nesbitt
and Dr Delwen Samuel)
185
FARMING vs GATHERING
If this multiplicitous inception applies to agriculture itself, then it would
almost certainly apply to agricultural products, beer being one of them.
Overall, Thomas feels that there is very little evidence to support the
notion that there was extensive arable farming practised in Neolithic
Britain, since arable weed floras are almost entirely absent from most
carbonised seed samples. In addition, most plant assemblages are rich
in wild species, especially wild fruit- and nut-bearing trees and shrubs; a
finding that is largely underplayed. In the summary to his paper, Thomas
suggests that, although the spread of agriculture into Europe has been
perceived as a one-way process, in which a dynamic economic system
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187
place, i.e. how did the plant material become charred? The answer
dernands that we take into account three basic differences between the
use of wild (hazelnut) and cultivated (cereal) plants:
1. The by-product of eating hazelnuts is the nut shell, whereas the
by-product of eating cereals is chaff and straw
2. Hazelnut shells have few uses other than as fuel, whilst chaff and
straw have multiple uses (fodder, building material, etc.)
3. Nutshell survives well when exposed to fire, whereas chaff and straw
survive poorly.
Thus, since nutshell is a by-product of the food itself, it is more likely
to be discarded, either by deliberate use as a fuel, or by simply throwing
into a household fire. For a society regularly consuming hazelnuts, on
whatever scale, it is to be expected that the shell would come into contact
with fire. Because cereal grains are the part of the plant that is consumed,
it is not to be expected that they would be thrown onto fires; the only
means by which they would become charred was if they were involved
in some sort of accident (i.e. during food preparation, or if a grain store
caught fire). Chaff and straw would normally have been removed from
the grain during processing, and so it is unlikely that they would have
reached household fires (if they did, then they would have been reduced
to ash). In summation, it is to be expected that charred cereal remains are
only going to be recovered relatively rarely, even in communities using
cereals as staples.
From the above, one can appreciate the problems involved in
unravelling the Neolithic diet in Britain. The situation is summarised
nicely by Fairbairn (2000):
Domestic cereals have been many things in Neolithic studies. For archaeobotanists working in Britain they are elusive bio facts, appearing in pitiful
quantities and appalling preservation states, defying the best attempts to model
uny elements of agriculture or subsistence practice.
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189
190
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191
beforehand, which argues against the notion of indigenous domestication. It was not merely the idea of agriculture that arrived, it was the
wherewithal.
The date of the arrival of agriculture in Franchthi Cave might have
been around two millennia after it emerged in the Near East, but it was
only around 100 years after it started to diffuse from its birthplace. It is
assumed that agriculture spread overland to Greece through Turkey, the
only problem being that, at present, there is a dearth of 7thmillennium
BC sites in western Turkey. Agriculture seems to have spread northwards
from Greece, by way of the Vardar and Morava river valleys into the
Balkans, reaching the Carpathian mountains and middle Danube by
5500 BC. Yugoslavia was reached by 5300 BC. and Bulgaria by 4800 BC.
The earliest crop remains in Yugoslavia include four types of wheat;
einkorn, emmer, and two hexaploid forms of wheat; bread and club. The
latter are of interest because they do not occur in the Neolithic in Greece
(and only occur once in Bulgaria). Hulled, six-rowed barley and wild rye
are also encountered. The same cereals have been recovered from the late
Neolithic, as well. The earliest cultivated plants in Bulgaria date from
48004600 BC. Once again, one gets the same three forms of wheat;
einkorn, emmer and bread, and both hulled and naked six-rowed barley.
Slightly later, 44004100 BC, one gets the appearance of hulled, and
naked two-rowed barley. Sites in northern Bulgaria have yielded fewer
species, only einkorn, emmer, and hulled and naked six-rowed barley.
There was also a spread of agriculture from Greece, by a westerly route
along the northern shore of the Mediterranean. As a consequence,
Neolithic farming villages appeared in southern Italy, southern France,
and Spain by 5000 BC. It was another 500 years before the appearance of
farming in the northerly belt of Europe stretching from the Netherlands
to Germany and Poland and, as I have indicated before, this spread was
linked to the LBK, which first appeared in Central Europe around 4500
BC. Finally, agriculture arrived in Scandinavia, the Swiss Alps, and the
British Isles around 3500 BC (Barker, 1985).
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193
food and, of course, a potential for brewing. Add to this the fact that
their vegetative parts provide useful animal fodder, and material for
building and other domestic crafts, and one can see that cereals would
have been immensely versatile crops, and could have provided a range of
resources unrivalled by any other group of plants.
We have touched upon the subject of the importance of wild plants as
a fbod source during the Neolithic in Britain, and have seen that there is
a school of thought that considers that gathering was of at least equal
importance to cereal cultivation. Richards (1 996) has taken a different
stance and postulated that, on the evidence of bone analysis, meat was
more important in the Neolithic diet than cereals. He envisages that there
wals an animal-based Neolithic economy, with only a small amount of
grain cultivation. He, too, feels that the grain was used for ritual purposes, although there are no suggestions as to what these rituals might
have entailed. Surely, with its ability to engender escapism, it is more
likely that beer was the focus of such rituals, rather than one of the raw
materials. Is it possible that we are witnessing the commencement of the
use: of beer as a prestige and/or cult symbol, and the accompanying
ritualistic behaviour that was to become much more overt during the era
of the Beaker People?
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Kinloch Bay on the Isle of Rhum in the Inner Hebrides (which were
dated to ca. 1940 BC). These sherd residues, which were investigated by
palaeobotanist, Dr Brian Moffat, were described as organic, and probably mashed cereal straw. The residues were compared, botanically, with
the surrounding soil matrix, and three of them were found to be quite
different from the background samples. The plant assemblage contained
a low frequency of cereal-type pollen, which was not found elsewhere on
the site, and exceptionally high counts of the pollen of ling (Calluna
vulgaris) and other heathers. Also encountered were pollen from
meadowsweet, and spores from the royal fern (Osmunda regalis). As
Moffat said:
These species do not occur in similar proportions elsewhere in the environmental record, and it is highly unlikely that they would have combined in this way
in a purely natural assemblage. It isfeasible that they may have been deliberately
combined and that they may relate to the original contents of the pot.
195
Fifteen of the 3 1 residues examined contained interesting pollen profiles, which indicated the abundant presence of meadowsweet (both
pollen and macro-plant remains), fat hen, cabbage family (Cruciferae)
and flax. Lesser amounts of pollen were found from a member of the
Umbelliferae (the cow-parsley and carrot family), and pollen and seed
fragments of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger L.) were encountered. Of
the original preparation (whatever it was) that became deposited on the
pot fragments, Moffat says:
Judgingfrom the heterogeneous and coarse texture of most deposits, it seems
that the mix is normally coarse and crude. A consistency of a coarse porridge
with addedpottage (potherbs) andflavourings is indicated.
Minute droplets of beeswax and solidified resin were also noted, which
has led to speculation that these may have been for waterproofing
purposes (i.e. the pots were brewing vessels). If this was a beer, or a
mead, then it was a very interesting one, and would have been highly
intoxicating! Such a drink would be along the lines that Sherratt has
envisaged as being responsible for the significance of AOC pottery
(except that henbane was being used as an intoxicant instead of hemp).
An essay outlining the use and possible significance of henbane throughout. the millennia, has been written by Sherratt (1996). He points out that
the plant was connected with the ancient shamanic spirit-flight, in
which the shaman visits the souls of the dead. Sherratt feels that it is not
coincidental that the first prehistoric European evidence should come
from a mortuary site. He suggests that the timber enclosures at Balfargl
Balbirnie may have been used for the exposure of corpses, and the
ves,sels which contained the (surely) ritual meals were carefully collected
and buried as if (in the words of one ceramic specialist) ritually charged
and dangerous.
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196
The whole subject of the Balfarg Riding School residues is still a matter
of conjecture.
Although overlooked for many years by brewing historians, reports of
some of the early excavations at the renowned site at Skara Brae, Bay
of Skaill, Mainland Orkney, which were conducted by Professor Childe
(Childe & Paterson, 1929; Childe, 1930), may have held clues for the
likelihood of brewing activity. Skara Brae, the ruined dwellings at which
were discovered in 1850, has been referred to as the best preserved
prehistoric village in northern Europe, and it was not until 1976, when
Clarke reported the presence of carbonised barley grains in middens,
that the possibility of beer production became more than pure fantasy. A
re-appraisal of the use of buildings and installations at the site, together
with an re-interpretation of some of Childes original conclusions, has
led to the belief that brewing was quite possible in Neolithic times at
Skara Brae.
There is a building on the site (called Hut 8) that would have been
suitable partly for grain storage, and within it an area that could have
accommodated grain processing, such as winnowing, threshing, malting
and drying (kilning). In the north-facing wall of Hut 8, there are large
stone slabs adjacent to a streamlined aperture, which when open gathers
the north wind such that it causes a through draught to the southerly
situated porch. This arrangement is ideal for carrying out the winnowing
process. When the aperture was closed, the stone slabs could have been
used for threshing, or for laying out moist barley to allow for germination. In simplistic terms, both threshing and malting can be carried out
on a level floor protected from inclement weather. Following partial germination, the grain needs to be dried by heating, and the aperture in the
north wall could have served as a flue, if kilning was carried out in that
area. The main hearth in Hut 8 was centrally-placed. Hut 8 also contained querns and so, in effect, everything required to convert harvested
197
grain into crushed malt, could be speculated. Two huge Grooved Ware
vessels were found, which could have served for graidmalt storage, and
there were a number of somewhat smaller vessels and some circular stone
pot lids, which suggests that they might have been used for fermentation.
There was also evidence of heat-cracked stones (known as pot boilers),
which could have been for heating purposes (principally for mashing, but
maybe for boiling).
There was an effective drainage system at Skara Brae, which consisted
of stone-lined channels, and would have been capable of dealing with the
large volumes of waste water (mainly from cleaning processes) that ensue
from production runs. Similar drainage systems have been found at the
Braes of Rinyo, on Rousay, Orkney (Childe and Grant, 1946) and, most
importantly, at the settlement complex at Barnhouse, close by Stones of
Stenness, Mainland Orkney, where there is recently discovered evidence
of barley, and a sugary material, on fragments of very large Grooved
Ware vessels. At this latter site, a large vessel was found buried in the
ground intact.
A drainage system is an important, but oft-neglected, facet of a
brewing environment (see Figure 4.2 on pg 143), and, even with 21Stcentury technology, one can reckon that one requires eight pints of water to
brew one pint of beer. Ancient brewing technology would surely have
been even more wasteful. Water is required during all stages of the brewing process, but the greatest needs for cleaning water result from mashing, which yields a sticky, viscous liquid (wort), which would have been
difficult to handle, and would have inevitably resulted in spillages; and
post-fermentation, when beer has to be separated from spent yeast and
any other waste material (trub). It seems as though wort boiling (if it was
carried out) and fermentation may have been confined to other huts in
the Skara Brae complex.
Hut 7 is of particular interest in this context because, in their original
report, Childe and Paterson remark upon the disgusting state of the
building, i.e. the morass offilth that covered thepoor. They continue:
The general impression produced by the floor was chaotic and disgusting. . . . in
the south-west corner we found a deep deposit of greenish matter, apparently
excreta, going down into the sand layer.
Childe also made note of the green slime in the drainage system
where, in places, it reached a depth of some 20 inches. Green slime was
also present in other huts at Skara Brae, and has since been reported
from other Neolithic sites, particularly at Rinyo, where Childe and Grant
reported its presence amongst flooring slates, the space between the
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slates was filled with a greenish material, almost certainly dung, which
exuded from under the north wall and stained the clay floor . . . The
Dineleys contend that this is not excrement, but that an alternative
explanation might be that the green slime represents decayed sugar residues
from spilt wort or ale. We shall not know until a similar sort of deposit
presents itself for analysis.
Wort boiling at these Neolithic Orcadian sites would, most likely, have
involved the use of some of the large earthenware vessels, fragments of
which have been recovered in reasonable quantity. They could have been
placed over a hearth, or may have been heated by pot boilers. Flavouring
material would have involved representatives from the native flora,
the most likely plant being meadowsweet, which is abundant on Orkney.
Dineley & Dineley (in Wickham-Jones, 2000), in their experiments into
the way brewing might have been carried out at Skara Brae, used the
dried flower heads of meadowsweet during the boil. This not only
flavoured the ale, but acted additionally as a preservative; in their own
words, ale made using wort boiled with meadowsweet kept well for
months, whereas ale made without went sour within days. For their
mashing methods, they tried using crumbled malted barley cakes, which
had been baked in an oven, or on hot stones (i.e. simulating ancient
bappir malt), and then soaked in water; or by mixing ground malt and
water in a wooden (or earthenware) bowl, and slowly raising the temperature by the insertion of hot stones. To extract as much goodness
from the mash as possible, the mash was held in a sieve placed over a
large vessel, whilst hot water was poured over it thus, this is a primitive
form of sparging. Fermentation was carried out in earthenware pots,
which had to be lined with beeswax to prevent the more rapid egress
of alcohol (as compared to water) which, according to Dineley and
Dineley, if allowed to proceed, produced almost alcohol-free beer. They
also emphasised the usefulness of flat-bottomed Grooved Ware3pots for
brewing purposes. The conclusion to their paper goes as follows:
-
The inhabitants of Skara Brae certainly had the equipment and suitable
conditions for making malts and ale from the barley that they grew. In Hut 8,
they had a well-crafted and versatile grain barn for dry storage, threshing,
winnowing and malting as well as a kiln for drying the malt. They had large pots
Grooved Ware, which is associated with the later Neolithic, is thought to have originated in
Orkney, from where it spread all over the British Isles. As with Bell Beakers, it is not of intrinsic
value, but, judging by the situations in which it is found, it seems to have been held in higher
regard than everyday containers. Sherratt (1997) suggests that Grooved Ware was used for some
sort of ceremonial meal with sacred connotations, taken at central cult places throughout the
length of Britain. It is thought that the meal contained something over and above everyday
ingredients - although, as yet, there is no evidence to suggest just what these might have been.
199
with lids, suitable as fermentation buckets, and a drainage system. Other Neolithic sites in Orkney, such as Barnhouse and Rinyo, are also suitably equipped.
The conversion of barley into malts and ale was clearly an important aspect of
Orcadian lve, and of the British Isles, during the Neolithic.
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colour. Case (1977) maintains that the Beaker Culture in Britain and
Ireland is best considered in three phases. An Early Phase (start of
the Late Neolithic, around the turn of the 4h and 3rdmillennia BC), in
which cord-impressed beakers were prominent, was succeeded by the
Middle Phase (also Late Neolithic, but from somewhat before the mid-3d
millennium BC), which sets the major pattern for Britain and Ireland.
Unlike the Early Phase, the Middle Phase may have been initiated by
settlers from the European mainland, but thereafter many of its features
can be explained as being brought about by exchanges between static
communities, both within these islands and abroad. These phases are
followed by the Late Phase, which corresponds to the commencement of
the Early Bronze Age, at the end of the 3d millennium BC.
The earliest dated Beaker pottery in these islands is, as we have said,
cord-impressed and is amongst the earliest Bell-Beaker material in
Europe. This AOC ware did not belong exclusively to the Early Phase,
since evidence suggests that this style persisted all through the duration
of the Beaker Culture in Britain and Ireland. In the absence of a major
influx of people (there might have been a few immigrants) from the
Continent, how does one explain the early occurrence of AOC beakers?
The answer seems to be that it was fashionable, and that the idea was
obtained from the exchange of gifts resulting from seasonal movements
between British and Irish communities and those of a north European
branch of the great family of Corded Ware cultures. There is nothing
to suggest that there was a significant influx of settlers in Britain and
Ireland during the Early Phase. Whatever happened, it is generally
assumed that the fashion (or, even the small group of immigrants)
originated in the Lower Rhine basin.
The Middle Phase of the British Beaker Culture was stimulated by the
mass-arrival of settlers from the European mainland. Their arrival may
have been part of renewed movements in northwest Europe, both of
people (witness the appearance of a different type of human skeleton)
and ideas. These new settlers appear to have determinedly taken in land
for cultivation; as indicated by evidence of widespread clearances in
Britain and Ireland on both good and marginal soils. The users of the
Middle Phase-style beakers were exceptionally energetic mixed farmers
(e.g they may have been responsible for introducing the horse to
Ireland).
The Late Phase is characterised by the persistence of the Beaker
Culture after it had ended on mainland Europe; there being no evidence
of new settlers contributing anything innovative to everyday life. Case
crystallises his feelings about the nature and significance of the Beaker
Culture in Britain and Ireland as follows:
20 1
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The Beaker ceramic ware was only one facet of the new, postNeolithic culture which extended over vast areas of Europe; from the
edge of eastern Europe to Iberia, and from the Mediterranean to the
north of Scotland. There were tell-tale arrowheads, axes and knives etc.,
but, above all there was a major social change, one which involved
placing more emphasis on the individual, rather than the community.
This is thought to have been one of the prime reasons why the lateNeolithic peoples readily adopted the Beaker package (the Neolithic
culture was very much community-orientated). Thus, there was a
material culture which, according to Pollard (1997), generated a prestige goods economy, in which social power could be obtained through
the acquisition and display of the new symbols of material wealth.
Such societies, as history has taught us, are often indulgent, and the
ostentatious consumption of alcohol (if available) often features somewhere. The opulent feasts of the Mesopotamians, the ancient Egyptians
and, more recently, the Celts, which were characterised by the heavy
consumption of beer, bear testament to this. Indeed, there are other
proposals for the reason behind the success of the Beaker way of life
and, as Pollard says quite succinctly, An alternative model has even
linked the rapid spread of Beakers with alcohol and male drinking cults.
As we shall enlarge upon later, there is a theory that the beaker, as a
drinking vessel, was so ubiquitous over a large area of Europe, that
it might have formed part of a cult, a facet of which was the ritualistic
and ostentatious drinking of alcohol. With the spread of the cult, one
witnessed the spread of agriculture, something that was a matter of
necessity if regular supplies of raw materials were to be maintained. The
question is; what sort of alcoholic drink? Were these ceramic containers
used for drinking beer? Bearing in mind the British climate and the origins
of the Beaker People, it is highly unlikely that such vessels were used for
drinking wine, which would have had to have been imported from climes
in southern Europe. The only other logical alcoholic alternative, at this
time, would have been mead.
At one point in time it was proposed that koumiss, or a related milkbased alcoholic beverage, or even milk itself, might have been the original
stimulus for the spread of farming populations, and the raison dctre for
the Beaker drinking complex, but subsequent work on the emergence of
lactose tolerance, showed that it was present only in low frequencies in
Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations (although it was much
higher in northern Europe). Flatz and Rotthauwe (1977) showed
that lactose tolerance provided a selective advantage among northern
European farming populations, because it conferred the ability to drink
unprocessed milk. Milk provides a source of Ca, a deficiency of which
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further set-back when it was shown that about 30% of the sherds found
at the Windmill Hill site, came from pottery which had been made some
distance away (Helbaek had no idea that this was the case). Therefore,
according to Dennell, in the British Isles there is no substantiated evidence to show that the importance of either wheat or barley changed
over the Neolithic period to the Iron Age era.
Wheat and barley were major staples in different growing areas of
southern England. A reasonable conclusion from the evidence at our disposal should be that, from Neolithic times, wheat was the main cereal crop
on the heavy and poorly-drained soils in the Frome-Bath area, whereas
the lighter, calcareous soils further east in Wiltshire agronomically
favoured barley, thus making that cereal the principal crop on the chalk
downlands right the way through from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. In
his synopsis of the Beaker Culture in Britain and Ireland, Case (1977)
reports that the main cereal crops were emmer, einkorn (contradicting
Helbaek), bread wheat and barley, including, apparently, six- and
four-row variations. He adds:
In contrast to the Middle Neolithic, barley has been the crop most frequently
recorded, following a mainland European trend. . . Predominance of barley
might be due to a greater intake of marginal land, or possibly the deterioration
of over-cultivated soils.
Case is also of the opinion that, as an incentive, any surplus barley would
have been extremely useful as animal fodder.
Burgess and Shennan (1976) question whether Beakers should be
associated with a distinct cultural group, even allowing for their extensive
distribution all over Europe over a relatively short period of time. Terms
such as Beaker culture and Beakerfolk have furthered this notion, as
has the fact that a number of artefacts are regularly found in association
with the Beakers themselves (such as tanged copper daggers, stone
wrist-guards and a variety of ornaments). Together these comprise what
might be termed the Beaker assemblage. There are no signs of a common social or economic system, no uniform settlement or house type,
no common ritual monuments or burial traditions and, he feels, it is
necessary to seriously question the traditional equation of Beakers with
a separate people, and with population movement.
A suggested new hypothesis sees Beakers as something extra-cultural,
and connected with some sort of activity which was significant enough to
be taken up by societies throughout Europe. Together with the artefacts
with which they are regularly associated, they could be said to form a
Beaker package which was simply the outward manifestation of what-
205
ever the mysterious international activity was. The way in which the
Beaker assemblage is blended everywhere into local settings, would
appear to indicate that it represents no more than a fashion, spread by
means other than migration.
Burgess says that there is an analogy here with the Butt Beakers of the
Gallo-Belgic world in the lStcentury BC to the 1 century AD. These
drinking vessels are also found with a recurring range of artefacts
(notably amphorae, fine table wares and silverware) and can therefore be
seen to make up another package: a Gallo-Belgic package, which
extended from the Alps to Britain, and from the Pyrenees to the lower
Rhine. The Gallo-Belgic package was not spread over this huge area by
folk movements, but by a complex interaction of factors, related to
cultural interaction and, in particular, commerce. It is noticeable that
many of the items which constitute the Gallo-Belgic package reflect
changes in diet and culinary practice and, as Burgess and Shennan state,
No doubt prestige played an important part in the acceptance of these
innovations. They then elaborate upon the analogy:
Inpart these social changes followed in the wake of the Roman army, but in
other areas, Britain for example, the package went ahead of the army, carried
by traders and refugees. Here the analogy becomes less apt, f o r our earlier
Beakers were distributed in a much more primitive world. In the context of
Late Neolithic Europe material culture was more uniform, and the Beaker
puckage could hardly be interpreted as a sign of luxury trade and spreading
civilisation. But prestige would have been at least as important, even though it
is inconceivable that Beakers could achieve such widespread acceptance simply
on account of their aesthetic or technological superiority to local ceramics.
One possible answer lies not in the Beakers themselves but in what they
contained. In the same way the presence of amphorae in remote parts of Europe
in the late Iron Age was determined not by their own appeal but by that of
their contents; and the ubiquity of whisky jugs and bottles on Indian sites
throughout North America reflects the appeal of the liquor rather than of the
container:
If the contents of the Beaker were more important than the vessel
itself, then it is surely no coincidence that, in some parts of Europe at
least, the emergence of the Beaker occurs at about the same time as a
discernible swing towards the cultivation of barley (even if, as Dennell
says, this may not necessarily have applied to the British Isles). If the
world in which the Beaker package spread was socially and politically
primitive, then most of the factors which led to the spread of the GalloBelgic package can be ruled out. If we do this, then this leaves either
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207
drum, and a crescentic altar, made of clay or earth. The cult often
achieved such importance that alien building forms could be taken
over as part of the package, and Burgess instances the case of a wigwambuilding tribe building a tepee solely for the peyote ceremony, because
they had acquired the cult from a neighbouring tepee-building tribe.
The Peyote cult shows how an assemblage of artefacts could be spread
over vast distances, and among very different societies, without involving
such familiar dispersal mechanisms as migration and trade. Burgess
argues:
ln very much the same way a hypothetical Beaker cult package could have been
adopted by the various societies of Europe, these outward signs of an influential
beer-drinking cult being spread from group to group across Europe. This
would explain the marked regionalisation of Beaker forms, contrasting with the
sttzndardisation of the more functional associated elements. The wrist guard
and tanged daggers, for example, offer less scope for the local craftsmen. It
would explain, too, how BeakersJit so comfortably into such disparate regional
contexts over such a great area.
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further north, until the later Iron Age or Roman times). Sherratt (1997)
suggests that those cultures that were unable to make their own wine had
to make do with a feasible local substitute, the production of which
was dependent upon the availability of raw materials (e.g. grain, honey or
milk, to yield beer, mead or koumiss, respectively). In a similar way, the
prestige technologies associated with the serving of the alcoholic beverage were imitated and, as Sherratt says:
Looking ahead, through later European prehistory, we can see how the technology caught up with its imitations: first precious metal drinking vessels,
then bronze ones, andfinally bulk imported wine and then viticulture itself under
the Romans. . . What we see in northwest Europe is a long drawn out series
of substitutes, both for the drink and for its original Mediterranean style of
serving.
209
Wine is the life-blood of the Mediterranean, and its proscription by a conquering Islam4 is eloquent testimony to its deep symbolic signijkance, both
secular and religious. . . What makes the civilisations of the New World seem
so alien, despite their outward similarity in possessing criteria such as cities,
monumental architecture, writing, etc., is the nuture of their religion, which
resembles a scaled-up version of the shamanism of native American tribal
society. One aspect of this is the consumption ofpsychotropic substances and a
consequent ecstatic emphasis. Such practises have some echoes in Old World
civilisations, but they are memories of a world long passed. It was alcohol, that
is both drug and food, which domesticated the ecstatic experience and converted
it -fromprivate trance to public conviviality.
As an aside, Sherratt notes that, historically, drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and drugs
were social lubricants, and that, in the Arab world, cannabis - and later coffee to complement it,
as a social drink - symbolised the victory of Islam and camel-riding, desert pastoralists, with their
brass drinking-vessels, over the populations which they conquered: the Christian, wheel-going,
wine-drinking, silver-vessel-usingtown dwellers.
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before this time, and archaeology shows that the use of traction animals
and the ostentatious consumption of drink (almost certainly alcohol)
evolved side-by-side. Such phenomena, Sherratt suggests, constitute a
prime example of drinking and driving and, as such, were the two
most influential entities in the transformation of the western Old World;
so much so, that both drinking vessels and wheeled vehicles quickly
became symbols of the elite.
It is now appreciated that carbonised plant remains, as opposed to
pottery impressions, are much more widespread than first thought, and
that it is the difficulty in identifying such remains, with the naked eye,
that has led to suppositions about their scarcity. That archaeological
plant remains can now be identified more readily is largely due to the
development of froth flotation separation methods in the early 1970s
(Jarman et al., 1972). Over the years there have been conflicts of interest
which have arisen from differences between the aims of the botanist and
the archaeologist, in respect of the interpretation of organic remains
found at any one site. This has occasionally led to the forwarding of
simplistic, and even incorrect, hypotheses. The problems surrounding
the interpretation of organic remains can be partially surmounted by
invoking the technique of site catchment analysis (SCA), developed
by Vita-Finzi and Higgs (1970). SCA provides a means of describing the
economic potential of a site and its immediate territory, thereby greatly
limiting the possible interpretations which can be placed on the organic
remains recovered from that site.
21 1
The high proportion of cereal pollen grains might suggest either a porridge of
cereals (e.g. frumenty) or a fermented ale, flavoured with meadowsweet jowers
or extract. The name meadowsweet originates from mead-sweet as it was used
toflavour mead and other drinks. It is distinctly possible therefore that the North
Mains food vessel contained a fermented drink.
The above report by Barclay was published some 20 years after the
discovery of a dagger-grave and three or four cist burials at Ashgrove
Farm, Methilhill, Fife in 1963, the work being reported by Audrey
Henshall in 1964. One of the cists had been so well sealed that the
interior was dry and soil-free. She reported, Over the skeleton and cist
floor there was a thin deposit of black crumbly matter which formed a deep
deposit in the vicinity of the chest. A dagger was found buried in the
thick black deposit, and a beaker lay on its side in the grave. A sample of
the deposit was taken for dating (radiocarbon assay of 3046 k 150 bp)
and other analyses, which revealed that it was of plant origin. Subsequent pollen analysis illustrated an extremely large percentage of smallleaved lime (Tilia cordata) grains, and a high frequency of meadowsweet
pollen, much of it immature. None of the three species of lime is considered indigenous to Scotland at present, and so the abundance of lime
pollen presented a mystery although, as Henshall said, the flowers of
lime and meadowsweet are noted for their fragrance.
Just over a decade later, Dickson (1978) analysed scrapings from the
beaker recovered from the Ashgrove cist (which had been kept in a
showcase at the Kirkaldy Museum). His pollen analysis results concurred with Henshalls original assessment, and it was proposed that the
beaker had beenJilled with mead made from lime honey andflavoured with
flowers of meadowsweet. The beaker fell over, spilling the contents and
partially soaked the leafy cover of the corpse. Dickson rued the fact
that cereal debris had not been exhaustively looked for in the original
black deposit. It is not without possibility, however, that we are looking
at another of the mixed alcoholic beverages that seem to have existed in
antiquity.
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when not fighting, they displayed enjoyment for feasting and drinking.
The Celts brought to Britain, not only a new language, but the knowledge of the processing and working of a new metal; iron. Iron was
superior to bronze because it was harder and did not require two
separate components. The first iron workings in Britain were probably in
the Forest of Dean and in the Kent and Sussex Weald.
The Celts were also proficient wood-workers and, through a combination of both skills, they are credited with the invention of the stavebuilt hooped cask or barrel, which is seen by historians as a northern,
barbarian, beer-containing equivalent of the Mediterranean wine
amphora (Piggott, 1995). Wooden casks are still used by some brewers
today, and the nomenclature for the various parts of such a container is
given by Hornsey (1999). Some of these casks were of huge dimensions
and were patently for bulk storage and/or transport of liquids such as
beer and wine. Some were so large that they could only have been moved
by wheeled transport, and one such wagon is depicted in the famous
Gallo-Roman relief from Langres. Once the large casks had outlived
their intended use, they were often re-used by the Romans, in Gaul and
Britain, as a lining for wells, a classic example of this expediency being
discovered at Silchester. Smaller staved vessels, such as buckets and
tankards (Figure 5.3) were also constructed, and some of these are
considered to be fine examples of Celtic art (Fox, 1958).
The native Britons had no answer to the Celtic invaders, who conquered wherever they went, their iron swords and daggers being particularly useful weapons. The most martial of the Celts were the Belgae
from the Low Countries, who were to play an important role in British
history at a later date, as we shall see. The Celts settled in parts of the
country that had not been used before, e.g. parts of the southeast,
which were heavily forested. With their iron blades, they were able to
clear areas of trees with greater ease, and use the timber and soil that was
thus liberated.
The soil was so good that, with the aid of their improved agricultural
implements, they were able to produce excellent crops; so good, in fact,
that they saw no need to rove around the countryside. This resulted in
the building of substantial homes, which were more permanent-looking
than anything seen before, and water-tight buildings in which to store
their crops. Thus, farms and villages became fixtures in the landscape,
as were their systems of rectangular fields, which were either walled or
ditched. These distinctive areas of cultivation are known as Celtic
fields, and they became a striking feature of the countryside during the
Roman period. It is thought that this system of agriculture dates back to
the middle Bronze Age.
213
Figure 5.3 Staved wooden Celtic tankard, from Trawsfinydd, Gwynedd; A , inside of
rim; B, base
(After Fox, 1958, reproduced courtesy of the National Museum of Wales,
Cardiff)
Previous indigenous, agriculturalist peoples had moved around somewhat, usually seasonally, with a view to finding new, or better, grazing
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land. They had preferred to inhabit higher ground, such as downs and
moors, where they felt more secure, and so their soil was usually
rather light and not over-productive. Such soil would, however, have been
amenable for barley growing, as long as other agronomic parameters
were favourable. The Celts had no such feelings of insecurity, however.
We realise that we know relatively little about Iron Age agriculture in
the British Isles (Reynolds, 1995) when we compare our knowledge
with that gleaned from the Mediterranean countries, at the same period
of time. Information about the latter is mainly due to Classical sources,
but because plant growth (agriculture) is principally influenced by
climatic and edaphic factors, it is impossible for us to extrapolate the
Mediterranean results. Having said that, the evidence for crop cultivation
in the Iron Age is more abundant than that from either the Bronze Age
or the Neolithic. There are a few grain impressions but, more importantly, there are many samples of carbonised seeds and grain from a
number of settlements, as well as one large sample of carbonised barley
from the late Bronze Age encampment at Itford Hill.
In his 1952 paper, Helbaek included the Itford Hill find in with the
Iron Age results, since this was the only carbonised grain that he
recovered from Bronze Age sites. Subsequent workers have agreed that
this should be so, and that the evidence from Itford Hill gives a reliable
indication of crop cultivation in the area, at this period. Iron Age crop
production in the British Isles encompassed a wider range of species
than hitherto, and the list of cereals in particular, differs very little from
that available to farmers of today. In particular, we see cereals such as
rye, oats and bread wheat appearing, and spelt replaces emmer as the
commonest type of wheat. Hulled barley becomes increasingly more
popular, at the expense of the naked cultivar.
It must be remembered that preserved carbonised remains may not
tell us the whole story for, in order for carbonisation to have occurred,
some accident must have happened in the dwelling area of the people
concerned; seed (normally) becoming inadvertently burned and turned
into charcoal. The plant would have been taken out of its place of
production (a field), by harvesting, and transported to the place of accidental carbonisation (the home). Not all crops were necessarily dealt
with in this way, and so may not have had a chance of being carbonised.
Were all cultivated plants taken back to the dwelling place? Probably
not.
In addition to plant remains, we have some documentation of crop cultivation on some Celtic coinage. This usually takes the form of a stylised
ear of cereal on the reverse side of the coin. Most authorities interpret
the ear as being that of emmer wheat (Reynolds, 1995), which may
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216
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217
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adhering to the grain. This would imply that the barley was of a hulled
variety.
It is not known whether the wheat and barley components of the
meal were prepared and eaten together, or prepared and eaten separately
(i.e. as different courses). Chemical analysis suggests that the wheat
chaff had been heated to around 200-250 C for a short time, evidence
that precludes, on the basis of preparation temperature, it having been
used in something like a gruel. The major cereals found in Lindow 11,
namely emmer, spelt and barley, all have poor baking qualities, i.e. their
flour is not very prone to rise, and Holden suggests that they were
ingested in the form of an unleavened bread or griddle cake. A very
small quantity of highly degraded oat bran (Avena sativa) was recovered,
but there was no evidence to suggest that this plant played a major role in
the meal, it was probably a tolerated weed species (i.e. wild oats), even
though Green (1981) feels that it was likely that oats were grown during
the Iron Age in the British Isles.
The highly fragmented body of Lindow I11 yielded only two gut
samples that contained any evidence of food and, here again, there was
not a great diversity of plant taxa. The two samples were dominated
by hazel (Corylus avellana L.) pericarp and testa fragments, which had
been crushed and probably eaten raw. There were minute fragments of
cereal bran, very poorly preserved; either wheat or rye. These had almost
certainly been very finely milled. A few testa fragments, probably of the
genus Hordeum, and the odd weed species, such as Bromus sp. complete
the picture. Significantly more barley chaff was found, indicating that it
survived the food processing, and the conditions in the bog, better than
the testa.
The diversity of food plants, and their associated weeds, was far less
than has been encountered in some of the Danish bog burials, such as at
Borremose, Huldremose and Grauballe (Glob, 1969). At the latter site,
the gut contents indicated that the last meal was a gruel, with some 63
species represented, including spelt and rye. In the case of Tollund Man,
however, relatively few species were recorded from the content of his last
meal which, again, was deemed to be a gruel, prepared from barley,
linseed, knotweed and gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz).
The last-named, which can be a weed of flax fields, was sometimes cultivated for the oil content of its seeds. Weed species, in particular, are very
prevalent in the bodies from some of these sites, and in the gut of
Huldremose woman, the seed of corn spurrey (Spergula arvensis L.)
comprised about one-third of the meal remnants. It has been suggested
that this practice of bulking-out the grain crop (if that is what happened) is a sign of a fragile agricultural system, with its repeated crop
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the lStmillennium BC that pure drinks, such as mead and ale, began
to appear. It is possible that the fruits mentioned above were used purely
for flavouring, and do not signify the presence of wine, in which case we
are looking only at a mixture of ale and mead. Of additional significance
in the coffin at the Egtved burial, was the fact that a sprig of flowering
yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.) had been placed on the womans
body. It has been difficult to explain why this should be, but yarrow has
been used for many years in Nordic countries as a substitute for hops
(Schauenberg and Paris, 1977), and from Saxon times was hung up in
houses to avert illness and evil (Grigson, 1975). It would be nice to think
that the plant had been placed on the body because of its preservative
effects.
A somewhat similar occurrence was reported from the Bronze Age
grave of a young woman found at Skrydstrup in South Jutland in 1935,
where grasses and leaves of chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium (L.) Hoffm.)
had been placed underneath the body (Glob, 1974). Two other Danish
Bronze Age beakers were found containing biological remains which
provided a pollen profile similar to those encountered at Egtved and
Juellinge; these were at Nandrup Mors in Jutland, and Bregninge in
Zeeland (Dickson, 1978).
The fact that these, and other, Germanic graves contain Roman cups
and beakers of either glass or silver, as well as drinking-horns, has been
interpreted as representing the presence of an upper class or smart
set, who would only use the imported vessels for drinking imported
wine, on very special occasions (if at all - they may have been purely for
show). The presence of the drinking-horns indicates that, even among
the well-to-do, traditional drinking habits were not precluded. Although
the dregs of the alcoholic beverages recovered from Egtved and Juellinge,
indicate the presence of a mixed drink, other finds indicate a rather
different ancient drinking pattern. Two horns, from the same animal,
found at a bog site in South Jutland, have been shown to have contained
different drinks; one horn originally contained ale and the other mead.
This would indicate that those two beverages were consumed separately,
and may account for the fact that drinking-horns are nearly always
found in pairs (as, incidentally, are Roman Iron Age cups). Whatever
the explanation for the above finds, we may be sure that all articles
accompanying the body in these graves, were of utmost importance
during life.
A word or two about spelt, which is now rarely grown in the British
Isles, and oats and rye, which were rather uncommon crops in the early
years of British agriculture, might be appropriate here. The records that
we have suggest that spelt wheat, which has excellent milling and baking
22 1
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223
Period I,
650-350 BC
Period 11, 350-150 BC
Period 111, 150 BC-Roman conquest.
For the purposes of his survey, Green adopts the following artificial
scheme:
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and their main European points of contact, once they were over here.
Thus in southwest Britain there were people who had been peacefully
trading with the tribes of Armorica (Brittany) for many years, and were
thus subjected to Breton influences, whilst in the southeast there was
considerable contact with Belgic Gaul. In western Gloucestershire there
were tribes that had had contact with northern Spain, via an Atlantic
sea route to the Bristol Channel. There are many more examples and all
of these regional settlement groups adopted their own micro-culture,
distinguished by pottery-type, hill fort design, etc. Having said that, it
was from the coastal lands stretching from the Rhine delta to Brittany
that most of the settlers came to Britain.
In eastern Britain a succession of unfriendly incursions by the Belgae,
probably around 150-100 BC, resulted in the later Iron Age culture
known as Iron C, which would have been the sort of society that Julius
Caesar encountered on his first visit. The Belgae were culturally very
different from the Armorican tribes to the west, and evidence suggests
that they inhabited, and helped to mould, the areas of southern England
that are now represented by Kent, West Sussex, eastern Hampshire,
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. It may be more than a
coincidence that some of the most drinkable and memorable beers that I
have sampled have been brewed within this general region. In the abovementioned area, the Belgae were present in quite large numbers, but in
addition to this, their powerful chieftains ruled a much wider peripheral
territory by subjugation; the actual Belgic population itself being
minimal.
The Belgae were assiduous farmers, and it is to them that we can
attribute the exploitation of the heavier soils in much of eastern
England. Their iron tools were superior, as was their working of wood,
and it is thought by some, that they introduced a heavier, much more
efficient coulter-equipped plough although, as we shall see later, this was
almost certainly a Roman invention. Pottery was made on a wheel, rather
than by hand, which enabled large vessels to be produced. These could
be used for storing grain, thus reducing the requirement for storage
pits. They were also skilled iron-workers, and highly proficient in
working bronze; they thus stimulated the metal industries of Britain.
They manufactured wooden, staved vessels, and in particular, as we have
mentioned earlier, tankards, which appear to have been a Belgic invention. Iron was readily available to the Belgae within their own territory,
in the Kentish and Sussex Weald; it could also be obtained from nearby
Northamptonshire.
During the lStand 2ndcenturies BC, in Wessex at least, barley appears
more frequently found on its own as a crop, with evidence that the
225
six-rowed form was genetically mixed (i.e. both lax- and dense-eared
forms). Also interesting is the fact that bread wheat seems to occur on
more sites where barley; emmer and spelt are absent, thus indicating
highly diversified crop cultivation and utilisation in the late Iron Age.
Again, in Wessex, there is no indication that barley was malted during
the Iron Age, and Green (1981) wonders whether any other grains were
subjected to controlled sprouting. It was only toward the end of the preRoman era that settlers from Europe, especially the Belgae, began to
build anything remotely resembling large settlements, mostly on low
ground by river-crossings. The origins of such places as Canterbury and
Colchester are illustrative of this point, and such instigation of these
habitations coincided with an increase in trading. We can see plenty of
evidence of Iron Age agriculture in south-eastern Britain, say south of
a line drawn from Gloucester to Lincoln, but above this line, there was a
different way of life, based largely on pastoralism. The population was
much less dense and it tended to move around continually, in search of
new pasturage. This resulted in rather insubstantial habitations being
built, certainly not normally as permanent as was found further south.
Thus, it is possible to talk in terms of lowland and highland zones in
Britain.
ROMAN BRITAIN
Caesar noted the distinction between the upland and lowland peoples of
Britannia, when he said, The people of the interior for the most part do
not sow corn but live on milk and meat, and dress in skins. He must have
had very good informants, because he never went within 100 miles of
these northerners himself (Frere, 1978). These people from the interior
also happened to be ferocious warriors, and that fact, together with
the fact that they were more nomadic, meant that they posed far more
problems for the Roman invaders than the lowlanders. In addition, the
terrain was more difficult in which to carry out manoeuvres. Because of
the proximity of lowland Britain to mainland Europe, the area has
always been a recipient of new cultures. These cultures have always had a
good chance of flourishing, because of the relatively amenable climate
and the agricultural wealth. The same cannot be said for regions further
north, where there has been less of a tendency to accept change. This
situation is certainly illustrated by the Roman invasion of Britain where,
in the lowland south, a Romano-British culture quickly established itself.
Further north, however, there was never any real harmony, and the whole
area was only held by a military-style occupation, often employing manpower from the lowlands. Not all highland territory was barbarian,
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however, since there were instances of pockets of civilisation, particularly in the west of Britain, caused by the influence of trade routes
from mainland Europe.
We have already noted that the Romans recognised that beer was being
brewed in their newly won territory, Britannia. Why did they invade? Was
it because of the military help that the troublesome Belgae were receiving
from some of their brethren in Britain? Was it because they needed more
land for settlement? There are many possible reasons, but I believe that
it was because of the quality of grain being produced; an army marches
on its stomach, etc., etc. As Reynolds (1995) says, One suspects the real
economic reason for the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1 century BC,
was the agricultural wealth of the country. This was probably the same
reason why the Celts crossed the English Channel from Europe, some
500 years earlier, although in their case, they might have had more than a
passing interest in the fermentable potential of certain varieties of grain.
It was certainly not unknown for them to invade foreign territories in
search of victuals, a motive which Pliny (Nat. Hist., XII, ii, 5 ) noted
in the case of the Gaulish invasion of northern Italy. He even found it in
him to forgive the Celts for crossing the Alps, in search of the better
things of life, viz:
The Gauls imprisoned as they were by the Alps . . . first found motive
for flowing over into Italy from the circumstance of a Gallic citizen from
Switzerland named Helico who had lived in Rome because of his skill as a
craftsman (and) brought with him, when he came back, some driedfigs and
grapes and some samples of oil and wine: consequently we may excuse them for
having sought to obtain these things even by means of war.
One of the major innovations of Roman life in Britain was the introduction of urbanisation of the population. The construction of towns
and cities was truly a Roman phenomenon and was to totally transform
the British countryside. A town can best be defined as a concentration
in population in numbers above those normally found for a purely
agricultural settlement. It would normally have a concentration of
administration, religion, relaxation (including the tavern), trade and law
not available elsewhere. It thus has a street grid, public buildings, shops
and market stalls, temples, theatres, and a back-street culture. To the
Greeks and Romans, the townkity represented the only possible milieu
for civilisation; viz. Aristotles quote:
That what raised Man above the level of barbarism, in which he was merely
an economic being, and enabled him to develop the higher faculties which in
227
the barbarian are only latent, to live well, instead of merely living, was his
membership of an actual physical city.
Chapter 5
228
of bread wheat and, to a lesser extent barley, from deposits inside the
house, inviting the suggestion that baking and brewing were carried out
on the estate, thus providing an early example of what was to become
a long British tradition of country house brewing (Sambrook, 1996).
Reece (1980) asserts that we can equate changes in the relative importance of town versus countryside with changes in Governor; thus, under
Septimius Severus there was a town-based economy; under Constantine
it became villa- and village-based. By the time of Diocletian, the estate
was an essential unit for it was the basic producer.
Indigenous rural inhabitants of Britain would have experienced far
fewer drastic changes, as a result of Roman occupation, than those who
were to be subjected to urbanity. Unfortunately, the evidence that we
have about the way of life of these rural agriculturalists is rudimentary,
and even then, largely the work of urban authors, who treated them with
scant respect. Official documents, inscriptions and reliefs help to build up
the picture but, as with the poorer inhabitants of towns and cities, there
is little record of their way of life. This is sad but inevitable, because as
Liversidge (1976) said, Agriculture was the Empires major industry upon
which all else depended, and the purchase of land was considered to be the
safest and the one really reputable form of investment.
The size of the farm unit varied enormously, many small-holdings
being worked by one farmer and his family, especially on less-productive
land or in remote areas. On the richer soils, most small farmers were
swallowed-up by larger land-owners and either left the land and went
into the towns, or became tenant-farmers of the large estates. Because
of the infra-structure of the province, agricultural land around the forts
and towns became very important. Better communications (e.g. proper
roads) enabled farmers to take advantage of new and bigger local
markets and, especially to meet the demands of the army and townsfolk.
The Romanisation of Britain did not perceptibly increase the fertility of
the land, but by her system of roads and the enhancement of peace, it
made more of it accessible and allowed it to be more intensively worked.
Drainage, irrigation, and cheaper and more plentiful tools, all helped to
lead to vastly improved production.
In the latter context, a more elaborate type of plough was developed
for working heavy ground, with a knife-shaped piece of iron, called the
coulter added, to cut through the ground in front of the share. The
coulter seems to have been a Roman invention (although there have been
claims for an earlier date) and was extensively used on the clay soils of
Roman Britain and Gaul. Seed was sown by hand, and the main cereal
sowings being made in autumn, where climate permitted, with spring
sowing in the cooler parts of the province, or if there was a crop failure.
-
229
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Chapter 5
23 1
232
Chapter 5
19 June
of barley
of Celtic beer
20 June
of barley, modii 4 = (?)
of Celtic beer, modii 2.
233
ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN
As we are aware from our history books, it was the Saxons (for the sake
of argument we shall consider Anglo-Saxon Britain to be that period
between the Shand 1lthcenturies) that followed the Romans as overall
rulers of most of Britain, and 449 is traditionally given as the year that
the Saxons landed; Hengist and Horsa, and all that. The date originates
from the writings of Bede, even though it is some two centuries before
his own time. The main source for Bedes information was Gildas, a
6thcentury British ecclesiastic, whose work was from an oral tradition
and not strictly tied to dates. Gildas accounts of the period are the only
vaguely contemporary records that we have from the period; around 540
being the generally agreed sort of date for his major writings. It is wrong
to envisage the Roman Britons as having suffered a defeat at the hands of
the Saxons, it was rather more a long drawn-out conflict, which resulted
in the gradual replacement of one culture by another. After nearly 400
years of Roman rule in Britain, there really was a dividing line between
the prosperous south and the relatively un-prosperous highland regions,
where the poorer farmers did not support a wealthy gentry. Beyond
Hadrians wall, there was an uneasy relationship with the border tribes,
and further north, beyond the rivers Clyde and Forth, there were the
barbarian and hostile Picts.
From the start of the Shcentury, the Roman Britons had three main
enemies; the Irish, the Picts and the Saxons. The Irish became less of a
menace during the second quarter of the century, mainly because of the
spread of Christianity, which prompted them to curtail their raids. The
Germanic Saxons caused intermittent problems with their occasional
raids, but it was the Picts who were regarded as their major problem. In
effect, the Roman empire had ended its official connection with Britain in
410, and from that date onwards, the parts of the country that had been
occupied, were ruled by Britons working within the Roman framework,
still managing to retain a semblance of their standards of civilisation, a
situation that was maintained for another 30 years or so.
This situation in Britain arose as a direct result of the Visigoths taking
of Rome (in 410), an event that heralded the end of the western Roman
empire. In 418, the Goths obtained the right to settle in Roman territory
under their own laws and rulers, and with the status of federate allies.
They were the first predators, but others followed, and when Gildas was
young the western empire was divided into four Germanic kingdoms;
France, Spain, Italy and North Africa. Thus, Roman and German had
fused, and Germanic kings inherited the authoritarian rule of Rome.
Britain warranted a separate arrangement, and in 410 the emperor in
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Italy instructed them to provide their own defence and government; this
is where a leader called Vortigern emerges.
After the separation from Rome, the Britons governed themselves very
successfully and there was a period of prolonged material prosperity,
in addition to which, victory was achieved over the Irish and the Picts,
who were driven back to their home territories and forced to reduce their
marauding. The latter were tamed with the aid of Saxon warriors
imported specially for the purpose, a process which started around 430.
The British ruler responsible for this was the aforementioned Vortigern,
whom Gildas referred to as superbus tyrannus (proud tyrant). Vortigern
(this is a title, not a name, as such), is best translated as high king, or
superior ruler and was the best authenticated British sovereign from
this era. He emerged during the 420s, ruled for around 30 years, and
his kingdom stretched from Kent to Wales. As well as being afraid of the
Picts and Scots (as the Irish were called at this time), he was always in
fear of intervention from Rome. It was Vortigern who supposedly invited
the Jutes, Hengist and Horsa, over to Kent (they landed at Ebbsfleet, on
the Isle of Thanet), with a view to them helping him with his internal
disputes; unfortunately things went wrong and some of the invited
mercenaries ran amok.
The first mercenaries found that there was plenty to plunder in Britain,
and very little in the way of resistance (most of the troops had been
withdrawn back to the Continent to help Rome), and word soon got
around that there were rich pickings to be had. This prompted waves
of subsequent Germanic immigrants, of varying tribal origins. Bede, in
his major work, Ecclesiastical History of the English people (Book I,
Chapter XV), sums up the situation thus:
Then the nation of the Angles, or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid king
[Vortigern], arrived with three warships, and received by the order of the same
king a place of settlement in the eastern part of the island, as if they they were to
fight on behalf of the country, but really intending to conquer it. Accordingly
they engaged with the enemy [the Picts], who had come from the north to give
battle, and the Saxons had the victory. When this was announced in their homeland, as well as thefertility of the island and the cowardice of the Britons, a more
considerable fleet was quickly sent over, bringing a stronger force of armed
men, which added to the band sent before, made up an invincible army. They
came from three very powerful nations of Germans, namely the Saxons, the
Angles and the Jutes.
Note that the three very powerful nations were all from well-attested
beer-drinking regions of northern Europe. Hengist and Horsa were
235
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Chapter 5
associated with them; they had degenerated long before his time. It is also
interesting to note that Gildas makes reference to Ambrosius Aurelianus
in his writings, but not to Arthur.
Soon after 550, however, the Saxon onslaught was renewed, and by
571 an area from Buckinghamshire to the upper stretches of the Thames
was overrun, and by 577 Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath were under
Saxon control. In the north, Britons suffered a heavy defeat at Catterick
in 590 and by the year 600, most of what was Roman Britain had fallen
to the Saxon kingdoms. The only major exceptions were the Dumnonian
peninsula (Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset), Wales, and parts of
the Pennines and northwest.
We are now well and truly in the Dark Ages, which would last in
Britain until the lothcentury. An entry in the Gallic Chronicle composed
in 452, suggests that Britain became dominated by the Saxons around
441/2. The author was, of course, writing from a distance, but obviously
knew that there was something going on across the water. Archaeological evidence suggests that this date is too early, at least for much of
Britain. This is, however, the only record that is contemporary with the
actual events.
From the little that we know about him, Gildas was born in the area
we now know as Strathclyde, then moved to South Wales, where he was
schooled, and where he wrote some of his work, before emigrating to
Brittany; he died in 570. Gildas mentions agriculture only once in his
writings, a rather obscure reference to wideplains and stretched hills,
which is commented upon by Higham (1994), thus:
The description of vigorous agriculture on wide plains and stretched hills is
consistent with widespread agricultural activity in a landscape of alternating
downland-type hills and valleys. Celtic fields of known Roman date are a
prominent feature of the southern chalklands, but almost entirely absent
from hills which could be described as stretched in the Midlands, Wales and
the north, so primarily the Pennines. An exception is the widespread Celtic
lynchetting of several of the dales of West Yorkshire, but these are not sighted
on the hilltops in the fashion required by the text. Only the southern downs
certainly fulJill the paired characteristics of Gildas brief reference. This detail
may point to a southern locality.
237
of the landscape and, amongst other things, notes that, The island is
rich in crops and trees of various kinds. Bedes History was one of his
later works, and appears to have been completed in the year 731 (Bede
died in 735). The work draws considerably from Gildas De excidio and
was written over a period of a few years, largely from his room in the
monastery at Jarrow where, from early childhood, he spent most of his
life. After speaking of famine, and ousting the barbarians from their
territories, he goes on to record how the Irish marauders returned home
and the Picts remained in the farthest parts of the islands. The work
then records what happened when there was relative peace (Book 1,
Chapter XIV):
The island began to abound with such plenty of grain that no previous age
remembered; with this plenty loose-living increased, and was immediately
attended with a plague of all sorts of crimes; in particular cruelty, hatred of
truth, and love of falsehoods to such an extent that if any one of them seemed to
be milder than the rest and in some measure more inclined to truth, the hatred
and weapons of all were regardlessly hurled against him as if he were the subvertor of Britain. Nor were the laity alone guilty of these things, but even our
Lords own flock, and its pastors, casting off the light yoke of Christ and
giving themselves over to drunkenness, animosity, quarrelsomeness, str f e , envy
and other such sins.
The implication here is one of wholesale debauchery, caused principally by excessive beer-drinking. As Finberg (1972) notes, Beer
was drunk on an oceanic scale in Anglo-Saxon Britain, and heavy
drinking and subsequent drunkenness is a charge that has repeatedly
been made about our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. They were so addicted
to ale and mead that drunkenness was regarded as an honourable
condition. As intimated above, the vice spread to ecclesiastical circles,
many monasteries getting a bad name and, as a result, there were
many edicts aimed at bringing the clergy into line. One of the early
attempts was the Penitential of Theodore, written in the latter half of the
7thcentury.
The first section of the first book is entitled De crapula et ebrietate,
and it imposes penalties varying in severity, from deposition of a bishop
who is habitually drunk, to a mere three days penance for a monk who
vomits as a result of overeating and drinking. The Penitential of Bede,
which dates from the first half of the Sth century, contains six clauses
relating to over-indulgence, but some of the proposed penalties were
rather mild. The situation obviously got out of hand at around this
time, because in 747 Archbishop Cuthbert held a synod at Clovesho
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If the penalties of Theodor and Bede were not considered to be sufficiently severe, they were extended by the Penitence of Egbert, written
towards the end of the 8thcentury. One of Egberts decrees was that, ,f
a monk or deacon, owing to drunkenness or greediness, shall vomit the
Eucharist, he shall do penance for sixty days. The period of penance is
extended to 70 days for a presbyter and 80 days for a bishop! Egbert even
devises his own method of assessing whether the cleric was drunk. He
considers delinquents (sic) to be drunk when, They change their mind,
when they stutter in their speech, and their eyes are wild and they have
vertigo and distension of the belb andpain follows.
There are relatively few edicts, regarding this form of over-indulgence,
directed towards the lay population, but one worth mentioning is clause
6.5 of the Laws of Ine (Ina), which states, If however they quarrel at
their drinking, and one of them bears it with patience, the other is to pay 30
shillings as ajine.
This edict, which originates from 688-694, applied to the West Saxon
kingdom, and is second only, in age, to the laws of the Kentish kings,
Hlothere and Eadric (dating from 673-685) which make two references
to disorderly drinking, clause 12 specifying:
rf anyone removes a cup from another where men are drinking, without
provocation, he shall according to ancient law pay a shilling to him who owns the
house, and six shillings to him whose cup was removed, and twelve shillings to
the king.
239
If anyone draws a weapon where men are drinking, and yet no injury is done
there, [he is to pay] a shilling to him who owns the house and twelve shillings to
the king.
There are various Anglo-Saxon recipes intended to cure drunkenness
and its effects, and even to prevent same. One such, from the First
Leechbook (Laceboc), recommends betony prescribed in water as a
prophylactic, saying, In case a man should make himself drunk, to be
drunk before his other drink. This is then to be followed by a course
of action which can be originally attributed to Pliny, and therefore of
ancient Classical origin, . . . Again, take a swines lung, roast it, and at
night, fasting, takefive slices always.
The fertility of the land was very important, and there were many
rituals performed in an attempt to ensure that it was maintained. One of
these involved chanting to an Earth goddess, Erce, the chant going on
to list bright crops; broad barley, white wheat and shining millet.
The inclusion of the latter cereal is interesting because it is absent
from all archaeological records in Britain, although it is frequently
encountered on the Continent. The grain panic is mentioned in certain
English medical recipes of the time, the term being derived from the
Latin panicum, wild millet. This perhaps points to the Erce charm
having very ancient origins related to mainland Europe. Land suitable
for agriculture, especially cereal growth, was very highly valued, and one
of the conditions of lease of such land was that it should be returned to
its owner partly sown with grain.
With the demise of the Romano-British estate system, most of the
early Saxon farmers (6th, 7h centuries) were at subsistence level, using
primitive hand tools to tend the land, although some communities in the
7thcentury may well have used ards drawn by oxen. They occupied small
homesteads, where the general pattern of life involved much toil for very
little reward, The first Saxon invaders, and the subsequent hordes, did
not appear to make any revolutionary changes to British farming
methods, a point forcefully made by Payne (1948):
There is no evidence whatsoever that the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain already
possessed of better agriculturul equipment than they found here. The plough
assigned to them in modern writings is a product of modern imagination.
What we can discern, however, is the fact that the earliest Anglo-Saxon
settlers selected their habitation sites with such precision and effectiveness that subsequent generations made little effort to move away from
them. Assuming that these Germanic newcomers would opt for tracts of
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Chapter 5
land that were potentially fertile and otherwise suitable for agriculture,
then spring-lines would be the decisive geological features in determining the suitability of an area for long-term settlement. As early as the
lStcentury AD, Tacitus, in his Germania has emphasised the part played
by corn-growing in the German economy, and there is no reason to
doubt that the Anglo-Saxons conformed to the general practice of the
mass of the German people. Loyn (1970), whilst recognising that certain
sectors of Romano-British society, such as owners of villa-estates,
had the capability for making inroads into heavy soils, says, It is just to
give the Saxons their full due as the people who opened up the damp,
much-forested, heavy woodlands of England to the permanent subjection of
the plough.
The Anglo-Saxons divided the land into lots when they first arrived,
but apart from this fact we know very little about their agricultural
practices, which are poorly documented. We have a few clauses from the
Laws of Ine, a section of Elfrics Colloquy dealing with the hardships of
a ploughmans existence, and Gerefa, a short treatise on estate management. Apart from these gems we have a few references in some legal
documents, the primary purpose of which is to clarify the ownership of
land, not its cultivation. One thing that we do learn from this early period
is that the head of the family (lord) had a particular importance as the
giver and maintainer of life; the word lord is derived from the Old
English, hlaford, or hlafweard, meaning a guardian of bread or loafkeeper. During the Anglo-Saxon period, every man had to be under the
protection of a lord.
By the mid-Sth century heavy ploughing was taking place, and by
the lothcentury ploughs were being drawn by oxen (even the Caedmon
manuscript5 shows a plough being drawn by two oxen). By the l l t h
century horses were being used for harrowing the land, as well as
occasionally for ploughing it; these were much faster over the land than
oxen, which, nevertheless, remained the plough animal of choice. The
advent of larger, more efficient ploughs permitted an increase in
delimited field size; thus the small rectangular Celtic fields became
gradually superseded by large open fields. Ploughs were commonly
drawn by teams of six oxen, but, as Payne says quite categorically, there
is no archaelogical evidence whatsoever for huge, heavy, wheeled ploughs
that had to be drawn by eight oxen, or more.
According to the ploughman in Blfrics Colloquy, the first ploughing
took place in winter, a practice also recommended by Gerefa, which
Caedmon of Whitby (died 680) is regarded as the first known English poet; he was a herdsman at
Whitby Abbey and most of his work was written between 660 and 670.
24 1
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Chapter 5
and archbishop of York, from memoranda left by Oswald, his predecessor in both sees. The work is based on personal experiences gained
on a large estate in the West Midlands and was written a generation
before the Norman Conquest.
Threshing of the harvested corn took place in December on the barn
floor, and the grain was beaten with flails and then winnowed. If the
crop was barley then threshing, by definition, took place in a bere oern
(barley store) on a bereflor. Winnowed grain was now ready for milling,
which would originally have been effected via a hollow stone (mortar)
and a pounder (pestle). Such an arrangement could only deal with a
small quantity of grain, and so larger pieces of apparatus, called mills,
were devised in order to grind corn for the whole community. There
are gth century references to mill streams in the charters, and by the
1Oth century most reasonably-sized communities had their own mills.
Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period there is evidence that there were
significant climate changes, which would of course have influenced plant
growth. As far as we know, during the late 6thcentury there were colder
summers, and the weather was generally wet. This continued until the
sthcentury when the climate became more continental (the summers
being drier and warmer and the winters colder). This situation continued
until the lothcentury when, around 980, a warmer period commenced.
It seems as though the early medieval crop yields were, in modern
terms, dreadfully low, being quantified in bushels per acre, eight being an
average crop; compare that with the three tonnes per acre of today.
Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period cereal crops were highly important,
and by the end of it such crops were staple, the expression, theploughman feeds us all, being oft-quoted in a thanksgiving context.
As with previous agricultural regimes, most of the information that we
have emanates from carbonised impressions of plant remains. Taken
at face value, the records indicate that barley was the dominant crop
species. This may, or may not be the case; what the record does tell us
is that barley grains were probably more frequently used in whole form
for food preparation (e.g. in stews or soups, c.$ pearled barley today).
Certainly, grains such as wheat and rye, which would have been favoured
for bread-making would have, of necessity, been milled, the resultant
flour having no potential for carbonisation. Green (198 1) maintains that
the balance of barley and wheat chaff, on the other hand, suggests larger
quantities of wheat being grown during the late Saxon period. Corn,
often unspecified, was used extensively as a tithe, or scot for the church,
and various quantities such as one hundred sheaves, two sesters or
fifty fothers are mentioned at different times. Sometimes the nature
of the grain is specified; for example, the Guild at Abbotsbury, Dorset,
243
could fine anyone three sesters of wheat if they produced an unsatisfactory brew. In Wales, wheat is mentioned as a scot more than any other
grain, indicating that it may have been an all-important crop, in spite of
Giraldus exaggerated comment that implied that the whole of the population of Wales lived almost entirely on oats! (Giraldus Cambrensis flourished some hundred years after the Norman Conquest (1 146-1223).)
Barley is also specified in some dues, and rents were often payable in the
same grain. The latter fact can be gleaned from the laws of Ine, the West
Saxon king, who reigned from 688-726. These ancient laws, enacted from
688 to 694, represent some of the earliest of English laws, and clause 59.1
says, As barley-rent, six weys6 must always be given for each labourer.
Occasionally malt was required in payment of dues. Barley was also used
in several Anglo-Saxon remedies and in the Leechdoms there are more
references to barley than to wheat (Cockayne, 1864, 1865, 1866).
Of the wheats encountered during Saxon times, emmer seems to have
predominated during the early decades, and there is still evidence of it up
until ca. 950. It may not have been the most productive of crops, in terms
of yield, but it was well regarded gastronomically. Einkorn has not been
found from Saxon sites, but spelt, which was originally thought to have
fallen into disuse during the post-Roman period, is present throughout
early and mid-Saxon times in a variety of places from Kent to Worcestershire, and is a major component of the cereal flora of post-Roman
Gloucester where, probably due to ecological factors, it persists through
until the 12thcentury. In the eastern part of Britain, spelt seems to have
become defunct as a crop by the end of the 7h century. Generally speaking, the bread and club wheats, Triticum aestivum and T compactum,
were the main types of wheat grown by the end of the Saxon era. They
had been grown from Roman times onwards, and being naked varieties,
their main advantage, of course, was that their grains thresh free from
their glumes without having to resort to parching. Sometimes these
two cultivars were grown as a mixed crop. Both dense- and lax-eared
forms have been found growing together, indicating that there was no
preference for either (even though the lax-eared form would be easier
to thresh). It seems as though both were capable of making a decent
loaf of bread. It appears that these wheats were the most popular cereal
crops in Saxon Britain from the loth century onwards, and there is a
distinct possibility that the free-threshing wheats may have been underrepresented in previous periods. There has been one report of T turgidurn
The wey was a standard of dry goods weight, varying greatly with different commodities,
although 22 stone is mentioned as an equivalent in several contexts. For grain, a wey amounted to
40 bushels ( 5 quarters).
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Chapter 5
from corn-drying kilns in Hertford, where this species accounts for some
48% of the total grain sample.
Several authors, including Grube (1934), Bonser (1963), and Hagen
(1995) have reported that barley (bere)was the staple of the Saxon period
in Britain, a view that cannot be totally supported by archaeological
evidence. As we have seen for previous stages in our history, most of the
Saxon sites are from areas that are ideally suited to barley growing, and
therefore the evidence may be weighted somewhat. Nevertheless, it
must have been an extremely important crop, for brewing purposes
in particular, and we find that several place-names have been derived
from it, viz: Bere-wic (Berwick) and Bere-tun (Barton), both of which
essentially equate to barley-farm or barley-village. Sprouted
(malted?) grains have been recovered quite frequently from late Saxon
and medieval periods (Green, 1981). Barley also had a somewhat
little-known status as being the basis for a standard measure; three
barley-corn lengths being equivalent to one inch.
In Wales, where barley bread is still made and consumed, there
are many attestations of that heavy and flavoursome foodstuff, particularly from the 1 lth and 12thcenturies. For this reason barley was a
valuable crop; Owen (1841), in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales
documenting that one sheaf of barley, at one halfpenny, was twice the
price of a sheaf of oats. Wheaten bread was eaten in Wales, as well.
There is plenty of evidence of barley from early Saxon sites, especially
hulled forms, which would primarily be used for malting and brewing.
These are sometimes found in association with corn-driers or kilns. In
the late Saxon period, naked barley almost entirely disappeared, making
the use of barley in bread-making less probable (except in Wales?).
Conversely, naked wheats became more widely grown at this time,
because of their threshing ability, and so one presumes that they were
preferentially employed in baking and allied processes.
Two somewhat unusual records of barley species can be attributed to
Saxon times, one of which is in a brewing context. This is the discovery
of the two rowed Hordeum distichum in association with corn-driers
or kilns at the Saxon settlement at Hamwih (Southampton). This is a
variety that was thought not to have been introduced until well into the
medieval period, although Grube (1934) reports that it may have been
widely grown in Wales in Anglo-Saxon times. The other rare record is
that of lax-eared H. tetrastichum, which is specifically connected with a
bread oven in Fladbury, Worcestershire. This plant is free-threshing and
so ideally suited for non-brewing purposes.
The percentage of early Saxon sites at which both bread wheat and
barley are found is more than double that of wheat-only sites. The
245
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Chapter 5
Given this apparent importance, rye does not seem to have been used
much in bread-making in Anglo-Saxon times. Rye, which is ideally suited
to dry, sandy soils, is occasionally recovered in large quantities from sites,
where it is patently a bonafide crop, but it is normally only a minor
contributor to plant assemblages, and is most likely to have been a weed
of cultivated fields. It was grown far more extensively on the Continent,
particularly on poorer soils and those from the more adverse climates.
Godwin (1975) reports that rye was a major crop in the Saxon and
medieval periods, although this was not the case in Wessex, where the
land could easily support other, more preferred crops. It was probably
brought to Britain by early Germanic settlers. Anglo-Saxon medical
writings tell us that ergotism (erysipelas) was a common complaint of
the period. The causative organism, the fungus, Claviceps purpurea, is
primarily an infection of rye, although it will survive on other cereals,
and the alkaloids it produces are responsible for the symptoms of
ergotism (St. Anthonys fire).
As in mainland Europe (particularly countries such as Denmark,
where the practise is still carried out), use may also have been made of
the seeds of wild grasses. Of prime importance here would have been the
grass, chess (Bromus sp.), which was a natural weed of fields, and whose
seeds were often ground as a substitute for rye in years of shortage/
famine. In Anglo-Saxon England chess seeds are often found in barley
samples, where it was apparently tolerated, since there appears to have
been no attempt to separate it out. This may well have been due to the
fact that seeds of wild grasses contain approximately twice the amount
of protein as their cultivated counterparts, and so there may well have
been a nutritional basis for tolerating mixed seed samples. It is tempting
to propose that the early attempts to domesticate grain crops would
have yielded varieties that were more nutritious than some of those
available today.
As we have intimated above, cereals and cereal products, particularly
beer and bread, are an important component of some of the early
English laws. In clause 70 of the Laws of Ine, it is specified that rents
should be paid in accordance with a mans ~ e r g i l d : ~
For a man of two-hundred wergild there is to be paid a compensation to the
lord of 30 shillings; for a man of a six-hundred wergild, 80 shillings;.for a man of
t welve-hundred wergild, 120 shillings.
Wergild (wergeld) in ancient Teutonic and Old English law, was the price set upon a man
according to his rank, paid by way of compensation or fine in cases of homicide and certain other
crimes, to free the offender from further obligation or punishment.
247
A hide was originally a rather nebulous measurement and was regarded as an area of land
considered adequate for supporting a peasant household. By the 1 lthcentury in Cambridgeshire
and over much of the eastern counties it consisted of 120 acres, but was probably no more than
40 acres in parts of Wiltshire, the west and the southwest.
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bread, fish, butter and eggs, together with beer, mead, water, possibly
milk and some wine for the rich. During the summer various fruits
and vegetables could be added to the list. Bread was generally made
from wheat, both hwate gryttan (coarse-grained) and hwate-smedeme
(fine-grained) being used. Barley meal was also used for making bread
(bere-hlhf = barley bread), as were oats (cite), rye and beans. We have an
intimate insight into the nature of the victuals within a loth century
monastery, thanks to LElfrics Colloquy, compiled by Abbot Elfric and
his disciple Elfric Bata. When Elfric asks his charge, What do you eat
each day?, Bata replies, Meat, also herbs and eggs, fish and cheese,
butter and beans. This is, therefore, a diet rich in protein and low in
carbohydrate (NB: no bread mentioned). To the question, What do you
drink? the answer from Bata is, Ale (cervisia) if I have it, or water, if
I have no ale. Do you drink wine? says Elfric, to which Bata replies,I
am not so rich that I can buy myself wine, and wine is not drunk by boys or
fools, but by old men and wise ones. The reader should note that water
was only to be drunk as a last resort!
There appears to be no recorded evidence of brewing techniques, or of
brewing equipment and brewery premises from Anglo-Saxon England,
but we must assume that brewing was still a precarious business in
those days. It is obvious that brews frequently went wrong and, in the
absence of any technical manual, brewers made recourse to superstition,
including the use of ale-runes. Even a supposedly instructional work
such as the leechdoms advocates, what would now be considered to be a
ludicrous remedy for purging a premises that has produced bad ale: r f
ale is spoilt take lupins and lay them in the four corners of the building and
over the door and beneath the threshold and under the ale vat, put holy
water in the wort of that ale.
We do, however, have some more enlightening records from the Continent, particularly in terms of the layout of brewery premises. Probably
the most significant example can be found in the plan of the monastery
at St. Gall, in Switzerland. The monastery was founded in the sthcentury
by Irish missionaries and it maintained strong links with Anglo-Saxon
England, many important clerics being seconded there for training,
because St. Gall was important in the promulgation of medical information during the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. A plan of the
monastery, dated around AD 820, shows facilities for treating all sorts
of diseases, including well-stocked herb gardens. The plan also shows
malthouse, kiln, mill-room, three breweries and storage cellars. Records
inform us that three main types of beer were brewed at the monastery,
and it would appear that each of the breweries was consigned to brew
a different beer. The listed beers were: prima rnelior, intended for the
249
monks and visiting VIPs; secunda, for the lay brothers, and tertia, for
pilgrims, beggars, etc. It is thought that these brews were of decreasing
strength, fromprima rnelior to tertia, and it has also been suggested that
each was a product of one of the three breweries. It is not without
possibility that the three beers were each flavoured in some way.
Unlike the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons were never very fond of living
in towns; their favoured way of life was far more agrarian. During the
early Anglo-Saxon period, when emphasis in economic activities lay on
the colonisation of, and opening up of new land for agricultural purposes, the predominant social group consisted of communities of free
peasants, usually engaged corporately in agricultural processes. These
people undoubtedly made an enormous contribution to the mastery of
arable farming in England. Violence was always just beneath the surface
in Anglo-Saxon times, and these free peasants, out of necessity, also
became the warriors in times of strife. Alongside the rural communities
were the townships where, for strategic or religious reasons, the power of
the king and of his leading noblemen was strong. A legally defined and
hereditary nobility existed from the beginning of the 7'h century, as can
be demonstrated from the laws of King Ethelbert of Kent, and for the
remainder of the Anglo-Saxon period there was a territorialisation
of the aristocracy and the construction of closer ties between it and
the Crown. Both of these processes were well under way by 1066, and the
Normans, with their feudal ideals, carried them to their logical
conclusion.
Throughout most of the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain, south of
Hadrian's Wall, was a much-divided territory, with a heptarchy of
Saxon kingdoms (East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Mercia and
Northumbria) and three lands where the Britons had been forced:
Strathclyde, North Wales (= Wales) and West Wales (= Cornwall). The
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were largely autonomous, with their own rulers,
and it was not until the time of the Viking, King Cnut (1016-1035) that
we have the first sole king of all England. Cnut, of course, was from
heathen stock, but he was sensible enough to treat the Church with
respect and consideration. After Cnut, two more Danish kings ruled
England until the reign of the Saxon, Edward the Confessor in 1042.
The perennial troubles with the Danes had been allayed somewhat, by
Alfred the Great (871-899), who was King of Wessex, and the later
Edgar the Pacific (959-975) who permitted the Danes to settle in the
north of England and govern themselves (this is the origin of Dane Zagh,
or Dane Law), in return for peace and their conversion to, or at least
tolerance of, Christianity. Edgar was quite content to leave the conduct
of affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, to his Archbishop of Canterbury,
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Dunstan and, through him, a much-needed judiciary system was introduced, part of whose job was to address the problem of drunkenness,
particularly in public places. A law was passed that resulted in the closure
of many of the multitudinous ale-houses; only one being allowed per
village. In addition, Dunstan decreed that holes, with pegs, should be
inserted, at regular intervals, into the sides of drinking-horns, or cups,
with the instruction that an imbiber should not go beyond a fresh mark
at each draught. Failure to observe this edict resulted in severe punishment, but after a while, the measure back-fired and drinking to pegs
became a way of reaching oblivion.
There is one school of thought (Hackwood, 1910) that suggests that
we should be thankful for the Danish invasion for making ale our
national beverage. Hackwood, quoting Sir Edward Coke (1552-1 634),
states, that King Edgar, in permitting the Danes to inhabit England, first
brought excessive drinking among us. The word ale came into the English
language through the Danish ol.
After the brief reign of Edgars eldest son, Edward, King Ethelred
succeeded in 978. He reigned until 1016 and was designated The
Unready, because he came to the throne unadvised (and ill-advised)
and he lurched from one crisis to another. Many of his problems could
be placed at the door of the Danes, who were now proving troublesome
again. On St. Brices Day (November 13th),1002, in a futile attempt, he
tried to extirpate the Danes from these islands; an act of foolishness that
only provoked more Viking hostility. In spite of the troubles, Ethelred
was still able to add to the laws of the land and, in particular, address the
problems regarding conduct in inns and taverns. In 997, he decreed that,
In the case of a breach of the peace in an ale-house, 6 half-marks shall be
paid in compensation i f a man is slain, and 12 ores ifno one is slain.
Ever since St. Augustine and his monks arrived in Kent in A D 597,
to begin the task of converting the heathen English, Christianity had
spread, and the delegation of estates and rights was intensified in order
to encourage endowment for the new Church. The manorial system
gradually developed, aided by the fact that, in an age of peril (i.e. the
ever-present threat from the Danes), nobles needed men to defend
their property and subsistence, and ordinary men needed leadership
and guidance in order to survive their everyday battles. The very success
of the Monarchy and the Church contributed to the creation of the
English manor, which was a more successful institution in some parts
of the country than in others, for example, the south and southwest of
England. The land available to the people was divided as fairly as
possible between families, with a certain amount of common land put
aside for such activities as grazing.
25 1
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with beer, but others (e.g. Bonser, 1963), whilst not being quite so
categorical, are in general agreement, maintaining that it was at least a
drink derived from cereals. Most translators of beor follow Bosworth and
Toller and so we have the proliferation of the erroneous supposition that
it equates to beer (see Fells comment on page 255). The connotation
here is that beor is etymologically related to bere (barley), which superficially makes sense. It is clearly a totally different sort of drink, certainly in terms of alcoholic strength. We know this from the leechdoms,
where in Leechbook 11, lxvii (Cockayne, 1865), we are given a rather
curious table of what appear to be, in effect, relative densities of a variety
of commodities; it reads:
A pint of oil weigheth 12 pennies less than a pint of water;
and a pint of ale weigheth 6pennies more than a pint of water;
and a pint of wine weigheth 15 pennies more than a pint of water;
and a pint of honey weigheth 34 pennies more than a pint of water;
and a pint of butter weigheth 80 pennies less than a pint of water;
and a pint of beer (beor) weigheth 22 pennies less than a pint of water;
and apint of meal weigheth 115pennies less than a pint of water;
and a pint of beans weigheth 55 pennies less than a pint of water;
and 1.5 ounces of water go to the sextarius.
The above table, if it has been correctly transcribed down the years,
infers superficially that beor was a less-dense, perhaps highly-alcoholic
drink, certainly very different to ale. Its strength may be gauged by the
counsel given in Leechbook 111, xxxvii, whereby a pregnant woman
is advised, in general terms, not to get drunk, but is specifically warned
against drinking beor. This would suggest that it was a far more potent,
maybe even dangerous, drink than ale and wine. There are several
ecclesiastical laws that specify severe penalties for a pregnant woman
who attempts to abort by over-indulgence in drink.
Another manuscript which distinguishes beor from ealu is the early
l l t hcentury English translation of the Rule of Chrodegang, who was
Bishop of Metz from 742-766. When the Old English and Latin texts of
this document are compared we find that Old English win always translates Latin uinum, and ealu likewise translates ceruisa. Where the Latin
has three words; uinum, sicera and ceruisa, Old English has four; win,
beor, medu and ealiid, indicating that beor and ealod (ealu) are different
drinks. The word sicera is borrowed by the Romans from the Hebrew
vocabulary (via Greek) and it normally refers to strong drink in general,
This is the Saxon silver penny of 24 grains.
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and they thus equate to Anglo-Saxon ealu and win. The last two words
present more of a problem, in terms of their meaning. Some dictionaries
maintain that iil and bjbrr are synonymous (a la ealu and beor), but this is
not the case. B j h has similar roots and meanings to beor, whilst mjodr
(miiid) seems to represent a drink mainly confined to poems and sagas
(mead?); one that became extinct a long time ago. Bj6rr was a drink that
the ancient Scandinavians attributed to the gods, and it was consequently
rare, potent and possessed mystical powers. Bjbrr and mjodr are both
mentioned by Roesdahl (1992) as being alcoholic drinks made from
honey and water, with the latter being classified as strong, sweet and rare.
On scouring Bosworth and Toller for compounds formed from beor,
ealu, medu and win, we find that there are 10 references to beor, 17 to
ealu, 18 to medu and 50 to win. None of the compounds utilising beor
make any allusion to brewing materials or methods, whereas some of
those relating to ealu most certainly do. If beor had any connection with
beer one would expect at least some reference to raw materials, manufacturing equipment and procedure, but we find none of these.
Most of the compound words of Old English beor are to be found in
the context of poetry and prose, and in some way concerned with conviviality. A similar situation exists in the Old Norse manuscripts, where
there are many references to iil and vin, but relatively few compounds of
bjbrr (and m j d r ) , and these too occur largely in verse. Just to complicate matters, Old Norse has two common words for ale; iil and mungat,
the latter being the stronger drink of the two. Mead probably became an
outdated drink for the Vikings long before it did for the Anglo-Saxons,
and the possibility exists that mjodr signifies mead (in which case
one could equate medu with mjodr). For both the Vikings and the
Anglo-Saxons it seems as though honey-based drinks were superseded in
popularity by those with a cereal base.
In Germany, the major malt-derived alcoholic beverage was called
bior, rather than a word based on ealu or 6l. Fell avers that this is because
any cognate to the Old English or Old Norse words had died out in Old
High German and bior was brought in to fill a gap; there being no word
to cover the Latin ceruisa. From early days, therefore, there has been
some confusion between bior and beor. She also states that beer is an
English loan-word, derived from bior, and probably originally adopted
to differentiate the hopped product from the original unhopped ale,
which is obviously derived from the Anglo-Saxon ealu. As Fell says:
The Old English word ealu stayed on, atJirst to distinguish native unhopped
beer from the foreign imports, later losing even that degree of precision. In
Scandinavia, the word ol has never been superseded.
255
Fell offers succinct definitions for the four major alcoholic beverages
extant in Anglo-Saxon times: ealu is malt-based beer, medu represents
fermented honey and water, and win is fermented grape-juice. Beor is a
drink made from honey and the juice of a fruit other than grapes, as the
glosses ofetes wos and qpelwin intimate. Again, to quote Fell:
Since honey was the only form of sweetening available it is not improbable
that the distinctions between a honey-based alcohol (medu I mjSi)r> and a
honey-sweetened alcohol (beor I bjorr) might become blurred.
Returning to the table from the leechdoms that relates various items of
food and drink to a pint of water, Fell offers two possible interpretations.
Firstly, she hints that there might simply have been an error in transcription whereby the word less has been inserted instead of more,
i.e. beor weighs 22 pennies more than a pint of water, thus making it the
heaviest, or densest, of the alcoholic beverages mentioned. Secondly,
she suggests that the document might represent the size of measure to be
given for each commodity. Thus, on ordering ale one would be given a
measure that weighed six pennies more than a standard pint of water,
whereas on ordering beor, one would get a very small measure - weighing
22 pennies less than a pint of water; i.e. beor was a short drink rather
than a long one like ale. On this basis, however, one would secure a
larger measure of wine (15 pennies more than a pint of water) than one
would of ale, a reversal of todays situation! But, as Fell remarks, this
tariff explanation would account for the very small drinking-cups that
have been recovered from various British Anglo-Saxon sites, such as
Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. Such items have also been
found from Viking sites, and they always occur alongside the larger and
more obvious beakers and drinking-horns. Some of these small cups are
made of glass, and the majority of finds date from the late bth/early7h
centuries. In Denmark, some small very fine silver drinking-vessels have
been recovered (8th-10thcentury). It would be nice to envisage such cups
being specially made for drinking beor (or bjdrr).
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Hagen (1995) refers to small drinking cups used traditionally to consume a northern French drink called b2re, which is a Norman word still
used as a dialect word to signify cider. Bire, by definition, describes a
fermented drink which is made solely from the juice of apples, and it
would appear that it has suffered in the same way as beor, inasmuch as
that from the transition from Norman to modern French it has ended up
as biire (beer). It is worth noting that in Hungarian, bor equates to wine.
Beer in that language is sijr, and s6rGsG is a place where you might buy it.
As we have already said, fermented drinks are called for quite frequently as food-rents or tributes, and we come across a variety of types
of ale being specified, such as ealu, wilisc ealu and hluttor ealu. Beor,
however, is only mentioned once, in a charter of 909 which relates to the
annual rent for 20 hides of land at Tichborne, leased by King Edward
and the community at Winchester, to Denewulf, Bishop of Winchester.
The charter states, >at mon geselle twelfseoxtres beoras 7 twelfgeswettes
wilisc ealod 7 twentig umbra hluttor ealod, and Robertson (1956)
translates this as . . . there shall be rendered 12 sesters of beer and 12
sesters of sweet Welsh ale and 20 ambers of clear ale. She is clearly
of the opinion that beor glosses beer in the translation of this part of
the charter. Over the years, most historical accounts of beer, including
Bickerdyke (1886) and Monckton (1966) seem to have fallen into this
trap concerning the meaning of beor, the latter authority remarking
that there was only a subtle distinction between ale and beor in AngloSaxon times.
The four main Anglo-Saxon alcoholic drinks are all mentioned
in Beol.t.uK the greatest and longest surviving Old English poem, on
numerous occasions. The text of Beowulfwas copied round about 1000,
and the story is set in a southern Scandinavian world for an Anglo-Saxon
audience. After the events of 1066, the work was all but forgotten until
interest was re-kindled during the 19th century. Beor is mentioned
many times and in all translations is glossed as beer. The poem makes
no attempt to distinguish between the various alcoholic drinks (only by
name) and in certain passages we find beverages and their compound
words mentioned seemingly at random. For example, in the translated
version of Alexander (2000), between lines 480 and 484 we have mention
lo
It is difficult to be certain about the extent of some Anglo-Saxon measures, but there is no doubt
that an amber was considerably larger than a sester. To complicate matters, both of these
measures could be used for liquids, or for dry goods. As a liquid measure, the amber seems to have
been an adaptation of the Roman amphora, which was equivalent to about six gallons. Another
reference suggests that it might have been as much as 20 gallons. In the Leechbooks the sester
appears to correspond to the Roman sextarius, which was almost a pint. This seems to have been
the size of the measure during the middle of the 1lthcentury, but the capacity of the sester varied
during the Anglo-Saxon period.
257
A coomb (or cumb) was an Old English vessel measure of generally unspecified dimensions,
although Bickerdyke (1886) maintains that it was equivalent to 16 quarts. For a measure of grain,
a coomb was equivalent to four bushels (or !h quarter).
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and characteristic ale. If it was strong and sweet it might have resembled
our more modern barley-wines, a style of beer that is gradually becoming
harder to find, Hagen (1995) agrees with this and adds that the way that
the barley was kilned would have given it a smoky taste as well. Wilson
(199 1) remarks that Welsh ale was traditionally regarded as being glutinous, heady and soporijc, and she recounts that part of a land-rent
payable to the church in Worcester, in Offas time, specified three hogsheads of Welsh ale, one of which was to be sweetened with honey. This
particular hogshead must have represented something very much akin to
bragot, a very ancient ale-based drink, which we shall mention in a
moment. At least Offa, and the relative juxtaposition of Worcester to
Wales, have more direct relevance to Welsh beer, than does Hampshire.
Welsh ale, or cwrw, appears to have been the preferred beer of much
of western Britain, second only to mead in popularity, and it retained
it unique characteristics until at least the 18th century. The relative
importance and value of mead and ale in Wales, during the AngloSaxon period, can be gauged by some of the laws according to Hywel
Dda which, for a tribute, specifies that a farmer should render one vat
of mead, nine fistbreadths in diagonal length. If this was unavailable
then two vats of bragot (spiced ale) were to be paid and, failing this,
your vats of common ale would be acceptable. This clearly values mead
at twice the price of bragot and quadruple the price of ale. Hywel Dda
(died 949 or 950), was king of all Wales - except the southeast; a
sort of Welsh version of Alfred the Great. In another of his edicts,
this time specifying the role of the butler in the royal court, a slightly
different opinion as to the relative values of the three drinks is expressed
(Jenkins, 1986):
It is right for him to dispense the drink and to give to everyone according to his
entitlement. It is right for him to supply the mead-cellar and what is in it. The
measure of legal liquor in the vessels in which it is served, full of beer, or half-full
of bragget, or one-third full of mead.
Bragot (bracket, braggot, bragget, bragawd) took its name from the
Old Celtic word, bracis, the name evinced by Pliny and Columella as
the Gaulish name for a form of grain from which this drink was made.
One Old English dictionary derives the word from brag, meaning malt,
especially in Cornwall and Wales, and got, meaning honeycomb. The
original forms of this drink, which emanate almost from pre-history,
were almost certainly concocted from mead and ale only (NB: the drink
of Thule mentioned by Pytheas - see page 160). The drink was then
spiced with pepper for special occasions, and an up-market version
259
During the gth century, there was great consternation in the Church
because bragot was being sold as mead by unscrupulous traders; a
practice that was strongly condemned at the Church Councils at Aachen
(817), Worms (868) and Tribur (895), and which, again, emphasises the
relative worth of mead and ale. In medieval England, bragot was brewed
by flavouring and enriching ale wort with spices and honey, a mixture
that was then fermented.
Production of bragot was quite widespread in English country houses
up until the late 17fhcentury, and the drink became particularly associated with wedding feasts. In Lancashire, bragot survived until the late
19thcentury and several of her towns, such as Bury, became renowned
for the drink and celebrated Braggot Sunday, which was the 4thSunday
in Lent. Bragot was a remarkably smooth drink, a fact that may be
gathered from statements made in The Mubinogion and The Millers
Tale.
Chapter 5
260
out by the inhabitants of Ireland, and that they were well accustomed to
drinking it.
The native legal system in Ireland existed before the gthcentury. It was
slightly disturbed by the Danish and Anglo-Norman invasions, and still
more by English settlement, but it continued in use until finally abolished at
the beginning of the 17thcentury. In Ireland, a judge was called a brehon,
whence the native Irish law is known as Brehon Law (to be strictly accurate,
the original designation is Fdnechas, i.e. the law of the Fdine, or free landtillers). The brehons had collections of laws in volumes or tracts, all in the
Irish language; each tract dealing with one subject, or a group of subjects.
The two largest, and most important tracts are Senchus Mbr and the Book
of Acaill. The former is mainly concerned with Irish civil law, whilst the
latter concerns itself with criminal law and related matters. It is Senchus
Mbr that contains information about the early days of brewing in Ireland.
In the ancient introduction to Senchus Mbr, there is an account of its
original compilation, which says that a collection of pagan laws was
made at the request of St. Patrick in A D 438. This was the Fdnechas
Code, which Laegaire (Leary), King of Ireland ordered to be revised
in order to take into account some of the teachings of Christianity.
Laegaire appointed a committee of: three kings himself, Corc, King of
Munster, and Daire, King of Ulster; three ecclesiastics Patrick, Benen,
and Cirnech; and three poets and antiquarians - Rossa, Dubthach,
and Fergus. Within three years, these nine props of the Senchus Mbr,
produced their new code, which contained no new laws, as it was a digest
of those already in use, together with the addition of scriptural laws.
Senchus Mbr is also known as Cain Patrick, or Patricks Law, and it is
evident from its contents that ale, which was red in colour, was a native
beverage, and was the most common intoxicating drink (as it was in most
of northern Europe). Its manufacture was understood all over Ireland,
and the brewing process is given in some detail in Senchus Mbr.
The grain chiefly used was barley, although rye, wheat and oats were
also starting ingredients. Whatever kind of corn was used, it was first
converted into malt (Irish; brae, or braich). This was effected by steeping
the grain in water for a certain time, after which the water was let off
slowly, and the wet grain was spread out on a level floor to dry. During its
time on the floor, it was manually turned over and over, and raked into
ridges, such that all parts of it were brought to the surface at one stage. It
was next dried in a kiln (aith) until the grain became hard; this being
malt. If the malt was not kept as whole grains, it was ground in a quern
or in a mill, and was then either put into sacks as it was crushed, or made
into cakes and dried. Malt cakes often became so hard that, before being
used, they had to be broken into pieces with a mallet, and ground again in
-
26 1
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Chapter 5
It is accepted that 61, here, is the same as in Old Norse, and that this
equates to the Anglo-Saxon ealu, and the modern English ale.
l2
Conchobar Mac Nessa is said to have reigned in Ulster at the very beginning of the Christian era;
Emain Macha was the royal residence. Conchobar was at the Feast of Brkriu.
263
Another gloss for guala comes from the name of the wort-boiling pot
itself; and a third from the son of the first owner of the boiler.
It must have been a difficult task, in those early times, to obtain a boiler
of sufficient size to enable the quantity of beer, necessary to satisfy a royal
household, to be brewed. Legend has it that even the Norse gods were on
one occasion in the unhappy plight of not having enough ale to drink, and
to prevent such a misfortune happening again, Thor carried off the giant,
Hymirs, huge boiler. Conchobar Mac Nessa also went on an expedition,
the secret motive of which may have been to procure a great bronze boiler
which a lowly chieftain named Gerg possessed. He succeeded in carrying
off the pot, and killed Gerg. Conchobar owned a renowned brewing vat,
the proportions of which were commensurate with his wort-boiler. This
vat was called Daradach, because it was made of oak (huge oak staves,
held together by great iron hoops), and for a feast it was always placed in
the main hall, which was accordingly called the ale-house, or Cuirm
Tech. Ale was apparently drunk straight from the fermentation vat. As a
rider, OCurry wonders whether there is any relationship between guala
and the British brewing term gyle, which denotes a batch of wort.
The word Lin l 3 is sometimes used for ale, but, in reality, it is a more
l3
Chapter 5
264
general word for liquor, rather than being specific for beer. Barley
appears to have been the chief grain for malting and brewing in Ireland,
although there is some evidence for spelt and oats - especially in areas that
were not favourable for barley cultivation. The Irish name for malt is
brach, genitive braich or bracha, corresponding to the Welsh and Cornish
brag, whence Welsh bragaud, Old English bragot, modern English bracket,
all referring to a kind of sweetened ale. These words have the same root as
the Anglo-Saxon breovan, Gothic brig van, Old Norse brugga, l 4 Old High
German bracvan, whence modern German brauen, and English brew.
In the same article, OCurry documents an ancient manuscript of
ca. 1390 (MS., H.2. 16., Trinity College, Dublin), which contains a poem
extolling some of the noteworthy ales of ancient Ireland. The work was
originally written for the Scottish prince, Cano Mac Gartnain, who
fled into Ireland in order to escape hostility in his native land. OCurry
admits that we do not exactly know when the poem was written, but it is
evidently not written by the compiler of the manuscript itself. Judging
by the language, and a few other pointers, the work pre-dates the 12th
century,. probably by about three or four hundred years, Cano, himself
being killed around AD 687. Because this is a valuable, and little known
piece of work about early brewing in the British Isles, I present the poem
in its entirety, using OCurrys original footnotes:
Though he were to drink of the beverages of Flaths,
Though a Flath may drink of strong liquors,
He shall not be a king over Eriu
Unless he drink the ale of Cualand.
The ale of Cumur na tri n-uisceb
Is jovially drank about Inber Ferna,
I have not tasted a juice to be preferred
To the ale of Cerna.d
The ale of the land of
It belongs to the merry Momonians,
The ale of Fi-lochra Ardda,f
The red ale of Dorind.g
l4
a
From this we derive hrugge, the name of the seat, or ale bank near the fire, mentioned above.
The part of the counties of Wicklow and Dublin adjoining Bray.
The meeting of the three waters, the Barrow, the Nore, and the Suir, near Waterford.
The mouth of the Barrow.
Probably the river Muilchearn in the N.E. of the County of Limerick.
Ely OCarroll, i.e. the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybrit, in the Queens County, and Eliogarty
and other adjoining parts of Tipperary.
The country about Ardagh, in the County of Limerick.
The district of ODorny in Kerry.
265
I have not been able to identify this place, which must, however, have been in the territory
mentioned under the next letter.
The territories of Ciurraidhe Aei near the present town of Castlerea in the west of the County of
Roscommon, and Ciurrhaidhe Locha nu n-Airneudh in the barony of Costello in the County
of Mayo.
In the County of Longford bordering Cavan.
Drumlane, in the County of Longford, on the borders of the two Brefnies.
A territory in ancient Bregia, now the barony of Kells in Meath.
That is, the hospitality is so great that the number in a retinue is never counted.
q The County of Louth bordering the sea between Boyne and Dundalk.
Strangford Lough.
' Lecale in the County of Down.
North-eastern part of the County of Antrim.
" That is, while looking on at the feats of arms in the Liss by torch light, smaller and more
convenient vessels of beer were handed round.
Not identified.
The territory of the Irish Picts, which appears to have been co-extensive with Dul-Aruidhe,
corresponding to the County of Down and the southern part of Antrim.
Y The exact site of Dun Geirg has not been determined.
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267
There are several translations of St. Brigids Alefeast, but they all concur
about the notion of consuming ale for all time; another version has St.
Bridget saying I would like a great ale-feast for the King of Kings, (and)
that the people of Heaven should be drinking it eternally. This motif of
drinking eternally is oft used by the Danish and Saxon mythologists, as
well, viz., the Hall of Odin, where heroes are to drink ale forever.
If we are to believe Sir William Petty, in his Political Anatomy of Ireland,
published in 1691, the propensity to imbibe vast quantities of ale was well
ingrained into the Irish. The work, which was written during the reign of
Charles 11, analyses the population of the day, and how they could spend
their time most profitably; it contains some amazing statistics:
That in Dublin, where there are but 4,000families, there are at one time 1,180
Ale-houses and 91 publick Brew-houses; viz., near one-third of the whole. It
seems that in Ireland, there being 200,000families, about 60,000 of them should
use the same trade, and consequently, that 180,000, viz., 60,000 men, as many
women, and as many servants, do follow the trade of Drink.
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some magnitude, with grain being the raw material rather than wine.
Distillation from grain became so extensive that regulations aimed at its
constraint were enacted in 1556. The beverage does not appear to have
arrived on the mainland at this time. For a resume of brewing in Ireland,
the article by Pepper (2000) is a must.
269
During the Middle Ages, both rural and monastic brewers used all
kinds of additives to their beer, in order to give it a specific taste and,
maybe, other characteristic attributes. These additives took various
forms, and were collectively known as gruit (see page 534). Some of the
larger monasteries were among the first establishments to be given the
rights to use gruit, and it is thought that they were among the first to use
hops. In context of the latter point, because of their ability to brew larger
batches of beer than their small rural counterparts, monastic brewers
were able to make use of the preservative character that the hop imparted
to beer, and it was soon found that hopped-beer had enhanced keeping
qualities, when compared to beers brewed with, say, gruit. Monasteries
were also pioneers in the field of taxation, especially where beer was
concerned, and several of their methods were subsequently adopted as
fiscal measures by the developing towns. Apart from taxes related to gruit
and the gruitrecht, taxes on beer emerged at an early date, and soon
became an integral part of the exchequer of the Dutch towns.
In the l l t h and 12th centuries, the population grew, and towns
expanded. Some urban growth was actively encouraged by government,
no doubt stimulated by the fact that, like any taxes, the gruitrecht was far
more difficult to enforce in rural communities. There was even an attempt
to concentrate brewing activity in a new, planned, town project,
called Brouwershaven, a port in, what is now, the province of Zeeland.
The scheme did not work, but by the 13thcentury, the Low Countries
had become the most urbanised part of northern Europe. As a county,
Holland lagged behind Zeeland in urbanisation and, even in 1300,
despite the growth of towns, such as Dordrecht and Leiden, it was still
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27 1
risk than the cultivation of the standard medieval bread grains, wheat
and rye. All four of these factors should have acted as positive stimuli
for urban development and the growth of the brewing industry.
By 1300, it was noticeable that beers made by urban brewers were
of superior quality to those brewed in rural circumstances. The urban
brewers were now professionals, and, although they usually used the
same raw materials as their rural counterparts, the end-product represented far better value. Presumably their equipment was better, and
perhaps they were able to practice (and, therefore, experiment) more
often; they certainly must have benefited from the economies associated
with brewing on a larger scale. There was no sign of innovation in their
brewing methods, all they had effected was to brew on a larger scale,
and to sell and distribute their beer in a far more commercial fashion.
Urban brewers were now finding a ready market in rural areas, and by
the 14thcentury, the brewers in the major towns were, in essence, regional
brewers, sending their products to the surrounding countryside. Within
the next one hundred years they were to become international brewers,
exporting their beer to, amongst other places, England!
Before this point, however, Dutch brewers were forced to endure
stiff competition from imported products, especially those from towns in
northern Germany, such as Hamburg, where the use of the hop was
common practice. The success of these imported beers, particularly in
terms of their resistance to spoilage, persuaded brewers in the Low
Countries to foIlow suit, and within a few years, brewing with hops
became widespread in northern mainland Europe. Extant records show
us that the export of Hamburg beer to Holland was well under way by
the 1320s, and with one, or two minor interruptions, such as repercussions from the Black Death, and a piratical war between Holland and
Friesland in 1347, carried on successfully until the end of that century.
Then, as ever, there were transport problems, which added significantly
to the cost of beer. Transport over land was particularly expensive,
and hazardous, Unger maintaining that moving beer by land in the late
Middle Ages addedfrom 25% to 70% to the price for each 100Km that the
goods had to travel. The wide variation in price increase depended upon
the type of terrain to be traversed, and any tolls, This is the reason why
port towns came to dominate the trade in beer.
Trade in German beer to the Low Countries commenced in the 13th
century, but it was not until the 14h that the industry really took off,
especially from Hamburg. Beer from Bremen is recorded as being sold in
Groningen in 1272, and by 1318, Hamburg beer could be drunk there
too. Further west, Hamburg beer had reached Gouda by 1357. Much of
the market was conducted by Frisian traders, for whom it was important
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business (only grain was transported in greater volume and with greater
frequency). Beer from other towns in northern Germany ceases to be
mentioned by the 14thcentury, not because trade was curtailed, but
because Hamburg Beer became a generic term, and any beer imported
into the Low Countries from that region was designated thus, even if
it originated in Bremen. Hamburg beer had, thus, become synonymous
with beer made with hops.
In the early 14thcentury, when the count of Holland allowed domestic
brewers to make hopped beer, he immediately created a problem for the
holders of gruitrect, because brewers using hops ceased to use gruit, or
at best, used less of the admixture. When income from taxes inevitably
declined, the authorised collectors turned to the count for help. His
immediate reaction was to forbid the use of hops in domestic brewing.
This caused a beer shortage, and so consumers then resorted to external
sources of the product, such as Hamburg. Imported volumes soon
became such that the amount of revenue emanating from taxes on beer
started to fall; thus, in 1321, the then count of Holland, William 111,
prohibited the import of Hamburg beer and all foreign beers into three
districts in the county, the overriding reason being, of course, that he got
no financial benefit from such imports. In 1323, this edict was repealed,
and an import duty was imposed on foreign beer, and taxes were levied
on domestic beer.
A fair percentage of the Hamburg beer that was landed at ports in the
north of Holland, was destined for Flanders, and would be transferred
to smaller vessels for the journey south through Dutch waterways. Tolls
were introduced at key towns on the route, such as Gouda, which was
on the route from Amsterdam to Bruges and Antwerp, and Dordrecht
on the river Rhine. At Dordrecht, by 1355, all imported goods, with
the exception of beer, had to be unloaded and put up for sale, before they
could be moved any further, thus enabling them to be taxed. For wine,
this mode of taxation had been in operation since at least 1304, when the
count decreed that wine should stay in the town for two weeks before
being moved on. Such regulations made Dordrecht an important centre
for wholesaling.
As far as imported beer was concerned, the toll was set in Amsterdam
which, being at the centre of a network of waterways, was fast becoming
one of the larger Dutch towns. When the beer tolls were originally levied,
the port of Medemblik to the north of Amsterdam, was also designated
as a point of collection but, because of its superior geographical
position, most vessels chose Amsterdam, and from 1351, that town
became the sole permitted point of entry. In the same year it was decreed
that, with the sole exception of Amsterdam, only locally-brewed beer
273
274
Chapter 5
hops, and the increase in the scale of production. It was during the
1lthand 12thcenturies that the population of Holland grew, and towns
expanded as there was a move from the countryside. Rural brewers, on
finding themselves in an urban environment, were forced to alter their
protocol. For a start, space was at a premium, especially in the centre of
towns. This had a particular effect on barley storage and malting; not all
urban brewers had the room for their own malting facility as they had
in the country. They also had to fit in kettles, tuns, cooling trays and
casks (including storage space). Thus the tendency in towns was for
large brewing units to evolve; both the market and the labour supply
warranted brewing on a larger scale.
The density of population in medieval towns led to the pollution of
water courses, brewers themselves being major polluters. Thus, brewers
in towns had to be located on major waterways, both to guarantee a
supply of water, and a supply of malt. Rivers were also handy for transport of the final product. Rural brewers brewed more or less exclusively
for domestic consumption, but the capital requirement necessary for
urban brewing precluded this; the only way to survive was to brew commercially. One of the major expenses for an urban brewer was to have his
building conform to the regulations designed to reduce the risk of fire.
There was also an additional expense of acquiring larger items of
equipment, especially the kettle. In some instances the government supplied communal equipment, as Unger reports was the case in some Frisian villages as late as the beginning of the 19th century. There were
public brewhouses where housewives could bring their own grain, or
malt, for making beer. There were, as now, advantages in large-scale
brewing, especially in terms of bulk-buying of raw materials. Unger
maintains that urban breweries in Holland were largely being run by
professional brewers by the beginning of the 14thcentury.
As is the case for brewing in medieval England, exactly how the Dutch
brewers of this period carried out their process is imperfectly known,
both in terms of equipment, raw materials and methodology. Most
authorities would agree that prior to the use of hops, all of the raw
materials for brewing were placed in a single vessel for extraction with
hot water. In some instances, fermentation took place there too, but as a
rule, wort, suitably flavoured, was run through a cooling tray to an open
receptacle, where natural infection with airborne yeasts initiated
fermentation. In some instances, the mash was boiled, in order to
extract vegetable matter from gruit and this step would have taken place
in a vessel which, by definition, was a kettle. Cooling was ultra-critical
on these occasions, and a common form of cooling tray was a hollowedout tree trunk, called a ship.
275
The introduction of the hop into brewing seems to have promoted the
separation of the two tasks of mashing and boiling, and a considerable
amount of experimentation would have been necessary in order to
ascertain exactly how to get the best out of the new ingredient. Medieval
brewers from northern Europe would soon have discovered that boiling
was essential for the development of the desired flavours, and for the
formation of the preservative effect, the reason for which was a complete
mystery at that time. Brewers soon found that there were problems
involved in separating the used hops from wort. To overcome this, some
brewers placed their hops in sacks and lowered them into the boiling
wort, in order to extract goodness. In Haarlem, brewers used a form of
basket made of straw, which was filled with hops and lowered into
boiling wort. An interesting bye-law passed in Haarlem, in 1407, prohibited the discarding of the used straw and contents, into the town
waterways, to prevent pollution. In the absence of such tea-bag-on-astring technology, used hops had to be filtered out of the wort, often by
making a strainer out of twigs. Some brewers used these twigs to impart
flavour to their beer.
If brewers use two vessels in the brewhouse, then wort was taken
from the mash tun and placed into a kettle, where it was boiled. Such a
technique enabled successive (progressively weaker) extracts to be made
from the grains, which could either be boiled separately with hops to
give lower strength brews, or combined with a previous extract, to adjust
strength. The kettle soon became to be regarded as the most important
single piece of equipment in the brewery; certainly the most expensive.
The first kettles were made of pottery, which obviously posed problems,
in terms of their fragility; their capacity was also limited to around 150
litres. These were superseded by copper kettles, which gave the brewer
great advantage. The original copper brewing kettles which, again, were
indicative of mashing and boiling in separate vessels, were made of
bands of copper soldered together, a fact which invited problems during
prolonged periods of sustained boiling.
The first copper kettles were small and equipped with hangers, so
that they could be suspended over a fire. With the advent of improved
metal-working techniques, they increased in size, such that by the late
13h century they could be as large as 1,000 litres. These large kettles
(they may have reached 4,000-litre capacity by the l S h century) had
flat bottoms, so that they could sit firmly on brick-built supports
immediately over a fire. The more enlightened Dutch brewers used two
kettles, which enabled them to be more efficient, and take multiple
mashings from their grains, and boil at once, rather than holding the
wort and inviting infection. Lead, which was commonly used by early
276
Chapter 5
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28 1
Chapter 6
283
munities for monks and nuns, and realised that if run on sound bases,
these monasteries, with their facilities, could bring great benefit to the
surrounding population, particularly in the fields of medicine and education. It was in these religious enclaves that the first British breweries per
se, as opposed to home-brew premises, were instigated. Considering the
importance of ale in the lives of ordinary people, information about the
drink is rather scanty from the time of Domesday to the end of the 14th
century, which happens to coincide with the end of the Plantagenet
dynasty. Whilst ale was still the main drink of the populace, and the
Domesday Book records but 38 vineyards, there is much evidence for
wine being imported to England in ever-increasing quantities during
Norman times. This phenomenon carried on through the Norman
period and persisted into the age of the Plantagenets, for we are told that
in 1154 traffic in Bordeaux wines commenced as a result of the marriage
of Henry I1 to Eleanor of Aquitaine (1 154 was also the year of Henry
11s accession). There is also evidence of an enhanced interest in cider as
a result of Norman influence, especially in areas adjoining the English
Channel, such as Sussex.
Domesday tells us only a very little about beer and brewing, the term
cerevisiarii being the closest that we get. The word appears twice, once in
relation to Helston, in Cornwall, and once in relation to the abbey at
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. In the Helston context, scholars have interpreted the word as meaning those tenants who paid their dues in ale,
whilst at Bury St Edmunds, cerevisiarii are patently brewers, since
they are listed with cooks, bakers, etc., as part of the abbey staff who,
amongst other chores, catered for pilgrims visiting the abbey. There is
also an oft-quoted (e.g. Corran, 1975) instance of the amount of beer
brewed by the monks of St Pauls Cathedral, in London, supposedly in
the year of Domesday. Corran does not give a source for his citation, and
the only one that I can find is in an article by Maitland (1897), which
leaves some doubt as to the actual date of the brewings in question. In a
section entitled Domesday statistics (pp. 439440), Maitland states:
In the twelfth century the corn rents paid to the Bishop of Durham often
comprised malt, wheat and oats in equal quantities. In the next century the
economy of the canons of St Pauls was so arranged that for every 30 quarters of
wheat that went to make bread, 7 quarters of wheat, 7 of barley and 32 of oats
went to make beer The weekly allowance of every canon included 30 gallons.
In one year their brewery seems to have brewed 67,814 gallons of beer from
175 quarters of wheat, a like quantity of barley and 708 quarters of oats.
The whole statement does not necessarily seem to equate with the year
Chapter 6
284
in question being 1086, but it does give us an idea about the proportion
of cultivated grain destined for fermentation purposes and the approximate strength of beer at this time which I assume to be the 13thcentury.
A manuscript in the Guildhall Library, London, shows that the brewers
at St Pauls were producing 550 gallons of ale per week during 13401341, a reduction of almost one-third on the earlier figure. The cereal
crops recorded at the time of Domesday were wheat, oats, barley, rye and
peas, and it has been estimated that about one-third of the sown land
was producing crops that would be converted into alcoholic beverages,
and that every mouth in England enveloped four pints of ale daily. Barley
was not as generally used as it was from the 16thcentury onwards, and
many brewers, especially those in the west country and northern
England, preferred oats, or a mixture of barley and oats referred to as
dredge.
-
285
A hukster, or huckster, was a woman who retailed ale that she had purchased from a brewer,
i.e. an agent. Other names for this species included; tippler, tapster, regrator and gannoker.
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Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 A thirsty traveller arrives at an ancient tavern, complete with ale-stake
287
the Guildhall, on every occasion upon which they should transgress such Ordinance, that no one of them infuture should have a stake bearing either his sign or
leaves, extending or lying over the Kings highway, of greater length than seven
feet at most; and that this Ordinance should begin to take effect at the Feast of
Saint Michael then next ensuing, always thereafter to be valid and of full effect.
Apparently, to avoid possible confusion, the means of alerting the aleconner differed from place to place; in Chester, for example, each brewer
was required to put out the signe of a hande made of wood hangynge at the
end of a wande. This was only to be done when the ale was clensed and
of a nyght and a daie old. Eventually, taverners that brewed their own
beer adopted the sign of the metal hoop to advertise their wares. This
meant that only beer was available, and was aimed at distinguishing
between themselves and premises that additionally sold wine. As time
went on, various objects were placed inside the hoops, such as a bell or
a harp, which distinguished one brewery from another. If the objects
themselves were unavailable, then pictures would suffice (e.g. an angel or
a swan). Thus, we see the beginnings of the modern pub sign.
Ale had to be assessed no matter what it tasted like or looked like
and, accordingly, some ale-conners were luckier than others, for we hear
that ale-conners in Cornwall described some of their charge as loking
whyte and thycke, aspygges had wrasteled in it. The whiteness and thickness were presumably caused by kaolin (china clay) in suspension in the
water.
Occasionally, there were restrictions on the method of selling ale
after the ale-conner had inspected the product, and dispensed it into
standard containers. Thus, according to Hilton (1989, in the village of
Thornbury, Gloucestershire, which in the 1360s had about 20 regular
brewers, approved ale had to be sold outside of the house where it was
brewed, on a level step, from sealed and licensed measures of one gallon
or half a gallon (a pottle). The scams perpetrated by victuallers were
legion, and the ale-conner had a dreadful job keeping abreast of them. In
a court record dating from 1369, we read:
It is given to the lord to understand that all the brewers of Thornbury, each
time they brew, and before the tasters arrive, put aside the third best part of the
brew and store it in a lower room. It is sold to no one outside the house but only
by the mug to those frequenting the house as a tavern, the price being at least Id.
per quarter-gallon. The rest is sold outside the house at 2%. or 3d. per gallon,
to the grave damage of the whole neighbourhood of the town. The lord also
understands that all the ale tapsters are selling at excessive prices, by the mug, at
ld. per3fth or sixth of a gallon.
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Chapter 6
William the Conqueror died in 1087 and was succeeded by his third
son, William Rufus, who was elected by the nobility. William 11possessed
his fathers vices without any of his virtues, being neither religious, nor
chaste, nor temperate. William of Malmesbury tells us that he met with
his tragic end in the New Forest after he had soothed his cares with more
than a usual quantity of alcohol (ale and wine). In effect, William Rufus
gave the Normans a bad name, and during his 13-year reign excess of
everything prevailed, especially amongst the nobility. The moderating
voice of the Church was suppressed. With the advent of Henry I, in 1100,
Archbishop Anselm was brought back from retirement and regained the
see of Canterbury, and once again there were ecclesiastical attempts to
moderate debauchery. In 1102 Anselm decreed that, Priests go not to
drinking bouts, nor drink to pegs. Remember, that during the reign of
Edgar, Archbishop Dunstan had ordained that pins, or nails should
be fastened into drinking cups, at stated distances, to prevent persons
drinking beyond these marks. This well-intended measure back-fired,
and the pegs that were intended as being restrictive, were seen as
challenges for drinking, and thus, a means of intemperance. This abuse,
which was at first an occasional pastime, developed into a national sport,
and was known as pin-drinking, or pin-nicking. Cups marked with
pins were called peg-tankards and normally held two quarts; thus, with
eight pegs in a row, there was a half-pint between each peg. Anselms
measures to moderate ale consumption obviously took some time to
have any effect, for William of Malmesbury, commenting on the drinking
habits of the British people in the first half of the 12thcentury, says:
Drinking in particular was a universal practice, in which occupation they passed
entire nights as well as days. They consumed their whole substance in mean and
despicable houses; unlike the Normans and the French, who in noble and splendid mansions lived with frugality. They were accustomed to eat till they became
surfeited, and to drink till they were sick. These latter qualities they imparted to
their conquerors; as to the rest, they adopted their manners.
The first documentation regarding the export of English ale is provided in the account of the visit of Thomas Becket to France in 1158
(Barlow, 1997). At this time, Becket was Henry 11s chancelloq2 and was
receiving a thorough grounding in the kings modus operandi. Henry
was about to make an alliance with the French king Louis, part of which
involved the betrothal of Henrys eldest surviving son (another Henry)
to Louis infant daughter. To settle the terms of the contract, Becket
Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162.
289
The French were obviously highly impressed with the liquid offering,
and the whole embassy was most successful. From the above statement,
there is a suggestion that the beer was drawn-off bright before embarking upon its journey. If that is the case, then it must have been a highly
alcoholic product in order to have had any shelf-life. There would have
been no preservative activity imparted by the hop, because English ale
would almost certainly not have been flavoured with that plant at this
time. It is thought that this batch of ale was brewed in Canterbury, for
the major ecclesiastical centres were gaining a reputation for superb ale;
that from Ely also enjoying a lofty reputation from the 12th century
onwards, as witnessed in a rare 14thcentury manuscript in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford (Douce MS. 98, ff. 195-6), which contains a list of the
important English towns of the time, together with their main attributes.
Entry no. 73 reads ceruyse de Ely.
The luxurious standard of living of some monks at this period, particularly at Canterbury and Winchester, was remarked upon by Gerald
of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) who, on one of his travels through
England, remarked on being entertained to a meal at Canterbury, on
Trinity Sunday, 1180:
Theirdining table had an abundance of exquisitecookery and so muchJine wine
(claret), mead, mulberry juice and other strong liquors that there was no roomf o r
ale - even though the best was made in England, andparticularly in Kent.
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29 1
in 1199, his brother John inherited the throne. If the English barons
thought that Johns demands would be more moderate, then they were
wrong. Furthermore, most of the money raised by taxation was being
wasted on another war with France. As Lane (1901) says of King John:
He was unfortunate in his battles and lost all his fathers dominions in France
north of the Loire. Those reverses were adjusted by plundering his English
subjects and exacting heavy taxesfrom them.
Nobody trusted John, and nobody liked him. He even quarrelled with
the Pope, which resulted in English church-goers being refused the right
to take communion; John, himself, being ex-communicated. The barons
gave John an ultimatum; either he accepted their demands for better
treatment, or they would rise in revolt. All this culminated in the signing
of the Magna Charta on the Thames, at Runnymede, on WhJune 1215.
The document contained 63 clauses, one of which, clause 35, declaring
that there should be uniform weights and measures throughout the kingdom; specific mention being made of standard measures for ale, wine
and corn. The clause reads: One measure of wine shall be through our
realm, and one measure of ale, and one measure of corn, that is to say the
quarter of London.
After initially agreeing to the Charta, John tried to renege and this
resulted in more gross dissatisfaction by the barons - leading ultimately
to civil war. We learn something about the amount of grain required
to produce everyday bread and ale at this period from the records of
Dover Castle during the siege of 1216. Dover had been garrisoned since
the earliest times, it is probable that the Celts had a fortress there, and the
castle was being held for King John, against the French, by one Hubert
de Burgh. The English barons, disenchanted by John, had invited
Louis, dauphin of France, to rid them of Johns rule, hence the siege.
Documents show that for the maintenance of 1,000 men for 40 days, the
following was required:
180 quarters of wheat to provide a loaf per day per man,
600 gallons of wine,
260 quarters of malt, wherewith to brew 520 gallons of beer per day.
Thus, with a quarter of malt being equivalent to 336 lb, they were using
2,184 lb per day to produce ca. 14.44 barrels of beer (assuming a barrel to
be 36 gallons). This approximates to 4,160 pints brewed daily; an allowance of about half a gallon per man. The strength of the beer should have
been around 1060 original gravity (ca. 6% ABV, depending upon the
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efficiency of the brewing process). Compare this with the situation at the
end of the 19thcentury, where 4 barrels of good beer came from a quarter
of malt; by definition, for excise purposes, the standard barrel was 36
gallons of beer brewed from 84 lb of malt at an OG of 1055.
King John did not live long enough to witness much of the fighting,
for he died at Newark, Nottinghamshire, at the end of 1216, rumour has
it as a result of eating too many peaches and drinking too much sweet
ale! This diet apparently aggravated a fever that he had at the time. Sir
Walter Scott, in Ivanhoe, admits that:
John, and those who courted his pleasure by imitating his foibles, were apt to
indulge to excess in the pleasures of the trencher and the goblet . . . indeed, it is
well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches and new ale.
293
usually some shovels, pots, ladles, etc., in the household, available for
brewing, especially if it was on a small scale. Brewing was more timeconsuming, especially when malting had to be included, and the final
certainly until the introduction of
product soured very quickly
hops. The sale of ale was also a more haphazard event; households
selling only if they had a surplus. Thus, we find that bakers tended
to pay one large annual fee to the Great Court, or View of Frankpledge,
whilst brewers (more accurately, brewsters), who tended to brew intermittently and unpredictably, were assessed at regular intervals, usually
at the manorial court. The ale-conners would identify and fine all persons who had sold ale since the last court, and any transgressors would
be presented.
The relative abundance of bakers and brewers can be illustrated by
referring to Halesowen, a small town in the West Midlands, in the 1340s,
where there were five full-time bakers (all male) and around twenty-five
brewers, most of whom were female, and who carried out other activities
(Hilton, 1985). As Hilton observes, brewing was clearly a part-time
occupation for householders mainly engaged in other trades. That said,
ale-brewers were by no means an insignificant element in the trading
population, although their apparent prominence is due to the surviving
documentation arising from attempts to control them.
In Exeter, Devonshire, it is recorded that during the period 1365-1 393,
almost 75% of all households brewed and sold ale, some 29% being
regarded as commercial brewers since they brewed ten times, or
more, during that period. Records do not show how often a household
brewed, or the volume of ale brewed at any one time (Kowaleski, 1995).
The female brewers were the ale-wives (see page 325), who were, first and
foremost, wives, and, secondarily, brewers and ale-sellers.
In the Assize it was specified that the ingredients of ale were to consist
only of malt (usually made from barley, but sometimes other cereals),
water and yeast. Also, appertaining to ale, it was declared that:
-
When a quarter of wheat is sold for 3s. or 3s.4d., and a quarter of barley for
20d. or 2s., and a quarter of outs for 16d., then brewers in cities ought and may
well afford to sell two gallons of beer or ale for apenny, and out of cities to sell
three gallons for a penny. And when in a town three gallons of ale are sold for a
penny, out of town they ought and may sell four,. and this Assize ought to be
holden throughout all England.
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295
which, by the end of the 19th century, was destined to become the
brewing capital of Britain. The original monastery was endowed with
rentals from around 70 manors that Spot had acquired throughout the
Midlands. There is some dispute as to the actual date of the foundation
of the monastery, as the relevant extant document was not signed or
dated. As a result, the town of Burton-on-Trent celebrated 1,000 years of
brewing history in 2002.
According to Sir Walter Scotts Ivanhoe, the Abbey at Burton, in the
time of Richard Coeur-de-Lion (1 189-1 199), had acquired a lofty
reputation for its conventual ale. The earliest historical reference to such
eminence for Burton ale comes from a ditty of 1295:
The Abbot of Burton brewed good ale,
On Fridays when they fasted,
But the Abbot of Burton never tasted his own
A s long as his neighbours lasted.
In those days the Abbot was the lord of the manor, and he was
either very mean or very artful; preferring to let his ale mature in cask whilst drinking that brewed by someone else. Also in 1295, there occurs
one of the first references to the Abbey brewhouse, in which a couper
named Hugh Crispe is mentioned. Brewing must have been pretty well
confined to the ecclesiastics for, in a document of 1319, which itemised
the rental of properties in Burton, the population was given as 1,800
souls, not one of whom was engaged in the trade of brewing. Even in
those days the numerous wells in, and around Burton, were recognised
as being special for brewing purposes. Brewing was being carried out
long before 1295, however, according to Hart (1975) from at least the
early years of the 11th century. She mentions that the Wetmore estate was
not incorporated into the lands of Burton Abbey in 1004, and was transferred by a transaction of 1012, which necessitated a separate charter.
The first part of the description of the boundaries of the Wetmore estate
says: Firstfrom trente where the thieves hang in the middle of bere fordes
holme. The Old English bereford was a common description of fords
carrying trackways along which barley was transported. The holme, or
water-meadow, lay north of the present bridge over the River Trent.
Also, in the records of Burton Abbey5 for 1295, there is a reference to a
pension to be paid, which, amongst other things, specifies two gallons of
convent beer.
Those interested in the early history of Burton-on-Trent might like to know that in the mid-13h
century all the known pre-Conquest charters of the Abbey were copied into one volume, now
preserved in the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth (catalogued as MS Peniarth 390).
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296
297
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299
reverenced Cross, in whose honour they have come together, will keep them from
all ills and sins. And if any sister does not bring her tankard, as is above said,
she shall pay a halfpenny. Also, if any brother or sister shall, after the bell has
sounded, quarrel, or stir up a quarrel, he shall pay a halfpenny.
There were perks in those olden days for officers of formal bodies;
just as today. Again, from one of the Lincoln Gilds, this time the Fullers
(founded 1297), we read:
Farther, it is ordained that the Graceman and the two Wardens of the gild shall
each of them have, at the feast of the gild, two gallons of ale, and the Dean one
gallon.
The Dean could also benefit when new guild members were appointed,
as can be seen from the Gild of Tylers of Lincoln:
Every incomer shall make himself known to the Graceman, but must be
admitted by the common consent of the gild, and be sworn to keep the
ordinances. And each shall give a quarter of barley, and pay ij.d. to the ale, and
jd. to the Dean.
As well as directing the provision of ale to the poor, some guilds were
pro-active in regulating the amount of ale brewed, and the price that
should be charged. Thus, the Gild at Berwick-upon-Tweed ordained in
the 13ih century that, No woman shall buy [at one time] more than a
chaldron of oats for making beer to sell, and, No woman shall sell
ale, from Easter till Michaelmas, at dearer than twopence a gallon; nor,
from Michaelmas to Easter, at dearer than a penny. And the names of
the ale-wives shall be registered. These two ordinances are particularly
interesting, because they not only emphasise the dominant role played by
women in ale-production, but also confirm the widespread use of oats as
a raw material for ale in northern Britain.
As important as ale was in the playing out of the day-to-day business
of the gilds, there are no documented details relating to amounts of beer
brewed at this time. For any hints at all, we have to rely on a few records
concerning domestic brewing in elite households; one of the most forthcoming being found in the 1333-1334 ledger accounts of Elizabeth de
Burgh, who was Lady of Clare, in Suffolk. We are told that, on average,
the household brewed about eight quarters of barley every week,
each quarter yielding around 60 gallons of ale. Brewing, though, could
The ale referred to here is an Old English word meaning feast. Thus, there were Whitsun-ale,
Church-ale, Bride-ale, etc., efc. The latter forms the base of the modern word bridal. See later
reference to Church-ale.
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301
because Henry I11 was on his death bed, and the future king was in
Palestine. Herveys corrupt rule, at the time, represented a crisis in Londons municipal history, and amongst other civic misdemeanours, he
took bribes from bakers and brewers to allow them to sell loaves below
weight, and ale below the assize. At the end of his shortened term of
office (the 24 Aldermen took over Londons civic affairs) he was called to
account, the ordinances he had made were disallowed, he was degraded
from his aldermanry, and excluded forever from city affairs. If Hervey
was a soft touch for the Brewers Company, then Dick Whittington
certainly was not and was regarded as a thorn in their side, for he was
continually bemoaning the dearness of their ale. The brewers felt that
Whittingtons antipathy towards them was primarily due to jealousy and
the record book for the Company of 1420 has a paragraph proclaiming:
Richard Whityngton, Mayor took offence against the brewers f o r serving f a t
swans at their feast when he had none at his, and compelled them to sell cheap
beer at one penny a gallon all the following day.
The brewers gained some renown for their extravagant feasts, and in
1425 spent the princely sum of E38 on the event, when 21 swans at 3s 9d
each were provided, and the bill for poultry alone came to E8, including,
besides the swans; two geese at 8d, 40 capons at 6d, 40 conies at 3d, 48
partridges at 4d, 12 woodcocks at 4d, 12% doz. smaller birds at 6d the
doz., 3 doz. plovers at 3s, 18 doz. larks at 4d, and 6 doz. little birds at 1%d
a doz. Whittington really was upset with the brewers and continued his
persecution of them even after his period of office as mayor. In 1422,
during the mayoralty of one Robert Chichele, 12 brewers were hauled
before the mayor and aldermen of the City, an event that was recorded
by the Brewers Company as follows:
And whanne the forsaid Brewers comen before the Mayor and Aldermen, John
Fray atte that tyme beyng Recorder of the said cite said to the Brewers y n this
wise: Sires ye ben accused here that ye selle dere ale and sette your ale atte
gretter pris thanne ye shold do0 without live of this court; and moreover ye be
bounden yn this court yn a reconnsance of X X li, at what maner pris that malt is
solde, ye sholen selle your best ale out of your houses to your customers for 9d.
oh, that is a barell for xlii d and no derrer. And after this the mayor axed of
Robert Smyth how he solde a barell of his beste ale and he answered for v s and
some barell for iiii s, x d. And on this manner seyden the moste parte of Brewers
that were atte that tyme there present. And the Mayor shewed hem diverse
ensamples of malt y n the same court to the which malt the Brewers answered
that thei cowd make noo good ale thereof.. . And the moste parte of the
comones of the said citee setden that hit was a.fals thing to sell here ale so dere
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while they myghten have malt so good chepe, bote men seyden atte that tyme that
Brewers were cause of the derthe of malt with ther ridinge y n to divers contrees
to bie malt . . . Then seide the Mayor and alle the Aldermen that they were
condemned yn her bond of xx li, and the mayor ordayned . . . that the . . .
maistres of Brewers craft . . . shold be kept yn the ward of the Chamberlayn . . .
And thus thei did abide . . . unto the tyme that the Mayor and the Aldermen
weren goon horn ward to her mete and after this the seide maistres geden to the
Chamberlayn and to John Carpenter dede commande hem to goon home to here
houses. And so John Carpenter behight hem atte that tyme that thei shold no
more harm have neither of prisonment of her bodies ne of losse of xx li for we1
thei wysten and knewen that alle the forsaid judgement of the mayor and the
aldermen was not done at that tyme but for to plese Richard Whityngton.
The word mistery or mystery is derived from the French, m&ier = trade, or profession.
303
Bryene, of Acton Hall, Suffolk, recorded just before the Battle of Agincourt, we find that brewing was undertaken weekly (Redstone, 193l), and
the entries listed under The Brewing always read 2qrs malt, whereof
one of drage, whence came 112 gall. ale. Whilst most eminent households brewed their own ale at this time, there were some notable
exceptions; Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire being one. Here, Elizabeth
Berkeley, Countess of Warwick, in deference to its poor keeping
qualities, preferred to purchase ale for domestic use, as and when it
was required. The household accounts for the period 1420-1421 (the
accounting year ran from lStOctober) show that ale was usually purchased in lots of up to 500 gallons, generally in equal quantities of the
better ale (melioris ceruisie), which was about 1%d or 1%d per gallon,
when bought in bulk, and the second ale (secunde ceruisie), at Id or a
little less per gallon. During that particular accounting year, Ross (195 1)
reports that 18,950 gallons were consumed by the Berkeley household.
Ale purchases were usually made at intervals of one week or ten days,
but for special occasions it was procured in larger quantities; for
example, 1,209 gallons were bought on 17thDecember 1420, for the sum
of &5 9s 6d, to last for the period of the Christmas festivities up to
Twelfth Night, and 2,592 gallons were bought in Worcester in August
1421, at a cost of El7 4s, which kept the household in ale for the
remainder of the accounting period. Thus, some of this batch of ale was
expected to keep for around six weeks. When the household was on
the move, ale was purchased in smaller quantities, and this resulted in
it fetching a higher price, 2d per gallon being quite usual, although the
highest price recorded was 2%d per gallon.
To illustrate the normal pattern of purchasing, let us consider the
situation in October 1420. The first 285 gallons consumed that month
represented the residue from the previous year. The first purchase was
made on 6thOctober, 494 gallons, and this was followed by 390 gallons
on the 16h,299 on the 24h,and 364 on the 30th.As Ross reports, the total
cost of &95for ale in that period proved almost as expensive as wine, and,
in sum the countess drink bill slightly exceeded & 190, and accounted for
about 20% of all household expenditure.
HOPS
It is probably now time to consider the use of the hop plant (the botanical name of which is Humulus lupulus L.) in British (mainly English)
brewing, for it is around the end of the 14h century that the plant
becomes mentioned with increasing regularity, and what was supposedly
the first sample of hopped-beer arrived at Winchelsea, Sussex, from
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Holland in 1400. This consignment had been ordered by Dutch merchants working in England, who could not get on with the native sweet
English ale. On the Continent, its use for flavouring and preserving beer
seems to have commenced around the middle of the Sth century AD, for
in 736 we hear of the crop being grown in the garden of a Wendish
prisoner at Geisenfeld, in the Hallertau region of Bavaria. As Neve
(1991) reports, the Wends were Slavs, and it is thought that the Slav word
for hop, hmeZj,may have a Finnish origin, which would lend credence
to the view, held by some, that the earliest use of hops in brewing can be
attributed to Scandinavia. Certainly, there is mention of hops in the
Finnish saga, The Kalevala, reputedly some 3,000 years old, but certainly
from the pre-Christian era, where the start of the Beer Lay is as follows
(Lonnrot, 1963):
The origin of beer is barley, of the superior drink the hop plant,
though that is not produced without water or a good hot fire.
The hop, son of Remunen, was stuck in the ground when little,
was plowed into the ground like a serpent, was thrown away like a stinging nettle
to the side of a Kaleva spring, to the edge of an Osmofield.
Then the young seedling came up, a slender green shoot came up;
it went up into a little tree, climbed to the crown.
The-fatherof good fortune sowed barley at the end of the newly cultivated Osmo
field;
the barley grew beautifully, rose up finely at the end of the newly cultivated
Osmo fie Id,
on the clearing of a Kaleva descendant.
A little time passed. Now the hop vine cried out from the tree,
the barley spoke from the end of the field, the water from the Kaleva spring:
When will we he joined together, when to one another?
Life alone is dreary; it is nicer with two or three.
An Osmo descendant, a brewer of beer, a maiden, maker of table beers,
took some grains of barley, six grains of barley,
seven hop pods, eight dippers of water;
then she put a pot on the fire, brought the liquor to the boil. . .
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integritate, lands in the forest of Iveline, which contain areas acknowledged for growths of wild hops. There is no evidence to suggest that
hops were actually cultivated in this area, it may be just a place name,
or at the very least a place where hops were collected, or even stored and
processed. In fact, cultivation of hops is unlikely here at that time,
because the plant is not mentioned in Charlemagnes CapituZure de ViZZis
(cu. AD SOO), a document which recorded everything concerned with the
royal estates, including the plants that were grown on them. Again, there
is no direct reference to these hops being used for making beer.
The first reference to hops being actually used in brewing is to be
found in a series of statutes issued by Abbot Adalhardus from the
monastery of Corvey, on the river Weser, in Germany who, in a rather
misinterpreted and misunderstood ordinance of AD 822, defines the
duties of millers on their vast monastic estate (Levillain, 1900). They are
excluded from some of the duties expected of other tenants, notably; the
sowing of seeds, the making of malt, and the gathering of firewood and
hops. Somehow, this part of the passage has been interpreted as meaning
that the Abbot is releasing millers from their duty of grinding malt and
hops (Bickerdyke, 1886), which, in relation to modern brewing methodology, doesnt quite make sense. Hops grew abundantly along forest
margins in the flood plain of the river, and they were collected from the
wild, which posed certain problems relating to ownership. A later statute, however, refers quite specifically to the use of hops for brewing
purpose^:^
De humlone quoque, postquam ad monasterium venerit, decima ei portio . . .
detur. Si hoc ei non suffit, ipse . . . sibi adquirat unde ad cervisas suas faciendas
sufficienter habeat.
This pre-dates by some 300 years the oft-quoted statement by Abbess Hildegard of St
Ruprechtsberg (1098-1 179), near Bingen, Germany who remarks in her Physica (ca. 1 150-1 160),
Ijone intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops. Hildegard also appreciated the
preservative qualities of hops but whether she confined the use of hops to beer made with oats, is
a debatable point, for Behre (1999) avers that Hildegard disliked the use of hops for making beer,
and actually recommended the use of sweet gale. Physica also contained details of the medicinal
value of hops in treating womens complaints.
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estate at that time. We do know, however, that hops were being quite
commonly cultivated in mainland Europe from the middle of the gth
century. Whilst some of these records are from France, the majority
emanate from Bohemia, Slovenia and Bavaria, and there is much justification for believing that hop cultivation was developed in these states and
spread gradually to the rest of Europe (then the world).
Neve (1976) maintains that the hop cultivars in these areas had,
until recently, been extremely uniform and limited to two basic types;
namely the Hallertauer hop in Bavaria, and the Saaz type in Czechoslovakia (that was) and parts of Germany. According to Neve, it seems
likely that these were selected from within local indigenous populations
for their superior beer preservative and flavouring characteristics. The
impossibility of distinguishing between wild and cultivated plants
suggests that little, if any, improvement of the indigenous hops was
achieved during the primary domestication.
In an extensive survey of the history of beer flavouring agents (with
particular reference to sweet gale and the hop), Behre (1999) maintains
that the natural distribution area of Humulus lupulus included the
temperate regions of Europe and extended to mid-Scandinavia, as well as
the Mediterranean region. Being a climbing plant, it favoured floodplain forest edges and fen woods (carr), but after the opening-up of
naturally afforested areas, it colonised some man-made habitats, such as
hedges and buildings. Ancient remains of the hop are rarely encountered
in carbonised form; they mostly take the form of preserved fruitlets and
bracteoles from waterlogged sites. There are no early records from south
of the Alps, which strongly suggests the preponderance of wine as
the main alcoholic drink there. There are relatively few records from the
Neolithic, the pre-Roman Iron Age, and the Roman period, and the
volume of material found at any one site does not suggest the use of hops
in brewing during such early times. Indeed, as we have seen, some of the
Roman writers make plentiful reference to Germanic and Celtic beer,
and they occasionally mention cereals, but never hops.
The oldest early Medieval finds of substantial quantities of
hop material are from Develier, in Switzerland (6th-8thcentury), and
Serris-Les Ruelles, France (7th-9thcentury). The early Medieval hop finds
are scattered over large parts of central and western Europe, and,
because of a lack of early sites, it is difficult to ascertain where hops
might first have been used in brewing. On the basis of what is known,
western Switzerland and France seem to be the favourite candidates,
although Darling (1961) states that: There appears to be little doubt that
hops were first used in brewing in western Asia and eastern Europe. From
this area the practice spread westwards, and by the I S h century the cultiva-
307
tion of the crop was general in the Slav and Germanic countries, in the
Netherlands and in the Burgundy area of France. After the first millennium AD, the number of sites with records of Humulus lupulus increase
markedly, and Medieval sites are now common in central Europe, as well
as in the west and north. There are numerous records from the Netherlands, northern Germany and the Czech Republic.
Despite citations previously referred to, archaeobotanical evidence
suggests that beer production in these early times was not necessarily
dominated by monasteries, as has generally been thought. Most records
of hops from the early and high Middle Ages do not come from monastic
sites. Indeed, some of the early finds from the northern European
mainland date back to pre-Christian times. The Benedictine monks
from the Hochstift monastery, Freisingen, also in Bavaria, are generally
credited with being the first to actually cultivate hops, because documents for the years AD 859-875 mention orchards, fields and humularia,
i.e. hop gardens, but there is no cast-iron evidence that the hops were
actually used in their monastic beers; they could have been destined for
medicinal uses. Other mid-9fhcentury examples of hop cultivation can
be found in the documents from the French monasteries at St Remi and
St. Germain, and the Abbey at Lobbes (Wilson, 1975). Most of these
sources relate to hop duties levied on the tenants of monastic lands, and
intentional cultivation is implicit in these documents.
What about the other major beer-drinking countries of northern
Europe? Nordland (1969), in a fascinating survey of brewing traditions in
Norway, suggests that the cultivation of hops for brewing spread to Denmark (hop = humli) during the first half of the 13thcentury, and in the latter
part of that century there is mention of the hop in some legal documents of
certain Swedish provinces (Uppland and Gotland). Hops are mentioned in
some laws, in the same century, in some parts of Norway, and early in the
14hcentury we hear of hop cultivation in Norwegian monasteries. One of
the earliest Norwegian documents to mention hops, dates from 1311 and
relates to the garden of the Brethren of the Cross in Trondheim.
During the l S h century, the clergy and the monarchy of most
Scandinavian countries made serious attempts to increase hop production in their lands. For example, in 1442, Christopher of Bavaria,
who was also king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1442-1448,
decreed that all farmers were to have forty poles f o r growing hops. The
areas of land set aside for the growing of hops were the hop beds, or
humlekuler, and by the end of that century, registered farmers were
required to allow for a certain area of their land to be put over to
hop husbandry. All this is in accordance with the archaeobotanical
evidence presented by Behre (1999), who reports that hopped beer from
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The Jews were captive in Babylon in 597 BC, but no source for this
translation is given by Bickerdyke. According to Wilson (1975), Zupulis
is an anachronism, the original Hebrew, written down in the 4thcentury
AD actually mentions cuscuta of the hizme shrub, which has been
shown to mean Cuscuta growing wild on Acacia alba. We have come
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313
The entry for the former reads, Cervisia, C. F. cervisia quasi Cereris vis
in aqua, hec Ceres, i. Dea frumenti; (et hic nota bene quod est potus
Anglorum, P.), whilst that for bere says, a drynke. Hummulina, vel
hummuli potus, aut cervisia hummulina (berziza, l?)
In Mayhews later 1908 version, ale is accorded, Ceruisia, -e; fem.
[sen.],prime [decl.], campusjlorum. Ceruisia dicitur quasi cereris vis in
aqua; hec ceres, -ris, de[a]frumenti, terre frumentum. In the same work,
beere is defined as, drink: hummulina, -e; fem., prime: hummulopotus
aut ceruisia hummuluna: limpiletum.
Cockayne is convinced that the cultivation and use of the hop in
Britain is even more antiquated than this, and go back to Saxon times, at
least. To use Cockaynes own words:
I have sufficiently, in the Glossary, established that the hop plant and its use
were known to the Saxons, and that they called it by a name, after which I have
enquired in vain among hop growers and hop pickers in Worcestershire and Kent,
the Hymele. The hop grows wild in our hedges, male and female, and the Saxons
in this state called it the hedge hymele; a good validpresumption that they knew
it in its fertility. Three of the Saxon legal deeds extant refer to a hide of land at
Hymel-tun in Worcestershire, the land of the garden hop, and as tun means an
enclosure, there can be not much doubt that this was a hop farm. The bounds of it
ran down to the hymel brook, or hop plant brook, a name which occurs about the
Severn and the Worcestershire Avon in other deeds. One of the unpublished
affords the Saxon word H o p , hops, and Hopwood in Worcestershire doubtless
is thence named. Perhaps, to explain some testimonies to a more recent
importation of hops, it may be suggested that, as land or sea carriage of pockets
of hops from Worcestershire to London or the southern ports was difficult, the
use of the hop was long confined to that their natural soil, while the Kentish hops
may be a gift from Germany.
Lawrence (1990) too considers that hops may have grown in England
prior to the generally-quoted dates, and thinks that Flemish weavers
(not Germans) may have introduced the crop, on a small scale, to Kent,
probably around the Cranbrook area soon after 133 1. It was in that year
that Edward I11 invited John Kemp of Ghent and some compatriots to
these shores to teach the English the art of weaving. These settlers would
have been used to hopped beer at home, and would have undoubtedly
attempted to brew the same over here. Lawrence feels, also, that there
were other immigrants from the Continent, who contributed to smallscale hop growing in southeast England. Hops were certainly being used
lo
Is this Himbleton?
314
Chapter 6
315
about one-quarter of the ale exported from that port. Customs reports
indicate that Lynn was the most important ale-exporting port in England
at this time.
Apparently, for a variety of reasons, trade with Zeeland/Holland
fluctuated considerably over the ensuing years; from 29th September,
1308 to 8h August, 1309, for example, only E36 worth of ale went to
Zeeland, and this had been reduced to El2 10s during the period 20th
July, 1322 to 29h September 1323. Increased quantities were exported
during 1336-7, but trade declined after the mid-century, most markedly
when English barley began to be shipped to Holland and Zeeland,
licences for this transaction first being mentioned ca. 1375. Much of this
barley was presumably destined for malting and eventually brewing, thus
bolstering a growing Dutch brewing capability. Indeed, malt itself had
been exported from England to Holland some 40-odd years before, when
in 1337 one Thomas de Melcheburn obtained a licence for the export of
500 quarters of malt from Lynn. This trade in malt continued through
to the 15thcentury, mostly via Dutch ships plying to and from Lynn, and,
occasionally, around the Norfolk coast at Great Yarmouth.
The Hamburg beer-brewers, who had been exporting to Holland
since at least the 13thcentury, suffered in likewise fashion, when the
Dutch were able to brew more themselves. In addition, they suffered a
severe blow in 1321, when the Count of Holland gave permission to brew
with the use of hops in his country; by 1326 beer was being brewed in
commercial breweries in Delft and Leyden (Leiden). Then, in 1323,
the Count established a beer-toll in Amsterdam, which stipulated
that Hamburg merchants had to concentrate their beer trade in this
town. Other towns would have been supplied with Hamburg beer by
Dutch merchants, but when they found it more convenient to trade
in other commodities, trade dwindled, and by 1400 (the year that the
Dutch famously sent beer to Winchelsea!) there was almost a complete
cessation of the import of Hamburg beer. This, of course, begs the
question, Was it Dutch or German beer that arrived at Winchelsea?
By the end of the 14fhcentury, with the aid of foreign barley/malt and
fuel, Holland was apparently self-sufficient in its beer requirements,
so much so that copious quantities were exported, not only to England,
but to Calais and Flanders. Kerling states, quite categorically that there
was a goldenperiod of about 20 years, during which Dutch merchants
shipped huge quantities of their (and German) beer. She says:
Beer was brought in ships from Holland to many English ports along the
east coast between about 1380 and theJirst years of the 15th century. Only to
Lynn did they not come, obviously because the competition of the ale brewed in
316
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that town, was too great. We find these ships with beer in Great Yarmouth,
Scarhorough, Newcastle and Ipswich during the above mentioned period.
Some of this beer was no doubt of German origin, especially when it was in an
Amsterdam sh@, but the many small ships belonging to local ports in Holland
which plied between England and the Low Countries, must have had beer on
board, which was brewed in Haarlem, Leyden, Delft, or Gouda.
Kerling feels that export of Dutch beer to England reached its peak in
1400, and declined thereafter. The figures relating to the important Essex
town of Colchester bear testament to this, for, as Britnell(l986) records,
about 100 barrels of beer were arriving at The Hythe (Colchesters port)
annually. For the year commencing loth July, 1397, the actual amount
imported was 7 lasts and 16 barrels, a last being equivalent to 12
barrels. No hops were recorded as imports at this time. By the 1450s and
1460s, no beer was being imported, but plenty of hops. The earliest
recorded offences in Colchester relating to beer were in 1408, when five
beer-sellers were amerced for selling incorrect measures.
There was also an extensive Dutch beer trade to Calais, a trade
that replaced one of imported English ale, when the people of the
town decided that they preferred the hopped beverage. So extensive and
lucrative was the trade with this part of France, that Holland decided
that it was necessary to appoint their own broker in Calais in 1397.
According to records, the last such broker to be appointed was one
William Orwelle in 1415 (he carried on until 1422, when, during the civil
war in Holland, one of his ships, with its cargo of beer, was confiscated).
In addition to delivering beer, Dutch ships returned home with wool
from the environs of Calais, to furnish their extensive cloth industry, and
it is noticeable that most of the major weaving towns, such as Haarlem
and Leiden, had their own breweries. It is likely that fuel and corn were
brought back to Holland on these ships, as well as wool.
After 1403, there was a marked fall in the volume of beer shipped to
England and this was accentuated during 1407-1408, when there were
severe floods in northern France, which drastically affected the growing
of grain and hence brewing in Holland, which resulted in beer exports
being curtailed. Add to this a civil war which began in 1417 and lasted
until 1428, and a war between Holland and England commencing in
1435, and one can see that export of beer was becoming a precarious
and non-profitable business. Worse was to follow for Holland, when
It is thought that, over the years of this trade with Holland, more beer was imported via Newcastle than anywhere else in England, it being highly likely that loads of coal, of equivalent value,
were taken back to Holland for use as fuel in breweries over there.
317
hostilities with the Hanse started in 1438 (lasting until 1441), preventing
trade with that part of Germany, and this was immediately followed,
later in the year, with very bad corn harvests in Holland and Zeeland. By
1440 only small quantities of beer travelled from Holland to England,
and by 1466, the sole trade was between the towns of Gouda and Haarlem and Newcastle, coal travelling in the reverse direction. The situation
regarding beer production in Holland became even more precarious, for
in 1480 so little beer was being brewed that they were forced to import
small quantities from England. The beer was shipped from Lynn, Great
Yarmouth and Boston (Lincolnshire), in vessels owned by merchants
from Holland and Zeeland. Some of the Customs & Excise records survive, and indicate the value of loads shipped. Table 6.1 gives an example.
Port of export
Lynn
Gt. Yarmouth
Lynn
Lynn
Boston
&5 0s Od
El0 6s 8d
&96s 8d
El1 12s 8db
54 10s Od
318
Chapter 6
319
All brewers of beer should continue their art in spite of malevolent attempts
made to prevent natives of Holland and Zeeland and others from making beer,
on the grounds that it was poisonous and not f i t to drink and caused drunkenness,
whereas it is a wholesome drink, especially in summer.
For the next 50 years, the City of London Letter Books show that
the Brewers Company were forever seeking new ordinances, usually
aimed at tightening their stranglehold on the London trade. The City
authorities, however, saw the foreign beer brewers in, and around the
City, as being beneficial, especially in terms of providing competition,
thus ensuring that the native craftsmen kept their prices under control.
A decree of 1478 states, Inasmuch as brewers of the City enhance the
price of beer against the Common weal, foreign brewers should come into
the City, and therefreely sell their beer until further order.
The foreign brewers, congregated themselves in Southwark, which
was outside the jurisdiction of the Brewers Company (it was then in the
county of Surrey), and where they could ply their trade quite freely. This
caused much annoyance to the monopolistic City brewers. It is thought
that the first common beer-brewers were congregating there by 1336.12By
the 16h century, Southwark had become the vogue for entertainment,
and by 1598, the London chronicler, John Stow (ca. 1525-1605), in his
Survay of London records 26 common brewers in the small area of riverside Southwark and near the Tower of London. There were several famous ale-houses there, including the Chaucerian Tabard Inn, and the
Mermaid Tavern, of Shakespearian fame, and, of course, there were the
new theatres on Bankside, including the Globe, headquarters of Shakespeares Company. The playwright, Christopher Marlowe, was killed in a
drunken brawl in a Southwark tavern in 1593!
Southwark ale, in fact had gained notoriety long before this time,
however, and was renowned in the era of Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 13401400). In his Canterbury Tales, the bulk of which are thought to have
been written between 1386 and 1391, the miller prepares himself for his
tale by swallowing large amounts of Southwark ale. The results are as to
be expected and are acknowledged by the rascally miller:
Now herkeneth, quod the miller, all and some
ButJirst I make a protestatioun,
That I am dronke, I know it by my soun;
And therefore if that I misspeke or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwerk, I you pray.
A date which is in accord with Lawrences assertion - see above. Were the hops wild, cultivated, or
imported?
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The essence of part of this has often been interpreted as: And if the
words get muddled in my tale, just put it down to too much Southwark ale.
The over-indulgence presumably occurred in the Tabard Inn, which was
the usual starting-place for pilgrims making the trip to Canterbury.
In Chaucers day, mine host was one, Harry Bailey, whose idea it was
that the pilgrims should recount tales of their journey; the one with
the best story being treated to a meal at the Tabard at the expense of the
others.
In 1450, hops were blamed for the antics of Jack Cade, the rebel
leader; presumably he must have been drinking Southwark beer. They
were held to be responsible for him stirring up trouble and for him
leading the rebellion against the government. Shakespeare hints of
Cades predilection for strong ale in Henry VI Part 2 (Act IV, scene 2);
speaking at Blackheath, he tells the mob:
Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be
in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot shall
have ten hoops; and I will make it a felony to drink small beer.
32 1
Most people are of the opinion that the Reinheitsgebot forbids the
use of anything but malt, hops, yeast and water for brewing beer. This is
not true. The original text of the decree, dated 23rdApril 1516, does not
mention malt, nor does it speak of yeast, whose effects were unknown at
that time. What Duke Wilhelm wrote that day in Ingolstadt was that in
his towns, market places and on throughout the country . . . that beer
should only be brewed from water, barley and hops. This edict essentially
prohibited the use of other cereals, herbs and spices that were popular at
that time in Bavaria (viz. wheat beers). The careful wording indicates that
the Reinheitsgebot was not to be applied to all brewers, restricting it to
towns etc., which implies that it was primarily aimed at commercial
brewers of the day. The Duke and his pals were free to use what they
wanted! The purity law applied originally to one part of Bavaria, but
became applicable to the whole of Germany when Bavaria became part
of the Deutsches Reich in the late 19hcentury.
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322
That no brewer take any servant that has not served his time as an apprentice
to the craft, and been made a Freeman of the City; nor keep in his house at one
time more than two or three apprentices at the most, that all such apprentices
befirst presented to the Wardens in the Common Hall of the Craft, and by them
be publicly examined as to their birth, cleanliness of their bodies and other
certain points.
As one can see from the above, serious efforts were being made to
combat dishonesty and to ensure that only suitable persons entered
the craft. There was, by now, increasing mention of beer in official circles
in England, as can be seen from the fact that John Merchant of the
Red Lion Brewery, London, was given permission by Henry VII, in
1492, to export 50 tuns of ale called Berre. This document also contained a grant of letters of safe conduct to a bere brewer of Greenwich,
named Peter Vanek, proving the country of his origin. This product
respectability led to the final seal of approval; the organisation of beer
brewers into their own craft guild, in 1493.
The berebrewers petitioned the Mayor and Aldermen of the City
of London, and, amongst other things, promised to keep strict control over their members, two of the clauses making specific reference
to hops:
That no one of the Craft send any wheat, malt or other grain for brewing to the
mill to be ground, not put any hops in the brewing unless it be clean and sweet,
under penalty of 20s.
That the said Rulers, with an officer of the Chamber appointed for the
purpose, shall search all manner of hops and other grain four times a year or
more, and taste and assay all beer.
323
BEER vs ALE
Having finally obtained the guild status that they desired, it was not long
before the beer-brewers were forced to relinquish it, for, in 1530, Henry
VIII outlawed the use of hops, preferring instead Good Old English
Ale.13 The following year, Henry forbade his own brewer at Eltham
Palace to use hops or brimstone in the royal ale. Hops were unpopular
on religious grounds for, coming from the Low Countries, they were
considered to be Protestantplants. The formal ban on the use of hops
in brewing in England lasted until 1552, when Edward VI repealed
Henrys 1530 Act. By this time even die-hard ale brewers were beginning
to appreciate the preservative, if not necessarily the flavour advantages of
the hop, and separate controlling bodies were not in evidence again. With
the increasing general acceptance of the hop as a brewing ingredient,
the terms ale and beer gradually lost their original meanings and
merged, although for many years the term ale still signified an unhopped
beverage. The first recorded English recipe for a brew containing
hops can be found in Arnolds The Customs of London, otherwise known
as Arnolds Chronicle, first published in Antwerp in 1503. The short
paragraph says (verbatim):
Tobrewe Beer.
X quarters malte, ij. Quarters wheet, ij. Quarters ootes, xl. 11. weight of
hoppys. To make lx. barells of sengyll beer.
Finis.
l3
It is debatable how effective this law was outside of London, for in 1533 there is a record of hop
gardens in Norfolk (Burgess, 1964).
Chapter 6
324
Ale is made of malte and water and they the whiche do put any other thynge to
ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or goddes good, doth sophysticall there
ale. Ale for an Englyssheman is a natural drynke. Ale must have theseproperties,
it must be fresshe and cleare, it must not be ropy, nor smoky, nor it muste have
no werte nor tayle. Ale shulde not be dranke under. v. days olde. Neue Ale is
vnholsome for all men. And sowre ale, and dead ale, and ale whiche doth stande a
tylte, is good for no man. Barly malte maketh better Ale than Oten malte or any
other come doth: it doth ingendre grose humours: but it maketh a man stronge.
Beere is made of malte, ofhoppes, and water. It is a natural1 drynke for a doche
man. And nowe of lete dayes it is moche vsed in England to the detryment of
many Englysshe men; specyally it kylleth them the whiche be troubled with the
Colycke and the stone, and the strayne coylyon; for the drynke is a colde drynke
yet it doth make a man fatte, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the
doche mennesfaces and belyes. If the beere be well served and be fyned and not
new, it doth qualify heat of the lyver.
Boorde fell into irregular ways and died in the Fleet prison, London,
after being found harbouring three whores in his rooms in Winchester.
His Dyetary was one of his chief works, although he also wrote his Boke
of Berdes, in which he tried to dissuade men from growing beards!
During the early decades of the 17th century, we come across the
emergence of a couplet, which should, in theory, accurately date the
introduction of hops into Britain. The rhyme has been attributed to
Sir Richard Baker (1568-1 649, who wrote the classic, but unreliable,
historical piece, Chronicle of the Kings of England unto the Death of King
James (otherwise known as Bakers Chronicle). This was written in 1643,
also in the Fleet prison, where Baker had been flung for debt. The rhyme
exists in several versions, three of which are given here:
Hops, reformation, bays and beer,
Came into England all in one year. or,
Hops and turkeys,14carp and beer,
Came into England all in a year. or,
Turkey, carp, hops, pickerill and beer,
Came into England all in a year.
The latter version is the one quoted by John Banister (sometimes spelled
Bannister) in his 1799 Synopsis of Husbandry, in which he uses the distich
to support his assertion that hops werefirst planted in England in 1511.
Compare this date with one given by another Hthcentury writer, Rev
l4
The turkey was introduced into England from Mexico ca. 1520.
325
John Laurence, who, in his New System of Agriculture (1726), states quite
categorically (without any evidence), Hops wereJirst brought from Flanders to England, Anno 1524, in the 15th year of K.Henry the 8th: before
which AlehooJ Wormwood etc. was generally used for the Preservation of
Drink. Dowel1 (1888) is more specific, and maintains that hops were
introduced to England from Artois in the beer-brewing Netherlands,
around 1525. The aversion to the use of hops for brewing, because some
of the English establishment regarded it to be a Protestant plant, must
have been a peculiarly English attitude, because the same author
recounts how hops were known to be used for brewing in Spain at
around this time. Using a letter written to Henry VIII by Bishop Tunstall
as a foundation, he writes:
Sir R. Wingfield one of the four sad and ancient knights who were made
gentlemen of the Kings bedchamber, when the household of Henry VIII was
reformed in 1520, being sick of a great flux, in Spain, went to a great feast of
the bishop of Arola, wherehe did eat millons and drank wyn without water unto
them, and afterwards drank bere, made there by force bytter of the hoppe, for
to be preserved the better against the intollerable hetis of this countrye. Four
days after this hedepartyd oute of this transitory l y r at Toledo in 1525.
Harrison goes on to indicate the extent to which the crop was being
cultivated, and to extol the superiority of English varieties over their
foreign counterparts, particularly in terms of cleanliness of sample. He
says:
Of late years, we have found and taken up a great trade in planting hops,
whereof our moory, hitherto unprofitable grounds do yield such plenty and
increase that there are few farmers or occupiers in the country which have
not gardens and hops growing of their own, and those far better than do
come from Flanders unto us. Certes the corruptions used by the Flemings
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Chapter 6
and forgery daily practised in this kind of ware gave us occasion to plant
them here at home, so that now we may spare and send many over to them.
Irrespective of the exact date when hops were first cultivated in the
British Isles, by the end of the Wh century, they were regarded as being
an important specialist crop. In William Owens Book of Fairs, of 1765,
for example, hops were reported as being sold at 25 fairs in England and
Wales. It was not until the following century, however, that hop-growing
in Britain reached its peak. In 1700, the area of Great Britain under hop
cultivation has been estimated at c.20,OOO acres, a figure that had risen
steadily to 35,000 acres by 1800. By 1870, hops were being cultivated in
40 counties in England; 8 in Wales, and 5 in Scotland, extending as far
north as Aberdeenshire. Hops ceased to be grown in Scotland in 1871,
and in Wales in 1874. At this time, a reasonable acreage was being grown
in Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Essex, but Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire accounted for 99% of the total
acreage (which was 60,580 acres), of which around 66% was in Kent!
English hop-growing reached its acme of 7 1,789 acres (Nottinghamshire,
Suffolk and Essex between them constituted under 300 acres !) in 1878,
and fluctuated around this level until 1886. Extensive speculation took
place, and much land was planted that was not suited to this demanding
crop. Inevitably, over-production occurred, with consequential financial
loss to many growers. Then, owing mainly to decreased demand, the
acreage gradually started to diminish. By 1900, production had dropped
back to the 1850 level of c.50,OOO acres, and the fall in acreage continued
until 1932 when the Hops Marketing Board was formed, and the total
acreage under hop cultivation had receded to approximately 16,500. This
inexorable decline in acreage was accompanied by the virtual disappearance of hop growing from all the counties of Great Britain except the six
major centres mentioned above; Kent, Sussex, etc.
327
Noppy, or nappy ale was of sufficient strength that it induced the imbiber to doze off.
329
enough, she is depicted with two mugs of ale in her hands, as a sign of
her calling. Skeltons description reads:
Her lothely lere
Is nothynge clere
But ugly of chere
Her face all bowsy
Comely crynkled
Wondrously wrinkled
Lyke a rost pigges eare
Brystled wyth here
Her nose somdele hoked
And camously croked
Her skynne lose and slacke
Grained like a sacke
With a croked backe
Her kyrtel Brystow red
With clothes upon her head
That wey a sowe of led.
These verses suggest that her dun hat and ruff were out of fashion and
objects of fun.
330
Chapter 6
BREWSTERS
As we have said, the years following the Assize of 1267 generated
much in the way of court records, principally fines, which have enabled
scholars to learn much about the rural family economy of the late 13th,
14thand l S h centuries. Through such records it has been possible to
unequivocally establish the importance of the female in brewing ale, and
as Power (1975) comments in her Medieval Women, It is rare to find a
record of a borough or a manor court in which brewsters were notjned for
using false measures, or for buying and selling contrary to the Assize.
33 1
In many towns and villages such records represent the sole surviving
contemporary accounts of day-to-day life, and they indicate that, in
effect, the Assize quickly evolved into a licensing system. An exhaustive
study of the role of the village ale-wife, during the six decades prior to
the Black Death (i.e. 1288-1348), has been carried out by Bennett
(1986), who compares the court rolls of three different villages: Brigstock, Northamptonshire, a manor surrounded by royal forests;
Houghton-cum-Wyton, in what was Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), an open-field farming community; and Iver, in Buckinghamshire,
a pastoral manor, where the main domestic activities were raising stock
and fishing. In every household at that time, ale was required in large
quantity, and at regular intervals. Unfortunately, the drink was highly
perishable, did not transport well and, with the equipment available at
that time, was not suited for large-scale, centralised, production. In addition, brewers of the period were not as entrepreneurial as, say, bakers
or cloth-merchants. Bread was probably more frequently purchased than
ale, thus making baking a business worthwhile investing in; certainly
bakers seemed to be more committed to their trade than did brewers.
Also, baking a batch of bread would not tie the baker down at home for
such prolonged periods as brewing a batch of beer would the brewer. The
fact is, that, as Bennett says, for a typical peasant household, commercial brewing was seldom the primary means of support; rather it
was a supplementary source of income. Brewing became an attractive
proposition for women wishing to increase their housekeeping money
by working from home; they could make brewing fit in with their everyday domestic duties. Some women in Brigstock obviously felt serious
enough about brewing, for some extended brewing licences, or Zicencia
bruciundi, were issued, which covered several months brewing activity.
The salient points from the study of the court rolls from Brigstock
(male population 300-500) over the stated period, are:
Chapter 6
332
Bedfordshire.
333
The tapster was generally an honourable profession, but the latter two
did not endear themselves to the consumer. Hucksters were normally
poor, and hawked their wares around the streets, whilst regrators would
purchase their product whilst it was plentiful, and then wait until scarcity
had forced the price up; whence they sold. Perhaps the most notorious
regrator in literature is Rose, the wife of Avarice in Piers Plowman,
who constantly cheats her customers:
I bought her barley, she brewed it to sell -penny ale andpudding ale she poured
together -for labourers and for low folk, kept separate - and the best ale lay in
my bower and in my bedroom - whoever tasted it then bought it - at 4d. a gallon
but not by big measure - but by the cupfull - her real name was Rose the regrator
- she had been a huckster for eleven years.
Brewing also appears to have been more or less entirely the preserve of
women in the north of England, as indicated by Jewel1 (1990), who found
that 185 women appeared, in the Wakefield (West Yorkshire) court rolls
of 1348-50, for breach of brewing regulations. What is unusual here is
that only 34% of them are actually mentioned by their Christian names,
the remainder are recorded as the unnamed wives of named males! Of
the 185 citations, six women are mentioned four times, whilst 21 are
amerced three times; these are probably the commercial brewers during
that period. One offence specified in the Wakefield court rolls is not
sending for the ale-taster, which intimates that the putting out of an alestake to summon the ale-taster may well have only been a requirement in
southern England.
A TUDOR MISCELLANY
As French (1884) cogently puts it, Henry VIII, during his reign, interfered with everything from religion to beer barrels. In context of the
latter, it is worth mention that, in 1531, brewers were forbidden to make
the barrels in which their ale was sold. The reason for such a prohibition
may be gleaned from part of the introduction to the act:
Whereas the ale-brewers and beer-brewers of this realm of England have used,
and daily do use,for their own singular lucre, profit, clnd gain, to make in their own
houses their barrels, kilderkins, andfirkins, of much less quantity than they ought
to be, to the great hurt, prejudice, and damage of the Kings liege people, and
contrary to divers acts, statutes, ancient laws and customs heretofore made, had,
and used, and to the destruction of the poor craft and mystery of coopers, therejore no beer-brewer or ale-brewer, is to occupy the mystery or craft of coopers.
334
Chapter 6
335
notorious all over Europe. Even people who were to hold respected
positions in society were not beyond reproach, and French (1884)
remarks upon a ribald drinking song, written by a MrS., Master of
Artes in 1551. It forms the beginning of the second act of a comedy
acted out at Christs College, Cambridge. The MrX. is allegedly one
Mr Still, who was to become Master of St. Johns College, Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge, and later on, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
The song consists of four verses and a chorus repeated after every verse:
I cannot eate but lytle meate,
M y stomacke is not good,
But sure I thinke that I can drinke
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a colde,
I stuff my skyn so full within,
Of joly good ale and olde.
Chorus
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336
They shall not mysse to have the blisse
Good ale doth bring men to;
And all poore soules that have scowred bowles,
Or have them lustily trolde,
God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be yonge or olde.
The play from which the above is an extract is one of the earliest (if not
the earliest) of English comedy plays, Gammer Gurtons Needle, which
was enacted at Christs College, Cambridge, in 1566. The earliest extant
edition of the play is dated 1575, and since Frenchs publication, Bradley
(1903) has shown the real author to be a certain William Stevenson,
Fellow of Christs College, who is otherwise unknown to fame.
Harrison, in his Description of England, tells us about the Ale-knights
of Tudor times, who were obviously artistically-inclined gentlemen:
They drink till they defile themselves, and either fall under the board, or else, not
daring to stir from their stools, sit still, pinking with their narrow eyes, as hawsleeping, till thefume of their adversary be digested, that they may go at it afresh.
337
Chapter 6
338
Figure 6.3
John Coke, and the English herald confronts his French counterpart
with:
Item, for your wyne, we have good-ale, bere, metheghelen, sydre, and pirry,
beyng more holsome beveragesfor us then your wynes, which maketh your people
dronken, also prone and apte to all fylthy pleasures and lustes.
339
bell; and he that could take a peece of sylver owt of the purse without the noyse
of any of the bells, he was adjudged a judicial1 Nypper. Nota that a Foister is a
Pick-pockett, and a Nypper is termed a Pickepurse, or a Cutpurse. And as
concerning this matter, I will set downe noe more in this place, but referr your
Lordship to the paper herein enclosed.
340
Chapter 6
In 1572, Leonard Mascall, in his Booke of the Arte and Maner howe to
plant and graffe all sortes of trees, refers to hop growing as it was
practiced in Flanders. In an appendix to the work, which Mascall
describes as an addition in the end of this book of certaine Dutch practises
set forth and Englished, there is the chapter on growing hops. He is
obviously au fait with English hops, as well, for he comments, One
pound of our Hoppe dryed and ordered will go as far as two pounds of beste
Hoppe that cometh from beyond seas.
The following year, in 1573, the first description of growing hops
under English conditions can be found in Thomas Tussers highly
didactic poem, Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry, united to as
many of Good Huswifery,7 in a section entitled Directionsfor Cultivating
a Hop Garden. In his discourse, Tusser hints at the preservative
properties of the hop:
The hop for his profit I thus do0 exalt,
it strengtheneth drinke, and it favoreth malt;
And being well brewed, long kept it will last,
and drawing abide - i f y e drawe not too fast.
A year later, Reynolde Scot wrote the first edition of his vadd
micum: A Perjite Platform of a Hoppe Garden. Scot was a Kentish
man, who had intimate knowledge of hop growing in Flanders, and his
illustrated (Figure 6.4) little book is a masterpiece; some of his growing tips are still applicable. Scot produced slightly amended versions of
Platform in 1576 and 1578, and it is obvious that he fully appreciated
l7
This is a combination of two of Tussers works; Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, first
written in 1557, and Hundreth Poyntes of Good Husserie, written a little later. There are numerous
reprints and editions of his work. Hops are not mentioned in Tussers Hundreth Pointes of 1557.
34 1
-_
Jia,
(toitb
ta tDe
courfe of
Figure 6.4
tot
Bunnc.
the preservative nature of the hop, and the benefits to be gained from
using the plant. A major advantage, in Scots eyes, was that beer could
be feasibly brewed at a lower alcoholic strength, and still retain its
keeping qualities: Whereas you cannot make above 8-9 gallons ofindifferent ale from 1 bushel of malt, you may draw 18-20 gallons of very
good beer.
The rate of hopping recommended by Scot, in order to attain the
above, was 2% lb of hops per quarter of malt. In another section he avers:
342
Chapter 6
If your ale may endure a fortnight, your beer through the benefit of the hop,
shall continue for a month, and what grace it yieldeth to the taste, all men may
judge that have sense in their mouths. And if controversy be betwixt Beer and
Ale, which of them shall have the place of pre-eminence, it sufjceth for the glory
and commendation of Beer that, here in our own country, Ale giveth place unto it
and that most part of our countrymen do abhor and abandon Ale as a loathsome
drink.
Remember, the above was written only 32 years after Boordes praise of
ale and condemnation of beer. This represents an extraordinary reversal
of attitude - even allowing for Scots understandable bias toward
the hop. By the end of the Kfhcentury, hops were being grown all
over England, and had certainly reached Wales, being recorded from
Caernarfonshire by 1592.
The English were not the only race to closely examine the benefits, or
otherwise, of the use of HumuZus ZupuZus. In Germany, Jacobus Theodorus (alias Tabernaemontanus), published his two-part Neuw Kreuterbuch in 1588. Each plant dealt with had, as well as its botanical details, a
description of any medical or technical applications. Under barzey,we
are treated to a treatise on brewing technique, and a survey of the nature
and quality of some types of beer. One point that we learn from the work
is the importance of the boiling stage on the keeping quality of the final
product. The following paragraph is most enlightening generally, especially the awful nature of some Rhenish beers:
Beer is a useful drink which is prepared in great quantity in the midnight
landJ8since no vines grow there . . . Some towns make it stronger and better
than others. In some towns on the Rhine, beer is now made, such that it is a pity
to spoil good grain thus, for the people only get the value of half the beer,
because when they have drunk halfa cask, the bottom has become so spoiled and
sour that it has to be wasted. It has three great defects - too little malt is used;
too much water; and it is not boiled. I do not mention the other trick which is
practised - that instead of hops, some take willow leaves, and some chimney
soot, which gives the beer a strong brick red colour . . . Not only does such a beer
not taste good, but it spoils the blood, burns it up, causes great thirst, horrible red
faces, also leprosy, swelling of the body, injury to the head and all internal parts
of the intestines.
343
I say that it is a horrible vice, and too much used in England. Every county, city,
town, village, and other places hath abundance of alehouses, taverns, and inns,
which are so fraught with malt-worms, night and day, that you would wonder to
see them. You shall have them there sitting at the wine and good-ale all the
day long, yea, all the night too, peradventure a whole week together, so long as
any money is left; swilling, gulling and carousingfrom one to another, till never a
one can speak a ready word.
344
Chapter 6
Stubbs (sometimes as Stubbes), in the same work maintains that the alehouses in London were crowded from morning to night with inveterate
drunkards, whose only care appears to have been as to where they could
obtain the best ale, so totally oblivious to all other things were they.
The attempt to outlaw the Church-ale does not seem to have succeeded in many parts of the country, so interwoven were they in the life
of the local community. Indeed, they were still part of the fabric of life
in the mid 17thcentury, for we have mention of Samuel Pepys drinking
ale at the church stile during a Church-ale at Walthamstow, Essex, on
14thApril, 1661.
The Church-ale deserves some explanation, since it represented a classic example of the clergy turning a blind-eye to those who got drunk on
ecclesiastical malt, in the pursuit of ecclesiastical ends. Ale was such an
important drink in olden times, that it was only natural that it should lend
its name to a number of annual festivals, or ale-feasts, as they were more
accurately called. Some of these festivals were held under the auspices of
the Church; Church-ales, Whitsun-ales, Clerk-ales and Bride-ales being
the best attested. According to Hackwood (1910), in the old Roman
Calendar there were no less than 95 Saints Days, to be kept as holidays,
or rather days of indulgence and alcoholic merriment. The ales in some
ways, represented the vestiges of some of those even more ancient binges.
In the case of the Church-ale, church-wardens would be appointed
specifically for the purpose of conducting the occasion. Their primary
duty was to obtain malt, and other brewing requisites, from parishioners,
from which the festive brew could be made. Most parishes owned a
church house, in which to store brewing equipment and raw materials. As
most ales were accompanied by a feast, the spit and cooking utensils
were kept there as well. The solid refreshment was also usually a gift from
parishioners, and so the profits to be made from the sale of ale and food
were often quite substantial and would be used for some useful Church
maintenance project. Sometimes the proceeds went towards the relief of
the poor. The most popular and most universal ale was the one at Whitsuntide, in high summer.
Philip Stubbs, as sarcastic as ever, gives the following account of these
quasi-religious festivities in his Anatomie:
In certain townes where dronken Bucchus beares swaie, against Christmus and
Easter, Whitsondaie or some other tyme, the church-wardens of every parishe,
with the consent of the whole parishe, provide halfu score, or twentie quarters of
mault, whereof some they buy of the church stocke, and some is given them of
the parishioners themselves, everyone conferring somewhat, according to his
abilitie; which maulte being made into very strong ale or bere, is set to sale,
345
either in the churche or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then when
this is set abroche, well is he that can gete the soonest to it, and most at it. In this
kind of practice they continue sixe weeks, a quarter of a yeare, yea, haye a yeare
together. That money, they say, is to repaire their churches and chappels with, to
buy books for service, cuppes for the celebration of the sacrament, surplesses for
Sir John, and such other necessaries, and they maintain other extraordinarie
charges in their parish besides.
During the dark days of the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558), who
brought a reign of terror to England, I have not managed to unearth
anything much that would enhance our story further. To exemplify
the situation, Loades (1994) describes an extensive New Year present
list prepared for Mary in 1557. There are gifts for all sorts of court
personnel: cooks, grooms, maids, locksmiths, sergeant of the cellar,
sergeant of the pastry, etc., etc., but no mention of a brewer (remember,
Henry VIII had his own brewer at Eltham Palace). I have no record as
to whether Mary I drank beer or not. We know that she was Catherine
of Aragons only surviving child (Catherine, herself, was the daughter of
a Spanish king), a fanatical catholic who married Philip I1 of Spain, so it
is most likely that her preferred drink would have been wine. After
marrying Mary, Philip was keen to appear to be an Anglophile, and there
397
your cooler, which standing over the Guil-vat you shall in the bottome thereof
set a great bowle with your barme and some o f t h e first wort (before the hops
come into it mixt together) that it may rise therein, and let your wort drop or
run gently into the dish with the barme which stands in the Guil-vat, and this you
shall do the first day of your brewing letting your cooler drop all the night
following, and some part ofthe next morning, and as it droppeth ifyoufinds that
a blacke skumme or mother riseth upon the barme, you shall with your hand take
it off and cast it away, then nothing being left in the cooler, and the beere well
risen, with your hand stirre it about and so let it stand an hower after, and then
beating it and the barme exceeding well together, tunne it up in the Hogsheads
being cleane washt and scaulded, and so let it purge, and herein you shall observe
not to tun your vessels too full for feare thereby it purge too much of the harm
away, when it hath purged a day and a night you shall close up the bung-holes
with clay, and only for a day or two after keepe a vent-hole in it, and after close it
up as close as may be. Nor for your second or small drinke which are left upon
the graines you shall offer it there to stay but an hower or a little better, and then
drain it off also, which done put it into the lead with the former hops and boile
the other ayo, then cleere it from the hops and cover it very close till your first
beere bee runnd, and then as before put it also to barme and so tunne it up as
so in smaller vessels, and of this second beere you shall not drawe above one
Hogshead to three ofthe better. Now there be divers other waies & observations
for the brewing of ordinary Beere but none so good, so easie, so ready and
quickly performed as this before shewed: neither will any beere last longer or
ripen sooner, for it may bee drunke at a fortnights age and will last as long and
lively.
Apart from the exaggerated use of the hand to effect certain operations,
most of the above stages in production should be recognisable by any
modern-day brewer, whose plant is capable of brewing traditional ale.
The Guil-vat would equate with the fermentation vessel of today, and
it is interesting to note that the term gyle is still used to define a batch
of beer. Note also, that only two extracts are obtained from an ordinary
beer brew; the following recipe for the stronger March beer yields
three beers of varying strengths:
Nowfor the brewing of the best march Beere you shall allow to a Hogshead
thereof a quarter of the best malt, well ground: then you shall take a pecke
ofpease, haye a pecke of Wheate, and haye a pecke of Oates and grind them all
very well together, and then mix them with your malt: which done you shall in all
points brew this beere us you did the former ordinary beer: onely you shall allow
a pound and a half of hops to this one Hogshead: and whereas before you drew
but two sorts of beere: so now you shall draw three: that is a Hogs-head of the
Chapter 7
398
best, and a Hogs-head of the second, and haye a Hogs-head of small beere
without any augmentation of hops or malt.
This march Beere would be brewd in the moneths of March or Aprill, and
should i f it have right lie a whole yeere to ripen: it will last two, three and foure
yeeres i f it lie cool and close, and indure then dropping to the last drop, though
with never so much leasure.
399
gallons of hawe a quarter; and when it comes to bee changed you shall blinke it
(as was before shewed) more by much then was the strong ale, for it must
be pretty and sharpe, which giveth the life and quicknesse to the Ale, and when
you tunne it you shall put it into round bottles with narrow mouthes, and then
stopping them close with corke, set them in a cold sellar up to the wast in sand,
and be sure that the corkes be fast tied in with strong packethrid, for feare of
rissing out, or taking vent, which is the utter spoile of the ale. Now for the small
drinke arising from this bottle Ale, or any other beere or ale whatsoever, ifyou
keepe it after it is blinkt and boiled in a close vessel, and then put it to barme
every morning as you have occasion to use it, the drinke will drinke a great deale
the fresher, and be much more livelie in tast.
The recipe for strong ale emphasises the north-south variation in the
standard measures of the day; the northern bushel being worth two
of the southern variety (c$ the difference between the Newcastle and
London chaldron). Add to this the fact that a bushel (of, say malt) was
originally a volume, not a weight (and so the weight depended upon the
size of the grains), and one can appreciate the difficulties facing the
brewing historian attempting to equate ancient recipes with their modern
counterparts.
There is some evidence that the grand houses produced their own
bottled beers, no doubt as some sort of status symbol, but this form of
beer was not to the liking of everyone. Thomas Tryon, for example, has
no doubt about the deficiencies of the product:
It is a great custom and general fashion nowadays to bottle ale; but the same
was never invented by any true naturalist that understood the inside of things. For
though ale never be so well wroughtt or fermented in the barrel, yet the bottling of
it puts it on a new motion or fermentation, which wounds the pure spirits and. . .
body; therefore such ale out of bottles will drink more cold and brisk, but not so
sweet and mild as the same ale out of a cask, that it of aproper age: besides the
bottle tinges or gives it a cold hard quality, which is the nature of glass and stone,
and being the quantity is so small, the cold Saturnine nature of the bottle has the
greater power to tincture the liquor with its quality. Furthermore, all such bottle
drinks are infected with a yeasty furious foaming matter which no barrel-ale is
guilty of. . . j o r which reasons bottle-ale or beer is not so good or wholesome as
that drawn out of a barrel or hogshead; and the chief thing that can be said for
bottle-ale or beer, is that it will keep longer than that in barrels, which is caused
by its being kept, as it were, in continued motion or fermentation.
Chapter 7
400
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
40 1
One Thousand six hundredJifty and three: 1653. This is clearly slightly
more than a small household brewery, having need for a horse mill,
although there is no mention of any associated ale-house.
Chapter 7
402
Figure 7.1
Closer observation indicated that the white knobs showed morphological variation, and that they were seed-cases similar to those found
on the top of mushrooms. Hooke did not observe organisms as small as
bacteria, even though his microscope would have been powerful
enough to have done so. This was probably because he viewed most of
his objects, which were in the dried state, by reflected light. This would
have made them somewhat opaque; not the best way of observing
microbes.
So the discovery of micro-organisms was left to Antonj van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), from Delft, who was self-educated and not formally
trained as a scientist. Leeuwenhoek, who was the son of a draper, was
fortunate enough to hold a political sinecure in Delft, which allowed him
plenteous time for pursuing his hobbies of metalwork and lens-making.
His instruments were not compound microscopes, but single mounted
lenses, with the object mounted in such a way that light was transmitted
through it. With his apparatus he could achieve magnification of up to
x300, and by keeping his methods secret, he made sure that no other
workers were able to use a single lens so effectively. Commencing in 1674,
van Leeuwenhoek corresponded over 200 times with the Royal Society,
his letter of 17thSeptember, 1683, probably being the most momentous
because it contained the amazing, and often published, illustrations of
403
bacteria from his mouth. A superb account of the life and work of the
man who discovered the little animalcules was written by Clifford
Dobell in 1932, and has since been reprinted. Some of the drawings
made by van Leeuwenhoek were very precise, and it is possible to place
taxonomic names on some of them.
For whatever reason, systematic study of microbes was delayed for
another 100 years, or so, and it was not until 1786 that the Danish
zoologist, O.F. Muller, studied bacteria and succeeded in discovering
details of their structure. Miiller also left accurate illustrative details,
and it is possible to relate his organisms to modern taxa. From the point
of view of brewing history, van Leeuwenhoek examined fermenting beer
under one of his microscopes, and observed particulate matter, which he
describes thus :
Some of these seemed to me to be quite round, others were irregular, and some
exceeded the others in size, and seemed to consist of two, three or four of the
aforesaid particles joined together. Others again consisted of six globules and
these last formed a complete globule of yeast.
404
Chapter 7
some detail, but it was not until nearly 150 years later, in 1826, that
Desmazikres described the elongated cells from a film of growth on
beer. He named the organism Mycoderma Cerevisid and regarded it as
a member of the animal kingdom, rather than the plant kingdom. He did
not record whether he thought that this organism had anything actively
to do with fermentation. Leeuwenhoek, himself, made no mention of
whether he recognised his yeasts as living organisms, nor did he allude
to their raison dgtre in beer.
One of the leading questions to be faced by 17th century natural
scientists was that of the Aristotelian doctrine of spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis which, in essence, propounded that life was
continually being created out of inanimate matter. The doctrine was not
out of line with the biblical account of the Earths creation, and for 200
years there was a fierce debate about the topic. Spontaneous generation
dominated some areas of scientific thought during the lVh century, and
it was not until publications of Pasteur that it was laid to rest. One of
the first people to seriously question abiogenesis was the Italian physician Frances0 Redi (1626-1679), who was interested in how maggots
developed from unprotected meat. It had always been supposed that
maggots in decaying meat were derived spontaneously from transformations occurring within the meat itself; so no questions were ever asked.
In experiments performed around 1665, Redi placed clean linen cloths
over jars containing fresh samples of meat. He observed that flies,
attracted to the meat, landed on the cloth and laid eggs. Later on,
maggots could be seen on the cloth, but not on the meat, showing
conclusively that maggots grow from eggs and are not able to arise
spontaneously from non-living meat. Unfortunately, the work was
largely ignored, most of those who did read it regarding Redi as a
heretic.
Leeuwenhoeks discovery of microbial life should, in theory, have
signalled the beginning of the end for abiogenesis, but adherents of the
doctrine accommodated these new forms of life in their explanations
of how life is created. Non-living animal and vegetable matter contained a vital or vegetative force capable of converting such
inanimate matter into new and different forms of life; Leeuwenhoeks
animalcules were proof of this. In 1710, Louis Joblot (1 645-1 723)
observed that hay, when infused in water and allowed to stand for some
days, gave rise to countless minute organisms (infusoria); this was an
example of abiogenesis. Joblot then boiled a hay infusion and divided it
into two portions, placing one in a carefully baked (sterilised) and closed
vessel, which was heated thoroughly and kept closed. The other portion
was not heated and was kept in an open vessel. The infusion in the
405
open vessel teemed with microbial life after a couple of days, but no life
appeared in the closed vessel - as long as it remained closed. Thus,
Joblot proved that the infusion alone, once freed of life by heating, was
incapable of generating new life spontaneously.
Two mighty 18thcentury protagonists in this subject area, were two
men of the cloth; the Englishman, John Needham (1713-1781) and
the Italian, Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799). Needham was a devout
believer in abiogenesis, and performed experiments along the same lines
as Joblot, except that he used mutton broth instead of hay infusion.
Needham found that life was created in heated, closed vessels as well
as open ones, and maintained that he had confirmed abiogenesis, beyond
all reasonable doubt, but it has since been shown that he had not heated
his closed vessels sufficiently, and bacterial spores (which were unknown
at that time - he conducted these experiments in 1748) had survived
a sub-lethal heat dose. In addition, Needhams flasks were sealed by
corks which are, of course, porous.
Spallanzani set up two series of flasks; one was sealed at the top by
melting the glass, the other was corked, a la Needham. The flasks had
been filled with seeds and other vegetable matter, and then heated for
one hour before being sealed. After a time he microscopically investigated their contents. The corked flasks contained innumerable small,
swimming animalcules, just as Needham had found, but the properly
sealed flasks contained none, or very few. Spallanzani concluded that
the life in Needhams work had entered via the cork, i.e. it was in the
air, and wouldnt have occurred if the necks had been sealed tight;
animalcules do not exist that can survive boiling for one hour. In theory,
this work should have settled the debate about abiogenesis, but it didnt.
As we shall see, what it did do was to form the basis for the art of
preserving food by canning, in the early 19thcentury. The main objection to Spallanzanis work was that by excluding air from some flasks,
the vital force was unable to operate, and so no life was to be
expected. Life in the absence of air was unheard of at this time. The
discovery of oxygen, by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1 794) in
1775, and his work on the relationship between air and life, renewed the
controversy.
Some of the most definitive work aimed at disproving spontaneous
generation was carried out by the great German biologist, Theodor
Schwann (1810-1882), who allowed air to pass freely over previously
heated organic substrates (meat and hay infusions), but only after it had
passed through very hot glass tubes; such infusions failed to yield life.
Schulze did much the same thing, with similar results, only he passed the
air supply through solutions of sulphuric acid and potassium hydroxide,
406
Chapter 7
407
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
26.8
7.7
61.4
16.7
9.9
0.6
9.6
-
0.2
-
31.4
25.4
1.7
27.2
40.4
9.8
6.1
58.5
49.4
408
Chapter 7
as an oxide, and that when it was split into its two main fragments, one
was oxidised at the expense of the other to form carbonic acid, whilst the
other was deoxygenised in favour of the former to produce ethanol,
which is combustible. In conclusion to this aspect of his work, Lavoisier
proposed that if it were possible to recombine carbonic acid and ethanol,
then sugar would result. In hindsight, we can safely say that it is from
Lavoisiers work that the modern studies on fermentation derive.
One of the first theories regarding the cause of fermentation was
forwarded by the Italian scientist Fabroni, at the very end of the Hth
century. He maintained that it was attributable to the action of gluten4
derived from the starch grain, and sugar. In 1803, the noted French
chemist, Louis Jacques Thenard (1777-1 857), refuted the gluten
hypothesis, and noted that all fermenting liquids appeared to deposit
a nitrogen-containing material, resembling brewers yeast, during the
course of the reaction. Results of some of his other experiments showed
that when yeast was used to ferment pure sugar, it altered in its characteristics and was deposited as a white residue, which did not have
the subsequent ability to ferment fresh sugar. This residue Thenard
found to be devoid of nitrogen, and of much reduced weight. Thenard,
himself, offered no alternative to explain the nature of fermentation,
but he did feel that something akin to brewers yeast was involved. He
proposed that the causative agent was of animal origin and that it
decomposed during the reaction to provide some of the observed CO,
that was released; a view at variance with Lavoisiers findings.
The next outstanding contribution to the subject was published by
the French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), in 1810. He
proposed that fermentation was instigated by the action of oxygen on
fermentable material, a conclusion that was reached by researching,
in detail, some of the methods used by the father of canning, the
Frenchman, Nicholas Appert (1749-1 841), the bulk of whose work was
over the period 1795-1810. Apperts work was stimulated by a 12,000
franc prize offered by the French government for anyone who perfected
a method for preserving food destined for the armed forces during the
Napoleonic conflagrations. Basically, he submersed food contained in
cork-stoppered, wide-mouthed glass bottles, in boiling water for several
hours. Such methods, simple as they may seem, were good enough to be
used for many years by commercial canners, even though the relationship
between micro-organisms and food spoilage was unknown. Apperts
prize-winning treatise was the 1809 ( L e Livre de tout les Mknages, ou
The definition of gluten in the OED, says, The nitrogenous part of the flour of wheat or other
grain, which remains behind as a viscid substance when the starch is removed by kneading theflour in
a current of water.
409
Chapter 7
410
nourishment, whilst the remaining elements of these compounds, which were not
taken up by the plant, combined chiefly to form alcohol.
Unlike Cagniard-Latour, Schwann thought that the actual fermentation process was carried out inside the yeast cell. Schwanns report was
very closely followed by a treatise by the German botanist, Friedrich
Traugott Kutzing, which was also based on meticulous microscope work.
There are accurate descriptions of what Kutzing clearly thinks is a living
vegetable organism responsible for fermentation. To sceptical chemists,
of whom there were plenty, such as Berzelius, he issues the following
statement: It is obvious that chemists must now strike yeast off the roll
of chemical compounds, since it is not a compound but an organised body,
an organism. The summation of the work of these three great scientists
was that yeasts are plants consisting of individual cells which multiply in
sugar solutions and as a result of their growth produce alcohol. All
three pieces of work were criticised, and even derided by the scientific
establishment of the time.
Probably the most influential chemist of the era was the Swede, Count
Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1 848), described by Harden (19 14) as the
arbiter and dictator of the chemical worl8. Berzelius was totally
unimpressed with the microscopic evidence presented to substantiate
the above work, and although he accepted the role of yeast during fermentation, he regarded it as being no more a living organism than was
a precipitate of alumina. As far as Berzelius was concerned, he had
published his views on fermentation, and similar chemical reactions, in
1836, and that was that. He had introduced the concept of the catalytic
force (of which yeast was an example) that he held responsible for many
chemical reactions, both between substances of mineral and of animal
and vegetable origin. This force enabled bodies, by their mere presence,
and not by their affinity to arouse affinities ordinarily quiescent at the
temperature of the experiment, so that the elements of a compound body
arrange themselves in some different way, by which a greater degree of
electro-chemical neutralisation is attained .
If this was not bad enough for the credibility of the work of CagniardLatour, Schwann and Kutzing, in the scientific world, in 1839 two more
eminent chemists muddied the waters even more; they were the Germans,
Justus Liebig (1803-1 873) and Friedrich Wohler (1800-1 882). Liebig,
who at that time was regarded as being one of the first eminent biochemists, was engaged in the debate on the cause of alcoholic fermentation, and although he did not believe that living organisms were involved,
he did not agree with Berzelius concept either. Liebigs reputation was
immense, and his ideas concerning chemical processes were quite definite
41 1
Chapter 7
412
detected in the interior of each of these animalculae; this swells up to ten times
its size, and is emptied by a sort of screw-like action effected by the agency of a
series of ring-shaped muscles situated in its outside.
413
414
Chapter 7
Yeast was merely exceedingly unstable matter which by its own decomposition
would set up the intestine motion in other substances with which it was brought
in contact. Vinousfermentation, acetous fermentation and putrefaction were all
revelations of the same process. Acetous fermentation destroyed the inpammable
spirit produced by the vinous, and putrefaction annihilated the whole. The one
passed directly into the other in brewing unless the acetous fermentation is
arrested by reducing the temperature at tunning.
415
Chapter 7
416
Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that the vinous, acetous and
putrefaction fermentation require three distinct ferments . . . The power of
gluten to attract oxygen is increased by contact with precipitated yeast in a
state of decay, the unrestrained access of air is the only other condition
necessary for its own conversion into the same state of decay, that is for its
oxidation. On this durable circumstance, as upon an unshatterable basis, he
[Liebig] builds his solution of one of the most beautiful problems of the theory
of fermen tat ion.
ADULTERATION OF BEER
With the rise of common brewers during the 17thcentury, a breed who
would normally be totally reliant on brewing and selling beer for their
livelihood, and with a tax on most raw materials, there was a great
temptation to use non-brewing materials to stretch the brew-length, or
to simulate bitterness and/or colour. Some diabolically dangerous
materials were often used as substitutes for malt and hops, without
regard for any consequences of toxicity. Some of the most dangerous
substances used were those aimed at augmenting the strength of malt
drinks, i.e. to simulate alcohol intoxication. This is the realm of beer
adulteration, and an outstanding treatise on the subject has been
417
418
Chapter 7
The author feels that it was only the smaller brewers who resort to
such practices, not the larger, common brewers, and he hopes that by
exposing the dangers of using such vegetable matter, he will have served
mankind well. Near the end of the chapter, the author begs that no
person will have anything to do with such unwholesome ingredients,
especially since Malts are now only twenty Shillings per Quarter. In
a subsequent chapter, the author mentions two more malt-saving
ingredients that he had detected in a beer he had sampled:
At one of these Markets, about eighty Milesfrom London, Iperceivd they had
so doctord their common Twopenny Drink, as to make it go down smooth; but,
when I found it left a hot Tang behind it, it gave me just Reason to believe they
had used Grains of Paradise, or long Pepper, both which will save Malt.
The same chapter contains a short exposition on the use of sweet flag
(called by the Apothecaries Calamus Aromaticus) as a substitute for
hops:
419
. . . by slicing it thin, and boiling it a little Time in Wort with the Hops, will save
more than one Pound of Hops in six; therefore some in a dear Hop Season will
use it as a Succedaneum to this Vegetable; besides which, it will give a fine
Flavour to the Drink, if used in due Proportion, and is very wholesome.
21b.
I lb.
I lb.
I lb.
402.
9502.
%oz.
5502.
6
95oz.
202.
21b.
The above are made up into 4 oz balls and added to casks at the rate of
one to 4% gallons of beer. Pale balls contain the same ingredients, except
that red saunders are omitted, and you use a pound or two of fine sugar
made into a syrup, instead of molasses. Another recipe for fining beer
contains, as one of its ingredients, the stems of tobacco pipes!
From the point of view of toxic ingredients, even more horrifying is a
part of the content of chapter XIV (part 111); a section dealing with
hyper-active beer:
In Case your Drink works too violently in the Cask (after my new Method)
then run a Brass Cock into the middle Cock-hole of your Butt, and draw out a
Parcel, and, in the Room thereoJI put as much raw Wort into the Bung-hole in
the Head, as will sufficiently check it, or burn Brimstone under or about the
Vessel and it will do it directly - Also Salt, Allum, Nitre, Spirit of Vitriol, Oil
of Sulphur, Spirit of Salt and all other Acids abate violent Workings of
Malt-Liquors.
420
Chapter 7
Beer grounds, stale beer, sugar water, distillers spent wash, sugar, molusses,
vitriol, quassia, Cocculus indicus, grains of paradise, Guinea pepper, opium, or
any other material or ingredient except malt and hops.
The penalty for failure to observe was E200, and forfeit of brewing
equipment.
With the immense popularity of porter beer, many artificial colourings
were developed, and this necessitated the law of 1816, which forbade
the use of any liquor, extract, calx, or other material or preparation for
darkening or colouring worts or beer, other than brown malt. Also banned
were molasses, honey, liquorice, vitriol, quassia, Cocculus indicus, grains
of paradise, Guinea pepper, opium, or any substitute for malt and hops.
The penalty for failure to concur was E200, and loss by seizure of the
offending beer and its containers. This time the government attempted to
punish those responsible for supplying brewers with illegal materials, and
accordingly a penalty of E500 was payable by any chemist, grocer, or the
like, who was caught supplying brewers with same.
In 1847, a reversal of policy resulted in the use of sugar being. permitted in brewing, and when the duty on hops was repealed in 1862, the
revenue penalties for using hop substitutes were naturally abolished as
well. When duty on malt was scrapped in 1880, all restrictions as to the
use of materials in brewing were removed. From the Governments point
of view, raising revenue via a hop tax was always going to be somewhat
precarious, for of all the agricultural crops in Britain, nothing fluctuates
in yield, from year to year, as do hops (for example, in 1881,455,000 cwt
of hops were harvested from 64,943 acres under the bine, whilst in the
following year only 120,000 cwt were produced from 65,619 acres).
The prosecution of brewers for using prohibited substances relied, of
course, on the ability of officers in the field to detect the offending
material in the beer. It was not until the 19th century that anything
resembling sophisticated analytical methods evolved. In the 18thcentury,
some seemingly hit-and-miss methods were employed. Filby (1934)
reports on one such toprove when beer is adulterated with salt of steel or
green vitriol:
Take one oz. of the best blue coloured galls such as the dyers use, powder them
grossly, and boil them a quarter of an hour, in halfa pint of water. Strain the
decoction, and keep it in a vialfor use. Where beer is suspected to contain green
coperas, or salt of steel, take two wine glasses, fill them with such beer, place
them in a good light and add a few drops of the decoction of galls, to one glass,
stir it well and compare it to the colour of the beer in the other glass, and if it be
changed the least degree blacker it may with certainty be concluded that such
42 1
beer is impregnated with some chalybeate particles; it will appear more evidently
fi the two gZasses be examined after they have remained undisturbed 24 hours,
in which case the black curd generally subsides to the bottom of the glass with
which the decoction was admixed. But for more sufjicient prooJ; as the quantity
of salt is sometimes more minute, take a gallon of beer and boil it, till it be
consumed to a pint or less, to which add some decoction of galls, as before, and
the effect will be more obvious.
The oldest and most common adulterant of beer is, of course, water.
When beer is watered-down it, by definition, loses much of its flavour.
In The Retail Compounder or Publicans Friend of 1795, John Hardy
describes a method for restoring the flavour to beer so-treated:
For one hundred and thirty gallons. 801bs. of coriander seed bruised and steeped
in 80 gallons of spirit, one in jive, for 10 days, and stirred once a day; add a
little oil of carraway, rilled as peppermint; use all brown sugar killed [sic] as
peppermint andJine down as peppermint. Add water the same as citron, and
sugar the same as Carraway.
422
Chapter 7
423
Combrune emphasised that small beer brewing did not equate with
textbooks, the brewer had to use his own judgement - according to the
prevailing conditions. In summer there were particular problems with
temperature control, and it was often necessary to mash-in at night,
when the air was cooler. It was also essential to use higher hop rates in
summer in order to enhance keeping qualities. Conversely, small beer
brewed in winter had to have a stimulus for ensuring adequate early
fermentation in the low strength wort. Combrune prepared tables aimed
at quantifying the amount of hops that were optimum for brewing in
various ambient temperatures. Many of these stringencies did not apply
to brewing beer of higher original gravity. On a more general note, he
tried to prepare the brewer for action regardless of the vagaries of the
British climate. He worked out tables which enabled the mean heat of
the day to be calculated, and defined techniques suitable for day brewing
and night brewing; defining the normal brewing season as that part of
the year when the median heat of the day is at, or below, 50 O F , a period
of some 32 weeks, from the beginning of October to the middle of May.
According to Combrune, a considerable proportion of winter-brewed
beer was converted into a drink, popular with the working classes, called
purl, which was essentially strong pale ale infused with certain bitter
aromatics, the most widely used being orange peel and wormwood.
Combrune does not give a recipe as such, but later on in 1802, Thomas
Threale, in The Compleat Family Brewer, provides the following:
Roman wormwood, 2 dozen;
gentian root, 6 lbs;
Chapter 7
424
425
the brewer could do anything about) had always been regarded as the
temperature of the liquor before mashing. Until the thermometer was
developed, brewers assessed liquor temperatures by means of various
rules of thumb. Accordingly, the brewer deemed that liquor was suitable
for mashing if: a) his hand could just tolerate the heat on being immersed
in it; or b) he could see the reflection of his face in the water surface,
just prior to it becoming obscured by steam. In the latter instance, it
would have been normal for boiling liquor to be let into the mash
tun, where it would have cooled in situ before the grist was added. The
temperature of the wort that was run off from the mash-tun was determined by a finger. It all seemed to work, so why change? Such methods
could be tolerated when small batches of beer were being brewed, but
they were patently unsatisfactory for large-scale brewing.
In England, it seems as though Michael Combrune first brought the
thermometer into general use in breweries, and he appreciated that it
was a device that would be essential for improving beer quality in larger
breweries, where a brewing mishap could be extremely costly. In the
absence of access to a thermometer, Combrune advises the following
method of adjusting the temperature of mashing liquor:
Heat 220 measures (e.g. gallons) of water to boiling, and then add 100 similar
measures of cold water, which when mixed with the former, will produce a
temperature not exceeding 160, or I 70, and this is a very proper heat for the
mashing operation, and accurate enough for common purposes.
426
Chapter 7
hermetically sealed, consequently the contained fluid was, at the same time,
under the influence o f t h e weight of air, and that of expansion by heat. The
academy of Florence added this improvement; which soon made them more
generally received.
Use of the instrument was not confined to the huge city breweries,
for, as Mathias (1959) reports, Christies of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire,
spent the vast sum of 16 shillings on acquiring a thermometer in August
1768. John Richardson, in his Philosophical Principles of the Science
of Brewing of 1784, is of the opinion that the thermometer was then in
general use in breweries.
The invention of the saccharometer is credited to John Richardson,
around about 1785, even though it is known that James Baverstock,
Snr had experimented with a similar sort of instrument a little earlier. In
a report that makes seemingly justifiable claims for his fathers place
in brewing history, James Hinton Baverstock, Jr (1824), relates how his
father joined the family-owned Turk Street Brewery, Alton, Hampshire,
in 1763, at the age of 22. In a preamble to the main text, which is directed
at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce, he says:
It is now nearly forty years, since my father published and dedicated to your
valuable Institution, his Hydrometrical Observations and Experiments in
the Brewery; at which time, he had for sixteen years used an hydrostatical
instrument so constantly in his own practice, as on no one occasion, to vend
a single cask of beer, the specific gravity of which had not been previously
ascertained, and brought to a regular standard.
Thus, James Jr is alluding to round about the year 1768 as the year when
his father first used the instrument, and he recalls how he procured an
hydrometer, in that year, from Mr Benjamin Martin of Fleet Street,
who had advertised it as useful in discovering the strength of beer, ale,
wine and worts.
In January 1770, Baverstock provided Martin with a manuscript
containing the particulars of some of the experiments which had been
made with it, but the inventor was unimpressed and would not believe
that it could possibly be of any use in a brewery. Baverstock then
approached Mr Whitbread, the founder of the celebrated brewery in
Chiswell Street, who was just as disdainful, and told him that he had got
a large and successful trade without ever having used such an instrument,
and concluded the meeting with, Go home, young man, attend to your
business and do not engage in such visionary pursuits. This Baverstock
427
428
Chapter 7
A word, or two, about the elder Baverstocks career, and the role of
his son, may be pertinent here. In 1773, James Snr left the family brewery in Alton to form a partnership with John Dowden, under the name
of Baverstock and Dowden, and this continued until 1786, when he went
to Windsor. On leaving that town in 1801, when the terms of his partnership with the Ramsbottom brothers expired (the brewery was now
known as Ramsbottom and Baverstock), he returned to Alton and
resumed his brewery there, which he had leased to Mrs Dowden, widow
of his former partner. His eldest son, Thomas, succeeded him at the
Windsor Brewery, where he died in May, 1816, an event that prompted
young J.H. Baverstock, the author of the 1824 Treatises, to leave Alton
and join the Ramsbottoms. The publication of Hydrometrical Observations in 1785, some 15 years after the original work had been carried out
was, on the surface of it, a knee-jerk reaction to Richardsons
recently-published treatise, which had attracted so much attention, and
brought considerable acclaim to its author. Baverstock Snrs other publications were; Observations on the Prejudices against the Brewery (18 1I),
and Observations on the State of the Brewery, and on the Saccharine
Quality of Malt (1813). James Snr died in Southampton in December
1815.
We have inferred that the increase in size of brewing operations, in
places like London, brought with it potential financial problems. The
A way of malting.
429
hydrometer (sac~harometer)~
was fundamental in solving and preventing
disputes between brewer and Excise officers, over what was to be charged
as strong beer wort, and what was to be charged only as small. Until
then the officials only means of distinguishing between the two was by
tasting, or dipping fingers into the wort. The hydrometer was used by
companies engaged in distilling long before being introduced into
breweries, it being regarded as an essential means of gauging strength
and proof of a spirit sample. The original form of the hydrometer, as we
would recognise it today, probably manifested itself as Boyles bubble,
which he first demonstrated to the Royal Society in 1669, and which
he elaborated upon in the Philosophical Transactions of June 1675
(No. 115). There is some evidence that Boyles apparatus was actually
a re-invention of a hydrometer developed by one of the Alexandrine
chemists, called Hypatia; there is even a suggestion that the original
invention should be credited to Archimedes. Nevertheless, the instrument
that Boyle describes in the Transactions (Figure 7.3), was fundamentally
devised for the purpose of detecting counterfeit coinage, especially
guineas and half-guineas (it was called the New Essay Instrument).
From this, Boyle developed a version that was a small glass instrument
for estimating the specific gravities of liquors . . . consisting of a bubble
furnished with a long stem, which was to be put into several liquors, to
compare and estimate their specZfic gravities. The lower bulb (Figure 7.4)
was loaded with mercury, or small shot, which served as ballast, causing
the instrument to float with the stem vertical. The quantity of mercury or
shot inserted depended upon the density of the liquids for which it was to
be used, it being essential that the whole of the bulb should be immersed
in the heaviest liquid for which the instrument was used, whilst the length
and diameter of the stem must be such that the hydrometer will float in
the lightest liquid for which it was required. The stem was usually divided
into a number of equal parts, the divisions of the scale being varied
in different instruments, according to the purposes for which they were
employed.
The first hydrometer intended for the determination of the densities
of liquids, and furnished with a set of weights to be attached when
necessary, was that constructed by an instrument-maker named Clarke
(described in the Philosophical Transactions for March and April 1730
(No. 413). Clarkes hydrometer came with 32 weights to adapt it to spirits
of different specific gravities, and 11 smaller weights, known as weather
weights because they were for correcting ambient temperature changes.
Historically, the hydrometer was specific for gauging the strength of spirits (ie. it measured the
amount of water present; hence the name). The saccharometer was designed to measure dissolved
fermentable material (e.g. sugar) in beer.
Chapter 7
430
Figure 7.3 Boyles hydrometer - originally for coinage. The illustration features an
instrument used to detect counterfeit coins of the realm. Originally designed to
monitor guineas, the apparatus can be adapted for lighter coins by adding the
circular plates, A, which are made of lead
Figure 7.4
43 1
Boyles bubble. The illustration is of what Robert Boyle called a small glass
instrument for estimating the spec@ gravity of liquors. It is usually made of
glass, the lower bulb being loaded with mercury or small shot which serves as
ballast, causing the instrument to float with the stem vertical. The quantity of
mercury or shot inserted depends upon the density of the liquids for which the
hydrometer is to be employed
Liquors; but as it is difficult to have the Stem exactly of the same Bigness all the
Way, and if it could be had, the same Instrument would not serve for Water and
Spirits, sinking quite over Head in Spirits when made for Water, and emerging in
Water with Part of the great Ball out, when made for Spirits. The Hydrometer
has only been used to find whether any one Liquor is specijkally heavier than
another; but not to tell how much, which cannot be done without a great deal of
Trouble, even with a nice Instrument. The Hydrostatical Balance has supplied
the Place of the Hydrometer, and shews the different specijick Gravity of
Fluids to a very great Exactness. But as that Balance cannot well be carried
in the Pocket, and much less managed and understood by Persons not used to
Experiments, Mr. Clarke was resolved to perfect the Hydrometer for the Use of
those that deal in Brandies and Spirits, that by the Use of the Instrument they
may, by Inspection, and without Trouble, know whether a spiritous Liquor be
Proofl above ProoJj or under Proofl and exactly how much above or under: And
this must be of great Use to the OfJicers of the Customs, who examine imported
or exported Liquors.
432
Chapter 7
After having made several fruitless Trials with Ivory, because it imbibes
spiritous Liquors, and thereby alters its Gravity, he at last made a Copper
Hydrometer, represented by Fig. 2, having a Brass Wire of about %Inch thick
going through, and soldered into the hollow Copper Ball, B b. The upper Ball of
this Wire isfiledflat on one Side, for the Stem of the Hydrometer, with a Mark
at 111, to which it sinks exactly in Proof Spirits. There are two other Marks,
A and B, at Top and Bottom of the Stem, to shew whether the Liquor be 1/10
above Proof (as when it sinks to A ) or Ill0 under Proof (as when it emerges to
B ) when a Brass Weight, such as C, has screwed on, to the Bottom at c. There
are a great many such Weights of different Sizes, and marked to be screwed on,
instead of C, for Liquors that differ more than 1/10from ProoJ; so as to serve
for the speciJck Gravities in all such Proportions as relate to the Mixture of
spiritous Liquors, in all the Variety made Use of in Trade. There are also other
Balls for shewing the specijick Gravities quite to common Water, which makes
the Instrument perfect in its Kind.
Figure 7.5
433
434
Chapter 7
435
whereby the final gravity at attenuation was less than one-eighth of the
original gravity. The usual attenuation gravity of ale fermentations he
found to be generally in the order of one-quarter of the original gravity
and, as a rule of thumb, he reports:
"That the attenuation of a given weight of fermentable matter in anyjluid, will
produce a certain quantity of spirit; and that equal quantities of attenuated
matter, in all Jluids, whether of equal or different densities, will produce equal
quantities of spirit, without any regard to proportion which such attenuation may
bear to the density of either.
"
436
Chapter 7
~~~~~
Beer
Original gravity
Final gravity
Attenuation
Strong ale
Common ale
Porter
Table beer
39.5a (lllO)b
26.9 (1075)
25.7 (1071)
14.4 (1040)
18.6 (1052)
9.0 (1025)
6.5 (1018)
5.1 (1004)
20.9 (58)
17.9 (50)
19.2 (53)
9.3 (26)
~~
~~~~
437
a constant temperature during drying. Such fuels also gave a taint to the
malt, and imparted darker colour. Malts manufactured from these
cheaper fuels, were unsuitable for the new style of pale beers which were
becoming the vogue, especially amongst the upper echelons of society.
Much of the beer brewed in the grand houses was of the pale variety, and
hence demanded the very finest, light-coloured malt. The situation
was now just right for the introduction of a new beer style that would
effectively alter the method and scale of brewing, especially in London
and English provincial centres; this, of course was porter beer.
Before proceeding further, it is worth noting here that the relative costs
involved in the setting up of brewery and bakery businesses had been
completely reversed over a period of 300 years. Instead of it being more
capital-intensive to build and run a bakery (as we saw during the Middle
Ages), it was now far more expensive to set up to become a brewer. This
fact is illustrated in the 1747 Description of All Trades, where it is
reported that the capital necessary to begin as a Master Baker would
be around E100, and a journeymans wage would be 7 or 8s per week,
plus board. To set up as a Master Brewer, however, would cost many
thousands and a journeymans wage in the industry could vary from
E504200 per annum.
STEAM POWER
Steam power entered the London brewing industry during the last
quarter of the Hth century. Steam engines were originally purchased
for milling the vast quantities of grain necessary for large-scale beer
production, and for various pumping operations but, once installed,
they soon found other uses. Corran (19 7 9 , states that the first brewery to
actually install an engine was Henry Goodwyns Red Lion Brewery, at
St Katharines, in May 1784. Roll (1930), in an exposition on the early
history of the makers, Boulton and Watt, who had offices in Soho, maintains that a small 18 inch cylinder engine was delivered to the brewery of
Messrs Cook and Co., at Stratford-le-Bow, just east of London, in 1777.
The brewery paid E200 in one lump sum for the engine, but because of
installation costs, Boulton and Watt pleaded that they had made no
profit from the deal. The original enquiry from Cook and Co., had been
as early as June 1775. At this time, most engines had been destined for
the mining industry, particularly in Cornwall (tin and copper mines,
for whom Boulton and Watt set up 22 engines between 1775 and 1785),
and foundries and forges. Apart from these types of customer, breweries
and cotton mills were amongst the first manufacturing industries to
adopt the new form of power. Goodwyn certainly seems to have been
-
438
Chapter 7
Last summer we set up a Steam Engine for the purposes of grinding our Malt
and we also raise our Liquor (i.e. water for brewing) with it . . . The improvements that have at various times been made of the Steam Engine, but particularly the last by a Mr. Watt . . . are very great indeed and will bring the
machine into general use where the strength and labour of Horses is largely and
particularly wanted - you may remember our Wheel required 6 horses but we
ordered our engine the power of 10 - and the work it does we think is equal to
14 horses -for we grind with all our 4 Mills about 40 quarters an Hour beside
raising the Liquor. We began this seasons work with it and have now ground
about 28,000 qrs. with it without accident or interruption. Its great uses and
advantages give us all great satisfaction and are daily pointing out afresh to us we put aside now full 24 horses by it which to keep up and feed did not cost less
pr Anm. than L40 a Head - the expences of Erection was about L1,OOO. It
consumes only a Bushel of Coals an hour and we pay an annual Gratuity to
Bolton & Watt during their Patent of 60 guineas.
This next summer we have it in contemplation to put all our Cleansing Works
and other works upon i t . . . The brewhouse, as the possession of an individual, is
and will be when finished still more so, the wonder ojevery body by which means
our pride is become very troublesome being almost daily resorted to by Visitors,
either Strangers or Friends to see the Plan . . . )
By the year 1796, nine engines had been installed in London breweries,
and by 1801, this had risen to 14. At this point in time, only Truman
Hanburys of the major London houses had not gone over to steampowered machinery; their engine did not arrive until 1805 and, over the
next five years, all of their mill horses became redundant. Prior to the
439
Barrels
74,704
60,508
60,140
52,785
48,413
34,098
30,740
28,615
Chapter 7
440
Barrels
Samuel Whitbread
Felix Calvert
Hester Thrale
W. Read (Trumans)
John Calvert
Peter Hammond
Henry Goodwin
John Phillips
Richard Meux
Matthew Wiggins
Thomas Fasset
Ann Dawson
Thomas Jordan
Joseph Dickenson
Richard Hare
Thomas Allen
Rivers Rickinson
Richard Pearce
Thomas Coker
Thomas Proctor
William Newberry
George Hodgson
Robert Bullock
Edward Clarke
150,280
131,043
105,559
95,302
91,150
90,852
66,398
54,197
49,651
40,741
40,279
39,400
24,193
23,659
23,251
23,013
18,640
16,901
16,744
16,584
16,517
16,384
16,272
9,855
BIG IS BEAUTIFUL
But stimulate increased output they did, especially in London, and one
witnesses the establishment of some of the most famous names in
brewing. By 1810, the Picture of London reports of Whitbreads Chiswell
Street Brewery:
One of Mr. Watts steam engines works the machinery. It pumps the water,
wort, and beer, grinds the malt, stirs the mash-tubs, and raises the casks out of
the cellars. It is able to do the work of 70 horses, though it is of a small size,
being only a 24-inch cylinder, and does not make more noise than a spinningwheel. Whether the magnitude, or ingenuity of contrivance, is considered, this
brewery is one of the greatest curiosities that is any where to be seen, and little
less than half a million sterling is employed in the machinery, buildings, and
materials.
44 1
the most considerable breweries are those of Whitbread, Brown, and Co.,
Meux and Co., Barclay and Co., Hanbury and Co., and Brown and
Parry, each of whom brews annually upwards of 100,000 barrels. Brewing
volumes for the major London brewers are then given (Table 7.6).
Mathias (1957), discusses the role of the entrepreneur in English
brewing, during the 18fhand early 19thcenturies, and finds that about the
only thing that they had in common was that they were all opportunists,
and that the great names on the London brewing scene all arose on
the back of the production of vast quantities of porter. He also neatly
summarises the categories of brewers in England and Wales during the
Mthcentury, the details of which are illustrated in Table 7.7.
Brewing victuallers in London are not accounted for in the above,
because they always numbered less than 50, and their overall percentage
production was insignificant. Note that the number of commercial
breweries in London decreased during the century; by 1830, in fact, the
number was further reduced to 115. Thus, we see a trend whereby more
beer is being brewed in fewer, larger, individual establishments; this
was to be a continuing feature of the British brewing industry. In the
Table 7.6 Amount of strong beer brewedfrom the Shof
July, 1806, to the Shof July, 1807, by the 12
principal Brewers of London
Brewery
Barrels
170,879
166,600
135,972
125,654
104,251
83,004
80,273
72,580
47,388
38,554
37,033
33,283
Brewing victuallers
England & Wales
London
Common brewers
Englund & Wales
London
1700
1750
1799
39,469
48,421
23,690
746
996
1,382
174
165
127
Chapter 7
442
provinces, it was the victualler brewers who were being squeezed out,
whilst in London, the same was happening to the smaller common
brewers. Conditions were such that some of the London brewers were
able to expand, apparently ad nauseam, along with the ever-increasing
population. In the provinces, however, brewers, especially those in the
smaller towns and villages, were limited, size-wise, by the extent of their
local markets. Mathias reports that in some midland counties, even as
late as 1800, there were very few common brewers; most of the local
trade still being satisfied by victualler-brewers.
By the last quarter of the 19thcentury, metropolitan brewing was now
largely in the hands of a few wealthy families, who had by now firmly
established themselves as brewing dynasties. From Bagehots Lombard
Street, (1873), we read of some of the reasons why; it seems as though
running a brewery was now a little less laborious than in the days of
Benjamin Truman (see page 540) for the owners, at least:
-
The calling is hereditary; the credit of the brewery descends from father to son:
this inherited wealth soon brings inherited refinement. Brewing is a watchful but
not a laborious trade. A brewer even in large business can feel pretty sure that
all his transactions are sound, and yet have much spare mind. A certain part of
his time, and a considerable part of his thoughts he can readily devote to other
pursuits.
Spiller (1957) quotes from the 1742 edition of London and Country Brewer, which contains one or
two variations from the above. The introduction, for example, states, It is truely necessary in the
jirst place to be Master of a convenient Brewhouse; foc without this, it is but a lost Attempt to get
right Malt-Liquors.
443
Battomb about three Inches broad, and two thick, according to the present
London Mode; which by its many vacant square Holes admits sufficient Air, and
seldom too much Sun; so that the Backs or Coolers by this Means have a quick
Opportunity to cool a thin laid Wort; especially, if the Wallsfarther Side stands
to the South-west, where the Copper is to befixed with an Arm near the Bottom
of the same, and a large Brass-cock at its End, to discharge with Expedition hot
Water into the Mash-tun, and Wort into the Coolers. For this Purpose, its
Bottom should stand about ten Feet above the common Level of the Streetground, whereby is prevented in some Degree the Cooling of the Water and
wasting of the Wort; for now the tedious ascending Motion of the Pump is
avoided, and the Charge of that and Mans Labour saved. But besides the great
Copper, there is commonly, in a large Brewhouse, a k w e r one; if the first holds
twenty Barrels, the other may contain eight: The large one for boiling brown
Worts, the lesser onefor Amber and Pale-Ales. In former Days, ifthere were two
Coppers in a Brewhouse, they were at such a Distance, that it might be properly
said, there were two little Brewhouses near one another, which obliged the Master to have a Man to attend each Copper. But the present Contrivance excels the
old one, and these two Coppers are now so erected that each Fire-place is within
Feet of one another; so that one Stoker supplies the two Fires and Coppers,
which saves the Wages of one Man, that usually amounted to near thirty Pounds
a Year; besides having them now under a more immediate Inspection of the
Workman Brewer.
The second Improvement that has been made is also of considerable Service,
and that is by grinding the Malt directly into the Mash-tun;d which is performed
by the help of a long descending wooden close square Spout or Gutter, that
immediately receives it from the high fixed Mill-stones, and conveys it into a
coverd Mash-tun, that thus effectually secures the light Flour of the Malt from
any Waste at all; whereas formerly they used to grind it into a great, square,
boarded Place, which lay lower than the Mash-tun, commonly called a Case or
Bin: From hence it was taken out with two Baskets andput into the Mash-tun, to
the Loss of some Quantity of the finest Flour of the Malt, that wouldfly away
and make a Lodgment on the Mens Cloaths, and the adjacent Places. But now
the Charge of building and repairing the square Case is altogether saves, its
Room put to some other Service, the Expence of Rope:?and Pullies sunk, and the
two Mens Time converted to other necessary Uses in the Brewhouse.
The third Improvement is the Water-pumps. These,formerly were erected in a
Brewhouse for the convenient Conveyance of Water out of the Reservoir and
The author is recommending the use of wooden slats on three walls, to aid air movement; the
fourth wall has the copper adjacent to it.
My 1759 edition does not specify a distance, there is a pause in the text.
The inference here is that malt was now ground on the floor above the mash-tun into which it
descended by gravitation down the wooden gutter.
444
Chapter 7
Well; the Former for the New-River, and the Latter for Spring- Water. They were
worked with long Iron Pendant-handles with a large Knob of Leadfixd to their
Bottom Endsfor the greater Ease of Mens Labour.. But the present Contrivance
works both these Pumps with more Expedition by a single Horse put into the
Malt-mill, and that in as true a Manner as any Men whatsoever which saves
great Part of a Mans Wages.
The fifth Improvement relates to the Backs or Coolers, which are certainly
more conveniently placed in a great Brewhouse, than in the private or small one;
because, in many of the former, they have room to lay them on a single Stage or
Story. To each of these isfastened a leaden Pipe about an Inch or two Bore, with
a brass Cock at the End, that discharges the Wort at Pleasure into a square or
round Tun; besides which is also another Hole about four Inches Diameter, filld
with a wooden Plug, whose Use is to let out the Dregs swept through it into a Tub
under the same, to be strained by aflannel Bag fastened to a Barrel-Hoop, and
the clear Wort thus strained is mixed with the rest. This leads me to observe the
Misfortune that I have seen some labour under, who, being confined to a narrow
Space of Ground, run into Brewings of great Quantities of Drink, which obliges
them to build three Stages of Backs one over another, that often occasions their
Worts to fox, or damage in some Degree, by the long Heats the under one sends
upwards, so that the flat Planks are made hot both at Bottom and Top, and
thereby deprived of one of the principal Conveniences in Brewing, a due Freedom
of Air, which a single Stage seldom ever wants. By means of the Copper Arm, the
Worts now run swiftly into a single Teer of Backs, that formerly usedfirst to be
emptied by a Pump placed in the Copper, and thrown up into a little Back, just
over it, from whence it ran out into the great Backs; and i f there were one or two
Teer more, the Wort was conveyed into the same by a small wooden Pump placed
in the Copper-Back. This better Management saves the Loss of a great deal of
Time, Waste, and Mens Labour. These Improvements, and many others that I
am sensible, raised my Surprise to see several great common Brewers, in some
of the Eastern Parts of England, brew ten Quarters of Malt or more at a Time in
a Mash-tun, placed almost close to the Ground, the under Back deep in it,
exposed to the Fall of Dirts, Drowning of Insects, and other Foulnesses. The
open Copper also a little above the common Level of the Earth, the Coolers in a
proportionable Lowness. And to make up a compleat Mismanagement, they
brew most of their Four-penny Ales after their Six-penny Beers: So that you can
have no mild Drink here, but what tastes of the earthy Parts of the Malt and
Hops to such a Degree that I was commonly forced to be at an extravagant
Charge, and mix some Ingredients with it, to correct its unpleasant Taste and
unwholesome Qualities.
Horses were now replacing man for the more strenuous parts of the brewing process.
445
P
P
447
5 5 5, mash-tuns.
6 6 6 6 6, men mashing, or stirring with utensils, called oars, the malt and water
in the mash-tun.
7, an utensil called an oar, used in mashing.
8 8 8, the mashing-stage, or floor on which the mash-tuns are are placed.
9 9 9 9, cocks for letting the wort, or, as brewers call it, the goods, out of the
mash-tuns, into the under-backs.
10 10 10, under-backs, which receive the goods from the mash-tuns.
I I , the jack-back. This back is placed something lower than the under-backs, and
has a communication with them all; and out of this back the wort is pumped into
the coppers.
12, a wort-pump, by which the wort is pumped out of the jack-back in to the
coppers. This pump, as well as those which raise the water from the reservoir into
the upper-backs, and which could not be shewn in the figure, are worked by the
horse-mill which grinds the malt.
13, the millev, or person who grinds the malt.
14, a boiling-curb. Its use is to prevent the wort from boiling over in the copper
15, the master-brewer
16, a gutter for conveying the wort out of the wort-backs into the cooling-backs.
17, pipes which carry the wort from the wort-pumps into the coppers.
397
your cooler, which standing over the Guil-vat you shall in the bottome thereof
set a great bowle with your barme and some o f t h e first wort (before the hops
come into it mixt together) that it may rise therein, and let your wort drop or
run gently into the dish with the barme which stands in the Guil-vat, and this you
shall do the first day of your brewing letting your cooler drop all the night
following, and some part ofthe next morning, and as it droppeth ifyoufinds that
a blacke skumme or mother riseth upon the barme, you shall with your hand take
it off and cast it away, then nothing being left in the cooler, and the beere well
risen, with your hand stirre it about and so let it stand an hower after, and then
beating it and the barme exceeding well together, tunne it up in the Hogsheads
being cleane washt and scaulded, and so let it purge, and herein you shall observe
not to tun your vessels too full for feare thereby it purge too much of the harm
away, when it hath purged a day and a night you shall close up the bung-holes
with clay, and only for a day or two after keepe a vent-hole in it, and after close it
up as close as may be. Nor for your second or small drinke which are left upon
the graines you shall offer it there to stay but an hower or a little better, and then
drain it off also, which done put it into the lead with the former hops and boile
the other ayo, then cleere it from the hops and cover it very close till your first
beere bee runnd, and then as before put it also to barme and so tunne it up as
so in smaller vessels, and of this second beere you shall not drawe above one
Hogshead to three ofthe better. Now there be divers other waies & observations
for the brewing of ordinary Beere but none so good, so easie, so ready and
quickly performed as this before shewed: neither will any beere last longer or
ripen sooner, for it may bee drunke at a fortnights age and will last as long and
lively.
Apart from the exaggerated use of the hand to effect certain operations,
most of the above stages in production should be recognisable by any
modern-day brewer, whose plant is capable of brewing traditional ale.
The Guil-vat would equate with the fermentation vessel of today, and
it is interesting to note that the term gyle is still used to define a batch
of beer. Note also, that only two extracts are obtained from an ordinary
beer brew; the following recipe for the stronger March beer yields
three beers of varying strengths:
Nowfor the brewing of the best march Beere you shall allow to a Hogshead
thereof a quarter of the best malt, well ground: then you shall take a pecke
ofpease, haye a pecke of Wheate, and haye a pecke of Oates and grind them all
very well together, and then mix them with your malt: which done you shall in all
points brew this beere us you did the former ordinary beer: onely you shall allow
a pound and a half of hops to this one Hogshead: and whereas before you drew
but two sorts of beere: so now you shall draw three: that is a Hogs-head of the
Chapter 7
398
best, and a Hogs-head of the second, and haye a Hogs-head of small beere
without any augmentation of hops or malt.
This march Beere would be brewd in the moneths of March or Aprill, and
should i f it have right lie a whole yeere to ripen: it will last two, three and foure
yeeres i f it lie cool and close, and indure then dropping to the last drop, though
with never so much leasure.
399
gallons of hawe a quarter; and when it comes to bee changed you shall blinke it
(as was before shewed) more by much then was the strong ale, for it must
be pretty and sharpe, which giveth the life and quicknesse to the Ale, and when
you tunne it you shall put it into round bottles with narrow mouthes, and then
stopping them close with corke, set them in a cold sellar up to the wast in sand,
and be sure that the corkes be fast tied in with strong packethrid, for feare of
rissing out, or taking vent, which is the utter spoile of the ale. Now for the small
drinke arising from this bottle Ale, or any other beere or ale whatsoever, ifyou
keepe it after it is blinkt and boiled in a close vessel, and then put it to barme
every morning as you have occasion to use it, the drinke will drinke a great deale
the fresher, and be much more livelie in tast.
The recipe for strong ale emphasises the north-south variation in the
standard measures of the day; the northern bushel being worth two
of the southern variety (c$ the difference between the Newcastle and
London chaldron). Add to this the fact that a bushel (of, say malt) was
originally a volume, not a weight (and so the weight depended upon the
size of the grains), and one can appreciate the difficulties facing the
brewing historian attempting to equate ancient recipes with their modern
counterparts.
There is some evidence that the grand houses produced their own
bottled beers, no doubt as some sort of status symbol, but this form of
beer was not to the liking of everyone. Thomas Tryon, for example, has
no doubt about the deficiencies of the product:
It is a great custom and general fashion nowadays to bottle ale; but the same
was never invented by any true naturalist that understood the inside of things. For
though ale never be so well wroughtt or fermented in the barrel, yet the bottling of
it puts it on a new motion or fermentation, which wounds the pure spirits and. . .
body; therefore such ale out of bottles will drink more cold and brisk, but not so
sweet and mild as the same ale out of a cask, that it of aproper age: besides the
bottle tinges or gives it a cold hard quality, which is the nature of glass and stone,
and being the quantity is so small, the cold Saturnine nature of the bottle has the
greater power to tincture the liquor with its quality. Furthermore, all such bottle
drinks are infected with a yeasty furious foaming matter which no barrel-ale is
guilty of. . . j o r which reasons bottle-ale or beer is not so good or wholesome as
that drawn out of a barrel or hogshead; and the chief thing that can be said for
bottle-ale or beer, is that it will keep longer than that in barrels, which is caused
by its being kept, as it were, in continued motion or fermentation.
Chapter 7
400
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
40 1
One Thousand six hundredJifty and three: 1653. This is clearly slightly
more than a small household brewery, having need for a horse mill,
although there is no mention of any associated ale-house.
Chapter 7
402
Figure 7.1
Closer observation indicated that the white knobs showed morphological variation, and that they were seed-cases similar to those found
on the top of mushrooms. Hooke did not observe organisms as small as
bacteria, even though his microscope would have been powerful
enough to have done so. This was probably because he viewed most of
his objects, which were in the dried state, by reflected light. This would
have made them somewhat opaque; not the best way of observing
microbes.
So the discovery of micro-organisms was left to Antonj van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), from Delft, who was self-educated and not formally
trained as a scientist. Leeuwenhoek, who was the son of a draper, was
fortunate enough to hold a political sinecure in Delft, which allowed him
plenteous time for pursuing his hobbies of metalwork and lens-making.
His instruments were not compound microscopes, but single mounted
lenses, with the object mounted in such a way that light was transmitted
through it. With his apparatus he could achieve magnification of up to
x300, and by keeping his methods secret, he made sure that no other
workers were able to use a single lens so effectively. Commencing in 1674,
van Leeuwenhoek corresponded over 200 times with the Royal Society,
his letter of 17thSeptember, 1683, probably being the most momentous
because it contained the amazing, and often published, illustrations of
403
bacteria from his mouth. A superb account of the life and work of the
man who discovered the little animalcules was written by Clifford
Dobell in 1932, and has since been reprinted. Some of the drawings
made by van Leeuwenhoek were very precise, and it is possible to place
taxonomic names on some of them.
For whatever reason, systematic study of microbes was delayed for
another 100 years, or so, and it was not until 1786 that the Danish
zoologist, O.F. Muller, studied bacteria and succeeded in discovering
details of their structure. Miiller also left accurate illustrative details,
and it is possible to relate his organisms to modern taxa. From the point
of view of brewing history, van Leeuwenhoek examined fermenting beer
under one of his microscopes, and observed particulate matter, which he
describes thus :
Some of these seemed to me to be quite round, others were irregular, and some
exceeded the others in size, and seemed to consist of two, three or four of the
aforesaid particles joined together. Others again consisted of six globules and
these last formed a complete globule of yeast.
404
Chapter 7
some detail, but it was not until nearly 150 years later, in 1826, that
Desmazikres described the elongated cells from a film of growth on
beer. He named the organism Mycoderma Cerevisid and regarded it as
a member of the animal kingdom, rather than the plant kingdom. He did
not record whether he thought that this organism had anything actively
to do with fermentation. Leeuwenhoek, himself, made no mention of
whether he recognised his yeasts as living organisms, nor did he allude
to their raison dgtre in beer.
One of the leading questions to be faced by 17th century natural
scientists was that of the Aristotelian doctrine of spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis which, in essence, propounded that life was
continually being created out of inanimate matter. The doctrine was not
out of line with the biblical account of the Earths creation, and for 200
years there was a fierce debate about the topic. Spontaneous generation
dominated some areas of scientific thought during the lVh century, and
it was not until publications of Pasteur that it was laid to rest. One of
the first people to seriously question abiogenesis was the Italian physician Frances0 Redi (1626-1679), who was interested in how maggots
developed from unprotected meat. It had always been supposed that
maggots in decaying meat were derived spontaneously from transformations occurring within the meat itself; so no questions were ever asked.
In experiments performed around 1665, Redi placed clean linen cloths
over jars containing fresh samples of meat. He observed that flies,
attracted to the meat, landed on the cloth and laid eggs. Later on,
maggots could be seen on the cloth, but not on the meat, showing
conclusively that maggots grow from eggs and are not able to arise
spontaneously from non-living meat. Unfortunately, the work was
largely ignored, most of those who did read it regarding Redi as a
heretic.
Leeuwenhoeks discovery of microbial life should, in theory, have
signalled the beginning of the end for abiogenesis, but adherents of the
doctrine accommodated these new forms of life in their explanations
of how life is created. Non-living animal and vegetable matter contained a vital or vegetative force capable of converting such
inanimate matter into new and different forms of life; Leeuwenhoeks
animalcules were proof of this. In 1710, Louis Joblot (1 645-1 723)
observed that hay, when infused in water and allowed to stand for some
days, gave rise to countless minute organisms (infusoria); this was an
example of abiogenesis. Joblot then boiled a hay infusion and divided it
into two portions, placing one in a carefully baked (sterilised) and closed
vessel, which was heated thoroughly and kept closed. The other portion
was not heated and was kept in an open vessel. The infusion in the
405
open vessel teemed with microbial life after a couple of days, but no life
appeared in the closed vessel - as long as it remained closed. Thus,
Joblot proved that the infusion alone, once freed of life by heating, was
incapable of generating new life spontaneously.
Two mighty 18thcentury protagonists in this subject area, were two
men of the cloth; the Englishman, John Needham (1713-1781) and
the Italian, Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799). Needham was a devout
believer in abiogenesis, and performed experiments along the same lines
as Joblot, except that he used mutton broth instead of hay infusion.
Needham found that life was created in heated, closed vessels as well
as open ones, and maintained that he had confirmed abiogenesis, beyond
all reasonable doubt, but it has since been shown that he had not heated
his closed vessels sufficiently, and bacterial spores (which were unknown
at that time - he conducted these experiments in 1748) had survived
a sub-lethal heat dose. In addition, Needhams flasks were sealed by
corks which are, of course, porous.
Spallanzani set up two series of flasks; one was sealed at the top by
melting the glass, the other was corked, a la Needham. The flasks had
been filled with seeds and other vegetable matter, and then heated for
one hour before being sealed. After a time he microscopically investigated their contents. The corked flasks contained innumerable small,
swimming animalcules, just as Needham had found, but the properly
sealed flasks contained none, or very few. Spallanzani concluded that
the life in Needhams work had entered via the cork, i.e. it was in the
air, and wouldnt have occurred if the necks had been sealed tight;
animalcules do not exist that can survive boiling for one hour. In theory,
this work should have settled the debate about abiogenesis, but it didnt.
As we shall see, what it did do was to form the basis for the art of
preserving food by canning, in the early 19thcentury. The main objection to Spallanzanis work was that by excluding air from some flasks,
the vital force was unable to operate, and so no life was to be
expected. Life in the absence of air was unheard of at this time. The
discovery of oxygen, by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1 794) in
1775, and his work on the relationship between air and life, renewed the
controversy.
Some of the most definitive work aimed at disproving spontaneous
generation was carried out by the great German biologist, Theodor
Schwann (1810-1882), who allowed air to pass freely over previously
heated organic substrates (meat and hay infusions), but only after it had
passed through very hot glass tubes; such infusions failed to yield life.
Schulze did much the same thing, with similar results, only he passed the
air supply through solutions of sulphuric acid and potassium hydroxide,
406
Chapter 7
407
Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
26.8
7.7
61.4
16.7
9.9
0.6
9.6
-
0.2
-
31.4
25.4
1.7
27.2
40.4
9.8
6.1
58.5
49.4
408
Chapter 7
as an oxide, and that when it was split into its two main fragments, one
was oxidised at the expense of the other to form carbonic acid, whilst the
other was deoxygenised in favour of the former to produce ethanol,
which is combustible. In conclusion to this aspect of his work, Lavoisier
proposed that if it were possible to recombine carbonic acid and ethanol,
then sugar would result. In hindsight, we can safely say that it is from
Lavoisiers work that the modern studies on fermentation derive.
One of the first theories regarding the cause of fermentation was
forwarded by the Italian scientist Fabroni, at the very end of the Hth
century. He maintained that it was attributable to the action of gluten4
derived from the starch grain, and sugar. In 1803, the noted French
chemist, Louis Jacques Thenard (1777-1 857), refuted the gluten
hypothesis, and noted that all fermenting liquids appeared to deposit
a nitrogen-containing material, resembling brewers yeast, during the
course of the reaction. Results of some of his other experiments showed
that when yeast was used to ferment pure sugar, it altered in its characteristics and was deposited as a white residue, which did not have
the subsequent ability to ferment fresh sugar. This residue Thenard
found to be devoid of nitrogen, and of much reduced weight. Thenard,
himself, offered no alternative to explain the nature of fermentation,
but he did feel that something akin to brewers yeast was involved. He
proposed that the causative agent was of animal origin and that it
decomposed during the reaction to provide some of the observed CO,
that was released; a view at variance with Lavoisiers findings.
The next outstanding contribution to the subject was published by
the French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), in 1810. He
proposed that fermentation was instigated by the action of oxygen on
fermentable material, a conclusion that was reached by researching,
in detail, some of the methods used by the father of canning, the
Frenchman, Nicholas Appert (1749-1 841), the bulk of whose work was
over the period 1795-1810. Apperts work was stimulated by a 12,000
franc prize offered by the French government for anyone who perfected
a method for preserving food destined for the armed forces during the
Napoleonic conflagrations. Basically, he submersed food contained in
cork-stoppered, wide-mouthed glass bottles, in boiling water for several
hours. Such methods, simple as they may seem, were good enough to be
used for many years by commercial canners, even though the relationship
between micro-organisms and food spoilage was unknown. Apperts
prize-winning treatise was the 1809 ( L e Livre de tout les Mknages, ou
The definition of gluten in the OED, says, The nitrogenous part of the flour of wheat or other
grain, which remains behind as a viscid substance when the starch is removed by kneading theflour in
a current of water.
409
Chapter 7
410
nourishment, whilst the remaining elements of these compounds, which were not
taken up by the plant, combined chiefly to form alcohol.
Unlike Cagniard-Latour, Schwann thought that the actual fermentation process was carried out inside the yeast cell. Schwanns report was
very closely followed by a treatise by the German botanist, Friedrich
Traugott Kutzing, which was also based on meticulous microscope work.
There are accurate descriptions of what Kutzing clearly thinks is a living
vegetable organism responsible for fermentation. To sceptical chemists,
of whom there were plenty, such as Berzelius, he issues the following
statement: It is obvious that chemists must now strike yeast off the roll
of chemical compounds, since it is not a compound but an organised body,
an organism. The summation of the work of these three great scientists
was that yeasts are plants consisting of individual cells which multiply in
sugar solutions and as a result of their growth produce alcohol. All
three pieces of work were criticised, and even derided by the scientific
establishment of the time.
Probably the most influential chemist of the era was the Swede, Count
Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779-1 848), described by Harden (19 14) as the
arbiter and dictator of the chemical worl8. Berzelius was totally
unimpressed with the microscopic evidence presented to substantiate
the above work, and although he accepted the role of yeast during fermentation, he regarded it as being no more a living organism than was
a precipitate of alumina. As far as Berzelius was concerned, he had
published his views on fermentation, and similar chemical reactions, in
1836, and that was that. He had introduced the concept of the catalytic
force (of which yeast was an example) that he held responsible for many
chemical reactions, both between substances of mineral and of animal
and vegetable origin. This force enabled bodies, by their mere presence,
and not by their affinity to arouse affinities ordinarily quiescent at the
temperature of the experiment, so that the elements of a compound body
arrange themselves in some different way, by which a greater degree of
electro-chemical neutralisation is attained .
If this was not bad enough for the credibility of the work of CagniardLatour, Schwann and Kutzing, in the scientific world, in 1839 two more
eminent chemists muddied the waters even more; they were the Germans,
Justus Liebig (1803-1 873) and Friedrich Wohler (1800-1 882). Liebig,
who at that time was regarded as being one of the first eminent biochemists, was engaged in the debate on the cause of alcoholic fermentation, and although he did not believe that living organisms were involved,
he did not agree with Berzelius concept either. Liebigs reputation was
immense, and his ideas concerning chemical processes were quite definite
41 1
Chapter 7
412
detected in the interior of each of these animalculae; this swells up to ten times
its size, and is emptied by a sort of screw-like action effected by the agency of a
series of ring-shaped muscles situated in its outside.
413
414
Chapter 7
Yeast was merely exceedingly unstable matter which by its own decomposition
would set up the intestine motion in other substances with which it was brought
in contact. Vinousfermentation, acetous fermentation and putrefaction were all
revelations of the same process. Acetous fermentation destroyed the inpammable
spirit produced by the vinous, and putrefaction annihilated the whole. The one
passed directly into the other in brewing unless the acetous fermentation is
arrested by reducing the temperature at tunning.
415
Chapter 7
416
Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that the vinous, acetous and
putrefaction fermentation require three distinct ferments . . . The power of
gluten to attract oxygen is increased by contact with precipitated yeast in a
state of decay, the unrestrained access of air is the only other condition
necessary for its own conversion into the same state of decay, that is for its
oxidation. On this durable circumstance, as upon an unshatterable basis, he
[Liebig] builds his solution of one of the most beautiful problems of the theory
of fermen tat ion.
ADULTERATION OF BEER
With the rise of common brewers during the 17thcentury, a breed who
would normally be totally reliant on brewing and selling beer for their
livelihood, and with a tax on most raw materials, there was a great
temptation to use non-brewing materials to stretch the brew-length, or
to simulate bitterness and/or colour. Some diabolically dangerous
materials were often used as substitutes for malt and hops, without
regard for any consequences of toxicity. Some of the most dangerous
substances used were those aimed at augmenting the strength of malt
drinks, i.e. to simulate alcohol intoxication. This is the realm of beer
adulteration, and an outstanding treatise on the subject has been
417
418
Chapter 7
The author feels that it was only the smaller brewers who resort to
such practices, not the larger, common brewers, and he hopes that by
exposing the dangers of using such vegetable matter, he will have served
mankind well. Near the end of the chapter, the author begs that no
person will have anything to do with such unwholesome ingredients,
especially since Malts are now only twenty Shillings per Quarter. In
a subsequent chapter, the author mentions two more malt-saving
ingredients that he had detected in a beer he had sampled:
At one of these Markets, about eighty Milesfrom London, Iperceivd they had
so doctord their common Twopenny Drink, as to make it go down smooth; but,
when I found it left a hot Tang behind it, it gave me just Reason to believe they
had used Grains of Paradise, or long Pepper, both which will save Malt.
The same chapter contains a short exposition on the use of sweet flag
(called by the Apothecaries Calamus Aromaticus) as a substitute for
hops:
419
. . . by slicing it thin, and boiling it a little Time in Wort with the Hops, will save
more than one Pound of Hops in six; therefore some in a dear Hop Season will
use it as a Succedaneum to this Vegetable; besides which, it will give a fine
Flavour to the Drink, if used in due Proportion, and is very wholesome.
21b.
I lb.
I lb.
I lb.
402.
9502.
%oz.
5502.
6
95oz.
202.
21b.
The above are made up into 4 oz balls and added to casks at the rate of
one to 4% gallons of beer. Pale balls contain the same ingredients, except
that red saunders are omitted, and you use a pound or two of fine sugar
made into a syrup, instead of molasses. Another recipe for fining beer
contains, as one of its ingredients, the stems of tobacco pipes!
From the point of view of toxic ingredients, even more horrifying is a
part of the content of chapter XIV (part 111); a section dealing with
hyper-active beer:
In Case your Drink works too violently in the Cask (after my new Method)
then run a Brass Cock into the middle Cock-hole of your Butt, and draw out a
Parcel, and, in the Room thereoJI put as much raw Wort into the Bung-hole in
the Head, as will sufficiently check it, or burn Brimstone under or about the
Vessel and it will do it directly - Also Salt, Allum, Nitre, Spirit of Vitriol, Oil
of Sulphur, Spirit of Salt and all other Acids abate violent Workings of
Malt-Liquors.
420
Chapter 7
Beer grounds, stale beer, sugar water, distillers spent wash, sugar, molusses,
vitriol, quassia, Cocculus indicus, grains of paradise, Guinea pepper, opium, or
any other material or ingredient except malt and hops.
The penalty for failure to observe was E200, and forfeit of brewing
equipment.
With the immense popularity of porter beer, many artificial colourings
were developed, and this necessitated the law of 1816, which forbade
the use of any liquor, extract, calx, or other material or preparation for
darkening or colouring worts or beer, other than brown malt. Also banned
were molasses, honey, liquorice, vitriol, quassia, Cocculus indicus, grains
of paradise, Guinea pepper, opium, or any substitute for malt and hops.
The penalty for failure to concur was E200, and loss by seizure of the
offending beer and its containers. This time the government attempted to
punish those responsible for supplying brewers with illegal materials, and
accordingly a penalty of E500 was payable by any chemist, grocer, or the
like, who was caught supplying brewers with same.
In 1847, a reversal of policy resulted in the use of sugar being. permitted in brewing, and when the duty on hops was repealed in 1862, the
revenue penalties for using hop substitutes were naturally abolished as
well. When duty on malt was scrapped in 1880, all restrictions as to the
use of materials in brewing were removed. From the Governments point
of view, raising revenue via a hop tax was always going to be somewhat
precarious, for of all the agricultural crops in Britain, nothing fluctuates
in yield, from year to year, as do hops (for example, in 1881,455,000 cwt
of hops were harvested from 64,943 acres under the bine, whilst in the
following year only 120,000 cwt were produced from 65,619 acres).
The prosecution of brewers for using prohibited substances relied, of
course, on the ability of officers in the field to detect the offending
material in the beer. It was not until the 19th century that anything
resembling sophisticated analytical methods evolved. In the 18thcentury,
some seemingly hit-and-miss methods were employed. Filby (1934)
reports on one such toprove when beer is adulterated with salt of steel or
green vitriol:
Take one oz. of the best blue coloured galls such as the dyers use, powder them
grossly, and boil them a quarter of an hour, in halfa pint of water. Strain the
decoction, and keep it in a vialfor use. Where beer is suspected to contain green
coperas, or salt of steel, take two wine glasses, fill them with such beer, place
them in a good light and add a few drops of the decoction of galls, to one glass,
stir it well and compare it to the colour of the beer in the other glass, and if it be
changed the least degree blacker it may with certainty be concluded that such
42 1
beer is impregnated with some chalybeate particles; it will appear more evidently
fi the two gZasses be examined after they have remained undisturbed 24 hours,
in which case the black curd generally subsides to the bottom of the glass with
which the decoction was admixed. But for more sufjicient prooJ; as the quantity
of salt is sometimes more minute, take a gallon of beer and boil it, till it be
consumed to a pint or less, to which add some decoction of galls, as before, and
the effect will be more obvious.
The oldest and most common adulterant of beer is, of course, water.
When beer is watered-down it, by definition, loses much of its flavour.
In The Retail Compounder or Publicans Friend of 1795, John Hardy
describes a method for restoring the flavour to beer so-treated:
For one hundred and thirty gallons. 801bs. of coriander seed bruised and steeped
in 80 gallons of spirit, one in jive, for 10 days, and stirred once a day; add a
little oil of carraway, rilled as peppermint; use all brown sugar killed [sic] as
peppermint andJine down as peppermint. Add water the same as citron, and
sugar the same as Carraway.
422
Chapter 7
423
Combrune emphasised that small beer brewing did not equate with
textbooks, the brewer had to use his own judgement - according to the
prevailing conditions. In summer there were particular problems with
temperature control, and it was often necessary to mash-in at night,
when the air was cooler. It was also essential to use higher hop rates in
summer in order to enhance keeping qualities. Conversely, small beer
brewed in winter had to have a stimulus for ensuring adequate early
fermentation in the low strength wort. Combrune prepared tables aimed
at quantifying the amount of hops that were optimum for brewing in
various ambient temperatures. Many of these stringencies did not apply
to brewing beer of higher original gravity. On a more general note, he
tried to prepare the brewer for action regardless of the vagaries of the
British climate. He worked out tables which enabled the mean heat of
the day to be calculated, and defined techniques suitable for day brewing
and night brewing; defining the normal brewing season as that part of
the year when the median heat of the day is at, or below, 50 O F , a period
of some 32 weeks, from the beginning of October to the middle of May.
According to Combrune, a considerable proportion of winter-brewed
beer was converted into a drink, popular with the working classes, called
purl, which was essentially strong pale ale infused with certain bitter
aromatics, the most widely used being orange peel and wormwood.
Combrune does not give a recipe as such, but later on in 1802, Thomas
Threale, in The Compleat Family Brewer, provides the following:
Roman wormwood, 2 dozen;
gentian root, 6 lbs;
Chapter 7
424
425
the brewer could do anything about) had always been regarded as the
temperature of the liquor before mashing. Until the thermometer was
developed, brewers assessed liquor temperatures by means of various
rules of thumb. Accordingly, the brewer deemed that liquor was suitable
for mashing if: a) his hand could just tolerate the heat on being immersed
in it; or b) he could see the reflection of his face in the water surface,
just prior to it becoming obscured by steam. In the latter instance, it
would have been normal for boiling liquor to be let into the mash
tun, where it would have cooled in situ before the grist was added. The
temperature of the wort that was run off from the mash-tun was determined by a finger. It all seemed to work, so why change? Such methods
could be tolerated when small batches of beer were being brewed, but
they were patently unsatisfactory for large-scale brewing.
In England, it seems as though Michael Combrune first brought the
thermometer into general use in breweries, and he appreciated that it
was a device that would be essential for improving beer quality in larger
breweries, where a brewing mishap could be extremely costly. In the
absence of access to a thermometer, Combrune advises the following
method of adjusting the temperature of mashing liquor:
Heat 220 measures (e.g. gallons) of water to boiling, and then add 100 similar
measures of cold water, which when mixed with the former, will produce a
temperature not exceeding 160, or I 70, and this is a very proper heat for the
mashing operation, and accurate enough for common purposes.
426
Chapter 7
hermetically sealed, consequently the contained fluid was, at the same time,
under the influence o f t h e weight of air, and that of expansion by heat. The
academy of Florence added this improvement; which soon made them more
generally received.
Use of the instrument was not confined to the huge city breweries,
for, as Mathias (1959) reports, Christies of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire,
spent the vast sum of 16 shillings on acquiring a thermometer in August
1768. John Richardson, in his Philosophical Principles of the Science
of Brewing of 1784, is of the opinion that the thermometer was then in
general use in breweries.
The invention of the saccharometer is credited to John Richardson,
around about 1785, even though it is known that James Baverstock,
Snr had experimented with a similar sort of instrument a little earlier. In
a report that makes seemingly justifiable claims for his fathers place
in brewing history, James Hinton Baverstock, Jr (1824), relates how his
father joined the family-owned Turk Street Brewery, Alton, Hampshire,
in 1763, at the age of 22. In a preamble to the main text, which is directed
at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce, he says:
It is now nearly forty years, since my father published and dedicated to your
valuable Institution, his Hydrometrical Observations and Experiments in
the Brewery; at which time, he had for sixteen years used an hydrostatical
instrument so constantly in his own practice, as on no one occasion, to vend
a single cask of beer, the specific gravity of which had not been previously
ascertained, and brought to a regular standard.
Thus, James Jr is alluding to round about the year 1768 as the year when
his father first used the instrument, and he recalls how he procured an
hydrometer, in that year, from Mr Benjamin Martin of Fleet Street,
who had advertised it as useful in discovering the strength of beer, ale,
wine and worts.
In January 1770, Baverstock provided Martin with a manuscript
containing the particulars of some of the experiments which had been
made with it, but the inventor was unimpressed and would not believe
that it could possibly be of any use in a brewery. Baverstock then
approached Mr Whitbread, the founder of the celebrated brewery in
Chiswell Street, who was just as disdainful, and told him that he had got
a large and successful trade without ever having used such an instrument,
and concluded the meeting with, Go home, young man, attend to your
business and do not engage in such visionary pursuits. This Baverstock
427
428
Chapter 7
A word, or two, about the elder Baverstocks career, and the role of
his son, may be pertinent here. In 1773, James Snr left the family brewery in Alton to form a partnership with John Dowden, under the name
of Baverstock and Dowden, and this continued until 1786, when he went
to Windsor. On leaving that town in 1801, when the terms of his partnership with the Ramsbottom brothers expired (the brewery was now
known as Ramsbottom and Baverstock), he returned to Alton and
resumed his brewery there, which he had leased to Mrs Dowden, widow
of his former partner. His eldest son, Thomas, succeeded him at the
Windsor Brewery, where he died in May, 1816, an event that prompted
young J.H. Baverstock, the author of the 1824 Treatises, to leave Alton
and join the Ramsbottoms. The publication of Hydrometrical Observations in 1785, some 15 years after the original work had been carried out
was, on the surface of it, a knee-jerk reaction to Richardsons
recently-published treatise, which had attracted so much attention, and
brought considerable acclaim to its author. Baverstock Snrs other publications were; Observations on the Prejudices against the Brewery (18 1I),
and Observations on the State of the Brewery, and on the Saccharine
Quality of Malt (1813). James Snr died in Southampton in December
1815.
We have inferred that the increase in size of brewing operations, in
places like London, brought with it potential financial problems. The
A way of malting.
429
hydrometer (sac~harometer)~
was fundamental in solving and preventing
disputes between brewer and Excise officers, over what was to be charged
as strong beer wort, and what was to be charged only as small. Until
then the officials only means of distinguishing between the two was by
tasting, or dipping fingers into the wort. The hydrometer was used by
companies engaged in distilling long before being introduced into
breweries, it being regarded as an essential means of gauging strength
and proof of a spirit sample. The original form of the hydrometer, as we
would recognise it today, probably manifested itself as Boyles bubble,
which he first demonstrated to the Royal Society in 1669, and which
he elaborated upon in the Philosophical Transactions of June 1675
(No. 115). There is some evidence that Boyles apparatus was actually
a re-invention of a hydrometer developed by one of the Alexandrine
chemists, called Hypatia; there is even a suggestion that the original
invention should be credited to Archimedes. Nevertheless, the instrument
that Boyle describes in the Transactions (Figure 7.3), was fundamentally
devised for the purpose of detecting counterfeit coinage, especially
guineas and half-guineas (it was called the New Essay Instrument).
From this, Boyle developed a version that was a small glass instrument
for estimating the specific gravities of liquors . . . consisting of a bubble
furnished with a long stem, which was to be put into several liquors, to
compare and estimate their specZfic gravities. The lower bulb (Figure 7.4)
was loaded with mercury, or small shot, which served as ballast, causing
the instrument to float with the stem vertical. The quantity of mercury or
shot inserted depended upon the density of the liquids for which it was to
be used, it being essential that the whole of the bulb should be immersed
in the heaviest liquid for which the instrument was used, whilst the length
and diameter of the stem must be such that the hydrometer will float in
the lightest liquid for which it was required. The stem was usually divided
into a number of equal parts, the divisions of the scale being varied
in different instruments, according to the purposes for which they were
employed.
The first hydrometer intended for the determination of the densities
of liquids, and furnished with a set of weights to be attached when
necessary, was that constructed by an instrument-maker named Clarke
(described in the Philosophical Transactions for March and April 1730
(No. 413). Clarkes hydrometer came with 32 weights to adapt it to spirits
of different specific gravities, and 11 smaller weights, known as weather
weights because they were for correcting ambient temperature changes.
Historically, the hydrometer was specific for gauging the strength of spirits (ie. it measured the
amount of water present; hence the name). The saccharometer was designed to measure dissolved
fermentable material (e.g. sugar) in beer.
Chapter 7
430
Figure 7.3 Boyles hydrometer - originally for coinage. The illustration features an
instrument used to detect counterfeit coins of the realm. Originally designed to
monitor guineas, the apparatus can be adapted for lighter coins by adding the
circular plates, A, which are made of lead
Figure 7.4
43 1
Boyles bubble. The illustration is of what Robert Boyle called a small glass
instrument for estimating the spec@ gravity of liquors. It is usually made of
glass, the lower bulb being loaded with mercury or small shot which serves as
ballast, causing the instrument to float with the stem vertical. The quantity of
mercury or shot inserted depends upon the density of the liquids for which the
hydrometer is to be employed
Liquors; but as it is difficult to have the Stem exactly of the same Bigness all the
Way, and if it could be had, the same Instrument would not serve for Water and
Spirits, sinking quite over Head in Spirits when made for Water, and emerging in
Water with Part of the great Ball out, when made for Spirits. The Hydrometer
has only been used to find whether any one Liquor is specijkally heavier than
another; but not to tell how much, which cannot be done without a great deal of
Trouble, even with a nice Instrument. The Hydrostatical Balance has supplied
the Place of the Hydrometer, and shews the different specijick Gravity of
Fluids to a very great Exactness. But as that Balance cannot well be carried
in the Pocket, and much less managed and understood by Persons not used to
Experiments, Mr. Clarke was resolved to perfect the Hydrometer for the Use of
those that deal in Brandies and Spirits, that by the Use of the Instrument they
may, by Inspection, and without Trouble, know whether a spiritous Liquor be
Proofl above ProoJj or under Proofl and exactly how much above or under: And
this must be of great Use to the OfJicers of the Customs, who examine imported
or exported Liquors.
432
Chapter 7
After having made several fruitless Trials with Ivory, because it imbibes
spiritous Liquors, and thereby alters its Gravity, he at last made a Copper
Hydrometer, represented by Fig. 2, having a Brass Wire of about %Inch thick
going through, and soldered into the hollow Copper Ball, B b. The upper Ball of
this Wire isfiledflat on one Side, for the Stem of the Hydrometer, with a Mark
at 111, to which it sinks exactly in Proof Spirits. There are two other Marks,
A and B, at Top and Bottom of the Stem, to shew whether the Liquor be 1/10
above Proof (as when it sinks to A ) or Ill0 under Proof (as when it emerges to
B ) when a Brass Weight, such as C, has screwed on, to the Bottom at c. There
are a great many such Weights of different Sizes, and marked to be screwed on,
instead of C, for Liquors that differ more than 1/10from ProoJ; so as to serve
for the speciJck Gravities in all such Proportions as relate to the Mixture of
spiritous Liquors, in all the Variety made Use of in Trade. There are also other
Balls for shewing the specijick Gravities quite to common Water, which makes
the Instrument perfect in its Kind.
Figure 7.5
433
434
Chapter 7
435
whereby the final gravity at attenuation was less than one-eighth of the
original gravity. The usual attenuation gravity of ale fermentations he
found to be generally in the order of one-quarter of the original gravity
and, as a rule of thumb, he reports:
"That the attenuation of a given weight of fermentable matter in anyjluid, will
produce a certain quantity of spirit; and that equal quantities of attenuated
matter, in all Jluids, whether of equal or different densities, will produce equal
quantities of spirit, without any regard to proportion which such attenuation may
bear to the density of either.
"
436
Chapter 7
~~~~~
Beer
Original gravity
Final gravity
Attenuation
Strong ale
Common ale
Porter
Table beer
39.5a (lllO)b
26.9 (1075)
25.7 (1071)
14.4 (1040)
18.6 (1052)
9.0 (1025)
6.5 (1018)
5.1 (1004)
20.9 (58)
17.9 (50)
19.2 (53)
9.3 (26)
~~
~~~~
437
a constant temperature during drying. Such fuels also gave a taint to the
malt, and imparted darker colour. Malts manufactured from these
cheaper fuels, were unsuitable for the new style of pale beers which were
becoming the vogue, especially amongst the upper echelons of society.
Much of the beer brewed in the grand houses was of the pale variety, and
hence demanded the very finest, light-coloured malt. The situation
was now just right for the introduction of a new beer style that would
effectively alter the method and scale of brewing, especially in London
and English provincial centres; this, of course was porter beer.
Before proceeding further, it is worth noting here that the relative costs
involved in the setting up of brewery and bakery businesses had been
completely reversed over a period of 300 years. Instead of it being more
capital-intensive to build and run a bakery (as we saw during the Middle
Ages), it was now far more expensive to set up to become a brewer. This
fact is illustrated in the 1747 Description of All Trades, where it is
reported that the capital necessary to begin as a Master Baker would
be around E100, and a journeymans wage would be 7 or 8s per week,
plus board. To set up as a Master Brewer, however, would cost many
thousands and a journeymans wage in the industry could vary from
E504200 per annum.
STEAM POWER
Steam power entered the London brewing industry during the last
quarter of the Hth century. Steam engines were originally purchased
for milling the vast quantities of grain necessary for large-scale beer
production, and for various pumping operations but, once installed,
they soon found other uses. Corran (19 7 9 , states that the first brewery to
actually install an engine was Henry Goodwyns Red Lion Brewery, at
St Katharines, in May 1784. Roll (1930), in an exposition on the early
history of the makers, Boulton and Watt, who had offices in Soho, maintains that a small 18 inch cylinder engine was delivered to the brewery of
Messrs Cook and Co., at Stratford-le-Bow, just east of London, in 1777.
The brewery paid E200 in one lump sum for the engine, but because of
installation costs, Boulton and Watt pleaded that they had made no
profit from the deal. The original enquiry from Cook and Co., had been
as early as June 1775. At this time, most engines had been destined for
the mining industry, particularly in Cornwall (tin and copper mines,
for whom Boulton and Watt set up 22 engines between 1775 and 1785),
and foundries and forges. Apart from these types of customer, breweries
and cotton mills were amongst the first manufacturing industries to
adopt the new form of power. Goodwyn certainly seems to have been
-
438
Chapter 7
Last summer we set up a Steam Engine for the purposes of grinding our Malt
and we also raise our Liquor (i.e. water for brewing) with it . . . The improvements that have at various times been made of the Steam Engine, but particularly the last by a Mr. Watt . . . are very great indeed and will bring the
machine into general use where the strength and labour of Horses is largely and
particularly wanted - you may remember our Wheel required 6 horses but we
ordered our engine the power of 10 - and the work it does we think is equal to
14 horses -for we grind with all our 4 Mills about 40 quarters an Hour beside
raising the Liquor. We began this seasons work with it and have now ground
about 28,000 qrs. with it without accident or interruption. Its great uses and
advantages give us all great satisfaction and are daily pointing out afresh to us we put aside now full 24 horses by it which to keep up and feed did not cost less
pr Anm. than L40 a Head - the expences of Erection was about L1,OOO. It
consumes only a Bushel of Coals an hour and we pay an annual Gratuity to
Bolton & Watt during their Patent of 60 guineas.
This next summer we have it in contemplation to put all our Cleansing Works
and other works upon i t . . . The brewhouse, as the possession of an individual, is
and will be when finished still more so, the wonder ojevery body by which means
our pride is become very troublesome being almost daily resorted to by Visitors,
either Strangers or Friends to see the Plan . . . )
By the year 1796, nine engines had been installed in London breweries,
and by 1801, this had risen to 14. At this point in time, only Truman
Hanburys of the major London houses had not gone over to steampowered machinery; their engine did not arrive until 1805 and, over the
next five years, all of their mill horses became redundant. Prior to the
439
Barrels
74,704
60,508
60,140
52,785
48,413
34,098
30,740
28,615
Chapter 7
440
Barrels
Samuel Whitbread
Felix Calvert
Hester Thrale
W. Read (Trumans)
John Calvert
Peter Hammond
Henry Goodwin
John Phillips
Richard Meux
Matthew Wiggins
Thomas Fasset
Ann Dawson
Thomas Jordan
Joseph Dickenson
Richard Hare
Thomas Allen
Rivers Rickinson
Richard Pearce
Thomas Coker
Thomas Proctor
William Newberry
George Hodgson
Robert Bullock
Edward Clarke
150,280
131,043
105,559
95,302
91,150
90,852
66,398
54,197
49,651
40,741
40,279
39,400
24,193
23,659
23,251
23,013
18,640
16,901
16,744
16,584
16,517
16,384
16,272
9,855
BIG IS BEAUTIFUL
But stimulate increased output they did, especially in London, and one
witnesses the establishment of some of the most famous names in
brewing. By 1810, the Picture of London reports of Whitbreads Chiswell
Street Brewery:
One of Mr. Watts steam engines works the machinery. It pumps the water,
wort, and beer, grinds the malt, stirs the mash-tubs, and raises the casks out of
the cellars. It is able to do the work of 70 horses, though it is of a small size,
being only a 24-inch cylinder, and does not make more noise than a spinningwheel. Whether the magnitude, or ingenuity of contrivance, is considered, this
brewery is one of the greatest curiosities that is any where to be seen, and little
less than half a million sterling is employed in the machinery, buildings, and
materials.
44 1
the most considerable breweries are those of Whitbread, Brown, and Co.,
Meux and Co., Barclay and Co., Hanbury and Co., and Brown and
Parry, each of whom brews annually upwards of 100,000 barrels. Brewing
volumes for the major London brewers are then given (Table 7.6).
Mathias (1957), discusses the role of the entrepreneur in English
brewing, during the 18fhand early 19thcenturies, and finds that about the
only thing that they had in common was that they were all opportunists,
and that the great names on the London brewing scene all arose on
the back of the production of vast quantities of porter. He also neatly
summarises the categories of brewers in England and Wales during the
Mthcentury, the details of which are illustrated in Table 7.7.
Brewing victuallers in London are not accounted for in the above,
because they always numbered less than 50, and their overall percentage
production was insignificant. Note that the number of commercial
breweries in London decreased during the century; by 1830, in fact, the
number was further reduced to 115. Thus, we see a trend whereby more
beer is being brewed in fewer, larger, individual establishments; this
was to be a continuing feature of the British brewing industry. In the
Table 7.6 Amount of strong beer brewedfrom the Shof
July, 1806, to the Shof July, 1807, by the 12
principal Brewers of London
Brewery
Barrels
170,879
166,600
135,972
125,654
104,251
83,004
80,273
72,580
47,388
38,554
37,033
33,283
Brewing victuallers
England & Wales
London
Common brewers
Englund & Wales
London
1700
1750
1799
39,469
48,421
23,690
746
996
1,382
174
165
127
Chapter 7
442
provinces, it was the victualler brewers who were being squeezed out,
whilst in London, the same was happening to the smaller common
brewers. Conditions were such that some of the London brewers were
able to expand, apparently ad nauseam, along with the ever-increasing
population. In the provinces, however, brewers, especially those in the
smaller towns and villages, were limited, size-wise, by the extent of their
local markets. Mathias reports that in some midland counties, even as
late as 1800, there were very few common brewers; most of the local
trade still being satisfied by victualler-brewers.
By the last quarter of the 19thcentury, metropolitan brewing was now
largely in the hands of a few wealthy families, who had by now firmly
established themselves as brewing dynasties. From Bagehots Lombard
Street, (1873), we read of some of the reasons why; it seems as though
running a brewery was now a little less laborious than in the days of
Benjamin Truman (see page 540) for the owners, at least:
-
The calling is hereditary; the credit of the brewery descends from father to son:
this inherited wealth soon brings inherited refinement. Brewing is a watchful but
not a laborious trade. A brewer even in large business can feel pretty sure that
all his transactions are sound, and yet have much spare mind. A certain part of
his time, and a considerable part of his thoughts he can readily devote to other
pursuits.
Spiller (1957) quotes from the 1742 edition of London and Country Brewer, which contains one or
two variations from the above. The introduction, for example, states, It is truely necessary in the
jirst place to be Master of a convenient Brewhouse; foc without this, it is but a lost Attempt to get
right Malt-Liquors.
443
Battomb about three Inches broad, and two thick, according to the present
London Mode; which by its many vacant square Holes admits sufficient Air, and
seldom too much Sun; so that the Backs or Coolers by this Means have a quick
Opportunity to cool a thin laid Wort; especially, if the Wallsfarther Side stands
to the South-west, where the Copper is to befixed with an Arm near the Bottom
of the same, and a large Brass-cock at its End, to discharge with Expedition hot
Water into the Mash-tun, and Wort into the Coolers. For this Purpose, its
Bottom should stand about ten Feet above the common Level of the Streetground, whereby is prevented in some Degree the Cooling of the Water and
wasting of the Wort; for now the tedious ascending Motion of the Pump is
avoided, and the Charge of that and Mans Labour saved. But besides the great
Copper, there is commonly, in a large Brewhouse, a k w e r one; if the first holds
twenty Barrels, the other may contain eight: The large one for boiling brown
Worts, the lesser onefor Amber and Pale-Ales. In former Days, ifthere were two
Coppers in a Brewhouse, they were at such a Distance, that it might be properly
said, there were two little Brewhouses near one another, which obliged the Master to have a Man to attend each Copper. But the present Contrivance excels the
old one, and these two Coppers are now so erected that each Fire-place is within
Feet of one another; so that one Stoker supplies the two Fires and Coppers,
which saves the Wages of one Man, that usually amounted to near thirty Pounds
a Year; besides having them now under a more immediate Inspection of the
Workman Brewer.
The second Improvement that has been made is also of considerable Service,
and that is by grinding the Malt directly into the Mash-tun;d which is performed
by the help of a long descending wooden close square Spout or Gutter, that
immediately receives it from the high fixed Mill-stones, and conveys it into a
coverd Mash-tun, that thus effectually secures the light Flour of the Malt from
any Waste at all; whereas formerly they used to grind it into a great, square,
boarded Place, which lay lower than the Mash-tun, commonly called a Case or
Bin: From hence it was taken out with two Baskets andput into the Mash-tun, to
the Loss of some Quantity of the finest Flour of the Malt, that wouldfly away
and make a Lodgment on the Mens Cloaths, and the adjacent Places. But now
the Charge of building and repairing the square Case is altogether saves, its
Room put to some other Service, the Expence of Rope:?and Pullies sunk, and the
two Mens Time converted to other necessary Uses in the Brewhouse.
The third Improvement is the Water-pumps. These,formerly were erected in a
Brewhouse for the convenient Conveyance of Water out of the Reservoir and
The author is recommending the use of wooden slats on three walls, to aid air movement; the
fourth wall has the copper adjacent to it.
My 1759 edition does not specify a distance, there is a pause in the text.
The inference here is that malt was now ground on the floor above the mash-tun into which it
descended by gravitation down the wooden gutter.
444
Chapter 7
Well; the Former for the New-River, and the Latter for Spring- Water. They were
worked with long Iron Pendant-handles with a large Knob of Leadfixd to their
Bottom Endsfor the greater Ease of Mens Labour.. But the present Contrivance
works both these Pumps with more Expedition by a single Horse put into the
Malt-mill, and that in as true a Manner as any Men whatsoever which saves
great Part of a Mans Wages.
The fifth Improvement relates to the Backs or Coolers, which are certainly
more conveniently placed in a great Brewhouse, than in the private or small one;
because, in many of the former, they have room to lay them on a single Stage or
Story. To each of these isfastened a leaden Pipe about an Inch or two Bore, with
a brass Cock at the End, that discharges the Wort at Pleasure into a square or
round Tun; besides which is also another Hole about four Inches Diameter, filld
with a wooden Plug, whose Use is to let out the Dregs swept through it into a Tub
under the same, to be strained by aflannel Bag fastened to a Barrel-Hoop, and
the clear Wort thus strained is mixed with the rest. This leads me to observe the
Misfortune that I have seen some labour under, who, being confined to a narrow
Space of Ground, run into Brewings of great Quantities of Drink, which obliges
them to build three Stages of Backs one over another, that often occasions their
Worts to fox, or damage in some Degree, by the long Heats the under one sends
upwards, so that the flat Planks are made hot both at Bottom and Top, and
thereby deprived of one of the principal Conveniences in Brewing, a due Freedom
of Air, which a single Stage seldom ever wants. By means of the Copper Arm, the
Worts now run swiftly into a single Teer of Backs, that formerly usedfirst to be
emptied by a Pump placed in the Copper, and thrown up into a little Back, just
over it, from whence it ran out into the great Backs; and i f there were one or two
Teer more, the Wort was conveyed into the same by a small wooden Pump placed
in the Copper-Back. This better Management saves the Loss of a great deal of
Time, Waste, and Mens Labour. These Improvements, and many others that I
am sensible, raised my Surprise to see several great common Brewers, in some
of the Eastern Parts of England, brew ten Quarters of Malt or more at a Time in
a Mash-tun, placed almost close to the Ground, the under Back deep in it,
exposed to the Fall of Dirts, Drowning of Insects, and other Foulnesses. The
open Copper also a little above the common Level of the Earth, the Coolers in a
proportionable Lowness. And to make up a compleat Mismanagement, they
brew most of their Four-penny Ales after their Six-penny Beers: So that you can
have no mild Drink here, but what tastes of the earthy Parts of the Malt and
Hops to such a Degree that I was commonly forced to be at an extravagant
Charge, and mix some Ingredients with it, to correct its unpleasant Taste and
unwholesome Qualities.
Horses were now replacing man for the more strenuous parts of the brewing process.
445
P
P
447
5 5 5, mash-tuns.
6 6 6 6 6, men mashing, or stirring with utensils, called oars, the malt and water
in the mash-tun.
7, an utensil called an oar, used in mashing.
8 8 8, the mashing-stage, or floor on which the mash-tuns are are placed.
9 9 9 9, cocks for letting the wort, or, as brewers call it, the goods, out of the
mash-tuns, into the under-backs.
10 10 10, under-backs, which receive the goods from the mash-tuns.
I I , the jack-back. This back is placed something lower than the under-backs, and
has a communication with them all; and out of this back the wort is pumped into
the coppers.
12, a wort-pump, by which the wort is pumped out of the jack-back in to the
coppers. This pump, as well as those which raise the water from the reservoir into
the upper-backs, and which could not be shewn in the figure, are worked by the
horse-mill which grinds the malt.
13, the millev, or person who grinds the malt.
14, a boiling-curb. Its use is to prevent the wort from boiling over in the copper
15, the master-brewer
16, a gutter for conveying the wort out of the wort-backs into the cooling-backs.
17, pipes which carry the wort from the wort-pumps into the coppers.
448
Chapter 7
During the early years of the 19th century, a visit to one of the
major London breweries was an essential feature of the metropolitan
social scene. The huge Barclay, Perkins and Co.s Anchor Brewery in
Southwark, seemed to be a particularly popular destination on the list
of London sights, and in the Illustrated London News of 1847 there
is an extensive account of just such a visit. Figure 7.7, from this work,
Figure 7.7
449
Figure 7.8
450
Chapter 7
From this point, porter vats simply got larger and larger, until a tragic
accident occurred at the Horse Shoe Brewery in 1814. The largest
recorded vat was built in 1795 by Richard Meux at the aforementioned
Griffin Brewery, Liquorpond Street, who had been determined from the
start to out-build all other London brewers. This particular specimen held
20,000 barrels, and cost &10,000which, although it seems a huge amount
of money, was pro rata far less expensive than putting an equivalent volume of beer immediately into casks. The vat assumed celebrity status and
was specifically mentioned in Diary of a Tour through Great Britain in 1795
(MacRitchie, 1897); the entry for Saturday 25fhJuly 1795 saying:
Before dinner went with Mr Brodie and Mr Gray to see the Porter Brewery of
M r Meux. His largest Vat twice the size of that of Mr Whitbread; twenty-Jive
feet high; one hundred and ninety-jive feet in circumference; and contains twenty
thousand Barrels. His second Vat half this size. Taste of his Porter drawn from
this second Vat. Mr Meux is extending his scale of operations and is determined
to be the first Porter Brewer in London, that is, in the world.
The vat superseded in size the one that Richard Meux had built in 1790,
which was 60 feet in diameter, and 23 feet high, and held 10,000 barrels
(it cost E5,OOO). It has been claimed that, to launch this particular vat,
some 200 people sat down inside it to eat dinner, and the same number,
also inside, drank a toast. Goodness knows how many bodies would have
fitted into Meuxs 1795 vat!
The catastrophe at the Horse Shoe Brewery, just off of Tottenham
Court Road, occurred on the 17hOctober 1814. The brewery was in the
ownership of Henry Meux, son of Richard, who had left his fathers
employ, in 1809, after an argument. The hoops on one of the storage vats
had corroded and some 7,600 barrels of porter escaped, knocking down
brewery walls, and flooding the basement of several adjacent houses,
which subsequently collapsed. Eight people were killed as a result, by
drowning, injury, poisoning by porter fumes, or drunkenness. On top of
the loss of life, the disaster cost the brewery around &23,000,of which
they were able to recover ca. &7,250in Excise drawback thanks to a
successful private petition to Parliament, an accomplishment that saved
them from bankruptcy.
This was not the first fatal disaster to have occurred at the Meux
brewery, for the Gentlemans Magazine of October 1797 informs us:
-
45 1
the purpose of cleaning it out, without taking the usual precaution of letting
down a lighted candle, which had been the constant practice in the house. The
Duke of York, who happened to be at Mr Leaders when the accident happened,
went immediately to the brew house, and ordered every medical assistance to be
procured; several gentlemen of the faculty used the means of resuscitation for
near three hours, but without effect. The coroners jury brought in their verdict,
accidental death. They were all married, and one has left four children. M r
Meux has concluded himself with great generosity respecting the families of the
unfortunate men. He of course has discharged the funeral expenses, and means
to make a provision for the widows.
Chapter 7
452
453
Chapter 7
454
Figure 7.9(a) Early refrigerator,from Ures Dictionary of 1875 - with original notations
(seep 453) (b) Wheelers Archimedes Refrigerator as described in Ures
Dictionary (seep 456)
455
together, leaving parallel spaces between each plate for the passage of thefluids,
represented by the black lines.
These spaces are formed by introducing between the plates thin straps, ribs, or
portions of metal, to keep them asunder, by which means very thin channels are
produced, and through these channels the fluids are intended to be passed, the
cold liquor running in one direction, and the hot in the reverse direction.
Supposing that the passages for thefluids are each one-eighth of an inch thick,
then the entire length f o r the run of the fluid should be about 80 feet, the breadth
of the apparatus being made according to the quantity of fluid intended to be
passed through it in a given time. If the channels are made a quarter of an inch
thick, then their length should be extended to 160feet; and any other dimensions
in similar proportions: but a larger channel than a quarter of an inch the
patentee considered would be objectionable.
In the apparatus constructed as shown in perspective in fig. 1702, and further
developed by the section, 1703, cold water is to be introduced at the funnel a,
whence it passes down the pipe b, and through a long slit or opening in the side of
the pipe, into the passage c, c (fig. 1703), between theplates, where it flows in a
horizontal direction through the channel towards the discharge-pipe d. When
such a quantity of cold water has passed through the funnel a, as shall havefilled
the channel c, c, up to the level of the top of the apparatus, the cock e, being shut,
then the hot wort or liquor intended to be cooled, may be introduced at thefunnel
f, and which descending in the pipe g, into the extended passage h, h, and from
thence proceeds horizontally into the discharge-pipe i.
The two cocks e and k, being now opened, the wort or other liquor is drawn ofJl
or otherwise conducted away through the cock k, and the water through e. rfthe
apertures of the two cocks, e and k, are equal, and the channels equal also, it
follows that the same quantity of wort, &c. willflow through the channel h, h, h,
in a given time, as of water through the channel c, c; and by the hot fluidpassing
through the apertures in contact with the side of the channel which contains
the coldfluid, the heat becomes extracted from the former, and communicated
to the latter and as the hot fluid enters the apparatus at that part which is in
immediate contact with the part where the cooling fluid is discharged, and the
cold fluid enters the apparatus at that where the wort is discharged, the consequence is, that the wort or other hot liquor becomes cooled down towards its
exit-pipe nearly to the temperature of cold water; and the temperature of the
water, at the reverse end of the apparatus, becomes raised nearly to that of
the boiling wort.
It only remains to observe, that by partially closing either of the exit-cocks,
the quantity of heat abstracted from one fluid, and communicated to the other,
may be regulated; for instance, if the cock e of the water-passage be partially
closed, so as to diminish the quantity of cold water passed through the apparatus, the wort or other hot fluid conducted through the other passages will be
456
Chapter 7
Ure also enthuses about Wheelers, so-called, Archimedes refrigerator, which was essentially a modification of Long and Harriss
worm. The unique feature of this apparatus was that it consisted of a
series of spiral channels wound around a central tube, hot and cold
liquids being passed in opposite directions. Diagrams of this wort chiller
are shown in Figure 7.9(b), and Ures original notations are again
retained. Wheelers refrigerator is described thus:
Fig. 1706 represents the external appearance of the refrigerator, enclosed in
a cylindrical case; fig. 1707, the same, one-half of the case being removed to
show the form of the apparatus within; and fig. 1708, a section cut through the
middle of the apparatus perpendicularly, for the purpose of displaying the
internalfigure of the spiral channels.
In figs. 1707, 1708, a, a, is the central tube or standard (of any diameter that
may be found convenient), round which the spiral chambers are to be formed;
b, b, are the sides ofthe outer case, to which the edges of the spiralfit closely, but
need not be attached; c, c, are two of the circular plates of copper, connected
together by rivets at the edges, in the manner shown, or by any other suitable
means; d, is the chamber, formed by the two sheets of copper, and which is
carried round from top to bottom in a spiral or circular inclined plane, by a
succession of circular plates connected to each other.
The hot fluid is admitted into the spiral chamber d, through a trumpet or
wide-mouthed tube c, at top, and is discharged at bottom by an aperture and cock
f. The cold water which is to be employed as the cooling material is to be
introduced through the pipe g, in the centre, from whence, discharging itself by a
hole at the bottom, the cold water occupies the interior of the cylindrical case b,
and rises in the spiral passage n, between the coils of the chamber, until it
ascends to the top of the vessel, and then it flows away by a spout i, seen in
fig. 1706.
It will be perceived that the hot fluid enters the apparatus at top, and the cold
fluid at bottom, passing each other, by means of which an interchange of temperature takes place through the plates of copper, the cooling fluid passing off at
457
top in a heated state, by means of the caloric it has abstracted from the hot
fluid; and the hotfluidpassing of through the pipe and cock at bottom, in a very
reduced state of temperature, by reason of the caloric which it held having been
given out to the coolingfluid.
Chapter 7
458
were beginning to realise the significance of the laws relating to the transformation of one form of energy into another; a branch of science
known as thermodynamics, the basis of which is the above law of
conservation of energy, i.e., energy can be neither created nor
destroyed. Because of the significance and the cost of energy, brewers
and other industrialists were now becoming interested in concepts
such as heat and work, especially with regard to their own needs
for pumping, heating and refrigeration. Joules experiments showed conclusively that heat was not a substance conserved in physical processes,
since it could be generated by mechanical work.
James Watt, when he developed the steam engine in 1769, gave us a
classic example of the opposite of this; his machine converted heat into
work. The working substance was steam, which was produced from a
heat source (coal or wood). When steam was expanded through a valve
into a cylinder containing a piston, the latter was caused to move, and
by coupling mechanisms, produce useful mechanical work. A flywheel
would return the piston to its original position ready for more work.
Only some of the heat was converted to work some was discarded (lost).
There was also inefficiency due to friction. The race began, to get more
useful work out of the original heat source, and to reduce frictional
losses of energy. As L.J. Henderson wrote in 1917, Science owes more to
the steam engine than the steam engine owes to Science.
The efficiency of heat (steam) engines and the amount of useful work
that could be obtained was studied by Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot
(1796-1832), Officer of Engineers in the French Army who, in 1824,
produced a classic monograph, R@exions sur la Puissance motrice du
Feu. From this we have the Carnot Cycle, which represents the operation
of an idealised (theoretical, or perfect) engine in which heat is transferred
from a hot reservoir (at temperature t2);is partly converted into work,
-
459
and partly discarded to a cold reservoir (at temperature tl). The working
substance through which these operations are carried out is returned
at the end to the same state that it initially occupied, so that the entire
process constitutes a complete cycle. One should regard a perfect
refrigerating machine as the reverse of a perfect heat motor. Thus,
we see the significance of this early early work in the field of thermodynamics. From Carnots work we may now calculate the extent to which
heat can be converted into work by causing a perfect gas to pass
through a cycle of reversible operations, in the course of which a certain
amount of heat is transferred from a higher to a lower temperature (t2to
t J , and a certain amount of work is done.
The First Law of Thermodynamics was first enunciated in 1842 by the
German physicist, Julius Robert Mayer (18 14-1 878). Mayers original
work was carried out whilst he was employed as a ships doctor (he had
studied medicine at Tubingen) on a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, in
February 1840. He noticed the difference in the colour of venous blood
when taken in tropical conditions, as opposed to when it was taken in
colder climes - conditions with which he was familiar. Local physicians
informed him that the bright red colour was quite typical of tropical
conditions, since the consumption of oxygen required to maintain body
temperature was less than in colder regions of the world. Mayer began
to ponder the relationships between food (the ultimate source of body
heat), body temperature, and the amount of work carried out by the
body. He observed that from an identical quantity of food, sometimes
more and sometimes less heat could be obtained. If a fixed total yield of
energy is obtainable from food, then he said we must conclude that work
and heat are interchangeable quantities of the same kind. By burning
the same amount of food, the animal body could produce different
proportions of heat and work, but the sum of the two had to be constant.
Mayer dedicated the rest of his life to his theory but, initially,
had difficulty in distinguishing between the concepts of force,
momentum, work and energy. By early 1842 he had managed to
equate heat to kinetic energy and potential energy, and in March
1842, he had a paper accepted by Liebig for Annalen der Chemie und
Pharmazie. Within it there is this important statement:
Fromapplications of established theorems on the warmth and volume relations
of gases, one finds. . . that the fall of a weight from a height of about 365 meters
corresponds to the warming of an equal weight of water from 0 to 1OC.
Thus, for the first time, we have mechanical units of energy related to
thermal units. The philosophical work of Mayer, and the experimental
Chapter 7
460
w = Jq
where q is the flow of heat, w is the amount of work done, and J is the
mechanical equivalent of heat.
In modern units, J is usually expressed as joules per calorie, and on
this basis, Mayer calculated J to be 3.56 joules per calorie; the accepted
modern figure (electrical measurements being much more accurate than
calorimetric ones) is 4.184. In Mayers day, ergs were in vogue, but in
1948 it was recommended that the joule (volt coulomb) be used as the
unit of heat (1 joule = 1 x lo7 ergs). The calorie, as defined, was equivalent to 4.1840 joules, and the gram-calorie was defined as the heat that
must be absorbed by 1 gram of water to raise its temperature 1 C. It
followed that the specific heat of water was 1 calorie per C. Experimentation showed that specific heat itself was a function of temperature, and
it was thus necessary to re-define the calorie by specifying over which
temperature range it was being measured. The standard was taken to be
46 1
the 15 calorie, this being the heat required to raise the temperature of
1 gram of water from 14.5 C to 15.5 C.
Other landmarks of experimentation by Joule include his work on the
heating effects of the electric current, which culminated in 1840 with
the publication of the law which defined what is now known as Joulean
heat. His law states:
When a current of voltaic electricity is propagated along a metallic conductor,
the heat evolved in a given time is proportional to the resistance of the conductor
multiplied by the square of the electric intensity [current].
I
Thus:
q=12RIJ
where I represents the current, and R is the resistance; q and J have been
defined. Joulean heat is the frictional heat caused by the motion of the
carriers of the electric current.
Over the years, Joule measured the conversion of work into heat by a
variety of means; by electrical heating, by compression of gases, by
forcing liquids through fine tubes, and by the rotation of paddle wheels
through water and mercury. This meticulous work culminated in his
monumental paper, On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat, being read
before the Royal Society of London in 1849. One of his conclusions, in
this masterpiece, is that 772 foot pounds of work would produce the heat
required to warm 1 Zb. of water 1 F. Remarkably, this corresponds to a
modern equivalent of, J = 4.154 joules per calorie.
In 1853, Joule, working jointly with Sir William Thomson (18241907), Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow,
who later became Lord Kelvin, showed that when compressed air, and
certain other gases, held at temperatures between 0 C and 100 OC, are
allowed to expand through a porous plug or valve, the temperature falls;
but in the case of hydrogen (of all the gases that they investigated) a rise
in temperature takes place. Their apparatus is shown schematically in
Figure 7.1 1. The experiment involved throttling the gas flow from the
462
Chapter 7
REFRIGERATION
There are two main principles by which refrigerating, or ice-making
machines may be made:
463
464
Chapter 7
465
commercially. One of the problems of this type of machine was that the
sulphuric acid became exhausted and had to be replaced continually.
The first compression machine was manufactured by John Hague in
1834, from designs by the inventor, Jacob Perkins, who took out the
original patents, and recommended that ether was used as the volatile
agent. Although Hagues machine can be regarded as the archetype for
all modern refrigerators, it never really got past the development stage,
and it was left to the Australian, James Harrison, of Geelong, Victoria,
to finalise the practicalities and produce a working version, which he
did in 1856. By 1859, Harrisons equipment was being manufactured
commercially in New South Wales, and the first of them (which used
ether as the refrigerating agent) came to Britain in 1861; being purchased
for cooling oil, in order to extract paraffin.
Once the reliability of compression machines had been established,
about a decade later, the larger British breweries soon took up the idea
of acquiring ice-machines and refrigerators, enabling worts and beer to
be cooled to virtually any desired temperature, at any season of the year
- which meant that brewing could be carried out during the summer
months. Horace Brown, one of the great technical brewers and brewing
scientists, who commenced his career at Burton-on-Trent in 1866, relates
that in those days the Burton breweries were almost completely shut down
during the summev, the main brewing operations being carried out between
the months of October and May. Within another 10 years, most of the
larger British breweries had installed their own refrigerators.
Improvements to Harrisons original design were made by Siebe and
Co., of London, who supplied several breweries in the capital with their
version of the refrigerator. It was around 1870 that Professor Carl Linde,
from Munich, began studies on the thermodynamics of refrigeration
methods available at that time, with particular reference to the performance of various machines, and the effectiveness of different refrigerants.
Linde concluded, in 1871 that, in terms of their everyday usefulness,
the compression vapour machine came the closest to the theoretical
maximum, in terms of efficiency. He then investigated the physical
properties of a series of potentially useful liquids and, after making
trials with methylic ether, in 1872, built the first ammonia compression
machine in 1873. From 1876 onwards, the ammonia-based units were
readily available through the Linde Company, and were the most widely
used in British breweries, Corran (1975) reporting that by 1908 Linde
had sold some 2,600 ammonia machines over here, of which 1,406 were
destined for breweries.
In 1880, the carbonic acid machine was perfected from Lindes
designs, and these became popular with some breweries who were in
466
Chapter 7
favour of the coolant because it was a natural by-product of fermentation, and that in the event of any accident, the escape of gas would
be relatively innocuous. A diagram representation of a vapour compression system, which has three principal parts; a refrigerator, a
compression pump, and a condenser, is shown in Figure 7.13.
The refrigerator, which consists of a coil, or series of coils, is connected to the suction side of the pump, and the delivery from the pump
is connected to the condenser, which is generally of similar construction
to the refrigerator. The condenser and refrigerator are linked by a pipe in
which is a regulatory valve. Outside of the refrigeration coils is the air, or
other substance to be cooled, and outside of the condenser is the cooling
medium, which is generally water. The refrigerating liquid (e.g ammonia
or carbon dioxide) passes from the bottom of the condenser through
the regulating valve into the refrigerator in a continuous stream. The
pressure in the refrigerator is reduced by the pump and maintained at
such a degree so as to give the required boiling-point, which is, of course,
always lower than the temperature outside the coils. Heat passes from the
substance to be cooled, outside, through the coil surfaces, and is taken up
by the entering liquid, which is converted into vapour at the temperature
T,. The vapours thus generated are drawn into the pump, compressed,
and discharged into the condenser at temperature T,, which is somewhat
above that of the cooling water. Heat is transferred from the compressed
vapour to the cooling water and the vapour is converted into a liquid,
Condenser
Regulating Valve
Figure 7.13 Scheme of vapour compression refrigerator
1
467
which collects at the bottom and returns by the regulating valve into the
refrigerator. As heat is both taken in and discharged at constant ternperature during the change in physical state of the agent, a vapour cornpression machine must approach the ideal much more closely than a
compressed-air machine, in which there is no such change.
A vapour compression machine does not, however, work precisely in
the reversed Carnot cycle, inasmuch as the fall in temperature between
the condenser and the refrigerator is not produced, nor is it attempted to
be produced, by the adiabatic expansion of the refrigerating agent, but
results from the evaporation of a portion of the liquid itself. In other
words, the liquid refrigerating agent enters the refrigerator at the condenser temperature and introduces heat which has to be taken up by the
evaporating liquid before any useful refrigerating work can be effected.
The extent of this loss is determined by the relationship between the
liquid heat and the latent heat of vaporisation at the refrigerator ternperature. Thus, the loss is far less in the case of an anhydrous ammonia
machine than it is in a carbonic acid system. The basis of this fact can be
attributed to carbonic acid having a much lower critical temperature
(ca. 3 1.5 C) than does anhydrous ammonia (ca. 130 C), the latter never
being approached during the ordinary working conditions of these
machines.
In the original vapour compression machines, the actual refrigerators
consisted of a series of iron or steel coils surrounded by the air, brine or
other substance it was intended to cool. One end (generally the bottom)
of the coils was connected to the liquid pipe from the condenser and the
other end to the suction of the compressor. Liquid from the condenser
was admitted to the coils through an adjustable regulating valve, and by
taking heat from the substance outside was evaporated, the vapour being
continually drawn off by the compressor and discharged under increased
pressure into the condenser. The latter, like the refrigerator, was constructed of coils, the cooling water for it being contained in a tank.
Originally, compressors were driven by steam engines, modern machines,
of course, are electrically powered. Copper could not be used as a constituent of any coils, because of its propensity to corrode in the presence
of ammonia. When running, the pressure in the condenser would vary
according to the temperature of the cooling water, whilst that in the
refrigerator was dependent upon the temperature to which the outside
substance was cooled.
When ammonia was used for compression, there were two main
ways in which it was used; namely wet and dry. When wet (the Linde
system) compression was used, the regulating valve was opened to such
an extent that a little more liquid was passed than could be evaporated in
468
Chapter 7
the refrigerator. This liquid entered the compressor along with the
vapour, and was evaporated there, the heat taken up preventing the rise
in temperature during compression which would otherwise have taken
place. In this wet system, the compressed vapour was discharged at a
temperature only slightly above that of the cooling water. With dry compression, vapour alone was drawn into the compressor, and the temperature rose considerably. Wet compressors were shown to be less efficient
than their dry counterparts, but the former were generally regarded as
being more practical because the working parts were kept cooler.
Absorption machines rely on the fact that many vapours of low
boiling-point, such as ammonia, are readily absorbed in water, and can
be separated again by applying heat. Thus, they are dependent upon
chemical and physical phenomena rather than any mechanical process.
One of the simplest early types consisted of two iron vessels connected
together by a bent pipe. One vessel contained a mixture of ammonia and
water, which on the application of heat gave off a mixed vapour containing a large proportion of ammonia, a liquid containing only traces
of ammonia being left behind. In the second vessel, which was placed in
cold water, the ammonia-rich vapour was condensed under pressure. To
give a refrigerating effect, the operation was reversed. If the liquor that
was almost devoid of ammonia was allowed to cool to ambient temperature, it became greedy for ammonia and absorbed huge quantities
of the gas (at 15 C, and at atmospheric pressure, water will absorb
around 760 times its own volume of ammonia), and this produced an
evaporation from the liquid in the vessel previously used as a condenser.
This liquid, rich in ammonia, gave off vapour at low temperature,
and therefore became a refrigerator, abstracting heat from water or any
surrounding body. When the ammonia had been evaporated the
operation had to be commenced again. The early versions of absorption
machines suffered from the inability to obtain a sufficiently anhydrous
vapour; something that was achieved by Rees Reece, in 1867, who took
advantage of the fact that two vapours of differing boiling-points can be
separated by means of fractional condensation.
Absorption machines were generally not as economical as those
employing compression, but Barnard (1889-1 89 1) observed that
Combe and Co., of London, had purchased a Pontgex Reece ammonia
refrigerator when he visited their brewery. In the context of a brewery,
refrigeration apparatus was primarily used to raise a refrigerant (e.g.
brine), such that it might be used to cool boiled worts before fermentaOriginally, cooling fluids consisted of brine, or a mixture of water and alcohol. Brine was by far
the cheapest, but it was very corrosive.
469
tion, and to attemperate the beer during fermentation. With most commercial brewers having underground cellars for bulk beer storage,
the cold-room was very much a 20th century innovation, as was the
cold-tank for conditioning processed beer. It was probably the
refrigeration of boiling-hot wort from the copper that had always presented the brewer with his one of his greatest problems - particularly
when large volumes of beer were to be cooled.
During the 1860s a number of vertical coolers were developed which,
together with the facility of refrigerated water, enabled rapid chilling of
wort under fairly hygienic conditions. One of the original machines was
patented by Baudelot in 1859, and consisted of a series of horizontal
metal tubes which were joined at alternate ends so as to form a huge
continuous tube, with a large surface area, through which refrigerant
could be passed. Wort was then trickled down the outside of this cold
tube, and was quickly cooled before being collected in a tray at the bottom of the apparatus. Such machines were used for many years, and were
only superseded by plate heat-exchangers.
It should be emphasised that there are three functions of a wort
refrigerator:
1. To cool the wort
2. To aerate (oxygenate) the wort
3. To separate cold trub from it (the so-called cold break).
The old-fashioned coolship, with its lack of hygiene and its unwieldy size
as disadvantages, permited all three of the above to occur, whilst the
vertical cooler allowed refrigeration and aeration whilst wort was
trickling down its surface; there was no trub removal whilst the wort was
on the move. Modern plate heat-exchangers, however, which are very
hygienic if properly maintained, only effect the cooling function;
cold trub removal and aeration have to be carried out as separate
steps. Horizontal versions of the vertical cooler were produced, but they
tended to take up too much valuable floor space.
470
Chapter 7
B
F
47 1
B
F
A. cup or receiver, BB.arms, CC. condkits for supplying the arms, D . pin in the centre of
k h r , which runs up the cylinder through the CUP to the pivot fu piece of steel placed just
the handle (E), E . handle of sparger, F. bar which is thrown across the mash-tun, CG.
m v e d iron loops to support the bar, HH. pins which support the bar when in the loops.
(Edinbwgh University Library)
472
Chapter 7
that made him very unpopular with that pioneering firm. The beer
engine which, in essence is a suction pump, was patented on 3 lStOctober
1797 (Patent No. 2196).
TAXES ON EVERYTHING
The long reign of George IT1 (1760-1820) witnessed a number of
important changes in the way that beer and/or its main raw materials,
malt and hops, were taxed. Most of these measures were directly related
to the need to raise funds for conflagrations, such as the American War
of Independence, and the Wars with France. Ultimately, of course, each
of the measures resulted in an increase in the price of the final product.
During the American War of Independence, for example, commencing
in 1779, the duty on hops was increased three times (an additional 5%
increase, in all), and this after a sixty-eight year period of stability when
they were taxed at I d per pound, and the average annual sum payable to
the exchequer was E75,OOO. The main problem with a flat rate of tax for
the Government, was that with a notoriously variable crop like hops, the
annual sum collected could be highly speculative, according to yield,
which made budgeting a precarious business. To emphasise this point
from some later figures; in 1854 (a bad year for hop growth) the British
Government collected E86,OOO in hop duty, whereas the following year,
when conditions for cultivation were ideal, a total of E728,OOO was raised
from hop sales. In both years the demand for hops from brewers was
about the same. Hop duty was reduced to 1%d per pound in 1860, and
was abolished altogether in 1862, which meant that hop substitutes
could now legally be used. This scarcely affected the overall sales of
hops, because of their superiority over anything else for flavouring and
preservative purposes. The revenue that would have been collected from
hops from the abolished tax (a sum of E215,OOO had been collected in
1861) was henceforth to be raised by increasing brewers annual licences.
In 1782, a new category of beer, table beer, was introduced as an
expediency. The 1761 increase in duty of 3s per barrel on beer costing
above 6s per barrel, proved to be a move that discouraged the common
brewer from brewing a decent beer of moderate strength; everything was
either strong or small. To encourage the brewing of beer of medium
strength, the Government introduced a tripartite levy, whereby beer
below 6s per barrel was still called small beer, and was dutiable at 1s 4d
per barrel, whilst that above 6s and below 11s per barrel, was now called
table beer, and the duty rate was 3s per barrel. Strong beer, or
that above 11s per barrel, now carried a levy of 8s per barrel. In 1793, on
the eve of the war with France, taxes associated with beer yielded the
473
474
Chapter 7
the beer was to be drunk on the same premises that it was sold (an on
licence), or whether it was to be taken away for consumption (an
off licence). The on licence cost &33s, whilst the off version was only
&I 1s. Besides the fee, the prospective licensee had to provide a character
reference and/or evidence of ownership of the property concerned.
Within ten years of the 1830 Act, nearly 40,000 new beerhouses had
been established, amazingly, only around 1,100 of them in London, and
these generally found themselves as dependent on the larger commercial
brewers in the capital, as the existing public houses were. The Act was in
force until 1869, and during the last five years of its life, the average
number of beerhouses in the land was 46,135, whilst the number of
public houses over the same 1830-1869 period, rose from an average
of 52,900 in the years 1830-1834, to a 68,300 average during the period
1865-1869. In 1869, the Beerhouse Act was reversed and it was again
magistrates who were responsible for issuing licences to sell beer, having
performed that duty continuously from 1552 to 1830.
From a brewers point of view, Mr Gladstones 1880 Act was to alter
the way that beer was taxed for the next hundred years or so. First of all,
the tax on malt was abolished, which allowed the brewer far more leeway,
in terms of his raw materials (tax on hops had been removed 18 years
earlier); in fact the Act was known as the Free Mash-Tun Act.
Gladstone, in his budget speech of loth June, clearly thinks that he is
doing the industry a favour; in his opinion the aims of the Act are:
To give the brewer the right to brew from what he pleases, and he will have a
perfect choice both of his materials and his methods. I am of the opinion that it
is of enormous advantage to the community to liberate an industry so large as
this with regard to the choice of those materials. Our intention is to admit all
materials whatever to perfectly free and open competition.
475
method would be equivalent to the amount that would have been raised
by the old method. Originally, the standard strength for wort had been
set at 1055, but the brewers complained that this was too low.
The Act specified that the brewer had to obtain an annual licence to
brew and to register his premises and each item of brewing equipment
therein (called the entry). Notice of 24 hours was required before a
brew could commence, and two hours before the intended mashing time,
the brewer had to notify the Excise officer of quantity of raw materials to
be used, and the anticipated time that worts would be drawn off of the
grains (i.e. setting of taps) in the mash-tun. After carrying out the
normal brewing procedure as evident from the entry, the worts had to
be collected in a gauged vessel, within 12 hours of mashing. The brewer
had to then enter in the Excise book, the quantity and original gravity of
the worts collected; and they had to remain in situ until an Excise officer
had taken account of them; or until 12 hours from the time of collection.
Brewers, having informed Excise of the raw materials used for a brew,
and having declared the volume and strength of wort before the onset of
fermentation, could be charged either on the amount of malt used, or the
amount of wort produced; whichever was the greater. Most common
brewers were efficient enough to be charged on wort, but the smaller
brewer sometimes experienced difficulty producing a standard barrel
from 2 bushels of malt (or the equivalent), and so they had to pay, what
was essentially, a malt tax. It was largely because of this situation that the
original gravity of the standard barrel was reduced from 1057 to
1055 in 1889.
Brewers for home consumption were also required to obtain a licence
to brew, unless he or she occupied a small house of less than E8 annual
value, and brewed only for domestic use, in which case they were exempt.
Owners of houses not exceeding El5 annual value had to have a licence,
but were not charged duty, as long as their output was solely for domestic
use. Those domestic brewers who were subject to duty were charged,
jirom time to time, according to the amount of raw materials used.
When the raw materials were assessed, the home-brewer was deemed to
have brewed 36 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1057 (or, later, 1055) for
every two bushels of malt used. Other raw materials were converted to
equivalents of malt, for example, 28 lb of sugar were equivalent to a
bushel of malt, as were 42 lb of malted grain, the same conversions that
applied to the small common brewer. All brewers were allowed a 6%
reduction from their monthly wort volumes; this being for losses incurred
during the various transfer processes, and the like, during production.
Again, the large brewers would benefit most from this facet of the Act,
because their efficiency ensured that they were well within this wastage
476
Chapter 7
allowance. In their first full year of implementation (188 1-1 882), the new
regulations raised some &8,531,000 for the Exchequer.
Baxter (1945) has studied the organisation of the British brewing
industry during the 19thcentury and, in particular follows the declining
role of the victualler brewer, as compared to the common brewer.
Table 7.8, abstracted from this work, shows that there was a steady
increase in the number of common brewers, over the period in question,
and that they gradually became larger producers, and took a greater
share of the overall market.
Table 7.8 Number of commercial (common) brewers in England and Wales,
1831-1 880
Year
Number
Average output
(barrels)
Percentage of
total output
1831
1841
1851
1861
1870
1880
1,654
2,251
2,305
2,294
2,512
2,507
4,312
3,594
4,062
5,267
6,755
8,362
54.5
60.2
62.4
70.5
76.8
84.4
As can be seen from the above, over the 50 years of the survey the
number of common brewers increased by just under 52%, whereas
the average output per brewery almost doubled, to the detriment of
the publican-brewer. If we look at some regional figures from Baxters
work (Table 7.9) which are based on Excise figures from various centres
of duty collection (called cdections), we find that in most areas
Table 7.9 Growth of commercial brewing in various collections, 1861-1880
Collection
Year
Number of
brewers
Bristol
1861
1880
1861
1880
1861
1880
1861
1880
1861
1880
1861
1880
32
21
22
28
39
57
105
92
20
23
45
50
Leeds
Lichfield
Manchester
Norwich
Sheffield
Average output
(barrels)
Percentage of
total output of
collect ion
4,103
14,501
7,627
13,191
25,556
55,866
5,521
12,005
3,970
23,834
6,26 1
11,918
58
88
47
58
79
95
72
92
78
99
93
98
477
the number of brewing sites increased over the period studied, but
even if this was not the case, then the output of these common brewers
increased and their percentage of the total output within that collection
increased. The smallest increase was in the Leeds collection, an area
unusually blessed with an abundance of free trade.
Note the early domination by common brewers of the Norwich
trade, and the large volumes that were subject to duty in the Lichfield
collection, which included the town of Burton-on-Trent. It is evident that
more and more publicans stopped brewing and concentrated on their
retailing activities, in what was an increasingly competitive market. The
percentage of beer brewed by publicans fell from 40% in 1841-1845,
to 10% in 1886-1 890, and was negligible by 1914.
478
Chapter 7
479
480
Chapter 7
48 1
Attemperators can either be fixed around the sides of the vessels, or they
can be mobile, and suspended into the centre of the vessel via a pulley
the latter type being far easier to clean. For cleansing the beer after
fermentation, he notes that:
Unions are the fashion of the day, but in a larger brewhouse, fixed cleansing
casks are better, in terms of convenience, time and saving of waste. These are
four barrel Pontos (same size as the Unions) but these are charged at the
bottom, and racked off by the same route. A man can get insidefor cleaning, and
in summer they can befitted with attemperators.
Although Practical Brewings was written before the Act of 1880, which
freed the mash-tun, it still contains a useful section on the attitude
toward the use of sugar in brewing in the mid-19thcentury, and gives the
author a chance to pat himself on the back. He starts:
The privilege of using sugar in the brewery was first granted by Act
of Parliament in 1847, and continued without a hitch until 1854, when the Chancellor imposed a War Tax of 10s. on a quarter of malt. The Rt. Hon. Gentleman
did not see his way clear on the matter of sugar, nor how he could protect this
additional tax on malt, without repealing the aforesaid Act, and therefore
abolish the use of sugar.
This was a faux pas, especially since people had got used to beers
brewed with sugar, and Amsinck duly proposed that a duty equivalent to
the extra 10s be levied on sugar (he actually proposed 4s per cwt). Within
days, sugar carried a tax of 6s per cwt.
In terms of its use, Amsinck uses sugar in a proportion of one-sixth
and puts it in the mash-tun, after the first mash has been spent and before
sparging commences. He notes, however, that some brewers utilise sugar
in a different way; in the copper, in the hopback, or in the fermentation
vessel. If used in the copper, it should not be added until the wort is
boiling, for if it should settle on the bottom mischief might occur from
burning. If used in the hopback, then it should be placed in there
first, and the hot wort then turned out on to it. Should it be necessary to
add sugar to the fermentation vessel (perish the thought), then it must
first be dissolved in wort before being introduced. The type of sugar that
Amsinck used was the exotically-named West India Foots which
came in hogsheads (weighing ca. 15 cwt to 1 ton), and they found that
1% cwt of this grade was equivalent to a quarter of malt, which made it
profitable to use. Some porter brewers, it was alleged, used a 50-50 malt,
sugar grist. Amsinck concludes:
482
Chapter 7
Weight
London
Provinces
Ireland
Scotland
219,62 1
131,423
13,083
3,138
Total UK
367,255
REFERENCES
R. Garrett, The Story of Britain, Granada Publishing, St. Albans, 1983.
J.A. Raftis, Tenure and Mobility: Studies in the Social History of the
Medieval English Village, Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies,
Toronto, 1964
J.M. Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1996.
P. Sambrook, Country House Brewing in England 1500-1900, Hambledon
Press, London, 1996.
M.K. McIntosh, Albion, 1988,20, 557.
A.G.R. Smith, The Reign of James VIand I, Macmillan, London, 1973.
H.A. Monckton, A History of Ale and Beer, Bodley Head, London,
1966.
J.U. Nef, The Rise of the British Coal Industry, 2 vol., London
School of Economics and Political Science Studies in Economics and
Social History, No. 6, London, 1932.
J. Bickerdyke, The Curiosities of Ale and Beer, Leadenhall Press, London,
1886.
EW. Hackwood, Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England,
T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1910.
483
484
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
486
Chapter 8
London is the place where porter was invented; and Jews, Turks, Germans,
Negroes, Persians, Chinese, New Zealanders, Esquimaux, Copper Indians,
Yankees, and Spanish Americans, are united in one feeling of respect
for the native city of the most universally favourite liquor the world has ever
known.
I had always been under the impression that the accreditation of the
487
Subsequent research has indicated that this is not the first mention of
Harwood by name, since the 1lfhedition of the Picture of London (1810)
carries the same story; the final few sentences of the statement reading as
follows:
In course of time it also became the practice to call for a pint or tankard of
three threads, meaning a third of ale, beer, and twopenny; and thus the publican
had the trouble to go to three casks, and turn three cocks for a pint of liquor. To
avoid this trouble and waste, a brewer, of the name of HARWOOD, conceived
the idea of making a liquor which should partake of the unitedjlavours of ale,
beer, and twopenny. He did so and succeeded, calling it entire or entire butt
beer, meaning that it was drawn entirely from one cask or butt, and being a
hearty nourishing liquor, it was very suitable for porters and other working
people. Hence it obtained the name of porter.
The anonymous author does not quote a source for the information,
but this article pre-dates that from the Gentlemans Magazine by almost a
decade. Incidentally, whilst perusing said edition of the Magazine, I
found that the same short article appertaining to drink, contained a few
other brief references to ale and beer, including the following quotations,
which I think may suitable for the public bar (with female company
present):
Who buys good land, buys many stones,
488
Chapter 8
This is followed by reference to an astute quote by Voltaire, who compared the British nation to a barrel of their own ale:
the top of which isfroth,
the bottom dregs,
the middle excellent.
489
about the subject, probably actually originate from two original sources;
both written anonymously and both published in the mid-18thcentury.
One of the these is the 1750 edition of The London and Country Brewer,
which gives the first recipe for the beer, and the second is to be found in
the November 1760 edition of the Gentlemans Magazine (XXX, 527),
which tells of the events leading up to, and hence the supposed necessity
for, porter brewing. This last contribution, I feel, is worth documenting
here verbatim. The article, which is also a minor epic on the early days of
fiscal policy in the brewing industry, and its effect on society, is entitled:
History of the LONDON BREWERY, from the Beginning of King
Williams Reign to thepresent Time, and goes as follows:
In the beginning of King Williams reign, the duty on strong beer or ale was
1s. 3d. per barrel; on small beer 3d. per barrel. The brewer then sold his brown
ale f o r 16s. per barrel, and small beer, which was made from the same grains, at
6s. per barrel. These were mostly fetched from the brewhouse by the customers
themselves, and paid for with ready money; so that the brewer entertained but
few servants, fewer horses, and had no stock of ales or beers by him, but a triJEing
quantity of casks, and his money returned before he paid either his duty or his
malt. The victualler then sold this ale for 2d. per quart.
But soon after, our wars with France occasioned duties on this commodity. I
set them down from memory alone, and, I think, in 1689, 9d. per barrel more was
laid on strong, and3d. per barrel on small. In 1690 the duty was advanced2s. 3d.
per barrel on strong beer, and 9d. per barrel on small; and in 1692 more duty was
laid, by 9d. per barrel on strong only. All these duties added together will nearly
make up what is now paid by the brewer. A t this period the brewer raised his price
from 16s. to 18s. and 19s. per barrel; and the victualler raised his price to 2%d.
per quart.
Come we now to the queens time, when France disturbing us again, the malt
tax, the duty on hops, and that on coals tookplace. The duty on malt surpassing
that on hops, the brewers endeavoured at a liquor wherein more of these last
should be used. Thus the drinking of beer became encouraged in preference to
ale, This beer, when new, they sold for 22s. per barrel; and at the same time
advanced their ale to 19s. and 20s. per barrel: but the people, not easily weaned
from their heavy sweet drink, in general drank ale mixed with beer from the
victualler, at 2%d. to 2%. per quart.
The gentry now residing in London more than they had done in former times,
introduced pale ale, and the pale small beer they were habituated to in the
country; and either engaged some of their friends, or the London brewers, to
make for them these kinds of drinks. Affluence and cleanliness promoted the
delivery of them in the brewers own casks, and at his charge. Pale malt being
dearest, the brewer being loaded with more tax, and more expence, fixed the
490
Chapter 8
price of such small beer at 8 and 10s. per barrel, and the ale at 30s. per barrel;
the latter was sold by the victualler at 4d. per quart and under the name of
Two-penny.
This little opposition excited the brown beer trade to produce, if possible,
a better sort of commodity in their way, than heretofore had been made. They
began to hop their mild beers more; and the publicans started three, four, sometimes six butts at a time: But so little idea had the brewer, or his customer, at
being in charge of large stocks of beer, that it gave room to a sett of moneyed
people, to make a trade by buying these beers from brewers, keeping them some
time, and selling them, when stale, to publicans for 25s. or 26s. per barrel. Our
tastes but slowly alter or reform? Some drank mild beer and stale; others what
was called three-threads, at 3d. a quart; but many used all stale at 4d. apot.
On this footing stood the trade until about the year 1722, when the brewers
conceived there was a mean to be found preferable to any of these extremes;
which was, that beer well brewed, from being kept its proper time, becoming
mellow, that is neither new nor stale, would recommend itself to the public. This
they ventured to sell at 23s. a barrel, that the victualler might retail it at 3d. a
quart. Tho it was slow at first making its way; yet as it certainly was right, in the
end the experiment succeeded beyond expectation. The labouring people,
porters, etc., found its utility; from whence came its appellation of porter, or
Entire Butt. As yet, however, it was far from being in the perfection which since
we have had it. For many years it was an established maxim in the trade, that
porter could not be made fine or bright, and four or five months was deemed the
agefor it to be drank at. The improvement of brightness has since been added, by
means of more age, better malt, better hops, and the use of isinglass.
The reader should note that the above, which emanates from 1760,
makes no mention of our friend Harwood even though about the year
1722 is specified. It is not until the 1810 entry in the Picture of London
that the Shoreditch brewer enters cerevisial folklore. There is also an
absence of any allusion to a mystery maltster who accidentally burnt a
malt sample and thus produced a highly coloured product that was
ideally suited to the brewing of the new dark beer (it wasnt until 1817
that a special porter malt was developed). If these discourses are not
written by the same author, then they show remarkable consistency,
and are obviously the work of two men who possess sound brewing
knowledge, coupled with an extensive insight into the London public
-
This was an expensive drink, which only the well-to-do could afford. Nevertheless, with the more
frequent residence of the gentry in London, during Queen Annes reign, the taste spread and
pale ale houses were established. The aristocracy and landed-gentry, liked to drink their pale
ale out of glasses, which only they could really afford; thus, this style of beer had to have a bright
appearance.
49 1
house trade. The information imparted in these two articles is in agreement with other known facts of the period, and is manifestly common
sense; as Macdonagh so adroitly puts it:
It is clear that both authors knew the London brewing industry at first hand;
the technical parts of their work are sound and mutually compatible; and
what they have to say is consistent with every other piece of evidence which has
come to light except a few lines of doggerel by a shorthand master. Moreover, the
Magazine article and the London and Country Brewer provide between them
the ingredients of a wholly rational account of the early development of the new
form of beer, which satisfies the intrinsic probabilities of economic history and
brewing science alike.
492
Chapter 8
The Water just breaks or boils when they let in a Quantity of cold to keep it
from scalding, which they let run of by a great Brass-Cock down a wooden
Trunk (which is fixed to the Side of the Mash-tun) and up through a false
Bottom into the Malt: Then mash with wooden Oars Halfan Hour; by this Time
the Water in the Copper is scalding hot, which they likewise let run into the
Malt, and mash Half an Hour longer. This they cap and cover with fresh Malt,
and let it stand two Hours, then spend away by a Cock Stream into the Under
Back, where it lies a little till a second liquor is ready to boil, but not boil,
with which they mash again to have a sufficient Length of Wort that they boil at
once, or twice, according to the Bigness of their Utensils. Others will make a
third Mash, and boil a second Copper of Wort. The first Wort is allowed an
Hour and a Halfs Boiling with three Pounds of Hops to each Barrel. The
second Wort two Hours with the same Hops, and so on. Some calling the first,
Hop-wort; the second, Mash-wort; the third, Neighbour-wort; and the fourth
Blue. Which last, being a most small Sort, is sometimes allowed six or seven
Hours boiling with the same used Hops. When in a right Temper they let run
down the Worts out of the Backs into the Tunfrom their grosser Contents, where
they coolly ferment it with Yeast, till a fine curled Head rises and just falls
again, that sometimes requires twenty-four, sometimes forty-eight Hours, as the
Weather is hot or cold to perform this Operation. They then cleanse it of
into Barrels one Day, and carry it out the next to their Customers, keeping the
Vesselsfilling up now and then in the Interim. For making this drink with a good
Body, they commonly draw o f f a Barrel and a Firkin, or a Hogshead, from a
Quarter of brown Malt, and sell it for twenty-three Shillings per Barrel. But this
is governed by the Price of the Customer so that two or three Sorts are sometimes carried out from one Brewing, for with the Blue they can lower it at
Pleasure; always observing that the higher the Malt is dried the cooler the first
Liquor or Water must be taken and used; therefore the first Wort governs the
second Liquor either to he hotter or cooler. If that was too hot you may know it
by its bearing too great a Head or Froth in the Receiver, and so e ContrB; a
middling Head shews thefirst Liquor to have been taken right.
In Part IV, dated 1758, at the end of Chapter 111, there is advice, TO
make Porter, or give a Butt of Beer afine Tang. We are told:
This, of late, has been improved two ways: First, by mixing two Bushels of pale
Malt with six of brown, which willpreserve Butt Beer in a mellow Condition, and
493
Again, the 7th edition of London and Country Brewer, in Part IV,
Chapter VI (1758), the section entitled The Cellar-Man contains the
following information under the heading:
How a certain Inn-keeper brewed and managed his Butt Beer.
T H I S Person in a City, a considerable distance from London, sold great Quantities o f a Butt brown Beer, which had such a Name, that, on a Strangers asking
where the best Beer was sold, he was directed to his House. He used two Coppers
and two Mash-Tuns at a Time, always mixed a little pale Malt with his brown,
and was brewing from Monday to Friday only two Butts of Beer; because he
must have Time to perform the grand Operation of beating in the Yeast to the
Drink; and, as often as it worked too rank, he skimmed it. Yet he was not so
guilty of this male Practice, as I knew a certain petty pale Ale Brewer, who, to
work and beat the Yeast into his pale Ale enough, had high Side-Boards jxed
round his Tun, to prevent, in case the Man was surprised by Sleep, the yeasty
Head from working over: A t last he skimmed so much ofJt that, when the Drink
was put into the Cask, the Ale could but just work enough to save itself However
this brown-beer Brewer was in the End brought to believe, that boiling Hops only
thirty Minutes gave the Drink a vast Improvement, and therefore he was resolved
to have an Iron Hoop made, the Breadth of the Inside of his Copper, for a Net
with very small Meshes to be fastened to it, in order to take the Hops out at
Pleasure, tho each of his Coppers would hold four Barrels. But there was no
persuading him to leave off beating in the Yeast, because this dearly-beloved
Way was too gainful to be laid aside. And as to the Management of his Butt Beer
in the Cellar, he left the Bung open most of the first Summer to keep the Drink
from fretting, till it had a second working in the Cask, and then would cover or
bung with a Piece of brown Paper pasted down, and so let it remain till he tapped
it, and then he bungd down with a Cork or wooden Stopple.
By the early 19hcentury porter brewing had reached its heyday, and
in Frederick Accums Treatise on the Art of Brewing of 1820, the author
describes porter as that most perfect of all malt liquors. By this time the
method of brewing had become somewhat more scientific, particularly
with respect to use of the saccharometer, and porter brewing was an art
all of its own; note some of the comparisons between techniques for
brewing porter and ale, which are given by Accum in the following way:
494
Chapter 8
"The porter grist used by the London brewers is usually composed of equal parts
of brown, amber and pale malt. These proportions, however, are not absolutely
essential. A t an eminent establishment in this metropolis, the grist is composed
of one-fifth of pale malt, a like quantity of amber coloured, and three-fifths of
brown malt. A small quantity of black, or patent, malt is usually employed to
give a brown colour to the beer;. one bushel is deemed sufficient for thirty-six
bushels of porter grist: but its application is not absolutely essential for brewing
porter.
The quantity of porter drawn from a quarter of malt, of an average quality, is
from 2% to 3 barrels, and from 7 to 8 pounds of hops are usually deemed
sufficient for a quarter of malt. Hence the average final speciJic gravity of the
wort, for running gyles, or common porter, before it let down into the fermenting
tun, is from 17,25 to 17,50 lbs. per barrel (c. 1048).2If the porter be intended
for keeping, or store beer, the final gravity of the wort is usually from 21,25 to
22,50 lbs. per barrel (1059-1062"), and porter brewed for exportation to a hot
climate, is usually made of wort possessing a gravity equal to 23,50 lbs. per
barrel (1065"). The customary spec$c gravity of Brown Stout Porter wort,
before it is let into the fermenting, or gyle tun, is from 25,25 to 26,25 lbs. per
barrel (1070-1074"), or even so high as 27 or 28 lbs. per barrel (1075-1078").
With regard to the fermentation of porter wort, it is certain that the London
porter owes itsflavour more to a vigorousfermentation than to the properties of
high dried malt. The flavour evidently originates from the pale and from the
brown malt; the latter gives the peculiar empyrheumatic taste to the beer. Porter
slowly fermented never possesses a grateful flavour. The wort is usually put to
ferment, in cool weather, at 60, a few barrels of the wort being previously set to
ferment with a portion of the yeast to be employed; during the coldest winter
months, the pitching temperature of the wort may be from 65" to 68". The
increase of temperature which takes place during the fermentation of the wort,
may be stated, at an average, to amount to 15 or 20". It is greatly injluenced by
the density of the wort, and the temperature it possessed when mixed with the
yeast. The higher the temperature of the wort, when transferred into thefermenting vessel, the more rapidly does the fermentation come on; and the higher the
temperature of the surrounding atmosphere, the more vigorous the fermentation.
Hence the advantage of transferring the worts into the gyle tun rather warmer in
cold weather, and lowering their temperatures as much as possible in warm
weather. Little can be said about the length of time during which the fermentation of porter or ale wort lasts, because it varies much according to the temperature of the air, the degree to which the wort has been cooled, and the strength of
the wort. The average time required for the completion of the fermentation of
porter wort is from three to four days. The fermentation of ale wort is not
'
Accum denotes specific gravity in terms of brewers pounds per barrel of wort/beer; I have inserted
modern equivalents in parentheses.
495
completed until after six or eight days. The temperature of ale wort during the
fermentation is, upon average, always lower than that of porter wort; it is also
carried on less rapidly, nor is it suffered to proceed so far; hence a considerable
portion of saccharine matter remains in all ales, apparently unaltered.
The skimming operation, the object of which is to remove the strata of yeast
as fast as they are formed on the ale wort during fermentation, lowers the
temperature of the fermenting mass, and of course retards thefermentation. The
disengaged yeast is not acted upon by the developed alcohol in the beer, .for
the chief object of the ale brewer is to retain the flavour of the malt, and to
develop the greatest quantity of alcohol, without dissolving a portion of the
yeast, as unavoidably must happen in the fermentation of porter wort, where the
stratum of yeast remains in contact with the vinous beer, whilst the beer is in
the fermenting tuns, and thus contributes to keep up an uniform temperature in
the fermenting mass. It is customary in some establishments to beat in the yeast,
as it is called, into the beer, before the wort is cleansed; but this practice the best
brewers consider as a bad one. . .
"
496
Chapter 8
The boiling of the first wort lasted one hour and a ha% being then strained
off from the hops it was pumped into a cooler. The hops being returned into the
copper, the second wort wus boiled one hour and three quarters, and the third
wort two hours and a half and then spread over the coolers. After the worts had
been six hours cooling, the average temperature of the whole was 61".
The contents of the first cooler guaged 21,5 barrels. Its specijic gravity
was 34,25 lbs. per barrel (1095"). It was transferred into the working tun, and
mixed with one and a half gallons of stiff yeast. The second wort measured
22 barrels. Specijic gravity 25,5 lbs. (1071"), and the third wort measured
20,15 barrels. Specijic gravity 16,5 lbs. per barrel (1046").
The nett fermentable matter contained in the whole quantity of the wort
amounted, therefore, to 1629,84 lbs. which gives 70,26 lbs. fermentable matter
per quarter of malt. The average specijic gravity of the wort was equal to
25,55 lbs. per barrel (10 71").
The quantity of wort in the gyle tuns being guaged by the officer of the Excise,
was declared to measure 64 barrels. Its temperature was 59". Three gallons of
stiff yeast was now added to the whole wort. The fermentation in the gyle tun
lasted 43 hours, during which time its temperature rose to 71". The wort was
then drawn off to be cleansed upon stillion troughs. This operation was effected
in 46 hours. The barrels were filled up every 2 hours. Its specijic gravity was
now 11,8 (1033"), and when finished on the stillions it was 8,8 (1024").
"
497
establishment which has the reputation of brewing excellent beer. The brewing
consisted of four mashes. The first mash, or onset, was made with 14 barrels of
water, of a temperature of 156". The mashing operation continued three quarters
of an hour. The mash stood one hour. The wort obtained measured 10 barrels. Its
specific gravity was 21,25 lbs. per barrel (1059"). The second onset was made
with 10 barrels of water heated to 165". The mashing machine performed three
quarters of an hour. The mash stood three quarters of an hour. The wort drawn
down into the underback guaged 9 barrels. Specific gravity 20,5 lbs. per barrel
(1060"). The third onset was made with 7 barrels of water, heated to 175". The
mashing machine was in action half an hour. The liquor stood on the goods a
quarter of an hour. The obtained wort guaged 6,50 barrels. Specific gravity
13,75 lbs. per barrel (1038"). The fourth onset was made with 20 barrels of
water, heated to 180, without mashing. The wort in the underback measured
19,25 barrels. Specific gravity 5,55 lbs. per barrel (1015"). Thefirst and second
wort was boiled with the hops one hour and a h a g and the third and fourth wort
one hour. The total quantity of wort in the coolers, when let into the gyle tun,
measured 28 barrels. Its gravity was 21 lbs. per barrel (1058"). It was mixed
with 3?4 gallons of yeast. The fermentation in the gyle tuns was completed in
49 hours, and when cleansed, the temperature of the beer was 73". Its gravity
when cleansed was 10,5 lbs. per barrel (1029"), and when drawn off from the
stillions it was 8 lbs. per barrel (1022"). The cleansing upon the stillion troughs
lasted 40 hours. The beer becameJine after having been stored away 16 days.
"
498
Chapter 8
(1026"). The whole of the wort was not drawn ofJ on account of some accident
happening to the underback. A fourth mash was made with 12 barrels of water,
heated to 140". The mashing continued a quarter of an hour. The goods stood
half an hour. The wort obtained measured 16 barrels. Specijic gravity 15 lbs. per
barrel (1041"). Thefirst, andpart of the second worts being transferred into the
boiling copper were boiled with the hops an hour an a ha& and, when strained
ofJI pumped up into the coolers: the fourth wort was boiled one hour. The total
quantity of wort in the coolers, when its average temperature had fallen to 65",
was 98,4 barrels. It was now made to pass through the refrigerator into the gyle
tuns, which reduced its temperature to 61". The whole of the wort in the gyle tuns
being guaged by the officer of the Excise, was declared to be 97 barrels. Its
mean speciJic gravity was 17,4 lbs. per barrel (1048"). It was mixed with 4%
gallons of yeast, of a very stiff consistence; the fermentation in the gyle tuns
lasted 44 hours. Its specijic gravity then was 10 lbs. (1027"). The cleansing in
the barrels on stillion troughs was accomplished in 42 hours; its gravity was now
7,4 lbs. (1020"); the barrels were filled up for the first 30 hours, once in every
2 hours."
499
Black
Brown
1
2
3
4
5
6
9
6
2
3
4
5
0
34
30
25
24
0
91
60
58
57
48
0
Total
100
100
100
100
100
100
500
Chapter 8
Tizard feels that grist no.1 is for those who wish to brew the low-priced,
shabby article and that porter brewed with this grist, would lead a
stranger to believe that liquorice had been engaged in its production. He
maintains that any beer brewed solely with pale and black malts will give
the same taste on the palate - whatever the proportions, and that any
fullness which this porter may have:
principally depends upon the gum-like portions and properties of the black
malt, which, unlike the mucilage of the paler malts, does not submit to the
process ofsaccharijication; either in the mash-tun, or in the fermenting-tun, and
consequently does not contribute to the formation of alcohol; iJI however, such
an article be strong, and not attenuated too low, but vatted six or ten months, its
objectionable flavour is in great measure dissipated, and a new one is acquired,
which renders the potation tolerable, and sometimes realb good.
50 1
502
Chapter 8
content of 8%, they struggled to reach 6.5% with their best porters. Tax
levies on malt and hops were increasing, and profit margins on dark
beers were being eroded. What did they do? Well, they resorted to the use
of adulterants on a scale hitherto unknown. Over a period of years, the
situation got out of hand, and large sections of the population felt that it
was unsafe to drink porter - another contributory factor to its decline.
Tizard provides quite a lengthy exposition on porter adulteration,
which I do not apologise for reproducing here:
The year 1798 gave birth to Richardsons Philosophical Principles of the
Science of Brewing, in which he recommended socotrine aloes (aloe succotrina)
for flavour, salt of steel for a retentive head, and afterwards quassia instead
of the former, and copperas or sulphate of iron as superior to the latter, the green
mineral being greedy of oxygen, which converts it into brown. For malts, he
informs us that his usual blend was in equal quantities of brown, amber, and
pale; or when the porter was to be sent to a country where its production is
novel, he preferred mixing two parts of brown to one of pale, omitting the
amber. Whether the above or similar innovations led to the interference of
the legislature, little doubt can exist, as the tax was imposed in 1802; after which
we read of numerous additional expedients to evade it, which the brewers
chose as indemnijication against increased risk and exigency. Liquorice-root
(Glycyrrhiza glabra) was one of the most prominent adulterations, both in
powder and as manufactured into black Spanish juice; and molasses, sugar, and
raw grain took the place of malt; black resin (resina nigra) was picked out
as aflavourer, and when mixed with finings that wouldfloat, as a shield against
the admittance of atmospheric air; the marsh trefoil, bitter or shrub quassia
sticks (quassia eccelsa), with alum (alumen liquidum) to clear and heat it;
and gentian, or bitter root (gentiana officinalis), all became substitutes for
hops; and as narcotics, to end the catalogue, tobacco (nicotiana), bitter bean of
St. Ignatius (fabamara Ignatii), is recommended in several brewing treatises;
and though perhaps at first in mistake for buck or bog bean, seems to have
led, through ignorance, to the importation of the bitter nut (nux vomica or
strychnos), which last are poisons in a rank degree, admitting no pardon
or excuse whatever, more especially as all drugs were interdicted by the statutes.
We must not attribute these vicious preparations to the porter trade alone,
though the immoderate length to which the impositions were carried out, led,
after their discovery, to a relinquishment of porter-drinking by many, and to a
consequent stagnation in the trade, though the ale brewers were not less guilty,
entertaining raw grain, sugar, gentian, quassia, and alum, with equal temerity;
besides which they mingled salt, to chase the fox; honey (me1 alveari) as a
saccharine sweet and preservative; jalap (yalapa pulvis) to effervesce and
correct acidity, and to counteract the effects produced by the heating India berry
503
It therefore differs in nothing from common porter, except in colouv. The final
gravity of the wort, before it is put to ferment, is from 17,5 to 18J4 per barrel.
The fermentation is carried out in the usual manner . . . Dorchester Beer is
usually nothing else than Bottled Porter.)
504
Chapter 8
should stand open twenty-four hours to flatten the beer, and the corks should
be secured with copper wireJirmly drawn over them, and fastened round the neck
of the bottle.
Ale is bottled in a like manneK The beer, whether porter or ale, should be
perfectly transparent before it is bottled; the smallest quantity of yeast or lees
renders the liquor very liable to ferment, and endangers the bursting of the
bottles.
505
The above outcry indicates that the new scientific discoveries of the age
had quite a considerable impact on brewers, especially those related to
hygienic matters, and we find that the brewing industry was becoming
ever increasingly under scientific control. In his Treatises on Brewing of
1824, Baverstock saw fit to remark:
The rapid advances which chemistry has made in the last 40 years, and the use
of accurately-constructed thermometers and hydrometers, have been the means
of introducing a regular system in brewing, which has shown that the process is a
science, depending for its success upon certain and invariableprincQles, and that
it is not a mere mechanical operation, performed by any menial and illiterate
person whom it may be convenient to employ in it. And it is, in consequence,
beginning to rank as high among the arts and scientiJic manufactures, as the
enormous duties which it pays entitles it to do among the revenues of the
kingdom.
506
Chapter 8
By the concluding decades of the Nthcentury, British brewing technology was far ahead of that in other famous brewing nations, such as
Germany, Holland, Austria and America, none of which caught up with
Britains know-how until the mid-19thcentury. To illustrate the point, we
have the instance of the visit to England in the 1830s of the eminent
Munich brewer, Gabriel Sedlmayr, from the Spaten Brewery, who was
to play a leading role in the development of the European, bottomfermented, lager style. He was astounded by what he saw, and, as a
result of his visit, steam-power, and the use of the thermometer and
saccharometer, became constant features of German and Austrian
breweries (some 50 years after their adoption in Britain). Sedlmayr was
a pioneer of the use of refrigeration in breweries.
The British brewing industry was now polarising rapidly into two
types of brewer; the small, domestic practitioner, on one hand, and the
large, common, commercial brewer, on the other; the latter being referred
to as capitalist brewers, for obvious reasons. The brewing publican, as a
result of legislature, and a change in drinking habits, passed from the
scene, as did any evidence of female participation in the practical side
of brewing in the large commercial concerns. Of drink in the country
at the middle of the l F h century, it was said that ale or beer brewed by
every farmer at home from oats and heather, so new that it was scarce
cold when it was brought to the table, was their chief beverage. Thus, it
seems that domestic and commercially-brewed beers were now of a
hugely disparate quality, a fact that would gradually lead the population
to abandon attempts at home-brewing, and patronise the commercial
brewer in ever increasing numbers. By the early decades of the next
century, we find dramatic evidence of this shift of habit for, around 1820,
some 50% of all beer brewed in England was still domestically brewed;
whereas by 1830, this figure had fallen to 20%.
Just to recap, porter provided the British brewing industry with a beer:
1. That could be brewed with less than the best malt. This, itself, could
have been produced with inferior barleys, or malted via an
507
508
Chapter 8
Not only was the butt more stable than other casks, but it also
encouraged better working of the beer contained within it, a fact that
is explained, in the same work, in a paragraph entitled, Why a large
Cask is best to hold Beer or Ale. The reasoning of the anonymous
author is interesting:
FIRE is caused by Motion, as likewise all Heat and Fermentation. Now the
greater the Vessel is, the more Parts may arise, and the more sink down; and
the more they do so, the more must be the Bustle, especially in high Casks; for
there every Bubble, that rises from the Bottom to the Top, must rub through
more Parts, which makes the greater Heat, the Liquor thinner, and theJine
Parts more easily rise, and the heavier more easily sink down; clarijies it much
better, and makes theJine Parts be more by themselves without the gross: A n
Excellency we desire in all Drinks.
BAVARIAN BEER
The 7thedition of Ures Dictionary, in deference to the growing British
interest in German beer, contains a section on Bavarian Beer, which
enlightens the reader on the differences in production technique between
British brewers, and those from that part of Germany. Interest in the
difference in the two basic beer styles had been stimulated by the publication of Liebigs three-volume masterpiece, Traitk de Chemie Organique
(1840-1 844), the introduction to which contains a controversial explanation of why Bavarian beer is superior to other European versions of
the beverage, and pertinently, with the knowledge available at that time,
points out the differences between top and bottom fermentations;
he says:
509
The beers of England and France, and for the most part those of Germany,
become gradually sour by contact of air. This defect does not belong to the beers
of Bavaria, which may be preserved at pleasure in half-full casks, as well as
full ones, without alteration in the air. This precious quality must be ascribed
to a peculiar process employed for fermenting the wort, called in German
Untergahrung, or fermentation from below; which has solved one of the finest
theoretical problems.
Wort is proportionately richer in soluble gluten than in sugar. When it is set to
ferment by the ordinary process, it evolves a large quantity of yeast, in the state
of a thick froth, with bubbles of carbonic acid gas attached to it, whereby it is
JEoated to the surface of the liquid. The phenomenon is easily explained. In the
body of the wort, alongside of particles of sugar decomposing, there are particles
of gluten being oxidised at the same time, and enveloping, as it were, the former
particles, whence the carbonic acid of the sugar and the insoluble ferment from
the gluten being simultaneously produced, should mutually adhere. When the
metamorphosis of the sugar is completed, there remains still a large quantity
of gluten dissolved in the fermented liquor, which gluten, in virtue of its tendency
to appropriate oxygen, and to get decomposed, induces also the transformation
of the alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar). But were all the matters susceptible of
oxidisement as well as this vinegar ferment removed, the beer would thereby lose
its faculty of becoming sour. These conditions are duly fulJilled in the process
followed in Bavaria.
In that country the malt-wort is set toferment in open backs, with an extensive
surface, and placed in cool cellars, having an atmospheric temperature not
exceeding 8-10C. The operation lasts from three to four weeks; the carbonic
acid is disengaged; not in large bubbles that burst on the surface of the liquid, but
in very small vesicles, like those of a mineral water, or of a liquor saturated with
carbonic acid, when the pressure is removed. The surface of the fermenting wort
is always in contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, as it is hardly covered
with froth, and as all the yeast is deposited at the bottom of the back, under the
form o f a very viscid sediment, called in German Unterhefe.
In order to form an exact idea of the difference between the processes of
fermentation, it must be borne in mind that the metamorphosis of gluten, and
of azotised bodies in general, is accomplished successively in two principal
periods, and that it is in the first that the gluten is transformed in the interior of
the liquid into an insoluble ferment, and that it separates alongside of the
carbonic acid proceeding from the sugar. This separation is the consequence of
an absorption of oxygen. It is, however, hardly possible to decide if this oxygen
comes from the sugar, from the water, or even from an intestine of the gluten
itseE or, in other words, whether the oxygen combines directly with the gluten,
to give it a higher degree of oxidation, or whether it lays hold of its hydrogen to
form water.
Chapter 8
510
This oxidation of the gluten, from whichever cause, and the transformation
of the sugar into carbonic acid and alcohol, are two actions so correlated, that by
51 1
of it, in the same condition as the gluten alongside of sulphurous acid in the
muted wines.
Ure likens the Bavarian process of slow, low-temperature fermentation, and the resultant stability of the beer, to the preservation of food,
by Apperts method, proclaiming that:
All the putrescible matters are separated by the intervention of the air at a
temperature too low for the alcohol to become oxidised. By removing them in
this way, the tendency of the beer to grow sour, or to suffer a further change is
prevented. Apperts method consists of placing, in the presence of vegetables or
meat which we wish to preserve, the oxygen at a high temperature, so as to
produce slow combustion, but without putrefaction or even fermentation.
He continues:
(By removing the residuary oxygen after the combustion is finished, all the
causes of an ulterior change are removed. In the sedimentary fermentation of
beer we remove the matter which experiences the combustion; whereas, on the
contrary, in the method of Appert, we remove that which produces it.
512
Chapter 8
taken out, and laid on the couchfloor in a square heap, 8 or 10 inches high, and it
is turned over, morning and evening, with dexterity, so as to throw the middle
portion upon the top and bottom of the new-made couch. When the acrospire has
become as long as the grain itselfl the malt is carried to the withering or drying
floor, in the open air, where it is exposed (in dry weather) during from 8 to
14 days, being daily turned over three times with a winnowing shovel. It is next
dried in a well-constructed cylinder or flue-heated malt-kiln, at a gentle clear
heat, without being browned in the slightest degree, while it turns into a friable
white meal. Smoked malt is entirely rejected by the best Bavarian brewers. Their
malt is dried on a series of wove wire horizontal shelves, placed over each other,
up through whose interstices, or perforations, streams of air, heated to only
122OF., rise,from the surfaces of the rows of hot sheet-iron pipeflues, arranged a
little way below the shelves. Into these pipes the smoke and burned air of a little
furnace on the ground are admitted. The whole is enclosed in a vaulted chamber,
from whose top a large wooden pipe issues for conveying away the steam from
the drying malt. Each charge of malt may be completely dried on this kiln in the
space of from 18 to 24 hours, by a gentle uniform heat, which does not injure the
diastase or discolour thefarina.
The malt for store beer should be kept three months at least before using it,
and be freed by rubbing and sifting from the acrospires before being sent to the
mill, where it should be crushed pretty jine. The barley employed is the best
distichon or common kind, styled Hordeum vulgare.
The hops are of the best and freshest growth of Bavaria, calledjine spalter, or
saatser Bohemian townhops, and are twice as dear as the best ordinary hops of
the rest of Germany. They are in such esteem as to be exported even into France.
In Munich the malt is moistened slightly 12 or 16 hours before crushing it,
with from two to three Maas6 of water for every bushel, the malt being well
dried, and several months old. The mash-tun into which the malt is immediately
conveyed is, in middle-sized breweries, a round oaken tub, about 4% feet deep, 10
feet in diameter at bottom and 9 at top, outside measure, containing about 6,000
Berlin quarts. Into this tun cold water is admitted late in the evening, to the
amount of 25 quartsfor each scheffel (bushel), or 600 quarts for the 26 scheffels
of the ground malt, which are then shot in and stirred about, and worked well
about with the oars and rakes, till a uniform paste isformed without lumps. It is
left thus f o r three or four hours; 3,000 quarts of water being put into the copper
and made to boil; and 1,800 quarts are gradually run down into the mash-tun and
worked about in it, producing a mean temperature of 142.5OE After an hour's
interval, during which the copper has been kept full, 1,800 additional quarts of
water are run into the tun, with suitable mashing. The copper being now emptied
of water, the mash-mixture from the tun is transferred to it, and brought quickly
A Bavarian maas = 1!4 English quarts.
513
to the boiling point, with careful stirring to prevent its settling on the bottom
and getting burned, and it is kept at that temperature for half an hour. When the
mash rises by the ebullition, it needs no more stirring. This process is called, in
Bavaria, boiling the thick mash, dickmeisch Kochen. The mash is next returned
to the tun, and well worked about in it. A few barrels of thin mash-wort are kept
ready to be put into the copper the moment it is emptied of the thick mash. After
a quarter of an hour's repose the portion of liquidfiltered through the sieve part
of the bottom of the tun into the wort-cistern is put into the copper, thrown back
boiling hot into the mash in the tun, which is once more worked thoroughly.
The copper is next cleared out, filled up with water, which is made to boil f o r
the after, or small-beer brewing. After two hours' settling in the open tun, the
worts are drawn off clear.
Into the copper,filled up one foot high with the wort, the hops are introduced,
and the mixture is made to boil during a quarter of an hour. This is called
roasting the hops. The rest of the wort is now put into the copper, and boiled
along with the hops during at least an hour or an hour and a halJ: The mixture is
then laded out through the hop-Jilter into the cooling cistern, where it stands
three or four inches deep, and is exposed upon an extensive surface to natural or
artiJicia1currents of cold air, so as to be quickly cooled. For every 20 barrels of
Lagerbier there are allowed 10 of small beec so that 30 barrels of worts are
made in all.
For the winter or pot-beer the worts are brought down to about 59K in the
cooler, and the beer is to be transferred to the fermenting tuns at from 54.5" to
59K; for the summer or Lagerbier, the worts must be brought down in the
cooler to from 43" to 45?4", andput into thefermenting tuns at from 41 " to 43F
A few hours beforehand, while the wort is still at the temperature of 63%"F,
a quantity of lobb must be made, called Vorstellen (fore-setting) in German, by
mixing the proportion of Unterhefe (yeast) intended for the whole brewing with
a barrel or a barrel and a half of worts, in a small tub called the Gahr-tiene,
stirring them well together, so that they may immediately run into fermentation.
This lobb is in this stage to be added to the worts. The lobb is known to be ready
when it is covered with a white froth from one quarter to one halfan inch thick,
during which it must be well covered up. The large fermenting tun must in like
manner be kept covered even in the vault. The colder the worts, the more yeast
must be added.
By following the preceding directions, the wort in the tun should, in the course
offrorn 12 to 24 hours, exhibit a white froth round the rim, and even a slight
whiteness in the middle. After another 12 to 24 hours, the froth should appear in
curls; and, in a third like period, these curls should be changed into a still higher
frothy brownish mass. In from 24 to 48 hours more, the barm should have fallen
down in portions through the beer, so as to allow it to be seen in certain points. In
this case it may be turned over into the smaller ripening tuns in the course of
Chapter 8
5 14
another five or six days. But when the worts have been set to ferment at from 41 O
to 43OR, they requirefrom eight to nine days. The beer is transferred, after being
freed from the top yeast by a skimmer, by means of a stopcock near the bottom
of the large tun. It is eitherfirst run into an intermediate vessel, in order that the
top and bottom portions may be well mixed, or into each of the Lager casks, in a
numbered series, like quantities of the top and bottom portions are introduced.
In the ripening cellars the temperature cannot be too low. The best keeping beer
can never be brewed unless the temperature of the worts at setting, and of course
the fermenting vault, be as low as 50"E In Bavaria, where this manufacture is
carried on under Government inspectors, a brewing period is prescribed by law,
which is,for the under-fermenting Lagerbier,from Michaelmas (29IhSeptember)
to St. George (23"' April). From the latter to the former period the ordinary
top-barm beer alone is to be made. The ripening casks must not be quite full, and
they are to be closed merely with a loose bung, in order to allow of the working
over of the ferment. But should the fermentation appear too languid, after six or
eight days, a little briskly fermenting Lagerbier may be introduced. The store
Lagerbier tuns are not to be quite filled, so as to prevent all the yeasty particles
from being discharged in the ripening fermentation; but the pot Lagerbier tuns
must be made quite full, as this beverage is intended for speedy sale within afew
weeks of its being made.
A s soon as the summer-beer vaults are charged with their ripening casks and
with ice-cold air, they are closed air-tight with triple doors, having small intervals
between, so that one may be entered and shut again before the next is opened. ''
POTATO BEER
One of the more unusual beverages to be brewed on the Continent in the
19thcentury, was potato beer, which Ure seems to think was of Bavarian
origin. His recipe for such a product is as follows:
"The potatoes being well washed are to be rubbed down to pulp by a grating
machine. For every scheffel of potatoes 80 quarts of water are to be put with
them in the copper, and made to boil.
Crushed malt, to the amount of 12 scheffels is to be well worked about in the
mash-tun with 360 quarts, or about 90 gallons (English) of cold water, to a thick
pap, and then 840 additional quarts, or about 6 barrels (English) of cold water
are to be successively introduced, with constant stirring, and left to stand an hour
at rest.
The potatoes having been meanwhile boiled to a fine starch paste, the whole
malt-mash, thin and thick, is to be speedily laded into the copper, and the
mixture in it is to be well stirred for an hour, taking care to keep the temperature
at from 144 to 156"E: all the time, in order that the diastase of the malt may
515
convert the starch present in the two substances into sugar and dextrin. This
transformation is made manifest by the white pasty liquid becoming transparent
and thin. Whenever this happens the fire is to be raised, to make the mash boil,
and to keep it at this heat for 10 minutes. Thefire is then withdrawn; the contents
of the copper are to be transferred into the mash, worked well there and left to
settle for h a v a n hour; during which time the copper is to be washed out, and
quickly charged once more with boiling water.
The clear wort is to be drawn off from the tun, as usual, and boiled as soon as
possible with the due proportion of hops; and the boiling water may be added in
any desired quantity to the drained mash, for the second mashing. Wort made
in this way is said to have no flavour whatever of the potato, and to clarify
more easily than malt-wort, from its containing a smaller proportion of gluten
relatively to that of saccharum.
A scheffel of good mealy potatoes affords 26-27% lbs. of thick well-boiled
syrup, of the density of 36 Baumk; and 26 lbs. of such syrup are equivalent to a
scheffel of malt in saccharine strength.
Some German authorities claimed that beer brewed in this way from
potatoes was equal to, if not superior to, pure malt beer. I find this
hard to believe, and can relate the story of a head-brewer from a large,
well-established regional brewery, who experimented with anything
fermentable during the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result some
awful beers were foisted upon the general public, and the company never
fully regained its reputation.
HEATHER ALE
Of all the ales and beers that have been documented over the years, none
can match heather ale for its antiquity and ability to engender myth.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in his ballad Heather Ale, eulogises over it thus:
From the bonny bells 0heather
They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
And lay in a blessid swound
For days and days together
In their dwellings underground.
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lured from Eire to Alba7 by the fame of heather ale. Whether the Picts
were dwarfish, swarthy people, who lived in underground houses, and
intoxicated themselves on their indigenous beverage, as, again, is alluded
to by the great author in the rest of the work, is an entirely different
matter. Certainly, Pytheas remarked that the Picts were skilled in the
art of brewing a potent drink, when he visited these shores. By the
12h century, brewing techniques from south of the border, and from
northern Europe, were being incorporated into Scottish brewing
heritage, and the ancient styles of beer gradually disappeared from
many areas; the only remaining strongholds being in the more remote
regions, such as Galloway, and the Highlands and Islands. In such areas,
tales relating to heather ale suggest that it might have been brewed in
the not-too-distant past. Galloway appears to have been a particular
stronghold, and McNeill (1 963) reports that several ancient brewing
sites can be discerned there, describing them as pear-shaped enclosures
about sixteen feet in length by eight at their greatest breadth, with a side
wall about three feet in height, and are situated on southern hill slopes near
clear, swift -running st reams.
In some areas heather was actually cultivated for brewing purposes,
and ancient heather-growing sites have been reported by Maclagan
(1900) on the Isle of Islay, where the tradition of heather ale has always
been strong. He maintains that a number of plots, each enclosed by
dykes, can be discerned along the road leading from Bridgend to Loch
Gorm. There was apparently a renowned brewery in the vicinity, run by
the Fein. The proclivity of the people of Islay for the beverage was
remarked upon by the botanist Rev. John Lightfoot, in his Flora Scotica
of 1777, in which he states under the entry dealing with heather cfraoch;
Gaelic) :
Formerly the young tops of the heather are said to have been used alone to brew
a kind of ale, and even now I was informed that the inhabitants of Islay and Jura
still continue to brew a very potable liquor by mixing two-thirds of the tops of
heather to one-third of malt. This is not the only refreshment that heather
affords: the hardy Highlanders frequently make their beds with i t . . .
Legend has it that the secret of how to brew true Pictish heather ale
was carried to his grave by the sole survivor of a confrontation, in
the 4h century AD, between invading warriors from the north of
Ireland (the Scots) and the indigenous Picts on the Galloway peninsula.
Folklore accommodates numerous versions of the story of how the
517
secret of brewing heather ale was lost to the world when the Picts were
supposedly exterminated; the account presented here being from Weld
(1860):
The secret according to Boeces Chronicle was possessed by the Picts. A story is
told, legendary it must be granted, that when Kenneth MacAlpine resolved
on extirpating the Picts, he slew all but two, an aged father and his son, who were
said to have the recipe of brewing this heather nectar. Their lives were promised
to be spared on condition that they divulged the secret. The father declared that
he would disclose the art provided he was granted one boon. This being acceded
to, great was the astonishment of the victorious Kenneth and his followers when
the old man demanded as his request that his son should be killed, emphatically
insisting that on no other terms would he divulge the secret. Accordingly, the
youths head was struck ofJ: Now, said thefather, I am satisfied. M y son might
have taught you the art; I never will. He had the satisfaction of carrying it with
him to his grave. And the ballad tells us:
The Picts were undone, cut ofJ mothers son,
For not teaching the Scots to brew heather ale.
Some scholars do not like the idea of a father encouraging the death of
his offspring, and think that a better alternative tale is one in which the
old man will only give the secret to a member of his own tribe, a traitor
Pict who had gone over to the enemy. This was agreed, but when the old
man encountered the traitor at a cliff-edge he flung himself upon
him, and together they fell to death on the sharp rocks of the Mull of
Galloway. As will be gathered from all this, the Picts, like the Celts, left
no written records for posterity.
A similar father and son legend regarding a fabulous drink is given
by Donaldson (1920). She relates the tale of two or three hundred years
ago in which a Norwegian was working a still in the locality of the Sgurr
of Eigg, in which he made a drink like Benedictine from heather flowers.
He guarded the recipe jealously, but the islanders demanded to know it
. . . you know the rest. This particular version lends some credence to the
notion that it was the Nordic tribes who held the secret of brewing
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heather ale. On this theme, Almqvist (1965) notes that there is a similar
tale to be told about why the Irish never managed to master the production of heather ale. The Irish had killed off all the Vikings except for
one old man and his son, whom they offered to spare in return for the
knowledge of how to brew with heather. Such beer had a wonderful taste
and was the sole preserve of the Vikings. On ordering his son to be
thrown off a cliff, the old man subsequently refused to talk and was
himself killed. Elements of the legend are also to be found in the Orkney
and Shetland Islands. Almqvist has unearthed some 50 variants of the
Irish and Scottish legend (there are over 180 Irish variations, alone), and
proposes that there is a distinct connection between this tale and the
ancient story about the final fate of the Rhine gold, which is best told in
the Old Norse Eddic lay Atlakvida, which may have been composed
in Greenland. The story of the Rhine gold concerns treasure rather than
a recipe for beer, but the motif is the same.
Some authorities believe that the story of heather beer was originally
a Celtic one, perhaps brought from Ireland to the Continent by Irish
monks, who had missionary outposts in France, Switzerland and
Germany as early as the 7fhcentury AD, although it is possible that
the continental Celts knew about it at a much earlier period, and it
was borrowed into Germanic heroic tradition when the Gauls and the
Germanic tribes lived next door to each other on the mainland of
Europe. A point in favour of the notion that heather beer might have
been a Viking invention, can be gained from the fact that in some parts
of Ireland, the main ingredient of such a beer, heather Cfraoch),
which is almost certainly the species Erica vulgaris, is known as fraoch
lochlannach, or Viking heather. Indeed, Almqvist found that Viking
ale was still revered in parts of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry,
when he visited there in 1957, albeit as a distant memory for some of
the older inhabitants.
Heather beer, or something similar, has also been used as a stop-gap
potation for the less well-to-do in times of poor harvests. Thus, in
Sundrie Newe and ArtiJicial Remedies against Famine, which was
published in London in 1596, we read:
A Cheape Liquor for Poore Men when Malt is extream Deare: If apoore man
in the time ofpowering doe gather the toppes of heath, with thefiowers which is
usually called and known by the name of Ling in the northerlie parts of this
Realme, & lay up sufficient store thereof for his own provision, it being well dried
and carefully kept from putrefying or moulding, he may at all times make a very
pleasing & cheape drink for himself by boiling the same in fair water with such
proportion thereof as may best content his own taste.
519
Ancient lore tells us that the beer had a supposedly wonderful flavour,
but the above statement, which implies that the drink is only suitable for
poor people, would seem to suggest that it was far from excellent. Indeed,
in the Historie of Scotland, which was written by Jhone Leslie, Bishop of
Ross, in 1578, the translation into Scottish (Dalrymple, 1888) contains
an admission that English ale was superior to the Scottish version, the
main reason being that the former was hopped, and would bear keeping
(maturing) for long periods. His Reverence explains thus:
Beare mairouer it bringis, no only one kynd, quhairof commoune drinke is
maid to the Ile, quhilke we cal ale, and is a drinke maist halsum. In Ingland it is
bettir quhair it is browne with hope; in Scotland butt hope. and this drinke is oft
browne, and chelflie in the moneth of Marche, and than best; of quhilke sorte, no
only is keipet for ane ieir, or twa yeirs, bot evinfor fyue 3eirs, or sum tymes vii.
3eirs. that throuch the opinioune of strange natiouns, it is thochte baith be the
colore and be the taste to be Malmsey.
If nothing else, the Bishops writings indicate that, even at this early date,
the knowledge of the efficacy of hops was appreciated a long way north
of Hadrians Wall, even though there were obvious problems associated
with growing the plant there.
By inference, the ancient formulae for heather ale, whether Pictish in
origin, or otherwise, would seem to have prescribed that the plant was
being used as the sole source of fermentable material, but there is a
distinct paucity of any bonafide records documenting this. There are,
however, several recipes in which the plant only forms a part of the
grist and many more in which the flowers are really only having flavour
extracted from them. In the latter category is the short tract given by
Bickerdyke, who says:
The blossoms of the heather are carefully gathered and cleansed, and are
placed in the bottom of vessels; wort of the ordinary kind is allowed to drain
through the blossoms, and gains in its passage a peculiar and agreeable flavour,
which is well known to all who are familiar with heather honey.
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Strain into a clean cask. Let it stand until milk warm, then add a teacupful
of good barm (brewers yeast). Cover with a coarse cloth until the next day.
Skim the barm off from the top andpour gently into a tub so that the barrn may
be left in the bottom. Bottle and cork tight. It will be ready for use in 2 or 3 days.
This makes a very refreshing and wholesome drink as there is a good deal of
spirit in heather.
52 1
it was delicious, and sparkled like ginger beer and, after much effort, the
following recipe was extracted from those concerned:
Take the tops of heather as much as is required, put in a boiler, cover with
water, and boil for three-quarters of an hour. Strain the liquid off and allow to
cool to 70, add a teacupful, and a quarter of yeast to the gallon of liquid,
put in a crock, or cask, covered with a cloth, and in two days it may be bunged
down.
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of water, and when it is as cold as new milk, add halfa cupful of barm. Cover it
up for 12 hours. Skim the top, pour it offgently to keep the barm that has sunk
to the bottom, then bottle and cork$rmly..
Not content with exploding some myths associated with heather ale,
Maclagan turned his attention to another Highland beverage, this time
a stimulant drink made from the sap of the birch tree (Betula pubescens;
was B. alba L. in Maclagans day). This was birch beer, a beverage
that was also well known from much of Canada, where the tree grows
prolifically in some areas. Hooker, in his British Flora, remarks that a
wine was made from Betula alba in Scotland; and other authorities have
spoken of its rich, sugary, and plentiful spring sap, from which a beer, a
wine, and a vinegar can be made. According to lore, The Highlanders
made incisions in birch trees in spring and collected the juice, which
fermented and became a gentle stimulant. Again, Lightfoot was aware of
the process, and gives the following recipe:
In the beginning of March, when the sap is rising, and before the leaves
shoot out, bore holes in the bodies of the larger trees and put fossets therein,
made of elder stick with the pith taken out, and then put any vessels under to
receive the liquor. If the tree be large you may tap it in four or jive places at
a time without hurting it, and thus from several trees you gain several gallons
of juice a day. The sooner it is used the better. Boil the sap as long as any
scum rises, skimming it all the time. To every gallon of liquor put 41bs. of
sugar, and boil it afterwards half an hour, skimming it well; then put it into
an open tub to cool, and when cold run it into your cask. When it has done
working, bung it up close and keep it three months. Then either bottle it ofJI
or draw it out of the cask after it is a year old. This is a generous and
agreeable liquor, and would be a happy substitute in the room of the poisonous whisky.,
523
PALE ALE
The seeds of the pale ales with which we are familiar today, were sown
during the early years of the Whcentury, when twopenny was brewed
by certain London brewers in order to satisfy the needs of the gentry
when they were in town. The excessive taxes levied on common
brewers at this period were imposed to finance the wars with France, and
they had the effect of increasing the amount of beer brewed at home for
private use. As a rule, privately-brewed beer was brighter and in better
condition than that produced by the common brewer, it being brewed on
a smaller scale, with the best raw materials. Thus the nobility and gentry
were looking for something similar to their house-beer when they were
away from home. Some London brewers were able to create beers with
the same superior characters as those brewed in the great houses, and
they did so by using paler malt and a higher proportion of hops. The
feasibility of using more of the latter ingredient was a consequence of
malt being more heavily taxed than hops. Thus pale, bitter beer was born;
something that would eventually become famous throughout the world.
Until the 1870s, porter and the sweeter, so-called mild ales, were
competing with each other for being the most popular beer in London,
but by the late 1880s, Barnard, in volume I of his monumental work
(1889) was given to comment, Theficklepublic has got tired of the vinous
flavoured vattedporter and transferred its affections to the new and luscious
mild ale.
This certainly represented a shift in metropolitan beer taste, but it was
something that had been happening for a long time, probably since the
early decades of the century, when the scandal of porter adulteration
became common knowledge, but it was during the 1860s and 1870s
that the old-style vatted beers became really unfashionable throughout
Britain (except for some rural areas like East Anglia and Devon). The
London versions of mild ale were dark, and the brewing of such beers
was ideally suited to London waters. Some breweries, such as the Albion
Brewery of Mann, Crossman & Paulin, made their reputations out of
this style of drink, but not all British mild ales were highly coloured.
With the increasing use of glass to make drinking receptacles, as opposed
to pewter, leather, etc., the customer could now see what he/she was
drinking, and the darker beers, such as porter, did not look particularly
inviting (even though their high colour had the ability to disguise any
inherent murkiness) and there was an increasing demand for pale,
bright, sparkling beers.
With the numerous improvements in brewing technology (saccharometers, refrigerators, etc.), plus the availability of suitable high-quality
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malts, the brewer had no excuse for not satisfying the demands of the
customer. Taxation on malt was such that there was no advantage to be
had by the brewer by using an inferior product, so buy the best, and brew
the best became the motto. It certainly required a lot more brewing
expertise to brew successful pale ales, but there was a bonus, for without
the need for vatting, the brewer could expect a return for his labours, via
his domestic trade, within about a month of the beer being brewed. With
liberal use of the hop, for the new pale ales were quite bitter, the brewer
could produce a weaker, more stable beer, which came to be regarded as
more wholesome, more nutritious, more palatable, and less intoxicating
than was previously possible. The situation induced Barnard to comment
as follows after a visit to John Joule and Co., at Stone, Staffordshire, in
the mid- 1880s:
The growing trade for pale ale is one of the most practical reforms ever
wrought, as the spirit contained in it is diluted to a point which makes this
pleasant beverage comparatively harmless to both the stomach and the head.
By the time that Barnard was penning his Noted Breweries, pale ale
brewing had more or less been perfected. Such beers could now be
brewed throughout the year, and did not require an inordinate storage
time. Because of this, they had a freshness of palate, translucence and
sparkle that had never before been attainable. Such products were
referred to as running beers. Many brewers experimented with sugar, as
well as malt, usually dissolving it in the copper, and after 1880, rice and
maize were also sometimes incorporated into the grist in order to
enhance beer stability and brilliance. Most importantly, from a consumer
point of view, there was great faith in these pale beers, because the public
realised that they were far more difficult to adulterate, both in terms of
appearance and taste. Porter-style beers almost invited adulteration.
From the obituary of the Bury St Edmunds brewer, Edward Greene,
which appeared in the Bury and Norwich Post of 21StApril 1891, it is
evident that not everyone was enamoured with porter in the first place;
part of the citation goes:
He was one of theJirst country brewers to discover that beer need not be vile,
black, turgid s t u a but brewed a bright amber-coloured liquid of Burton-type,
which he sold at a shilling per gallon and made afortune.
The above quote tells us that the definitive version of the pale ale, that
became so popular, emanated from Burton-on-Trent.
As we have seen, Burtons fame as a brewing centre goes back many
525
centuries. Its underground waters, with their high mineral content and
negligible organic content, proved to be ideal for brewing strong pale ales,
with excellent keeping qualities (Bushnan, 1853;Lott, 1896).Daniel Defoe,
in his Tour through the whole of Great Britain of 1724-1 726,remarked upon
the superb quality of Staffordshire ale generally; his words being:
At LichJield, the ale is incomparable, as it is all over this county of Stafford.
Burton is the most famous town for it, and also Stafford and Newcastle in this
shire . . . the best character you can give to ale, in London, is calling it Burton
ale, and that they brew, in London, some that goes by that denomination.
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527
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By the end of the 19h century, most brewers of any substance were
producing around eight different beers, one of which was of the IPA
genre. Additionally, there was an increase in popularity of bottled beers
(even though they were expensive), a trade that was nurtured by
Whitbread in particular, and this led to a trend towards the production
of beers with a uniformity of palate. There was also a trend towards
drinking beers of lower strength, something that continues to this
day. By the end of the 19hcentury onwards, the strength and hop-rate
of India Pale Ales were reduced and they would soon bear little
resemblance, apart from colour, to their Burton ancestors.
To consistently brew a bright, sparkling, pale, running ale, demanded
an alteration in brewing thought and methodology, and, accordingly,
we see the evolution of specialised fermentation systems in various parts
of the land, devised purely to effect that end. In order to achieve the
required brightness, it was very important to effectively remove as much
yeast from the beer as was feasible, either during or after fermentation.
The simplest way of removing yeast during fermentation was by means
of a parachute (which was an inverted metal cone which could be
lowered into the yeast head, and into which some of the cells would
collect for removal), but these only worked when the brewery yeast strain
was sufficiently flocculent.
Perhaps the most famous of all of these fermentation innovations
was developed in Burton-on-Trent during the 1840s. These were the
Union sets (Figure 8.1) and they were designed to purge the fermentation of surplus yeast, whilst still maintaining maximum contact between
beer and yeast. In the Burton Union system, the bulk of the fermentation was carried out in a series of interlinked wooden (oak) casks,
which were individually equipped with swan-necked pipes through
which surplus yeast was forced by carbon dioxide from within the cask.
These pipes led into troughs which carried the yeast away to waste after it
had been separated from any beer that had spilled over as well. Beer was,
of course, ultimately returned to the fermenting casks, via pipes known
as side rods. The yeast involved in this sort of fermentation apparatus
was a non-flocculent strain, and whether this was a result of it becoming
physiologically accustomed to the environment in the Union sets, or
whether the Union sets were originally designed to cope with nonflocculent yeasts, is a moot point; there are arguments for both points
of view.
Union rooms were temperature-controlled, usually being kept just
Fermentation would commence in a large vessel and be transferred to the Union sets after
maximum activity had been achieved (ca. 36 hours).
Figure 8.1
529
The Great Union Room, Samuel Allsopp & Sons, Ltd., Burton-on-Trent
(From Alfred Barnard's Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland)
below 50 O F (10 "C), and by the last couple of decades of the 19thcentury,
a considerable number of regional brewers had installed a similar facility,
in order for their pale ale to have a chance of competing with those
from Burton. In 1856, Ind Coope, of Romford, Essex, had taken a
step further, they actually built their own brewery in Burton, fullyequipped with the Union sets. Before the end of the century a number of
London brewers, such as Charrington (187 l), Truman (1 873), and
Mann, Crossman and Paulin (1875), would follow suit - with varying
degrees of success. It is mostly agreed that the Burton breweries using the
Union system brewed pale ales par excellence, but this came at a cost,
because sets were expensive to install (especially the casks), and they
occupied much space in the brewery; they were also labour-intensive
items of equipment, especially when being cleaned. Some brewers
considered that they were too unhygienic to be considered!
The effectiveness of the Union system was something that is questioned
by George Amsinck (1868), a London-based consultant brewer. He
holds singular ideas about a number of brewing matters, the production
of Burton ales being one of them:
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53 1
excited about the product, and writes with an eagerpen in order to set
forth its excellency, andpave a way for its general reception in the world.
In the next sentence, we learn of the best qualities belonging to apublic
liquor, viz pleasure and health. This is surely the language of an agent,
and he continues:
About sixty years ago this Drink was first invented at, or near the Town of
Plymouth. It is brewed from pale Malt, after the best Method known in the
Western Parts of this County; and as it is drank at Plymouth, in particular
by the best of that Town, the Alewives, whose Province this commonly falls
under to manage from the Beginning to the End, are most of them as curious in
their brewing it, as the Dairy-Woman in making her Butter,. for, as it is a
White Ale, it is soon sullied by Dirt, and as easily perceived in its frothy
Head: Besides, here their Sluttishness would be more exposed, perhaps, than in
any other Place in England; because in this Town, there are few or no Cellars,
on Account of their stony Foundation, which is all Marble: And therefore
their Repositories, being above Ground, are generally exposed to the View of
their Guests, who may passingly see this Liquor fermenting in a Row of
earthen Steens, holding about Jive or more Gallons each: And, though the Wort
is brewed by the Hostels, the Fermentation is brought on by the Purchase
of what they call Ripening, or a composition (as some say) o f t h e Flower of
Malt mixed with the Whites of Eggs: But, as this is a Nostrum known but to
few, it is only Guessing at the Matter,. for about thirty Years ago, as I am
informed, there were only two or three Masters ofthe Secret, who sold it out as
we sell Yeast, at so much for a certain Quantity; and that every Time a new
Brewing of this Sort of Ale happened: A great Ball or Lump of it was generally
sufficient to work four or five Steens of Wort, and convert it from a very clear
Body into a thick fermenting one, near the Colour and Consistence of Butterd
Ale, and then it was onlyJit to be used; for if it was let alone to befine or stale, it
was rejected as not worthy of buying and drinking. Yet some out of Curiosity
have kept it in Bottles, rackd it off clear, and made of it Flip and other Compositions very good. Now this White Ale being thus fermented into such a
gross Body, becomes a Sort of Chyle ready prepared for Digestion in the Stomach, and yet so liquid as to pass the several Secretory Ducts of the Animal
System soon enough to give room for new Supplies of this pleasant Tipple, even
at one common Sitting in a public House: For though this Drink is not so thin
and clear as the brown Sorts, yet, by its new, lubricous, slippery Parts, it is soon
discharged out of the Stomach; and notwithstanding such Evacuations, it
leaves a very Nutritious Quality behind it in the Body, that brings it under a
just Reputation for preventing and recovering those who are not too far gone in
Consumptions; and therefore would be of extraordinary Service to labouring
People. . .
532
Chapter 8
533
c.I700 in Leicestershire, the liquor with malt infused for ale or beer, before
it is fully boiled, is called grout, and before it is tunned up in the vessel is called
wort ;
1 727, Vin.Britan. 29. The worst small Beer, if that wretched stufl called
grout deserve the name;
534
Chapter 8
1853, When the brewer was satisjied that the grout was properly ripened, he
poured it forth in the copper;
1888, ShefJield Gloss. Growte, small beer made after the strong beer is
brewed.
535
The resin of an unknown plant, called serpentien is mentioned as a constituent of gruit in some
town documents.
536
Chapter 8
537
538
Chapter 8
539
1666. In 1669, the brewery was sold to one Jonathan Elliott, who
defaulted on the El0 payment until ordered to pay by a commission of
1672. From that date onwards, the owners of the site, which included
Calverts and the City of London Brewery, were bidden to pay the
annual El0 at the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel.
The brewery was in the hands of the Calvert family (who owned two
breweries in London) by the middle of the 18thcentury, Sir William
Calvert, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1748-1749, being the owner
in 1744. The firm later became known as Felix Calvert and Co., after
merger, and it retained that name until the formation of the City of
London Brewery Co. in 1860. In 1932, the latter was formed into an
Investment Trust Company, and the site was developed into wharfage
and warehousing.
The Calvert brothers, William and John, were major figures on the
London brewing scene, running for a while two separate breweries, which
then merged; John ran Calverts Peacock Brewhouse, Whitecross St, St
Giles, Cripplegate, whilst Sir William, and later Felix, were responsible
for the Hour Glass Brewhouse, Upper Thames St. (to which we have just
referred). As Table 7.4 shows, the Cripplegate enterprise (Calvert and
Seward) was the larger of the two, in terms of 1,760 output, but when the
two breweries were merged in 1810, it was at the Thames St. site that
production was concentrated. The annual barrellage figures for 1,748
(Table 8.2) show the extent to which the Calvert family dominated
London brewing at this time. Historically, the two breweries belonging to
the Calverts were the first in London (and probably the world) to exceed
50,000 barrels per annum.
It is interesting to note that Ralph Harwood brewed only 21,200
barrels that year, and was never sufficiently large to warrant inclusion in
the $rst twelve houses of London brewers.
By the end of the 18thcentury, Calverts leading position had been
taken over by Whitbread, who were the first brewers to exceed 200,000
Table 8.2 Annual barrelluge returns for
the leading London brewers,
1748
Brewer
Barrels
55,700
53,600
39,400
39,000
34,400
540
Chapter 8
TRUMANS BREWERY
The history of the brewery familiarly known as Trumans is worth
documenting in some detail because it represents, in some ways, a
microcosm of the London trade over a period of three centuries. In
their privately published tercentennial book of 1966, Truman Hanbury
Buxton and Co., claim that the origins of their company date back
several hundred years, the precise details being obscure. They do,
however, declare that:
A member of the Truman family was known to be brewing in 1381, when a
William Truman attacked the then Lord Mayor of London during Wat Tylers
revolt, No more is heard of Trumans brewing until 1613, during the reign of
James I, when the Middlesex Sessions Roll records another William Truman,
brewer of Old Street, in the parish of St. Giles Without Cripplegate, London, a
district much frequented by brewers at that time.
The original Wm. Truman was described as a brewer at that time, and
the later William had a son, John, who became a Freeman of the
Brewers Company; there is then a short gap in factual evidence, before a
Joseph Truman was known to be working at the brewery in Brick Lane,
Shoreditch, in the East End of London, in 1666. Part of the original
brewery site was in Black Eagle Street, from which the brewery took
its name. The original brewery on the site was probably built by the
Bucknall family, who leased the land. William Bucknall, was a Master of
the Brewers Company, and was knighted by Charles I1 in 1669, and it was
in his brewery that Joseph learnt the trade, and it seems that the latter
acquired the lease on the site upon the death of Wm. Bucknall in 1679.
Certainly by 1683, Joseph Truman is described in a Stepney parish register
54 1
The second batch of beer came from Trumans, and once the word
had spread, their reputation was established in the capital. Whether
the beer provided by Trumans was porter or not, is not recorded for
posterity but, like the other great London brewers, the wealth of the
company was directly related to porter brewing. The whole of the Brick
Lane site became a vast porter-producing plant, with huge storage
vats, and every conceivable labour-saving device. To astonished foreign
visitors to London, the Black Eagle brewery was a sight of unspeakable
magnijicence.
542
Chapter 8
Sir Benjamin, who died on 16thMarch 1780, in his 81Styear, had been
actively engaged at the brewery since 1733, and so the above advice
was certainly sound. His attempts to find a family member to run the
concern were not successful, with the lack of interest of his grandsons,
he turned to his granddaughter, Frances Read, and her two young sons.
Frances had married her French dancing master, Wm. Villebois, and
between them, the offspring from the Read and Villebois lines had no
interest whatsover in the Brick Lane enterprise. In his will, Sir Benjamin,
who evidently did not trust the Reads or the Villebois to run the brewery,
or his estate, left his trusted Head Clerk, Mr James Grant, as sole
executor, and effectively in charge of the business - which he ran for ten
years almost single-handed. For a short period, the brewery became
543
known as Reads, but the only interest the family ever showed was in
the profits.
In 1788, Grant bought William Truman Reads one-eighteenth
shareholding, and became sole partner until he died one year later. His
share in the brewhouse was purchased by a young gentleman named
Sampson Hanbury, who ran the business for 46 years, until his death in
1835. During that period Hanbury increased his shareholding to onethird, the remaining two-thirds being held by two of Sir Benjamins
great-grandsons who were sleeping partners. It is a sobering thought
that if it had not been for a humble employee, namely Grant, the great
Truman name, in the context of the brewing world, would have disappeared without trace, by the end of the lVh century; so much for a
familial hegemony.
Hanbury oversaw a great expansion in the companys trade (the
brewery was usually referred to as Hanburys at this period), and within
40 years the annual barrellage figures had increased from 93,900 (when
he took over), to an all-time high, in his lifetime, of 223,800 in 1828.
Other production landmarks were the attainment of 100,000 barrels
(109,200 in 1796) and the sale of twice that amount (21 1,000) in 1819.
When Sir Benjamin died in 1780, the annual barrellage was 80,700. By
now, Trumans was the second largest brewery in London, with stock
alone worth over &250,000.
Sampson Hanbury was a Quaker and married into the rich Gurney
family, who were bankers - a connection that was destined to prove
important in the future financing of the brewery. Sampsons sister,
Anna, married her Quaker cousin, Thomas Fowell Buxton, who died in
1792, but her son (of the same name) did play a leading part in the
development of the company, joining in 1808. Thus we see the formation
of the tripartite company name. In 1816, Sampson wrote to the Villebois
family, who still owned shares, and managed to persuade them to sell to
neighbouring brewery owners, the Pryor family. I reproduce here part of
the letter, since it seems to show, in a crystallised form, the background
for the sort of business deals that were to become commonplace during
the 19hcentury; this is a little gem:
An unexpected offer relative to the Brewery has lately been made, and we
consider it such a one as to deserve the most serious and weighty consideration.
Nor do I think I should be doing justice to you and your brother, as well as
to ourselves here, without laying it before you. The fact is our good friends
and neighbours Messrs Pryor, who are two Gentlemen that bought Proctors
Brewhouse in Shoreditch, have their lease close on the eve of expiry and
have been endeavouring unsuccessfully, to renew it. From particular family
544
Chapter 8
connections with Buxton and me, both they and their friends are extremely
desirous of engaging with us. These gentlemen only wish to have as much profit
ofour trade, or a trifle more, as they can bring trade with them, which is about
20,000 barrels - they will add capital, more than equivalent which I can with
truth say seems very advisable, If not positively necessary . . . we want capital
and managers, I question if the whole trade couldproduce two persons who would
unite so much of what we want - knowledge of the brewery in every part,
economical habits, industry and respectability with money..
545
migrants did not experience great success. After a few teething problems,
the Truman brewery in Burton started to make a profit by 1880. In 1894
they produced almost 150,000 barrels from Burton, a record volume for
the plant, but by now the London brewers could brew acceptable pale
ales in the capital, and so their enthusiasm for Burton-on-Trent waned especially when transport costs were taken into consideration. Travelling
by rail from Burton obviously had an effect on the beer, because there
were numerous complaints from Trumans London publicans, a fact that
was not helped by the company policy of blending London and Burton
batches.
At its height, in the late 1890s, Trumans Burton plant yielded a 10%
profit for the company, but this was not repeated very often, and in 1898
some of the directors concluded that the capital value of the Burton site
(ca. E 150,000) could be better utilised elsewhere. The conservative nature
of the board decided against closing their Burton site, a move that
was contrary to that of their great East End rivals, Mann, Crossman &
Paulin, who had placed their Albion Brewery in Burton on the market in
1896. Manns were noted for their mild ales (even Truman owning up to
the fact that they were the best of all those brewed in London), and they
never exceeded 60,000 barrels of pale ale per annum on their Burton site.
By 1920, pale ales were responsible for over two-thirds of all Truman
production, and by 1930, the old-style porter ceased to be brewed.
Towards the end of the 19hcentury, taxation and restrictive licensing
laws (due to Mr Gladstone) presented financial problems for most
breweries. In addition, there was a requirement, not only to increase
trade, but to protect existing trade. This was usually effected by purchasing retail outlets outright, or lending money to publicans so that they
could purchase or lease their properties, therefore tying them to ones
own products; this could be an expensive business. As brewers vied for
premises, so the cost of the freehold, or lease, rose sharply. Even as early
as 1747, Benjamin Truman owned a small estate of 26 public houses, and
by about 1815 nearly 200 leases were owned by Trumans, and some 300
publicans financed. In 1885, the amount of money out on loan to publicans was &1,214,282,by far the largest sum for that purpose of all the
London brewers. In 1830 the sum on loan to secure publicans business
had been E232,952, but in 1890 one-tenth of that sum (E23,OOO) was
loaned to the licensee of the Beacons3eZd at Hammersmith, being the
purchase price of his lease.
Another major item of expense, for other London porter brewers,
as well as Trumans, was some degree of plant modernisation; the
huge porter storage vats were not much use for brewing running pale
ales, which were becoming vogue. Vats were gradually dismantled, and
546
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547
548
Chapter 8
change, being in the hands of the same members of the Hanbury, Buxton
and Pryor families, with Arthur Pryor as senior partner and chairman,
a position which he held until 1897. During his tenure, much attention
was paid to quality control, with a laboratory being constructed, and a
chemist appointed to monitor incoming raw materials and the outgoing final product. This expenditure was presumably as a result of their
loss of trade caused by their beer being in a poor condition during the
summer of 1884. The money was obviously well spent, because beer
quality improved, as this extract from the Truman records for May 1898
shows:
The return book is the best barometer of the quality of the beer. For instance,
we have had only I0 barrels of porter returned since Xmas out of a total of
40,000, this works out at 0.0023%.
549
618,240 barrels, in 1876. Whatever the difficulties around the corner, this
stands as an impressive piece of board management. The ability to raise
money, of course, was in no way lessened by the trait exhibited by some
London houses, i.e. that of encouraging members of banking families to
join the board. Trumans did just this when they admitted Sampson
Hanbury into their midst at the end of the Wh century. In general,
during the 18thand 1gthcenturies, there was a distinct affinity of banking
families for the brewing industry, especially in the major towns and cities.
The company survived two world wars, and the associated difficult
times, but eventually fell prey to the merger mania that plagued the
British brewing industry during the 1960s, and resulted in the formation
of the Big Six. Truman Hanbury Buxton managed to survive that
decade, being the last major independent London brewer, but in 1971
they succumbed to a bid by Maxwell Josephs Grand Metropolitan Hotel
group.
There is an irony here, because Truman had only just re-invigorated
the board, a move that included a representative from the merchant
bankers, Morgan Grenfell. Furthermore, the company had just shown
an increase in pre-tax profits of 32% over the 1966-1970 period, and
were in the process of undergoing a major structural rationalisation
and a rebuilding scheme. Their Burton-on-Trent brewery had been
closed, and the Brick Lane site had just had &4,500,000spent on it,
giving them a modern, low-cost production facility - with a capacity
far in excess of the demands of the existing tied estate. The latter had
been rationalised somewhat with the exchange of 73 of their outlets in
the north and midlands (now difficult to service, with no brewery
in Burton) for 36 Courage tied houses in the London area (plus a cash
adjustment in Trumans favour); this arrangement brought their tied
estate to around 1050. Thus, the company was in a fairly healthy state,
so much so, that the Grand Met bid was almost immediately followed
by a rival bid from Watney Mann. Gourvish and Wilson relate the
precise details:
In June 1971 Joseph asked Whitbread if it would sell its 10.7% holding in
Truman. Having received a rebuff the Grand Met chairman made a direct offer
for the company in the following month. Truman responded by asking Whitbread
and Courage for their support, but neither wasprepared to intervene, and it was
Watney Mann which expressed its intention of making a counter-offer. As offer
and counter-offer were mounted over the next two months, it was clear not only
that there was relatively little to choose between the bids but that the board was
itself split in h a g a faction led by George Duncan preferring Watney and
another in favour of Grand Met. The issue was not only that of whether or not
550
Chapter 8
to try and keep Truman within the brewing family but of weighing up the
prospects of the extra business offered by Grand Met against Watneyspromise
of substantial economies from rationalisation.
Grand Mets first bid valued Truman at &34million, but after counterbids from Watneys, their final bid valued the company at just over &50
million; the contest being a very close-run affair. The pre-bidding share
price had valued Truman at just under &28million and so, in a matter of
weeks the Truman share price had almost doubled. Having successfully
negotiated this purchase, Maxwell Joseph then turned his attention to
Watney Mann, as the target of his next acquisition. After a fierce four
month battle, Watney Mann accepted a takeover price of &435million
which, at that time, was by far the highest takeover figure paid in Great
Britain, and made Grand Met Britains 12th largest company. The sum
paid by Grand Met for Watneys must be viewed in the light of the fact
that the brewers had only fairly recently acquired brewing interests in
Belgium, and in 1972 a major international drinks concern, International
Distillers and Vintners. Such a portfolio made Josephs company a very
significant player in the international drinks and leisure industries, a
position that would be underpinned if Britain became a part of the
European Common Market; something that at that time was becoming
increasingly more likely; Watney Mann and Truman Brewery were now
well and truly with us. The Brick Lane Brewery site underwent major
refurbishment during the mid-l970s, but, a decade later, in 1988, all
brewing ceased in this part of London. In 1998, the buildings were
converted into a huge leisure complex.
At the time of publication of this book, the name of Truman, in a
brewing context, will mean very little to all but a few. Companies such
as they, were the cornerstones of their communities, and an integral part
of British life for several centuries. The last paragraph in Trumans 1966
book evocatively sums up the situation; but little did they know what
would happen in their board-room five years later:
Situated in the East End, an area subject to wave after wave of refugees, all
bringing with them echoes of occurrences in other parts of the world, Trumans
have indeed been privileged to follow at very close quarters the shifting patterns
of English life. The history of Trumans is the history of England for the last
300 years.
551
save for this short entry in the Picture of London (1820), which indicates
the heights that they reached around 200 years ago:
Messrs. Whitbread and Co. s brewery in Chiswell-street, near Moorfields, is the
largest in London. The commodity produced in it also esteemed to be of the best
quality of any brewed in the metropolis. The quantity of porter brewed in the
year in this house, when malt and hops were at a moderate price, has been above
200,000 barrels.
There is one stone cistern that contains 3600 barrels, and there are 49 large
oak vats, some of which contain 3500 barrels. One is 27 feet in height, and
22 feet in diameter, surrounded with iron hoops at every four or Jive inches
distance, and towards the bottom it is covered with hoops. There are three boilers,
each of which holds about 5000 barrels.
This must refer to the year 1796 or 1799, when they produced 202,000 and 203,200 barrels
respectively. The next time that they reached such a volume was in 1823 (213,800 barrels).
552
Chapter 8
increase (which saw porter rise to 55s per barrel to the publican). Not
only was the cost of the drink rising, but its strength was being reduced,
as well, and this determined Brown and Parry to rock the boat and
provide some serious competition for the existing London porter
brewers, who were selling the product at an agreed monopolistic price.
Brown had been in the trade some years, and was well known to many
London publicans, who were obviously keen on the idea. He knew that
brewing on a huge scale meant that considerable production economies
could be achieved, and that the plant required to effect this would cost a
considerable sum of money; much more than Brown and Parry could
hope to raise on their own. In addition, they were not in contact with the
established circles of wealth in the capital, from whom funding might
have been a possibility. In the end, the partners resorted to the untried
compromise of being a joint-stock flotation company with partnership,
which meant that, in law, anyone who subscribed to the company were, in
effect, partners. This seemed an unlikely venture but it worked, with
hundreds of share certificates of 250 or E80 units being sold (these
were, by law, deeds of partnership); sufficient to allow the purchase of
the Combrune Brewhouse, and to enlarge and refurbish it with suitable
porter vats, etc. One of the porter vats reputedly held 7,000 barrels, and
their 36 horse-power Boulton & Watt steam engine was the largest in any
London brewery.
The first beer was delivered to publicans in October 1805, and by
January 1806, 14,200 barrels had been sold, and some E250,OOO had
been raised by around 600 co-partners, of whom 120 were London
publicans. With the adulteration of porter known to be rife at this time,
the Golden Lane Brewery product was specifically marketed as being
brewed from malt and hops only, and this proved to be so popular with
publicans that by the spring of 1806 there were over 200 of them as
subscribers. Brown and Parry now felt that they had a reasonably secure
trade and they decided to refuse to supply any trade customer that had
dealings with another brewer. In their first full year of trading (1806) the
brewery turned out 57,400 barrels. After a year of production, with a
reputation for good beer already established, E50 share certificates were
selling for as much as E80. They were being valued even more highly by
February 1807 (99 guineas), and at an auction in March the same year,
some reached El03 19s each. Public confidence in the brewery was high,
and this was reflected in trade volumes, which reached 125,700 barrels
in 1807, and 131,600 barrels in 1808. In the latter year only Meux Reid,
with 190,000 barrels, and Thrale Barclay Perkins, with 184,200 barrels,
brewed and sold more beer.
This unmitigated success story did not last long, for the firm soon
553
ran into difficulties with the Excise who, in November 1807, informed
Brown and Parry that the statutory wastage allowance for common
brewers of three duty-free barrels in every 36, would no longer apply to
them, because a large number of their co-partners were trading as
victuallers, i.e. they sold beer in quantities of less than a pin (4% gallons).
The Golden Lane partners were suspicious that their competitors in
the London trade had ultimately been behind this Excise move. A series
of court battles ensued, commencing in July 1808, the essentials of which
can be obtained from Mathias (1959), and which revolved largely around
the definition of the word partner. Brown and Parry maintained that
they were different from all of the other co-partners because, although
they held some shares themselves, they alone were salaried managers
who signed all papers connected with the business, and made all
decisions relating to same. The other partners, including the landlords,
were dormant partners, and were, in fact, excluded from any form of
control of the company by the very nature of its constitution. In the end
the Brewery won the judgement, and the distinction of character
between victuallers and partners was upheld; as Mathias comments:
The decision did not really touch the fundamental issue of the financial
responsibilities of partners, but it was one more step in transforming the legal
partnership into what was, for more and more intents and purposes, a joint-stock
company with salaried managers and a changing body of shareholders.
554
Chapter 8
qtr over this period. The brewery needed considerable capital reserves
to be able to purchase sufficient supplies to satisfy their trade, but with a
cut-price wholesale policy to their publicans, and a tendency to pay the
co-partners lavish dividends, such sums of money were simply not available. There were no wealthy partners to rely on for financial back-up, and
so the company was forced to raise the price of their beer (they raised
it to a price that was %d per quart below that of the other London
brewers). In doing so they were forced to reduce the strength of their
porter, a fact that their rivals eagerly seized upon. Add to this the fact
that some publicans, who needed cash to bolster their businesses, were
forced to look to the larger brewers for loans. All this affected the trade
at the Golden Lane site, and from the peak of 131,600 barrels that they
had brewed in 1808, output fell to 45,500 barrels in 1813, by which time
the writing was on the wall, and the company fell into terminal decline.
In their final year of operation, 1827, their barrellage was down to 16,100,
which at least was a slight increase on their all-time low the previous year
(1 1,800 barrels). Within weeks, the plant had been sold at public auction,
and the brewery buildings had been demolished.
COURAGE
The last London brewery that we shall look at is the Anchor Brewery,
Horselydown, Southwark, SEl , a concern that was owned at one time by
the Thrale family, and hence it is an enterprise that has become famous
over the years because of its association with that great lexicographer,
Dr Samuel Johnson. As we shall see, Thrales Anchor Brewery provided
the origins of the great Courage brewing empire. The earliest records of
it being known as the Anchor Brewery seem to date back to 1616, when
its ownership is not specified. The third owner is listed as James Child of
the Grocers Company, who transferred to the Brewers Company in
1670 (he became Master in 1693). Child had no male heir, but one of his
daughters had married his brewery manager, Edmund Halsey, who was a
relation and who, as part of the dowry, had been made a partner in the
firm.
On Childs death in 1696, Halsey then became managing partner on a
salary of E l per week, and built up the business into one of the most
successful in London. In addition to being able to self-finance brewery
expansion programmes, notably the building of a new brewhouse in
1700, at a cost of &3,546,Halsey was secure enough to be able to lend
money to publicans in order to guarantee their custom. His star was also
rising in social circles; he lived well and was elected Master of the
Brewers Company in 1715, Governor of St Thomass Hospital in 1719,
555
556
Chapter 8
The recklessness of his expansion brought the house to the edge of catastrophe
in the financial crisis of 1772 - which affected all breweries to some extent,
but Thrale very seriously, as he was operating with such very small liquid
reserves, throwing all available capital into the purchase of more raw material.
Speculation, declared Mrs Thrale, was at the root o f t h e evil, and she defined
speculation as brewing more beer than is necessary merely because malt is
cheap, or buying up loads of hops in full years, thereby expending ones ready
money in hopes of wonderful Returns the ensuing season.
It was these financial difficulties that led Thrale to enter into negotiations
with the notorious chemist, Humphrey Jackson, with a view to
brewing without using malt. This was, of course, a total disaster, and an
expensive one at that (see page 421).
During this difficult period the brewery manager was a John Perkins,
who was entrusted with all brewing matters and who would later become
a partner. Henry Thrales insistence on listening to the ridiculous
notions of Jackson so infuriated Perkins that he resigned, together with
the brewery clerks. This left the brewery without anyone with technical
brewing expertise (Thrale, himself, did not appreciate the niceties of the
art), and it took much persuasion by Mrs Thrale to make Perkins
change his mind. By the end of 1772 the brewery was in financial straits,
and the amount of money owed was in the region of E130,000, some
El8,OOO of it to hop merchants alone. Mrs Thrale made valiant efforts to
raise money, with no little success, for the Anchor Brewery remained in
business, and by March 1773, the situation had improved to such an
extent that Thrale was able to embark upon further ambitious expansion
plans.
Throughout their difficult times, the Thrales received much moral
support from Dr Johnson, a close family friend, who was an incurable
optimist, as far as the Brewery was concerned. He needed to be because
Perkins was at times overtaken by pessimism, particularly when Thrale
embarked upon some of his more fanciful schemes. Money continued
to be poured into the Anchor Brewery throughout the mid- 1770s, always
with the aim of being Londons largest brewer in mind. Certainly,
all seemed well when Dr Campbell visited the Thrales as part of his
travels of 1775, an event documented by Clifford (1947). Campbell, an
Irishman, was obviously impressed by what he saw at the Brewery, and
by the charm of Mrs Thrale:
TheJirst entire fair day since I came to London - this day I called at i
W
Thrayles where I was reed with all respect by i
W and Mr Thrail. She is a very
learned Lady & joyns to the charms of her own sex the manly understanding of
557
ours:- The immensity of the Brewery astonished me - one large house contains &
cannot contain more only four store vessels; each of which contains 1500 barrels
& in one of which 100 persons have dined with ease - there are beside in other
houses 36 of the same construction but of one half the contents - The reason
assigned me that Porter is lighter on the stomach than other beer is that it
ferments much more & is by that means more spiritualised - I was half
suffocated by letting in my nose over the workingJoor -for I cannot call it vessel
- its area was much greater than many Irish castles.
558
Chapter 8
By the end of that year, the situation had improved somewhat, but the
company was dealt another blow when Henry Thrale suffered a stroke in
June 1779, a misfortune that resulted in him playing no further active
part in the business, and saw Perkins and Mrs Thrale being jointly
involved in brewery management. Although she always had Dr Johnson
at her side, this was hardly the environment for a lady, even though most
of the dirty work was carried out by Perkins.I3The effects of the war in
Europe were now beginning to manifest themselves, with the usual signs
of austerity and, as Johnson wrote in November 1779, All trade is dead,
andpleasure is scarce alive, qualifying this statement with:
Nothing almost is purchased but such things as the buyer cannot be without, so
that a general sluggishness and general discontent are spread over the town. All
the trades of luxury and elegance are nearly at a stand.
Henry Thrales wife and executors (of whom Dr Johnson was one)
now had to run the family business, and one of their first moves was
to repay the 20-year loyalty of John Perkins with a promotion from a
mere salaried employee to one of part-ownership, with a share of
the profits (the same sort of situation that had arisen with James Grant
after Benjamin Trumans death). Perkins, who was also an executor, had
always hankered after partnership, and now he was in a strong position,
for he was the only executor who knew anything about brewing. The
executors realised that, with the assets of the company being largely tied
up in the trade, it would be a difficult business to sell, especially since they
l3
l4
In the summer of 1780, Perkins saved the brewery from a mob during the Gordon Riots, who
thought that Thrale was a supporter of Popery. He plied the mob with porter until a militia
arrived to disperse them.
His wife bore him two sons; one died in 1776 aged nine, the other died in 1775 aged two.
559
were not prepared to allow a buyer to pay over a period of time out of
the profits (as Ralph Thrale had done previously). Then, Perkins
had a stroke of luck (or was it genius), when he married Amelia
Bevan, widow of Timothy Bevan, an immensely wealthy Quaker banker,
with many connections in Lombard Street. This was Perkins second
marriage, and funds were now available to him, such that he was able to
purchase a share of the business, in conjunction with members of the
Barclay family, and the Anchor Brewery was sold in July 1781. The sale
price was &135,000,which Mrs Thrale, who often referred to the brewery
as her golden millstone considered a prodigious bargain. Balderston
(1951), reports on the euphoria felt by the good lady:
Here have I . . . completed - I really think very happily, the greatest Event of
my l$e. I have sold my Brewhouse to Barclay the rich Quaker for 135,000$, to be
in four years time paid. I have by this bargain purchased peace and a stable
fortune, Restoration to my original Rank in Life and a Situation undisturbed by
Commercial Jargon, undisgraced by Commercial Connexion.
The new partners in the enterprise were Robert Barclay, David Barclay,
John Perkins and Sylvanus Bevan (son of Amelia Perkins). At the
end of their first full year in charge (1782) some 85,700 barrels were
brewed. The result of all Henry Thrales various plans for expansion
were obviously carried out successfully for, in 1784, Faujas de SaintFond described the Anchor Brewery thus:
The buildings and yards, which are of a vast extent, have no other object than
utility; every thing is solid, every thing is adapted to its purpose, but every thing
is an absolute stranger to ostentation.
Seventy large horses are employed in the service of this brewery. Of a hundred
workmen, unceasingly active, some prepare the malt and hops, or are employed
about theJires, the coppers, or the coolers; some rack off the beer, and others
convey it into large vats, which I shall presently describe.
The beer is fermented in huge square vessels, raised to the height of the first
floor; and pumps, disposed with much art, facilitate the supply of water. When
the beer is made, it descends through conduits, and is distributed, by means of
pipes, into a number of casks, placed in an immense cellar. The beer becomes
of a more perfect quality in those casks, where it remains, however, but a short
time; from them it is drawn off by long spouts, and decanted into a great
reservoir, whence it is again raised, by pumps, into vats of an astonishing size,
l5
As Mathias (1959) reports, there was an immediate payment of &35,000,which was to be followed
by four annual instalments of &25,000(at 4% interest).
Chapter 8
which are placed vertically, and the top of which cannot be reached without a
ladder: a gallery goes round the places which contain these vats:
Four store-rooms, on a level with the groundfloor, and of different sizes, are
appropriated to receive them. In the first, which is the smallest, there are six
vats, containing each three hundred hogsheads; a hogshead contains about two
hundred and forty bottles; in the second, there are twenty-eight vats, of four
hundred hogsheads; in the third; fourteen of nine hundred hogsheads; and in the
fourth, four offive hundred hogsheads each. Thus their united contents amount
to thirty-one thousand six hundred hogsheads.
The ordinary quantity sold, one year with another, is about a hundred and
forty thousand hogsheads. During the last war it was much more considerable,
the proprietor of this brewery having had a contract for supplying the navy. One
may form an estimate of the sale at that period, from the duties yielded by
the beer then made. I was assured, that they amounted to ten thousand pounds
sterling a month.
It was not very long since this brewery had been sold, on the death of the
former proprietoc it was put to auction, and knocked down at the price of three
millions two hundred and eighty-eight thousand French livres. It is remarkable
that twenty-two bidders contended for it, though it was necessary, not only to pay
down that sum, but to be able to advance as much besides as would be requisite to
set so vast an establishment in motion.
It is, perhaps, superfluous to observe, that almost all the beer brewed in thisfine
manufactory, is of the kind called porter, which is strong, capable of sustaining
long sea-voyages, and of being preserved in bottles for many years: it is, indeed,
necessary, in order to have it of good quality, that it should remain several
months in the large vats.
These vats, made of wood of the choicest quality, are constructed with an
admirable solidity, accuracy, and precision, and even with a kind of elegance:
some have as many as eighteen hoops of iron: and several were pointed out to me,
which had cost ten thousand French livres a-piece.
I have already said, that they were all placed on end around the walls; but, on
asking what they stood upon, my conductor shewed me, that they rested on brick
arches of great solidity, strengthened by a number of thick upright pillars of
wood. Their bottom was thus protected from the humidity of the ground, and it
was more easily seen whether the beer escaped. The top of each vat is carefully
covered with thick planks, joined together in the most perfect manner, and these
again were covered with 6 inches offine sand.
The name of Thrale as the brewery name must have been sufficiently
prestigious for the new owners to make no immediate change to it,
for it lived on for some time, as we can deduce from a summons issued on
3rdApril 1797, where the four partners named above, trading as Thrale &
56 1
562
Chapter 8
early 189Os, part of the Anchor site had to be rebuilt in the aftermath of
another fire. The extent to which porter sales dominated the market can
be gleaned from Table 8.3, which gives barrellage figures for 11 of the
leading London porter brewers and ale brewers around 1830 and 1880.
At the beginning of the 19thcentury, porter brewers dominated quite
conclusively but, towards the end of the century, there was much more
parity. Note that Courage, who would merge with Barclay Perkins in the
20thcentury, were always primarily ale brewers, and that the percentage
increase in volume was greater for ale breweries over this period.
During most of the 19thcentury, the company seemed to favour loans
to publicans, in order to protect their trade, rather than the outright
purchase, or lease-purchase of public-houses. This can be illustrated by
Table 8.4.
Table 8.4 indicates when the emphasis from loans to property purchase
gradually occurred. In their annual report of 1907, loans to publicans
were given as &2,675,000,out of total assets of &5,430,000,but they still
contrived to pay their share-holders a dividend. Compared to most of
the other large metropolitan brewers, Barclay Perkins came into the
property owning business at a fairly late stage, a move that coincided
with them becoming a Limited Company in 1896. At somewhere near the
height of their ownership, 1948-1 949, they possessed 1005 tied houses
Table 8.3 Approximate output of the 11 leading London
brewers, 1830-1 880
(Reproduced from The British Brewing
Zndustry 1830-1980, by T.R. Gourvish and
R.G. Wilson, 1994, by kind permission of
Cambridge University Press)
Barrels ( ~ 1 0 0 0 )
ca. 1830
ca. 1880
Principally porter brewers
Barclay Perkins
Truman Hanbury Buxton
Whitbread
Reid
Combe and Delafield
CalvertKity of London
Hoare
Principally ale brewers
Watney
Mann, Crossman and Paulin
Charrington
Courage
320
230
190
130
113
80
70
480
580
250
250
400
200
200
90
7
15
10
350
220
470
250
563
Year
1830
1870
1880
1885
Year
1896
1902
1911
~~~~~
(96% of which were held by tenants). At this time 88% of their trade was
through tied property.
The company had never been seriously committed to the bottling of
beer, as had Truman and Whitbread. It was not until 1904 that bottled
beer was produced and marketed with any enthusiasm, but large volumes
were never really sold, and the venture soon dwindled away. From 1922
onwards, a bottled lager was introduced for home consumption and
the export market. Like all large London breweries, the partners at the
Anchor Brewery were never afraid to merge with suitable country
cousins; in this case, one of the most significant purchases was Style
and Winch, of Maidstone, Kent, which occurred in 1929, and this was
mainly because George Winch joined the Barclay Perkins board, and by
assuming a senior position, became an important influence on the
company during the inter-war years; he also became Chairman of the
Brewers Society from 1925-1927. As often happened after such an
amalgamation, both sites (London and Maidstone) brewed below
capacity, and there was some serious discussion about quitting the
capital, and transferring production to Kent, something that never
materialised.
Whilst in basically private hands, there was much continuity of tenure
of senior management positions by the original families, even during
the first half of the 20th century. This can be exemplified by Lt Col
H.F. Barclay, who retired in 1948, having been a director since 1896, and
Major A.C. Perkins, who served the company from 1875-1960. In 1955
Barclay Perkins and Courage breweries merged, being then known as
564
Chapter 8
Courage & Barclay, a situation that appertained until 1960, when H. and
G. Simonds of Reading Berkshire, was purchased, whence the brewery
was called Courage, Barclay & Simonds for the remainder of that decade.
Several smaller concerns were purchased during the mass slaughter of
breweries that occurred during the 1960s and early 1970s, the most
significant take-overs being John Smiths of Tadcaster in 1970, and
the Plymouth Breweries in 1971. From 1970, the group were referred
to in the City as Courage and in June 1972 they were approached
by the giant Scottish & Newcastle Breweries, with a view to merger (or,
rather, rationalisation). This remained a possibility until an approach
by the even larger concern, Imperial Tobacco (who wanted to
diversify), in August of the same year; an approach that the Courage
board accepted. In 1979, a new brewery, initially capable of producing
1.5m barrels annually, was constructed on a greenfield site, just off the
M4, near Reading. The last brewing at the Horselydown plant occurred
in 1981, and by 1990, the buildings had been converted into prestigious
flats.
With the ravages of time and many a business deal, most of the names
of these famous brewing dynasties have long since disappeared, the
exceptions being two that have been immortalised by one of the greatest
of English authors, Charles Dickens. The following is an excerpt from
David Copperfield, which he wrote between May 1849 and November
1850, in which Mrs Micawber says to David:
I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr Copperfield, that I have long felt the
Brewing business to be particularly adapted to Mr Micawber. Look at Barclay
Perkins! Look at Truman, Hunbury and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing
that Mr Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to
shine, and the projts, I am told are e-NOR-mous! But if Mr Micawber cannot
get into these firms - which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his
services even in an inferior capacity - what is the use of dwelling upon that idea?
None.
565
towns from whence that vast quantity of malt, called Hertjiordshire malt,
is made, which is esteemed the best in England. By 182314 there were 22
maltsters in Ware, which was the busiest malting town in Britain.
It was not just the London brewers who benefited from a juxtaposition
to prime malt, many concerns in East Anglia were able to expand
rapidly as a result of conducting both brewing and malting businesses.
By 1800, there were towns in the region, such as Colchester, Great
Yarmouth, Ipswich, Kings Lynn and Norwich, where common brewers
were producing several thousand barrels annually, owning their own
maltings, and numerous public houses; something that was very much
an East Anglian phenomenon. One of the largest were Pattesons of
Norwich, who in 1800 brewed 20,000 barrels. By 1831, after they
had merged with the firms of Steward and Morse, the company owned
or leased, 198 public houses, an enormous number for those times
(Gourvish, 1987).
REFERENCES
C. Knight, London, Volume IV, Charles Knight and Co., London, 1843.
H.S. Corran, A History of Brewing, David and Charles, Newton Abbot,
1975.
L. Wagner, London Inns and Taverns, George Allen and Unwin, London,
1924.
Madame van Muyden (Translator and ed), A Foreign View of England in
the Reigns of George I, and George II (The letters of Monsieur Cesar de
Saussure to his Family), John Murray, London, 1902.
0. Macdonagh, Economic History Review, 1964,16, 530.
W.L. Tizard, The Theory and Practice of Brewing Illustrated, 4th edn,
Published by the author, London, 1857.
S. Dowell, A History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest
Times to the Year 1885, Volume IV, Longmans Green and Co.,
London, 1888.
T. Foster, Classic Beer Style Series: No.5, Porter, Brewers Publications,
Boulder, Colorado, 1992.
R. Protz, Classic Stout and Porter, Prion Books, London, 1997.
A. Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing a
clear exposition of their Principles and Practice, 7th edn, 3 vohmes,
Longmans, London, 1875.
J. Liebig, Trait6 de Chimie Organique, 3 volumes, Traduit par C. Gerhardt,
Paris, 1840-1 844.
EM. McNeill, The Scots Kitchen; Its Traditions and Lore, 2d edn,
Blackie and Son, Glasgow, 1963.
566
Chapter 8
567
H.S. Buhner, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Siris Books, Boulder,
CO, 1998.
L.B. Ellis, Trans. of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Soc., N.S.,
1945,9, 165.
P. Mathias, The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1959.
Anon, Trumans: the Brewers 1666-1 966, Private, London, 1966.
J.P. Malcolm, Anecdotes of the Manner and Customs of London during
the 18jhcentury, Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, London, 1810.
London County Council, Survey of London, 27, 116, 1957.
G.A. Wade, Railway Magazine, 1901,9, 171.
T.R. Gourvish and R.G. Wilson, The British Brewing Industry 18301980, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.
B. Ritchie, An Uncommon Brewer: The Story of Whitbread, 1742-1 992,
James and James, London, 1992.
J.L. Clifford, (ed), Dr Campbells Diary, or Diary of a Visit to England in
1775, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1947.
K.C. Balderston, Thraliana: the diary of Mrs H.L. Thrale, later Mrs
Piozzi, 1776-1809, Volume I, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1951.
B. Faujus de Saint-Fond, A Journey Through England and Scotland to the
Hebrides in 1784, A revised edition of the English translation, edited
with notes and a memoir of the author by Sir Archibald Geike,
2 volumes, Hugh Hopkins, Glasgow, 1907.
T.R. Gourvish, Norfolk Beers from English Barley: A History of Steward
and Patteson 1793-1963, Centre for East Anglian Studies, U.E.A.,
Norwich, 1987.
Chapter 9
The 20fhCentury
THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM
The story of the 20thcentury, as far as brewing in Britain is concerned, is
dominated by the two World Wars which, if nothing else, resulted in the
lowering of beer strength. The average original gravity of beer dropped
from ca. 1055" in 1900, to ca. 1040" during the inter-war years (although
it temporarily went as low as 1031" at the end of WWI), to around 1037"
just after WWII. Apart from inconveniencing farmers and maltsters,
this meant that the brewers had to meet new challenges because, organoleptically, it was necessary to use lower hop rates in lower original gravity
beers. Most brewers would agree that it is far more difficult to impart
flavour and natural condition into the weaker categories of beer. As
well as this, the brewing cycle was shorter than previously, and the less
alcoholic products were less stable and far more likely to deteriorate; this
being especially true for bottled beers.
The necessity to brew weaker beer, however, was not purely as a result
of the global conflicts; it resulted partly from a response by the brewers
to Gladstone's 1880 budget, which put the emphasis on original gravity
as a means of raising Excise, and partly because of some additional
tariffs about 45 years later. Brewers were, from 1880, penalised for producing strong beer, because it accrued more taxation, and also, because
that sort of beer had to be matured in cask, the duty usually had to be
paid on a batch before it had even left the brewery. This, quite naturally,
could lead to cash-flow problems.
Social and economic conditions, and an anticipated reduced demand
for beer in Britain towards the end of the 19fhcentury did not bode well
for the industry for the challenging century ahead. There was a slight
upturn in demand, after the doldrums of the 1880s and, in fact total
output kept rising until 1899, and the start of the Boer War, when it
started to fall off but, generally speaking, there were too many public
568
569
570
Chapter 9
nearly 13%, whereas beer consumption over the same period fell by
over 5%. In per capita terms, the decline in drinking beer was even more
exaggerated; falling from 31.7 gallons in 1893-1900, to 27.3 gallons in
1911-1913. Per capita beer consumption peaked in Britain in 1876, when
it reached 34.4 gallons per annum.
The seeds of many of the troubles experienced by the industry during
the 20th century were, in fact, sown during the last few years of the
previous one, and most of the problems arose from an acute desire for
survival. One of the consequences of the 1880 Act, was that technical
expertise now played a greater role in the industry. The acquisition of
such expertise was beyond the budget of some of the smaller brewers,
and they ceased operation. Even the purchase of a saccharometer, now
a legal requisite, in order to establish original gravity, was beyond the
resources of many victualler-brewers and private brewers, and so they
were unable to function any longer. In addition, an 1887 amendment
to Gladstones Act ending the inclusion of free beer as part of the
emolument of farm workers, further discouraged brewing in farmhouses.
Whether, metropolitan or provincial, brewers of the late 19thcentury
were agreed that the only way to increase trade in a stagnant, or slightly
declining market, was to purchase new outlets, i.e. increase their tied
estate. From 1880 onwards, brewery ownership of on-licensed outlets
grew rapidly, and by the mid- 1890s, some 90% of trade in the larger cities,
such as Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Plymouth and Bristol, was tied; in
Birmingham the figure was just under 80%. The major exception here
was Leeds, where only some 37% of public houses were tied to breweries.
This figure was in accord with the relatively low percentage of common
brewers in the Leeds Excise collection where, according to Weir (1980),
they accounted for only 49.4% of malt brewed (the national figure
was 80%).
A totally different situation was to be found in country areas, however,
as can be ascertained from the figures for Chester and its rural hinterland. Of the pubs in the city itself, some 80% were brewery-tied, but in
the villages and small towns of Cheshire, this figure was reduced to 56%.
Generally-speaking, though, this rush to buy licensed property was a
forte of the provincial brewer, rather than the giants of London and
Burton. A Home Office report of 1892 revealed that 76 British breweries
owned 100 or more tied outlets, and between them this amounted to
12,614 public houses, a figure that represented 12% of the UK total. Of
these 76 breweries, only ten were in London, and two in Burton; the
12 breweries with the largest estates being shown in Table 9.1.
In London though, the situation was rather different, because the
larger brewers there had engaged in a loan-tie system since the start of the
The 20thCentury
57 1
Number of
tied pubs
68 1
473
410
350
289
267
260
258
242
219
213
212
572
Chapter 9
The 20thCentury
573
574
Chapter 9
which was a euphemism for giving the customer, for the same price,
slightly more beer than the customary standard measure would indicate.
Other, more enlightened companies saw offering improved facilities
in their pubs as being the way forward. Those who preferred the latter
approach, were often thwarted in their attempts to refurbish their
licensed property, something that was a direct result of the strict control
that magistrates had over licensed premises, as a result of the Act of
1902. Brewers plans to upgrade their public houses were generally
regarded by the local bench as being merely ways of increasing the
drinking areas therein. It became so difficult to improve facilities within
their tied estates, that many brewers abandoned the idea.
As competition between brewers tied houses intensified, a new
player entered the game; the working mens club. These establishments
originated during the 1880s, and by the commencement of the First
World War, there were over 8,500 of them. They were unlicensed and,
therefore, not regulated by the magistrates bench, which meant that they
could open and close when they pleased. They paid no Excise license
duty, and most of them were non-profit making concerns, and so they
were able to sell beer far less expensively than the publican of a brewerytied pub. Also, being free of tie, they could search around for supplies,
and often purchased their beer at highly favourable rates. Some brewers,
notably Guinness, Bass, Worthington, and Younger, specialised in the
club trade, and were always ready to offer advantageous rates. Just after
the war, as we shall see, a few purpose-built brewery companies were to
spring up, purely to service the local club trade, which held a financial
interest in them, and essentially controlled them.
It was inevitable that the clamour for business, and the cut-throat
environment in which beer had to be sold, would take its toll on many
businesses, especially in the towns and cities. Thus, we find that there
was a concentration of brewing capacity during the first few years of the
20thcentury, and out of the 6,400-odd common brewers who celebrated
the New Years Eve 1900, only approximately 3,650 would survive
to witness the outbreak of World War I, the larger brewers expanding
at the expense of their smaller brethren. Of the 2,740-odd breweries
that disappeared during this period of carnage, only around 2.5% of
them were absorbed, or otherwise involved in mergers. Then, as was the
case throughout the 20fhcentury, the prime reason for the acquisition
of one brewery by another, was to increase the tied estate, not to add
to brewing capacity. Even at the very onset of the century, we were
witnessing over-capacity, in brewing terms; something that is with us
today, even after the catalogue of brewery closures.
The victualler-brewer, as a species, more or less died out during the first
575
576
Chapter 9
refused to renew the licence of a Miss Sharp, on the grounds that her
public house was superfluous to the needs of the town. Miss Sharp then
sued the chairman of the licensing committee, a Mr Wakefield, on the
grounds that he was acting beyond his powers. The case went on and on,
and was eventually heard in the House of Lords in 1891, where the
despairing Miss Sharp lost her appeal.
This ruling sent shudders through the industry, because it meant that
the granting of an on-licence-really was at the discretion of magistrates,
something that had been laid down in the Alehouse Act of 1828, and that
a period of mass-refusal of licences might ensue. The flood-gates did not
open immediately, but when the bench did exercise its prerogative,
this naturally caused much resentment in the trade, and licensees who
thought that they were being treated unjustly could, as a result of the
1904 Act, refer their non-renewal of licence to the Quarter Sessions. In
addition, the owners of closed licensed houses (if not the licensee) could
claim compensation from a fund that was financed by publicans themselves, via a compulsory levy from each house in the licensing district.
The annual amount payable to the fund was dependent upon the value of
the property, thus those licensed premises with an annual value under
El5 per year, paid a contribution of E l per year; under &50 paid &lo;
under El00 paid &15, under &500 paid &50, and those properties
valued over &900annually would cost their landlords El00 per year. As
an anachronistic step, however, the 1904 Act actually made it a statutory
requirement for magistrates to close licensed premises in areas where they
were deemed to be socially superfluous.
There had been a few renowned instances of non-renewal of licences
in the post-Sharp vs Wakefield era, most notably the case of the
Farnham Eight. In 1902, the magistrates of Farnham, Surrey, an
important hop-growing area in those days, refused to renew eight
licences, on the grounds of superfluity. The town possessed one pub for
every 124 persons on the electoral roll, far higher than anywhere else in
the kingdom. As a group, the unlucky licensees appealed to the Quarter
Sessions, and two of them had their licences conditionally renewed; the
other six were refused. Then, in the same year, some 99 licences were
questioned by the Birmingham magistrates, stimulated no doubt, by
an increasingly vibrant anti-drink lobby in that city. Instead of a massappeal of licensees to the Quarter Sessions, the brewers in the city,
who owned most of the threatened on-licensed premises, met with the
magistrates and agreed a deal, whereby they voluntarily surrendered
51 of them. This became known as the Birmingham agreement or the
577
Chapter 9
578
Table 9.2 The decline in the number of
common brewers in the UK,
1910-1 939
Year
1910
1915
1920
1930
1939
4,482
3,556
2,889
1,418
885
brewing sites declined alarmingly during the above period, then those
that survived brewed significantly more beer. Thus, we find that in 1915 ,
the average weekly output of the 3,556 active breweries was 188 barrels,
whereas by 1939, the 885 survivors were brewing an average of 556 barrels per week, almost a three-fold increase in size.
Turner (1980) had no doubt about the gravity of the situation facing
British brewers, and he summed up their problems, as he saw them, thus:
The economic problems of the brewing industry before the war were severe.
Shrinking markets, over-investment in licensed property, heavy commitments
to obsolescent plant, and vulnerability to restrictive legislation, all tended to
demoralise an industry which was fragmented into hundreds of small and
inefficient firms.The standard of management was not high, and the industry
was slow to adopt new technology, especially advances in fermentation
chemistry.
Before the war, various governments, no doubt prompted by temperance factions, had considered nationalisation of the industry as a
way to solve its problems, but a series of other crises, usually involving
labour disputes, always seemed to take precedent. Social unrest reached
its climax in the industrial upheavals of 1911 and 1912, and in the
autumn of 1911, strikes by seamen, railwaymen and other transportworkers, resulted in docks, railways, collieries, and countless other industries coming to a standstill. A return to work was conditional upon the
promise of better working conditions. The idea that public ownership of
the liquor trade generally was a real alternative to prohibition (which
some wanted), or voluntary teetotalism, in eliminating intemperance
and its attendant evils, was first suggested during the 1870s, and had the
support of most of the temperance movement, including the renowned
Joseph Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, but the notion was ignored
by both of the major parties in Westminster. It was a hot potato that
The 2OthCentury
579
This Act also gave local magistrates the power to control hours of
opening of licensed premises in areas that were considered sensitive,
such as railway marshalling yards. Then, on 3 lStAugust, the Intoxicating
580
Chapter 9
The 20 Century
58 1
582
Chapter 9
were over 10,000 of them, and their presence affected an area of some
25 miles radius around Gretna, particularly villages, such as Longtown
and Annan, and the ancient citadel of Carlisle was particularly badly
hit at weekends, when hordes of workers descended upon it for
entertainment purposes. By the start of 1916, Carlisle stood at the head
of the table of County Boroughs of England and Wales, in respect of the
number of convictions for drunkenness, in relation to population; there
being 180.45 convictions per 10,000 persons, statistics that represented
nearly an eight-fold increase since the arrival of the navvies. There were
frightening reports of mass-drunkenness in and around Carlisle, and,
clearly, something had to be done.
What the situation could have been like, without any strictures,
goodness knows, for the high level of drunkenness has to be viewed in
the light of the fact, that on the 22dNovember 1915, a drink restriction
had come into force in Westmorland, Cumberland, Kircudbrightshire
and Dumfriesshire. The permitted hours for the sale of liquor were
reduced to 5% daily for on and 4% daily for off trade (the sale of
spirits was limited to 2% per day, Monday-Friday). These hours applied
to private licensed clubs, as well as public houses.
In January 1916, the Control Board embarked upon a series of
measures which resulted in Carlisles four breweries being taken under
Government control, i. e. nationalised. A similar fate befell some 235
public houses in the vicinities of Carlisle, Gretna and Annan. By June
1916, another 44 premises had been nationalised at Enfield Lock and
Invergordon, and in 1917, the Maryport Brewery, near Carlisle, with
its full estate, was compulsorily purchased and added to the scheme,
principally to supply the Gretna area, and this brought the total number
of tied houses to around 400, the total cost of these appropriations
amounting to some E900,OOO in compensation. A map of the Carlisle
and Gretna state purchase area is shown in Figure 9.1 (from Carter,
1919). The breweries and pubs thus obtained, were inevitably then
run by disinterested management, as Gourvish and Wilson termed it,
the employment of managers to run licensed premises being a relatively
new phenomenon at that time.
The policy of the Government was to reduce the number of pubs in
these areas, something that was effected by closing the lowly, men-only,
drinking houses, and those in areas of much competition. It was even
claimed, by some, that the very fact that the Government employed
managers and staff who were not totally committed to their jobs, helped
to deter people from frequenting public houses, hence making them
redundant, as far as the community was concerned, and ripe for closure.
Emphasis was placed on the more civilised aspects of pub-life, such as
583
DUMF R I E S S H I R E
,-d
r L ochwbl,
.#*
0
Figure 9.1
E x a p ~ i qctrtaa Loicls a d u k c e w d
~L-LIPUJ~ILL
m
,.**
Lntldc.
584
Chapter 9
The 2OZhCentury
585
All this imported barley was two-rowed (Hordeum distichum) then, and
afterwards, often called Chevalier to distinguish it from the thinner six-rowed
(H. vulgare and H. hexastichum), although, strictly speaking, Chevalier is the
name of the variety of H. distichum. Under the old Malt Tax it was very seldom
proJitable to a maltster to steep thin foreign six-rowed barley, although I believe
that a few brewers in Scotland had already begun to use some of this class of
barley, mostly from Smyrna.2
It was noted that, apart from price, British brewers were becoming
partial to these foreign six-rowed varieties, because they contained about
10% more husk, which made separation in the mash-tun easier, even
after a fine crush, and they yielded a better quality extract. Beaven goes
on to explain the reason for the enthusiasm amongst British brewers for
Californian barley:
Since 1886 Californian and Chilian Chevalier, also two-rowed Danish and most
European barleys, have been imported in limited quantities from time to time;
but it was soon discovered that the six-rowed Californian Brewing Barley gave
better value for money. Between 1890 and 1900 this barley came rapidly to the
front and for many years California has provided us in the aggregate with
more barley for brewing than all the rest of the barley exporting countries
put together, and nearly all of it has been six-rowed races. One reason for its
popularity is, without doubt, its uniformity of character from year to yeau.
Climatic conditions in California are less variable than in most other barleygrowing countries and until some enterprising plant breeders and others began
tinkering with the grain and distributing new breeds the racial character was
also uniform. It was all the progeny of Mediterranean barley taken out there by
early Spanish settlers.
586
Chapter 9
Truman, who were famed for their draught mild ales, stayed loyal to their
East Anglian maltsters, whilst Bass, who had an extensive trade in
bottled beers, and who prepared their own malt, relied heavily on foreign
barley, and by 1905 they were more or less independent of English
barley farmers. By and large, British brewers accepted this enforced diminution in production levels, principally because they thought that the
powers-that-be would now leave them alone for the next 12 months. This
was not to be the case, however, and in March 1917, with a worsening
food supply situation, a committee appointed by the Coalition Government agreed with the brewers that they should reduce output to onethird of the 1915-1916 barrellage, a move that would bring production
figures down to 28% of pre-war output, about 10 million standard
barrels. The measures, which were to be effective from lStApril also
provided for the requisitioning of barley stocks, and restrictions on
malting and hop production. As a result of signs of unrest in the summer
of 1917, the government was obliged to become slightly less stringent,
and so beer production for that year was somewhat higher than first
forecast (13.8 million standard barrels), although it was still almost half
of the 1916 output.
In 1915, and again in 1917, for totally different reasons, the British
Government seriously contemplated the purchase of the whole of the
licensed liquor trade in the UK. In 1915 , state purchase would have been
aimed at the reduction of industrial absenteeism, and thus increase
the manufacture of munitions, whilst in 1917 it would have aided the
conservation of imported foodstuffs, and thus saved shipping during the
submarine crisis. On both occasions, the terms that would have been
offered by the Government, would have included a guarantee of pre-war
profits for the duration of the war, and a final purchase price which
reflected the pre-war profitability of the industry. Such terms were
agreeable to most brewers, who clearly anticipated hard times ahead,
and many were eager to sign, but the plans were withdrawn in both
instances.
Thorough accounts of the control of the drink trade in Britain during
the first two decades of the 20thcentury, have been written by Rowntree
and Sherwell (1919), and Shadwell (1923), and it is interesting to note
that all of these authors were keen temperance supporters, as was the
Rev Henry Carter (qv), who was a member of the Central Control
Board, and a teetotal Wesleyan Methodist. Carters book contains a
preface by Sir Henry Vincent, better known as Lord DAbernon, who
was Chairman of the Board.
One of the staunchest supporters of the Carlisle scheme was William
Butler, who was a prominent member of the Control Board, and
587
Chapter 9
588
The same author (Wilson, 1940) stated that per capita beer consumption
in the UK, in the 30 years leading up to the First World War, was the
highest ever recorded, and that drunkenness accounted for around 30%
of all criminal proceedings. Expenditure on alcoholic drinks was a major
feature of the working-class exchequer, estimates varying from one-sixth
to one-half of weekly income.
Table 9.3 Barrels of beer brewed, on-licences, and drunkenness, 1913-1 918
Year
Barrels x 1000
Standard
Bulk
On-licences
0f f licences
Clubs
Convictionsfor
drunkenness
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
35,324
34,193
29,148
26,676
16,134
12,791
88,739
87,660
86,626
85,889
85,273
84,644
23,632
23,408
23,202
22,977
22,7 19
22,473
8,457
8,738
8,902
8,520
8,167
7,972
188,877
183,828
135,s 1 1
84,191
46,4 10
29,075
36,843
35,666
30,960
29,855
21,054
21,960
589
590
Chapter 9
outskirts of the major conurbations, rather than in the centre, and this
made for a better quality of life; there having been established that there
was a definite link between poor housing conditions (squalor) and heavy
drinking. Living in suburbia was much more preferable than inner-city
life, with less stress, and the consequent lack of need for oblivion.
We have already briefly mentioned the private members club, and the
keen competition that they provided for the public house. From around
1862, such establishments started to form associations with, amongst
other things, a view to increasing their purchasing power, something that
led to the formation of the CIU (Working Mens Clubs and Institute
Union). During the war, there had been a general dissatisfaction, in the
federated club trade, with the prices being charged by brewers, and by
beer shortages, and this led to the founding of club-owned breweries in
some areas where the club population was high enough to warrant it.
The first of such enterprises was the Leeds and District Clubs Brewery,
formed in 1919, which was followed by the most successful and longlived of them all, the Northern Clubs Federation in Newcastle, still
known today as the Fed, in 1920.
To be precise, the Fed was not born in Newcastle, its inception was in
May 1919, when eleven clubs in the northeast bought a small brewery
in Alnwick, Northumberland. The site proved unsuitable, and after
having beer brewed under contract by other brewers, they purchased a
site in Newcastle. By 1930, their output was 50,000 barrels per annum,
and was such that they had outgrown their second home, a fact that
caused them to buy a brewery in Hanover Square, Newcastle, where they
operated for a time until they constructed a purpose-built brewery on a
greenfield site at Dunston, near Gateshead. In 1939, their annual barrellage was 70,000, and this had risen to 210,000 by 1956.
The other co-operative brewing operations of any substance were:
Lancashire Clubs, Burnley; Preston Labour Clubs, Northants & Leics.
Clubs Co-operative (in Leicester), Walsall & District Clubs, Yorkshire
Clubs Brewery, at Huntington, and the South Wales & Monmouthshire
Utd. Clubs, Pontyclun. The Northern Clubs Federation was by far the
largest and most successful of these enterprises, and most encountered
problems with long-term quality control. Nevertheless, as Gourvish and
Wilson (1994) state, by the early 1950s, these co-ops were supplying
around 300,000 barrels of beer annually, which represented about 1.2%
of the total UK beer production. In 1975, Northern Clubs took over the
Yorkshire Clubs Brewery, and brewing ceased at the latter site. Brown
and Willmot (1998) report that clubs must have contracted for their
own label products from local brewers, some time before they decided
to brew themselves, and instance a bottle from 1905, which is marked
The 20ihCentury
59 1
592
Chapter 9
593
two with a capital valuation of over El0 million. Both concerns had been
in financial difficulty in the past; Allsopps were briefly in the hands of
the receiver in 1911-1912, and Ind Coope suffered a similar fate from
February 1909 to December 1910, and both companies had been active
in the take-over stakes, with six and seven conquests respectively. From
then on, the industry in Burton gradually concentrated itself around
this huge concern, and Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, who had accounted
for Worthington (in 1927), Thomas Salt (1927) and James Eadie, in 1933.
Henceforth, there was to be immense rivalry as to who was the largest
brewer in Burton, something that continued right up to the purchase by
Bass of the Ind Coope site in Burton in 1998, when the company was
owned by Carlsberg-Tetley.
In the regions, a number of brewers were actively expanding their
estates and their trading areas, the most vigorous of these being Brickwood and Co. (Portsmouth, Hampshire), Fremlin (Maidstone, Kent),
Greene, King (Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk), H. and G. Simonds (Reading,
Berkshire), Strong and Co. (Romsey, Hampshire), and Vaux (Sunderland, Co. Durham). Only one of these companies is in existence today as
a brewer, Greene, King, who were the subject of a superb business and
family history (Wilson, 1983). Apart from Vaux, the others were the
victims of take-overs by: Whitbread (Brickwood in 1971; Fremlin in 1967,
and Strong in 1968) and Courage (Simonds in 1960) with the subsequent
demise of all of their brewing sites. Vaux ceased to brew in 1999.
The story of Simonds rise to become a major regional brewer is interesting, and illustrates what can be achieved with common sense and good
management. H. & G. Simonds of Reading were one of the constantly
expanding businesses during the inter-war years, and started their
expansion plans by buying the Tamar Brewery in Devonport, in 1919. In
1930, they bought Ashbys Staines Brewery; in 1935, W. Rogers Ltd., of
Bristol; in 1937, the Cirencester Brewery Ltd., and in 1938, the pair
of Lakemans of Brixham, Devon, and R.H. Stiles of Bridgend,
Glamorgan. By 1939, when they purchased J.L. Marsh & Sons, of
Blandford Forum, Dorset, they had established themselves as the
leading brewer in the south and west of England; something that was
only possible because of improving road links. Note that their trade was
mostly in areas that were not severely depressed; brewers in such areas
suffered enormously.
BOTTLED BEER
Changes in the pattern of demand helped the larger brewers to extend
their influence in the trade. Bottled beer steadily increased in popularity
594
Chapter 9
and by the 1930s accounted for some 25% of the industrys sales. Small
brewers could not afford bottling equipment, and the cost of promoting
bottled beers (advertising) was expensive. The likes of Ind Coope and
Allsopp, Bass, Worthington and Whitbread, had established a national
presence with some of their bottled beers (as did Guinness), and a lot of
smaller brewers were forced to sell these foreign products in their
houses because of popular demand. The largest brewer of them all was
Arthur Guinness, which had a virtual monopoly of the trade in Ireland,
and whose distinctive bottled stout was to become famous throughout
the British Isles with the coming of the railway age.
By 1939, bottled beer had gained some 30% of the British beer market,
a level that it managed to maintain until the late 196Os, when keg beer
took over. We have already documented the opinions of Markham and
Tryon, regarding bottled beer, and it seems as though large-scale bottling
of cask beer originated sometime in the late 17h century. We have a
record dating from 1676 of one John Cross, a common brewer of Woburn,
Bedfordshire, who supplied 10% barrels of beer to Woburn Abbey (at 9s
7d = ca. 47% pence per barrel!), specially for bottling purposes. It was
during the 17thcentury, we believe, that the first glass beer bottles were
used before that, leather, earthenware and stoneware were the favoured
materials. For almost two hundred years, beer in a glass bottle was a
boutique drink, and it was not until the 1860s, with the invention of
the chilled iron mould, that glass bottles could be relatively cheaply
mass-produced prior to this, bottles were hand-blown, and thus expensive. A major development in glass bottle manufacture was the American
Owens bottle-making machine, of 1898, which was the first source of
cheap, mass-produced glass bottles.
In the early years of the lgth century, Bristol was an important centre
for glass manufacture, and large quantities of bottles were exported
to America and Ireland. Instead of going out empty, they went full of
beer, and the longevity of the bottled product, as opposed to cask beer,
was quite noticeable, especially on the journey across the Atlantic. From
1745 to 1845, in England and Wales, there was an Excise duty on
glass, and this had the effect of retarding the development of glass bottle
technology for many years.
We have noted before that an early method of closure for beer in bottle
involved a cork held firm with wire. As improvements, the screw stopper
was invented by Henry Barrett in 1872, whilst the crown cork (which is
metallic) was patented by William Painter in 1892. The latter type of
closure revolutionised beer bottling, and enabled automatic bottling
machines to be developed; it is, of course, still in use today. Also of
prime significance were the 1870s developments in refrigeration and the
The 20thCentury
595
Chapter 9
596
Barrels
1870
1880
1890
1895
1900
1905
1910
1912
1,293
10,264
3 1,782
66,115
140,984
245,599
353,936
439,532
This figure represented some 45% of their total output for that year.
triangle trademark, even found their way into works of art, the most
famous example being the painting, The Bar at the Folies BergGres, by
Manet. Also, during the period 1912-1915, Picasso, whilst living in Paris,
produced no less than 14 works of art featuring bottles of Bass; his red
triangle period! Exactly how much of this worldwide trade was in bottle
is difficult to ascertain, because the export figures are recorded as beer
value not quantity, but it is thought that most of it went through
bottling companies who specialised in export trade, mainly in London
and Liverpool.
One of the major independent bottling firms of the 19hcentury was
M.B. Foster & Sons, who claimed to be the worlds largest. They possessed huge stores in Marylebone and Woolwich, in London, and were
responsible for the distribution of Bass products in and around London.
Their association with Bass dated back to 1830. Hawkins (1978) reports
that between 1900 and 1905, Bass brewed some 770,000 barrels of pale
ale for the take-home trade, approximately 75% of which was in bottle.
As we have seen in Chapter 7, Accum provides a fairly cursory account
of bottling ale and porter in 1820, and this typifies the treatment of the
subject in the early brewing texts. Forty years before that publication,
William Reddington, sometime brewer of Windsor, wrote an unusual
discourse on how beer should be bottled for shipping in his Practical
Treatise on Brewing, of 1780. Everyone engaged in beer-bottling in the
2 1st century should be compelled to read this:
Beer that is to be bottled for shipping should be kept two summers in the cask
before it is bottled, and the reason is this: if it should stand but a year and a half
in the cask, and but one summer, (especially if that should prove a cool one) it
597
The 20thCentury
will not have compleated its fermentations, and if it be bottled and shipped
before it has gone through all its fermentations, the heat of the ship will soon let
this fermenting spirit in motion, and break the bottles; it should not be bottled
therefore till it has entirely done fermenting, and is become veryJine, if it not be
naturallyjine of itselJ;.and it is adviseable also to bottle it in clear weather, and
to let it stand in the bottles a day or two uncorked, in order to damp that spirit,
which else the warmth of the shipping would force into a fermentation, and the
bottles should be long necked, andjilled but just to the neck, that there may be
room left for the air to expand in case a fermentation should arise in the bottles
during the voyage; the spirits distilled from the back lees are a very great damper
of fermentation; some of these therefore you may put to your beer, to prevent its
fermenting, ifyou are not afraid of spoiling the beer by this means.
A little later, Samuel Child, in the final chapter of the Shedition of his
1798 Every Man His Own Brewer, tries to assuage those in his readership
who think that the bottling of porter involves nefarious processes (hardly
surprising, with adulteration of that drink rife at the time); he says:
It has been supposed by many persons, that in bottling porter there is some
preparation made use of not generally understood: I wish my readers, therefore,
to be assured that nothing more is necessary to produce good bottledporter than
the following rules:
Let your bottles be clean washed and drained dry - your corks sound and
good, for this is essential -Jill your bottles on one day, and let them stand open
till the next - this will bring your beer to a proper flatness, and prevent the corks
fromflying, or the bottlesfrom being so frequently burst.
Let the bottles be corked as close as possible.
These rules will apply equally well to the bottling of Ales.
Amazingly, Tizard does not deal with bottling in any of the editions of
Theory and Practice of Brewing Illustrated, even though they only slightly
pre-date the increased popularity of bottled beer, but Julian Baker (19 0 9 ,
most certainly does, even though he says that bottled beer has notfound
a footing yet in Great Britain. Baker also reports that initially brewers
were content to do their bottling in the most perjunctory fashion, but that
this was about to change, since brewers were now taking bottling more
seriously although, when labour, capital outlay, packaging, transport
and breakages were taken into account, they made far more out of the
sale of draught beer than they did out of their bottled form. Baker
reports three basic systems of bottling in the UK, and gives a resume (of
each process. From his accounts we can ascertain that bottling here had
been very much a hit and miss affair; the modes of operation were:
Chapter 9
598
3. The beer was chilled, then filtered, and bottled under artificial
pressure of carbonic acid gas. These were known as carbonated
beers:
In this system the beer is cooled to a low temperature, filtered and
bottled under pressure with carbon dioxide gas. Theflavour due to the
carbonic acid in carbonated beers is very different to the gas formed
during secondary fermentation in the bottle, although it is improved
to an extent by keeping. Such beers are now greatly in demand by the
public for home consumption. Although the less that is said about the
fine flavour of carbonated beers the better, they are palatable to those
who are not connoisseurs,andpossess the great advantages of being
in high condition, and ofpouring out bright to the last drop.
599
and the like, were the precursors of our modern elaborate bottling
machines. Also evident, is the fact that British brewers were attempting
to brew and bottle lager-style beers (see page 604), and that these were
subjected to an early form of pasteurisation; Baker did not approve of
the effect of that particular process on the flavour of the final product:
The Lager beers of this country, that is beers brewed on the Continental
system, are pasteurised or steamed in bottle. The filled bottles are packed in
cases andplaced in a tank of water, the temperature of which is slowly raised to
14OoE, and maintained for at least an hour. The water is then gradually cooled.
The object of the heating is to kill any yeast cells or organisms, and to prevent
any further fermentation or decomposition of the beers. Pasteurisation imparts a
somewhat cookedflavour to the beer.
Baker, in his final paragraph on the subject, gives us an insight into the
economics of bottling (remember, this is 1905!):
A barrel of beer containing thirty-six gallons should j l l twenty-four dozen
bottles containing a pint each, but inJilling there is always a small loss, amounting possibly to one dozen pints. The labouv, power, labels, and breakages may
amount to 3s. 6d. to 4s. per barrel of beer bottled. Assuming that a beer cost
the brewer &I per barrel, the cost of twenty-three dozen bottles would be
23s. 6d. to 24s. This would be sold to the retailer at 2s. per dozen, or to a private
customer at 2s. 6d. Calculatedper barrel, this would show a profit of 22s. 6d. and
33s. 6d. respectively. From thesefigures must be deducted the cost of freight and
breakages whilst in the trade, both of which are heavy items.
The 20 Century
70 1
702
Chapter 9
703
believe that they are harmful. Within the body, silicic acid combines with
aluminium to form a soluble hydroxyaluminosilicate, which is excreted
via the kidneys. It has, therefore, been suggested that a diet rich in silicic
acid would lead to a reduction in long-term aluminium toxicity. A
small-scale clinical trial has been conducted, and the results suggest that
drinking beer does lead to a diminution of aluminium levels in the body.
One of the most controversial beer-related findings of the very late
20thcentury has been the discovery of a potent phytoestrogen, 8-prenylnaringenin (8PNG), also known as hopein, in hops (Milligan et al.,
1999). Phytoestrogens, which are plant-derived compounds with oestrogenic, or anti-oestrogenic activity, had been reported as being present in
beer some years earlier (Rosenblum et al., 1992), but those compounds
identified were only present in trace amounts. There has been much
debate as to whether these substances are beneficial or not; some studies
indicating that high levels can suppress fertility. Oestrogens, which are
often thought of purely as female hormones, are produced by both the
male and female of the species, and are principally concerned with
regulating matters to do with the reproductive tract, although they also
act on the brain and the cardio-vascular system, as well as exerting an
affect on bone. Phytoestrogens can mimic our natural oestrogens and
interact with them, and are thus of obvious interest, especially since it
has been reported that they may have an ameliorating effect on cancerous
cell proliferation, and that they may inhibit some enzymes associated
with the initiation of cancer. Epidemiologists have noted that peoples in
some Asian countries have a much lower incidence than Western populations of chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, and cancers
of the colon, breast and prostate (Knight & Eden, 1996). Such differences have been attributed to a low intake of dietary phytoestrogens
by Western cultures, where in the UK, for example, about lmg per day is
consumed. Compare this with Japan, where their traditional diet, with a
substantial intake of soybeans, ensures a daily intake of 100 mg of
phytoestrogens, soybeans being an excellent source of these compounds.
It has yet to be proved whether other substances present in soybeans
and soya products are contributory to the apparent healthiness of the
Eastern diet. Levels of phytoestrogens that are associated with the
human diet, even in Japan, are sufficiently low to allay fears of them
being harmful, especially when it is realised that, once in the body, they
are quickly (within a few hours) metabolised and the waste products
excreted. Thus, there should be no long-term accumulative effects.
Experiments with 8PNG have thus far all been in vitro, and any
attempts to carry out in vivo work is hindered by the fact that when it is
introduced into the body, its potency is quickly reduced many-fold.
704
Chapter 9
705
706
Chapter 9
The 20rhCentury
707
708
Chapter 9
has been concluded that this effect cannot be due to ethanol, because
it does not have mutagenic activity at the concentrations found in beer.
To conclude, it is now evident from various epidemiological studies
that a moderate consumption of one or two drinks per day may be
beneficial to health; persons drinking that amount suffer less heart disease than those who are abstemious. This effect applies to both men
and women, and to people from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds,
and most studies concur that it is actually ethanol which is the main
protective agent. In an extensive study of the worldwide literature,
Rimm et al. (1999) concludes that alcohol increases the proportion of
high-density lipoproteins (HDLPs), as opposed to the low density lipoproteins, which are more likely to damage blood vessels. They also
establish that alcohol decreases the likelihood of blood clotting. As a
conclusion, it is stated that a daily intake of 30 g alcohol, in whatever
form, is associated with an 8% increase in HDLPs; a 6.5% increase in
the amount of the protective apolipoprotein A l , and slight reductions
in fibrinogen and other clotting factors. As they say, Overall, this
equated to a 25% reduction in the risk of heart disease. From a brewers
point of view, however, it is disappointing to note that, whilst most
alcoholic beverages can elicit the same advantageous effects, it is the
wine industry, rather than the brewing industry, than receives most
public acclaim. As Baxter (2000) observes, Articles which address the
potential health benefits of alcohol almost always refer to wine, and the
public is only too ready to believe that a glass or two of wine a day is
good for health.
To demonstrate the overriding problem facing the brewing industry,
in terms of public perception, witness an abstract of a recent paper by
Davies and Baer (2002), which starts off by mentioning beverage
alcohol, a general term, and ends by specifically mentioning red wine.
According to the report:
Beverage alcohol affects levels of triglycerides, glucose and insulin in the blood
of post-menopausal women. Women who didnt drink during the test period had
the highest levels of all three of these risk factors for heart disease and type 2
diabetes. Women who had two standard drinks per day had the lowest levels,
while those on one drink a day showed intermediate results. The researchers
attribute the b1oodJinding.s to alcohol per se, but note that other compounds
found in red wine may provide additional protection.
709
REFERENCES
K.H. Hawkins and C.L. Pass, The Brewing Industry: A Study in
Industrial Organisation and Public Policy, Heinemann, London, 1979.
R.B. Weir, The drink trades in The Dynamics of Victorian Business:
Problems and Perspectives to the 1870s, George Allen and Unwin,
London, 1980.
710
Chapter 9
71 1
712
Chapter 9
The 20ihCentury
713
Appendices
NORTHERN
LATE
PASSAGE
GRAVES
forest
mixed mk
MESOLITHIC
e n d
E,Le,vwt
NEOLITHIC /
COPPER AGE
MESOLITHIC
(Rlpdf;3dxftd
GREECE
EB
AOE
EARLY BRONZE
ttnnsition
LATE
CHALCOLITHIC
EARLY
CHALCOLITHIC
NEOLITHIC
PRE POTTERY
Becrinning of fwrming
MESOLITHIC
<transition )
:HALCOLITH IC
(PN.'B')
NEOLITHIC
( PN. 'A 1
POTTERY
(PPN ' B )
(PPN *A')
PRE-POTTERY
NEOLITHIC
* Uruk
II 1
(Jamdat Nasr
EB I
PROTO- URBAN
(Ur-uk / v )
( Ubsr'd)
CHALCOLITHIC
LATE
(Ualaf )
EARLY
CHALCOLITH IC
POTTERY NEOLITUl(
PRE-PmTERY
NEOLITHIC
MESOPOTAMIA
g r o u p s
ASIA MINOR
c o / / e c t i n g
and
MIDDLE/LATE NEO.
f o r e s t s
w a r m in.9
MESOLITHIC
of
(Rasren,
spread
EARLY
H u n t i n g
Post-y/acia/
PREDY NAST IC
groiipS
OF
SCANDI.
AGE
Aclgic
AGE
IRON
MIDDLE
IRON AGE
LATE fRON
OLDER
PI
DI
AGE.
EARLY IRON
LB lit
AGE
LB* LATTE.
LBX BRONZE
BEAKER/LATE CW
TI*L
SLAVS,
BuLGARS,
MAGYARS
AVARS
HUNS,
ROMAN
AGE
lR0,N
La
LATE
Hallstatt B
(rurnfib/dv)
/ial/statt A
Reineckc C
Rcinecke A
BEAKERZoK
L . 1 1 1
L
BADEN
Oricntalrsirtg
ETRUSCAN
E X P A Y toy
VILLANOVAN
IU
KINGOOM OF
ITALY
LATE
BYZANTINE
BYZANTINE
BYZANTINE
EARLY
(Latc Antiqudy)
-ROMAN
-------
HELLENISTIC
ACI-IAEMENID
( P c r s ion)
------.
LY Dl A N
(IRON AQE)
PHRYGIAN/NEO
HITTITE
H lTTf TE
NEW EMPIRE
EAHLY
OLD ASSYRIAN /
QLD BABYLONIAN
C Amorite 1
ISIN-LAMA
UR Bf
AKKA DlAN
DYNASTIC
ISLAMIC
_------
SASANIAN
PARTHIAN
NEOASSYRIAN
dlDDLE ASSYRlAh
& BABYLONIAN
KASSITE/
M I TAN PI IAN
------- ------
HITTITE
OLD KINGDOM
EB Ip
EB III
LATE
EARLY
BYZANTINE
jocktian. CbnTtanttrn
GOTHS &
LOMBARDS
(Late Antrpuity)
ROMAN
-------
ARCHAIC
CLASS1C A L
HELLENISTIC.
ORIENTAL161 N Q
OEOM ETRlC
PRo7T)GEOMETRlC
[as above)
EB
as above)
(local groups
cu u
EMPIRE
LATE ROMAN
U y u s t u , o , Iiadrinn)
EARLY ROMAN
EMPIRE
LATE ETRUSCAN/
ROMAN REPUBLIC
pOtWrYbnowi?n
AGE
Appcninu,
EARLY
BRONZE AGE
ENEOLITIiIC
1.
LB II
LB I
MBH
BY Z A NT 1 NE
Late Anttgutty)
&GE
LATE
3RONZE
GE
(EB/MB)
MO
\RONZE
blIDDLE
E 0 IS2
EB Xt
q n xt-xri )
XXX)
SLAMiC
ROMAN
- _PERIOD
_----
PTOLEMAIC
.fX
- _(Oyn.
_ _ _v --
--
XXV)-
LATE
PERIOD
XXI
PERfOD
(Dyn
_-----
INTERMEDIATE
THIRD
(Dyn. X W N - X X )
KtNGOOM
NEW
-------
SECOND lNTEnMEDlAT PI
(oyn. aifi - xvnt 1
MIDDLE
KINGDOM
I?
81L
Appendices
719
APPENDIX 3
Sketch of a working brewery of the 15"' century, showing mash-tun on the left and
brewing kettle on the right. From a manuscript called Digestum Vetus, of 1461, held in
the town archive at Kampen, Netherlands.
(Reproduced by kind permission of Rob Hoekstra of the Town Archives (Gemeente
Archief), Kampen.)
Appendices
770
APPENDIX 4
John Taylor: The Water Poet
John Taylor (1580-1 653), was a London waterman who, self-styled,
became The Kings Majestys Water Poet. He wrote voluminously, and
his works consisted of 138 separate publications, Born in Gloucester, he
became a waterman in London, before being impressed in the navy,
whence he served at the siege of Cadiz. He then resumed plying on the
Thames, then kept a public house in Oxford, and latterly an inn in Phoenix Alley, Longacre, in London. The most memorable incident in his
career was travelling in 1618 on foot from London to Edinburgh, not
carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat,
drink, or lodging. He took with him a servant on horseback, and contrived to get an extraordinary amount of hospitality, goodwill and good
cheer. He met Ben Jonson at Leith, and from him received a piece of
gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England. He
travelled as far north as Braemar.
In Praise of Ale
Ale is rightly called Nappy, for it will set a nap upon a mans threed bared
eyes when he is sleepy.
It is called Merry-goe-downe, for it slides downe merrily;
It is fragrant to the Scent,
It is most pleasing to the taste;
The flowring and mantling of it (like Chequer work) with the Verdant
smiling of it, is delightful1to the sight,
It is Touching or Feeling to the Brahe and Heart; and (to please the
senses all) it provokes men to singing and mirth, which is contenting to
the Hearing.
The speedy taking of it doth comfort a heavy and troubled minde;
It will make a weeping widow laugh and forget sorrow for her deceased
husband;
It is truly termed the spirit of the Buttry (for it puts spirit into all it
enters);
It makes the footmans Head and heeles so light, that he seems to fly as he
runnes;
It is the warmest lineing of a naked mans Coat;
It satiates and asswageth hunger and cold; with a Toaste it is the poore
mans comfort, the Shepheard, Mower, Plowman, Labourer and
Blacksmiths most esteemed purchase;
Appendices
72 1
It is the Tinkers treasure, the Pedlers Jewell, the Beggars Joy, and the
Prisoners loving Nurse;
It will whet the wit so sharp, that it will make a Carter talke of matters
beyond his reach;
It will set a Bashful1 suiter a woing;
It heates the chill blood of the Aged;
It will cause a man to speake past his owne or any other mans capacity,
or understanding;
It sets an edge upon Logick and Rhetorick;
It is a friend to the Muses;
It inspires the poore Poet, that cannot compasse the price of Canarie or
Gascoigne;
It mounts the Musician above Ecla;
It makes the Balladmaker Rime beyond Reason;
It is a Repairer of decaied Colour in the face;
It puts Eloquence into the Oratour;
It will make the Philosopher talke profoundly, the Scholler learnedly, and
the Lawyer Acute and feelingly.
Ale at Whitsantide, or a Whitsan Church Ale, is a Repairer of decayed
Countrey Churches;
It is a great friend to Truth, for they that drink of it (to the purpose) will
reveale all they knowe, be it never so secret to be kept;
It is an Embleme of Justice, for it allowes and yeelds measure;
It will put courage into a Coward, and make him swagger and fight;
It is a seale to many a good Bargaine;
The Physitian will commend it;
The Lawyer will defend it;
It neither hurts, or kills, any but those that abuse it unmeasurably and
beyond bearing;
It does good to as many as take it rightly;
It is as good as a paire of Spectacles to cleare the eyesight of an old
parish Clarke; and, in Conclusion, it is such a nourisher of Mankinde
that if my mouth were as bigge as Bishopsgate, my Pen as long as a
Maypole, and my Inke a flowing spring, or a standing fishpond, yet I
could not with Mouth, Pen and Inke, speake or write the truth worth
and worthiness of Ale.
Appendices
722
APPENDIX 5
On top of the building is situated the cold-liquor tank or back A, and on the floor below
it the hot-liquor back B. These vessels contain liquor which is to be used for brewing. The
necessary quantity of cold liquor passes from the back A to the back B, where it is raised
to desired temperature. C is the upper part of the grist case, and by it is the elevator, or
other device, which conveys the malt to it. The floor below contains the rest of the gristcase and the mash-tun D. Beneath is the under back E, or receptacle for wort after it
leaves the mash-tun the copper F, where the wort is boiled with hops, and the hop back G,
provided with a false bottom, into which is turned the contents of the copper. The
hopped wort has to be cooled after boiling, and this is partly effected by allowing it to
flow on the cooler H. It is finally cooled to the temperature at which it is decided to start
fermentation by passing it over a refrigerator, and thence to the fermenting round or tuns
which are seen in the fermenting room R. Situated on the same floor as the cooler is the
malt-case J, and below it the malt-mill where the malt is ground L. The ground malt, or
grist, as it is termed in brewing parlance, is conveyed by an elevator to the grist-case C
in the top part of the main building. The steam boilers 0 supply steam for heating the
hot-liquor back, the copper when direct hear is not used, and driving the necessary
machinery. The pumps N raise the water from the well and lift it to the back A. The top
floor above the fermenting room is used for storing malt and hops. On the ground of this
part of the building the racking tanks and machines P, P, for filling the casks with beer,
are placed.
From: Baker (1 905)
Appendices
723
APPENDIX 6
Raw materials
1~
Barley
f-
~ ~
~ ~
, ! ~
Brewing
process
By-products
I
Mills
t
a m
Soent
Cattle cake
Sugar
Soent
Fertilizer
HOPS
Yeast
Fermenting
1
for food
products
Appendics
124
Appendix 7
Explanation of Chronological Signs
Most of the dates in this book are designated by BC (years before
Christ) and AD (years after Christ). Until the advent of radiocarbon
(C) dating after World War 11, one could only date remains by relative
chronology, something that proved almost impossible with the more
ancient artefacts. Radiocarbon dating permitted absolute dating.
Occasionally, the signs bc (lower case BC) and BP (years before present,
i.e. before 1950) are used. These are both uncalibrated I4Cdates, whereas
the BC and cal BP signs denote calibrated 14Cdates . To convert bc and
BC dates to BP and cal BP respectively, add 1950 years. Conversely, to
convert BP and cal BP dates to bc and BC respectively, subtract 1950
years.
Subject Index
Abadiyeh (Egypt), 32
Abbot Adelhardus of Corvey, 305
Abbotsbury (Dorset), 242
Aberdeen, 385
Abingdon Abbey (Oxfordshire), 290
abiogenesis (spontaneous generation),
404406
Abydos (Egypt), 52,53
acculturation, 179, 181
Accum, Frederick, 493498, 503, 507,
596
Adnams & Co., Ltd. (brewers,
Southwold, Suffolk), 685
adulteration of beer, 416-42 1,477,
502-503, 523,524,552,553
A5lfrics Colloquy, 240, 248
ajon, 22,24,25
Akkad/Akkadians, 75,76,78-80,84,
85, 109,120
ale-conner, 284-287, 293, 332, 333
alehoof (Glechoma hederacea L.), 325
ale-stake, 286, 287, 333
ale-wife, 326-330, 331, 349, 531
Alexander the Great, 39,44, 130, 140,
148
Ali Kosh (Iran), 96, 98
Allen, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Allied Breweries (national brewers),
615,616,618,682,688,689
Allied Domecq, 617, 692
Allied-Lyons, 689,690,691, 692
All Nations brew-pub (Madeley,
Shropshire), 68 1
All-Over-Cording (AOC), 146-148,
195, 199,200,207
Allsopp & Co. (brewers, Burton-on-
725
726
Aspergillus oryzae, 29, 57
Assize of Bread and Ale (1267), 285,
292-295,301,330,331,370,378
Assyria/Assyrians, 45, 62, 63, 75, 104,
124, 127, 130, 131, 133, 136, 138,
140-142, 149, 150
Athenaeus, 35,36,45, 104, 111, 158,
159,259
Austro-Bavarian Lager Beer Co.
(Tottenham, London), 608,609,
61 1
Babylon/Babylonians, 8,44, 50,66,
75, 76, 80-83, 87, 106, 108, 112,
117, 120, 121, 124, 131, 134, 138,
140, 141, 174,310,311
Baker, Julian, 597-600
Balbridie timber hall (Deeside), 175,
177, 178
Balfarg/Balbirnie (Fife), 194, 195, 196
el-Ballas, (Egypt), 52
Balling, Carl, 623
Ballynagilly (Ulster), 188
Baltic Beverage Holdings (BBH), 698
banana, 22,24
Banister (Bannister), John, 324
Bantu beer, 20,21,22
Barclay & Co. (Anchor Brewery,
London), 441,448,555
Barclay, Perkins & Co. (Anchor
Brewery, London), 438, 526, 552,
559, 561, 562, 563, 564, 611, 612,
616
Barley (Hordeum spp.), 2,9, 10, 12-20,
29, 33, 3541,43,46-50, 52, 54,
57, 58, 60, 61, 65-70, 77, 78,
81-84,90,91,93-101, 113, 118,
124, 125, 129, 133, 140, 142, 151,
155, 158, 159, 160, 162, 166,
168-174, 177, 179, 183, 189-192,
195-198,203,204,205,214,215,
2 17,218,221-224,228-230,232,
239,242-246,248,255,258,260,
264,270,274,283, 284,293, 295,
318, 320, 321, 324, 333, 342, 352,
354, 355, 358, 378, 390, 395,436,
501, 506, 511, 512, 557, 564, 584,
585, 586, 589,624, 625,632, 633,
,
,
,
~, - 634.635.655.659.700.701.706
Subject Index
cultivated, 2-row (H.distichurn =
H. vulgare subsp. distichurn), 38,
49, 94, 98, 99, 126, 127, 170, 173,
183,215,229,244,512,585,624
cultivated, 6-row (H.hexastichum =
H. vulgare subsp. vulgare), 37,91,
98, 170, 173, 183, 215, 216, 222,
225,229,245,585
hulled, 8, 98, 169, 170, 174, 175,
179, 183, 191,203,214,215,218,
222
husk, 14, 15,48, 70,83, 84,90,94,
95
lax-eared, 6-row, (H.tetrastichum),
37,39,204,244
naked, 173, 175, 179, 183, 191,203,
215
wild, 2-row (H.spontaneum),94,96,
98,99,100, 101, 190
barley wine, 132, 140, 142, 146, 206,
258
barm, 398,399,510,520,521,522
Barnhouse (Stones of Stenness,
Orkney), 197, 199
Barrett, Henry, 594
Bass Charrington (national brewers),
457,614,620,680,682,689
Bass & Co. (brewers, Burton-onTrent), 478, 525-527, 544, 546,
573, 574, 586, 593, 594, 596,
614-616,619,641,689-695
Bass, Mitchells and Butlers (national
brewers), 614, 688, 689.
Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton (brewers,
Burton-on-Trent), 593,614,688
Bateman, George & Son, Ltd.
(brewers, Wainfleet,
Lincolnshire), 679
Batham, Daniel & Son Ltd. (brewers,
Brierley Hill, West Midlands),
685
Bavarian beer, 508-5 14,
Baverstock, James jr., 424,426,427,
428,433,505
Baverstock, James, snr., 426,427,428
Beaven, Dr E.S. (barley-breeder,
Warminster maltings), 584, 585,
633
Becket, Thomas, 288,289, 309
Subject Index
Bede, the Venerable, 233,234,235,
236,237,238
Beer House Act, 1880 (Duke of
Wellingtons), 473,474, 561
Beidha (Jordan), 96
Belgae, 156, 157, 166, 212,224, 226,
230
Bell-Beaker culture, 146, 147, 148,
171,172, 193,198, 199-210,211
Beni-Hasan (Egypt), 104, 105
Benskins Brewery (Watford,
Hertfordshire), 610
beor, 25 l-259,262
Berkeley Castle (Gloucestershire), 303
Bernard, T. & J. (brewers, Edinburgh),
688
Berwick-upon-Tweed
(Northumberland), 299
Berzelius, Jons Jacob, 410,412,414,
415
Beycesultan (Turkey), 127
bid-ale, 343, 345
biological ennoblement, 11
birch (Betulu spp.), 7, 388, 389
birch sap, 7, 8, 522
Birmingham (West Midlands), 525,
570,576, 577,587,614, 682,693
Birmingham University Brewing
School, 629
Bishop, Dr Laurence, 638,642-644,
645
bitter ale, 485, 504, 523, 527,627,674
bitter bean of St Ignatius, 502
bitter nut (nux vomica), 502
Blue Anchor brew-pub (Helston,
Cornwall), 68 1
Boddingtons Brewery Co., Ltd.
(Manchester), 571, 685,690
bog bean (Menyanthes trifoliata L.),
502
Boghazkoy (Turkey), 128
Boghead (Morayshire), 179
bog myrtle, or sweet gale (Myrica gale
L.), 219, 305, 306, 308, 358, 359,
360,361,535
Boorde, Andrew, 323-324,342
Bostock & Co. (brewing sugar
manufacturers, Liverpool), 569
Boston (Lincolnshire), 3 17
727
bottled beer, 396, 398, 399, 503-504,
528, 531, 532, 568, 586, 591,
593-604,607,617,650,670,671,
673,675,676,697,706
PET bottles, 675, 676
PEN bottles, 676
Boulton & Watt (engineers, Soho,
London), 437,440,471,551,552
bouza(h), 46,47,48,49,60, 62, 66,72,
122
Boyle, Robert, 392, 393,429,430,431
Brabant (Belgium), 270, 3 18
brackwort, 356,357
Bradley, Prof. Richard, 42 1
Braes of Rinyo (Rousay, Orkney), 197,
199
braga (bosa),8
bragot, 232,247,258,259,264, 350
Braidwood, Prof. Robert, 4,92,93,94,
99, 119, 170
Brakspear, W.H. & Sons Ltd.
(brewers, Henley-on-Thames,
Oxfordshire), 679-680, 684
Breda (Netherlands), 308
Brehon Laws, 259,260
Bremen (Germany), 271,308
Brewers Company, 296, 300, 301,
302,312,318-322,349,372,377,
382,386,390,540,541,554, 555
Brewers Hall, 300, 377
Brewers and Licensed Retailers
Association (BLRA), 575
Brewers Society, 563, 575, 628,629,
696
Brewing Industry Research
Foundation (BIRF), 628-634,
636,640,641,650,660
brewster, 290,293, 300, 330-333, 365,
366,367
Brickwood & Co. (brewers,
Portsmouth, Hampshire), 593
bride-ale, 299, 344
Brightlingsea (Essex), 337
Brigstock (Northamptonshire), 33 1,
332
Bristol (Avon), 337,476,570, 571,681,
682,691
Bristol Brewery Georges & Co., 571
Bristol United Breweries, 573
728
broom (Sarothamnus scoparius (L.)
Wimmer ex Koch), 417
Brown, Horace Tabberer, 465,477,
478,600,603,628,661
Brown, Matthew (brewers, Blackburn,
Lancashire), 690
Brown & Parry (brewers, London),
441,551-554
Bruges (Belgium), 272
Brunswick (Germany), 387,388, 389,
390
deBryene, Alice, 303
Buchan, Andrew (brewers, Rhymney,
Gwent), 688
Budejovice Brewery (Czech Republic),
627
Bullard & Sons (brewers, Norwich),
57 1
Bullock, Robert (brewers, London), 440
deBurgh, Elizabeth, 299
Burton Abbey (Staffordshire), 294,
295
Burton ale, 436, 524, 525, 527, 528,
529, 530,544
Burton-on-Trent (Staffordshire), 294,
295,361,395,465,477480, 524,
525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 544,
545, 547, 549, 570, 573, 575, 592,
596, 608, 610, 611, 612, 628, 692,
693,694
Burton Union system of
fermentation, 353,481, 528, 529,
530
Bury St.Edmunds (Suffolk), 283, 349,
368,369, 524,593
Butcombe Brewery (nr. Bristol), 681
Cade, Jack, 320
Caesar, Julius, 156, 157, 165, 166,224,
225
Cagniard-Latour, Charles, 4 0 9 4 11,
414,416
Calais (France), 315, 316
calcium oxalate (beerstone), 9 1, 92
Calvert, Felix, (Hour-Glass
Brewhouse, London), 440,441,
539,540
Calvert, John, (Peacock Brewhouse,
London), 440,441,539,540,555
Subject Index
Calvert, Sir William, (Hour-Glass
Brewhouse, London), 439,447,
539
Calvert & Seward (brewers, London),
439,539
Cambrai (France), 270
Cambridge, 297,335,337,633, 634
Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA),
485,678-680,683
Canadian Breweries, 6 13, 6 14
Can Hasan (Turkey), 126, 178
canned beer, 600,612,616,650,670,
673-676
Cannon Brewery (London), 571
Canterbury (Kent), 288,289, 309, 310,
337
Canterbury ale, 289,294, 309
Canterbury Tales, 319, 320
Carling Lager, 613, 614, 615, 618
Carlisle Scheme (State Management
Scheme), 581-584,586,591
Carlsberg Brewery (Copenhagen),
601,602,606,676,691,697
Carlsberg Brewery (Northampton),
617,689,692
Carlsberg Labor at ory (Copenhagen),
628
Carlsberg-Tetley (national brewers),
593,616,617,691,692,695
Carnot cycle, 458459,467
Carre, E.C., 464
Castle & Ames (brewers, Bristol), 439
Castlemaine XXXX Lager, 690, 692
Castle Road Brewery (Scarborough,
Yorkshire), 384
Catal Huyuk (Turkey), 98, 126
Cayonii (Turkey), 96
Celtiberians, 151, 152, 155
Celts, 130, 134, 135, 139, 140, 145,
148, 151-162, 171, 172,202,209,
21 1-218,222-225,226,231,258,
291,306,517,518
Celtic beer, 232, 257
cerea (caelia), 158
cervisia (cerevisia; cervisa), 158, 168,
232,252,254,261,273, 313
cerevisiarii, 283
Charlemagne, 268,304,305
Charles I, 370, 375, 376, 378
Subject Index
729
730
Danzig (Poland), 308
Dartmouth (Devon), 317,532
date juice, 1, 56, 59, 67, 71, 80, 85, 87,
90
date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.), 7,
62, 82, 85,87, 104, 120
Dawson, Ann (brewer, London), 440
decoction mash, 19,20, 610
Defence of the Realm Act (DORA),
579-58 1
Defoe, Daniel, 525, 564
Deir el-Bahri (Egypt), 54
Deir el-Medina (Egypt), 34, 37,43,49,
69,71
Delbriick, Max, 638
Delft (Netherlands), 270,276, 3 15,
316,402,535,537
Denmark, 307,308
Derby ale, 374, 525
Description of England in
Shakespeares Youth, 325, 336,
349,351,353,354,355-357
Deuchar, James (brewer, Montrose,
Angus), 688
Devonshire white ale, 530-533
diastase, 13, 14,20, 57, 500, 501, 514
Dickenson, Joseph (brewer, London),
440
Dimetian Law (Wales), 247
Diocletian, 23 1
Diodorus Siculus, 33, 157, 158, 159,
160,169,229
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 169
Dionysus, 33, 135, 136
Dioscorides, 36, 159,259, 3 11
Dodder (Cuscuta spp.), 3 10, 311
Domesday Book, 282-284,309,310
Dominion Breweries (New Zealand),
639,651
Dorchester beer, 503
Dordrecht (Netherlands), 269, 270,
272,273, 388, 536, 537
Dover (Kent), 343
Dover Castle, 291
Dr.Butlers ale, 379, 380
dredge malt, 284, 395
Dreher, Anton, 626, 627
drinking-horns, 220,250,255
drinking to pegs, 250, 288 .
Subject Index
drunkards cloak, 337, 338, 381
Dublin (Ireland), 264, 266, 267
Dunstan (Archbishop of Canterbury),
250
Duppa, Capt. Geoffrey, 348,368,369,
378
Duttons Blackburn Brewery Ltd.
(Lancashire), 688
Earl of Leicester, 347, 348, 350
East India Company, 156,485,526
Eberdingen-Hochdorf (Celtic brewery
site, Germany), 161, 162
Edgar the Pacific, 249,250
Edinburgh (Midlothian), 385, 527,
592, 606, 611, 614,616,618, 691,
698,720
Edward I, 294,296
Edward 111,294
Edward IV, 349
Edward VI, 323, 336,339
Edward the Confessor, 249,3 10
Egtved tumulus (East Jutland), 219,
220
EgyptlEgyptians, 5, 8, 10, 12, 32-72,
83,92,96,100,102,108-112,117,
119-127, 132, 134, 136, 142, 150,
155, 158, 165, 171, 192, 202, 231,
358
einkorn wheat
(wild, brittle; Triticum boeoticum),
94,96, 100,102, 190
(cultivated, non-brittle; 2?
monococcum), 94,96,97, 100,
102, 126, 127, 173, 174, 176, 177,
183, 190, 191,203,204,222,243
Elders IXL, 690,691
Elgood & Sons Ltd. (brewers,
Wisbech, Cambridgeshire), 685
Elizabeth I, 337, 338, 339, 346-351,
361,366,373
Elliott (brewers, Nottingham), 439
Eltham Palace (London), 323, 345
Elton (Cambridgeshire), 365, 366
Ely (Cambridgeshire), 241, 3 12
Ely ale, 289, 294, 3 12
emmer wheat
(wild, brittle; Triticum dicoccoides),
94,96,97, 100
Subject Index
(cultivated, non-brittle; 7:
dicoccum), 12, 15, 38, 39,40,41,
43,49, 50, 52,60, , 61, 66-70,80,
82-84,94,96-98,100, 102,126,
127, 142, 170, 171, 173, 174,
175-178, 182, 183, 190, 191,204,
214219,222,223,229,232,243
En Besor (Palestine), 5 1, 52, 119
Enfield Lock (Middlesex), 58 1, 582,
584,587
entire butt ale, 486,487,490,492,493
Ephorus of Cyme, 145, 146
Epic of Gilgamesh, 107, 108
Eridu (Iraq), 75
Errol Committee, 682
Erxleben, Christian, 4 16
essentia bina, 417,498
Ethelred the Unready, 250
European Brewery Convention
(EBC), 659
Exeter (Devon), 293,297,337
Farnham (Surrey), 576
Fasset, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Fayum Oasis, and region (Egypt), 39,
43,98
Felinfoel Brewery Co., Ltd. (Llanelli,
Dyfed), 674
Ferguson (brewers, Reading,
Berkshire), 6 10
filtration/filtered beer, 25, 59,65, 86,
89,90,91, 670, 676
Fladbury (Worcestershire), 244
Flanders (Belgium), 270,272,297,
308,315,325,340
Flower & Sons (brewers, Stratford-onAvon, Warwickshire), 67 1
Fosters Brewing Group, 69 1
Fosters Lager, 690
Franchthi Cave (Greece), 190, 191
Fremlins Brewery (Maidstone, Kent),
593
Friesland (Netherlands), 271
Friary Brewery (Guildford, Surrey),
610
frugivory, 3,4, 6
Fuller, Smith & Turner (brewers,
Chiswick, London), 685,695
73 1
732
Graesser, Robert, 605,612
Graham & Co. (brewers, Alloa,
Clackmannanshire), 6 1 1
grains of paradise, 417,418,419,420,
503
Grand Metropolitan Hotels, 549, 550,
617,689,690,69 1
Graveney boat, 309, 310
Great Yarmouth (Norfolk), 3 15, 3 16,
317,565
Green, Alexander (brewer,
Nottingham), 439
Green, John (brewer, Rotherham,
Yorkshire), 439
Green, J.W. (brewer, Luton,
Bedfordshire), 67 1
green vitriol, 417,419,420, 502
Greenhall Whitley & Co. (brewers, St.
Helens, Lancashire), 57 1, 620,
690
Greene, Edward (brewer, Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk), 524
Greene King (brewers, Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk), 593,684, 695
Greenwich (Kent), 310, 322, 337, 384
Gretna (Dumfriesshire), 58 1, 582, 583,
584
Groningen (Netherlands), 27 1
Grooved Ware pottery, 194-198, 199
gruit, 269,272,273,274,359,360,530,
532,533,534-537
gruitgeld, 535, 536, 537
gruitrecht, 269,270,272, 359, 535, 536
guilds, 296-302, 322
Guinea pepper, 417,418,420, 503
Guinness, Arthur & Co. (brewers,
Dublin), 439, 572, 574, 594,
615-618,633,680,684,689
Guinness, Edward Cecil (Earl of
Iveagh), 572
Gwentian Law (Wales), 247
Haarlem (Netherlands), 270,273,275,
308,316,317
Hacilar (Turkey), 7,98, 126
Hague, John, 465
Halesowen (Worcestershire), 293
Halifax (Yorkshire), 569
Hallertau (Germany), 304
Subject Index
Hallertauer hop, 306
Hallstatt culture, 151, 153, 154, 161,
162
Hamburg (Germany), 271,272,273,
308, 314, 315, 359, 360, 388, 390,
622
Hammond, Peter (brewer, London),
440
Hammond United Breweries
(Bradford, Yorkshire), 614,687
Hamwih (Southampton), 244
Hanbury & Co. (brewers, London),
44 1,543
Hansen, Emil, 477,478, 600, 601, 602,
603
Hanson Trust, 689
Hare, Richard (brewer, London), 440
Harford & Co. (brewers, London), 441
Harp Lager, 616,617,618,673
Harrison, James, 465
Harrison, William, 336, 351, 353,
356357,358,359,371,393
hartshorn shavings, 503
Hartwall Company (international
brewers, Finland), 698
Harvey & Son Ltd. (brewers, Lewes,
Sussex), 685
Harwood, Ralph (brewer, London),
486,487,490,491,501,539
Hathor, 64, 109, 110, 111
Hattuia (Boghazkoy) (Turkey), 125,
128
Haven of Health, 353, 380
Havering (Essex), 366
haze in beer, 677
Hazelton North (Gloucestershire),
176
Healey, Charles (brewer, Watford,
Hertfordshire), 6 10
heatherlling, 194, 262, 395, 506,
5 15-522
heather ale, 5 15-522
Hecataeus of Miletus, 152
Heineken Company (global brewers,
Holland), 697, 698
Heineken Lager, 618,620,692
help-ale, 345
Helston (Cornwall), 283
Hembury (Devon), 174, 176,222
Subject Index
Hemingford Abbots
(Cambridgeshire), 365, 366
hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), 146, 147,
148,195,209,309
henbane (Hyoscyumus niger L.), 162,
195, 196,312
Henry I, 288
Henry 11,283,288,290
Henry 111,285,292,294,301, 525
Henry V, 285,312
Henry VI, 302
Henry VII, 297,322,334,348
Henry VIII, 323, 325, 326, 327, 333,
334,336,345,347,352,532
Herbarium of Apuleius, 3 11
Hereford, 337
Heriot-Watt University Brewing
School (Edinburgh), 629
Herodotus, 33,41,45, 110, 130, 133,
135, 136, 137,145, 146,149,152
Hierakonpolis (Egypt), 51, 52, 53, 62
high-gravity brewing, 650,655-659
Hittites, 44,45, 118, 125-128, 132,
136, 142, 150,151
Hoare & Co. (brewers, London), 562
Hochdorf (Celtic brewery site,
Germany), 161, 162
Hochstift monastery (Germany), 307
Hodgson, George (brewer, London),
440,526,527,561
Holdens Brewery Co. Ltd.
(Woodsetton, Dudley, West
Midlands), 685
Holland, 268-276, 304, 308, 3 14-3 19,
339, 358, 359, 360, 386, 506,
535-537
Holt, Joseph (brewer, Manchester),
620
honey, 1, 6, 7, 58, 85, 89, 90, 125, 157,
158, 159, 160, 194,208,209,210,
21 1,247,252-255,258,259,327,
358,417,420, 502, 515, 519, 520,
52 1
Hooke, Robert, 401,402
Hop (Humulus lupulus L.), 61, 65, 67,
155,220,269-276,282,289,294,
302,303-326,334,339,340-342,
347,350,352-361,366,371,378,
379,380,381,382,392-398,
733
416420,423,435,436,444,472,
473,474,489,490-502,505,507,
512,513,515,519-521,523,524,
527, 528, 533, 535, 537, 548, 551,
552, 556, 559, 561, 568, 576, 586,
604, 608, 609, 61 1, 622, 627, 628,
629, 630, 631, 632, 651, 657, 658,
659, 663, 664, 666, 667, 669, 694,
699, 700, 703,704, 706, 707, 708,
709
hop extracts, 628,630,666, 669
Hope (brewer, London), 539
Hope and Anchor Brewery (Sheffield,
Yorkshire), 613, 614, 687
hopein (8-prenyl-naringenin [8PNG]),
702-704
hormesis, 6
Horus, 52,699
Houghton-cum-Wyton
(Cambridgeshire), 33 1, 332
Hucks (brewers, London), 439
huckster, 285, 321, 332, 333
huff-cap, 350, 351
Hull (Yorkshire), 337, 525, 570
humulariu, 307
humulone, 704,706, 707
Hurrians, 141, 142
Hydes Anvil Brewery (Manchester),
620
Hywel Dda, 258
Subject Index
734
Ingatestone House (near Brentwood,
Essex), 352-354
Institut fur Technologie der Brauerei
(Weihenstephan, Germany), 628
Institute of Brewing, 478,628, 637
Interbrew (global brewers, Belgium),
614,615, 692,693,694, 695,697,
698
intoxication cult, 2, 130, 131,206,207,
208
invasion hypothesis, 179-1 82
Ipswich (Suffolk), 316,337, 565
isinglass, 490, 553
6-isoprenylnaringenin, 704
Israel, 103, 119-125
Itford Hill (Sussex), 214
Iver (Buckinghamshire), 33 1, 332
Jackson, Humphrey (chemist), 421,
556
jalap, 502
James I, 365, 366, 367, 370, 371, 375,
377,379,383
Janssen, Zaccharius, 40 1
Jarmo (Iraq), 93,94,97, 102
Jeffrey, John & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 611, 614, 687
Jennings Brother (brewers,
Cockermouth, Cumbria), 685
Jericho (Jordan), 98, 183, 184
Joblot, Louis, 404,405
Johnson, Dr. Samuel (lexicographer),
421,427,525,554,556,557,558
Jordan, 103
Jordan, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Jargensen, Alfred, 603
Joule, James Prescott, 457-462
Joule, John & Sons (brewers, Stone,
Staffordshire), 457, 524, 680
Juellinge grave (Lolland, Denmark),
219,220
Kaffir beer, 20,21,23
Kalevala, 304, 305, 360
Kampen (Netherlands), 308
Karmir-Blur (Armenia), 142, 143
keg beer, 594,600, 631, 650, 670,671,
672.673.674.675.676.682.686
,
Subject Index
Lewisham (Kent), 3 10
Liber Albus (1419), 285,286
Lichfield (Staffordshire), 476,477, 525
Lichfield ale, 543
Liebig, Justus, 410,411,412,413,414,
415,416,459,508,511
Lincoln, 225,298,299, 337
Linde refrigerator, 462,465,467
Lindow Man, 2 17-2 18
Linear band ker amik (LBK), Linear
Pottery culture, 7, 189, 191
liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.), 420,
500,502
Lismore Fields (Buxton, Derbyshire),
175
Litchborough Brewery
(Northamptonshire), 68 1
Liverpool (Lancashire), 569, 570
Livy, 139
London, 283-286,290,294,296,297,
300,301,310,312,31-324,334,
337, 349, 350, 367, 368, 372, 373,
376,377,378,383-387,391,417,
4 18,424,425,428,437442,447,
448,449,450,465,477,482,485,
486,488,489,490,495,499, 503,
504, 507, 523, 525, 526, 529,
538-556,561-565,570-573,575,
581, 592, 595, 596, 607,608, 61 1,
612,614,616,620,685,720
London and Country Brewer, 374,389,
41 7419,422,424,442444,486,
489,491,492493,508,530-531,
532,533
London Patent Office, 392
Long, John, 452,456
Lowenbrau Lager, 692
Lowestoft (Suffolk), 337, 339
Lubeck (Germany), 308
lupulone, 706, 707
Luton (Bedfordshire), 6 18,619,620,
67 1
Lydia, 130-1 31,149
Lynn (Kings Lynn) (Norfolk), 297,
314,315,317,565
Maadi (Egypt), 43
McEwan, William & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 527, 616, 687,688
735
McMullen & Sons (brewers,
Hertford), 620
Machrie Moor (Isle of Arran), 194
Magna Carta, 29 1,292
el-Mahasna (Egypt), 52
Maidstone (Kent), 314, 563, 593
maize (Zea mays L.), 9, 10, 14, 15, 16,
21,27, 28, 118, 119, 524, 584
malt/malting, 10-25,29,46, 53-70,79,
83, 84, 89, 90, 123, 162, 175, 178,
195-199,225,243,244,253-255,
259, 260, 261,264, 274,276, 283,
285,291,292,293,294, 302, 305,
315,321-324,340,342,346-348,
351-356,368,374,378,379,384,
387,389,390,392-399,414-420,
423,428,434,436,437,439,440,
442,443,447,473, 474,475,481,
489-502,506-5 16,520-526,
531-537,542,548, 551,552,553,
556, 559, 561, 564, 565, 568, 569,
584586,611,623,625,629,
633-636,651,655,658,659,660,
699-708
blown malt, 500, 501
Manchester (Lancashire), 457,476,
569, 570, 571, 613, 616, 618, 620,
637,685
mandrake (Mandragora ofjcinarum
L.), 42, 62, 65, 66, 104
manioc, 25,26,27
Mann, Crossman and Paulin (brewers,
London), 523,529,545,562,686
March ale, 350, 352, 396, 397, 398
Mari (Syria), 76, 82, 108, 134
Marischal Street Brewery (Aberdeen),
385
Markham, Gervase, 395-399,594
Marsh, J.L. & Sons ( brewers,
Blandford Forum, Dorset), 593
marsh rosemary (Ledumpalustre L.),
359
Marston, Thompson & Evershed Ltd.
(brewers, Burton-on-Trent), 688
Martin, Benjamin, 426,427,433
Maryport Brewery (Cumbria), 582
Mary, Queen of Scots, 361
Mary Tudor, 345-346
Mascall, Leonard, 340
736
mash-copper, 19,20
mash-mixer, 19,20
mash-tun, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19,52,61,66,
79, 80, 84, 85, 274,276, 352, 396,
398,400,425,443,444,445,447,
470,474,475,479,480,481,492,
495,496,498, 500, 512, 513, 515,
533, 534, 584, 585, 629, 636, 658,
660
Mayer, J.R., 459-460
rnbweje, 22, 24, 25
mead, 7, 125, 159, 162, 168, 194, 195,
202, 208, 209, 21 1, 220,237, 247,
248,251,252, 253, 254,255, 257,
258,259,289
meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria
(L.) Maxim.), 7, 194, 195, 198,
210,211,219
Meket-Re, tomb of (Egypt), 54, 55
Merimde (Egypt), 39,98
Mescan, 261
Mesopotamia/Mesopotamians, 8, 16,
32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 67, 75-80, 83,
84,86, 87, 88, 91, 92,93, 96,
98, 102, 107, 108, 112, 117, 121,
125, 132, 133, 142, 155,202, 311,
358
Meux & Co. (brewers, London), 571
Meux, Henry (brewer, London), 450
Meux, Richard (Griffin Brewery,
London), 440,441,449,45045 1,
552
mild ale, 485, 504, 523, 586, 591, 627,
643,674
millet (various spp.), 8, 14, 15,21, 22,
24, 25,47, 57, 155, 160, 190,215,
239
Miller (global brewers, USA), 697
Miners Arms brew-pub (Priddy,
Somerset), 680, 681
Mitchells & Butlers (Cape Hill
Brewery, Birmingham), 587, 592,
614,616,647,648,649,688
Mitscherlich, Eilhard, 414
Mitanni, 142
Mompesson, Sir Giles, 370, 371
Monopolies and Mergers Commission
(MMC), 682,683,684,690,692,
693
Subject Index
Subject Index
North Mains (Strathallan, Perthshire),
210
Northern Clubs Federation Brewery
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne), 589,688
Norway, 307,308,360,361,372
Norwich (Norfolk), 310, 318, 337,
400,476,477,565,571
737
738
Subject Index
Subject Index
Shears, Daniel, 453
Shepherd Neame Ltd. (brewers,
Faversham, Kent), 697
Shrewsbury (Shropshire), 3 18, 337,
38 1
silica gel, 677
Simonds, H & G. (brewers, Reading,
Berkshire), 563, 593, 687
Simpkiss Brewery (Brierley Hill, West
Midlands), 685
Sinebrychoff Brewery (Helsinki,
Finland), 656
Skara Brae (Orkney Isles), 196, 197,
198
Skelton, John, 327, 329
Skol Lager, 615,616,618,673,692
small beer, 320, 350, 369, 395, 397,
398,401,423,436,470,472,473,
488,489,490,513,533,534
Smith, John (brewer, Tadcaster,
Yorks.), 564
Smith, Samuel (brewer, Tadcaster,
Yorks.), 620
Society for the Preservation of Beer
from the Wood (SPBW), 679
sorghum (Sorghum vulgare (Pers.)) ,
14, 15,21, 22, 23, 57
South African Breweries (SAB), 625,
697
Southampton (Hampshire), 337,428
Southwark (Surrey/London), 312,
314, 318, 319, 320, 360, 372,427,
448,554,555,557,561,612
Southwark ale, 319,320
Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 405
Spanish juice, 501, 502
sparging, 470,47 1,479
Spaten Brewery (Munich), 506,625,
626,627
Spelt (Triticum spelta L.), 38, 49, 8 1,
82, 102, 103, 170, 174, 176,214,
215,216,217,218,220,222,223,
229,243,358
Spot, Wulfric, 294, 295
Sredni Stog culture, 146, 147
Stahl, Georg Ernst, 406,407,411
Stella Artois Lager, 692, 693
Steward & Morse (brewers, Norwich),
565
739
740
Tell Abu Hureyra (Syria), 17,96, 97,
98
Tell Aswad (Syria), 96, 97
Tell el-Amarna (Egypt), 69, 7 1, 97,98,
134
Tell Hadidi (Syria), 79
Tell Halaf (Syria), 109
Tell Mureybet (Syria), 17, 96
Tell es-Sawwn (Iraq), 97,98
temperance movement, 575,578, 589
Tennant Bros. (brewers, Sheffield,
Yorkshire), 689
Tennent, J & R. (brewers, Glasgow),
606,607,611,612,614,615
Tepe Gawra (Iraq), 76,77
The Stumble (Blackwater Estuary,
Essex), 178, 186
Theakston, T & R. (brewers, Masham,
Yorkshire), 584
Thebes (Egypt), 34,42,46, 55, 62, 64,
98, 105
Thenard, Louis Jaques, 408,411
thermometer, 22,424,425,426,434,
436,505,506,623
Thomson, Sir W. (Lord Kelvin),
461462,569
Thornbury (Gloucestershire), 287
Thrace/Thracians, 118, 128, 129,
134-136, 144,157,190
Thrale, Henry (brewer, London), 421,
427, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558,
559
Thrale, Mrs Hester, 421,556,557, 558,
559
Thrale, Ralph (brewer, London), 555,
559
Thrales Anchor Brewery (London),
427,439,448,554-561
Threale, Thomas, 423424
Three Tuns brew-pub (Bishops
Castle, Shropshire), 68 1
Threlfall & Co. (brewers,
Manchester), 57 1
Thule, 160, 161, 258
Thwaites & Co. (brewers, Blackburn),
57 1
Tickell, Henry, 452
Tizard, W.L., 41 5,416,491,498-503,
597
Subject Index
tobacco, 502
tower fermenter, 640, 645-649, 65 1,
652
Truman, Benjamin, 442,539,541,542,
545,546,555,558
Truman, Hanbury (Black Eagle
Brewery, London), 438, 529, 543
Truman, Hanbury & Buxton (Black
Eagle Brewery, London), 540,
549,562,564,571,689
Trumans Brewery (Spitalfields, E.
London), 540-550,555,561, 563,
571,585
Tryon, Thomas, 354,355,393,394,
395,399,594
Tuborg Brewery (Copenhagen), 603
Tuborg Lager, 692
Tusser, Thomas, 340
Ty (Ti), tomb of (Egypt), 53,54
Ugarit (Syria), 127, 132
United Breweries, 614, 687
Ur (Iraq), 75, 77, 86, 87
Urartu/Urartians, 118, 130, 140-142,
143
Ure, Andrew, 453457,508-5 15
Urnfield period, 149, 150-1 5 1, 170
Urquart, William, 68 1
Uruk (Iraq), 75, 76
Utrecht (Netherlands), 270, 535
Vallance, John, 453
van Leewenhoek, Antonj, 401,402,
403,404
van Rijn, L.R., 639
Vaux (brewers, Sunderland, Co.
Durham), 593
Venedotian Law (Wales), 247
victualler-brewer, 327, 366, 368, 369,
383, 385,401,441,476, 477, 570,
574
Vindolanda (Northumberland), 232
von Dusch, T., 406,414
von Helmholtz, H., 414,460
Vortigern, 234, 235
Wadworth & Co. Ltd. (brewers,
Devizes, Wiltshire), 695
Wakefield (Yorkshire), 333
Subject Index
74 1
742
Subject Index
Yorkshire square, 530
Young & Co. (brewers, Wandsworth,
London), 620,685
Younger, William & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 527, 574, 606,607,
610,687
Zagros mountains (Iran), 91, 100, 118
Zeeland (Netherlands), 220, 269, 3 14,
315,317,318,319,360
Zozimus of Panapolis, 45,48,49, 57,
58,60
zythos, 36, 117, 157, 158
650
Chapter 9
no further than a horse and cart could take it in a day. Brewers were
accustomed to the fact that most of their output would be consumed
within a fortnight of production. By the 1960s, much ale was required
for national distribution, and brewers were required to adopt production
techniques that ensured that beer would resist damage during storage
and transport. Part of the battle for brewers was to persuade the
drinking public to accept their draught beer in pasteurised (keg)
form, instead of the traditional cask product. This they managed to do
and, for the most part, there was a general swing towards breweryconditioned beer (ie. bottle, can and keg). The dynamic state of the
British brewing industry is summarised pertinently by Findlay (1971):
In the past, methods of brewing and fermenting ales in Great Britain have
differed very considerably from those used in the production of lager beers in
Europe and the USA, but now many of these differences are beginning to
disappear. All brewers are tending to use separate vessels (e.g. lauter tuns) for
wort separation, or to adopt systems for continuous production of wort that
are similar whether used for the production of ale or lager. Somewhat higher
temperatures are now used for the fermentation of lager beers than was formerly
thought desirable, and the use of continuous fermentation destroys the distinction between top-fermenting and bottom-fermenting yeasts, either of which
can be successfully used in both tower and stirred fermenters. Nor are very long
periods of cold storage now thought to be essential for the production of lagers in
order to render them resistant to chill haze, as this can be prevented by the use of
suitable absorbents of the haze-forming materials.
65 1
~~~
Process
I951
1981
9-1 2 days
10%
233,000
34%
10-1 5%
7-10 days
25 million
4-5 days
34%
150,000
8%
5- 10%
3.5-7 days
39 million]
fully realised when the apparatus was operated over lengthy time periods,
without need for shut-down. A quality failure, or a need to change production to another type of beer, involved emptying the system, cleaning,
starting-up, and the re-establishment of the steady-state processes which
could mean that the plant was out of operation for a fortnight, something which was disastrous from a production point of view. It was to be
concluded that the technique was only really suitable for breweries that
had only a few beers in their portfolio (preferably only one!). Continuous
fermentation was not recommended for those breweries that were subject
to large seasonal fluctuations in demand, because flow-rates could only
be varied very slightly. Most brewers came to the opinion that there were
too many limitations in the technique, particularly in terms of the flexibility that was inherent in batch fermentation. Only one or two breweries,
most notably Dominion Breweries in New Zealand have persevered with
continuous brewing with any success. The advantages and disadvantages
of continuous beer fermentation, as compared to a batch process, are
illustrated in Table 9.8.
By the mid- 1970s, the general consensus amongst British brewers was
that, although continuous fermentation was scientifically and technically
a viable proposition, and could produce beers of very high quality,
the process tended to create more problems than it was likely to solve.
Accordingly, the method fell out of favour, and even those European
brewers brave enough to encompass that particular technology, oversaw
the removal of their continuous brewing equipment. From a practical
point of view, the two major problems were plant inflexibility and the
constraints on flavour development brought about by the forced reliance
on highly flocculent yeasts, the latter being a particular problem in tower
fermenters. Several of the yeast strains known to be important in the
maturation of batch-fermented beers were not particularly flocculent,
and would, therefore, not function in a continuous system. This was one
Chapter 9
652
Disadvantages
of the main reasons why it had been so difficult to match the organoleptic characters of a traditional batch-fermented beer in a continuous
fermenter. This drawback looked likely to be overcome when, in 1978,
White and Portno reported the use of calcium alginate gel to immobilise
non-flocculent yeasts, and thus enable their use in a tower fermenter.
In effect, these non-flocculent strains were being rendered sufficiently
flocculent to permit their use. Cells remained in viable condition for long
periods, and extended trials were possible. As a result of this pioneering
work with immobilised yeast reactors, and the promise of greater versatility, interest in continuous fermentation was re-kindled during the
1980s.
Immobilised cell technology, which is a widely used weapon amongst
biotechnologists, involves attaching living cells to a solid, inert matrix,
and then passing a suitable substrate over the cells in order to effect the
desired biochemical reactions. Radovich (1985) defines the technique as,
653
654
Chapter 9
The 20fhCentury
655
annually but, because of increased demand, a new installation, consisting of four reactors, and capable of conditioning 1 million hl of
beer per year was commissioned in 1993. By using this maturation
technology, Sinebrychoff can respond to sudden increases in demand;
a response being possible within one week. The carrier for the yeast is
Spezyme GDCB, manufactured by Cultor, Finland. The carrier consists
of DEAE-cellulose impregnated onto a polystyrene support. Titanium
dioxide is incorporated into the matrix in order to add weight to the
particles. Green beer is produced by conventional means in cylindroconical fermenters, and passed through a continuous high-performance
centrifuge, which reduces the yeast count and removes most of the particulate matter. The beer is then heat-treated at 90 C for seven minutes,
which is sufficient to convert a-acetolactate to diacetyl. The heat treatment also denatures proteases (which can adversely affect foamability in
the finished beer), and reduces microbial numbers. No changes in flavour
character, or in colour have been observed by the Finnish brewers. After
the heat treatment, the green beer is cooled to 15 C before being passed
through the four bioreactors. Contact time between green beer and yeast
is two hours, which is sufficient to convert diacetyl to flavourless byproducts. Compare this time with the erstwhile three week maturation
period. As a postscript to this new technology, in April 2001, Sinebrychoff announced that they had developed a 50 1 per h pilot plant for
continuous fermentation. It consists of a one-stage immobilised yeast
reactor, with a beer circulation loop. They maintain that good quality
beer can be produced within 20-30 hours!
A novel method of surmounting the potential problem of having
unacceptable levels of diacetyl in beer, without resorting to an elongated
maturation phase, has been described by the Finnish workers, Kronlof
and Linko (1992). Their approach is to subject a sterilised, industrial,
high gravity wort (comprising 70% malt, 20% unmalted barley and 10%
glucose syrup) to passage through an immobilised yeast bioreactor,
which contains a genetically-modified brewers yeast supported on
porous sintered glass (Siran@).The yeast has been implanted with the
gene conferring it with the ability to produce the enzyme, a-acetolactate
decarboxylase, a modification that allows the direct conversion of aacetolactate to acetoin (a breakdown product of diacetyl), without
the intermediate formation of diacetyl. This, of course, precludes the
necessity for a maturation period (or diacetyl rest as it is sometimes
known). With the aversion of the general public to anything genetically
modified (as long as they are aware of it), this neat approach to the
diacetyl problem has not, as far as I am aware, been used commercially.
From a brewers point of view, one of the most useful results in the
656
Chapter 9
The 20fhCentury
657
high-gravity worts, is largely governed by technical and, therefore, financial constraints in the brewhouse. Higher original gravities are known,
however, and fermentation of worts of 1096" (24" Plato), or more, is
designated very high-gravity brewing. At this sort of gravity, careful attention has to be paid to ensure that yeast pitching rate, available nitrogen
levels and oxygen concentration are all increased accordingly. In addition,
it is also necessary to supplement the wort with trace elements necessary
for yeast growth, particularly Zn" and Mg*, and unsaturated fatty acids.
Very high-gravity brewed green beer contains abnormally high numbers
of suspended yeast cells, a fact attributable to the loss of flocculence by the
yeast during fermentation; this is probably caused by osmotic stress.
Most of the beer brewed by high gravity is fermented from hoppedworts containing around 25-35% adjunct; relatively few worts being
made from all-malt grists. One has to be careful about using too much
adjunct, because the overall availability of nitrogen can be depleted to
such an extent that fermentation is affected and an unbalanced flavour
is created in the final beer. Production of high-gravity wort from a
conventional infusion mash coupled with a traditional method of wort
separation, is difficult, and a brewer would be lucky to achieve an original gravity of much over 1050" by such means. For this reason, it
is standard practice to increase wort concentration by adding liquid
syrup adjuncts to the copper. One can produce marginally stronger than
normal wort by re-cycling weak worts over another bed of grains, or by
mixing the wort run-off from a standard mash with another batch of
grist (this would have to be carried out in a mash-mixer), thus enabling a
second, more concentrated wort to be drawn off. The idea is fine in
theory but, in practice, the viscosity of the concentrated wort causes
problems in the brewhouse, and so the method is rarely used. Similarly,
reducing the amount of liquor used during the mash and sparge can
yield stronger wort, but the brew-length would be severely curtailed.
In effect, what we are saying is that attempts to high-gravity brew on
converted (traditional) equipment, is rarely satisfactory; it is far better to
carry it out on new plant specifically designed for the technique, when the
brewhouse can be sized accordingly.
The most significant additional capital cost in a high-gravity brewhouse is the blending equipment required for cutting the beer down to
sales strength. Such equipment, which is normally associated with the
bright beer tank, must be able to deliver precise volumes of breakdown
water, for any errors in dilution can lead to heavy beer losses. Apart from
the fact that cutting water should be of high microbiological standard,
and should be de-aerated, it should also be free of particulate matter,
colour and taints. Its mineral content and pH should not affect the
658
Chapter 9
659
The intervening years have dulled that initial euphoria, and we have
yet to witness a genetically-modified yeast strain used to brew beer
660
Chapter 9
Scientists have made the technology available, as can be seen from the
trial brews using a G M amylolytic yeast (Hammond, 1998), but food
regulations and consumer pressure make it almost impossible for GM
yeasts to be used on a production scale by brewers. Instead, brewing
research will have to concentrate on making the most of any natural
genetic variants that occur in yeast populations. Although it is not available commercially, BRi have succeeded in using a G M yeast to brew a
highly-regarded, low-calorie beer, called Nutfield Lyte. It is brewed
with a lager yeast, into which has been inserted the amylolytic (starchdegrading) enzyme, glucoamylase. Some brewers have been using this
enzyme for a number of years, incorporating it in the mash-tun in order
to convert more of the partial degradation products of starch (called
dextrins), into fermentable sugars. This gives better yields from the
mash-tun, and leaves very little calorific material in the finished beer. By
using this modified yeast, glucoamylase is secreted during fermentation
and is able to break down dextrins in the fermenting wort. The grist
for NutJieZd Lyte consists of 80% malt and 20% high maltose syrup, and
the worts are collected at an OG of 1044. Fermentation is carried out at
12 C for 12 days (maturation commences after the fifth day), and the
attenuation gravity is as low as 998, giving an alcohol content of 6.2%
(v/v). This is then diluted to 5.0% ABV before packaging. The modified
yeast used to make this unique beer was the first such organism to be
approved by any government for use in the food industry; as far as I am
aware, it is still the sole example.
Probably the most significant milestone in our knowledge of the
genetic make-up of brewers yeast was the elucidation, in April 1996, of
the complete genome sequence of a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
This was also the first time that such information had been obtained
from a eukaryote (or higher organism). In this reference strain,
66 1
It has been calculated that the total heat energy required to produce
662
Chapter 9
one hectolitre of finished beer amounts to between 145 and 285 MJ (for
reference, 105.506 MJ = 29.307 kWh = 1 therm), of which 81-128 MJ
is expended in wort production, 24-54 MJ of it in wort boiling. Little
wonder then that brewing scientists and engineers have looked to
low-evaporation wort boiling systems as a means of energy-saving.
Traditional methods of boiling wort, such as open-fired coppers, lead
to evaporation losses of around 15%, but more modern technology
reduces this to around 8-9%. Such figures are considered to represent
the lower limit for boiling regimes conducted without resorting to any
changes in pressure, something generally referred to as atmospheric
boiling. The facility for boiling under pressure in the copper has been
available for many years, and the practice has been advocated by many
brewers; pressures of around 1.1-1.2 bar being commonly used. There is
still great debate as to whether pressure in the copper causes better or
poorer utilisation of a-acids during boiling but, whatever, it is a fact
that an increase in pressure, however small, will speed up physical and
chemical reactions, such that boiling times can be reduced (sometimes by
as much as half, depending on type of beer).
There are three main drawbacks inherent in boiling under pressure,
one of which is the tendency to produce unwanted darkening of
worts, something to be avoided if pale ales or lagers are on the agenda.
The second problem arises from the fact that undesirable volatiles,
such as dimethyl sulphide, are not sufficiently volatilised to effect their
removal from the wort, whilst the third, concerns the harsh treatment of
coagulable nitrogen, and other foam-active compounds. Despite such
problems, it is a fact that for every 4 C increase in boiling temperature,
the boiling time to achieve, say, the same degree of protein coagulation,
can be halved. This results in less destruction of growth substances
required by the yeast during fermentation. Research carried out during
the last decade of the 20th century, principally on the Continent and
North America, has seen these disadvantages largely overcome and
much improvement in the efficiency of energy utilisation resulting from
the technique of dynamic low-pressure boiling.
Conventional low-pressure boiling (LPB) can be effected by having the
heater (boiler) situated outside of the copper (kettle), or inside it. Such
arrangements are referred to as the external and the internal calandria
respectively (Figure 9.8). With an external calandria, wort is withdrawn
from the base of the kettle and pumped through the boiler; this being
repeated up to a dozen times. When the temperature in the kettle has
reached 100 C,the wort boils (the kettle being at atmospheric pressure).
In the external calandria a small positive pressure (about 4 psi = 0.275
bar) is produced by either controlling the steam pressure, or by slowing
Figure 9.8
663
(Upper) Low Pressure Boiling System with internal calandriu and energy
storage system. (Lower). Detail of Wort Kettle
(Both diagrams by kind permission of Heinrich Huppmann GmbH,
Kitzingen, Germany)
the speed of the pump on the outlet side of the calandria, and this causes
the wort temperature to rise to 102-106 "C in the boiler. When the
wort returns to the kettle, the pressure is released and an extremely
vigorous evaporation results. Advantages claimed for this type of boiling
system include: increased levels of a-acid isonierisation; more or less
complete coagulation of proteins; improved removal of volatile compounds detrimental to flavour, and a cleaner taste and flavour stability
to finished beer. There are one or two disadvantages, including the need
for pumps, and the additional energy to run them, and the fact that there
is need for capital expenditure on ancillary equipment, and additional
insulation. Many of the early attempts to use external wort boilers were
dogged by the fact that whole leaf hops had to be used (there were no
alternatives), and these were responsible for blockages in the connecting
664
Chapter 9
pipework. The development of hop powders, hop pellets and hop extracts
has alleviated such problems.
Modern wort kettles are now usually built with an internal boiler
which negates the need for circulating pumps. Such internal calandrias
take the form of a tubular heat exchanger, in which a bundle of vertically
arranged stainless steel tubes (through which wort ascends) are surrounded by a steam-filled sleeve (for heating). As a result of heating the
wort, the steam is cooled and so condenses, the condensate being
removed via a pipe which runs out through the base of the kettle. The
heated wort, as it leaves the top of the calandria, immediately hits a baffle
(or "spreader") which scatters the wort and prevents undue foaming.
Circulation of wort inside the kettle is very vigorous, and there is intimate
contact between heating surfaces and wort, such that evaporation is
reduced by about 50% in comparison to conventional boiling systems. A
typical boiling regime for an internal calandria would be (see Figure 9.9):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Figure 9.9
The 20thCentury
665
666
Chapter 9
667
five large Merlin@plants are in operation, and that much information has
been gained about the system, in terms of energy consumption and beer
quality. These workers report that if Merlin@is incorporated into an
energy storage system (Figure 9.10) then up to 72% savings can be
effected in the use of primary energy during wort boiling. They describe
a 160 hl plant on which eight brews per day are possible. The core elements of this part of the brewhouse are Merlin@,an adjacent whirlpool,
and an energy storage tank. The whole concept is designed to store and
conserve energy.
Wort from the lauter-tun is pumped into a collecting vessel (the pre-run
vessel), where it is heated from 72 "C to 90 "C by a lautered-wort heater
(LWH). The hot water needed to supply the LWH comes from the top of
the energy storage tank, which is held at 96 "C. In heating up the lautered
wort, the water from the energy storage tank is cooled to 76 "C, before it is
returned to the bottom of the storage tank. The Gort, now at 96 "C, is
pumped across to the heating surface of Merlin@', where it is quickly
brought to boiling. When boiling temperature is reached in the whirlpool,
the boiling cycle of 35 minutes commences. In order to allow sufficient
time for the isomerisation of hop compounds, hop dosing into the
668
Chapter 9
whirlpool occurs immediately the LWH starts to operate. At the termination of the boiling cycle, there is a whirlpool rest of some 20-30 minutes,
to allow trub to accumulate. This is followed by stripping, as before,
whereby wort from the whirlpool is passed over the conical heating surface on its way to the coolers. The energy contained in the vapourisation
phase during boiling and stripping is recovered by means of a vapour
condenser, and this serves to re-heat the water in the storage tank to 96 "C.
When compared to worts produced by a conventional wort kettle, the
analyses of worts emanating from the Merlin@system are considered far
superior. It is apparent that with Merlin@ evaporation has already
occurred during the heating up of the wort. This is due to the fact that
the wort reaches boiling temperature a few minutes after the start of
heating on the conical surface of Merlin@,but not in the whirlpool. The
evaporation rate during the boiling phase is very low, which presents no
problem, because the main objective here is to coagulate proteins and
isomerise hop products. Most evaporation occurs during stripping, and
it is at this stage that most of the unwanted volatile aromatics are
removed. At no stage during the boiling and stripping phases are excessive temperatures applied to heating surfaces, which means that the wort
is not thermally stressed. This is possible because of the thin layering of
wort across the heating cone, which promotes very efficient heat transfer.
Two manifestations of this gentle treatment of the wort by Merlin@are
the very slight enhancement of wort colour, and the greater retention of
foam-positive substances (as exemplified by superior head retention in
the final product). In spite of the protracted boiling time, Merlin@facilitates better utilisation of hop products.
The same authors also report that Merlin@has been installed in a
Bavarian brewery to act solely as a stripper, and in this instance the
apparatus is sited between the whirlpool and the wort coolers. In this
system, wort is initially boiled in a conventional kettle, equipped with
internal boiler. Boiling time in the kettle is reduced to 40 minutes, which
is sufficient to enable the thermically-dependent processes (such as isomerisation of hop a-acids) to be effected, but relatively little vapourisation.
The latter occurs when the boiled wort is passed over the Merlin@heater
for stripping. It is claimed that if Merlin@is used in this fashion then
energy savings of up to 25% can be attained. Perhaps of more importance is the fact that, by using Merlin@solely as a means of stripping
hopped wort of volatiles, one of the major conundrums appertaining to
the use of the modern conventional wort kettle has been mostly resolved.
The situation was such, that when boiling times were extensive enough to
remove sufficient volatiles (principally DMS), coagulable nitrogen levels
had been depleted to such a level that product foam stability was
The 20fhCentury
669
Chapter 9
670
BREWERY-CONDITIONED BEER
Beer that has been chilled, filtered free of yeast and other microbes, and
pasteurised, before leaving the brewery, is euphemistically referred to as
brewery-conditioned. Such beer is then put into clean (sterile) containers, which can be kegs, cans or bottles; the last two types of
container being collectively known as small-pack. The act of filtering
beer from yeast, technically renders it dead and so one of the most
important stages in the production cycle for brewery-conditioned beer, is
to re-introduce life into the product; this is known as carbonation.
Apart from keeping the beer lively, the presence of yeast in a caskconditioned, or a bottle-conditioned beer, has a stabilising presence.
Thus, in its absence, some other means of beer stabilisation has to be
embarked upon.
Conditioning in the brewery is very much a 20thcentury innovation,
although some bottled beers were chilled, filtered and pasteurised
towards the end of the 19thcentury, when refrigeration and filtration
technologies were in their infancy. Bottling beer, as we have seen, has its
origins in the 16h century, but it was not until 1891, when William
Painter invented the metal crown-cork, that automated methods of filling and sealing could be developed. Bottled beers were, of course, principally aimed at the home consumer, although a distinct culture developed
in on-licensed premises, where some customers would only drink the
bottled product, to the exclusion of draught beer, and vice versa. For
most of the 20th century, beer was bottled in returnable bottles, which
together with the crates that held them, carried a refundable deposit. The
The 20 Century
67 1
672
Chapter 9
The first test site for the experimental container bitter was the East
Sheen Lawn Tennis Club, just down the road from Mortlake, and not a
million miles from Wimbledon. The site was chosen primarily because
one of the Mortlake brewers, Bert Hussey, was a member there, and also
because the club was only open at certain times of the week, something
that would test the longevity and versatility of the new beer. Watneys was
very fortunate, inasmuch as for most of the first three-quarters of the
20th century, they had in their employ two very eminent and respected
chief chemists; men who were sufficiently forward-thinking to engage in
highly innovatory research. Julian Baker, who instigated and carried out
Strictly speaking, Watney, Reid, Combe & Co.
673
The 20rhCentury
the original research into kegging, assumed the position early in the
century, and finally retired in 1946. He was succeeded by Laurence
Bishop who, in turn, was responsible for introducing many new ideas to
Mortlake, and to other Watney Mann breweries.
As far as brewers were concerned, keg bitter, and other forms of keg
beer too, gave the consumer all of the benefits of bottled beer, viz.
brightness, condition (carbonation), consistency, and a longer shelf-life,
in draught form. The popularity of keg beer was helped, no doubt, by
the indifferent quality of traditional draught beer during, and immediately after, WWII. A shortage of glass prevented breweries from
bottling anything like the volumes that they would have liked and,
with a desperate shortage of decent raw materials, there was a lot of
sub-standard draught beer around. A whole generation of post-war
beer-drinkers remembered this only too well. Amongst certain sections
of the beer-drinking population, keg beers were accepted straightaway,
but it was not until the mid-1960s and the 1970s that this form of beer
really took off. It is probably true to say that it was the introduction of
draught (keg) lager that really altered the receptiveness of the British
public to keg products. As mentioned before, the pioneers in this field
were Ind Coope, with Skd, and Harp Lager Ltd., a British-Irish consortium formed in 1961. Beer in keg form, and the preference of supermarkets for canned beer, heralded a decline in the market for beer in
returnable bottles, as can be seen from Table 9.9, which covers the first 30
years of the existence of keg beers.
In 1959, packaged beer, which was almost entirely in the form of
returnable bottles, held 36% of the UK market; by 1970 this share
had declined to ca. 27%, and then, even within the packaged sector,
bottled beer was steadily losing ground to canned beer.
In addition to the growing acceptance of brewery-conditioned beer,
there were also considerable changes in the actual style of draught beer
preferred by British customers over the first couple of decades of the keg
boom; a fact that can be gleaned from Table 9.10.
Table 9.9 Changes in the composition of the beer market, 1960-1989
(From Brewers Society Statistics)
Category
I960
I980
I989
Ale/stout
Lager
All draught beers
Returnable bottles
Cans
99
1
64
34
1
69
31
79
10
10
49.6
50.4
72
6.4
18.5
674
Chapter 9
95 of draught beer
type consumed
Beer
1960
I980
Mild
Bitter
Lager
61
39
0
14
56
30
The above table does not take into account the figures for keg stouts.
1980 figures are dominated by beers from mega-brewers. Over the
above period, many regional brewers experimented with their own
house keg bitters and lagers but, with the massive advertising campaigns backing the major brands, they just could not compete. To my
knowledge, there are only a couple of own-brand keg beers and lagers
now being brewed by regional brewers in Britain.
Canned beer was first produced by the Kreuger Brewing Co., of
Newark, New Jersey in 1935. In December of that year, beer in cans
was introduced by the Felinfoel Brewery Co., of Llanelli, Dyfed. This
made eminent sense, for Llanelli was a centre for metal-working in South
Wales, and specialised in tin-plate manufacture. Indeed, the founder of
Felinfoel was the owner of a local tinplate works, and during the
depression of the 1930s, this seemed an obvious way of supporting
both interests. The characteristic cone-topped cans of Felinfoel Pale Ale
(Figure 9.1 1) looked rather like tins of polish!
Potentially, being lighter and non-breakable, tin cans had several
The 20fhCentury
675
advantages over glass bottles as containers for beer, but even though they
were non-returnable, and protected their contents from light, British
consumers were reluctant to unequivocally accept canned beer. Taste
appeared to be the major stumbling-block. The Aluminium beer can was
introduced in 1959 by the American brewer Coors (founded 1873), where
it was developed at their brewery in Golden, Colorado. As we have seen,
the popularity of canned beer in the UK has increased with the penchant
for drinking at home, but it is still way behind that in some countries,
where enormous quantities of the product are consumed. In the US, for
example, in 1993, 59.7% of all output was in metal cans, whilst 24.3%
was in one-trip bottles, and only 4.6% in returnable bottles. The rest of
the US output was in draught (keg) form.
As a postscript to the subject of bottled beer, it is pertinent to mention
the situation regarding the packaging of beer into plastic containers,
which are often confusingly referred to as plastic bottles. In the UK, at
least, there seems to be an image problem regarding the sort of beer that
would warrant being filled in such things; a fact that may emanate from
unfortunate experiences with the early two litre plastic beer bottles. Until
the very late 1990s, the two litre bottle was the only readily-available
form of plastic container for beer in the UK; nowadays there are 330 ml
plastic bottles, which actually look like glass beer bottles. For small-pack
beers these days, those presented in glass containers have a premium
image. It is not merely the customer who is loathe to drink beer from
plastic bottles, the modern generation of brewers, with their innate
conservatism, has always been averse to this sort of packaging.
The earliest plastic bottles were made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC),
which was replaced, in the early 1990s, by polyethylene terephthalate
(PET). The major problem with PET is that it will not allow the brewer
to put a sufficiently long shelf-life on the contents; usually less than one
month. Apart from the inability to subject the package to pasteurisation,
part of the problem lies with the fact that standard PET is prone to CO,
egress, and O2ingress. To overcome this problem, barriers can be inserted
into the PET fabric. Modern PET bottles are normally tri-layered, with
a central barrier layer surrounded by two layers of virgin PET, but fivelayered (three barrier layers, surrounded by virgin PET) bottles are now
produced. Barriers can be made of re-cycled materials, because they will
not come into contact with the contents of the bottle; they can also be
passive, acting purely as a barrier, or active, which means that
they can absorb 0,. The most common barrier materials are ethyl vinyl
alcohol (EVOH) or Nylon (MXD6). The inability to pasteurise beer in
PET containers seems to have been overcome by the American brewery
Abita, in New Orleans, who have reduced their maximum heat treatment
676
Chapter 9
The 20rhCentury
677
and out into trade). The C02 content of the beer in the bright beer
tank is another critical factor, since it will determine the amount of
condition of that beer when it is in keg, bottle or can.
At this juncture a number of stabilising materials can be added to the
beer in tank in order to maintain or, preferably, increase its stability. Such
materials are principally concerned with the removal of haze-causing
proteins and polyphenols, and in some breweries they may be incorporated into the filters with the filter aid (i.e. prior to the bright beer tank).
Hazes that are thrown after packaging can be caused either by the
growth of microbes (called biological hazes; see Priest and Campbell,
1996), or by the interaction and cross-linking of specific proteins and
certain tannins (polyphenols) in the beer (non-biological). If one removes
one, or both, of these species from the product, then the shelf-life will be
enhanced considerably. The tendency of a beer to throw a non-biological
haze is referred to as its colloidal stability and, it is true to say, that
brewing scientists know far more about the colloidal stability of beer,
than they do about the overall effects of oxygen on the product.
There are a number of ways of removing haze-forming proteins from
beer, one of which is to add tannic acid to the cold-conditioning tank.
The compounds usually used are the natural gallo-tannins extracted
from Chinese gall nuts, or shumac leaves. For certain types of beer this
is ideal, because a slight excess of tannins can give rise to what is referred
to as body. Tannins also impart some antioxidant capability to beer, as
will be discussed later. A second way of reducing protein levels is to add a
proteolytic enzyme, such as papain, which is extracted from the latex of
the pawpaw fruit (Cavica papaya).
Both of these treatments are fairly non-specific and desirable, foamcontributing proteins are removed as well as the haze precursors. This
is not the case with silica hydro gels and xerogels, which have become
increasingly popular with brewers over the last 40 years. It was in 1961
that Stabifix Brauerei-Technik, of Munich, introduced silica gel for beer
stabilisation, and it has proved to be an ideal medium for removing
proteins and protein-tannin complexes from beer. Such compounds are
adsorbed onto the gel, which can then be sedimented out, or filtered out
prior to packaging. Since no chemical reaction is involved, no breakdown products are liberated into the beer, and so silica gel conforms to
the German Purity Law, and to other food regulations. Silica hydrogels
have a water content of more than 50%, whilst xerogels contain only
5% moisture. Silica gels are basically very porous structures, which have
the ability to absorb a variety of macromolecules.
Although only used in the brewery relatively recently, the history of
silica gel actually goes right back to the early days of commercial
Chapter 9
678
brewing, for it was in 1640 that the Dutch chemist van Helmont reported
that he had separated liquefied amorphous silicic acid with alkali, and
separated it out again, as a gel, with mineral acid. He named his gel,
Liquor Silicium. Around the turn of the lgth century, Alexander von
Humboldt found that a gelatinous, inorganic substance was responsible
for a skeletal role in certain plants, notably bamboo. The true inventor
of silica gel was Sir Thomas Graham, who prepared a silica sol; removed
the salt from the sol by dialysis, and finally obtained a gelatinous mass,
which he called silicic acid gel, later shortened to silica gel. In 1897, van
Bemelen recognised its ability to bind gases, vapours and liquids by
adsorption, something that was put to advantage during WWI, when
silica gels were used as filters in gas-masks - the beginning of their use in
industry. Silica gels are also used as a medium for separating proteins,
etc., in biochemistry.
One of the first materials used by brewers to remove polyphenols from
beer was nylon, in the 1950s. This has now been replaced by the threedimensionally cross-linked polymer, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP),
which selectively removes all substances containing the phenolic group.
Being insoluble in beer, PVPP can be dosed into the conditioning tank, in
which case it can only be used once or, it can be used on a filter, in which
case the polymer can be regenerated after use. Most modern stabilisers
contain a mixture of PVPP and silica gel. Some brewers add a factor
to improve the foam stability of their beer, the most commonly used
nowadays being polypropylene glycol alginate. Introduction of N, will
also enhance foam stability. A description of the main methods by which
beer is stabilised is to be found in Kunze (1999).
There are those that argue that sound techniques in the brewhouse
can negate the need for much of the expense involved in brewery conditioning. This is largely true; certainly control over the ingress of oxygen
during the various phases of brewing can cut down on the levels of
oxidised polyphenols in beer, for it is these that preferentially cross-link
with proteins to give hazes. The brewer can also avoid over-sparging (or
using the last runnings from the lauter tun), which will prevent undue
levels of tannins from being extracted into the wort. Once ready for
packaging, bright beer should be introduced into the appropriate container as quickly as possible, ensuring that there is no pick-up of oxygen.
CAMRA - A RESPONSE TO
BREWERY-CONDITIONED BEER
The future for traditional, cask-conditioned beer looked extremely bleak
as 1970 dawned, for it looked, for all the world, as though the British
The 20ihCentury
679
680
Chapter 9
68 1
The 20thCentury
four others that had survived the carnage of such establishments over the
preceding 50 years: the Blue Anchor, Helston, Cornwall; the Three
Tuns, Bishops Castle, Shropshire (first licensed in 1642); the AZZ
Nations, Madeley, Shropshire; and the Old Swan, Netherton, West
Midlands. With the renewed interest in cask (real) ale, these sites
assumed a status akin to Mecca and, although the Miners Arms and
Old Swan have perished, the other three are still with us today. A
year after the opening of the Miners Arms, Bill Urquart, erstwhile
head brewer at the Watney Mann brewery in Northampton (which was
being run down and was demolished over the 1973-1 974 period), started
his own, small commercial brewery in an outbuilding at his home in
Litchborough, near Northampton; the brewing equipment coming
from the near-derelict old Watney Mann site. Bill was soon brewing his
Northamptonshire Bitter to capacity, which was 7-8 barrels per week,
and it became necessary to move to a larger premises. Attempts to secure
another site in Litchborough were thwarted by the local council, so in
1979 the business was sold and relocated to an industrial estate in
nearby Daventry, with Bill Urquart acting as a consultant. In 1983 the
brewery was sold to Liddingtons of Rugby, who were wholesalers and
bottlers. The move to Warwickshire proved fatal, especially as it meant
the demise of the popular Northamptonshire Bitter and the brewery
closed in 1986 which, by coincidence, was the year that I commenced
brewing at the Nethergate Brewery in Clare, Suffolk.
As far as I am able to discern, the Litchborough Brewery was the first
commercial brewery to be established in the 20thcentury, thus reversing a
long distressing succession of brewery closures. Bill Urquarts foresight,
bravery, and relative success, stimulated others to have a go and the
late 1970s saw a spate of brewery launches, some of which, such as
Ringwood (Hampshire) and Butcombe (near Bristol), were mightily
successful and are still happily with us. Over the intervening years many
micro-brewing enterprises have been set up and many have subsequently
vanished. At a conference held in October, 2001, it was reported that
there were some 347 small breweries in the UK, producing anything from
5-150 barrels per week, and that between them they brewed no more
than 1.5% of the traditional draught beer (i.e. real ale) produced in
Britain. It was also stated that 61% of these micro-brewers had opened
since 1992, when the guest ale provision in the governments Beer
Orders came fully into force.
At the present time it is difficult to see how small brewers will fare
in the future; most of them have no tied estate, and their products are
being ignored by the major pub-owning companies, who seem intent on
buying-up much of the existing free-trade properties. The Beer Orders
682
Chapter 9
in their various guises, which were designed to give the consumer more
choice, have clearly not produced the anticipated results, for at the
beginning of the 20thcentury, trade is more restricted than ever before.
What they have done is to irrevocably alter the structure of the UK
industry. Let us briefly consider the facts, as they affect the supply of
beer. Over the years 1966-1 969, the government-appointed Monopolies
Commission investigated the way in which the licensed trade was
supplied with beer; in particular, they were worried about the emergence
of the large brewing companies and their extensive tied estates. Their
1969 report, entitled The SuppZy of Beer, was highly critical of the tied
house system, regarding it as a competitive restraint. The Commission
actually mentioned specific examples of what they considered to be
restrictive trading; the Allied and Bass domination of Birmingham,
and Courages domination of Bristol. It was noted, however, that less
extensive and more localised monopolies (a monopoly was defined as a
circumstance whereby a single brewer held one-third, or more, of the
on-licences) had been operating long before the evolution of the Big
Six and had been an inevitable consequence of the unique British
brewery-tied house. Although the Commission did not like the status quo
regarding the number of brewery-owned on-licences, they felt that there
was nothing that could realistically be done about it.
The Erroll Committee, reporting in 1972, were similarly unenthusiastic
about the tie, and almost as resigned to inertia over the matter, but it
suggested that the licensing system should be relaxed, such that on- and
off-licences were easier to come by. The Committee also recommended
that permitted hours should be more flexible, and that the age limit for
drinking on licensed premises should be lowered from 18 to 17. The
findings of the Erroll Committee were considered far too liberal at the
time, and were unpopular with the government and the general public. In
1973, the Monopolies Commission became the Monopolies and Mergers
Commission (MMC).
In 1989 the MMC completed a two-year enquiry into the British
brewing industry. Its report, again called The Supply of Beer, was highly
critical, and amongst other things, concluded that big national brewers,
by ownership of pubs, and loans to free houses, dominated the trade to the
detriment of consumer choice. They also remarked that during the last
decade, beer prices had risen faster tliaii iiijlation. In real terms, in fact,
the cost of a pint of beer had risen by 15% over the period 1979-1987. The
report proscribed that the tenants of pubs belonging to breweries with a
tied estate of over two thousand on-licences (i.e. the national brewers),
were at liberty to purchase a guest draught beer of their own choice,
from a supplier of their choice. The beer had to be cask-conditioned,
683
not a keg product (a victory for CAMRA, here), or a lager (or a cider).
Furthermore, the national brewers were required, by November 1992, to
sell, or lease free of a tie on products, 50% of those pubs over the magic
figure of two thousand. Thus, if a brewery owned 4,000 pubs, then they
would be required to sell, or lease free of tie, 1,000 of them. It was
anticipated that some 11,000 public houses would become freed in this
manner. Also, from July 1992, tenants would be given security under the
1954 Landlord and Tenant Act.
The response of the national brewers was predictable, they either converted tenancies to managed houses, therefore bringing those outlets
outside of the Beer Orders dictum, or they sold pubs off to the rapidlyemerging pub-owning companies, and then promptly signed agreements
to exclusively supply them with beer! Many of those pubs that did not
justify the salary of a manager were converted from a traditional (say,
three-year) tenancy to long-leasehold. By the end of 1992 it was revealed
that 25% of all national brewers tenants had availed themselves of the
guest beer clause, but that most of them had chosen from a list provided
by their landlords. The overall result of all this was that the market share
of the three largest UK brewers rose from 47% in 1989, to 62% in 1992;
hardly what the MMC had intended. 1992 was also a significant year,
because it heralded the beginning of the European single market, and
with it the gradual evolution of even larger brewing consortia, firstly on a
European scale, but very soon on a global scale.
One positive feature of the 1989 MMC report was that it deterred the
larger brewers from buying out their smaller brethren purely for their tied
outlets. This phenomenon had, in fact, been on the wane somewhat,
since the 1969 Monopolies Commission investigation into the industry.
The various investigations into the industry, culminating in the 1989
report, did much to hasten the decline of vertical integration within the
big brewers. Vertical integration describes a situation whereby a primary
producer maintains control over the distribution and sale of the product.
What, therefore, have the MMC, and the likes, done for UK brewing?
If we leave aside the new micro-brewers then, in 1992 there were
64 brewing companies in the UK, which owned 95 breweries and produced 36.3 million barrels. By the turn of the millennium these numbers
had been reduced to 55 companies, owning 73 breweries producing
35.8 million barrels. The loss in brewing capacity over this period was
7.5 million barrels. This all comes under the name of consolidation
and the process is still continuing, with the smaller (regional) brewers
now coming under increasing cost pressures. The boards of the regionals,
which were historically family-owned companies, are now also under
pressure to realise the value of their property portfolios, something
Chapter 9
684
that includes the site of the brewery (viz. Brakspear). There has been a
massive reduction in tied on-trade by the major brewers, stimulated by
the limits imposed by the Beer Orders. At this point in time, none of the
brewers that were over the limit as far as pub-owning was concerned,
actually own any pubsper se. The pubs that once formed the tied estates
of the mega-brewers, are now owned by pub-owning companies
(pubcos); who would have thought that in 2001, the UKs biggest
pub operator would be a Japanese bank; Nomura. Being largely a cash
business, the modern pub provides quick, high (up to 30%) returns on
newly-invested capital; hence their popularity with City institutions. One
would find it difficult to ascertain who owns what these days!
It is the regional brewers who have remained vertically integrated,
the number of on-licensed premises in their tied estates obviously conforming to MMC guidelines. In 1989, just over 60% of all beer was sold
through brewery-owned houses. By 2001 the split regarding beer sales in
the UK was:
Brewers tied houses, 17%
Pubcos, 16%
Other on-trade (clubs, etc.), 35%
Off-trade (take-home, etc.), 32%.
Take-home sales have quadrupled over the last 25 years. In 1975, they
represented 8% of the total beer sales in the UK; by 1985, this figure had
almost doubled to 15%. Approximately 70% of the take-home trade is
attributable to sales in licensed grocery stores, principally supermarkets.
685
Chapter 9
686
Table 9.1 1 shows that ownership of multiple brewing sites by one brewery
company is nothing new; it also emphasises the degree of contraction
in the industry over the period 1960-1 970. Breweries signifies active
brewing sites, i.e. the number of Brewer for Sale licences issued by
HM Customs & Excise.
The catalyst for merger mania and, indeed, the first step in the
emergence of the UK nationals was the merger of Watneys and Mann,
The 20 Century
687
1900
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
Breweries
Brewery companies
6,447
1,418
840
567
358
177
1,446
559
428
362
247
96
688
Chapter 9
Just before the merger with Bass, Mitchells & Butlers had installed new continental brewing
equipment in their Cape Hill Brewery. It included provision for decoction mashing and lautering.
689
690
Chapter 9
Hanson sold the brewing assets of the group (i.e. Courage) to Elders
IXL, the Australian brewing combine, owners of the Fosters lager brand,
for &I.4 billion. This was not the first attempted incursion into the British
brewing sector for IXL, for they had unsuccessfully made a bid for
Allied-Lyons in November 1985. IXL intended to make Fosters a global
brand, regardless of cost; Watney/Grand Met having introduced the
product into the UK in 1981. The other major Australian lager brand,
Castlernaine X X X X was launched in the UK by Allied-Lyons in 1984, a
fact that may have been behind the Elders interest in them.
The 1980s saw a revival of takeover and merger activity, not amongst
the Big Six, but involving the larger regionals. As before, takeovers
were effected to protect and enhance the barrellages of the acquiring
breweries; only the tied estate of the engulfed brewery was required,
brewery sites themselves were invariably closed straight away. Prominent
names in this latter-day mini merger-mania, were Greenall Whitley,
Boddington, Matthew Brown, and Wolverhampton & Dudley. All this
regional activity resulted in a reduction in choice for the consumer, and
must have been contributory to the outcome of the 1989 MMC report.
The first serious signs that the Big Sixmight be reduced in number
came in 1989, when Elders IXL, who owned Courage, made a bid for
Scottish & Newcastle. Again, this was interpreted as being one way that
Elders could increase the availability of Fosters lager. The bid was
referred to the MMC, who decided (on the same day that their Supply of
Beer report was published) that the merger of the two giants would:
. . result in a reduction of consumer choice and competition between brands,
leading to a large increase in the scope of the control of a single brewer . . . a
reduction in the competition for the supply of the free trade, a restriction of
competition in the market to supply beer to off-licences, and the creation of a
second major brewer, which, together with Bass, would control over 40% of the
supply of beer. . . We have found no sign@cunt advantages to the public interest
arising from the merger to offset these detriments.
LL.
The government, in the guise of the Dept. of Trade and Industry, endorsed the MMC report,
and confirmed their opposition to the Elders (Courage)/Scottish and Newcastle merger. The
brewing industry called the MMC proposals a charter Jor chaos and after much discussion,
the watered-down Beer Orders were finally published in December 1989.
The 20thCentury
69 1
Bass, 7,300
Allied-Lyons, 6,600
Whitbread, 6,500
Grand Met, 6,100
Courage, 5,100
Scottish & Newcastle, 2,300.
The article also revealed that between them they were responsible for
around 75% of UK beer output, and owned 75% of its tied houses.
In 1990, Grand Metropolitan and the Fosters Brewing Group of
Elders IXL (which in Britain meant Courage), both of whom were still
vertically integrated at that point, announced what they described as a
merger of their breweries and their tied estates. There was one difference, however; Fosters (Courage) would run the breweries, and Grand
Met would administer the tied estate, which was run under the name
Inntrepreneur Inns. Inntrepreneur was 50% owned by Grand Met,
and 50% by Elders IXL. Courage were now solely brewers, because, in
effect, this was a pubs for breweries swap. Cynics might suggest
that this was an ingenious way of circumventing the Beers Orders. The
proposal was referred to the Office of Fair Trading, who finally approved
it at the end of March 1991. The manceuvre meant that Courage became
the UKs second largest brewer, with 20% of the market. To Courages
existing breweries at Reading, Bristol and Tadcaster, were added those
from the Fosters group (the remnants of the old Watney Mann empire);
Mortlake, Websters, Ruddles, and Ushers. Fosters also held the U K
licence to brew Holsten and Budweiser beers, as well as Carlsberg Pils to
augment production at Northampton. This situation appertained until
May 1995, when it was announced that Scottish & Newcastle had agreed
to purchase the Courage brewing division from its Australian owners,
with a bid of E425 million. The new company, Scottish Courage, would
replace Bass as Britains largest brewer, with about 29% of UK beer
production; Scottish and Newcastle were no longer the minnows of the
Big Six. Although this deal was heralded as a merger, the new company was actually owned by S and N, and its main administrative centre
was in Edinburgh.
In late 1992, the breweries within the Allied-Lyons group merged with
the UK brewing division of the Danish giant, Carlsberg, to form the
brewing-only conglomerate, Carlsberg-Tetley. This merger had been first
announced in October 1991, but was the subject of an investigation by
the Office of Fair Trading, who did not approve the deal until September
1992. This was a 50-50 joint venture, with both parties contributing
around 5250 million to the pooling of UK brewing and wholesale
692
Chapter 9
resources, which gave the new company 18% of the UK beer market.
As one industry wag reported, this was probably the best merger in the
world.
The pubs that were a part of the Allied-Lyons empire, remained with
that group, as Allied Domecq Inns although, as part of the deal, most of
them (ca. 4,100) were tied to Carlsberg-Tetley products for seven years.
The Allied beer portfolio included Tetley Bitter, one of the UKs leading
ale brands, and Castlemaine XXXXand Skol, as major lager lines (to be
added to Carlsberg, itself). In addition, there were agreements to brew
Tuborg and Lowenbrau. The new company would be responsible for
seven breweries; Carlsberg in Northampton, and the ex-Allied plants at
Alloa, Burton, Leeds, Romford, Warrington and Wrexham. The fate of
the Romford brewery had already been decided, and it was unfortunately
due to close in early 1993.
Whilst the OFT was considering the proposal, an Allied spokesperson
commented, There will be rationalisation, but no brewery closures are
envisaged if the deal goes through. Where has one heard that before?
Within eight years, Carlsberg-Tetley had closed Alloa, Warrington and
Wrexham. In an effort to become number one again in the UK, Bass
made a bid for Carlsberg-Tetley in 1997. Unsurprisingly, on the recommendation of the MMC, this was blocked by the governments Dept. of
Trade and Industry, mainly on the grounds that the resultant company
would have commandeered around 35% of the UK beer market. Pubs,
and other retailing interests were involved, as well. This was a blow to
Bass, but a year later Carlsberg-Tetley sold their Burton brewery to
them. Bass then combined the Carlsberg-Tetley brewery (what was the
old Allsopps site) with their own existing brewery in that town (they were
adjacent) to make the biggest brewery in Britain, with an output of 5.5
million barrels per annum.
Within the space of a few weeks in 2000, two of Britains oldest, and
most respected, brewing dynasties ceased to exist as such, and both
became part of the same global brewing giant (for a while, at least). In
May of that year, Whitbreads brewing business, the Whitbread Beer
Company, was purchased by Interbrew, the Belgian-based international
brewers who were, perhaps, best known in the UK for their ownership of
the Stella Artois premium lager brand. The deal came as no surprise, for
Whitbread had been concentrating on their leisure activities for some
years, and a withdrawal from brewing had been often mooted. Thus,
after 258 years, the Whitbread name would no longer be seen over a
brewery gate. The purchase price was reportedly &400m,and the deal did
not include Whitbreads licence to brew Heineken. With the purchase of
Britains third largest brewer, Interbrew was effectively buying some 10%
693
The 2OZhCentury
of the UK output. For the year to 4thMarch 2000, the Whitbread Beer
Cos. turnover was E 1,116 million, operating profits were E46.5 million,
and at the year end it had net assets of E298.9 million. Interbrew was
buying three breweries (at Magor, Manchester and Samlesbury), and
some well-known ale brands; Boddingtons, Flowers Original, Whitbread
Best Bitter and Gold Label (barley wine). In addition to this, the deal
allowed Interbrew to regain full control of its fast-growing Stella Artois
brand, the number one premium lager in the UK. Stella had been brewed
by Whitbread since 1976, and its sales in the UK had reached 2m barrels
annually. Interbrews slogan was the worlds local brewer. About one
month after the Interbrew take-over, it was announced that the now
ex-Whitbread brewery at Magor had just completed the provision of
additional fermentation and maturation capacity, some 600,000 hl - at a
total cost of E7 million. The extra capacity was primarily required to
accommodate the increasing demand for Stella Artois which, unlike the
majority of keg ales and lagers, requires extended fermentation and
maturation periods. This occasionally caused problems with tank
availability. The latest plant to be commissioned at Magor consisted of
24 x 1,800 stainless cylindro-conical vessels for fermentation/maturation,
and 4 x 4,040 hl capacity maturation vessels. This final stage in the
expansion of brewing facilities at Magor brought the annual capacity
up to 5mhl (3.05m barrels). By the spring of 2001, a non-brewing
Whitbread sold its estate of some 3,000 pubs and bars (comprising 1,710
leased, and 1,288 managed houses) to a company specially formed by
Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE). The sale price was E1.625
billion. From henceforth, Whitbread would concentrate on their hotel
(Travel Inns, Marriott Hotels, etc.), restaurant and leisure businesses
(David Lloyd sports clubs).
Then, in June 2000, Interbrew announced that they had offered E2.3
billion for Bass Brewers (see page 614). Such a move, even though it did
not include Bass tied estate, would have given the Belgian global giant
some 32% of the UK beer market, something that the Competition
Commission (the successor to the MMC) was unlikely to wear. As we
have seen, Interbrew was forced to sell the Carling side of the business,
referred to as Carling Breweries, to Coors, a deal completed in late
2001. Coors paid E1.3 billion, and acquired four breweries; Alton,
Burton, Cape Hill (Birmingham) and Tadcaster, as well as maltings in
Burton and Alloa. The annual barrelage of the package was calculated
at 7 million, and the market share 18.5%, second only to Scottish &
Newcastle. As a result of the purchase, Coors Brewers was formed in
the UK in January 2002, as a subsidiary of the Colorado-based parent
company. Interbrew retained the Bass brand, and the Tennents
694
Chapter 9
695
brands, British brewers have either ignored the lager trend, or followed it havheartedly . . . until it is too late. Today, more than 50% of all the beers consumed
in the UK are lagers, and international brands to boot. Despite optimistic prospects for the UK beer market, there is no future for large national brewers
whose sole claim to fame is that they are doing a good job with other brewers
brands. In case you did not know - thats what Whitbread has been doing for the
past decade.
So what did the 1989 Beer Orders actually do for the consumer?
Remember, the government of the day, led by Mrs Thatcher, wanted to
break up the vertical integration of the Big Six and provide the
consumer with a greater choice. You can judge for yourself whether the
legislation was successful. In the 1980s, six brewers controlled around
75% of UK beer production, and owned 53% of the countrys pubs. In
January 2000 there were four national companies which controlled 84%
of the brewing capacity of the UK; Scottish and Newcastle (Scottish
Courage) had 30% of the market, Bass 25%, Whitbread 15%, and
Carlsberg-Tetley 14%. Britains two large regional brewers, Greene King
and Wolverhampton & Dudley accounted for around lo%, and the 32
family-owned breweries, together with the 350-odd microbreweries held
the remaining 5% of the market. The situation now, after the demise of
Whitbread and Bass, is that four companies; Interbrew, Carlsberg-Tetley,
Scottish & Newcastle and Coors, share an estimated 85% of the UK
output. In effect, the Beer Orders seem to have not done anybody any
favours; something that had been predicted by industry analysts at the
time. The national brewers, with exception of Scottish & Newcastle, have
lost their tied houses, most of which have been incorporated into the
mushrooming Pubcos . This has done the regional brewer no favours,
because he cannot compete, price-wise, for the supply of these chains of
outlets; most of their trade is with the nationals, who possess most of the
branded beers, which seem to be essential for a certain section of the
populace. Certainly the new generation of High Street branded pubs
sell mostly lager, with relatively few traditional hand pumps on view.
Most of the regional and family brewers never bothered to build a
brand, but sold their local bitters through their own small tied estates,
and let the world go around. Of the smaller brewers who have managed
to establish something like a brand, then one may mention Fullers
London Pride, Greene King Abbot and Wadworths 6 X , which are fairly
generally available in the UK.
If the Beer Orders ultimately proved to be singularly unsuccessful in
directing the course of the brewing industry in Britain, then the fiscal
policy of both Conservative and Labour governments has had much the
696
Chapter 9
same effect. Increasing the Excise Duty on beer (and other alcoholic
drinks) has been a favourite ploy of many Chancellors of the Exchequer
over the years and, as a consequence, beer duty in the UK is the highest
in Europe. The discrepancy in duty rates between the UK and our
nearest neighbours, France, has been exacerbated since the inception of
the European Single Market toward the end of 1992. Earlier that year,
the Brewers Society9 called on the Government to reduce beer taxes,
after the industry had just suffered a disastrous year. 1991 had seen a fall
in production of 3.6%, the worst for ten years, and recent large increases
in Excise Duty and VAT had depressed trade generally. The Brewers
Society warned that, with the approach of the Single Market, British
pubs and brewers would be faced with a flood of cheap imports from
Europe (especially France), when personal allowances were increased.
They remarked that when faced with similar problems, the Danish
government reduced duty on beer.
The following figures illustrate the extent of the problem facing the
Government, and the UK brewing industry in particular. In 1988 it was
estimated that some 660,000 hl (ca. 403,300 barrels) of beer were brought
into the UK as personal imports. With the abolition of frontier controls
within the European Union, cross-Channel trade mushroomed. By
1999, personal imports were estimated at 2.6 million hl (ca. 1.58 million
barrels); thus, in ten years, such imports had risen almost four-fold - the
white van syndrome. As I write, the amount of beer coming into the UK
by this route is equivalent to one-third of our total imports. Conversely,
British for personal use shopping represents some 13% of the French
beer market. Each E U national is now permitted to import 110 litres of
beer for personal consumption. As a consequence of illegal importation
of beer, Her Majestys Treasury loses an estimated E500m in duty
annually, which represents around 10% of the total tax receipts from
beer. As we have intimated, part of the problem is the disparity in
taxation between Britain and the other countries in the EU. Since the
Single Market came into being in 1992, beer duty in the participating
countries was supposed to be harmonised and, to this effect, Denmark,
Finland, Ireland and Sweden did make some concession and lower their
duties. Not the UK; duty on beer increased by 17% between 1992 and
1999, at which point the duty on a pint of beer at 5% ABV was 32p, as
compared to 5p for a pint of the same product in France. If one includes
VAT (5p per pint in the UK; l p per pint in France), then we find that
there is a massive difference of 31p per pint across the English Channel.
In 1994 the Brewers Society changed their name to The Brewers and Licensed Retailers
Association. In 2001, the name changed again to The British Beer and Pub Association.
The 20rhCentury
697
By the start of the new millennium, per capita beer consumption in the
UK fell below 100 litres for the first time in living memory. Such a figure
obviously originates from official records, and would not, therefore, take
into account the amount of booze imported illegally. The brunt of the
loss of legitimate business resulting from this nefarious cross-Channel
trade has been chiefly borne by publicans in the southeast of England,
and losses in trade most keenly felt by brewers in that region. In order
to partially redress the balance, Shepherd Neame, a vigorous family
brewery based at Faversham, in Kent, had the novel idea of exporting
their premium bottled beer to France, fully aware that the product would
be smuggled back to the UK. Sheps, who were founded in 1698
(Barker, 1998) are certainly one of the more aggressive and innovative of
the family-owned brewers in the UK, and are one of the few of their ilk
who are capable of competing in this lager-dominated world (in the year
2000, lager represented 52% of the UK output).
As the 20th century came to an end, the worlds ten largest brewing
groups were as shown in Table 9.12.
Companhia de Bebidas das Americas, alias AmBev, was a new name
in the world of global brewing, and was formed from a merger of Brazils
two largest breweries, Antarctica and Brahma, the announcement being
made in July, 1999. As with the regulators in the UK, those in Brazil
attached certain conditions to the deal before it could go ahead; the new
company had to divest itself of five bottling plants, and the Bavaria
brand name. Official approval for the merger was received in April 2000,
giving AmBev control of 70% of the Brazilian beer market (and 40%
of the soft drinks market). The idea of the merger was to form a beverage
concern able to compete on equal terms with the largest players in the
global market, as well as consolidating its presence in the LatinAmerican market. Even more importantly, it would also allow AmBev
Table 9.12 The worlds ten largest brewing companies, as at 31 October 1999
~
Company
Million hl
% Market share
158.0
97.1
90.9
56.0
53.0
53.0
44.0
36.0
36.0
32.0
12.0
7.4
6.9
4.3
4.0
4.0
3.4
2.7
2.7
2.4
698
Chapter 9
to compete with the huge US brewery groups when the Free Trade Zone
of the Americas becomes a reality in 2005.
The volumes depicted in Table 9.12 are, of course, huge, and it might
be appropriate to analyse, in a little more depth, the global volume of
one of those ten companies, Heineken, the figures being for 1999. During
that year, their sales increased 16% to 67.75 hl, the geographical breakdown being as follows (with YOchange over 1998 in parentheses):
Europe, 45.37 million hl (+l8.8%)
North, South and Central America, 6.57 million hl(+7.7%)
Africa, 8.44 million hl (+9.7%)
Asia Pacific, 7.38 million hl(+19.0%).
Volumes from affiliated companies dropped 6.9% to 23.17 million hl, so
overall Heinekens global sales volume rose 9% in 1999 to 90.9 million hl.
This must be compared to a 2% increase in the world beer market as a
whole. In Europe, the breakdown was (all in millions of hectolitres):
Poland, 8.4; France, 8.0; Netherlands, 6.8; Italy, 5.6; Spain, 4.2;
Greece, 3.7; Great Britain, 2.7; Slovakia, 1.4; Bulgaria, 1.4; Ireland, 1.O;
Switzerland, 0.8; Hungary, 0.5, and Others, 0.9.
The path towards becoming a global brewer Ci la 21Stcentury was very
much an untrodden one for British brewing concerns, but one which
Scottish Courage was determined to tread. In March 2000, they
announced a partnership deal with the Danone Group, which owned
Kronenbourg, Frances largest brewer (and much else besides). The
deal, which was, of course, subject to regulatory approval, essentially
meant that the Edinburgh company were purchasing Strasbourg-based
Kronenbourg, as well as the Danone-owned Belgian group, Alken Maes.
The new business was to become a leading European brewer, third only
to Interbrew and Heineken. In the UK, Scottish Courage held some
30% of the beer market, whilst Kronenbourg had around 40% of the
French market. Kronenbourg was the leading lager brand in France;
John Smiths was the leading ale brand in Great Britain. In the early
weeks of 2002, Scottish Courage sought to expand out of their western
European heartland, when they agreed to acquire Hartwall, Finlands
leading beer and soft drinks company, for E1.2 billion in shares. They
were not so much interested in the Finnish market, as they were in the
fact that Hartwall owned a 50% share (with Carlsberg) in Baltic Beverage
Holdings (BBH). BBH had breweries in the Baltic States, Russia and the
Ukraine, and had plans for a new brewery in Samara, east of Moscow
(with a potential 20 million hinterland population). BBH also had a
30% share of the Russian beer market, and brewed that countrys leading
The 20 Century
699
700
Chapter 9
The 20 Century
70 1
702
Chapter 9
703
believe that they are harmful. Within the body, silicic acid combines with
aluminium to form a soluble hydroxyaluminosilicate, which is excreted
via the kidneys. It has, therefore, been suggested that a diet rich in silicic
acid would lead to a reduction in long-term aluminium toxicity. A
small-scale clinical trial has been conducted, and the results suggest that
drinking beer does lead to a diminution of aluminium levels in the body.
One of the most controversial beer-related findings of the very late
20thcentury has been the discovery of a potent phytoestrogen, 8-prenylnaringenin (8PNG), also known as hopein, in hops (Milligan et al.,
1999). Phytoestrogens, which are plant-derived compounds with oestrogenic, or anti-oestrogenic activity, had been reported as being present in
beer some years earlier (Rosenblum et al., 1992), but those compounds
identified were only present in trace amounts. There has been much
debate as to whether these substances are beneficial or not; some studies
indicating that high levels can suppress fertility. Oestrogens, which are
often thought of purely as female hormones, are produced by both the
male and female of the species, and are principally concerned with
regulating matters to do with the reproductive tract, although they also
act on the brain and the cardio-vascular system, as well as exerting an
affect on bone. Phytoestrogens can mimic our natural oestrogens and
interact with them, and are thus of obvious interest, especially since it
has been reported that they may have an ameliorating effect on cancerous
cell proliferation, and that they may inhibit some enzymes associated
with the initiation of cancer. Epidemiologists have noted that peoples in
some Asian countries have a much lower incidence than Western populations of chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, and cancers
of the colon, breast and prostate (Knight & Eden, 1996). Such differences have been attributed to a low intake of dietary phytoestrogens
by Western cultures, where in the UK, for example, about lmg per day is
consumed. Compare this with Japan, where their traditional diet, with a
substantial intake of soybeans, ensures a daily intake of 100 mg of
phytoestrogens, soybeans being an excellent source of these compounds.
It has yet to be proved whether other substances present in soybeans
and soya products are contributory to the apparent healthiness of the
Eastern diet. Levels of phytoestrogens that are associated with the
human diet, even in Japan, are sufficiently low to allay fears of them
being harmful, especially when it is realised that, once in the body, they
are quickly (within a few hours) metabolised and the waste products
excreted. Thus, there should be no long-term accumulative effects.
Experiments with 8PNG have thus far all been in vitro, and any
attempts to carry out in vivo work is hindered by the fact that when it is
introduced into the body, its potency is quickly reduced many-fold.
704
Chapter 9
705
706
Chapter 9
The 20rhCentury
707
708
Chapter 9
has been concluded that this effect cannot be due to ethanol, because
it does not have mutagenic activity at the concentrations found in beer.
To conclude, it is now evident from various epidemiological studies
that a moderate consumption of one or two drinks per day may be
beneficial to health; persons drinking that amount suffer less heart disease than those who are abstemious. This effect applies to both men
and women, and to people from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds,
and most studies concur that it is actually ethanol which is the main
protective agent. In an extensive study of the worldwide literature,
Rimm et al. (1999) concludes that alcohol increases the proportion of
high-density lipoproteins (HDLPs), as opposed to the low density lipoproteins, which are more likely to damage blood vessels. They also
establish that alcohol decreases the likelihood of blood clotting. As a
conclusion, it is stated that a daily intake of 30 g alcohol, in whatever
form, is associated with an 8% increase in HDLPs; a 6.5% increase in
the amount of the protective apolipoprotein A l , and slight reductions
in fibrinogen and other clotting factors. As they say, Overall, this
equated to a 25% reduction in the risk of heart disease. From a brewers
point of view, however, it is disappointing to note that, whilst most
alcoholic beverages can elicit the same advantageous effects, it is the
wine industry, rather than the brewing industry, than receives most
public acclaim. As Baxter (2000) observes, Articles which address the
potential health benefits of alcohol almost always refer to wine, and the
public is only too ready to believe that a glass or two of wine a day is
good for health.
To demonstrate the overriding problem facing the brewing industry,
in terms of public perception, witness an abstract of a recent paper by
Davies and Baer (2002), which starts off by mentioning beverage
alcohol, a general term, and ends by specifically mentioning red wine.
According to the report:
Beverage alcohol affects levels of triglycerides, glucose and insulin in the blood
of post-menopausal women. Women who didnt drink during the test period had
the highest levels of all three of these risk factors for heart disease and type 2
diabetes. Women who had two standard drinks per day had the lowest levels,
while those on one drink a day showed intermediate results. The researchers
attribute the b1oodJinding.s to alcohol per se, but note that other compounds
found in red wine may provide additional protection.
709
REFERENCES
K.H. Hawkins and C.L. Pass, The Brewing Industry: A Study in
Industrial Organisation and Public Policy, Heinemann, London, 1979.
R.B. Weir, The drink trades in The Dynamics of Victorian Business:
Problems and Perspectives to the 1870s, George Allen and Unwin,
London, 1980.
710
Chapter 9
71 1
712
Chapter 9
The 20ihCentury
713
Appendices
NORTHERN
LATE
PASSAGE
GRAVES
forest
mixed mk
MESOLITHIC
e n d
E,Le,vwt
NEOLITHIC /
COPPER AGE
MESOLITHIC
(Rlpdf;3dxftd
GREECE
EB
AOE
EARLY BRONZE
ttnnsition
LATE
CHALCOLITHIC
EARLY
CHALCOLITHIC
NEOLITHIC
PRE POTTERY
Becrinning of fwrming
MESOLITHIC
<transition )
:HALCOLITH IC
(PN.'B')
NEOLITHIC
( PN. 'A 1
POTTERY
(PPN ' B )
(PPN *A')
PRE-POTTERY
NEOLITHIC
* Uruk
II 1
(Jamdat Nasr
EB I
PROTO- URBAN
(Ur-uk / v )
( Ubsr'd)
CHALCOLITHIC
LATE
(Ualaf )
EARLY
CHALCOLITH IC
POTTERY NEOLITUl(
PRE-PmTERY
NEOLITHIC
MESOPOTAMIA
g r o u p s
ASIA MINOR
c o / / e c t i n g
and
MIDDLE/LATE NEO.
f o r e s t s
w a r m in.9
MESOLITHIC
of
(Rasren,
spread
EARLY
H u n t i n g
Post-y/acia/
PREDY NAST IC
groiipS
OF
SCANDI.
AGE
Aclgic
AGE
IRON
MIDDLE
IRON AGE
LATE fRON
OLDER
PI
DI
AGE.
EARLY IRON
LB lit
AGE
LB* LATTE.
LBX BRONZE
BEAKER/LATE CW
TI*L
SLAVS,
BuLGARS,
MAGYARS
AVARS
HUNS,
ROMAN
AGE
lR0,N
La
LATE
Hallstatt B
(rurnfib/dv)
/ial/statt A
Reineckc C
Rcinecke A
BEAKERZoK
L . 1 1 1
L
BADEN
Oricntalrsirtg
ETRUSCAN
E X P A Y toy
VILLANOVAN
IU
KINGOOM OF
ITALY
LATE
BYZANTINE
BYZANTINE
BYZANTINE
EARLY
(Latc Antiqudy)
-ROMAN
-------
HELLENISTIC
ACI-IAEMENID
( P c r s ion)
------.
LY Dl A N
(IRON AQE)
PHRYGIAN/NEO
HITTITE
H lTTf TE
NEW EMPIRE
EAHLY
OLD ASSYRIAN /
QLD BABYLONIAN
C Amorite 1
ISIN-LAMA
UR Bf
AKKA DlAN
DYNASTIC
ISLAMIC
_------
SASANIAN
PARTHIAN
NEOASSYRIAN
dlDDLE ASSYRlAh
& BABYLONIAN
KASSITE/
M I TAN PI IAN
------- ------
HITTITE
OLD KINGDOM
EB Ip
EB III
LATE
EARLY
BYZANTINE
jocktian. CbnTtanttrn
GOTHS &
LOMBARDS
(Late Antrpuity)
ROMAN
-------
ARCHAIC
CLASS1C A L
HELLENISTIC.
ORIENTAL161 N Q
OEOM ETRlC
PRo7T)GEOMETRlC
[as above)
EB
as above)
(local groups
cu u
EMPIRE
LATE ROMAN
U y u s t u , o , Iiadrinn)
EARLY ROMAN
EMPIRE
LATE ETRUSCAN/
ROMAN REPUBLIC
pOtWrYbnowi?n
AGE
Appcninu,
EARLY
BRONZE AGE
ENEOLITIiIC
1.
LB II
LB I
MBH
BY Z A NT 1 NE
Late Anttgutty)
&GE
LATE
3RONZE
GE
(EB/MB)
MO
\RONZE
blIDDLE
E 0 IS2
EB Xt
q n xt-xri )
XXX)
SLAMiC
ROMAN
- _PERIOD
_----
PTOLEMAIC
.fX
- _(Oyn.
_ _ _v --
--
XXV)-
LATE
PERIOD
XXI
PERfOD
(Dyn
_-----
INTERMEDIATE
THIRD
(Dyn. X W N - X X )
KtNGOOM
NEW
-------
SECOND lNTEnMEDlAT PI
(oyn. aifi - xvnt 1
MIDDLE
KINGDOM
I?
81L
Appendices
719
APPENDIX 3
Sketch of a working brewery of the 15"' century, showing mash-tun on the left and
brewing kettle on the right. From a manuscript called Digestum Vetus, of 1461, held in
the town archive at Kampen, Netherlands.
(Reproduced by kind permission of Rob Hoekstra of the Town Archives (Gemeente
Archief), Kampen.)
Appendices
770
APPENDIX 4
John Taylor: The Water Poet
John Taylor (1580-1 653), was a London waterman who, self-styled,
became The Kings Majestys Water Poet. He wrote voluminously, and
his works consisted of 138 separate publications, Born in Gloucester, he
became a waterman in London, before being impressed in the navy,
whence he served at the siege of Cadiz. He then resumed plying on the
Thames, then kept a public house in Oxford, and latterly an inn in Phoenix Alley, Longacre, in London. The most memorable incident in his
career was travelling in 1618 on foot from London to Edinburgh, not
carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat,
drink, or lodging. He took with him a servant on horseback, and contrived to get an extraordinary amount of hospitality, goodwill and good
cheer. He met Ben Jonson at Leith, and from him received a piece of
gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England. He
travelled as far north as Braemar.
In Praise of Ale
Ale is rightly called Nappy, for it will set a nap upon a mans threed bared
eyes when he is sleepy.
It is called Merry-goe-downe, for it slides downe merrily;
It is fragrant to the Scent,
It is most pleasing to the taste;
The flowring and mantling of it (like Chequer work) with the Verdant
smiling of it, is delightful1to the sight,
It is Touching or Feeling to the Brahe and Heart; and (to please the
senses all) it provokes men to singing and mirth, which is contenting to
the Hearing.
The speedy taking of it doth comfort a heavy and troubled minde;
It will make a weeping widow laugh and forget sorrow for her deceased
husband;
It is truly termed the spirit of the Buttry (for it puts spirit into all it
enters);
It makes the footmans Head and heeles so light, that he seems to fly as he
runnes;
It is the warmest lineing of a naked mans Coat;
It satiates and asswageth hunger and cold; with a Toaste it is the poore
mans comfort, the Shepheard, Mower, Plowman, Labourer and
Blacksmiths most esteemed purchase;
Appendices
72 1
It is the Tinkers treasure, the Pedlers Jewell, the Beggars Joy, and the
Prisoners loving Nurse;
It will whet the wit so sharp, that it will make a Carter talke of matters
beyond his reach;
It will set a Bashful1 suiter a woing;
It heates the chill blood of the Aged;
It will cause a man to speake past his owne or any other mans capacity,
or understanding;
It sets an edge upon Logick and Rhetorick;
It is a friend to the Muses;
It inspires the poore Poet, that cannot compasse the price of Canarie or
Gascoigne;
It mounts the Musician above Ecla;
It makes the Balladmaker Rime beyond Reason;
It is a Repairer of decaied Colour in the face;
It puts Eloquence into the Oratour;
It will make the Philosopher talke profoundly, the Scholler learnedly, and
the Lawyer Acute and feelingly.
Ale at Whitsantide, or a Whitsan Church Ale, is a Repairer of decayed
Countrey Churches;
It is a great friend to Truth, for they that drink of it (to the purpose) will
reveale all they knowe, be it never so secret to be kept;
It is an Embleme of Justice, for it allowes and yeelds measure;
It will put courage into a Coward, and make him swagger and fight;
It is a seale to many a good Bargaine;
The Physitian will commend it;
The Lawyer will defend it;
It neither hurts, or kills, any but those that abuse it unmeasurably and
beyond bearing;
It does good to as many as take it rightly;
It is as good as a paire of Spectacles to cleare the eyesight of an old
parish Clarke; and, in Conclusion, it is such a nourisher of Mankinde
that if my mouth were as bigge as Bishopsgate, my Pen as long as a
Maypole, and my Inke a flowing spring, or a standing fishpond, yet I
could not with Mouth, Pen and Inke, speake or write the truth worth
and worthiness of Ale.
Appendices
722
APPENDIX 5
On top of the building is situated the cold-liquor tank or back A, and on the floor below
it the hot-liquor back B. These vessels contain liquor which is to be used for brewing. The
necessary quantity of cold liquor passes from the back A to the back B, where it is raised
to desired temperature. C is the upper part of the grist case, and by it is the elevator, or
other device, which conveys the malt to it. The floor below contains the rest of the gristcase and the mash-tun D. Beneath is the under back E, or receptacle for wort after it
leaves the mash-tun the copper F, where the wort is boiled with hops, and the hop back G,
provided with a false bottom, into which is turned the contents of the copper. The
hopped wort has to be cooled after boiling, and this is partly effected by allowing it to
flow on the cooler H. It is finally cooled to the temperature at which it is decided to start
fermentation by passing it over a refrigerator, and thence to the fermenting round or tuns
which are seen in the fermenting room R. Situated on the same floor as the cooler is the
malt-case J, and below it the malt-mill where the malt is ground L. The ground malt, or
grist, as it is termed in brewing parlance, is conveyed by an elevator to the grist-case C
in the top part of the main building. The steam boilers 0 supply steam for heating the
hot-liquor back, the copper when direct hear is not used, and driving the necessary
machinery. The pumps N raise the water from the well and lift it to the back A. The top
floor above the fermenting room is used for storing malt and hops. On the ground of this
part of the building the racking tanks and machines P, P, for filling the casks with beer,
are placed.
From: Baker (1 905)
Appendices
723
APPENDIX 6
Raw materials
1~
Barley
f-
~ ~
~ ~
, ! ~
Brewing
process
By-products
I
Mills
t
a m
Soent
Cattle cake
Sugar
Soent
Fertilizer
HOPS
Yeast
Fermenting
1
for food
products
Appendics
124
Appendix 7
Explanation of Chronological Signs
Most of the dates in this book are designated by BC (years before
Christ) and AD (years after Christ). Until the advent of radiocarbon
(C) dating after World War 11, one could only date remains by relative
chronology, something that proved almost impossible with the more
ancient artefacts. Radiocarbon dating permitted absolute dating.
Occasionally, the signs bc (lower case BC) and BP (years before present,
i.e. before 1950) are used. These are both uncalibrated I4Cdates, whereas
the BC and cal BP signs denote calibrated 14Cdates . To convert bc and
BC dates to BP and cal BP respectively, add 1950 years. Conversely, to
convert BP and cal BP dates to bc and BC respectively, subtract 1950
years.
Subject Index
Abadiyeh (Egypt), 32
Abbot Adelhardus of Corvey, 305
Abbotsbury (Dorset), 242
Aberdeen, 385
Abingdon Abbey (Oxfordshire), 290
abiogenesis (spontaneous generation),
404406
Abydos (Egypt), 52,53
acculturation, 179, 181
Accum, Frederick, 493498, 503, 507,
596
Adnams & Co., Ltd. (brewers,
Southwold, Suffolk), 685
adulteration of beer, 416-42 1,477,
502-503, 523,524,552,553
A5lfrics Colloquy, 240, 248
ajon, 22,24,25
Akkad/Akkadians, 75,76,78-80,84,
85, 109,120
ale-conner, 284-287, 293, 332, 333
alehoof (Glechoma hederacea L.), 325
ale-stake, 286, 287, 333
ale-wife, 326-330, 331, 349, 531
Alexander the Great, 39,44, 130, 140,
148
Ali Kosh (Iran), 96, 98
Allen, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Allied Breweries (national brewers),
615,616,618,682,688,689
Allied Domecq, 617, 692
Allied-Lyons, 689,690,691, 692
All Nations brew-pub (Madeley,
Shropshire), 68 1
All-Over-Cording (AOC), 146-148,
195, 199,200,207
Allsopp & Co. (brewers, Burton-on-
725
726
Aspergillus oryzae, 29, 57
Assize of Bread and Ale (1267), 285,
292-295,301,330,331,370,378
Assyria/Assyrians, 45, 62, 63, 75, 104,
124, 127, 130, 131, 133, 136, 138,
140-142, 149, 150
Athenaeus, 35,36,45, 104, 111, 158,
159,259
Austro-Bavarian Lager Beer Co.
(Tottenham, London), 608,609,
61 1
Babylon/Babylonians, 8,44, 50,66,
75, 76, 80-83, 87, 106, 108, 112,
117, 120, 121, 124, 131, 134, 138,
140, 141, 174,310,311
Baker, Julian, 597-600
Balbridie timber hall (Deeside), 175,
177, 178
Balfarg/Balbirnie (Fife), 194, 195, 196
el-Ballas, (Egypt), 52
Balling, Carl, 623
Ballynagilly (Ulster), 188
Baltic Beverage Holdings (BBH), 698
banana, 22,24
Banister (Bannister), John, 324
Bantu beer, 20,21,22
Barclay & Co. (Anchor Brewery,
London), 441,448,555
Barclay, Perkins & Co. (Anchor
Brewery, London), 438, 526, 552,
559, 561, 562, 563, 564, 611, 612,
616
Barley (Hordeum spp.), 2,9, 10, 12-20,
29, 33, 3541,43,46-50, 52, 54,
57, 58, 60, 61, 65-70, 77, 78,
81-84,90,91,93-101, 113, 118,
124, 125, 129, 133, 140, 142, 151,
155, 158, 159, 160, 162, 166,
168-174, 177, 179, 183, 189-192,
195-198,203,204,205,214,215,
2 17,218,221-224,228-230,232,
239,242-246,248,255,258,260,
264,270,274,283, 284,293, 295,
318, 320, 321, 324, 333, 342, 352,
354, 355, 358, 378, 390, 395,436,
501, 506, 511, 512, 557, 564, 584,
585, 586, 589,624, 625,632, 633,
,
,
,
~, - 634.635.655.659.700.701.706
Subject Index
cultivated, 2-row (H.distichurn =
H. vulgare subsp. distichurn), 38,
49, 94, 98, 99, 126, 127, 170, 173,
183,215,229,244,512,585,624
cultivated, 6-row (H.hexastichum =
H. vulgare subsp. vulgare), 37,91,
98, 170, 173, 183, 215, 216, 222,
225,229,245,585
hulled, 8, 98, 169, 170, 174, 175,
179, 183, 191,203,214,215,218,
222
husk, 14, 15,48, 70,83, 84,90,94,
95
lax-eared, 6-row, (H.tetrastichum),
37,39,204,244
naked, 173, 175, 179, 183, 191,203,
215
wild, 2-row (H.spontaneum),94,96,
98,99,100, 101, 190
barley wine, 132, 140, 142, 146, 206,
258
barm, 398,399,510,520,521,522
Barnhouse (Stones of Stenness,
Orkney), 197, 199
Barrett, Henry, 594
Bass Charrington (national brewers),
457,614,620,680,682,689
Bass & Co. (brewers, Burton-onTrent), 478, 525-527, 544, 546,
573, 574, 586, 593, 594, 596,
614-616,619,641,689-695
Bass, Mitchells and Butlers (national
brewers), 614, 688, 689.
Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton (brewers,
Burton-on-Trent), 593,614,688
Bateman, George & Son, Ltd.
(brewers, Wainfleet,
Lincolnshire), 679
Batham, Daniel & Son Ltd. (brewers,
Brierley Hill, West Midlands),
685
Bavarian beer, 508-5 14,
Baverstock, James jr., 424,426,427,
428,433,505
Baverstock, James, snr., 426,427,428
Beaven, Dr E.S. (barley-breeder,
Warminster maltings), 584, 585,
633
Becket, Thomas, 288,289, 309
Subject Index
Bede, the Venerable, 233,234,235,
236,237,238
Beer House Act, 1880 (Duke of
Wellingtons), 473,474, 561
Beidha (Jordan), 96
Belgae, 156, 157, 166, 212,224, 226,
230
Bell-Beaker culture, 146, 147, 148,
171,172, 193,198, 199-210,211
Beni-Hasan (Egypt), 104, 105
Benskins Brewery (Watford,
Hertfordshire), 610
beor, 25 l-259,262
Berkeley Castle (Gloucestershire), 303
Bernard, T. & J. (brewers, Edinburgh),
688
Berwick-upon-Tweed
(Northumberland), 299
Berzelius, Jons Jacob, 410,412,414,
415
Beycesultan (Turkey), 127
bid-ale, 343, 345
biological ennoblement, 11
birch (Betulu spp.), 7, 388, 389
birch sap, 7, 8, 522
Birmingham (West Midlands), 525,
570,576, 577,587,614, 682,693
Birmingham University Brewing
School, 629
Bishop, Dr Laurence, 638,642-644,
645
bitter ale, 485, 504, 523, 527,627,674
bitter bean of St Ignatius, 502
bitter nut (nux vomica), 502
Blue Anchor brew-pub (Helston,
Cornwall), 68 1
Boddingtons Brewery Co., Ltd.
(Manchester), 571, 685,690
bog bean (Menyanthes trifoliata L.),
502
Boghazkoy (Turkey), 128
Boghead (Morayshire), 179
bog myrtle, or sweet gale (Myrica gale
L.), 219, 305, 306, 308, 358, 359,
360,361,535
Boorde, Andrew, 323-324,342
Bostock & Co. (brewing sugar
manufacturers, Liverpool), 569
Boston (Lincolnshire), 3 17
727
bottled beer, 396, 398, 399, 503-504,
528, 531, 532, 568, 586, 591,
593-604,607,617,650,670,671,
673,675,676,697,706
PET bottles, 675, 676
PEN bottles, 676
Boulton & Watt (engineers, Soho,
London), 437,440,471,551,552
bouza(h), 46,47,48,49,60, 62, 66,72,
122
Boyle, Robert, 392, 393,429,430,431
Brabant (Belgium), 270, 3 18
brackwort, 356,357
Bradley, Prof. Richard, 42 1
Braes of Rinyo (Rousay, Orkney), 197,
199
braga (bosa),8
bragot, 232,247,258,259,264, 350
Braidwood, Prof. Robert, 4,92,93,94,
99, 119, 170
Brakspear, W.H. & Sons Ltd.
(brewers, Henley-on-Thames,
Oxfordshire), 679-680, 684
Breda (Netherlands), 308
Brehon Laws, 259,260
Bremen (Germany), 271,308
Brewers Company, 296, 300, 301,
302,312,318-322,349,372,377,
382,386,390,540,541,554, 555
Brewers Hall, 300, 377
Brewers and Licensed Retailers
Association (BLRA), 575
Brewers Society, 563, 575, 628,629,
696
Brewing Industry Research
Foundation (BIRF), 628-634,
636,640,641,650,660
brewster, 290,293, 300, 330-333, 365,
366,367
Brickwood & Co. (brewers,
Portsmouth, Hampshire), 593
bride-ale, 299, 344
Brightlingsea (Essex), 337
Brigstock (Northamptonshire), 33 1,
332
Bristol (Avon), 337,476,570, 571,681,
682,691
Bristol Brewery Georges & Co., 571
Bristol United Breweries, 573
728
broom (Sarothamnus scoparius (L.)
Wimmer ex Koch), 417
Brown, Horace Tabberer, 465,477,
478,600,603,628,661
Brown, Matthew (brewers, Blackburn,
Lancashire), 690
Brown & Parry (brewers, London),
441,551-554
Bruges (Belgium), 272
Brunswick (Germany), 387,388, 389,
390
deBryene, Alice, 303
Buchan, Andrew (brewers, Rhymney,
Gwent), 688
Budejovice Brewery (Czech Republic),
627
Bullard & Sons (brewers, Norwich),
57 1
Bullock, Robert (brewers, London), 440
deBurgh, Elizabeth, 299
Burton Abbey (Staffordshire), 294,
295
Burton ale, 436, 524, 525, 527, 528,
529, 530,544
Burton-on-Trent (Staffordshire), 294,
295,361,395,465,477480, 524,
525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 544,
545, 547, 549, 570, 573, 575, 592,
596, 608, 610, 611, 612, 628, 692,
693,694
Burton Union system of
fermentation, 353,481, 528, 529,
530
Bury St.Edmunds (Suffolk), 283, 349,
368,369, 524,593
Butcombe Brewery (nr. Bristol), 681
Cade, Jack, 320
Caesar, Julius, 156, 157, 165, 166,224,
225
Cagniard-Latour, Charles, 4 0 9 4 11,
414,416
Calais (France), 315, 316
calcium oxalate (beerstone), 9 1, 92
Calvert, Felix, (Hour-Glass
Brewhouse, London), 440,441,
539,540
Calvert, John, (Peacock Brewhouse,
London), 440,441,539,540,555
Subject Index
Calvert, Sir William, (Hour-Glass
Brewhouse, London), 439,447,
539
Calvert & Seward (brewers, London),
439,539
Cambrai (France), 270
Cambridge, 297,335,337,633, 634
Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA),
485,678-680,683
Canadian Breweries, 6 13, 6 14
Can Hasan (Turkey), 126, 178
canned beer, 600,612,616,650,670,
673-676
Cannon Brewery (London), 571
Canterbury (Kent), 288,289, 309, 310,
337
Canterbury ale, 289,294, 309
Canterbury Tales, 319, 320
Carling Lager, 613, 614, 615, 618
Carlisle Scheme (State Management
Scheme), 581-584,586,591
Carlsberg Brewery (Copenhagen),
601,602,606,676,691,697
Carlsberg Brewery (Northampton),
617,689,692
Carlsberg Labor at ory (Copenhagen),
628
Carlsberg-Tetley (national brewers),
593,616,617,691,692,695
Carnot cycle, 458459,467
Carre, E.C., 464
Castle & Ames (brewers, Bristol), 439
Castlemaine XXXX Lager, 690, 692
Castle Road Brewery (Scarborough,
Yorkshire), 384
Catal Huyuk (Turkey), 98, 126
Cayonii (Turkey), 96
Celtiberians, 151, 152, 155
Celts, 130, 134, 135, 139, 140, 145,
148, 151-162, 171, 172,202,209,
21 1-218,222-225,226,231,258,
291,306,517,518
Celtic beer, 232, 257
cerea (caelia), 158
cervisia (cerevisia; cervisa), 158, 168,
232,252,254,261,273, 313
cerevisiarii, 283
Charlemagne, 268,304,305
Charles I, 370, 375, 376, 378
Subject Index
729
730
Danzig (Poland), 308
Dartmouth (Devon), 317,532
date juice, 1, 56, 59, 67, 71, 80, 85, 87,
90
date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.), 7,
62, 82, 85,87, 104, 120
Dawson, Ann (brewer, London), 440
decoction mash, 19,20, 610
Defence of the Realm Act (DORA),
579-58 1
Defoe, Daniel, 525, 564
Deir el-Bahri (Egypt), 54
Deir el-Medina (Egypt), 34, 37,43,49,
69,71
Delbriick, Max, 638
Delft (Netherlands), 270,276, 3 15,
316,402,535,537
Denmark, 307,308
Derby ale, 374, 525
Description of England in
Shakespeares Youth, 325, 336,
349,351,353,354,355-357
Deuchar, James (brewer, Montrose,
Angus), 688
Devonshire white ale, 530-533
diastase, 13, 14,20, 57, 500, 501, 514
Dickenson, Joseph (brewer, London),
440
Dimetian Law (Wales), 247
Diocletian, 23 1
Diodorus Siculus, 33, 157, 158, 159,
160,169,229
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 169
Dionysus, 33, 135, 136
Dioscorides, 36, 159,259, 3 11
Dodder (Cuscuta spp.), 3 10, 311
Domesday Book, 282-284,309,310
Dominion Breweries (New Zealand),
639,651
Dorchester beer, 503
Dordrecht (Netherlands), 269, 270,
272,273, 388, 536, 537
Dover (Kent), 343
Dover Castle, 291
Dr.Butlers ale, 379, 380
dredge malt, 284, 395
Dreher, Anton, 626, 627
drinking-horns, 220,250,255
drinking to pegs, 250, 288 .
Subject Index
drunkards cloak, 337, 338, 381
Dublin (Ireland), 264, 266, 267
Dunstan (Archbishop of Canterbury),
250
Duppa, Capt. Geoffrey, 348,368,369,
378
Duttons Blackburn Brewery Ltd.
(Lancashire), 688
Earl of Leicester, 347, 348, 350
East India Company, 156,485,526
Eberdingen-Hochdorf (Celtic brewery
site, Germany), 161, 162
Edgar the Pacific, 249,250
Edinburgh (Midlothian), 385, 527,
592, 606, 611, 614,616,618, 691,
698,720
Edward I, 294,296
Edward 111,294
Edward IV, 349
Edward VI, 323, 336,339
Edward the Confessor, 249,3 10
Egtved tumulus (East Jutland), 219,
220
EgyptlEgyptians, 5, 8, 10, 12, 32-72,
83,92,96,100,102,108-112,117,
119-127, 132, 134, 136, 142, 150,
155, 158, 165, 171, 192, 202, 231,
358
einkorn wheat
(wild, brittle; Triticum boeoticum),
94,96, 100,102, 190
(cultivated, non-brittle; 2?
monococcum), 94,96,97, 100,
102, 126, 127, 173, 174, 176, 177,
183, 190, 191,203,204,222,243
Elders IXL, 690,691
Elgood & Sons Ltd. (brewers,
Wisbech, Cambridgeshire), 685
Elizabeth I, 337, 338, 339, 346-351,
361,366,373
Elliott (brewers, Nottingham), 439
Eltham Palace (London), 323, 345
Elton (Cambridgeshire), 365, 366
Ely (Cambridgeshire), 241, 3 12
Ely ale, 289, 294, 3 12
emmer wheat
(wild, brittle; Triticum dicoccoides),
94,96,97, 100
Subject Index
(cultivated, non-brittle; 7:
dicoccum), 12, 15, 38, 39,40,41,
43,49, 50, 52,60, , 61, 66-70,80,
82-84,94,96-98,100, 102,126,
127, 142, 170, 171, 173, 174,
175-178, 182, 183, 190, 191,204,
214219,222,223,229,232,243
En Besor (Palestine), 5 1, 52, 119
Enfield Lock (Middlesex), 58 1, 582,
584,587
entire butt ale, 486,487,490,492,493
Ephorus of Cyme, 145, 146
Epic of Gilgamesh, 107, 108
Eridu (Iraq), 75
Errol Committee, 682
Erxleben, Christian, 4 16
essentia bina, 417,498
Ethelred the Unready, 250
European Brewery Convention
(EBC), 659
Exeter (Devon), 293,297,337
Farnham (Surrey), 576
Fasset, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Fayum Oasis, and region (Egypt), 39,
43,98
Felinfoel Brewery Co., Ltd. (Llanelli,
Dyfed), 674
Ferguson (brewers, Reading,
Berkshire), 6 10
filtration/filtered beer, 25, 59,65, 86,
89,90,91, 670, 676
Fladbury (Worcestershire), 244
Flanders (Belgium), 270,272,297,
308,315,325,340
Flower & Sons (brewers, Stratford-onAvon, Warwickshire), 67 1
Fosters Brewing Group, 69 1
Fosters Lager, 690
Franchthi Cave (Greece), 190, 191
Fremlins Brewery (Maidstone, Kent),
593
Friesland (Netherlands), 271
Friary Brewery (Guildford, Surrey),
610
frugivory, 3,4, 6
Fuller, Smith & Turner (brewers,
Chiswick, London), 685,695
73 1
732
Graesser, Robert, 605,612
Graham & Co. (brewers, Alloa,
Clackmannanshire), 6 1 1
grains of paradise, 417,418,419,420,
503
Grand Metropolitan Hotels, 549, 550,
617,689,690,69 1
Graveney boat, 309, 310
Great Yarmouth (Norfolk), 3 15, 3 16,
317,565
Green, Alexander (brewer,
Nottingham), 439
Green, John (brewer, Rotherham,
Yorkshire), 439
Green, J.W. (brewer, Luton,
Bedfordshire), 67 1
green vitriol, 417,419,420, 502
Greenhall Whitley & Co. (brewers, St.
Helens, Lancashire), 57 1, 620,
690
Greene, Edward (brewer, Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk), 524
Greene King (brewers, Bury St.
Edmunds, Suffolk), 593,684, 695
Greenwich (Kent), 310, 322, 337, 384
Gretna (Dumfriesshire), 58 1, 582, 583,
584
Groningen (Netherlands), 27 1
Grooved Ware pottery, 194-198, 199
gruit, 269,272,273,274,359,360,530,
532,533,534-537
gruitgeld, 535, 536, 537
gruitrecht, 269,270,272, 359, 535, 536
guilds, 296-302, 322
Guinea pepper, 417,418,420, 503
Guinness, Arthur & Co. (brewers,
Dublin), 439, 572, 574, 594,
615-618,633,680,684,689
Guinness, Edward Cecil (Earl of
Iveagh), 572
Gwentian Law (Wales), 247
Haarlem (Netherlands), 270,273,275,
308,316,317
Hacilar (Turkey), 7,98, 126
Hague, John, 465
Halesowen (Worcestershire), 293
Halifax (Yorkshire), 569
Hallertau (Germany), 304
Subject Index
Hallertauer hop, 306
Hallstatt culture, 151, 153, 154, 161,
162
Hamburg (Germany), 271,272,273,
308, 314, 315, 359, 360, 388, 390,
622
Hammond, Peter (brewer, London),
440
Hammond United Breweries
(Bradford, Yorkshire), 614,687
Hamwih (Southampton), 244
Hanbury & Co. (brewers, London),
44 1,543
Hansen, Emil, 477,478, 600, 601, 602,
603
Hanson Trust, 689
Hare, Richard (brewer, London), 440
Harford & Co. (brewers, London), 441
Harp Lager, 616,617,618,673
Harrison, James, 465
Harrison, William, 336, 351, 353,
356357,358,359,371,393
hartshorn shavings, 503
Hartwall Company (international
brewers, Finland), 698
Harvey & Son Ltd. (brewers, Lewes,
Sussex), 685
Harwood, Ralph (brewer, London),
486,487,490,491,501,539
Hathor, 64, 109, 110, 111
Hattuia (Boghazkoy) (Turkey), 125,
128
Haven of Health, 353, 380
Havering (Essex), 366
haze in beer, 677
Hazelton North (Gloucestershire),
176
Healey, Charles (brewer, Watford,
Hertfordshire), 6 10
heatherlling, 194, 262, 395, 506,
5 15-522
heather ale, 5 15-522
Hecataeus of Miletus, 152
Heineken Company (global brewers,
Holland), 697, 698
Heineken Lager, 618,620,692
help-ale, 345
Helston (Cornwall), 283
Hembury (Devon), 174, 176,222
Subject Index
Hemingford Abbots
(Cambridgeshire), 365, 366
hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), 146, 147,
148,195,209,309
henbane (Hyoscyumus niger L.), 162,
195, 196,312
Henry I, 288
Henry 11,283,288,290
Henry 111,285,292,294,301, 525
Henry V, 285,312
Henry VI, 302
Henry VII, 297,322,334,348
Henry VIII, 323, 325, 326, 327, 333,
334,336,345,347,352,532
Herbarium of Apuleius, 3 11
Hereford, 337
Heriot-Watt University Brewing
School (Edinburgh), 629
Herodotus, 33,41,45, 110, 130, 133,
135, 136, 137,145, 146,149,152
Hierakonpolis (Egypt), 51, 52, 53, 62
high-gravity brewing, 650,655-659
Hittites, 44,45, 118, 125-128, 132,
136, 142, 150,151
Hoare & Co. (brewers, London), 562
Hochdorf (Celtic brewery site,
Germany), 161, 162
Hochstift monastery (Germany), 307
Hodgson, George (brewer, London),
440,526,527,561
Holdens Brewery Co. Ltd.
(Woodsetton, Dudley, West
Midlands), 685
Holland, 268-276, 304, 308, 3 14-3 19,
339, 358, 359, 360, 386, 506,
535-537
Holt, Joseph (brewer, Manchester),
620
honey, 1, 6, 7, 58, 85, 89, 90, 125, 157,
158, 159, 160, 194,208,209,210,
21 1,247,252-255,258,259,327,
358,417,420, 502, 515, 519, 520,
52 1
Hooke, Robert, 401,402
Hop (Humulus lupulus L.), 61, 65, 67,
155,220,269-276,282,289,294,
302,303-326,334,339,340-342,
347,350,352-361,366,371,378,
379,380,381,382,392-398,
733
416420,423,435,436,444,472,
473,474,489,490-502,505,507,
512,513,515,519-521,523,524,
527, 528, 533, 535, 537, 548, 551,
552, 556, 559, 561, 568, 576, 586,
604, 608, 609, 61 1, 622, 627, 628,
629, 630, 631, 632, 651, 657, 658,
659, 663, 664, 666, 667, 669, 694,
699, 700, 703,704, 706, 707, 708,
709
hop extracts, 628,630,666, 669
Hope (brewer, London), 539
Hope and Anchor Brewery (Sheffield,
Yorkshire), 613, 614, 687
hopein (8-prenyl-naringenin [8PNG]),
702-704
hormesis, 6
Horus, 52,699
Houghton-cum-Wyton
(Cambridgeshire), 33 1, 332
Hucks (brewers, London), 439
huckster, 285, 321, 332, 333
huff-cap, 350, 351
Hull (Yorkshire), 337, 525, 570
humulariu, 307
humulone, 704,706, 707
Hurrians, 141, 142
Hydes Anvil Brewery (Manchester),
620
Hywel Dda, 258
Subject Index
734
Ingatestone House (near Brentwood,
Essex), 352-354
Institut fur Technologie der Brauerei
(Weihenstephan, Germany), 628
Institute of Brewing, 478,628, 637
Interbrew (global brewers, Belgium),
614,615, 692,693,694, 695,697,
698
intoxication cult, 2, 130, 131,206,207,
208
invasion hypothesis, 179-1 82
Ipswich (Suffolk), 316,337, 565
isinglass, 490, 553
6-isoprenylnaringenin, 704
Israel, 103, 119-125
Itford Hill (Sussex), 214
Iver (Buckinghamshire), 33 1, 332
Jackson, Humphrey (chemist), 421,
556
jalap, 502
James I, 365, 366, 367, 370, 371, 375,
377,379,383
Janssen, Zaccharius, 40 1
Jarmo (Iraq), 93,94,97, 102
Jeffrey, John & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 611, 614, 687
Jennings Brother (brewers,
Cockermouth, Cumbria), 685
Jericho (Jordan), 98, 183, 184
Joblot, Louis, 404,405
Johnson, Dr. Samuel (lexicographer),
421,427,525,554,556,557,558
Jordan, 103
Jordan, Thomas (brewer, London),
440
Jargensen, Alfred, 603
Joule, James Prescott, 457-462
Joule, John & Sons (brewers, Stone,
Staffordshire), 457, 524, 680
Juellinge grave (Lolland, Denmark),
219,220
Kaffir beer, 20,21,23
Kalevala, 304, 305, 360
Kampen (Netherlands), 308
Karmir-Blur (Armenia), 142, 143
keg beer, 594,600, 631, 650, 670,671,
672.673.674.675.676.682.686
,
Subject Index
Lewisham (Kent), 3 10
Liber Albus (1419), 285,286
Lichfield (Staffordshire), 476,477, 525
Lichfield ale, 543
Liebig, Justus, 410,411,412,413,414,
415,416,459,508,511
Lincoln, 225,298,299, 337
Linde refrigerator, 462,465,467
Lindow Man, 2 17-2 18
Linear band ker amik (LBK), Linear
Pottery culture, 7, 189, 191
liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.), 420,
500,502
Lismore Fields (Buxton, Derbyshire),
175
Litchborough Brewery
(Northamptonshire), 68 1
Liverpool (Lancashire), 569, 570
Livy, 139
London, 283-286,290,294,296,297,
300,301,310,312,31-324,334,
337, 349, 350, 367, 368, 372, 373,
376,377,378,383-387,391,417,
4 18,424,425,428,437442,447,
448,449,450,465,477,482,485,
486,488,489,490,495,499, 503,
504, 507, 523, 525, 526, 529,
538-556,561-565,570-573,575,
581, 592, 595, 596, 607,608, 61 1,
612,614,616,620,685,720
London and Country Brewer, 374,389,
41 7419,422,424,442444,486,
489,491,492493,508,530-531,
532,533
London Patent Office, 392
Long, John, 452,456
Lowenbrau Lager, 692
Lowestoft (Suffolk), 337, 339
Lubeck (Germany), 308
lupulone, 706, 707
Luton (Bedfordshire), 6 18,619,620,
67 1
Lydia, 130-1 31,149
Lynn (Kings Lynn) (Norfolk), 297,
314,315,317,565
Maadi (Egypt), 43
McEwan, William & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 527, 616, 687,688
735
McMullen & Sons (brewers,
Hertford), 620
Machrie Moor (Isle of Arran), 194
Magna Carta, 29 1,292
el-Mahasna (Egypt), 52
Maidstone (Kent), 314, 563, 593
maize (Zea mays L.), 9, 10, 14, 15, 16,
21,27, 28, 118, 119, 524, 584
malt/malting, 10-25,29,46, 53-70,79,
83, 84, 89, 90, 123, 162, 175, 178,
195-199,225,243,244,253-255,
259, 260, 261,264, 274,276, 283,
285,291,292,293,294, 302, 305,
315,321-324,340,342,346-348,
351-356,368,374,378,379,384,
387,389,390,392-399,414-420,
423,428,434,436,437,439,440,
442,443,447,473, 474,475,481,
489-502,506-5 16,520-526,
531-537,542,548, 551,552,553,
556, 559, 561, 564, 565, 568, 569,
584586,611,623,625,629,
633-636,651,655,658,659,660,
699-708
blown malt, 500, 501
Manchester (Lancashire), 457,476,
569, 570, 571, 613, 616, 618, 620,
637,685
mandrake (Mandragora ofjcinarum
L.), 42, 62, 65, 66, 104
manioc, 25,26,27
Mann, Crossman and Paulin (brewers,
London), 523,529,545,562,686
March ale, 350, 352, 396, 397, 398
Mari (Syria), 76, 82, 108, 134
Marischal Street Brewery (Aberdeen),
385
Markham, Gervase, 395-399,594
Marsh, J.L. & Sons ( brewers,
Blandford Forum, Dorset), 593
marsh rosemary (Ledumpalustre L.),
359
Marston, Thompson & Evershed Ltd.
(brewers, Burton-on-Trent), 688
Martin, Benjamin, 426,427,433
Maryport Brewery (Cumbria), 582
Mary, Queen of Scots, 361
Mary Tudor, 345-346
Mascall, Leonard, 340
736
mash-copper, 19,20
mash-mixer, 19,20
mash-tun, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19,52,61,66,
79, 80, 84, 85, 274,276, 352, 396,
398,400,425,443,444,445,447,
470,474,475,479,480,481,492,
495,496,498, 500, 512, 513, 515,
533, 534, 584, 585, 629, 636, 658,
660
Mayer, J.R., 459-460
rnbweje, 22, 24, 25
mead, 7, 125, 159, 162, 168, 194, 195,
202, 208, 209, 21 1, 220,237, 247,
248,251,252, 253, 254,255, 257,
258,259,289
meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria
(L.) Maxim.), 7, 194, 195, 198,
210,211,219
Meket-Re, tomb of (Egypt), 54, 55
Merimde (Egypt), 39,98
Mescan, 261
Mesopotamia/Mesopotamians, 8, 16,
32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 67, 75-80, 83,
84,86, 87, 88, 91, 92,93, 96,
98, 102, 107, 108, 112, 117, 121,
125, 132, 133, 142, 155,202, 311,
358
Meux & Co. (brewers, London), 571
Meux, Henry (brewer, London), 450
Meux, Richard (Griffin Brewery,
London), 440,441,449,45045 1,
552
mild ale, 485, 504, 523, 586, 591, 627,
643,674
millet (various spp.), 8, 14, 15,21, 22,
24, 25,47, 57, 155, 160, 190,215,
239
Miller (global brewers, USA), 697
Miners Arms brew-pub (Priddy,
Somerset), 680, 681
Mitchells & Butlers (Cape Hill
Brewery, Birmingham), 587, 592,
614,616,647,648,649,688
Mitscherlich, Eilhard, 414
Mitanni, 142
Mompesson, Sir Giles, 370, 371
Monopolies and Mergers Commission
(MMC), 682,683,684,690,692,
693
Subject Index
Subject Index
North Mains (Strathallan, Perthshire),
210
Northern Clubs Federation Brewery
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne), 589,688
Norway, 307,308,360,361,372
Norwich (Norfolk), 310, 318, 337,
400,476,477,565,571
737
738
Subject Index
Subject Index
Shears, Daniel, 453
Shepherd Neame Ltd. (brewers,
Faversham, Kent), 697
Shrewsbury (Shropshire), 3 18, 337,
38 1
silica gel, 677
Simonds, H & G. (brewers, Reading,
Berkshire), 563, 593, 687
Simpkiss Brewery (Brierley Hill, West
Midlands), 685
Sinebrychoff Brewery (Helsinki,
Finland), 656
Skara Brae (Orkney Isles), 196, 197,
198
Skelton, John, 327, 329
Skol Lager, 615,616,618,673,692
small beer, 320, 350, 369, 395, 397,
398,401,423,436,470,472,473,
488,489,490,513,533,534
Smith, John (brewer, Tadcaster,
Yorks.), 564
Smith, Samuel (brewer, Tadcaster,
Yorks.), 620
Society for the Preservation of Beer
from the Wood (SPBW), 679
sorghum (Sorghum vulgare (Pers.)) ,
14, 15,21, 22, 23, 57
South African Breweries (SAB), 625,
697
Southampton (Hampshire), 337,428
Southwark (Surrey/London), 312,
314, 318, 319, 320, 360, 372,427,
448,554,555,557,561,612
Southwark ale, 319,320
Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 405
Spanish juice, 501, 502
sparging, 470,47 1,479
Spaten Brewery (Munich), 506,625,
626,627
Spelt (Triticum spelta L.), 38, 49, 8 1,
82, 102, 103, 170, 174, 176,214,
215,216,217,218,220,222,223,
229,243,358
Spot, Wulfric, 294, 295
Sredni Stog culture, 146, 147
Stahl, Georg Ernst, 406,407,411
Stella Artois Lager, 692, 693
Steward & Morse (brewers, Norwich),
565
739
740
Tell Abu Hureyra (Syria), 17,96, 97,
98
Tell Aswad (Syria), 96, 97
Tell el-Amarna (Egypt), 69, 7 1, 97,98,
134
Tell Hadidi (Syria), 79
Tell Halaf (Syria), 109
Tell Mureybet (Syria), 17, 96
Tell es-Sawwn (Iraq), 97,98
temperance movement, 575,578, 589
Tennant Bros. (brewers, Sheffield,
Yorkshire), 689
Tennent, J & R. (brewers, Glasgow),
606,607,611,612,614,615
Tepe Gawra (Iraq), 76,77
The Stumble (Blackwater Estuary,
Essex), 178, 186
Theakston, T & R. (brewers, Masham,
Yorkshire), 584
Thebes (Egypt), 34,42,46, 55, 62, 64,
98, 105
Thenard, Louis Jaques, 408,411
thermometer, 22,424,425,426,434,
436,505,506,623
Thomson, Sir W. (Lord Kelvin),
461462,569
Thornbury (Gloucestershire), 287
Thrace/Thracians, 118, 128, 129,
134-136, 144,157,190
Thrale, Henry (brewer, London), 421,
427, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558,
559
Thrale, Mrs Hester, 421,556,557, 558,
559
Thrale, Ralph (brewer, London), 555,
559
Thrales Anchor Brewery (London),
427,439,448,554-561
Threale, Thomas, 423424
Three Tuns brew-pub (Bishops
Castle, Shropshire), 68 1
Threlfall & Co. (brewers,
Manchester), 57 1
Thule, 160, 161, 258
Thwaites & Co. (brewers, Blackburn),
57 1
Tickell, Henry, 452
Tizard, W.L., 41 5,416,491,498-503,
597
Subject Index
tobacco, 502
tower fermenter, 640, 645-649, 65 1,
652
Truman, Benjamin, 442,539,541,542,
545,546,555,558
Truman, Hanbury (Black Eagle
Brewery, London), 438, 529, 543
Truman, Hanbury & Buxton (Black
Eagle Brewery, London), 540,
549,562,564,571,689
Trumans Brewery (Spitalfields, E.
London), 540-550,555,561, 563,
571,585
Tryon, Thomas, 354,355,393,394,
395,399,594
Tuborg Brewery (Copenhagen), 603
Tuborg Lager, 692
Tusser, Thomas, 340
Ty (Ti), tomb of (Egypt), 53,54
Ugarit (Syria), 127, 132
United Breweries, 614, 687
Ur (Iraq), 75, 77, 86, 87
Urartu/Urartians, 118, 130, 140-142,
143
Ure, Andrew, 453457,508-5 15
Urnfield period, 149, 150-1 5 1, 170
Urquart, William, 68 1
Uruk (Iraq), 75, 76
Utrecht (Netherlands), 270, 535
Vallance, John, 453
van Leewenhoek, Antonj, 401,402,
403,404
van Rijn, L.R., 639
Vaux (brewers, Sunderland, Co.
Durham), 593
Venedotian Law (Wales), 247
victualler-brewer, 327, 366, 368, 369,
383, 385,401,441,476, 477, 570,
574
Vindolanda (Northumberland), 232
von Dusch, T., 406,414
von Helmholtz, H., 414,460
Vortigern, 234, 235
Wadworth & Co. Ltd. (brewers,
Devizes, Wiltshire), 695
Wakefield (Yorkshire), 333
Subject Index
74 1
742
Subject Index
Yorkshire square, 530
Young & Co. (brewers, Wandsworth,
London), 620,685
Younger, William & Co. (brewers,
Edinburgh), 527, 574, 606,607,
610,687
Zagros mountains (Iran), 91, 100, 118
Zeeland (Netherlands), 220, 269, 3 14,
315,317,318,319,360
Zozimus of Panapolis, 45,48,49, 57,
58,60
zythos, 36, 117, 157, 158