Old Medical Writers on Ale. — Adulteration of Ale. — Advantages
of Malt Liquors to Labouring Classes. — Temperance _versus_ Total
Abstinence. — Anecdotes. — Gay’s Ballad . . . 408
APPENDIX. — Pasteur’s Discoveries . . . 441
[Illustration]
{1}
THE CURIOSITIES OF ALE AND BEER.
CHAPTER I.
_INTRODUCTORY._
“For a quart of ale is a dish for a King.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Scene 2.
No doubt it is a very tedious thing
To undertake a folio work on law,
Or metaphysics, or again to ring
The changes on the Flood or Trojan War:
Old subjects these, which Poets only sing
Who think a new idea quite a flaw;
But thirst for novelty can’t fail in liking
The theme of Ale, the aptitude’s so striking.
_Brasenose College Shrovetide Verses._
_SUPPRESSION OF BEER SHOPS IN EGYPT 2,000 B.C. — BREWING IN A TEAPOT.
— ALE SONGS. — DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ALE AND BEER. — ALE-KNIGHTS’
OBJECTION TO SACK. — HOGARTH AND TEMPERANCE. — IMPORTANCE OF ALE TO THE
AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. — SIR JOHN BARLEYCORNE INTRODUCED TO THE READER._
Four thousand years ago, if old inscriptions and papyri lie not, Egypt
was convulsed by the high-handed proceedings of certain persons in
authority who inclined to the opinion that the beer shops were too
many. Think of it, ye modern Suppressionists! ’Tis now forty centuries
since first your theories saw the light, and yet there is not a town in
our happy country without its alehouse.
While those disturbing members of the Egyptian community were waxing
wrath over the beer shops, our savage ancestors probably contented
themselves with such drinks as mead made from wild honey, {2} or cyder
from the crab tree. But when Ceres sent certain of her votaries into
our then benighted land to initiate our woad-dressed forefathers into
the mysteries of grain-growing, the venerable Druids quickly discovered
the art of brewing that beverage which in all succeeding years has been
the drink of Britons.
Of true British growth is the Nectar we boast,
The homely companion of plain boiled and roast,
most truly wrote an Oxford poet, whose name has not been handed down to
posterity.
Almost every inhabitant of this country has tasted beer of some kind or
another, but on the subject of brewing the great majority have ideas
both vague and curious. About one person out of ten imagines that pale
ale consists solely of hops and water; indeed, more credit is given by
most persons to the hop than to the malt. In order to give a proper
understanding of our subject, and at the risk of ruining the brewing
trade, let us then, in ten lines or so, inform the world at large how,
with no other utensils than a tea-kettle and a saucepan, a quart or two
of ale may be brewed, and the revenue defrauded.
Into your tea-kettle, amateur brewer, cast a quart of malt, and on it
pour water, hot, but not boiling; let it stand awhile and stir it. Then
pour off the sweet tea into the saucepan, and add to the tea-leaves
boiling water again, and even a third time, until possibly a husband
would rebel at the weak liquid which issues from the spout. The
saucepan is now nearly full, thanks to the frequent additions from the
tea-kettle, so on to the fire with it, and boil up its contents for an
hour or two, not forgetting to add of hops half-an-ounce, or a little
more. This process over, let the seething liquor cool, and, when at a
little below blood-heat, throw into it a small particle of brewer’s
yeast. The liquor now ferments; at the end of an hour skim it, and lo!
beneath the scum is bitter beer—in quantity, a quart or more. After
awhile bottle the results of your brew, place it in a remote corner of
your cellar, and order in a barrel of XXX. from the nearest brewer.
If the generality of people have ideas of the vaguest on the subject of
brewing, still less do we English know of the history of that excellent
compound yclept ale.
O ale! aurum potabile!
That gildest life’s dull hours,
When its colour weareth shabbily,
When fade its summer flowers.
{3}
Old ballad makers have certainly sung in its praise, but it is a
subject which few prose writers have touched upon, except in the most
superficial manner. Modern song writers rarely take ale as their theme.
The reason is not far to seek. The ale of other days—not the single
beer rightly stigmatised as “whip-belly vengeance,” nor even the doble
beer, but the doble-doble beer brewed against law, and beloved by the
ale-knights of old—was of such mightiness that whoso drank of it, more
often than not dashed off a verse or two in its praise. Now most people
drink small beer which exciteth not the brain to poesy. Could one of
the ancient topers be restored to life, in tasting a glass of our most
excellent bitter, he would, in all likelihood, make a wry face, for
hops were not always held in the estimation they obtain at present.
There is no doubt, however, that we could restore his equanimity and
make him tolerably happy with a gallon or two of old Scotch or Burton
ale, double stout or, better still, a mixture of the three with a
little _aqua vitæ_ added.
In these pages it will be our task, aided or unaided by strong ale as
the case may be, to remove the reproach under which this country rests;
for surely a reproach it is that the history of the bonny nut-brown
ale, to which we English owe not a little, should have been so long
left unwritten.
Now ale has a curious history which, as we have indicated, will be
related anon, together with other matters pertaining to the subject.
At present let us only chat awhile concerning the great Sir John
Barleycorn, malt liquors of the past and present, their virtues, and
importance to the labouring classes. Also may we consider the foolish
ideas of certain worthy but misguided folk, halting now and again,
should we find ourselves growing too serious, to chant a jolly old
drinking song, that the way may be more enlivened. If on reaching the
first stage of our journey you, dear reader, and ourselves remain
friends, let us in each other’s company pass lightly and cheerfully
over the path which Sir John Barleycorn has traversed, and fight again
his battles, rejoicing at his victories; grieving over his defeats—if
any there be. If, on the other hand, it so happens that by the time we
arrive at our first halting place you should grow weary of us—which
the Spirit of Malt forbid!—let us at once part company, friends none
the less, and consign us to a place high up on your bookshelf, or with
kindly words present us to the President of the United Kingdom Alliance.
In accusing modern poets of neglecting to sing the praises of our {4}
national drink, we must not forget that in one place is kept up the
good old custom of brewing strong beer and glorifying it in verse. At
Brasenose College, Oxford, beer of the strongest, made of the best malt
and hops, is brewed once a year, distributed _ad. lib._, and verses are
written in its praise. Mr. Prior, the college butler, to whom is due
the honour of having kept alive the custom for very many years, writes
us[1] that it is proposed to pull down the old college brewery. Should
this happen, Brasenose ale will become a thing of the past.
A fig for Horace and his juice,
Falernian and Massic,
Far better drink can we produce,
Though ’tis not quite so classic—
wrote a Brasenose poet. Alas, that both poets and ale should soon
become extinct!
Among the few prose writers past or present who have taken ale for
their subject, John Taylor, of whom a good deal will be heard in these
pages, stands pre-eminent. His little work, _Drinke and Welcome_,
written some two hundred years ago, and which glorifies ale in a manner
most marvellous, is one of the most curious literary productions
it has ever been our good fortune to read. “Ale is rightly called
nappy,” says the old Thames waterman and innkeeper, “for it will set
a nap upon a man’s threed-bare eyes when he is sleepy. It is called
_Merry-goe-downe_, for it slides downe merrily; It is fragrant to
the _Sent_, it is most pleasing to the _taste_. The flowring and
mantling of it (like chequer worke) with the verdant smiling of it,
is delightefull to the _Sight_, it is _Touching_ or _Feeling_ to the
Braine and Heart; and (to please the senses all) it provokes men to
singeing 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 widowe laugh and forget sorrow for her deceas’d husband.
. . . . It will set a Bashfull Suiter a wooing; It heates the chill
blood of the Aged; It will cause a man to speake past his owne or any
other man’s 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 _Gascoign_; It
mounts the Musician ’bove Eccla; It makes the Balladmaker Rime beyond
Reason; It is a Repairer of a {5} 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 Whitsontide, or a _Whitson Church_ Ale, is a repairer of
decayed Countrey Churches; It is a great friend to Truth; so they that
drinke of it (to the purpose) will reveale all they know, 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 Physittian will
commend it; the Lawyer will defend it; It neither hurts or kils any
but those that abuse it unmeasurably and beyond bearing; It doth 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 or Inke, speake
or write the true worth and worthiness of _Ale_.” Bravo, John Taylor!
He would be a bold man who could lift up his voice against our honest
English nappy, after reading your vigorous lines.
[1] May, 1886. See also pp. 165; 389.
It is not uninteresting to compare this sixteenth century work
with a passage taken from _By Lake and River_, the author of which
rarely loses an opportunity of eulogising beer. Anglers and many
more will cordially agree with Mr. Francis Francis in his remarks.
“Ah! my beloved brother of the rod,” he writes, “do you know the
taste of beer—of bitter beer—cooled in the flowing river? Not you; I
warrant, like the ‘Marchioness,’ hitherto you have only had ‘a sip’
occasionally—and, as Mr. Swiveller judiciously remarks, ‘it can’t be
tasted in a sip.’ Take your bottle of beer, sink it deep, deep in
the shady water, where the cooling springs and fishes are. Then, the
day being very hot and bright, and the sun blazing on your devoted
head, consider it a matter of duty to have to fish that long, wide
stream (call it the Blackstone stream, if you will); and so, having
endued yourself with high wading breeks, walk up to your middle, and
begin hammering away with your twenty-foot flail. Fish are rising,
but not at you. No, they merely come up to see how the weather looks,
and what o’clock it is. So fish away; there is not above a couple of
hundred yards of it, and you don’t want to throw more than about two or
three-and-thirty yards at every cast. It is a mere trifle. An hour or
so of good hard hammering will bring you to the end of it, and then—let
me ask you _avec impressement_—how about that beer? Is it cool? Is it
refreshing? Does it {6} gurgle, gurgle, and ‘go down glug,’ as they
say in Devonshire? Is it heavenly? Is it Paradise and all the Peris
to boot? Ah! if you have never tasted beer under these or similar
circumstances, you have, believe me, never tasted it at all.”
A word or two now as to the distinctions between the beverages known
as ale and beer. Going back to the time of the Conquest, or earlier,
we find that both words were applied to the same liquor, a fermented
drink made usually from malt and water, without hops. The Danes called
it ale, the Anglo-Saxons beer. Later on the word beer dropped almost
out of use. Meanwhile, in Germany and the Netherlands, the use of hops
in brewing had been discovered; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the Flemings having introduced their _bier_ into England,
the word “beer” came to have in this country a distinct meaning—viz.,
hopped ale. The difference was quaintly explained by Andrew Boorde in
his _Dyetary_, written about the year 1542. “Ale,” said Andrew, “is
made of malte and water; and they which do put any other thynge to ale
than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or godesgood, doth sofystical
theyr ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drinke. Ale must have
these propertyes: it must be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy
nor smoky, nor it must have no weft nor tayle. Ale shuld not be dronke
vnder v. dayes olde. Newe ale is vnholsome for all men. And sowre ale,
and deade ale the which doth stande a tylt, is good for no man. Barly
malte maketh better ale then oten malte or any other corne doth: it
doth ingendre grose humoures; but yette it maketh a man stronge.”
OF BERE.
“Bere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water; it is the naturall drynke
for a Dutche man, and nowe of late dayes it is moche vsed in Englande
to the detryment of many Englysshe people; specyally it kylleth
them the which be troubled with the colycke, and the stone, and the
strangulion; for the drynke is a colde drynke; yet it doth make a man
fat, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the Dutche men’s
faces and belyes. If the bere be well serued, and be fyned, and not
new, it doth qualyfy heat of the liquer.”
The distinction between ale and beer as described by Boorde lasted
for a hundred years or more. As hops came into general use, though
malt liquors generally were now beer, the word ale was still retained,
and was used whether the liquor it was intended to designate was {7}
hopped or not. At the present day beer is the generic word, which
includes all malt liquors; while the word ale includes all but the
black or brown beers—porter and stout. The meanings of the words are,
however, subject to local variations. This subject is further treated
of in Chapter VII.
The union of hops and malt is amusingly described in one of the
Brasenose College ale poems:—
A Grand Cross of “Malta,” one night at a ball,
Fell in love with and married “Hoppetta the Tall.”
Hoppetta, the bitterest, best of her sex,
By whom he had issue—the first, “Double X.”
Three others were born by this marriage—“a girl,”
Transparent as _Amber_ and precious as _Pearl_.
Then a son, twice as strong as a Porter or Scout,
And another as “Spruce” as his brother was “Stout.”
_Double_ X, like his Sister, is brilliant and clear,
Like his Mother, tho’ bitter, by no means severe:
Like his Father, _not small_, and resembling each brother,
Joins the spirit of one to the strength of the other.
In John Taylor’s time there seems to have existed among ale drinkers a
wholesome prejudice against wine in general, and more especially sack.
The water poet writes very bitterly on the subject:—
Thus Bacchus is ador’d and deified,
And we _Hispanialized_ and _Frenchifide_;
Whilst _Noble Native Ale_ and _Beere’s_ hard fate
Are like old Almanacks, quite out of date.
Thus men consume their credits and their wealths,
And swallow Sicknesses in drinking healths,
Untill the Fury of the spritefull Grape
Mountes to the braine, and makes a man an Ape.
Another poet wrote in much the same strain:—
Thy wanton grapes we do detest:
Here’s richer juice from Barley press’d.
* * * * * {8}
Oh let them come and taste this beer
And water henceforth they’ll forswear.
Our ancestors seem, indeed, almost to have revered good malt liquor.
Richard Atkinson gave the following excellent advice to Leonard Lord
Dacre in the year 1570: “See that ye keep a noble house for beef and
beer, that thereof may be praise given to God and to your honour.”
The same subject—comparison of sack with ale to the disadvantage of the
former—is still better treated in an old ale song by Beaumont; it is
such a good one of its kind that we give it in full:—
ANSWER OF ALE TO THE CHALLENGE OF SACK.
Come all you brave wights,
That are dubbed ale-knights,
Now set out yourselves in sight;
And let them that crack
In the presence of Sack
Know Malt is of mickle might.
Though Sack they define
Is holy divine,
Yet it is but naturall liquor,
Ale hath for its part
An addition of art
To make it drinke thinner or thicker.
Sack; fiery fume,
Doth waste and consume
Men’s humidum radicale;
It scaldeth their livers,
It breeds burning feavers,
Proves vinum venenum reale.
But history gathers,
From aged forefathers,
That Ale’s the true liquor of life,
Men lived long in health,
And preserved their wealth,
Whilst Barley broth only was rife. {9}
Sack, quickly ascends,
And suddenly ends,
What company came for at first,
And that which yet worse is,
It empties men’s purses
Before it half quenches their thirst.
Ale, is not so costly
Although that the most lye
Too long by the oyle of Barley;
Yet may they part late,
At a reasonable rate,
Though they came in the morning early.
Sack, makes men from words
Fall to drawing of swords,
And quarrelling endeth their quaffing;
Whilst dagger ale Barrels
Beare off many quarrels
And often turn chiding to laughing.
Sack’s drink for our masters,
All may be Ale-tasters,
Good things the more common the better,
Sack’s but single broth,
Ale’s meat, drinke, and cloathe,
Say they that know never a letter.
But not to entangle
Old friends till they wrangle
And quarrell for other men’s pleasure;
Let Ale keep his place,
And let Sack have his grace,
So that neither exceed the due measure.
“Wine is but single broth, ale is meat, drink and cloth,” was a
proverbial saying in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
occurs in many writings, both prose and poetical. John Taylor,
for instance, writes that ale is the “warmest lining of a naked
man’s coat.” “Barley broth” and “oyle of barley” were very common
expressions for ale. “Dagger ale” was very strong malt liquor. The word
“ale-tasters” will be fully explained later on. {10}
The nearest approach in modern times to a denunciation of wine by
an ale-favouring poet occurs in a few lines—by whom written we know
not—cleverly satirising the introduction of cheap French wines into
this country. Cheap clarets command, thanks to an eminent statesman,
a considerable share of popular favour. If unadulterated, they are no
doubt wholesome enough, and suitable for some specially constituted
persons. Let those who like them drink them, by all means.
MALT LIQUOR, OR CHEAP FRENCH WINES.
No ale or beer, says Gladstone, we should drink,
Because they stupefy and dull our brains.
But sour French wine, as other people think,
Our English stomachs often sorely pains.
The question then is which we most should dread,
An _aching belly_ or an _aching head_?
Among famous ale songs of the past, _Jolly Good Ale and Old_, which
has been wrongly attributed to Bishop Still, stands pre-eminent. Of
the eight double stanzas composing the song, four were incorporated
in “a ryght pithy, plesaunt, and merie comedie, intytuled, _Gammer
Gurton’s Nedle_, played on stage not longe ago, in Christe’s Colledge,
in Cambridge. Made by Mr. S——, Master of Art” (1575). According to
Dyer, who possessed a MS., giving the song in its complete form, “it
is certainly of an earlier date,” and could not have been by Mr. Still
(afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells), the Master of Trinity College,
who was probably the writer of the play. The “merrie comedie” well
illustrates the difference of tone and thought which divides those
days from the present, and it is a little difficult to understand how
it could have been produced by the pen of a High Church dignitary. The
prologue of the play is very quaint, it runs thus:—
PROLOGUE.
As Gammer Gurton, with manye a wyde styche,
Sat pesynge and patching of Hodge her man’s briche,
By chance or misfortune, as shee her geare tost,
In Hodge lether bryches her needle shee lost.
When Diccon the bedlam had hard by report,
That good Gammer Gurton was robde in thys sorte,
He quyetlye perswaded with her in that stound,
Dame Chat, her deare gossyp, this needle had found.
Yet knew shee no more of this matter, alas, {11}
Then knoweth Tom our clarke what the Priest saith at masse,
Hereof there ensued so fearfull a fraye,
Mas. Doctor was sent for, these gossyps to staye;
Because he was curate, and esteemed full wyse,
Who found that he sought not, by Diccon’s device.
When all things were tumbled and cleane out of fashion,
Whether it were by fortune, or some other constellation,
Suddenlye the neele Hodge found by the prychynge,
And drew out of his buttocke, where he found it stickynge,
Theyr hartes then at rest with perfect securytie,
With a pot of Good ale they stroake up theyr plauditie.
The song, _Jolly Good Ale and Old_, four stanzas of which occur in the
second act, is a good record of the spirit of those hard-drinking days,
now passed away, in which a man who could not, or did not, consume
vast quantities of liquor was looked upon as a milksop. It is given as
follows in the Comedy:—
Back and syde go bare, go bare,
Booth foote and hande go colde;
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,
Whether it bee newe or olde.
I can not eate but lytle meate,
My stomache is not goode,
But, sure, I thinke, that I can drynk
With him that wears a hood.[2]
Thoughe I go bare, take ye no care,
I am nothynge a colde;
I stuffe my skyn so full within
Of jolly good ale, and olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare, &c., &c.
[3]I love no rost, but a nut-brown toste,
And a crab layde in the fyre;
A lytle bread shall do me stead,
Much bread I not desyre. {12}
No froste nor snow, no winde, I trow,
Can hurte mee if I wolde,
I am so wrapt, and throwly lapt,
Of joly good ale and olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare, &c., &c.
And Tyb, my wife, that as her lyfe
Loveth well good ale to seeke,
Full ofte drinkes shee, tyll ye may see,
The teares run down her cheekes;
Then doth she trowle to mee the bowle[4]
Even as a _mault worme_ shuld
And sayth, sweet hart, I tooke my part
Of this joly good ale, and olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare, &c., &c.
Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,
Even as good fellowes shoulde doe,
They shall not misse to have the blisse
Good ale doth bringe men to:
And all poor soules, that have scoured boules,
Or have them lustely trolde,
God save the lyves of them and their wyves,
Whether they be yonge or olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare, &c., &c.
[2] Alluding to the drunkenness of the clergy.
[3] _Cf_:
“And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Scene 1.
[4] The word “trowle” was used of passing the vessel about, as appears
by the beginning of an old catch:
_Trole_, _trole_ the _bowl_ to me,
And I will _trole_ the same again to thee.
Charles Dibdin the younger has, in a couple of verses, told a very
amusing little story of an old fellow who, in addition to finding that
ale was meat, drink and cloth, discovered that it included friends as
well—or, at any rate, when he was without ale he was without friends,
which comes to much the same thing.
THE BARREL OF HUMMING ALE.
Old Owen lived on the brow of an hill,
And he had more patience than pelf;
A small plot of ground was his labour to till, {13}
And he toiled through the day by himself.
But at night crowds of visitors called at his cot,
For he told a right marvellous tale;
Yet a stronger attraction by chance he had got,
A barrel of old humming ale.
Old Owen by all was an oracle thought,
While they drank not a joke failed to hit;
But Owen at last by experience was taught,
That wisdom is better than wit.
One night his cot could scarce hold the gay rout,
The next not a soul heard his tale,
The moral is simply they’d fairly drank out
His barrel of old humming ale.
For the sake of contrast with the foregoing songs, if for nothing
else, the following poem (save the mark!) by George Arnold, a Boston
rhymster, is worthy of perusal. The “gurgle-gurgle” of the athletic
salmon-fisher, described by Mr. Francis, is replaced by the “idle
sipping” (fancy sipping beer!) of the beer-garden frequenter.
BEER.
Here
With my beer
I sit,
While golden moments flit:
Alas!
They pass
Unheeded by:
And, as they fly,
I,
Being dry,
Sit, idly sipping here
My beer.
The new generation of American poets do not mean, it would appear, to
be confined in the old metrical grooves. Very different in style are
the verses written on ale by Thomas Wharton, in 1748. _A Panegyric on
Oxford Ale_ is the title of the poem, which is prefaced by the lines
from Horace:—
Mea nec Falernæ
Temperant vites, neque Formiani
Pocula colles.
{14}
The poem opens thus:—
Balm of my cares, sweet solace of my toils,
Hail, Juice benignant! O’er the costly cups
Of riot-stirring wine, unwholesome draught,
Let Pride’s loose sons prolong the wasteful night;
My sober evening let the tankard bless,
With toast embrown’d, and fragrant nutmeg fraught,
While the rich draught with oft repeated whiffs
Tobacco mild improves. Divine repast!
Where no crude surfeit, or intemperate joys
Of lawless Bacchus reigns; but o’er my soul
A calm Lethean creeps; in drowsy trance
Each thought subsides, and sweet oblivion wraps
My peaceful brain, as if the leaden rod
Of magic Morpheus o’er mine eyes had shed
Its opiate influence. What though sore ills
Oppress, dire want of chill-dispelling coals,
Or cheerful candle (save the makeweight’s gleam
Haply remaining), heart-rejoicing Ale
Cheers the sad scene, and every want supplies.
There exist, sad to relate, persons who, with the notion of promoting
temperance, would rob us of our beer. Many of these individuals may
act with good motives, but they are weak, misguided bodies who, if
they but devoted their energies to promoting ale-drinking as opposed
to spirit-drinking, would be doing useful service to the State, for
malt liquors are the true temperance drinks of the working classes. The
Bill (for the encouragement of private tippling) so long sought to be
introduced by the teetotal party, was cleverly hit off in _Songs of the
Session_, published in _The World_ some years back:—
* * * * *
If with truth they assure us that liquors allure us,
I don’t think ’twill cure us the taverns to close;
When in putting drink down, sirs, you’ve shut up the Crown, sirs,
You’ll find Smith and Brown, sirs, drunk under the rose.
“Men are slaves to this custom,” you cry; “we can’t trust ’em!”
Very good; then why thrust ’em from scenes where they’re known
If the daylight can’t shame ’em, or neighbours reclaim ’em,
Do you think you can tame ’em in haunts of their own? {15}
And if in Stoke Pogis no publican lodges,
It don’t follow Hodge is cut off from good cheer;
In the very next parish the tap may be fairish,
And the vestry less bearish and stern about beer.
* * * * *
Men in time will refrain when that goes with their grain;
Till it does ’tis in vain that their wills you coerce;
For the man whom by force you turn out of his course,
Without fear or remorse will soon take to a worse.
Of course, in asserting malt liquors to be the temperance drink, or
drink of the temperate, it must be understood that we refer to the
ordinary ales and beers of to-day, in which the amount of alcohol is
small, and which are very different from the potent liquor drank by the
topers of the past, who were rightly designated malt worms.
It has been said that even pigs drank strong ale in those days, but
the only evidence of the truth of that statement is the tradition that
Herrick, a most charming but little read poet, succeeded in teaching a
favourite pig to drink ale out of a jug. Old ale is now out of fashion,
its chief strongholds being the venerable centres of education. We all
know the tale of the don who, about once a week, reminded the butler
of a certain understanding between them, in these words: “Mind, when I
say ‘beer’—_the old ale_.” Ancient writers are full of allusions to the
potent character of the strong ales of their day. Nor are more modern
authors wanting in that respect. Peter Pindar, who wrote during the
reign of George III., when ale was still of a “mightie” character, thus
sings:—
Toper, drink, and help the house—
Drink to every honest fellow;
Life was never worth a louse
To the man who ne’er was mellow.
How it sparkles! here it goes!
Ale can make a blockhead shine;
Toper, torchlike may thy nose
Light thy face up, just like mine.
See old Sol, I like his notion,
With his whiskers all so red;
Sipping, drinking from the ocean,
Boozing till he goes to bed. {16}
Yet poor beverage to regale!
_Simple stuff_ to help his race—
Could he turn the sea to Ale,
How ’twould make him mend his pace!
[Illustration: BEER STREET.]
Hogarth, who was perhaps the most accurate and certainly the most
powerful delineator of mankind’s virtues and vices that the world
has ever seen, has left us in his pictures of “Beer Street” and “Gin
Lane” striking illustrations of the advantages attending the use of
our national beverage, and the misery and want brought about by dram
drinking. In _Beer Street_ everybody thrives, and everything has an
air of prosperity. There is one exception—the pawnbroker, gainer by
the poverty of others. He, poor man, with barricaded doors and {17}
propped-up walls, awaits in terror the arrival of the Sheriff’s
officer, fearing only that his house may collapse meanwhile. Through
a hole in the door which he is afraid to open, a potboy hands him a
mug of ale, at once the cause and consolation of his woes. The bracket
which supports the pawnbroker’s sign is awry, and threatens every
minute to fall. Apart from this unfortunate all else flourishes. The
burly butcher, seated outside the inn with no fear of the Sheriff in
his heart, quaffs his pewter mug of foaming ale, and casts now and
again an eye on the artist who is repainting the signboard. The sturdy
smith, the drayman, the porter and the fishwife—all are well clad and
prosperous. Houses are being built, others are being repaired, and
health and wealth are visible on every side.
Beer! happy produce of our isle,
Can sinewy strength impart,
And wearied with fatigue and toil,
Can cheer each manly heart.
Labour and art upheld by thee,
Successfully advance,
We quaff thy balmy juice with glee;
And water leave to France.
Genius of Health! thy grateful taste
Rivals the cup of Jove,
And warms each English generous breast
With liberty and love.
Look now at the noisome slum where the demon Gin reigns triumphant.
Squalor, poverty, hunger, wretchedness and sin are depicted on
all sides. _Here_ flourish the pawnbroker and the keeper of the
gin-palace—but the picture is too speaking a one to need comment.
GIN.
Gin! cursed fiend with fury fraught,
Makes human race a prey,
It enters by a deadly draught,
And steals our life away.
Virtue and truth, driven to despair,
Its rage compels to fly,
But cherishes with hellish care,
Theft, murder, perjury. {18}
Damn’d cup that on the vitals preys,
That liquid fire contains,
Which madness to the heart conveys,
And rolls it through the veins.
[Illustration: GIN LANE.]
A medical writer of some thirty years ago says:—
“There are well-meaning persons who wish now-a-days to rob, not only
the poor, but the rich man of his beer. I am content to remember
that Mary, Queen of Scots, was solaced in her dreary captivity at
Fotheringay by the brown beer of Burton-on-Trent; that holy Hugh {19}
Latimer drank a goblet of spiced ale with his supper the night before
he was burned alive; that Sir Walter Raleigh took a cool tankard
with his pipe, the last pipe of tobacco, on the very morning of his
execution; and that one of the prettiest ladies with whom I have the
honour to be acquainted, when escorting her on an opera Saturday to the
Crystal Palace I falteringly suggested chocolate, lemonade and vanilla
ices for her refreshment, sternly replied, ‘Nonsense, sir! Get me a
pint of stout immediately.’ If the ladies only knew how much better
they would be for their beer, there would be fewer cases of consumption
for quacks to demonstrate the curability of.”
The question of beer drinking as opposed to total abstinence, is one
intimately connected with the welfare of the agricultural labourer.
The lives of the majority of these persons are, it is to be feared,
somewhat dull and cheerless. From early morn to dewy eve—work; the only
prospect in old age—the workhouse. Weary in mind and body, the labourer
returns to his cottage at nightfall. At supper he takes his glass of
mild ale. It nourishes him, and the alcohol it contains, of so small
a quantity as to be absolutely harmless, invigorates him and causes
the too often miserable surroundings to appear bright and cheerful.
Contentedly he smokes his pipe, chats sociably with his wife, and
forgets for awhile the many long days of hard work in store for him.
Soon the soporific influence of the hop begins to take effect, and the
toiler retires to rest, to sleep soundly, forgetful of the cares of
life.
Then there is Saturday night, when the villagers meet at the alehouse,
not perhaps so much to drink as to converse, and, with church-wardens
in mouth and tankard at elbow, to settle the affairs of the State.
The newspaper, a week old, is produced, and one, probably the village
tailor or maybe the barber, reads passages from it. “A party of fuddled
rustics in a beer-shop,” exclaims the teetotaler, with a sneer. Not
so; one or two may have had their pewter tankards filled more often
than is prudent, but the majority will be moderate, drinking no more
than is good for them. Drunkenness and crime are not the outcome of
the village alehouse; for them, go to the gin-palaces of the towns.
Nothing, we feel certain, more tends to keep our agricultural labourers
from intemperance than the easy means of obtaining cheap but pure beer.
What we may term temperance legislation (unless it be of a criminal
character, punishing excess by fines) will always defeat its own
object. Shut up the alehouses, Sundays or week-days, and the poorer
classes at once take to dram drinking. This subject will be found fully
considered in the last chapter. {20}
One does not hear much now-a-days of that gallant Knight, Sir John
Barleycorn. The song writers of the past were, however, loud in his
praises, and Sir John used to be as favourite a myth with the people of
England as was our patron saint, St. George. Elton’s play of _Paul the
Poacher_ commences with the following charming verses:—
ODE TO SIR JOHN BARLEYCORN.
Though the Hawthorn the pride of our hedges may be,
And the rose our gardens adorn,
Yet the flower that’s sweetest and fairest to me,
Is the bearded Barleycorn.
Then hey for the Barleycorn,
The Bonny Barleycorn,
No grain or flower
Has half the power
Of the Bearded Barleycorn.
Tho’ the purple juice of the grape ne’er find
Its way to the cup of horn,
’Tis little I care—for the draught to my mind,
Is the blood of the Barleycorn.
Then hey, &c.
Tho’ the Justice, the Parson and eke the Squire,
May flout us and hold us in scorn,
Our staunch boon friend, the best Knight in the shire,
Is stout Sir John Barleycorn.
Then hey for John Barleycorn,
The merry John Barleycorn,
Search round and about,
What Knight’s so stout
As bold Sir John Barleycorn?
A whimsical old pamphlet, the writer of which must have possessed
keen powers of observation, is “_The Arraigning and Indicting of Sir
John Barleycorn, Knight_, printed for Timothy Tosspot.” Sir John is
described as of noble blood, well-beloved in England, a great support
to the Crown, and a maintainer of both rich and poor. The trial takes
place at the sign of the “Three Loggerheads,” before Oliver {21} and
Old Nick his holy father. Sir John, of course, pleads not guilty
to the charges made against him, which are, in effect, that he has
compassed the death of several of his Majesty’s loving subjects, and
brought others to ruin. Vulcan the blacksmith, Will the weaver, and
Stitch the tailor, are called by the prosecution, and depose that after
being first friendly with Sir John, they quarrel with him, and in the
end get knocked down, bruised, their bones broken, and their pockets
picked. Mr. Wheatley, the baker, complains that, whereas he was the
most esteemed by Lords, Knights and Squires, he is now supplanted by
the prisoner. Sir John, being called on for his defence, asks that
his brother Malt may be summoned, and indicates that the fault, if
any, lies mostly at Malt’s door. Malt is thereupon summoned, and thus
addresses the Court:—
“My Lords, I thank you for the liberty you now indulge me with, and
think it a great happiness, since I am so strongly accused, that I have
such learned judges to determine these complaints. As for my part,
I will put the matter to the Bench—First, I pray you consider with
yourselves, all tradesmen would live; and although Master Malt does
make sometimes a cup of good liquor, and many men come to taste it, yet
the fault is neither in me nor my brother John, but in such as those
who make this complaint against us, as I shall make it appear to you
all.
“In the first place, which of you all can say but Master Malt can make
a cup of good liquor, with the help of a good brewer; and when it is
made, it will be sold. I pray you which of you all can live without it?
But when such as these, who complain of us, find it to be good, then
they have such a greedy mind, that they think they never have enough,
and this overcharge brings on the inconveniences complained of, makes
them quarrelsome one with another, and abusive to their very friends,
so that we are forced to lay them down to sleep. From hence it appears
it is from their own greedy desires all these troubles arise, and not
from wicked designs of our own.”
_Court._—“Truly we cannot see that you are in the fault. Sir John
Barleycorn, we will show you as much favour that, if you can bring any
person of reputation to speak to your character, the court is disposed
to acquit you. Bring in your evidence, and let us hear what they can
say in your behalf.”
_Thomas the Ploughman._—“May I be allowed to speak my thoughts freely,
since I shall offer nothing but the truth?”
_Court._—“Yes, thou mayest be bold to speak the truth, and no {22}
more, for that is the cause we sit here for; therefore speak boldly,
that we may understand thee.”
_Ploughman._—“Gentlemen, Sir John is of an ancient house, and is come
of a noble race; there is neither lord, knight, nor squire, but they
love his company and he theirs: as long as they don’t abuse him he will
abuse no man, but doth a great deal of good. In the first place, few
ploughmen can live without him; for if it were not for him we should
not pay our landlords their rent; and then what could such men as you
do for money and clothes? Nay, your gay ladies would care but little
for you if you had not your rents coming in to maintain them; and we
could never pay but that Sir John Barleycorn feeds us with money; and
you would not seek to take away his life? For shame! let your malice
cease and pardon his life, or else we are all undone.”
_Bunch the Brewer._—“Gentlemen, I beseech you, hear me. My name is
Bunch, a brewer; and I believe few of you can live without a cup
of good liquor, nor more than I can without the help of Sir John
Barleycorn. As for my own part, I maintain a great charge and keep a
great many men at work; I pay taxes forty pounds a-year to his Majesty,
God bless him, and all this is maintained by the help of Sir John; then
how can any man for shame seek to take away his life?”
_Mistress Hostess._—“To give evidence on behalf of Sir John Barleycorn
gives me pleasure, since I have an opportunity of doing justice to so
honourable a person. Through him the administration receives large
supplies; he likewise greatly supports the labourer, and enlivens his
conversation. What pleasure could there be at a sheep-clipping without
his company, or what joy at a feast without his assistance? I know
him to be an honest man, and he never abused any man if they abused
not him. If you put him to death all England is undone, for there is
not another in the land can do as he can do, and hath done; for he
can make a cripple go, the coward fight, and a soldier feel neither
hunger nor cold. I beseech you, gentlemen, let him live, or else we
are all undone; the nation likewise will be distressed, the labourer
impoverished, and the husbandman ruined.”
_Court._—“Gentlemen of the jury, you have now heard what has been
offered against Sir John Barleycorn, and the evidence that has been
produced in his defence. It you are of opinion that he is guilty of
those wicked crimes laid to his charge, and has with malice prepense
conspired and brought about the death of several of his Majesty’s
loving subjects, you are then to find him guilty; but, if, on the
contrary, you are of {23} opinion that he had no real intention of
wickedness, and was not the immediate, but only the accidental cause of
these evils laid to his charge, then, according to the statute law of
this kingdom you ought to acquit him.”
Verdict—Not Guilty.
A somewhat lengthy extract has been given from the report of the trial,
because the facetious little narrative contains a moral as applicable
at the present time as on the day on which the worthy Knight was
acquitted.
And now, dear reader, your introduction to Sir John Barleycorn being
complete, it is for you, should the inclination be present, to become
acquainted with all that pertains to him, from the barley-wine of the
Egyptians and other nations of the far past to those excellent
beverages in which the people of this country do now delight. On the
way you will meet with strange things and strange people, queer customs
and quaint sayings and songs; you will watch malting and brewing as it
was carried on five hundred years ago; you will stand by while the
Flemings, who have just come to London, brew beer with the assistance
of a “wicked weed called hoppes;” meanwhile Parliament will re-enact
strange sumptuary laws and order that you brew only two kinds of ale or
beer; you will be at times in the bad company of dissolute alewives who
will whisper sad scandals in your ear; fleeing from them, you will find
yourself in a solemn place where lines on stone tell how, when he
lived, he brewed good ale; then being perhaps sad at heart, you shall
pass into the village ale-house and join the ploughboys in their merry
chorus, or sit awhile with the roystering blades in some London tavern;
later you shall see the sign and learn its signification and history,
and delay a moment to read the verses over the door and admire the
quaint architecture and curious carving. In the ale-house you will have
tasted and drank wisely, let it be hoped, of London or Dublin black
beer, of Plymouth white ale, of old Nappy and Yorkshire Stingo, and as
many more as your head can stand.
Then you shall take part in ancient ceremonies—wassailing, Church ales,
bride ales, and the like; the merry sheep-shearers will sing for you,
and for you the villagers shall dance round the ale-stake; then the
old ballad-writers will lay before you their ballads praising ale, and
headed with wood-cuts, humorous, but sometimes fearful to look upon.
Having rested awhile in perusing these relics of the past, the doors of
John Barleycorn’s greatest palaces will fly open before you, and while
exploring these wonders of the present, you will chat pleasantly with
{24} their founders, Dr. Johnson joining in with ponderous remarks on
the brewery of his friend Thrale. The history of porter shall then be
unfolded to you, after which you shall be introduced to the college
butler, who is in the very act of compounding a noble wassail-bowl,
and who, good man, whispers in your willing ear instructions for the
making of a score or more of ale-cups; then the old Saxon leeches and
their successors shall be summoned, and, in a language strange to
modern ears, they shall relate how ale and certain herbs will cure all
diseases; then shall you see a curious but not a wondrous sight—water
passing through holes in teetotal arguments; and lastly the great
French savant shall take you into his laboratory, and shall make you
see in a grain of yeast a world of wonders. Last of all we beg you to
treasure up in your memory these old lines:—
He that buys land buys many stones,
He that buys flesh buys many bones,
He that buys eggs buys many shells,
_But he that buys good ale buys nothing else_.
[Illustration]
{25}
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
“What hath been and now is used by the English, as well since the
Conquest, as in the days of the Britons, Saxons and Danes.”—_Drinke
and Welcome.—Taylor._
“Not of an age, but for all time.”—_Ben Jonson._
_ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF ALE AND BEER_
We must go back several thousand years into the past to trace the
origin of our modern ale and beer. The ancient Egyptians, as we learn
from the _Book of the Dead_, a treatise at least 5,000 years old,
understood the manufacture of an intoxicating liquor from grain. This
liquor they called _hek_, and under the slightly modified form _hemki_
the name has been used in Egypt for beer until comparatively modern
times. An ancient Egyptian medical manual, of about the same date
as the _Book of the Dead_, contains frequent mention of the use of
Egyptian beer in medicine, and at a period about 1,000 years later, the
papyri afford conclusive evidence of the existence even in that early
age, of a burning liquor question in Egypt, for it is recorded that
intoxication had become so common that many of the beer shops had to be
suppressed.
Herodotus, after stating that the Egyptians used “wine made from
barley” because there were no vines in the country, mentions a
tradition that Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, first taught the Egyptians
how to brew, to compensate them for the natural deficiencies of their
native land. Herodotus, however, was frequently imposed upon by the
persons from whom he derived his narrative, and no trace of any such
tradition is to be found elsewhere. Wine was undoubtedly made in Egypt
two or three thousand years before his time. {26}
It is maintained by some that the Hebrew word _sicera_, which occurs
in the Bible and is in our version translated “strong drink,” was
none other than the barley-wine mentioned in Herodotus, and that the
Israelites brought from Egypt the knowledge of its use. Certain it is
that they understood the manufacture of _sicera_ shortly after the
exodus, for we find in Leviticus that the priests are forbidden to
drink wine or “strong drink” before they go into the tabernacle, and in
the Book of Numbers the Nazarenes are required not only to abstain from
wine and “strong drink,” but even from vinegar made from either; and
in all the passages where the word occurs it is formally distinguished
from wine. It may be mentioned in passing, that this word _sicera_ has
been regarded as being the equivalent of the word cider. The passage in
Numbers is translated in Tyndale’s version, “They shall drink neither
wyn ne sydyr,” and it is this rendering that has earned for Tyndale’s
translation the name of the cider Bible.
It seems highly probable that the word _sicera_ signified any
intoxicating liquor other than wine, whether made from corn, honey or
fruit.
In support of the theory that beer was known amongst the Jews, may be
mentioned the Rabbinical tradition that the Jews were free from leprosy
during the captivity in Babylon by reason of their drinking “_siceram
veprium, id est, ex lupulis confectam_,” or _sicera_ made with hops,
which one would think could be no other than bitter beer.
Speaking of this old Egyptian barley-wine, Aeschylus seems to imply
that it was not held in very high esteem, for he says that only the
women-kind would drink it.[5] Evidently the phrase, “to be learned in
all the learning of the Egyptians,” had no reference to a competent
knowledge of brewing. Before leaving the land of the Pharaoh, it may be
mentioned that in that country the labourers still drink a kind of beer
extracted from unmalted barley. A traveller in Egypt some years ago
recorded in one of the London daily papers that his crew on the Nile
made an intoxicating liquor from the fermentation of bread in water; he
says that it was called _boozer_, but whether by himself or crew is not
clear. {27}
[5] Aesch. Supp. 953.
A goodly number of instances may be found in various old Greek writers
of the mention of barley-wine under the various terms of κρίθινον
πεπωκότες οινον,[6] ἐκ κριθῶν μεθυ, βρῦτον ἐκ τῶν κριθῶν, but it does
not appear that beer was ever a popular beverage in Hellas. Further
north, the Thracians, as Archilochus tells, brewed and drank a good
deal of beer.
[6] Hipp. 395. 1, Athen. 1 & 10, Aesch. Fr. 116, Archil. 28.
Among the Greek writers, Xenophon gives the most interesting and
complete account of beer in the year 401 B.C. In describing the retreat
of the Ten Thousand, he tells how, on approaching a certain village in
Armenia which had been allotted to him, he selected the most active of
his troops, and making a sudden descent upon the place captured all the
villagers and their headman. One man alone escaped—the bridegroom of
the headman’s daughter, who had been married nine days, and was gone
out to hunt hares. The snow was six feet deep at the time. Xenophon
goes on to describe the dwellings of this singular people. Their houses
were under ground, the entrance like that of a well, but wide below.
There were entrances dug out for the cattle, but the men used to get
down by a ladder. And in the houses were goats, sheep, oxen, fowls and
their young ones, and all the animals were fed inside with fodder.
And there was wheat, and barley, and pulse, and barley-wine (οἶνος
κρίθινος) in bowls. And the malt, too, itself was in the bowl, and
level with the brim. And reeds lay in it, some long, some short, with
no joints, and when anyone was thirsty he had to take a reed in his
hand and suck. The liquor was very strong, says Xenophon, unless one
poured water into it, and the drink was pleasant to one accustomed to
it. And whenever anyone in friendliness wished to drink to his comrade,
he used to drag him to the bowl, where he must stoop down and drink,
gulping it down like an ox. The inhabitants of the Khanns district of
Armenia, through which Xenophon’s world-famed march was made, still
pursue much the same life as they did more than two thousand years ago.
They live in these curious subterranean dwellings with all their live
stock about them, but, alas! modern travellers aver that they have lost
the art of making barley-wine.
Enough has been said as to the use of beer among Eastern nations to
disprove the theory of the old author of the _Haven of Health_, who
asserts, quoting “Master Eliote” as his authority, that ale was never
used as a common drink in any other country than in “England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Poile.” {28}
Ale or beer was in common use in Germany in the time of Tacitus, and
Pliny, who may have tasted beer while serving in the army in Germany,
says, “All the nations who inhabit the west of Europe have a liquor
with which they intoxicate themselves, made of corn and water (_fruge
madida_). The manner of making this liquor is somewhat different in
Gaul, Spain, and other countries, and it is called by various names;
but its nature and properties are everywhere the same. The people of
Spain in particular brew this liquor so well that it will keep good for
a long time. So exquisite is the ingenuity of mankind in gratifying
their vicious appetites, that they have thus invented a method of
making water itself intoxicate.” Among the many various kinds of drink
so made were _zythum_, _cœlia_, _ceria_, _Cereris vinum_, _curmi_, and
_cerevisia_. All these names, except _zythum_, are probably merely
local variations of one word, whose British representative may be found
in the Welsh _cwrw_.
Turning to the earliest records of the use of malt liquors in this
country, we find that, according to Diodorus Siculus, the Britons made
use of a very simple diet which consisted chiefly of milk and venison.
Their usual drink was water; but upon festive occasions they drank a
kind of fermented liquor, made of barley, honey, or apples, and were
very quarrelsome in their cups. Dioscorides wrote in the first century
that the Britons, instead of wine, use “curmi,” a liquor made from
barley. Pytheas (300 B.C.) said a fermented grain liquor was made in
Thule.
The drinks in use in this island at the time of its conquest by
the Romans seem to have been metheglin, cider, and ale. Metheglin,
or mead, was probably the most ancient and universally used of all
intoxicating drinks among European nations. Cider is in all probability
the next in order of antiquity of the drinks in use amongst our Celtic
predecessors. It was made from wild apples, but its use was probably
not so wide-spread as that of either mead or ale.
The two drinks, mead and cider, are appropriate to nations who have
made but slight advances on the path of civilisation. Tribes of nomads,
or of hunters, would find the wherewithal for their manufacture—the
honey in the hollow tree, the crabs growing wild in the woods. The
manufacture of ale, however, indicates another step forward; it implies
the settlement in particular districts, and the knowledge and practice
of agriculture. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that the
Celtic inhabitants of the midland and northern parts of this country,
at the time of the first Roman attack, knew no drink but mead and
cider; while, in the southern districts, where contact with {29} the
outer world had brought about a somewhat more advanced civilisation
and a more settled mode of life, agriculture was practised, and
_cerevisia_, or ale, was added to the list of beverages.
Given below is a metrical version of the origin of ale. It is put in
this place between the account of the use of ale by the Britons and its
use by the Saxons, because our anonymous poet does not seem to have
quite made up his mind whether he is recording a British or a Saxon
myth. The name of the king would seem to point to a British origin,
whilst some of the gods on whom he calls are Teutonic.
THE ORIGIN OF BEER.
In a jolly field of barley good King Cambrinus slept,
And dreaming of his thirsty realm the merry monarch wept,
“In all my land of Netherland there grows no mead or wine,
And water I could never coax adown this throat of mine.
“Now list to me, ye heathen gods, and eke ye Christian too,
Both Zernebock and Jupiter, and Mary clad in blue;
And mighty Thor the Thunderer, and any else that be,
The one who aids me in my need his servant I will be.”
And as this sinful heathen all in the barley lay,
There came in dreams an angel bright who soft these words did say—
“Arise, thou poor Cambrinus, for even all around,
In the barley where thou sleepest a nectar may be found.
“In the barley where thou sleepest there hides a nectar clear,
Which men shall know in later times as _porter_, _ale_ or _beer_.”
Then in terms the most explicit he “put the monarch through,”
And gave him ere the dream was out the recipe to brew.
Uprose good King Cambrinus and shook him in the sun.
“Away, ye wretched heathen gods—with you I’m quit and done!
Ye’ve left me with my subjects in error and in thirst;
Till in our dreadful dryness we scarce know which is worst.”
It was the good Cambrinus unto his palace went,
And messengers through all the land unto his lords he sent,
“Leave Odin, under pain of death!”—his orders were severe,
Yet touched with mildness—for he sent the recipe for beer. {30}
Oh, then a merry sound was heard of building through the land,
And the churches and the breweries went up on every hand;
For the masons they were hard at work where’er a spot seemed pat,
And some had bricks within their hods, and some within their hats.
In the sister Island are to be found very early references to ale. The
_Senchus Mor_, which contains some of the oldest and most important
of the ancient laws of Ireland, has the following passages in which
mention of this drink occurs:—
“What is a human banquet? The banquet of each one’s feasting-house to
his chief according to his due (_i.e._, the chief’s), to which his
(_i.e._, the tenant’s) deserts entitle him; viz., a supper with ale, a
feast without ale, a feast by day. The feast without ale is divided; it
is distributed according to dignity; the feeding of the assembly of the
forces of a territory, assembled for the purpose of demanding proof and
law, and answering to illegality. Suppers with ale, feasts without ale,
are the fellowship of the Feini.” It is difficult to understand the
ideas contained in these old Erse laws and customs, but the main thing
for the present purpose is the evidence they give that ale was known
and commonly used in Ireland as early as the fifth century.[7]
From the Brehon law tracts it may be gathered that the privileges
of an Irish king included the right to have his ale supplied him
with food;[8] he was also to have a brave army and _an inebriating
ale-house_. The Irish chief is always to have two casks in his house,
one of ale, another of milk; he should also have three sacks—a sack of
malt, a sack of salt, and a sack of charcoal.
[7] The _Senchus Mor_ was composed in the time of Lœghaire, son of
Niall, King of Erin, about A.D. 430, a few years after the arrival
of St. Patrick in Ireland.
[8] Doubtless an allusion to the old _food rents_ once common in
Ireland.
Wales was also to some extent an ale-producing country, and we find in
Anglo-Saxon times Welsh ale frequently alluded to as a luxury. When
_Offa_ renders the lands at _Westbury_ and _Stanbury_ to the church
of Worcester, he accepts at _Westbury_ these _services_: 2 tunne full
of clear Ale, and a cumbe (16 _quarts_) full of smaller Ale, and a
cumbe of Welsh Ale, besides other services. There was a payment to the
said church also out of the lands at _Breodune_ of 3 cuppes full of
Ale, 111 _dolea Brytannicæ cervissiæ_ (_i.e._, casks of British Ale),
and 3 hogsheads of {31} Welsh Ale, _quorum unum fit melle dulcoratum_
(_i.e._, of which one was to be sweetened with honey). Henry, in his
_History of England_, in treating of the drinks used in England and
Wales during five centuries before the Norman Conquest, remarks on
the rarity of the use of ale in Wales at that time. “Mead,” he says,
“was still one of their favourite liquors, and bore a high price; for
a cask of mead, by the laws of Wales, was valued at 120 pence, equal
in quantity of silver to thirty shillings of our present money, and in
efficacy to fifteen pounds. The dimensions of a cask of mead must be
nine palms in height, and so capacious as to serve the King _and one
of his counsellors_ for a bathing tub.” By another law its diameter is
fixed at eighteen palms. The Welsh had also two kinds of ale, called
_common ale_ and _spiced ale_, and their value was thus ascertained
by law—“If a farmer hath no mead (to pay part of his rent) he shall
pay two casks of _spiced ale_, or four casks of _common ale_ for one
cask of mead.” By the same law, a cask of _spiced ale_, nine palms in
height and eighteen palms in diameter, was valued at a sum equal in
efficacy to seven pounds ten shillings of our present money; and a cask
of _common ale_, of the same dimensions, at a sum equal to three pounds
fifteen shillings. This is a sufficient proof that even _common ale_ at
this period was an article of luxury among the Welsh which could only
be obtained by the great and opulent. Wine seems to have been quite
unknown even to the Kings of Wales at this period, as it is not so
much as once mentioned in their laws; though Giraldus Cambrensis, who
flourished about a century after the Conquest, acquaints us that there
was a vineyard in his time, at Maenarper, near Pembroke, in South Wales.
Before leaving the subject of the British use of ale, it will perhaps
amuse some of our readers to find that the very name of Britain has
been derived by some from the word βρῡτον, the Greek for beer. The
following extract from Hearne’s Discourses is a good instance of that
reckless ingenuity in guessing derivations, for which our older school
of philologists was ever so justly famed:—“There is one thing,” he
says, “which upon this occasion the antiquaries should have observed,
and that is our Mault Liquor, called βρῡτον in Athenæus. Which being
so, it is humbly offered to the consideration of more judicious persons
whether our Britannia might not be denominated from βρῡτον, the whole
nation being famous for such sort of drink. ’Tis true, Athenæus does
not mention the Britains among those that drunk mault drink; and
the reason is, because he had not met with any writer that had {32}
celebrated them upon that account, whereas the others that he mentions
to drink it were put down in his Authors. Nor will it seem a wonder,
that even those people he speaks of were not called Britaines from the
said liquor, since it was not their constant and common drink, but was
only used by them upon occasion, whereas it was always made use of in
Britain, and it was looked upon as peculiar to this Island, and other
liquors were esteemed as foreign, and not so agreeable to the nature
of the country. And I have some reason to think that those few other
people that drunk it abroad did it only in imitation of the Britains,
though we have no records remaining upon which to ground this opinion.”
It is rather unfortunate that, in the cause of science, our author did
not inform us what that “some reason to think” of his in fact was.
However, let us honour his patriotism if we may not his learning.
It would appear that ale and beer were different words signifying
the same thing, ale being the Saxon _ealu_ and Danish _öl_, probably
connected with our word oil, and beer being the Saxon _beor_. Horne
Tooke, in his _Diversions of Purley_, says that “ale” is derived from a
Saxon verb _ælan_, which signifies to inflame.
The word “beer” has been the occasion of some ingenuity and not a
little diversity of opinion among the philologists. Goldast derived
it _a pyris_, because (he asserts) beer was first made from pears;
Vossius from the Latin _bibere_, to drink, thus: _Bibere_, _Biber_ and
(_extrito b_) _Bier_; Somner from the Hebrew _Bar_, corn. Probably
the true derivation is that which connects the word with the root
of the verb, to _brew_. However this may be, the connection of the
word barley with the word _beere_—denoting a coarse kind of barley—is
unmistakeable. _Beer_ was originally used to denote the beverage and
also the plant from which it was brewed. _Beere_ or _bigge_ is still to
be found growing in some parts of Scotland and Ireland, but in England
it has given place to the more refined _barley_ (_i.e._, _beer-lec_ or
beer plant).
The attempt to connect the word “yule” with “ale” is probably fanciful,
and may have originated from the use of the word “ale” as denoting not
only the liquor, but also any festival at which it formed the principal
beverage (_e.g._ the Whitsun Ale). Yule or Jule is probably derived,
along with the festival it represents, from the Celts. It was a feast
in honour of the sun, the Celtic name for which was _heol_ or _houl_
and was designed to celebrate the time when the Sun-god, after sinking
to his lowest point in the heavens in mid-winter, begins again to
ascend the sky, ushering in a period of warmth and plenty. When the
Saxons {33} were converted to Christianity, their teachers, instead of
entirely doing away with the older forms of religion, allowed them to
remain, adapting them to the new faith. This was very usual in early
days of Christianity, and thus we find the heathen “Yule” merged in the
great Christian festival of Christmas.
The very ancient Anglo-Saxon poem entitled _Beowulf_, a poem which may
be said to be the earliest considerable fragment of our language now
extant, shows that ale was the chief drink amongst our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors in the far-off days, before they had seized upon this land
of England. It contains a mythological account of the rescue by the
hero Beowulf of his friends from the Grendel, a monster who was
constantly slaughtering and carrying some of them away. The feast is
thus described: “Then was for the sons of the Geats, altogether, a
bench cleared in the beer-hall; there the bold in spirit went to sit;
the thane observed his office, he that in his hand bare the twisted
ale-cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor.” Further on, the Danish
queen comes in to greet the victors. “There was laughter of heroes,
the noise was modulated, words were winsome; Wealtheow, Hrothgar’s
queen, went forth; mindful of their races, she, hung round with gold,
greeted the men in the hall; and the freeborn lady gave the cup first
to the prince of the East Danes; she bade him be blithe at the service
of beer, dear to his people. He, the king, proud of victory, joyfully
received the feast and hall-cup . . .”
That it was customary among our ancestors for the lady of the house
herself to fill the guests’ cups after dinner, may be gathered from the
poem called the _Geste of Kyng Horn_, which in its present form is of
thirteenth century date, but is probably founded upon a much earlier
work. The poem thus describes Rymenhild, the queen and wife of King
Horn, performing this duty:—
Rymenhild ros of benche
Wyn for to schenche;[9]
After mete in sale,[10]
Bothe wyn and ale.
On horn he bar in honde.
So laye was in londe,[11] {34}
Knightes and squier
Alle dronken of the ber.
[9] _Schenche_ = to pour out.
[10] _Sale_ = hall.
[11]
A horn she bare in her hand,
So was the custom in the land.
These lines also show that ale and beer were used at that time as
interchangeable words.
Our Saxon ancestors seem to have made use of several kinds of beverage;
they had wine and mead, cider, which they called _æppelwin_, and
piment, which was a compound of wine, honey, and spices. Ale and beer,
however, seem, to use the quaint words of old Harrison, to have “borne
the brunt in drincking,” and to have formed the national beverage of
the English people from the earliest times to the present day. Ale,
honest English ale, was the general drink, and wine was a luxury of the
rich, as may be gathered from the old Anglo-Saxon dialogue, entitled
_Alfric’s Colloquy_, in which a lad, on being asked what his drink is,
replies, “Ale, if I have it, water, if I have it not.” To the question
why he does not drink wine his answer is, “I am not so rich that I can
buy me wine; and wine is not the drink of children or the weak-minded,
but of the elders and the wise.”
The _Exeter Book_, which contains a collection of Anglo-Saxon songs and
poems, and was presented to the church at Exeter by Bishop Leofric in
the eleventh century, contains one of those curious rhyming riddles so
popular among the Saxons, which were known as _Symposii Ænigmata_. It
is as follows:—
A part of the earth is
Prepared beautifully,
With the hardest,
And with the sharpest,
And with the grimmest
Of the productions of men,
Cut and . . . .
Turned and dried,
Bound and twisted,
Bleached and awakened,
Ornamented and poured out,
Carried afar
To the doors of the people,
It is joy in the inside
Of living creatures,
It knocks and slights
Those, of whom while alive {35}
A long while
It obeys the will,
And expostulateth not,
And then after death
It takes upon it to judge,
To talk variously.
It is greatly to seek,
By the wisest man,
What this creature is.
Those who remember the more elaborate legend of _John Barleycorn_ will
not have far to seek for the solution of this somewhat ponderous riddle.
The Anglo-Saxons, before their conversion to Christianity, believed
that some of the chief blessings to be enjoyed by departed heroes were
the frequent and copious draughts of ale served round to them in the
halls of Odin. Even after the spread of Christianity had dispelled
this heathen notion, all the evidence available seems to point rather
to an enlarged than a diminished consumption of malt liquors. Whether
our forefathers, practically-minded like their descendants, resolved
to make up here upon earth for the loss of the expected joys of which
their new creed had robbed them, it is impossible at this distance
of time to determine; but certain it is that the popularity of our
national beverage has gone on increasing from that day to this.
In these early days rents were not infrequently paid in ale. In 852 the
Abbot of Medeshampstede (Peterborough) let certain lands at Sempringham
to one Wulfred, on this condition, amongst others, that he should each
year deliver to the minster two tuns of pure ale and ten _mittans_
(measures) of Welsh ale. The ale-gafol mentioned in the laws of Ine was
a tribute or rent of ale paid by the tenant to the lord of the manor.
By an ancient charter granted in the time of King Alfred, the tenants
of Hysseburne, amongst other services, rendered six church-mittans of
ale.
Ale was also in olden days frequently liable to the payment of a toll
(_tollester_) to the lord of the manor. In a Gloucestershire manor it
was customary for a tenant holding in villeinage to pay as toll to the
lord gallons of ale, whenever he brewed ale to sell. At Fiskerton, in
Notts, if {36} an ale-wife brews ale to sell she is to satisfy the
lord for _tollester_. In the manor of Tidenham, in Saxon times the
villein is to pay to the lord at the Martinmass six sesters of malt;
and in the same manor, in the reign of Edward I., we find the rent
changed into a toll, the tenant at the later period being bound to
render to the lord 8 gallons of beer at every brewing.
Similarly, wages were in some manors paid in kind. At Brissingham,
Norfolk, the tenants, amongst other services, might perform 125
_ale-beeves_ in the year, _i.e._, carting-days, on which attendance
was not compulsory, but on which the tenants, if they did attend, were
entitled to bread and ale in lieu of wages. The word “bever” still
occurs in some places, denoting a harvest-man’s drink between breakfast
and dinner.
The Saxons and Danes were of a social disposition, and delighted in
forming themselves into fraternities or guilds. An important feature of
these institutions was the meeting for convivial purposes, and their
object was to promote good fellowship among the members. The laws for
the regulation of some of these bodies are still in existence, and
it seems were enforced by fines of honey, or malt, to be used in the
making of mead or ale for the use of the members of the confraternity.
It seems that both clergy and laity were members of certain of the
guilds, at any rate at one period of their history, and allusion is
probably made to these mixed fraternities in the Canons of Archbishop
Walter, A.D. 1200, in which he directs “that clerks go not to taverns
and drinking bouts, for from thence come quarrels, and then laymen beat
clergymen, and fall under the Canon.”
During the Middle Ages ale was the usual drink of all classes of
Englishmen, and the wines of France were a luxury, in general only
consumed by the upper classes. In France, however, wine was the common
drink, and ale a luxury. William Fitz-Stephen, in his Life of Thomas
à Becket, states that when the latter went on an embassy to France,
he took with him two waggons laden with beer in iron-bound casks, as
a present to the French, “who admire that kind of drink, for it is
wholesome, clear, of the colour of wine, and of a better taste.”
As an instance of the fame which English ale had attained abroad in
the twelfth century, may be cited the reply of Pope Innocent III. to
those who were arguing before him the case of the Bishop of Worcester’s
claims against the Abbey of Evesham. “Holy father,” said they, “we have
learnt in the schools, and this is the opinion of our masters, that
there is no prescription against the rights of bishops.” His Holiness’s
reply was blunt and somewhat personal: “Certainly, both you and your
masters had drunk too much English ale when you learnt this.” {37}
A curious extract may here be added as indicative of the fame of
English ale amongst foreigners in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It is taken from a work entitled “_A Relation; or rather
a true account of the Island of England_, A.D. 1500, translated from
the Italian by C. A. Sneyd.” “The deficiency of wine, however,” says
our author, “is amply supplied by the abundance of ale and beer, to
the use of which these people have become so habituated, that at an
entertainment where there is plenty of wine, they will drink them
in preference to it, and in great quantities. Like discreet people,
however, they do not offer them to Italians, unless they should ask
for them, and they think that no greater honour can be conferred,
or received, than to invite others to eat with them, or be invited
themselves; and they would sooner give five or six ducats to provide an
entertainment for a person, than a groat to assist him in any distress.
They are not without vines; and I have eaten grapes from one, and wine
might be made in Southern parts, but it would probably be harsh. The
natural deficiency of the country is supplied by a great quantity of
excellent wines from Candia, Germany, France, and Spain; besides which,
the common people make two beverages from Wheat, Barley, and Oats, one
of which is called beer, and the other Ale; and these liquors are much
liked by them, nor are they disliked by foreigners, after they have
drank them four or six times; they are most agreeable to the palate,
when a person is by some chance rather heated.”
The regulations of the religious houses nearly always make reference to
ale; and it may be inferred from the evidence we possess, that the holy
fathers, who were always strong sticklers for the rights and privileges
of their order, would brook no interference either with the quantity
or quality of their liquor. In the Institutes of the Abbey of Evesham,
drawn up by Abbot Randulf about the year 1223, the directions as to
the diet of the inmates of the Abbey, are of great particularity. The
Prior is to have one measure of ale at supper (except when he shall sup
with the Abbot). Each of the fraternity shall every day receive two
measures of ale, each of which shall contain two pittances, of which
pittances six make up a “sextarium regis.” In the same rules it is laid
down that the monks are to have “two semes of beans from Huniburne,
to make _puddings_ throughout all Lent.” Bean-pudding seems indeed a
mortification of the flesh! Further on we find: “On every day every
two brethren shall have one measure of ale from the cellar, but after
being let blood they shall have one for dinner and another for supper.
The servant who shall let the monks’ blood shall have bread and ale
{38} from the cellar, if he have blooded more than one.” A further
account of the monks as brewers will be found in the succeeding chapter.
The Proverbs of Hendyng (thirteenth century) give good advice as of the
duties of charity and hospitality:—
Gef thou havest bred and ale
Ne put thou nout al in thy male[12],
Thou del hit sum aboute.
Be thou fre of thy meeles,
Wherso me eny mete deles,
Gest thou nout with-oute.[13]
“_Betere is appel y-geve then y-ete,_”
_Quoth Hendyng_.
In the fourteenth century taxes seem to have been occasionally levied
on ale for certain specific purposes. In 1363 the inhabitants of
Abbeville were granted a tax on ale for the purpose of repairing their
fortifications. For each _lotus of ale of gramville_ the tax was one
penny _Parisien_; for each _lotus of god-ale_ the tax was ½d. (Rhymer
2. 712.).
In a curious old poem of the early part of the fourteenth century
entitled _De Baptismo_, by William of Shoreham, it appears to the
poet, necessary to lay down that ale must not be used for purposes of
baptism, but “kende water” (_i.e._, natural water) only. The verse is
as follows:—
Therefore ine wine me ne may,
Inne sithere ne inne pereye,
Ne inne thing that neuere water nes
Thory cristning man may reneye,
Ne inne ale;
For thei hight were water ferst,
Of water neth hit tale.[14]
[12] Male = bag or wallet.
[13]
Whether men give any meat away or no,
Go thou not without (giving).
[14] See p. 401.
This old English requires some little explanation, and may be rendered
thus:—Therefore man may not renounce (his sins) through christening in
wine, in cider, nor in perry, nor in anything that never was water,
nor yet in ale, for though this (_i.e._, ale) was water first, it is
acounted water no longer. {39}
Whilst Christmas, as far as eating was concerned, always had its
specialities, its liquor _carte_ seems even in the thirteenth century
to have been of a very varied character. An old carolist of the period
thus sings (we follow Douce’s translation):—
Lordlings, Christmas loves good drinking,
Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou,
English ale that drives out thinking,
Prince of liquors, old or new,
Every neighbour shares the bowl,
Drinks of the spicy liquor deep;
Drinks his fill without control,
Till he drowns his care in sleep.
_Piers the Ploughman_, a poem by William Longland, written towards the
close of the fourteenth century, contains a curious confession of the
tricks played by the ale-sellers upon their customers:—
I boughte hire Barly heo breuh hit to sulle;
Peni-ale and piriwhit heo pourede to-gedere
For laborers and louh folk that liuen be hem-seluen.
The Beste in the Bed-chaumbre lay bi the wowe,
Hose Bummede therof Boughte hit ther-after,
A galoun for a grote, God wot, no lasse,
Whon hit com in Cuppemel; such craftes me usede.
This, being interpreted, in modern English would read somewhat as
follows:—I bought her barley they brew it to sell; Peny ale (_i.e._,
ale at a penny a gallon) and small perry she poured together for
labourers and poor folk that live by themselves. The best lay in the
bed chamber by the wall, whoso drank thereof bought it (_i.e._, the
penny ale) by the sample (_i.e._, of the best) a gallon for a groat,
God knows, no less, when it came in by cupfulls; such craft I used.
Piers the Ploughman, in describing the scarcity of labour after the
great plague in the fourteenth century and the independence of the
labouring men that arose from the high wages they were enabled to
demand, says that after harvest they would eat none but the finest
bread,
Ne non half-penny Ale In none wyse drynke,
Bote of the Beste and the Brouneste that Brewesters sullen.
* * * * *
Mai no peny-Ale hem paye ne no pece of Bacun, {40}
Bote hit weore Fresch Flesch or elles Fisch y-Friyet,
Both chaud and plus chaud for chele of heore mawe.[15]
[15] As we should say, “hot and hot,” for chill of their stomach.
Chaucer has many references to ale. The Cook, who was no mean
proficient in his proper art, was a judge of ale as well:—
A coke thei hadde with them for the nones,
To boyle the chickens, and the marrie bones,
And pouder marchaunt tarte, and galengale,
Well coude he know a pot of London ale.
The Miller prepares himself to tell his tale aright by swallowing
mighty draughts of the same liquor. He knows he is drunk, and is not
ashamed, thinking it quite sufficient excuse to lay the blame upon that
seductive fluid, “the ale of Southwerk”:—
Now herkeneth, quod the miller, all and some
But first 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.
The two Cambridge students who lodge a night at the miller of
Trompington’s are feasted by their host in this wise:—
The miller the toun his daughter sent
For ale and bred, and roasted hem a goos,
* * * * *
They soupen and they speken of solace,
And drinken ever strong ale at the best.
Abouten midnight wente they to rest.
Before they went, however, they had “dronken all that was in crouke,”
and the miller, who appears to have had the lion’s share, had decidedly
imbibed too much.
Well hath this miller vernished his hed,
Full pale he was, for-dronken, and nought red.
* * * * *
This miller hath so wisely bibbed ale,
That as an hors he snorteth in his slepe.
Geoffrey Chaucer, along with other poets and writers of his times, was
unsparing in his denunciations of the vices of the clergy, their sloth,
gluttony, drunkenness and other grievous lapses.
Thei side of many manir metes,
With song and solas sitting long; {41}
And filleth their wombe, and fast fretes,
And after mete with harp and song,
And hot spices ever among;
And fille their wombe with wine and ale.
Piers the Ploughman, in his _Crede_, which is a satire upon the clergy,
makes the Franciscan say, in contrasting his own order with other
religious bodies:—
We haunten not tavernes, ne hobelen abouten
At merketes and miracles we medeley us never.
The frequent directions to the monks and clergy to abstain from
taverns, from drinking bouts and revels, all point to the necessity
then felt of tightening the bonds of church discipline, and show the
laxity that had prevailed.
John Taylor, the Water Poet, frequently selected ale as his theme, and,
when once mounted on his favourite hobby, soon travelled into such
realms of marvellous history and miraculous philology, that it almost
takes away one’s breath to follow him. The chief work in which he
glorifies our English Ale has for its full title,
DRINKE AND WELCOME
OR THE
FAMOUS HISTORIE
OF THE MOST PART OF DRINKS IN USE NOW IN THE KINGDOMES OF
GREAT BRITTAINE AND IRELAND, WITH AN ESPECIALL DECLARATION
OF THE POTENCY, VERTUE AND OPERATION OF
OUR ENGLISH ALE,
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF ALL SORTS OF WATERS, FROM THE
OCEAN SEA, TO THE TEARES OF A WOMAN.
AS ALSO,
THE CAUSES OF ALL SORTES OF WEATHER, FAIRE OR FOULE, SLEET,
RAINE, HAILE, FROST, SNOWE, FOGGES, MISTS, VAPOURS, CLOUDS,
STORMES, WINDES, THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
COMPILED FIRST IN THE HIGH DUTCH TONGUE BY THE PAINEFULL AND
INDUSTRIOUS “HULDRICKE VAN SPEAGLE, A GRAMMATICALL BREWER
OF LUBECK, AND NOW MOST LEARNEDLY ENLARGED, AMPLIFIED,
AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE AND VERSE
By JOHN TAYLOR.
LONDON
PRINTED BY ANNE GRIFFIN 1637.
{42}
After speaking of cider, perry, &c., the author goes on to speak of
ale, which “hath been and now is used by the English, as well since the
Conquest as in the times of the Brittains, Saxons, and Danes (for the
former-recited drinks are to this day confined to the Principality)
so as we enjoy them onely by a Statute called the courtesie of Wales.
And to perfect any discourse in this I shall onely induce them into
two heads, viz., the unparalleled liquor called Ale with his abstract
Beere; whose antiquity amongst a sort of Northerne pated fellowes, is,
if not altogether contemptible, of very little esteeme; this humour
served the scurrilous pen of a shamelesse writer[16] in the raigne of
King Henry the third; detractingly to inveigh against this unequal’d
liquor. Thus
‘For muddy, foggy, fulsome, puddle, stinking,
For all of these, Ale is the onely drinking.’
[16] Henry D’Avranches.
“Of all the Authors that I have ever yet read, this is the only
one that hath attempted to brand the glorious splendour of that
_Ale-beloved_ decoction; but observe this fellow, by the perpetuall
use of water (which was his accustomed drinke) he fell into such
convulsions and lethargick diseases, that he remained in opinion
a dead man; however, the knowing Physicians of that time, by the
frequent and inward application of _Ale_, not onely recouvered him to
his pristine state of health, but also enabled him in body and braine
for the future, that he became famous in his writings, which for the
most part were afterwards spent with most _Aleoquent_ and _Alaborate_
commendation of that admired and most superexcellent Imbrewage.”
“Some there are,” he says, “that affirme that Ale was first invened
by _Alexander the Great_, and that in his conquests this liquor did
infuse such vigour and valour into his souldiers. Others say that
famous Physician of Piemont (named _Don Alexis_) was the founder of it.
But it is knowne that it was of that singular use in the time of the
_Saxons_ that none were allowed to brewe it but such whose places and
qualities were most _Eminent_, insomuch that we finde that one of them
had the credit to give the name of a _Saxon_ Prince, who in honour of
that rare quality, he called _Alle_. Some _ale_adge that it being our
drinke when our land was called _Albion_, that it had the name of the
countrey; _Twiscus_ in his _Euphorbinum_ will have it from _Albanta_ or
_Epirus_, _Wolfgang Plashendorph_ of _Gustenburg_, saies that _Alecto_
(one of the three furies) gave the receipt of it to _Albumazar_, a
Magician, and he (having _Aliance_ {43} with _Aladine_, the Soldan at
_Aleppo_) first brew’d it there, whereto may be _Aleuded_, the story
how _Alphonsus_ of _Scicily_, sent it from thence to the battell of
_Alcazar_. My Authour is of Anaxagoras’ opinion, that _Ale_ is to
be held in high price for the nutritive substance that it is indued
withall, and how precious a nurse it is in generall to Mankinde.
“It is true that the overmuch taking of it doth so much exhilerate the
spirits, that a man is not improperly said to be in the _Aletitude_
(observe the word, I pray you, and all the words before or after for
you shall find their first syllable to be _Ale_), and some writers are
of opinion that the Turkish _Alcoran_ was invented by Mahomet, out
of such furious raptures as _Ale_ inspired him withall; some affirme
Bacchus (_Al’as Liber Pater_) was the first Brewer of it, among the
_Indians_, who being a stranger to them they nam’d it _Ale_, as brought
by an _Alien_: in a word, _Somnus altus_ signifies dead sleepe: _Quies
alta_, Great rest; _Altus_ and _Alta_, noble and excellent: It is (for
the most part) extracted out of the spirit of a Graine called Barley,
which was of that estimation amongest the ancient _Galles_ that their
Prophets (whom they called _Bards_) used it in their most important
prophesies and ceremonies: This Graine, after it had beene watered and
dryed, was at first ground in a Mill in the island of _Malta_, from
whence it is supposed to gaine the name of Malt; but I take it more
proper from the word _Malleolus_, which signifies a Hammer or Maule,
for _Hanniball_ (that great _Carthaginian_ Captaine) in his sixteene
yeeres warres against the Romans, was called the _Maule_ of _Italie_,
for it is conjectured that he victoriously Mauld them by reason that
his army was daily refreshed with the Spiritefull Elixar of _Mault_.
“It holds very significant to compare a man in the _Aletitude_ to be
in a planetarie height, for in a Planet, the Altitude is his motion
in which he is carried from the lowest place of Heaven or from the
Center of the Earth, into the most highest place, or unto the top of
his circle, and then it is said to be in _Apogee_, that is the most
_Transcendant_ part of all, so the Sublunarie of a Stupified Spirit,
being elevated by the efficacious vigour of this uncontrolleable
vertue, renders him most capable for high actions.”
After much more in the same vein, sufficient to astonish the most
reckless of modern punsters, our author winds up his account of the
antiquity of ale as follows:—
“I will therefore _shut up_ with that admirable conclusion insisted
upon in our time by a discreet Gentleman in a Solemne Assembly, who
by a Politick observation, very aptly compares _Ale_ and Cakes with
Wine and {44} Waters, neither doth he hold it fit that it should stand
in competition with the meanest wines, but with that most excellent
composition which the Prince of Physicians _Hippocrases_ had so
ingeniously compounded for the preservation of Mankinde, and which (to
this day) speakes the Author by the name of _Hippocras_. So that you
see for Antiquity—_Ale_ was famous amongst the _Troians_, _Brittaines_,
_Romans_, _Saxons_, _Normans_, _Englishmen_, _Welch_, besides in
_Scotland_, from the highest and Noblest Palace to the poorest and
meanest Cottage.”
Other curious details with respect to the use of ale in the Middle Ages
and in modern times will be found in their appropriate places, and
having established clearly enough the highly respectable antiquity of
the Prince of liquors, old or new, it is time, in the elegant language
of the Water Poet, to “shut up” this portion of the subject; and so
we pass on, concluding here with an extract from the _Philosopher’s
Banquet_, on the pre-eminence of ale:—
Ale for antiquity may plead and stand
Before the conquest, conquering in this land;
Beere, that is younger brother of her age,
Was not then borne, nor right to bee her page;
In every pedling village, borough, town,
Ale plaid at football, and tript all lads down;
And tho’ shee’s rivall’d now by beere, her mate,
Most doctors aiwt on herthis shewes her state.
[Illustration]
{45}
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
Heap high the fire, and, O ye Lares, smile;
And, Innocence, with plenty hither bring
Hilarity; while Friendship brims the cup
With home-brewed Ale, and every welcom’d guest
Forgets the storm . . .
_Booker’s Sequel Poem to the Hop Garden._
I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year,
With your pockets full of money, and your cellar full of beer.
_Old Carol._
_HOME-BREWED ALES. — OLD RECEIPTS. — HISTORICAL FACTS. — DEAN SWIFT ON
HOME-BREW. — CHRISTOPHER NORTH’S BREW-HOUSE._
Hogarth’s _Farmer’s Return_ represents the worthy man just come in from
his morning round or from distant market town. As he rests awhile in
the farmhouse kitchen he draws sweet solace from the pipe brought him
by his daughter, while he eyes with keen expectance the jug of foaming
home-brew which his buxom wife, in her hurry to serve her lord, is
spilling on the tiled floor. These two old friends, firm supporters
of each other, the farmers and home-brewed ale, have almost parted
company. Home-brew, indeed, has become, in some places, an extinct and
almost forgotten beverage. It is a curious fact, however, that between
the years 1884 and 1886 there was a slight increase in the number of
persons brewing their own ale. {46}
[Illustration: THE FARMERS RETURN.]
The late Mr. Wm. Cobbett, writing in 1821 on the subject of brewing,
says, “To show Englishmen, forty years ago, that it was good for them
to brew beer in their houses, would have been as impertinent as gravely
to insist that they ought to endeavour not to lose their breath; for in
those times, to have a _house_ and not to brew was a rare thing indeed.
Mr. Ellman, an old man and a large farmer in Sussex, has recently
given, in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, this
fact: that forty years ago there was not a labourer in his parish that
did not brew his own beer; and that now there is not one that does it,
except by chance the malt be given him.”
The decadence of the art of domestic brewing is, for some reasons,
a matter for regret. The causes are not far to seek. The improved
machinery of the modern brewer, which enables him to make an uniformly
excellent beer, and to sell it at a low price; and the railways which
now traverse every part of the country, carrying his single, double,
or treble X, as the case may be, to places where half a century back
no one dreamt of purchasing ale for home consumption—to these great
changes is undoubtedly due the partial downfall of home-brew that has
taken {47} place. Not only has the practice of domestic brewing much
declined, but from the same causes there has been of late years an
extraordinary and lamentable decrease in the numbers of small country
brewers.
Although the name of home-brew carries with it many old associations
and sentiments which we abandon with regret—memories of bright March
beer and mellow old October, of snug ingle-nooks and raftered ceilings,
and of kind, if homely, welcome—we cannot but admit, as on a hot day
we drain our tankard of Burton bitter, or of world-famed London stout,
that life has still its compensations.
“To make barley-water was an invention which found out itself with
little more than the joyning the ingredients together,” said old
Fuller, in his _Worthies of England_; “but to make mault for drinke,
was a master-piece indeed.” This old writer would seem to give the
maltster more credit than the brewer. In his day, however, the
distinction between the two was slight, for nearly every country
gentleman or farmer was both his own brewer and his own maltster.
In 1610, the justices of Rutland, in settling the rate of domestic
servants’ wages, adjudged that a chief woman, who could bake and brew
_and make malt_, should have the sum of 24_s_. 8_d_. by the year; while
a second best, who could brew but not malt, was to have 23_s_. 4_d_.
The earliest connected account of domestic malting and brewing which
we have been able to find, occurs in a poetical work of the thirteenth
century, called the _Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth_. The treatise
deals with most matters of domestic concern and every-day life, and
the passage in which the malting of barley and the brewing of ale are
described, is so curious that it is given below in full length from the
text to be found in _National Antiquities_, vol. i. (priv. pub. Th.
Wright, Ed.).
“Seyoms ore entour cerveyse,
Pur fere gens ben à eyse.
Alumet, amy, cele lefrenole,[17] {48}
E kaunt averas manges de brakole,
En une cuwe[18] large e leez,
Cel orge là enfoundrez;
E kaunt sera enfoundré,
E le ewe seyt escouloé,
Mountez cel haut soler,
Si le festes nette baler,[19]
E là cochet votre blée,
Taunke seyt ben germée,
De cele houre appelleras,
Brès, ke blée avant nomas.
Le brès de vostre mayn muez
En mounceus ou en rengeés;[20]
Pus le portez en un corbel,
Pur ensechier au toral.[21]
Le corbel e le corbiloun
Vous serviront au fusoyn.
Kaunt vostre brez est molu,
E de ewe chaude ben enbeu,
Des bertiz[22] ver cervoyse
Par art contrové teise.
Ky fet miracles e merveyles,
De une chaundelie deus chandelis,
De homme lay fet bon clerc,
A homme desconu doune merk,
Homme fort fet chatoner, {49}
E homme à roye haut juper,[23]
Taunt de vertu de la grees
De servoyse fet de brès,
Ke la coyfe[24] de un bricoun
Teyndre seet sanz vermilloun.
Ceste matyre cy repose,
Parlom ore de autre chose.”
[17] Some old Englishman has written in the MS. over difficult
words his interpretation of them; an interpretation frequently of
great assistance, but occasionally in itself not a little puzzling.
This word _lefrenole_, however, he much elucidates by annotating it
“kex;” in Gloucestershire and in other parts of the country the word
is still used to signify the hemlock, and may be found in many old
writers. Lygones, in _A King and No King_, refers to his legs as
“withered kexes.” The word was probably occasionally used to denote
a candle, and this is the meaning assigned to it here. Langland, in
the _Vision of Piers Ploughman_, says that glowing embers do not
serve the workman’s purpose so well,
“As dooth a kex or a candle
That caught hath fire and blazeth.”
Allusion is also made to the use of stalks of hemlock as candles in
_Turn. of Tottenham_, 201.
[18] Our annotator says “a mikel fat.” The word “kive” is found in
later English for the same utensil.
[19] Suepet klene.
[20] “On hepe other on rowe” is the quaint gloss.
[21] _Toral_ is noted “kulne.”
[22] _Bertiz_ is probably a form of _bertzissa_, which seems to be a
barbarous rendering of _wort_.
[23] _Juper_ is annotated _houten_, _i.e._, to hoot or shout.
[24] The word _coyfe_ here seems to signify not _cap_, but _head_ or
_face_; another such use of the word is to be found in the _Chron.
de Nangis_ (1377), and is mentioned in Sainte-Palaye’s _Hist. Dict.
of the French Language_.
It is believed that no translation of this curious old poem has been
published, and a rendering is accordingly added in which literal
accuracy rather than poetical elegance has been aimed at.
Ale shall now engage my pen,
To set at rest the hearts of men.
First, my friend, your candle light,[25]
Next of spiced cake take a bite;
Then steep your barley in a vat,
Large and broad, take care of that;
When you shall have steeped your grain,
And the water let out-drain,
Take it to an upper floor,
If you’ve swept it clean before,
There couch,[26] and let your barley dwell,
Till it germinates full well.
Malt now you shall call the grain,
Corn it ne’er shall be again.
Stir the malt then with your hand,
In heaps or rows now let it stand;
On a tray then you shall take it,
To a kiln to dry and bake it.
The tray and eke a basket light
Will serve to spread the malt aright. {50}
When your malt is ground in mill,
And of hot water has drank its fill,
And skill has changed the wort to ale,
Then to see you shall not fail
Miracles and marvels; Lo!
Two candles out of one do grow;
Ale makes a layman a good clerk,
To one unknown it gives a mark,
Ale makes the strong go on all fours,
And fill the streets with shouts and roars.
The good ale from the malt at length,
So draws the barley’s pride and strength,
That a royster’s figure-head
Needs no dye to make it red.
Here, then, let the matter rest,
To talk of other things were best.
[25] _i.e._, you must rise betimes.
[26] The word “couch” has still a technical meaning in malting.
As everybody knows, the monks of old were famous for their home-brewed
ales, and the brewer and cellarer, whether in mitred abbey or in the
less distinguished religious houses, were officials of considerable
importance. The office of cellarer was one held in especial
estimation. An old glossary describes his position in the monastery as
follows:—“_Pater debet esse totius congregationis_,” and in the priory
of St. Swithin at Winchester special prayers were offered up for this
functionary. Such a person is depicted on this page. The monk whose
anxious eye proclaims the sad fact that in tasting the liquor entrusted
to his charge he is exceeding his duty, is a cellarer who evidently
makes the most of his opportunities. The drawing is taken from a
manuscript in the Arundel collection.
[Illustration: “Is it in condition?”]
{51}
[Illustration: Mediæval Cellarer.]
Some curious entries relating to home-brew are to be found in the
registry of the priory of Worcester, A.D. 1240. At each brewing “_VIII.
cronn: de greu_ and x _quarteria de meis_” were used; which probably
signifies eight cronns or four quarters of growte (here meaning ground
malt), and ten quarters of mixed barley and oat malt. A long list then
follows of the allowances of beer amongst the different officials of
the house. The beer was of three different kinds, _prima_ or _melior_,
_secunda_, and _tertia_. The cellarer is to have one measure of prime
and one of second. In the brewhouse four measures of the prime are to
be distributed, and two measures on the day on which the ale is to
be moved. The servant of the church is to have the holy-water bucket
full of “mixta,” _i.e._, part prime and part second, or, it may be,
a mixture of all three sorts. This “mixta” seems to have been an
anticipation of the “half-and-half” and “three threads” of more modern
times. Each of those who help to carry the ale are to have two measures
of the first and second mixed, and so the list proceeds through all
the officers and servants of the priory. Ale, indeed, seems to have
been their chief drink, and even the invalid (_potionandus_) about to
undergo a course of physicking was allowed his measure of ale. Our
doubts as to the wisdom of this dieting hardly require the confirmation
they receive from the further direction that he was to have pork, fowl
with stuffing, cheese, and eggs.
Sometimes the records tell sad tales of the poor monks being robbed of
their beer by reason of the malt failing.
This misfortune is recorded in the annals of Dunstable as having
happened in 1262. The annalist ruefully mentions that “in this year,
about the Feast of John the Baptist, our ale failed.” Very soon after
this, however, they made provision for the deficiency by purchasing
from H. Chadde £20 worth of malt; the quantity is not mentioned, but
at the rates of the day it would no doubt considerably exceed 100
quarters, so that for some time the monks could have known no want. In
1274 the same disaster occurred:—“At the Feast of Pentecost our malt
failed.” This time the holy fathers were equal to the occasion. “We
drank,” so run the annals, “five casks of wine, and it did us much
good.” {52}
The crimes and misdeeds of Roger Noreys, the wicked abbot of Evesham
at the end of the twelfth century, seem to have culminated when he not
only called the monks “puppies, vassals, and ribalds,” but, adding
injury to insult, compelled them to live for many days on hard bread
and “ale little differing from water.” This was too much, and the monks
petitioned the archbishop against such ill-treatment. The abbot, it may
be remarked, appears from the records of the House to have taken very
good care of himself, though he treated the monks so ill, and it might
have been said of him as it was of another ecclesiastic whose name,
unfortunately, has not accompanied the verse:—
Bonum vinum cum sapore
Bibit abbas cum priore
Sed conventus de pejore
Semper solet bibere.
John of Brokehampton, who became abbot of Evesham in 1282, had himself
filled the office of cellarer, and amongst many other benefits
conferred by him upon the House during his abbacy, he built a bakehouse
and a brewhouse “not only strongly but sumptuously.”
On certain special days set apart for “_doing the great O_,”[27] which
was a facetious way of saying that they were holidays when nothing was
done, a more liberal allowance of ale was made, and on the occasion
of the election of a Canon for St. Paul’s, foreign wine and other
delicacies were added to the feast.
[27] “Facere O” in some places had reference to the introit
beginning “O Sapientia.”
Some slight idea of a monastic feast in the thirteenth century may be
gathered from the accompanying illustration. The presence of women is
significant, and the quaint spit, and the round-bottomed glass which
one of the monks holds in his hand and which cannot be set down until
empty, are noteworthy.
What a gentleman’s cellar ought to contain is thus described by
Alexander Neckam, a twelfth-century writer:—“In promptuario sive
in celario,” he writes, “sunt cadi, utres,[28] dolea, ciphi,[29]
cophini, . . . vina, scicera, cerevicia, sive celia, mustum, claretum,
nectar,[30] medo {53} sive ydromellum,[31] piretum, vinum rosetum,
vinum feretum, vinum falernum, vinum girofilatum.” Some old scribe
has noted this work in the same way as the annotator of the _Treatise
of Walter de Biblesworth_, and taking up the hints he has given, the
passage may be translated:—“In the cellar are barrels, leather bottles
or wine skins, tuns, beakers, baskets, . . . wines, cyder, ale, new
wine, claret, piment, meed or ydromellum, perry, Mount Rose wine,
Falernian, garihofilac, &c. . . .” Not a bad assortment of liquors
for an Early Englishman! Our cut, taken from the Roxburghe ballads,
represents a well-stocked cellar of the olden times.
[28] Utres is noted ‘coutreus.’
[29] Ciphi = anaps, cophini = anapers. On this word anaps, or
hanaps, see page 395.
[30] Nectar or Piment was a luscious kind of drink compounded of
wine, honey and spices; it was called after the pigmentarii, or
apothecaries who prepared it, and was in fact a liqueur.
[31] Ydromellum is explained in the _Ortus_ as _potus ex aqua et
melle_, _Anglice mede or growte_ (Growte = wort in an early stage
of the brewing). In _Alfric’s Colloquy_, however, it is said to be
_beor_, or _mulsum_. The true explanation of this discrepancy seems
to be that ydromellum, while properly signifying an inferior sort of
mead, was also used by analogy to denote the sweet liquor _wort_.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
{54}
The requisites of a brewhouse of the fourteenth or fifteenth century
are described in a Latin-English Vocabulary of the period:—
Brasiatrix, a brewster (a female brewer).
Cima, a kymnelle (a mash tub). Fornax, a furnasse.
Alveum, a trogh. Brasium, malte. Barzissa, wortte.
Dragium, draf (grains). Calderium, a caldron.
Taratantarum, a temse (sieve). Cuvella, a kunlion (small tub).
Ydromellum, growte. Mola, a quern (handmill).
Pruera, ling (a broom made of ling).
That graphic old writer, Harrison, in his Preface to _Hollinshed’s
Chronicles_, 1587, gives a capital description of home-brewing as it
was carried on at the end of the sixteenth century; and “once in a
moneth practised by my wife,” as he informs us.
It may be remarked incidentally, that brewing seems to have usually
fallen to the share of the housewife, whose duties in this respect are
indicated in the old Durham rhyme:—
I’ll no more be a nun, nun, nun,
I’ll be no more a nun!
But I’ll be a wife,
And lead a merry life,
And brew good ale by the tun, tun, tun.
To return to old Harrison and his home-brew. “Nevertheless,” he says,
“sith I have taken occasion to speake of bruing, I will exemplifie in
such a proportion as I am best skilled in, bicause it is the usuall
rate for mine owne familie, and once in a moneth practised by my wife
and hir maid servants, who proceed withall after this maner, as she
hath oft informed me. Having therefore groond eight bushels of good
malt upon our querne, where the toll is saved, she addeth unto it half
a bushel of wheat meale, and so much of otes small groond, and so
tempereth or mixeth them with the malt, that you cannot easily discerne
the one from the other, otherwise these later would clunter, fall into
lumps, and thereby become unprofitable. The first liquor which is full
{55} eightie gallons according to the proportion of our furnace, she
maketh boiling hot, and then powreth it softlie into the malt, where
it resteth (but without stirring) untill hir second liquor be almost
ready to boile. This doone she letteth hir mash run till the malt
be left without liquor, or at the leastwise the greater part of the
moisture, which she perceiveth by the staie and softe issue thereof,
and by this time hir second liquor in the furnace is ready to seeth,
which is put also to the malt as the first woort also againe into the
furnace, whereunto she addeth two pounds of the best English hops, and
so letteth them seeth together by the space of two hours in summer, or
an houre and a halfe in winter, whereby it getteth an excellent colour
and continuance without impeachment, or anie superfluous tartnesse. But
before she putteth her first woort into the furnace, or mingleth it
with the hops, she taketh out a vessel full, of eight or nine gallons,
which she shutteth up close, and suffereth no aire to come into it
till it become yellow, and this she reserveth by it selfe unto further
use, as shall appeare hereafter, calling it Brackwoort or Charwoort,
and as she saith it addeth also to the colour of the drinke, whereby
it yeeldeth not unto amber or fine gold in hew unto the eie. By this
time also hir second woort is let runne, and the first being taken out
of the furnace and placed to coole, she returneth the middle woort
into the furnace, where it is striken over, or from whence it is taken
againe.
“When she hath mashed also the last liquor (and let the second to
coole by the first) she letteth it runne and then seetheth it againe
with a pound and an half of new hops or peradventure two pounds as she
seeth cause by the goodness or basenesse of the hops; and when it hath
sodden in summer two hours, and in winter an houre and an halfe, she
striketh it also and reserveth it unto mixture with the rest when time
dooth serve therefore. Finallie when she setteth hir drinke together,
she addeth to hir brackwoort or charwoort halfe an ounce of arras and
halfe a quarterne of an ounce of baiberries finelie powdered, and then
putteth the same into hir woort with an handful of wheate floure,
she proceedeth in such usuall order as common bruing requireth. Some
in steed of arras and baies add so much long peper onely, but in hir
opinion and my lyking it is not so good as the first, and hereof we
make three hoggesheads of good beere, such (I meane) as is meet for
poore men as I am to live withall whose small maintenance (for what
great thing is fortie pounds a yeare computatis computandis able to
performe) may indure no deeper cut, the charges whereof groweth in this
manner. I value my malt at ten shillings, my wood at foure shillings
which I buie, {56} my hops at twenty pence, the spice at two pence,
servants wages two shillings sixpence, both meat and drinke, and the
wearing of my vessell at twentie pence, so that for my twenty shillings
I have ten score gallons of beer or more, nothwithstanding the loss
in seething. . . . The continuance of the drinke is alwaye determined
after the quantitie of the hops, so that being well hopped it lasteth
longer. For it feedeth upon the hop and holdeth out so long as the
force of the same endureth which being extinguished the drinke must be
spent or else it dieth and becometh of no value.”
A brewhouse was in the sixteenth century an essential for a gentleman’s
house. Boorde, in his directions for building a country house, mentions
this:—“And also” he says, “the backe-house and brew-house shall be a
dystance from the place and from other buyldyng.”
Strutt gives an inventory of the contents of a private brewhouse of
the sixteenth century. “_Im primis_ a meshe fatt—_Item_, a great ledde
(leaden vessel)—_Item_, a brasse panne set in the walle (the copper for
boiling the wort)—_Item_, 6 wort leeds, callyd coolars—_Item_, a greate
c’linge fatt with 2 other fattes, and other tubs and kimnelles.”
The poetic soul of Thomas Tusser, which has condescended to celebrate
in quaint and homely verse most subjects of domestic interest or
savouring of country life, has left us a short effusion on home-brew,
which, though not perhaps so complete as a novice in the art of
brewing might desire for his instruction, yet contains some pithy and,
doubtless, useful rules. The verses are to be found in the _Pointes of
Good Huswiferie_, and run thus:—
Brew somewhat for thine,
Else bring up no swine.
Where brewing is needful, be brewer thyself,
what filleth the roofe will helpe furnish the shelfe;[32]
In buying of drinke by the firkin or pot
the tallie ariseth, but hog amendes not.[33]
Well brewed, worth cost,
Ill used, halfe lost.
One bushell well brewed, outlasteth some twaine,
and saveth both mault, and expenses in vaine,
Too new is no profite, too stale is as bad,
drinke deade, or else sower, makes laborer sad. {57}
Remember, good Gill,
Take paine with thy swill.
Seeth grains in more water, while graines be yet hot,
and stirre them in copper as poredge in pot,
Such heating with straw, to make offall good store,[34]
both pleseth and easeth, what would you have more?
[32] _i.e._, we presume, brewing which fills the roof with steam is
good economy.
[33] The score at the ale-house mounts up, but your pig is none the
better for it. The allusion is to feeding pigs on the spent grains.
[34] The grains are to be used again to make “offall,” or small beer.
Pain was not always taken by Gill with her swill, as may be seen by
the sad account of the _Distracted Maid, an Ancient Garland_, in which
the evil results of a pre-occupied mind are shown. One verse of this
effusion will doubtless be deemed sufficient:—
To tell you as I am true,
When ever I bake or brew,
The thoughts of Will come uppermost still,
I hardly know what to do;
Instead of malt I put in salt,
And boils my copper dry;
The perjured Act, and wicket Fact,
My brains are rack’d and I am crack’d,
There’s no body knows but I,
There’s no body knows but I.
It is interesting to compare the cost of brewing in the sixteenth
century with that at the present day. Harrison’s brewing, as he has
shown us, cost him a fraction over a penny the gallon. The following
account of a brewing in the household of the Duke of Northumberland, in
the eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII., brings out somewhat the
same result, though the “painful scribe” seems to have got a little
confused in his arithmetic towards the end of his account; however,
a good deal must be excused to those who have to work sums in Roman
numerals.
“A Brewyng at Wresill and carryede to Topclif. Fyrste paide for vj
quarters malt at Wresill after vs. the quarter—xxxs. Item, paide for vj
lb Hopps for the saide Brewyng after j d. ob. the lb—jxd. Item, {58}
paide for v score Faggotts for the saide Brewyng after v faggots j
d—xxd. Item, paide for the Cariage of the saide Brewyng from Wresill
to Borrowbrigg by watir—viz xij Hoggeshedes whiche makith iij Tonns
after iiijs. vd. the Tonne and a penny more at all—xiijs. iiijd. Item
paide for the Hire of iij Wanys for carrying of the said iij Tonne from
Barrow-brigg to Topclyf after viijd for the Hire of every Wayne—ijs.
“Summa xlvijs. ixd.
“Whereof is made xij Hoggeshedes of Beyr. Every Hoggeshede contenyng
xlviij gallons whiche is in all cccciiij xvj gallons after a Penny the
Gallon and iijd. les at all which is derer by qu in every gallon save
iijs iiijd. les at all—xlvijs ixd.”
Not so many years later the prices of ale and beer seem to have risen
unaccountably, for in the charges for the diet of Mary Queen of Scots
at Tutbury, Chartley, and Fotheringaye the item is to be found “for ale
bought at dyerse pryces 1148 gallons at 9d. the gallon, £43 13s.
9d.”
“Three hundred and fifty-three tons 2 hogs of beare” were also bought
at an average price of 39s. 11d. the ton, £706 13s. 5d. Burton ale
may even at that time have commanded a higher price than ordinary ale,
and the cost of transit would, no doubt, be heavy. In addition to the
ale bought at “dyerse pryces,” some must have been brewed at home; for
in further accounts are the following items:—“Hopps 1s., a brewinge
fatte with the charges for settyng it up £4 5s. 8d. A new pompe for
the brewhouse 28s. 8d.”
Although brewing, as we have seen, was carried on during every month
in the year for the commoner household uses, March and October were
the favourite months for making strong ale, “the authenticall drinke
of England, the whole barmy tribe of ale-cunners never layd their lips
to the like.” The summer months were especially eschewed by those who
wished to keep their liquor, and hence the old saying:—
“Bow-wow, dandy-fly,
Brew no beer in July.”
“Oh! but my grandmother,” says Gluttony, in the _Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus_, “she was a jolly gentlewoman, and well beloved in
every good town and city; her name was Mistress Margery March Beer.”
“_Ale_ and _beere_,” says Harrison, “beare the greatest brunt in
{59} drincking, which are of so many sortes and ages as it pleases
the brewar to make them. The beer that is used at noblemen’s tables,
is commonly of a yeare olde, (or peradventure of twoo yeres tunning
or more, but this is not general) it is also brued in Marche, and is
therefore called Marche bere, but for the household it is usually not
under a monethes age, eache one coveting to have the same as stale as
he might, so that it was not soure.”
And a serious “brunt” it was if the following obituary notice, which
appeared in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in 1810, may be taken as a
sample of our fathers’ devotion to home-brew:—
“At the Ewes farm-house, Yorkshire, aged 76, Mr. Paul Parnell, farmer,
grazier, and maltster, who, during his lifetime, drank out of one
silver pint cup upwards of £2,000 sterling worth of Yorkshire Stingo,
being remarkably attached to Stingo tipple of the home-brewed best
quality. The calculation is taken at 2d. per cupful. He was the
bon-vivant whom O’Keefe celebrated in more than one of his Bacchanalian
songs under the appellation of Toby Philpott.”