Efforts were made by the brewers from time to time to bring about

an alteration in the law restricting the quality of beer to two

sorts, the strong and the small. _The Brewers’ Plea or a Vindication

of Strong Beer_, London, 1647, thus gives the views of the brewers

on the advantages to be obtained by allowing stronger beer to be

brewed:—“For of hops and malt, our native commodities (and therefore

the more agreeable to the constitutions of our native inhabitants), may

be made such strong beer (being well boiled and hopped, and kept its

full time) as that {118} it may serve instead of Sack, if authority

shall think fit, whereby they may also know experimentally the virtue

of those creatures, at their full height; which beer being well brewed,

of a low, pure amber colour, clear and sparkling, noblemen and the

gentry may be pleased to have English Sack in their wine cellars,

and taverns also to sell to those who are not willing, or cannot

conveniently lay it in their own houses; which may be a means greatly

to increase and improve the tillage of England, and also the profitable

plantations of hop grounds . . . and produce at lesser rates (than

wines imported) such good strong beer as shall be most cherishing to

poor labouring people, without which they cannot well subsist; their

food being for the most part of such things as afford little or bad

nourishment, nay, sometimes dangerous; and would infect them with many

sicknesses and diseases, were they not preserved (as with an antidote)

with good beer, whose virtues and effectual operations, by help of the

hop well boiled in it, are more powerful to expel poisonous infections

than is yet publicly known, or taken notice of.”

Another ineffectual plea, somewhat later in date, may be here

mentioned. In _The grand concern of England explained in several

proposals to the consideration of the Parliament_, London, 1673,

petition is made to Parliament that legislation of a protective nature

may be granted to the brewers’ trade. The proposal is “That Brandy,

Coffee, Mum, Tea, and Chocolate may be prohibited,” for these greatly

hinder the consumption of Barley, Malt, and Wheat, the product of our

land.

“But the prohibition of Brandy would be otherwise advantageous to the

Kingdom, and prevent the destruction of his majesty’s subjects; many of

whom have been killed by drinking thereof, it not agreeing with their

constitutions.

“Before brandy (which is now become common and sold in every little

alehouse) came over into England in such quantities as it now doth, we

drank good strong beer and ale; and all laborious people (which are far

the greatest part of the Kingdom), their bodies requiring, after hard

labour, some strong drink to refresh them, did therefore every morning

and evening use to drink a pot of ale, or a flagon of strong beer;

which greatly promoted the consumption of our own grain, and did them

no great prejudice; it hindered not their work, neither did it take

away their senses, nor cost them much money.”

This petition, like the last, seems to have been of no effect, for we

find these “destructive” drinks, brandy, coffee, tea, and chocolate,

still in use in this country, and not yet prohibited by law. {119}

Arriving now at a period where the ancient gives way to the

comparatively modern, this chapter necessarily ends. In the laws of the

present day relating to ale and beer, are curiosities by the score; but

we should hardly earn the thanks of our readers for devoting half this

book to matters which are common knowledge. Suffice it to quote a verse

from the lays of the Brasenose College butler, written, doubtless, at a

time when it was first proposed to repeal the old beer tax, and which

tells in simple words the probable result:—

Yet beer, they tell us, now will be

Much cheaper than before;

Still, if they take the duty off,

_In duty_ we drink more.

[Illustration]

{120}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

Come all that love good company,

And hearken to my ditty,

’Tis of a lovely Hoastess fine,

That lives in London City,

Which sells good ale, nappy and stale,

And always thus sings she,

“My ale was tunn’d when I was young,

And a little above my knee.”

_The Merry Hoastess._

“. . doughty sons of Hops and Malt.”

_A Vade Mecum for Malt Worms._

_BREWING AND MALTING IN EARLY TIMES. — THE ALE-WIVES. — THE BREWERS OF

OLD LONDON AND THE BREWERS’ COMPANY. — ANECDOTES. — QUAINT EPITAPHS._

It seemeth well that before we record the doings of departed brewers,

brewsters, and ale-wives, a page or so should be devoted to the two

principal ingredients—malt and water—used by those ancient worthies in

compounding their “merrie-goe-downe.”

Old Fuller thus moralizes on the art of malting:—“Though commonness

causeth contempt, excellent the Art of first inventing thereof. I

confesse it facile to make Barley Water, an invention which found out

itself, with little more than the joyning of the ingredients together.

But to make mault for Drink, was a masterpiece indeed. How much of

Philosophy concurred to the first Kill of Mault, and before it was

turned on the floor, how often was it toss’d in the brain of the first

inventor thereof. First, to give it a new growth more than the earth

had bestowed thereon. Swelling it in water to make it last the longer

by breaking it, and taste the sweeter by corrupting it. Secondly,

by making it to passe the fire, the grain (by Art fermented) {121}

acquiring a lusciousnesse (which by nature it had not) whereby it doth

both strengthen and sweeten the water wherein it is boyled.”

Those practically engaged in the production of our English national

drink, whether maltsters or brewers, will no doubt be interested to

compare the art of malting as it was carried on three hundred years

ago in this country, with the more familiar processes of to-day. A

description of malting in the sixteenth century is given by Harrison.

“Our drinke,” he says, “whose force and continuance is partlie

touched alreadie, is made of barleie, water and hops, sodden and

mingled together, by the industrie of our bruers, in a certain exact

proportion. But before our barleie doo come unto their hands, it

susteineth great alteration, and is converted into malt, the making

whereof I will here set downe in such order as my skill therein may

extend unto. . . Our malt is made all the yeare long in some great

townes, but in gentlemen’s and yeomen’s houses, who commenlie make

sufficient for their owne expenses onelie, the winter half is thought

most meet for that commoditie, howbeit the malt which is made when

the willow doth bud, is commonlie worst of all, nevertheless each

one indeuereth to make it of the best barleie, which is steeped in a

cesterne, in greater or less quantitie, by the space of three daies and

three nights, untill it be thoroughly soaked. This being doone, the

water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite gone.

Afterward they take it out and laieng it upon the cleane floore on a

round heape, it resteth so until it be readie to shoote at the roote

end, which maltsters call ‘comming.’ When it beginneth, therefor, to

shoote in this maner, they saie it is ‘come,’ and then foorthwith they

spread it abroad, first thick and afterward thinner and thinner upon

the said floore (as it commeth) and there it lieth (with turning every

day foure or five times) by the space of one and twenty daies at the

least, the workemen not suffering it in any wise to take any heat,

whereby the bud end should spire, that bringeth foorth the blade, and

by which oversight or hurt of the stuffe it selfe the malt would be

spoiled, and turne small commoditie to the bruer. When it has gone or

been turned so long upon the floore, they carie it to a kill covered

with haire cloth, where they give it gentle heats (after they have

spread it there verie thin abroad) till it be dry, in the meane while

they turne it often that it may be uniformelie dried. For the more it

be dried (yet must it be doone with soft fire) the sweeter and better

the malt is, and the longer it will continue, whereas if it be not

dried downe (as they call it) but slackelie handled, it will breed

a kind of worme, called a wivell, which {122} groweth in the floure

of the corne, and in processe of time will so eat out it selfe, that

nothing shall remaine of the graine but even the verie rind or huske.

The best malt is tried by hardnesse and colour for if it looke fresh

with a yellow hew and thereto will write like a peece of chalke, after

you have bitten a kirnell in sunder in the middest, then you may

assure yourselfe that it is dried downe. In some places it is dried

at leisure with wood alone, or strawe alone, in other with wood and

straw together, but of all the straw dried is the most excellent. For

the wood dried malt when it is brued, beside that the drinke is higher

of colour, it dooth hurt and annoie the head of him that is not used

thereto, bicause of the smoake. Such also as use both indifferentlie

doo barke, cleave, and drie their wood in an oven, thereby to remove

all moisture that should procure the fume, and this malt is in the

second place, and with the same likewise, that which is made with dried

firze, broome, &c.: whereas if they also be occupied greene, they are

in a maner so prejudicial to the corne as is the moist wood. And thus

much of our malts, in bruing whereof some grind the same somewhat

groselie, and in seething well the liquor that shall be put unto it,

they adde to everie nine quarters of mault one of headcorne, which

consisteth of sundrie graine as wheate and otes groond . . .”

Though the reasons which caused one kind of water to be more suitable

than another for brewing, were not so well understood in olden days

as they are at present, our ancestors had learned in the school of

experience that the quality of the water had much to do with the

quality of the ale and beer brewed from it. Speaking of brewing,

Harrison says: “In this trade also our Bruers observe verie diligentlie

the nature of the water, which they dailie occupy, and soile through

which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodnesse, sith the

fattest standing water is alwaies the best; for although the waters

that run by chalke and cledgie soiles be good, and next unto the

Thames water which is the most excellent, yet the water that standeth

in either of these is the best for us that dwell in the countrie, as

whereon the sunne lyeth longest, and fattest fish are bred. But of all

other the fennie and morish is the worst, and the clerist spring water

next unto it.”

The silver Thames—very different then from the turbid noisome sewer of

to-day—by reason of the excellence of its water, formed the ordinary

source of supply for the old London Brewers, many of whom erected

their breweries on or near its banks. As early as 1345, however, there

seems to have been a tendency on the part of certain brewers to get

their water elsewhere. In that year a complaint was made to the {123}

authorities on behalf of the Commonalty of the City of London, “that

whereas of old a certain conduit” (probably the Cheapside conduit

constructed in Henry III.’s reign) “was built in the midst of the City

of London, that so the rich and middling persons therein might there

have water for preparing their food, and the poor for their drink;

the water aforesaid was now so wasted by Brewers and persons keeping

brewhouses and making malt, that in these modern times it will no

longer suffice for the rich and middling, nor yet for the poor.” In

consequence of this state of things, the brewers were forbidden to

use the conduit water under penalty, for the first offence to forfeit

the _tankard_ or vessel in which the water was carried, on a second

conviction to suffer fine, and on the third, imprisonment.

More than four hundred years ago the waters of the Thames were at some

states of the tide too turbid for use, and accordingly in the reign

of Henry VI., the Wardens of the Brewers’ Company were commanded not

to take water for brewing from the Thames when it was disturbed, but

to wait till low water and the turn of the tide. In Queen Elizabeth’s

reign the Thames was beginning to acquire an evil repute, if we may

believe the author of _Pierce Penilesse, his supplication to the

Deuill_ (1592), who refers to the London Brewers in terms of contempt.

“Some” says he, “are raised by corrupt water, as gnats, to which we

may liken brewers, that, by retayling _filthie Thames water_, come

in a few yeres to be worth fortie or fiftie thousand pound.” Stow

remarks of the London Brewers that “for the more part they remain near

the friendly waters of the Thames.” In his time many brewhouses were

gathered together in the parish of St. Catharine, near the Tower, and

are distinguished on the map of London given in the Civitates Orbis by

the name of “Beer Houses.”

Many years ago a canal led up from the Thames to the Stag Brewery at

Pimlico, and provided that now famous brewhouse with water.

All through the reign of Elizabeth, and for some time afterwards,

the Thames in the neighbourhood of the City, continued to afford the

greater part of the water used by the London Brewers. Until the New

River water was brought to London, an event which took place in the

time of James I., the Thames would naturally furnish the chief supply.

The regulations in force touching the Thames water, had regard to the

manner in which it was carried from the river to the Breweries, and

did not in any way seek to restrict the use of the water as unfit for

its purpose. For instance, in the third year of Elizabeth’s reign the

Wardens of the Brewers were called before the Common Council and {124}

charged not to fetch the water of the Thames in a “liquor-cart,”[43]

but to make use of “boge” horses (horses carrying boges, _i.e._

water-barrels), according to the ancient laws and ordinances. The

command was subsequently relaxed in favour of brewers living close to

the River, and drawing water from “the Water-gate at the Tower Hill

or at the Whitefriars.” The reason for this regulation is not stated,

but the partial removal of the restriction would seem to show that it

was intended to prevent the crowding of the narrow thoroughfares of

the City with brewers’ carts passing and repassing. The horse with his

“boge” would pass another horse with ease, while two “liquor carts”

meeting would certainly block the way. This interpretation is rather

confirmed by a subsequent regulation, made three years before the Great

Fire cleared away many of the narrow lanes of the City, that brewers’

drays should not go abroad in the streets after 11 a.m. on account of

the obstruction to traffic thereby occasioned.

[43] “Liquor” had then, and also at a far earlier date, the same

technical sense as it now has, and meant water.

Turning now from the ingredients used in brewing to the actual brewers,

it will not surprise any one who has read the chapter immediately

preceding the present one, to be informed that in early times a great

part of the brewing trade was in the hands of the gentler sex. Alreck,

King of Hordoland, is said to have chosen Geirhild for his queen, in

consequence of her proficiency in this necessary art, and what was not

derogatory to the dignity of a queen might of course be performed by a

subject. Accordingly, as has been already shown, even as late as the

seventeenth century the brewing of ale and beer for the household was

looked upon as belonging to the special province of the housewife and

her female servants. Anciently the same custom prevailed in regard to

the brewing of ale for sale, and the brewsters or ale-wives had at one

time a great part of the trade, both in the country and the city. Mr.

Riley, in his preface to the _Liber Albus_, goes so far as to say that

even down to the close of the fifteenth century, if not later, the

London brewing trade was almost entirely in the hands of women, and

he states that Fleet Street was at that time nearly wholly tenanted

by ale-wives and felt-cap makers. With all respect for Mr. Riley’s

intimate knowledge of the ancient lore connected with London Town, it

must be said that this view seems to be incorrect, for in a list of the

London Brewers, made in the reign of Henry V., and still existing in

the City Records, out of about three hundred names, only fifteen are

those of women. {125} The ale-wives of Fleet Street were probably not

brewers, but hucksters or retailers.

The first ale-wife deserving of special mention is the Chester

“tapstere,” whose evil doings and fate are recorded in one of the

Chester Misteries, or Miracle Plays, of the fourteenth century. The

good folk of Chester seem to have had a peculiar dislike to being

subjected to the tricks of dishonest brewers and taverners. Even in

Saxon times it was a regulation of the City that one who brewed bad

ale should be placed on a cucking-stool and plunged in a pool of muddy

water. For the ale-wife of the old play a worse fate was reserved, and

though she was a fictitious person, many of the audience would no doubt

find little difficulty in fitting some of their acquaintances with

the character depicted. With that mixture of the sacred and profane

which to a modern ear is, to say the least, somewhat startling, the

Mystery in question describes the descent of Christ into Hell and the

final redemption of all men out of purgatory—all, save one. A criminal

remains whose sins are of so deep a dye that she may not be forgiven.

She thus confesses her guilt:—

Some time I was a tavernere,

A gentel gossepp, and a tapstere

Of wine and ale, a trusty brewer,

Which woe hath me bewrought.

Of cannes I kept no true measure,

My cuppes I solde at my pleasure,

Deceavinge many a creature,

Tho’ my ale were nought.

[Illustration: The Sad Fate of a Mediæval Ale-wife.]

{126}

The ale-wife is then carried off into Hell’s mouth by the attendant

demons, and the play closes.

The illustration is taken from a _miserere_ seat in Ludlow Church. The

scene is a very similar one to that just described. A demon is about

to cast the deceitful ale-wife into Hell’s mouth. She carries her gay

head attire and her false measure. Another demon reads the roll of her

offences, and a third is playing on the pipes by way of accompaniment.

Elynour Rummynge, the celebrated ale-wife of Leatherhead in the reign

of Henry VIII., has been handed down to fame by the pen of Skelton, the

Poet Laureate of the day. It may be, as Mr. Dalloway, one of Skelton’s

editors, suggests, that the poet made the acquaintance of Elynour while

in attendance upon the Court at Nonsuch Palace, which was only eight

miles from her abode. That the Laureate had a very intimate knowledge

of this lady, may be gathered from his minute description of her

unprepossessing person:―

Her lothely lere

Is nothynge clere

But ugly of chere,

* * * * *

Her face all bowsy,

Comely crynkled

Wondrously wrinkled,

Lyke a rost pigges eare,

Brystled wyth here,

* * * * *

Her nose somdele hoked,

And camously croked,

Her skynne lose and slacke,

Grained like a sacke;

With a croked backe.

* * * * *

Her kyrtel Brystow red

With clothes upon her hed

That wey a sowe of led.

{127}

[Illustration: Eleanor Rummyng, Alewife.

When Skelton wore the Laurell Crowne,

My Ale put all the Ale-wiues downe.

]

{128}

Thus, and with many more unpleasing qualities, does the poet garnish

the subject of his verse, going on to describe how—

She breweth noppy ale

And maketh thereof fast sale,

To trauellers, to tynkers,

To sweters, to swinkers

And all good ale drynkers.

So fond are many of her customers of her ale, that they will come to

it, even though they cannot pay in coin of the realm.

Instede of coyne and monney,

Some brynge her a conny,

And some a pot of honny,

Some a salt, and some a spone,

Some theyr hose, and some theyr shone.

The writers of the Elizabethan age make frequent reference to

the ale-wives. “Ask Marian Hacket, the ale-wife of Wincot,” says

Christopher Sly, “if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen

pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave

in Christendom.” One would think that the ale-wife mentioned in _The

Knight of the Burning Pestle_ would have a large, if not a very

lucrative, trade:—

For Jillian of Berry she dwells on a hill,

And she hath good beer and ale to sell,

And of good fellows she thinks no ill,

And thither shall we go now, now, now,

And thither shall we go now.

And when you have made a little stay,

You need not ask what is to pay,

But kiss your hostess and go your way,

And thither will we go now, now, now,

And thither will we go now.

All ale-wives, however, had not so good a repute as Jillian of Berry.

Harrison, whose knowledge of ale was indisputable, speaking of the

fraudulent ale-wives of his time, says: “Such sleights have they for

the utterance of this drink (ale) that they will mire it with resin and

salt, but if you heat a knife red-hot, and quench it in the ale, so

near the {129} bottom of the pot as you can put it, you shall see the

rosen come forth hanging on the knife. As for the force of salt, it is

well known by the effect; for the more the drinker tipleth, the more

he may, and so dooth he carry oft a drie drunken noll to bed with him,

except his luck be the better.”

The lady, whose tall hat and large white frill appear upon the next

page, went by the unpleasant name of Mother Louse. She is mentioned

by Anthony Wood, in 1673, as an ale-wife of Hedington Hill, and was

supposed to be the last woman who wore a ruff in England. The verses

under the engraving indicate that the dun hat and ruff had gone out of

vogue, and were objects of merriment.

From the _Accounts of the Lord Treasurer of Scotland_ (fifteenth

century) it may be gathered that the customs and regulations respecting

the brewing and sale of ale were much the same in Scotland as in

this country. The price of ale was fixed from time to time “efter

the imposicioune of the worthi men of the toune,” who regulated it

according to the price of malt. “Browster wives” brewed the greater

part of the ale, and kept most of the ale-houses. Their ale was

frequently made from a barley and oat malt, as was the practice in

England at the same date. As in this country, the lack of piquant

flavour, afterwards supplied by the hop, was in those days compensated

by the addition of ginger, pepper, spices, and aromatic herbs. Though

the use of hops spread but slowly into Scotland, a considerable import

trade in beer (hopped ale) was carried on with Germany. In 1455 the

accounts already quoted show a payment for German beer supplied to the

garrison at Dunbar. Some curious entries also appear for the years

1497–8: “Item, to Andrew Bertoune, for ten pipe of cider and beir,

the price of all IX li; item, for _aill that the Kinges horse drank_,

viiijd.; item, for the King’s ships, xij barrellis of ail; for ilk

barrell xiiijs. iiijd.”

[Illustration: Mother Louſe of Louſe Hall, near Oxford.

An Alewife at Hedington Hill (1678) mentioned by Anthony Wood. Probably

the laſt woman in England who wore a ruff.

AN ALEWIFE.

You laugh now Goodman two ſhoes, but at what?

My Grove, my Manſion Houſe, or my dun Hat;

Is it for that my loving Chin and Snout

Are met, becauſe my Teeth are fallen out;

Is it at me, or at my Ruff you titter;

Your Grandmother, you Rouge, nere wore a fitter.

Is it at Forehead’s Wrinkle, or Cheeks’ Furrow,

Or at my Mouth, ſo like a Coney Borrough,

Or at thoſe Orient Eyes that nere ſhed tear

But when the Exciſemen come, that’s twice a year.

Kiſs me and tell me true, and when they fail,

Thou ſhalt have larger potts and ſtronger Ale.

]

The following extracts from old Scotch laws show the similarity of

the old English and Scotch usages:—“All women quha brewes aill to be

sould, sall brew conforme to the use and consuetude of the burgh all

the yeare. And ilk Browster sall put forth ane signe of her aill,

without her house, be the window or be the dure, that it may be sene

as common to all men; quhilk gif she does not, she sall pay ane unlaw

(fine) of foure pennies.” “It is statute that na woman sel the gallon

of aill fra Pasch until Michaelmes, dearer nor twa pennies; and fra

Michaelmas untill Pasch, dearer nor ane pennie.” A verse or two of

the “_Ale-wife’s Supplication_; or, the Humble Address of the Scotch

Brewers to his Majesty King George III., for taking away the License

and charging some less {131} duty on Malt and Ale,” must close this

reference to the old Scotch brewing trade:—

Here’s to thee, neighbour, ere we part,

But your Ale is not worth the mou’ing

You must make it more stout and smart,

Or else give over your brewing.

It’s nineteen Times ’courg’d thro’ the Draff,

So whipt by Willy Water,

That Barm and Hop bears a’ the Scoup;

I swear I’ve made far better.

Cries Maggy, then, you speak as you ken,

Consider our Taxations;

And brew it stout, you’ll soon run out,

Of both your Purse and Patience:

For these gauging Men, with nimble Pen,

Can count each Pile of Barley;

And he that cheats them of a Gill,

Will get up very early.

Returning now to London, it is proposed to give some account of the

brewing trade in olden times, and of the Brewers’ Company.

The first differences that strike one in contrasting the ancient

and modern breweries are that the former were on a very small scale

compared with the huge establishments of to-day, and that originally

nearly every brewer was also a retailer. In Chaucer’s time a brewhouse

was often synonymous with an ale-house:—

“In al the toun nas brewhouse ne taverne

That he ne visited with his solas.”

We have no knowledge of any representations of brewhouses at this

early period. The interesting picture of a sixteenth-century brewery

is taken from a rare work by Hartman Schopper, entitled, “Πανοπλια,

omnium illiberalium, mechanicarum, aut sedentariarun artium genera

continens, carminibus expressa, cum venustissimis imaginibus omnium

artificum negociationes ad vivum representantibus,” published at

Frankfort-on-Main, 1568. The illustration would no doubt stand as well

for a brewhouse of a much earlier period, judging from the written

descriptions which we possess. The engraver of _Der Bierbreuwer_ was

Jost Ammon, and the engraving is considered one of the best examples

{133} of the art at this very early period. A plate taken from the

same work, representing a cooperage, will be found on page 334.

[Illustration: Der Bierbreuwer.

Auß Gerſten ſied ich gutes Bier,

Feißt und ſüß, auch bitter monier,

In ein Breuwfeſſel weit und groß

Darein ich denn den Hopſſen ſtoß,

Laß den ich denn in Brennten fühlen daß

Damit ſüll ich darnach die Faß,

Wohl gebunden und wohl gebicht,

Denn giert er und iſt zugericht.

Beschreibung aller Stände (1568).

]

The old German lines under the engraving of the Beer-brewer may be

thus rendered into English: From barley I boil good beer, rich and

sweet and bitter fashion. In a wide and big copper I then cast the

hops. Then [after boiling the wort] I leave it to cool, and therewith

I straightway fill the well-hooped and well-pitched [fermenting] vat;

then it [the wort] ferments, and [the beer] is ready.

There is no doubt that the brewers’ trade was originally held in little

esteem, and was considered as mean and sordid (_de vile juggement_).

The ignominious punishments and restrictions (some of which have been

already mentioned) to which the old London brewers were subjected,

prove that their status only slowly improved. In the time of Henry

VIII., however, their position had so far advanced in repute that

in the grant of arms then made to them, they are specified as “the

Worshipful Occupation of the Brewars of the City.”

The Records of the City of London are particularly full of details

concerning the brewers and the brewing trade, and it will probably

give the best idea of the conditions under which the business was

carried on in former days to mention a few of the principal regulations

gathered from that valuable body of information, and to supplement them

by extracts from the records of the Brewers’ Company. Truth to say,

the brewers and the City authorities were never the best of friends,

and long accounts are to be found from time to time of disputes

between them as to the legal price and quality of the liquor with

which the lieges were to be supplied—struggles in which the action of

the authorities seems, according to our modern notions, to have been

arbitrary in the extreme. An instance of this tyranny over a trade

is given in the _Liber Aldus_, from which it appears that not only

was a brewer compelled to brew ale of a specified price and quality,

but he was not even allowed to leave off brewing in case he found it

did not pay him to continue. The regulation runs thus: “If any shall

refuse to brew, or shall brew a less quantity than he or she used to

brew, in consequence of this ordinance, he or she shall be held to

be a withdrawer of victual from this city and shall be punished by

imprisonment, and shall forswear his trade as a brewer within the

liberties of the City for ever.”

The same idea, formerly so prevalent, that persons ought to be

compelled by the strong hand to pursue their avocations, and the

arbitrary manner in which the authorities acted in obtaining a supply

of victuals, may be illustrated from the _Annals of Dunstaple_ (1294),

in which it is {134} recorded that the King’s long stay at St. Albans

and Langley “enormously injured the market of Dunstaple and all the

country round. . . The servants of the King seized all victual coming

to the market, even cheese and eggs; they went into the houses of the

citizens and carried away even what was not for sale, and scarce left

a tally with any one. They took bread and ale from the ale-wives, and

if they had none _they made them make bread and ale_.” In 1297 the

Sheriffs of Notts and Derby are ordered by Edward I. (Rymer R. 1. 883)

to proclaim in every town that the bakers and brewers should bake and

brew a sufficient store of bread and ale for certain Welshmen, who were

marching to chastise the Scots, “because the King is unwilling that, by

reason of such victuals failing, the men of those parts should suffer

damage at the hands of the sd Welshmen.”

The persons employed in the malt liquor trade, whether as manufacturers

or retailers, are specified in an ordinance of the reign of Henry

IV. to be Brewers, Brewsters, Hostillers (_i.e._, Innkeepers),

Kewes (_i.e._, Cooks), Pyebakers, and Hucksters. The hucksters were

undoubtedly at one time accustomed to sell their ale in the streets of

London. In 1320 they were prohibited by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen

from selling ale on London Bridge. In the sixth year of Richard II.

Juliana atte Vane, huckster, was charged with selling her ale in

“hukkesterie;” she is asked from whom she bought the ale, and replies

that she bought the said ale, viz., one barrel of 30 gallons, from

Benedicta (brewster), who lived at “Crepulgate.” It was accordingly

adjudged that Juliana had broken the City regulations, and the ale was

forfeited. The brewers were forbidden at this time to sell to hucksters

under pain of forfeiture and imprisonment _at the will of the Mayor_,

the intention apparently being that only a brewer should be a vendor of

ale.

By the reign of Henry IV. the brewers, although they had as yet no

royal charter, had joined themselves together for purposes of mutual

protection and social intercourse. They are mentioned in an ordinance

of the seventh year of that reign as the Mystery (_i.e._, trade or

craft) of Free Brewers within the City, and a constitution is ordained

for them by the City Fathers. The freemen of the Mystery are yearly to

elect eight persons, four of the part of the City east of Walbrook,

viz., two masters and two wardens, and four like persons of the part

west of Walbrook. These eight are to make regulations for those using

the mystery of brewing, as to the hiring of servants, the sale of ale,

and such like matters, as they should be charged by the Mayor and

Aldermen; they are also to see “that the good men of the mystery may

{135} have a proper place to go to to transact their own business,”

and are called together upon the proper occasions “by summons of their

beadle in such a manner as other mysteries are;” they are to supervise

those who make and supply ale, and to see that “good, able and seyn

(sound) ale” is brewed according to the legal price, and to report

offenders to the Chamberlain of the City.

Considerable difficulty was at this time experienced in compelling the

sellers of ale to keep to the lawful measures of barrel, kilderkin, and

lesser vessels. On a complaint being made to the Common Council in the

ninth year of Henry IV., that whereas “each barrel ought to contain

thirty gallons of just measure, but each is deficient by two gallons or

more . . . if the dregs are reckoned as clear ale, and that the brewers

will make no rebate in the price on that account to the great deceit

and damage of the Lords, Gentles and Citizens,” therefore the deputies

of the Chamberlain are ordered to mark every barrel as containing 27

gallons, and the half barrel as containing 14 gallons by reason of the

aforesaid dregs. Five years later further evil doings are recorded. The

Brewers and brewsters, “to the displeasure of God and contrary to the

profit of the City, sell their ale three quarts for a gallon, one quart

and a half for a potell (_i.e._, a two-quart measure); and one hanap

(_i.e._ a two-handled tankard), for a half quart of which six or seven

hanaps scarcely make a gallon,” and they are therefore ordered for the

future to sell only by sealed measure and not by hanap, tankard, or any

such vessel.

In the reign of Henry V. the famous Lord Mayor, Richard Whitington, and

the Brewers seem to have been perpetually at daggers drawn.

The records of the Brewers’ Company contain a quaint account of an

information laid against them for selling dear ale; the complainant

in the case being Sir Richard, whose mayoralty had then expired. The

substance of it, translated from the original Norman French, is as

follows:—

“On Thursday, July 30th, 1422, Robert Chichele, the Mayor, sent for

the masters and twelve of the most worthy of our company to appear

at the Guildhall; to whom John Fray, the recorder, objected a breach

of government, for which £20 should be forfeited, for selling dear

ale. After much dispute about the price and quality of malt, wherein

Whityngton, the late mayor, declared that the brewers had ridden into

the country and forestalled the malt, to raise its price, they were

convicted in the penalty of £20; which objecting to, the masters were

ordered to be kept in prison in the Chamberlain’s company, until they

{136} should pay it, or find security for payment thereof.” Whereupon,

the Mayor and Court of Aldermen, having “gone homeward to their meat,”

the masters, who remained in durance vile, “asked the Chamberlain and

clerk what they should do; who bade them go home, and promised that no

harm should come to them; for all this proceeding had been done but to

please Richard Whityngton, for he was the cause of all the aforesaid

judgment.” The record proceeds to state that “the offence taken by

Richard Whityngton against them was for their having fat swans at

their feast on the morrow of St. Martin.” Whether this unctuous dish

had offended the famous Mayor’s mind by way of his digestion, does not

appear.

[Illustration: Whityngton.]

The same Robert Chichele is recorded to have issued the following

curious regulation in 1423:—“That retailers of ale should sell the same

in their houses in pots of “peutre,” sealed and open; and that whoever

carried ale to the buyer should hold the pot in one hand and a cup in

the other; and that all who had cups unsealed should be fined.”

Many other complaints of the “oppressive” acts of Whitington towards

the Company are also recorded. {137}

The Company, as appears from these records, had the power of fining its

members for breach of discipline. In 1421 one William Payne, at the

sign of the Swan, by St. Anthony’s Hospital, Threadneedle Street, was

fined 3s. 4d., to be expended in a swan for the masters’ breakfast,

for having refused to supply a barrel of ale to the King when he was in

France. Simon Potkin, of the Key, Aldgate, was fined for selling short

measure, whereupon he alleged that he had given money to the masters of

the Brewers’ Company, that he might sell ale at his will. This excuse

embroiled him with the Company, who were not to be appeased until he

had paid 3s. 4d. for a swan to be eaten by the masters, but of which,

it is added, “he was allowed his own share.”

In 1420 Thomas Greene, master, and the wardens of the Company

agreed that they should meet at “Brewershalle” every Monday for the

transaction of their business. It would appear that the first Hall

had then been recently erected, for, as we have seen, the Brewers

had in the preceding reign no fixed place to which “the good men of

the mystery” might resort. Many curious accounts are to be found of

election feasts. The presence of females was allowed. The brothers of

the Company paid 12d., and the sisters 8d., and a brother and his

wife 20d. A _menu_ of one of these feasts, given in the ninth year of

Henry V., is subjoined. It shows the nature of these entertainments at

that period.

LA ORDINANCE DE NOSTRE FESTE EN CESTE AN.

_La premier Cours_ _The First Course_

Brawne one le mustarde Brawn with mustard

Caboch à le potage Cabbage soup

Swan standard Swan standard

Capons rostez Roast capons

Graundez Costades. Great costard apples.

_La seconde Cours_ _The Second Course_

Venyson en broth one Venison in broth

Blanche mortrewes[44] Mortreux soup {138}

Cony standard Rabbit standard

Pertriches on cokkez rostez Partridges with roasted cocks

Leche Lombard[45] Leche Lombard

Dowsettes one pettiz parneux. Sweetmeats and pastry.

_La troisme Cours_ _The Third Course_

Poires en serope Pears in syrup

Graundezbriddes one Great birds and

Petitz ensemblez Little ones together

Fretours Fritters

Payne puff one Bread puff

Un cold bakemete. A cold baked meat.

[44] _Mortreux_ was a kind of white soup. Chaucer says of the Cook

that:—

“He coude roste, and sethe, and broille, and frie,

Maken mortreux, and wel bake a pye.”

[45] An old receipt for _leche lombard_ describes it as made of pork

pounded with eggs; sugar, salt, raisins, currants, dates, pepper,

and cloves were added; the mixture was put in a bladder and boiled;

raisins, wine and more spices were added, and the whole was served

in a wine gravy.

It will be gathered from a study of this bill of fare that, though the

Brewers frequently alluded to themselves in petitions as “the poor men

of the Mystery of Brewers,” “your poor neighbours the Berebruers,” and

such like, they nevertheless fared rather sumptuously than otherwise.

Here is their drink bill for a similar entertainment:—

BOTERYE.

item for xxii galons of red wine xiiijs. viijd.

item for iij kilderkyns of good ale at ijs. iiijd. viis.

item for ij kilderkyn of iij halfpeny Ale at xxij iijs. viijd.

item for j kilderkyn of peny ale xijd.

In 1422 Parliament ordered that all the weirs or “kydells” in the

Thames from Staines to Gravesend should be destroyed, and the Lord

Mayor and Aldermen ordained that two men from each of the City

Companies should assist in the work. Thomas Grene and Robert Swannefeld

were accordingly chosen on behalf of the Brewers to go to Kingston. The

expenses were defrayed by a general contribution by the members of the

Company. “These be the names,” says the old {139} writer, “of Brewers

of London, the wheche dede paien diverse somes of monye for to helpe to

destruye the weres yn Tempse for the comynalte of the Cite of London

shulde have the more plente of fissh.” The names of some two hundred

and fifty subscribers are subjoined to the record.

In 1424 the Brewers had a Lord Mayor to their mind in John Michelle,

who was “a good man, and meek and soft to speak with.” When he was

sworn-in, the Brewers gave him an ox, that cost 21s. 2d., and a boar

valued at 30s. 1d.; “so that he did no harm to the Brewers, and

advised them to make good ale, that he might not have any complaint

against them.”

Returning to the ordinances of the City, we find that about this time

(7 Hen. V.) there were some three hundred brewers in the City and

liberties. In that year another precaution was taken to ensure a proper

measure of cask. The coopers were ordered by Whitington to mark with

an iron brand all casks made by them. Each cooper was to have his own

brand, and the marks were to be entered of record. This regulation was

carried into effect, and the mark chosen by each cooper appears on the

City Records with his name annexed, as thus:—

[Illustration]

In the sixteenth year of the reign of Henry VI. the first charter

was granted to the Brewers’ Company. It empowered the freemen of

the Mystery of Brewers of the City of London thenceforward to be a

corporate body, with a common seal and powers of taking and holding

land. The Company was yearly to elect four of their number as wardens,

who were to have power to regulate the members of the Mystery and their

brewing operations, and also to govern and rule all men employed in,

and all processes connected with, the brewing of _any kind of liquor

from malt_ within the City and suburbs for ever. This last provision

was probably intended to extend the power of the Company to the

Fellowship of the Beer-brewers, then beginning to come into existence.

Some years afterwards a coat-of-arms was granted to the Company by

William Hawkeslowe, Clarencieux King of Arms of the South Marches of

Ingelond. It is thus described in the grant: {140} “They beren asure

thre barly sheues gold, bound of the same, a cheveron, gowles, in the

cheveron thre barels, Sylvir, garnyshed with sable.”

[Illustration: The Ancient Arms.]

The Brewers had taken for their patron saints St. Mary and St. Thomas

the Martyr, and bore the arms of Thomas à Becket impaled with their

own, until Henry VIII., discovering that St. Thomas was no saint after

all, desecrated his tomb, scattered his dust to the four winds of

heaven, and compelled the Brewers to adopt another escutcheon. The new

coat, discarding the obnoxious saint’s insignia, was a good deal like

the old one, and is borne by the Company to this day. It is described

in the grant as follows: “Geules on a Cheueron engrailed silver three

kilderkyns sable hoped golde between syx barly sheues in saultre of

the same, upon the Helme on a torse siluer and asur a demy Morien in

her proper couler, vestid asur, fretid siluer, the here golde, holding

in either hande thre barley eres of the same manteled sable, dobled

siluer.”

[Illustration: The Arms of the Brewers’ Company.]

With regard to the old Hall of the Brewers’ Company, it occupied the

site of the present Hall, and is described by Stowe as a “faire house;”

it was destroyed in the Great Fire. Of the present edifice, which

sprang Phœnix-like from the ashes of the yet smoking City—it bears date

1666—suffice it to say that it is a fine building, characteristic of

the architectural style of the period, and that for lovers of old oak

carvings its interior is worthy a visit.

This notice of the Brewers’ Company, its foundation, its feasts, and

{141} its troubles has taken us rather in advance of our tale, and we

must hark back to the middle of the fifteenth century.

To judge from an entry in the City Records of the sixteenth year of

Edward IV. the Brewers were sometimes openly resisted by force of arms.

The actual occasion on which this was done is not specified, but it is

recorded that Richard Geddeney was committed to prison for having said

that the Brewers had made new ordinances, and that it would be well to

oppose them, as had formerly been done, with swords and daggers, when

they were assembled in their Hall.

Six years afterwards a petition was presented to the Lord Mayor and

Aldermen by the Brewers, which is so good a specimen of the usual style

of their supplications that some portions of it are given. It begins by

“petieously compleynyng that where in tyme passed thei have honestly

lyved by the meanes of bruyng, and utteryng of their chaffer as well

within the fraunchises of the saide Citee as withoute. And hath ben

able to bere charges of the same citee after their havours and powers

as other freemen of the saide citee. Where now it is so that for lak

of Reules and other directions in the saide Crafte they ben disordered

and none obedience nor goode Rule and Guydyng is hadd within the saide

Crafte to the distruction thereof.” It is therefore prayed—“That eny

persone occupying the Craft or feat of bruying within the franchise or

the saide citee make or do to be made good and hable ale and holesome

for mannys body. . . and that no manner ale after it be clensed and set

on yeyst be put to sale or borne oute to eny custumers hous till that

it have fully spourged (worked).” That no brewer shall occupy a house

or a “seler” _apart from his own dwelling-house_ for the sale of his

ale. That no brewer shall “entice or labour to taak awey eny custumer

from a brother brewer,” or “serve or do to be served any typler

(_i.e._, retailer of ale) or huxster as to hym anewe be comen custumer

of any manner ale for to be retailed till he have verrey knowlage that

the saide typler or huxster be clerely _oute of dett and daunger for

ale to any other person_” . . . . . That every person keeping a house

and being a _brother of Bruers_ do pay to the Wardens of the Company a

sum of 4s. yearly. “That no manner persone of the said crafte . . .

presume to goo to the feeste of the Maior or the Sherriff _unless he

be invited_ . . that members of the crafte shall appear in livery when

so commanded that is to sey gowne and hode . . . That the livery of

the crafte be changed and renewed every third year agenst the day of

the Election of the newe Wardeyns of the crafte . . .” That once a

quarter the ordinances of the Company shall be read to the assembled

brewers in {142} their common hall. That no brewer is to buy malt

except in the market. That malt brought to market must not be “capped

in the sakke, nor raw-dried malte, dank or wete malte or made of mowe

brent barly, belyed malt, Edgrove malte, acre-spired malte, wyvell eten

malte or meddled[46], in the deceite of the goode people of the saide

citee, upon payn of forfaiture of the same.” No one is to buy his own

malt or corn in the market, “to high the price of corn in the Market,”

under pain of the pillory. No one is to sell malt “at the Market of

Gracechurch or Greyfreres before 9 of the clock till market bell

therfor ordeigned be rongen,” and at one o’clock all the unsold malt is

to be cleared away.

[46] “Capped in the sakke” = probably with some good malt put on the

top and defective malt beneath. Mowe brent barley = barley that has

heated in the stack. Belyed = swollen. Acre-spired = with the shoot

of the plant projecting from the husk. Wyvell-eten = weevil-eaten.

Meddled = mixed.

All these rules and ordinances the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were

graciously pleased to sanction and confirm.

The records contain many entries showing the difficulties the

authorities had to contend with in keeping the brewers to the legal

price and qualities of ale, a subject already touched on in Chapter

V. The prices being fixed by law, and no allowance being made for the

natural fluctuations of the market, it is not to be supposed that

the brewers would give their customers any better ale than they were

absolutely compelled by law to give. As old Taylor quaintly says:—

I find the _Brewer_ honest in his _Beere_,

He sels it for small Beere, and he should cheate,

Instead of _small_ to cosen folks with _Greate_,

But one shall seldome find them with that fault,

Except it should invisibly raine Mault.

Disputes arising between the officers of the Brewers’ Company and any

members of the guild, were sometimes referred for settlement to the

Lord Mayor and Aldermen. In 1520 there was “variance and debate in the

Court of Aldermen between the Master and Wardens of the ale-brewers

and Thomas Adyson, ale-brewer, concerning the making of a growte” by

the latter. The parties having submitted their case to the Court,

it was adjudged that Adyson should go to the Brewers’ Hall, {143}

and there, before the Master and Wardens, “with due reverence as

to them apperteynyng, standing before them his hed uncovered, shall

say these words: ‘Maysters, I pray you to be good masters to me, and

fromhensforth I promytte you that I shall be good and obedient to you

. . and obey the laws and customs of the house.’”

Foreign brewers (_i.e._, brewers not members of the Company) were

only allowed to sell ale within the City on paying 40s. annually to

the use of the City, and in default of payment the Chamberlain “shall

distreyne their carts from tyme to tyme.” There was also a duty called

ale-silver, which had been paid from time immemorial to the Lord Mayor

by the sellers of ale within the City.

Complaints of short measure were still common, and as it is shown that

the barrels were delivered to customers without being properly filled,

so that “thynhabitants of the City paye for more ale and bere than

they doo receive, which is agenst alle good reason and conscience,”

therefore the brewers were ordered to take round “filling ale” to fill

up their customers’ casks.

In the eighteenth year of Henry VIII. a striking instance of the

insubordination of the Brewers is recorded. The four Wardens of the

Company were ordered to produce their books of fines, “the whiche

to doo they utterly denyed.” Therefore the four Wardens and their

Clerk, Lawrence Anworth, “were comytted to the prisn of Newgate ther

to remayne.” This seems to have awakened the Wardens to a sense of

their duties, for on the same day they brought in “ij. boks inclosed

in a whytte bagge.” A committee was appointed to inspect the same,

“forasmuche as it is thought that mayne unreasonable fynes and other

ordynannces be conteyned in theym.”

It has been already mentioned (p. 68) that from the time of Henry VI.

beer had begun slowly to displace the old English ale. The Beer-brewers

had gathered themselves together into a “fellowship” for the protection

of their interests, and were quite distinct from the Ale-brewers,

who composed the Brewers’ Company. Whatever may have been the case

earlier, in the reign of Henry VIII. the Beer-brewers numbered in their

fellowship a certain proportion of Dutchmen. In the twenty-first year

of that reign it was ordained that “no maner Berebruer, _Ducheman or

other_, selling any bere shall, etc.” “Also that no maner of berebruer

_Englise_ or _straunger_, shall have and kepe in his house above the

nomber of two Coblers to amende their vessells.” Constant reference

is made to the Beer-brewers as being a fellowship separate from the

Ale-brewers until the reign of Edward VI., by which {144} time they

had united, apparently without obtaining the sanction of any authority

to the change. In the fifth year of that reign a resolution was passed

by the Court of Common Council that, “forasmoche as the beare-bruers

in the last commen counseyll here holden most dysobedyentlye,

stubborenelye, and arrogantlye behaved theymselfes toward this

honourable Courte,” the whole craft of the Beer-brewers are for ever

disqualified from being elected to serve upon the Common Council; if,

however, the Beer-brewers make humble submission, they may be restored

to their old status, “if your lordship and the wysdomes of this Citee

shall then thynke it mete.” And forasmuch as “most evydently yt hathe

apperyd that this notable stobernes of the beare-bruers hath rysen by

the counseyll and provocatioun of the ale-bruers, which have unyted

to theym all the beare-bruers,” it is ordered that for the future the

two crafts shall not unite, nor shall the Ale-brewers compel any one

to come into their Company. This state of things continued till the

third year of Queen Mary’s reign, when a petition was presented by the

Brewers to the Common Council, which recited that the two crafts had

formerly been united, “as mete and verye convenyente it was and yet

is,” and prayed that the restriction might be removed. The petition

ended thus: “and they with all their hartes accordinge to theire

dueties shall daylye praye unto almightye god longe to prosper and

preserve your honours and worshippes in moche helthe and felycytie.”

This affecting appeal, which would have moved a heart of stone, had

the desired effect, and from that day to the present the Beer-brewers

and Ale-brewers have been united, “as mete and very convenyente it

is” that they should be. Different governance, however, was applied

to the former, and for long after this period four Surveyors of the

Beer-brewers, being “substantyall sadd men,” were elected every year to

supervise the trade.

An instance of the tyranny with which the trades were regulated in

the old days has been already given; a very similar one may be taken

from an order of the Star Chamber in the twenty-fourth year of Henry

VIII., which commands that “in case the Maire and Aldermen of the same

Citie shall hereafter knowe and perceyve or understonde that any of the

saide Brewers of their frowarde and perverse myndes shall at any tyme

hereafter sodenly forbere and absteyne from bruynge, whereby the King’s

subjects shulde bee destitute or onprovided of Drynke,” the brewhouses

of such “wilfull and obstynate” brewers shall be taken possession of

by the City, who are to allow others to brew there, and provide them

materials “in case their lak greynes to brew with.” {145}

Regrators and forestallers (_i.e._, persons who bought large stocks

of provisions with the object of causing a rise in price) were in

old times severely treated by the authorities, who generally checked

their iniquitous dealings by ordering them to sell their stores at a

_reasonable_ price. The forestaller, indeed, might think himself lucky

if he escaped so easily. In the fourth year of Edward VI. four persons

who had accumulated great quantities of hops in a time of scarcity were

ordered to sell their whole stock at once at a reasonable price.

All through the reign of Queen Elizabeth the unfortunate brewers were

vexed with frequent and, in some cases, contradictory regulations: This

beer was to be allowed; that beer was prohibited; prices were still

fixed by law, and qualities must correspond to the City regulations.

Even though a man be ruined, he could not leave off brewing, for fear

of being held a “rebel.”

A curious ordinance, made in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth’s reign,

shows the extreme newness of the ale and beer consumed by the good men

of the City of London in those days. The ordinance is expressed to be

for the reformation of “dyvers greate and foule abuses disorderlye

bigonne by the Brewers,” and, reciting that the Brewers have begun to

deliver their beer and ale but two or three hours after the same be

cleansed and tunned, it provides that no beer or ale is to be delivered

to customers till it has stood in the brewer’s house six hours in

summer and eight in winter.

There seems to have been a smoke question in London even as early as

this period, for in the twenty-first year of Elizabeth we find that

John Platt was committed to prison, “for that he contrarye to my Lorde

Maior’s comaundement to refraine from burninge of seacoles during

her Majestie’s abode at Westminster, he did continually burn seacole

notwithstanding.” A petition from the Brewers to Her Majesty’s Council

about the same period recites that the Brewers understand that Her

Majesty “findeth hersealfe greately greved and anoyed with the taste

and smoke of the seacooles used in their furnaces.” They therefore

promise to substitute wood in the brewhouses nearest to Westminster

Palace. What would have been Her Majesty’s “grief” if she could have

experienced a modern November in London?

In Peter Pindar’s poem on the visit of King George III. to Whitbread’s

Brewery, allusion is made to the once popular belief that brewers’

horses are usually fed on grains. The origin of this idea may possibly

be found in the regulations enforced in London as to the price of and

the dealings in brewers’ grains. In a proclamation of Elizabeth’s {146}

time it is recited that “forasmuche as brewers’ graines be victuall

for horses and cattell as hey and horsebread and other provinder be,”

therefore a price is to be set upon grains by the Lord Mayor, and

the buying of grains to sell again is forbidden. The difficulties of

enforcing the rules as to price and quality of ale and beer are shown

in the frequent complaints of the brewers, and in the numerous trials

that were made from time to time by the City authorities to ascertain

how much drink ought to be brewed from a fixed quantity of malt. In the

thirty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a large Committee was

appointed to make trial, at the charges of the City, of twenty quarters

of malt, to be brewed into two sorts of beer, viz., strong beer at 6s.

8d. the barrel, and “doble” beer at 3s. 4d. the barrel. As a result

of the trial, the brewers promised to draw only five barrels and a

half of double beer from a quarter of malt until the price of malt had

fallen to 18s. the quarter; a strong proof this of the growing taste

for strong ale and beer. Shortly before this time the strongest ale

allowed by law had been this same “doble.” Now the “doble” had taken

the place of the single, and the strong ale of twice the strength of

the “doble” had stepped into its place.

A very summary way had the City authorities in the sixteenth century,

of treating any drink or victual which did not come up to the required

standard of excellence. In 1597 we find it ordered that two and fifty

pipes of corrupt beer, “being nether fitt for man’s body, nor to be

converted into sawce (_i.e. vinegar_) . . . shall have the heades

of all the same pipes beaten owte and the beer poured out into the

channells, part in Cheapside, part in Cornhill and part in Bishopsgate.”

After the reign of Elizabeth the entries concerning the Brewers and

their delinquencies become fewer and farther between. The prices of

ale and beer were still fixed by law, but more common-sense views on

the subject of trade and trade regulation were slowly beginning to

prevail, and we soon lose all traces of the tyrannous and vexatious

regulations of which so many instances occur in earlier times. One

more such instance may be mentioned of an arbitrary attempt to force

trade out of its natural channels, and to lower prices and compel

sobriety at one and the same time. In 1614 the Lord Mayor, “finding

the gaols pestered with prisoners, and their bane to take root and

beginning at ale-houses, and much mischief to be there plotted, with

great waste of corn in brewing heady strong beer, many consuming all

their time and means sucking that sweet poison,” had an exact survey

taken of all victualling houses and ale-houses, which were above a

thousand. As above 300 {147} barrels of beer were in some houses, the

whole quantity of beer in victualling houses amounting to above 40,000

barrels, he had thought it high time to abridge their number and limit

them by bonds as to the quantity of beer they should use, and as to

what orders they should observe, whereby the price of corn and malt had

greatly fallen. The Brewers, however, seem to have been too many for

his Lordship, for though he limited the number of barrels to twenty

per house, and the quality of the two sorts of beer to 4s. and 8s. a

barrel, so that the price of malt and wheat was in a fortnight reduced

by 5s. or 6s. per quarter, yet the Brewers brewed as before, alleging

that the beer was to be used for export, and, “combining with such as

kept tippling houses,” conveyed the same to the ale-houses by night, so

that in a few weeks’ time the price of malt had risen to much the same

figure as before.

In 1626 the Brewers’ Company was in evil case, as may be judged from a

petition presented by them in that year to the City Fathers, in which

they allege that they are in a decayed state and not able to govern

their trade, that their Company consists of but six beer-brewers and a

small number of ale-brewers, and that other brewers are free of other

Companies. The petition goes on to pray that no other person than a

freeman of the Company be allowed to set up a brewhouse in the City.

The petition was referred to a Committee, and nothing more was heard

of it. A similar petition, presented to the Common Council in the year

1752, was considered and the prayer granted.

While, however, the Brewers’ Company had been allowed to fall into

decay, the City regulations of the trade had become less and less

irksome, and the brewers themselves increased in wealth and prosperity.

Many allusions may be found in the writers of the middle of the

seventeenth century, which prove that the status of the brewers had

greatly improved. The old Water Poet thus describes how the brewers

“are growne rich”:—

Thus Water boyles, parboyles, and mundifies,

Cleares, cleanses, clarifies, and purifies.

But as it purges us from filth and stincke:

We must remember that it makes us drinke,

Metheglin, Bragget, Beere, and headstrong Ale,

(That can put colour in a visage pale)

By which meanes many Brewers are growne rich,

And in estates may soare a lofty pitch.

Men of Goode Ranke and place, and much command,

Who have (by sodden Water) purchast land: {148}

Yet sure I thinke their gaine had not been such

Had not good fellowes usde to drinke too much:

But wisely they made Haye whilst Sunne did shine,

For now our Land is overflowne with Wine:

With such a Deluge, or an Inundation

As hath besotted and halfe drown’d our Nation.

Some there are scarce worth 40 pence a yeere

Will hardly make a meale with Ale or Beere:

And will discourse, that wine doth make good blood,

Concocts his meat, and make digestion good,

And after to drink Beere, nor will, nor can

_He lay a churl upon a Gentleman_.

A somewhat similar moral may be drawn from the humorous little poem,

written a century and a half later by a namesake of the Water Poet:—

THE BREWER’S COACHMAN.

Honest William, an easy and good natur’d fellow,

Would a little too oft get a little too mellow;

Body coachman was he to an eminent brewer,

No better e’er sat on a coach-box to be sure.

His coach was kept clean, and no mothers or nurses,

Took more care of their babes, than he took of his horses;

He had these, aye, and fifty good qualities more,

But the business of tippling could ne’er be got o’er.

So his master effectually mended the matter,

By hiring a man who drank nothing but water,

“Now William,” says he, “you see the plain case,

Had you drank as he does you’d have kept a good place.”

“Drink water!” cried William; “had all men done so,

You’d never have wanted a coachman, I trow.

They are soakers, like me, whom you load with reproaches,

That enable you brewers to ride in your coaches.”

A short space only may be devoted to a record of a few of the more

remarkable brewers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jan

Steen, of Delph, seems to have been a brewer famed rather for his

eccentricities than for his beer. He flourished in the days of Charles

II., and Arnold Hinbraken, his biographer, says that a whole book might

{149} be filled with droll episodes of his life. “He was so attached

to boon companions, that his Brewery came to grief. He bought wine with

his money instead of malt. His wife, seeing this, said one day to him,

‘Jan, our living is vanishing, our customers call in vain, there is

no beer in the cellar, nor have we malt for a Brew, what will become

of us? You should bring life into the brewery.’ ‘I’ll keep it alive,’

said Jan, and walked away. He went to market and bought several live

ducks, having first told his men to fill the largest kettle with water

and heat it. He then threw a little malt in it, and threw in the Ducks,

which, not accustomed to hot water, flew madly through the Brewery

making a horrid noise, so that his wife came running in to see what the

matter was, when Jan, turning to her, said, ‘My love, is it not lively

now in our Brewery?’ However, he gave up brewing, and turned Painter.”

William Hicks, who died in the year 1740, was one of the most

remarkable Brewers of the last century. He was brewer to the Royal

household, and left behind him a well-earned reputation for honesty and

loyalty. A striking proof of his loyalty may be seen to this day in

the statue of George I., which he set up on the summit of Bloomsbury

steeple, and of which a facetious person wrote:—

The King of Great Britain was reckon’d before

The head of the Church by all good Christian people,

But his brewer has added still one title more

To the rest, and has made him the head of the steeple.

Another celebrated brewer of last century was Humphrey Parsons, twice

Lord Mayor of London. This gentleman, when upon a hunting party with

Louis XV., happened to be exceedingly well mounted, and, contrary to

the etiquette observed in the French Court, outstripped the rest of the

company, and was first in at the death. On the King asking the name of

the stranger, he was indignantly informed that he “was un chevalier

de malte.” The King entered into conversation with Mr. Parsons, and

asked the price of his horse. The Chevalier, bowing in the most courtly

style, replied that the horse was beyond any price other than his

Majesty’s acceptance. The horse was delivered, and from thenceforward

the _chevalier_ Parsons had the exclusive privilege of supplying the

French Court and people with his far-famed “black champagne.”

It has been the sad reflection of many an one, on wandering in a

churchyard and reading the epitaphs of the departed, that certainly

the most virtuous and highly-gifted of mankind have already passed

{150} away—that is, if the epitaphs are absolutely to be relied on.

Mr. Tipper, the Newhaven brewer, who died in 1785, and lies buried in

Newhaven Churchyard, is an instance in point. Surely none but himself

could have been Mr. Tipper’s parallel. His epitaph runs thus:—

Reader! with kind regards this grave survey,

Nor heedless pass where Tipper’s ashes lay.

Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt and kind,

And dared do, what few dare do—speak his mind.

Philosophy and History well he knew,

Was versed in Physick and in Surgery too.

The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold,

Nor did one knavish trick to get his gold.

He played thro’ life a varied comic part,

And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.

Reader, in real truth, such was the man,

Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can.

The last resting place of Mr. Pepper, sometime brewer of Stamford, in

Lincolnshire, bears these lines:—

Though _hot_ my name, yet mild my nature,

I bore good will to every creature;

I brew’d good ale and sold it too,

And unto each I gave his due.

The following lines were composed on a brewer who, becoming too big a

man for his trade, retired from business—and died:—

Ne’er quarrel with your craft,

Nor with your shop dis’gree.

He turned his nose up at his Tub

And the bucket kicked he.

And so the old Brewers are dead and gone, with their virtues and their

faults, their troubles and their successes, and the modern Brewers

reign in their stead.

[Illustration]

{151}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

“The Almaynes with their smale Rhenish wine are contented; but we must

have March beere, double beere, dagger ale, and bracket . . .”

_Gascoygne’s Delicate Dyet for Daintie-Mouthed Droonkards._

Alum si fit stalum non est malum

Beerum si fit clerum est sincerum.

_Old Rhyme._

_VARIOUS KINDS OF ALES AND BEERS.—SOME FOREIGN BEERS. — RECEIPTS. —

SONGS. — ANECDOTES._

An attempt to describe, or even to specify, all the ales and beers that

have gained a local or more wide-spread fame, would be a lengthy task.

Nearly every county in England, and nearly every town of any size, has

been at one time or another noted for its malt liquors. The renown of

some localities has been evanescent, having depended probably upon

the special art of some “barmy” brewer or skilful ale-wife, whilst of

others it may be said that years only increase their fame and spread

their reputation.

From a perusal of those queer old collections of quackery, magic,

herb-lore and star-lore, the Saxon Leechdoms, it may be gathered

that our Saxon ancestors brewed a goodly assortment of malt liquors.

They made beer, and strong beer; ale, and strong ale; clear ale,

lithe (clear) beer; and _twybrowen_, or double-brewed ale, the mighty

ancestor of the “doble-doble” beer of Elizabethan times. Besides all

these, there was foreign ale for those whose tastes were too fastidious

to be satisfied with their native productions. {152}

On the authority of the _Alvismál_, it may be said that no distinction

was originally drawn between ale and beer, except, perhaps, that the

latter was considered to be a somewhat more honourable designation; “öl

heitir meth mönnum en meth Asum bjoor” (_i.e._, ale it is called among

men, and among the gods beer).

The _Exeter Book_, a collection of Anglo-Saxon poems, contains the

expressions, “a good beer-drinker,” “angry with ale,” “drunken with

beer,” in close juxtaposition and apparently without any distinction of

meaning. A distinction must, however, have arisen in very early times,

for in the collection of Saxon Leechdoms, mentioned above, a direction

is to be found that a patient is on no account to drink beer, although

he may partake in moderation of ale and wine; and the same work

contains the remarkable and apparently impossible statement that while

a pint of ale weighs six pennies more than a pint of water, a pint of

beer weighs twenty-two pennies less than a pint of water.

The word beer seems gradually to have given place to the word ale,

and though the former may have lingered in some parts of the country,

and the passage from _King Horn_ already quoted shows that in the

thirteenth century it was not quite forgotten—ale became the usual

word to express malt liquor. It was English _ale_ that strengthened

the arm of English bowmen at Crecy and Poictiers, and on many another

well-fought field; and English _ale_ was the “barley-broth” which

“decocted” the cold blood of the dwellers in this land of fogs and

mist “to such valiant heat” and stubborn endurance in their constant

struggles with the valour and chivalry of France.

The old English word “beor,” indeed, had become so weakened and

specialised, even as early as the tenth century, that it is to be

found in a Vocabulary of that date as an equivalent for idromellum, a

word properly signifying an inferior sort of mead, but also denoting

the sweet wort, before fermentation had changed it into _ale_. It is

curious to observe that when next the word “beer” came into common use

in our language, it was by introduction of our neighbours the Flemings,

and was specially applied to malt liquor in which the bitter of the hop

was an important ingredient. The word left us in sweetness, it returned

in bitterness, and so the whirligig of time brings in its revenges.

Beer became the name for hopped ale, but that distinction soon began to

be less significant, for as early as 1616 we find Gervase Markham, in

his _Maison Rustique_, recommends the use of a small quantity of hops

in ale-brewing. {153}

Taylor, in _Drink and Welcome_, dwells upon this distinction between

ale and beer in the seventeenth century as follows:—“Now to write of

Beere I shall not need to wet my pen much with the naming of it, it

being a drinke which Antiquitie was an _Aleien_ or a meere stranger

to, and as it hath scarcely any name, so hath it no habitation, for

the places or houses where it is sold doth still retain the name of

an Alehouse. This comparison needs a _Sir Reverence_ to usher it, but

being Beere is but an Upstart and a Foreigner or Alien, in respect

of _Ale_, it may serve instead of a better; Nor would it differ from

Ale in anything, but onely that an Aspiring _Amaritudinous_ Hop comes

crawling lamely in, and makes a Bitter difference betweene them, but

if the Hop be so crippled, that he cannot be gotton to make the oddes,

the place may poorely bee supply’d with chopp’d Broome (new gathered)

whereby Beere hath never attained the sober Title of _Ale_, for it is

proper to say _A Stand of Ale_, and a _Hoggeshead of Beere_, which in

common sense is but a swinish phrase or appellation.”

That curious ballad entitled _Skelton’s Ghost_, which was probably

the work of a rhymer of the seventeenth century, points to the same

distinction. The ghost of Skelton the Laureate is supposed to be

addressing some of the jovial characters of the period much in the tone

of one who, having lived in the golden age (of liquor), looks down

with pity and scorn at a later-day’s degenerate topers. These are the

particular lines in point:—

For in King Harry’s time

When I made this rhyme

* * * * *

Full Winchester gage

We had in that age

The Dutchman’s strong beere

Was not hopt over here,

To us ’twas unknowne;

Bare ale of our owne,

In a bowle we might bring,

To welcome the King.

At the present day, in the eastern counties, and indeed over the

greater portion of the country, _ale_ means strong, and _beer_ means

small malt liquor; in London _beer_ usually means porter (_i.e._, the

small beer of stout); while in the west country _beer_ is the “mighty”

liquor, and _ale_ the small. In the trade, however, _beer_ is the

comprehensive word for all malt liquors. {154}

Ale was not the only word employed in late Saxon times to signify the

“oyle of barly,” for _wœt_, from the Saxon _swatan_, was in common use

as a synonym, and now, perhaps, finds its representative in the slang

phrase, “heavy wet.” The same term lingers in Scotland, and lovers of

Burns will remember his line, “It gars the _swats_ gae glibber doun.”

In former times wheat and oats were malted, as well as barley, and

though, as has been previously stated (p. 105), the law from time to

time prohibited this use of wheat, as tending to enhance the price of

bread, the practice was stronger than the precept, and continued to

prevail down to a comparatively recent date.

Cogan, in _The Haven of Health_ (1586), thus describes the effect of

the different malts on the resultant liquor:—“For beere or ale being

made of wheat inclineth more to heat, for wheat is hot. If it be made

of barley malt, it enclineth more to cold, for barley is cold. And if

it be made of barley and otes together it is yet more temperate and of

less nourishment.” In the reign of Edward VI. even beans were used in

brewing, for the Brewers’ Company, in a petition to the Common Council

asking for a revision of the prices of ale and beer, complain that the

articles they use in brewing, viz., “wheate, malte, oates, beanes,

hoppes . . . . . . at these days are comen unto greate and exceeding

pryces.”

It has been shown that for several hundred years the prices and

qualities of ale were fixed by law. As a rule, only two kinds were

allowed to be brewed for sale, the better and the second, or, as they

were called in some places, and notably in London, the double and the

single. The prices in Henry III.’s reign for the better kind were fixed

at 1d. for two gallons sold within cities, and 1d. for three or four

gallons sold in country places. In Edward III.’s reign three sorts

of ale might be brewed, the best at 1½d. a gallon, the middling at

1d., and the third at three farthings; and these prices seem to have

been in force in the City of London with slight variations down to the

time of Henry VIII., when the Brewers upon several occasions stirred

themselves to get the prices raised, but met with varying success.

In the early part of the reign the retail price of the best ale was

still 1½d. the gallon, and of the second, called threehalfpenny ale,

1d. per gallon. Double beer was to be 1d. per gallon, and single

½d. and a half-farthing. The wholesale price for beer was also fixed,

and three kinds were allowed, viz., “Dobyll” at 15d. the kilderkin,

“Threehalfpenny” at 12d., and “Syngyll” at 10d.

In the twenty-fourth year of Henry VIII. the Brewers, after much

agitation, got the prices of beer raised to 2s. the kilderkin for the

“doble,” {155} and 1s. for the “syngyll”; but even with that they

were not satisfied, and expressed their dissatisfaction in protests to

the Common Council, who listened to their complaint, “but after long

consideration it was agreed, that whereas the Serjeaunt Gybson hath

exhibited and rote a boke of the gaynes of the said bere-brewers,”

their case should be remitted to the care of a committee appointed

to look into it. In the result no alteration was then sanctioned,

but five years afterwards the price was raised to 3s. 4d. the kil.

for the best, and 2s. 8d. for the threehalfpenny. The strength of

ale usually brewed about this time may be judged from answers given

by London brewers when interrogated on the subject. John Sheffield,

on being asked (36 Henry VIII.) how many kilderkins of _good ale_ he

draws from a quarter of malt, answers, “Little above five.” Other

brewers say much the same thing, though Richard Pyckering evades the

question by saying that “he commytteth the whole to his wife, and what

she draweth from a quarter he knoweth not.” This would point to an ale

of very considerable strength. In the thirty-seventh year of Henry

VIII., another committee was appointed to consider this all-important

question, “on account of the grete derthe and scarcitye at this present

of all kinds of grayne;” but nothing resulted from their deliberations.

The Brewers, however, seem to have stuck to their text with great

pertinacity, and in the fifth year of Edward VI. obtained a decision

of a committee of the Common Council, that they could no longer supply

the City at the then existing prices. Two kinds of beer only are to be

allowed, our old friends, “doble” and “syngyll,” and the strength and

quality are defined as follows: “Of every quarter of grayne that any

beare-bruer shall brewe of doble beare, he shall drawe fowre barrells

and one fyrkyn of goode holsome drynke for mannes bodye,” and double

that quantity of single beer. The price of the double beer is to be

4s. 8d. the barrel, and of single beer 2s. 4d., until the price of

malt is reduced to 15s. the quarter, and of wheat to 12s., when the

old prices are to be revived. Little variations of price occurred until

the reign of Elizabeth, who seems, from contemporary accounts, to have

been frequently exercised by the behaviour of the London Brewers. In

a Royal proclamation of the second year of her reign, she complains

that the Brewers have left off brewing any single beer, but brew “a

kynde of very strong bere calling the same doble-doble-bere which they

do commenly utter and sell at a very greate and excessyve pryce,” and

orders the old rules and rates to be observed; and in particular that

every Brewer shall once a week brew “as much syngyl as doble beare and

more.” Twenty years later the “doble-doble” seems to have been {156}

sanctioned in practice if not in name, for the Brewers are ordered to

sell two sorts of beer only, the double at 4s. the barrel and “the

other sort of beare of the best kynde at 7s. 6d.”

Three years later still the Queen declares that the disorders of the

Brewers, through their “ungodly gredyness,” have grown to such lengths

that something must be done; and an Act of Common Council brings back

the beer to double and single, and applies other remedies.

In 1654 three sorts of beer are allowed—the best at 8s. the barrel,

the second at 6s., and the small at 4s.; and shortly afterwards a

fourth kind was added at 10s. The efforts of the authorities to fix

the prices of ale and beer by arbitrary means were not long afterwards

finally discontinued.

The limitation and classification of ale and beer according to their

strength, was maintained down to quite recent times because of the

duties laid upon them, but on the repeal of those duties ales of every

strength, kind and description were, and have since been, extensively

manufactured. Every want, whim, and fancy of the ale-drinker may now

be gratified. There is old Scotch or old Burton for the lover of

strong beer, porter for the labouring classes, stout for the weakly,

and last, but far from least, that splendid liquid, pale ale, which,

when bottled, vies with champagne in its excellence and delicacy of

flavour, and beats it altogether out of the field when we take into

consideration its sustaining and restorative powers.

A tale is told of a man who asserted that tea was stronger than beer.

“A pot of beer,” said he, “will seldom attract more than a couple of

men about it, but a pot of tea will draw half-a-dozen or more old

women.”

A potent drink, much in vogue with the roystering blades of former

times, was that known as “huff-cap.” The name was a cant expression

for strong ale, which was so called because it induced people to set

their caps in a bold huffing fashion. The term huff-cap was also used

to denote a swaggering fellow, as may be gathered from Clifford’s

_Note on Dryden_ (1687):—“Prethee tell me true, was not this huff-cap

once the Indian Emperour, and at another time did he not call himself

Maximine?” _Fulwel’s Art of Flattery_ thus mentions this variety of the

juice of barley:—“To quench the scorching heat of our parched throtes,

with the best nippitatum in this toun, which is commonly called

_huff-cap_, it will make a man look as though he had seen the devil

and quickly move him to call his own father a ———” (naughty name).

Harrison, writing on the food and diet of the English in 1587, also

{157} mentions huff-cap, and speaks of the mightiness of the ale in

which our ancestors indulged; ale, in fact, as an old Proverb has it,

“that would make a cat speak.” “Howbeit,” he writes, “though they are

so nice in the proportion of their bread, yet in lieu of the same their

is such headie ale and beere in moste of them, as for the mightinesse

thereof among suche as seeke it oute, is commonly called huffe cap,

the mad dog, angel’s food, dragon’s milke, etc. And this is more to be

noted, that when one of late fell by God’s prouvidence into a troubled

conscience, after he had considered well of his reachlesse life, and

dangerous estate; another thinking belike to change his colour and not

his mind, carried him straightwaie to the strongest ale, as to the next

physician. It is incredible to saie how our malte bugs lug at this

liquor, even as pigs should lie in a rowe, lugging at their dame’s

teats, till they lie still againe and be not able to wag. Neither did

Romulus and Remus sucke their shee woolfe or sheepherd’s wife Lupa with

such eger and sharpe devotion as these men hale at hufcap, till they be

red as cockes, and little wiser than their combs.” A strong ale, called

“Huff,” is still brewed at Winchester, and is kept for the use of the

fellows (not the boys) of that ancient institution.

Some idea of the strength of the ale usually drunk in the country

districts in Elizabeth’s reign, may be gathered from a passage in a

letter from Leicester to Burleigh, written while the Queen was on

one of her famous progresses through the country: “There is not one

drop of good drink here for her. We were fain to send to London, and

Kenilworth, and divers other places where ale was; her own bere was so

strong as there was no man able to drink it.”

To quote again from old Harrison on the fondness of his contemporaries

for strong ale, speaking of workmen and others attending bride-ales

(_i.e._, marriage feasts) and such like festivities, he says: “If they

happen to stumble upon a peece of venison and a cup of wine or verie

strong beere or ale (which latter they commonlie provide against their

appointed daies) they thinke their cheere so great, and themselves to

have fared so well, as the Lord Maior of London, with whom, when their

bellies be full, they will not stick to make comparison.”

In the year 1680, during the debate on the Act to restrain the excess

and abuse used in Victualling Houses, one member said that he wished

“there might be a reformation of Ale, which is now made so strong, that

he offered to affirm it upon oath, that it is commonly sold for a Groat

a quart. _It is as strong as wine, and will burn like Sack._” {158}

The Water Poet thus describes the different qualities of mild and stale

beer as known to the topers of the seventeenth century: “The stronger

_Beere_ is divided into two parts (viz.), mild and stale; the first

may ease a man of a drought, but the latter is like water cast into a

Smith’s forge, and breeds more heart-burnings, and as rust eates into

Iron, so overstale Beere gnawes aulet holes in the entrales, or else my

skill failes, and what I have written of it is to be held as a Jest.”

Nipitatum or nipitato was another slang name for very strong ale. It is

mentioned in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_:—

My father oft will tell me of a drink,

In England found and _Nipitato_ called,

Which driveth all the sorrow from your hearts.

Another epithet applied to ale, and denoting great strength, was

“humming,” and a reason for the term is shown by the extract from a

letter from John Howell to Lord Ciffe (seventeenth century), who, in

speaking of metheglin, says “that it keeps a humming in the brain,

which made one say that he loved not metheglin because he was used

to speak too much of the house he came from, meaning the hive.” The

humming in the head would be equally applicable to the effects of ale

as of metheglin, though the hive would only apply to the latter. The

same idea is sometimes expressed by the term _hum-cup_, as in the lines

from the old Sussex sheep-shearing song, beginning:—

’Tis a barrel then of _hum-cup_, which we call the black ram.

Besides these strong ales and others too numerous to mention,

there was, at the beginning of last century, a certain strong beer

called Pharaoh, which gave its name to an ale-house at Barley, in

Cambridgeshire. The reason of the name is not certainly known, although

it was said in the county that it was so called because it _would not

let the people go_. This drink is no longer made in England, but a

strong beer of the same name is much appreciated in Belgium. The same

liquor is mentioned in the _Praise of Yorkshire Ale_ (1685):

. . . Coffee, Twist, Old Pharaoh and old Hoc,

Juniper Brandy and Wine de Langue-Dock.

As there have been many strong and mighty ales since the days when—

King Hardicanute, ’midst Danes and Saxons stout,

Carous’d on nut-brown ale and dined on growt, {159}

so there have been an abundance of small poor drinks, which have been

from time to time known by various terms of contempt, the titles

“whip-belly-vengeance” and “rotgut” being, perhaps, on the whole, the

most expressive. Shakspere sums up the humdrum of retired matronly life

in the well-known line, “To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.”

Beer which had been kept so long that it had turned sour was at one

time known as “broken beer,” much as we speak now of broken victuals.

Ben Jonson, in his _Masque of Gypsies_, makes mention of an infant

“very carefully carried at his mother’s back, rock’d in a cradle of

Welsh cheese like a maggot, and there fed with _broken beer_, and blown

wine of the best daily.”

In olden times small beer discharged that friendly office assigned

by later and more fastidious days to soda-water, namely, the cooling

of the parched throat after a too earnest devotion to the rites of

_Bacchus_.

Welcome to my lips, great king of frolic,

Stern foe to headache, devils blue, and cholic—

No dandy soda-water bring to me,

No Lady’s lemonade, no soft bohea;

Thy sterner aid I claim, and ask thy might

To quell the riots of that punch last night;

wrote one of the Brasenose College poets. Christopher Sly, awakening

from his debauch, cries aloud for “a pot of small ale . . . and once

again a pot of the smallest ale,” and Prince Hal “remembers the poor

creature small beer.”

A nameless author, writing in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1746,

describes this function of small beer, and in poetic vein tells how

after a “wine,” awaking from a feverish sleep, he sees before him a

venerable man,

Old, but not bending with the weight of years;

His face was ruddy, and he smiled benign,

As if nor sickness had his form impair’d,

Nor anxious cares his soul: his silver’d head

Was bound with wreaths of salutary flow’rs,

Call’d _Hops_ by men, but _Panace_ by Gods.

“My son,” he said (and at his voice divine

New life beat vig’rous in each throbbing vein)

“Long has my friendly influence mov’d the scorn,

My name the laughter of the sons of men,

The sons of men, regardless of their weal {160}

And health, the greatest sublunary good!

The genius I of liquor, call’d below

Small Beer, and doubtless you have heard me damn’d

Full oft, by Belials rude, outrageous sons;

But yet, were honour due, to Temp’rance given,

Mine were the favours of th’ applauding crowd,

* * * * *

——Here, taste and live, live soberly and well.”

This said, a vase with steady hand he gave,

Full to the brim, I quaft’d the tender’d draught;

Swift the cool stream refresh’d my burning throat,—

* * * * *

In haste my visionary guest retir’d,

And left me deep in contemplation drown’d

Resolving reason never more to quench

In floods _Lethean_ of deceitful wine;

Deceitful wine! embrew’d with mixtures dire,

By the curs’d vintner’s art for sordid pelf.

O! grant me, Heav’n, to live with health and ease,

My books, a sober friend, _Small Beer_, and sense:

So shall my years the smiling fates prolong,

And each auspicious morn shall see me happy.

Even in distant times particular localities became noted for the

excellence of their brewers. London early attained, and has maintained

until the present day, a great reputation for its ale. Chaucer alludes

to the taste of the Cook for a “draught of London ale.” Tyrwhitt says

that in 1504 London ale was of such excellence that it fetched 5s. a

barrel more than Kentish ale. This can hardly be, as we have already

seen that at that period the barrel of London double ale only fetched

4s. Probably Tyrwhitt intended to refer to a tun and not to a barrel.

The occasion referred to was the enthronement of William Wareham as

Archbishop of Canterbury, when the provision made for washing down

the vast stores of eatables was something tremendous. Besides great

quantities of wine of many sorts, there were four tuns of London ale,

six of Kentish, and twenty of English beer.

The malt liquors of London, and especially London porter and stout,

are known from pole to pole, and Burton ales have a no less world-wide

reputation. Indeed, the word Burton has in itself come to be synonymous

with ale, and the expression “a glass of Burton” has become a household

word. {161}

Burton and its famous brew are treated of elsewhere in these pages, and

it must suffice here to insert an old song in praise of this nineteenth

century nectar:—

BURTON ALE.

Ne’er tell me of liquors from Spain or from France,

They may get in your heels and inspire you to dance,

But the Ale of Old Burton if mellow and right

Will get in your head and inspire you to fight.

Your Claret and Rhenish and fine Calcavella

Were never yet able to make a good fellow,

But of stout Burton Ale, if you drink but enough,

’Twill make you all jolly and hearty and tough.

Then let meagre Frenchmen still batten on Wine,

They ne’er will digest a good English Sirloin,

Parbleu they may caper and Vapour along,

But right Burton can make us both valiant and strong.

Come here then ye Mortals who’re prone to despair

From frowns of Dame Fortune or frowns of the fair,

Whate’er your disorder, three nips will prevail,

And the best Panacea you’ll find, Burton Ale.

Then Molly approach with your Peacock and Cann—

Not Juno herself brought more blessings to Man—

With nip after nip, all my sorrows beguile,

And my Fortune and Mistress shall presently smile.

Old strong beer is sometimes known by the name of Stingo, and this

appellation seems, for a couple of hundred years at least, to have been

specially applied to Yorkshire Ale. The estimation in which this liquor

was held at the end of the eighteenth century, and the wonders it was

deemed capable of bringing about, may be learned from a perusal of _The

Praise of Yorkshire Ale_, an old poem, extracts from which may be found

in the chapter devoted to Ballads. We have been given to understand

that the brewers of Yorkshire Stingo have not forgotten their ancient

skill.

Our old friend Taylor mentions a goodly number of places where

especially good ale was brewed in his day. “I should be voluminous,” he

says, “if I should insist upon all pertinent and impertinent passages

{162} in the Behalfe of _Ale_, as also of the retentive fame that

_Yorke_, _Chester_, _Hull_, _Nottingham_, _Darby_, _Gravesende_, with

a Toaste, and other Countries still enjoy, by making this untainted

liquor in the primitive way, and how _Windsor_ doth more glory in that

composition than all the rest of her speculative pleasures. . . . .

Also there is a Towne neere _Margate in Kent_ (in the Isle of Thanet)

called _Northdowne_, which Towne hath ingrost much Fame, Wealth, and

Reputation from the prevalent potencie of their attractive _Ale_.”

Derby had as early as the sixteenth century a great reputation for its

ales. Sir Lionel Rash, in _Green’s Tu Quoque_, an Elizabethan comedy,

says: “I have sent my daughter this morning as far as Pimlico to fetch

a draught of Derby Ale, that it may fetch a colour into her cheeks.”

Fuller, in his _Worthies of England_, with an evident conservative

taste for ale, that “authenticall drinke of old England,” mentions

the repute of Derby ale with some circumlocution, but with no stinted

praise. “Ceres being our English Bacchus,” he remarks, “this was our

ancestors’ common drink, many imputing the strength of their Infantry

(in drawing so stiff a bow) to their constant (but moderate) drinking

thereof. Yea, now the English begin to turn to Ale (may they in due

time regain their former vigorousnesse) and whereas in our remembrance,

Ale went out when swallows came in, seldom appearing after Easter; it

now hopeth (having climbed up May Hill) to continue its course all

the year. Yet have we lost the Preservative, what ever it was, which

(before Hops were found out) made it last so long in our land some

two hundred years since, for half a year at least after the brewing

thereof; otherwise of necessity they must brew every day, yea pour it

out of the Kive into the Cup, if the prodigious English Hospitality in

former ages be considered, with the multitude of menial servants and

strangers entertained. Now never was the wine of Sarepta better known

to the Syrians, that of Chios to the Grecians, of Phalernum to the

Latines, than the Canary of Derby is to the English thereabout.”

Manchester at about the same period seems to have had a great

assortment of Ales and Beers, if we are to believe Taylor, who, in his

_Pennyless Pilgrimage_, tells

How men of Manchester did use me well,

* * * * *

We went into the house of one John Pinners

(A man that lives among a crew of sinners)

And there eight severall sorts of Ale we had,

All able to make one starke drunke or mad. {163}

But I with courage bravely flinched not,

And gave the Towne leave to discharge the shot,

We had at one time set upon the table,

Good Ale of Hisope, ’twas not Esope fable:

Then had we Ale of Sage, and Ale of Malt,

And Ale of Woorme-wood, that could make one halt,

With Ale of Rosemary, and Bettony,

And two Ales more, or else I needs must lye.

But to conclude this drinking Alye tale,

We had a sort of Ale called scurvy Ale.

The southern district of Devon, which is locally known as South Hams,

has long been famed for a curious liquor known as “white ale.” The

beverage is of great antiquity, and has been subject to tithe from time

immemorial. Kingsbridge is supposed to have been the place where white

ale was first brewed. It used to be made of malt, a small quantity of

hops, flour, spices, and a mysterious compound known as “grout,” or

“ripening,” the manufacture of which was, and may be still, preserved

as a great secret in a few families. In another receipt for making

this ale it is stated that a number of eggs should be added to the

liquor before it is allowed to ferment, and this seems to have been an

essential of the original brew, or at any rate was so considered in

1741. A writer at that date says:—“The Ale-wives, whose province of

making this Ale it commonly falls under to manage from the beginning

to the end, are most of them as curious in their brewing it, as the

Dairy women in making their butter, for as it is a White Ale it soon

sullies by dirt . . . . ; the wort is brewed by the hostess, but

the fermentation is brought on by the purchase of what they call

‘ripening,’ or a composition, as some say, of flower of malt and white

of eggs . .”

This luscious liquid has been described as “not the sparkling beverage

brewed from malt and hops, but a milky-looking compound, of which,

judging from the flavour, milk, spice and gin seemed to be among

the ingredients. It does not improve by keeping, and is brewed only

in small quantities for immediate consumption. It is kept in large

bottles, and you will scarcely pass a public-house from Darmouth to

Plymouth without seeing evidence of its consumption by the empty

bottles piled away outside the premises.”

At the present time a considerable quantity of white ale is made in and

about Tavistock. It is now, however, brewed in a simpler manner than

of yore, and consists simply of common ale with eggs and flour {164}

added. The labourers of that part of the country much affect it, and

as it is highly nutritious it is regarded by many of them as “meat,

drink and cloth” combined. A bloated habit of body is said to arise

from a too faithful adherence to this luscious fluid. A former great

connoisseur of this West-country ale, one Bone Phillips, lies buried

just outside the church door at Kingsbridge; the following lines were

inscribed over his grave at his request:—

Here lie I at the church door,

Here be I because I’m poor,

The further in the more you pay,

Here lie I as warm as they.

While on the subject of epitaphs, the following may be quoted as having

some bearing on the subject specially treated of in this chapter:—

Poor John Scott lies buried here;

Tho’ once he was both _hale_ and _stout_,

Death stretched him on his bitter bier:

In another world he _hops_ about.

An ale of a similar nature to white ale goes in Cornwall by the rather

uneuphonious title of “Laboragol.” Somewhat similar to the foregoing

was grout[47] ale, which is said by Halliwell, on the authority of

Dean Milles’ MS. glossary, to have been different from white ale, of a

brownish colour, and known only to the people about Newton Bussel, who

kept the method of preparing it a secret. A physician, a native of that

place, informed him that the preparation was made of “malt almost burnt

in an iron pot, mixed with some of the barm which rises on the first

working in the keeve, a small quantity of which invigorates the whole

mass and makes it very heady.” {165}

[47] The word grout properly signifies ground meal or malt. Kennett

says that in Leicestershire the infusion of malt and water before

it is fully boiled is called grout, and after it is tunned up it

is called wort. Ray explains it as wort of the last running. Pegge

says it is only drank by poor people, who are on that account called

“grouters.” See Halliwell’s Dict. of Arch. and Prov. Words. In the

old play, _Tom Tyler and his Wife_, growt is used to signify a kind

of ale.

This jolly growt is jolly and stout

I pray you stout it still-a,

While mentioning some few of the places specially noted for their

ales, our ancient seats of learning must not be forgotten. Who has

not heard of Trinity audit, and of that scarcely less famous liquor,

Brasenose Ale? Many who have tasted the former have had no words to

express their feelings; some have said that it is as superior to all

other mortal brews as Chateau Lafitte is to vin ordinaire. These may

seem words of extravagant praise; but let the reader who has never

tasted this famous drink reserve his judgment on the point until he

has, and above all let him lose no time in putting his judgment to the

test. Trinity audit would justify the eulogy of the host in the _Beaux’

Stratagem_—“As smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, strong as

brandy; fancy it Burgundy, only fancy it, and it is worth ten shillings

a quart.”

Oh, in truth, it gladdens the heart to see

What may spring from the Ale of Trinitie,—

A scholar—a fellow,—a rector blithe,

(Fit to take any amount of tithe)—

Perhaps a bishop—perhaps, by grace,

One may mount to the Archiepiscopal place,

And wield the crosier, an awful thing,

The envy of all, and—the parsons’ King!

O Jove! who would struggle with learning pale,

That could beat down the world by the strength of Ale!

For _me_,—I avow, could my thoughtless prime

Come back with the wisdom of mournful time,

I’d labour—I’d toil—by night and day,

(Mixing liquors and books away,)

Till I conquer’d that high and proud degree,

M. A. (Master of Ale) of Trinitie.[48]

[48] A Panegyric on Ale addressed to W. L. Birkbeck, Esq., by Barry

Cornwall.

Brasenose College, Oxford, has long been noted for its ale. As each

Shrovetide comes round, the college butler, as a condition of the

tenure of his office, presents a barrel of the strongest nappy, and

celebrates the event in verse, handing on to generations yet unborn the

name and fame of the Brasenose brew. The earlier of these ale poems,

which are in reality the effusions of some poetical undergraduate,

had a fleeting existence, but some years ago Mr. Prior, who was then

and still continues, {166} the butler of the College, published a

collection of them in a small volume, entitled _Brasenose Ale_. In his

little book, which we commend to the perusal of all good ale-knights,

occur the following lines, written by R. J. B., in 1835:—

Lo! Prior hastens with his motley crew,

To pour the foaming liquor to our view:

Clasps his firm hand in all a Butler’s pride

The cup no Brasenose Fellow e’er denied:

Yet secret triumph o’er his brow has cast

That Ale the sweetest, as that brew the last!

“Away, ye lighter drinks! ye swipes, away,

Where masters bully, and where boys obey,”

The brewer cried; and taught the Ale to live

With all the charms that malt and hops could give.

Warm’d at his touch, behold the vapours rise

In all their genuine fragrance to the skies:

No beer-shops bev’rage, such as Cockneys buy,

Foul to the taste, and loathsome to the eye;

No dingy mixture, vulgarly call’d swipes;

No quassia juice, promoter of the gripes;

But true proportions of good hops and malt,

Mingled with care, then stow’d within the vault:

The hue that tells its potency—the scent

That breathes as if from blest Arabia sent.

Still o’er his Ale fond Prior hangs confest,

And joy and triumph swell his manly breast.

* * * * *

Such, glorious liquor of the olden time,

When to be drunk with Ale was deem’d no crime;

When in the morn and eve and mid-day stood

Upon our fathers’ boards old English food;

Such hast thou been, ’mid war and change the same,

Link’d with the poet’s and the scholar’s name,

Mellow’d by age—but still with flavour higher,

The pride of Brasenose, and the boast of Prior.

How Brasenose College came by its peculiar name is a much disputed

point. There is a legend that in the far-off time of long ago certain

students of the temporary university at Stamford, the iron ring of

whose door-knocker was fitted in a nose of brass, migrated to Oxford,

{167} and there set up a brazen nose over the entrance of their

college as a souvenir of their former abode. Equally plausible is the

tradition that upon the site of the college brewery once stood King

Alfred’s brasinium (brewhouse), and that the name, clinging to the

place through all the changes and chances of a thousand years, now

appears under the slightly modified form of Brasenose. If the latter

theory be correct, the Shrovetide feast and the yearly ode in praise of

Brasenose Ale may be attributed to the desire to keep green the memory

of the famous brewhouse of the good King, and the mighty liquor therein

brewed for the royal table.

The merits of a celebrated Oxford butler, John Dawson of Christ Church,

are commemorated in the following elegy:—

Dawson, the butler’s dead. Although I think

Poets were ne’er infus’d with single drink

I’ll spend a farthing, Muse; a wat’ry verse

Will serve the turn to cast upon his hearse.

If any cannot weep amongst us here,

Take off his cap, and so squeeze out a tear:

Weep, O ye Barrels! make waste more prodigal

Than when our Beer was good, that John may float

To Styx in beer, and lift up Charon’s boat

With wholsome waves; and as the conduits ran,

With claret at the Coronation,

So let your channels flow with single tiff,

For John, I hope is crown’d: take off your whiff,

Ye men of rosemary, and drink up all,

Rememb’ring ’tis a Butler’s funeral;

Had he been master of good double Beer

My Life for his, John Dawson had been here.

For a hundred years or more the town of Nottingham has been famous for

its ales, and the song “Nottingham Ale” commemorates the many virtues

of this justly celebrated “barley-wine.” Amongst others, it has virtues

ecclesiastical:—

Ye bishops and deacons, priests, curates and vicars,

Come taste, and you’ll certainly find it is true,

That Nottingham Ale is the best of all liquors,

And who understand the good creature like you?

It dispels every vapour, saves pen, ink, and paper;

For when you’re disposed in the pulpit to rail {168}

It will open your throats, you may preach without notes,

When inspired with full bumpers of Nottingham Ale.

This song, which was a great favourite at the end of last century, was

composed by one Gunthorpe, a naval officer, by way of payment for a

cask of the “particular,” received as a present from his brother, who

was a Nottingham Brewer.

To go further north, Newcastle, besides its coals, has long had the

reputation for what, if we are to believe the townsmen of the place, is

the best, the stoutest, the brightest “Stingo” that the heart of man

can desire. As every Jack will have his Jill, so famous ale ever finds

its appropriate verses. The song _Newcastle Beer_, of which a verse is,

given below, extols the wonders wrought by English beer in general, and

by that of Newcastle in particular:—

’Twas Stingo like this made Alcides so bold,

It brac’d up his nerves, and enliven’d his powers;

And his mystical club, that did wonders of old,

Was nothing, my lads, but such liquor as ours.

The horrible crew

That Hercules slew,

Were Poverty—Calumny—Trouble—and Fear;

Such a club would you borrow,

To drive away sorrow,

Apply for a jorum of Newcastle Beer.

_Warrington Ale_, a song of last century, describes in glowing terms

the good ale of that Lancashire town, and the poet, if he is to be

believed, is evidently a man of some experience in various drinks:—

D’ye mind me, I once was a Sailor,

And in different countries I’ve been;

If I lie, may I go for a tailor,

But a thousand fine sights I have seen.

I’ve been crammed with good things like a wallet,

And I’ve guzzled more drink than a whale;

But the very best stuff to my palate

Is a glass of your Warrington Ale.

De Foe in his _Tour through Great Britain_ eulogises the Lancashire

ale of the period. In travelling through the northern parts of the

county, “though it was but about the middle of August, and in some

places the harvest hardly got in, we saw the mountains covered with

{169} snow, and felt the cold very acute and piercing, but we found,

as in all these northern countries, the people had a happy way of

mixing the warm and the cold together; for the store of good ale which

flows plentifully in the most mountainous parts of this country, seems

abundantly to make up for all the inclemencies of the season, or

difficulties of travelling.”

A certain very strong ale called Morocco is, or was, made at Levens

Hall, in the County of Cumberland. Beef, or other meat, is an

ingredient of this mighty brew, but the exact receipt is kept a secret.

There is a tradition that the method of brewing Morocco was brought by

a Crusader named Howard from certain unknown regions beyond the seas,

and it is said that the receipt was buried during the Parliamentary

wars, and was only unearthed many years afterwards. It is always

brought in an immense and curiously wrought glass to everyone who dines

at Levens for the first time, and the visitor is expected on no account

to refuse the glass, but to take it and say, “To the health of the Lady

of Levens.”

To go a little further north, the ales of Edinburgh are justly

celebrated, old Scotch ale being as favourite a beverage as old Burton.

Scotch brewers are great believers in malt and hops, and at the present

day brew excellent light ales, as well as the mightier brew which has

given them their world-wide reputation.

A curious ale is mentioned in the _Buik of Chroniclis of Scotland_

(fifteenth century). Owing to a very severe winter in the reign of

William the Lion, liquids of many kinds were frozen solid, and ale was

sold by _weight_:—

So furious ouir all part wes that frost

Of bestiall that thair wes mony lost;

The starkest aill of malt that mycht be browin,

Thocht it war keipit neuir so clois and lowin,

It wald congeill _and freis into hard yis_.

The thing of all men thocht wes then most nys

That this be weycht, and nocht mesour, wes sauld

That tyme for drink as that my author told.

The wanderings of the _Penniless Pilgrim_ took him to Scotland, and he

wonders much at the powers of ale-suction shown by the natives. “The

Scots,” he says, “doe allow almost as large measure of their miles

as they doe of their drinke, for an English gallon either of ale or

wine is but their quart.” After rising from a repast, he tells how

“the {170} servants of the house have enforced me into the seller or

Buttery, where (in the way of kindnesse) they will make a man’s belly

like a sowse-tub, and inforce mee to drinke as if they had a commission

under the devil’s great seale, to murder men with drinking, with such

a deal of complimentary oratory as, ‘off with your lap,’ ‘wind up your

bottome,’ ‘up with your toplash,’ and many other eloquent phrases,

which Tully and Demosthenes never heard of; that in conclusion I am

persuaded three days fasting would have been more healthfull to mee,

then two hours feeding and swilling in that manner.”

Christopher North, in his _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, mentions some of the

famous Scotch ales of his day. After alluding to the ales of Berwick

and of Giles, he says:—

“Maitland and Davison—again—has inspired my being with a _new_ feeling,

for which no language I am acquainted with can supply an adequate

name. That feeling impels me to say these simple words on behalf of

the Spirit of Ale in general—speaking through me, its organ—_Ale

loquitur_—“If not suffered by Fate to fix my abode in barrels of

Berwick or Giles, where I have long reigned alternate years, in all my

glory, scarcely should I feel myself priviledged to blame my stars,

were I ordered for a while to sojourn in one of Maitland—and Davison.”

A notice of Scoth ales, however short, would be incomplete without some

reference to the great Scotch national poet, who sometimes, at any

rate, would seem to have owed his inspiration to the “barley bree.” The

song of Burns, _O, Willie brew’d a peck o’ maut_, is too well known

to need repetition here. Who does not remember the chorus of this

admirable chanson-à-boire:—

We are na fou, we’re no that fou,

But just a drappie in our e’e,

The cock may craw, the day may daw,

And aye we’ll taste the barley bree!

The occasion which the song was intended to celebrate is not so

commonly known. The “three merry boys,” Willie, Rob, and Alan were

respectively William Nicol, of the High School, Edinburgh, our poet,

and Alan Masterton, who was a schoolmaster and musical amateur. The

place of meeting was a small farm named Laggan, belonging to Nicol.

The inspiring ale was Nicol’s, the song was Burns’, and the music was

Alan Masterton’s. “We had such a joyous meeting,” says Burns, “that

Mr. Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, to celebrate the

business.” {171}

To pass to the Principality, Welsh ales were in Saxon times well known

and highly esteemed. In the laws of Hywel Dda two kinds of ale are

mentioned—Bragawd[49], which was paid as tribute to the King by a free

township, and Cwrwf, which was more common, and was paid by the servile

township in cases where the former kind ran short. It may be hence

gathered that in early times the highly-flavoured Bragawd was held in

greater estimation than the Cwrwf; yet the latter has out-lived the

former, and is still to be had in various parts of Wales, where it is

consumed with great gusto by Cambria’s patriotic sons.

[49] Bragawd or Bragot. See p. 379.

The neighbouring county of Hereford, now a great cider-drinking

locality, had in former times at least one town with a reputation for

good ale. “Lemster bread and Weobley ale” had passed into a proverb

before the seventeenth century. The saying seems, however, to have

been affected chiefly by the inhabitants of the county, who, perhaps,

were not quite impartial. Ray, writing in 1737, ventures to question

the pre-eminence ascribed to the places mentioned. For wheat he gives

Hesten, in Middlesex, “and for ale Derby town, and Northdown in the

Isle of Thanet, Hull in Yorkshire, and Sandbich in Cheshire, will

scarcely give place to Weobley.” Herrick mentions this celebrated

Northdown ale in the lines:—

That while the wassaile bowle here

With North-down ale doth troule here,

No sillable doth fall here,

To marre the mirth at all here.

Norfolk was once celebrated for a strong ale, bearing the euphonious

name of _Norfolk Nog_. It is mentioned in Vanbrugh’s _Journey to

London_, “Here, John Moody,” says Sir Francis, “get us a tankard of

good hearty stuff presently.” “Sir,” is the reply, “here’s Norfolk

Nog to be had next door.” Swift also knew something of this brew, and

mentions that “Walpole laid a quart of nog on it.” “Clamber-skull” is

probably a variety of this strong Norfolk ale, and earned its name

from the rapidity with which it mounted to the heads of its votaries.

Norfolk still holds a high place as an ale-producing county, and the

ales of Great Yarmouth and Norwich are justly celebrated.

Banbury produced a mighty ale in the seventeenth century, if we may

judge from the couplet in _Wit Restored_:—

Banbury ale a half-yard pot

The devil a tinker dares stand to ’t. {172}

It must have been strong indeed, for according to the old proverb—

Cobblers and tinkers

Are your true ale drinkers.

Dorsetshire, amongst the southern counties, has long been noted for a

fine pale ale. This is the liquor mentioned in _English Ale_ (1737) as—

Bright amber priz’d by the luxurious town,

The pale hu’d Dorchester——

Its strength may be judged from the entry in John Byrom’s diary of

about the same period (1725):—“I found the effect of last night’s

drinking that foolish Dorset, which was pleasant enough, but it did not

agree with me at all, for it made me very stupid all day.” These are

the words of a man who has evidently loved not wisely but too well.

Cox, in his _History of Dorsetshire_ (1700), states that “since by

the French wars the coming of French wine is prohibited, the people

here have learned to brew the finest malt liquors in the kingdom,

so delicately clean and well tasted that the best judges . . . .

prefer it to the ales most in vogue, as Hull, Derby, Burton, &c.”

Great quantities of Dorchester beer were consumed in London during

the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth centuries, but

from that time the trade with London, for some reason—probably the

expense of transit—gradually fell away. The excellence of the Dorset

beer depended in a great measure upon the fact that the water of the

neighbourhood possessed peculiarly good qualities for brewing purposes,

and, that advantage being of a permanent character, there seems to be

no reason why the Dorchester ales of the present day should not regain

throughout the country the position they had at the beginning of last

century. In the south and south-western portions of England they are

held in very high esteem.

Barnstaple was famous for its ales in the middle of the last century; a

writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of Jan., 1753, says that they are

as good as Derby ales, though not quite so famous.

Mum, a popular drink early in the last century, was a strong ale brewed

chiefly from wheat-malt with the addition of various aromatic herbs.

Mum-houses were in existence in 1664, for Mr. Samuel Pepys records

that on a certain occasion he went “with Mr. Norbury near hand to the

Fleece, a mum-house in Leadenhall, and there drank _mum_, and by-and-by

broke up.” A receipt of the date 1682, describes the brewing of mum as

follows:— {173}

“To make a vessel of sixty-three gallons, we are instructed that, the

water must be first boiled to the consumption of a third part, then let

it be brewed according to art with seven bushels of wheat-malt, one

bushel of oat-malt, and one bushel of ground beans. When the mixture

begins to work, the following ingredients are to be added: three

pounds of the inner rind of the fir; one pound each of the tops of

the fir and the birch; three handfuls of _Carduus Benedictus_, dried;

two handfuls of flowers of _Rosa solis_; of burnet, betony, marjoram,

avens, pennyroyal, flowers of elder, and wild thyme, one handful and

a half each; three ounces of bruised seeds of cardamum; and one ounce

of bruised bayberries. Subsequently ten new-laid eggs, not cracked or

broken, are to be put into the hogshead, which is then to be stopped

close, and not tapped for two years, a sea voyage greatly improving the

drink.”

The origin of the word “mum” is somewhat disputed, but the best

derivation seems to be from the name of Christopher Mummer, who is said

to have been the first to brew it. Others assign to the word an origin

from _mummeln_, to mutter, and this seems to have been Pope’s idea when

he wrote the lines:—

The clamorous crowd is hushed with mugs of mum,

Till all, turned equal, send a general hum.

Others, again, find the derivation in the word mum, meaning silence.

Brunswick is always given as its birthplace, and it was certainly

known as early as the sixteenth century, for in an old work, _De

generibus ebriosorum et ebrietate vitanda_ (1515), “mommom sive mommum

Brunsvigen” is mentioned as one of the drinks of Germany.

An old book, _England’s Improvement by Sea and Land_ (1677), contains a

remarkable proposition for bringing over the mum trade from Brunswick,

and establishing it at Stratford-on-Avon.

The old writer, from whom the receipt before-quoted is taken,

lays considerable stress on the fact that “the ingredients in its

composition are very rare and choice simples, there being scarcely any

disease in nature against which some of them is not a sure specific,”

the implication apparently being that the combination of these

ingredients would largely increase their healing power.

In one of the 400 letters addressed by Sir Richard Steele to his wife

we find him writing under date December 6th, 1717:—“I went to bed

last night after taking only a little broth; and all the day before a

little tea and bread and butter, with two glasses of mum and a piece

of bread. {174} at the House of Commons. Temperance and your company,

as agreeable as you can make it, will make life tolerable if not easy,

even with the gout.”

A particular variety of this beverage was known as Hamburgh mum, and a

catch in its praise of the early part of last century mentions it as

hailing from that city:—

There’s an odd sort of liquor

New come from Hamborough,

’Twill stick a whole wapentake

Thorough and thorough;

’Tis yellow, and likewise

As bitter as gall,

And as strong as six horses,

Coach and all.

As I told you ’twill make you,

As drunk as a drum;

You’d fain know the name on’t,

But for that my friend, _mum_.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember that Mr. Oldbuck is described

at breakfast as despising the modern slops of tea and coffee and

substantially regaling himself “more majorum, with cold roast beef and

mum.”

An Act of Parliament, which was passed annually during the greater part

of the first half of this century, prescribed certain duties on “malt,

mum, cyder and perry,” and a tale is told that when Mr. Perry, editor

of the _Morning Chronicle_, was indicted for libel, he conducted his

own case, and by his able defence secured a verdict of “Not guilty.”

Cobbett, who was shortly afterwards tried on a similar charge, also

conducted his own defence, but was convicted. Erskine remarked that

Cobbett had tried to be Perry, when he should have been mum.

In the eighteenth century patriotic sentiment was invoked to support

the failing popularity of mum, as may be gathered from the old work

_Political Merriment, or Truths to some Tune_ (1714), in which these

lines occur:—

Now, now true Protestants rejoice,

Stand by your laws and King,

Now you’ve proclaimed the nation’s choice,

Let traitorous rebels swing; {175}

Let Royal George, the Papists scourge,

To England quickly come;

His health till then, let honest men,

Drink all in Brunswick Mum.

But all would not avail, and the liquor is now as dead as Christopher

Mummer, the first inventor of it.

There is a tradition lingering in the northern parts of this island,

that the Picts possessed the secret of making an ale from heather. Sir

David Smith, in a MS. in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland,

mentions a large trough cut in the solid rock at Kutchester, near the

Roman wall. “The old peasants,” he says, “have a tradition that the

Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer, of the bells of heather,

and that this trough was used in the process of making it.” The

tradition in Caithness runs that three Picts—an old blind man and his

two sons—survived the rest of their race; that these alone of all

mankind possessed the secret of making heather ale; that they guarded

their secret with jealous care, and that they were in consequence much

persecuted by their conquerors. At last the old Pict, in answer to the

frequent importunities of his persecutors, promised to tell the secret,

on condition that his two sons should be put to death. This was done,

but the task was as far from accomplishment as ever, and nothing could

be got from the old man but the truly Delphic words which are handed

down in the couplet:—

Search Brockwin well out and well in,

And barm for heather crop you’ll find within.

The secret died with him.

* * * * *

True or false, this is the legend as related in the north, and certain

it is that _a_ heather beer was made until quite recently in some parts

of Scotland and Ireland. The heather, however, is used as a flavouring

rather than as an actual basis for making the drink. The blossoms of

the heather are carefully gathered and cleansed, and are then placed in

the bottom of vessels; wort of the ordinary kind is allowed to drain

through the blossoms, and gains in its passage a peculiar and agreeable

flavour, which is well known to all who are familiar with heather honey.

Pennant, in his _Voyage to the Hebrides_, mentions heather _ale_,

and says that the proportions were two-thirds of the plant to one of

hops (hops being sometimes added); and Mr. Weld, in his _Two Months

in the Highlands_, {176} says that “although the art of brewing the

Pictish heather ale is lost, old grouse shooters have tasted a beverage

prepared by shepherds, on the moors, principally from heather flowers,

though honey or sugar, to produce fermentation, was added.”

In some parts of Ireland there is a tradition that the Danes possessed

the knowledge of making an intoxicating liquor from heather bells;

this drink the peasants speak of as beoir-lochlonnach (_i.e._, strong

at sea), an epithet by which the savage Northmen were known to the

Celtic races. It is possible that there is some connection between this

heather ale and the ale formerly made by the Swedes and flavoured with

the _Myrica gale_. Reference to this plant is made in a Swedish law of

the fifteenth century, in which it is forbidden to gather the blossoms

before a certain period. The probability of this connection seems to

be increased by the fact that in Yorkshire, a county which contains

many descendants of the old Northmen, a beer is still made called “gale

beer,” and is flavoured with the blossoms of a species of heather found

growing on the moors in that part of the country.

As late as the commencement of this century an ale flavoured with

heather, and differing little from the heather ale described, was

brewed in many parts of Ireland. The practice, it is believed, is now

almost if not quite extinct.

Irish moss ale is made in the following manner:—Take one ounce of Irish

moss, one ounce of hops, one ounce of ginger, one ounce of Spanish

juice, and one pound of sugar. Ten gallons of water are added and the

mixture is boiled, fermented, and bottled. The consideration of the

name of this liquor and the actual constituents may possibly remind

readers of the old tale of that very clever person who made soup out of

a stone with the assistance of a few such trifles as beef, vegetables,

and flavourings.

Beer powders have been made, from which a good and refreshing drink

may be procured by the simple addition of water. Various substances

and juices have been used from time to time to improve the flavour or

strength of ale. In Wales berries of the Mountain Ash were once used,

and were said to greatly improve the flavour of the beverage. The sap

of the sycamore tree is mentioned by Evelyn as being a most useful

adjunct to the brewhouse; he says that one bushel of malt with sycamore

sap makes as good ale as four bushels with water alone.

The service tree, the name of which is said to be a corruption of

cerevisia, was so called because in former times a kind of ale was

brewed {177} from its berries. Evelyn says that ale and beer, “brewed

with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink.”

Maize, beet-root, potatoes, parsnips, and other vegetables have

each and all been used in the making of beer, but it seems very

doubtful whether any combination of ingredients will ever equal the

time-honoured partnership of malt and hops.

A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in 1758 says: “In many parts of

the Kingdom, a beer is made of treacle—thus: to eight quarts of boiling

water put a pound of treacle, a quarter of an ounce of ginger, and two

bay leaves. Boil these for a quarter of an hour, then cool and work

with yeast the same as beer.”