costs.
Thomas Richard Withers, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, 75_l._
and costs.
John Cowel, brewer, for mixing table beer with strong, 50_l._ and costs.
John Mitchell, brewer, for mixing table beer with strong, absconded.
George Lloyd and another, brewers, for mixing table beer with strong,
25_l._ and costs.
James Edmunds and another, brewers, for mixing table beer with strong,
for a long period, verdict 600_l._
John Hoffman, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, and using
molasses, 130_l._ and costs.
Samuel Langworth, brewer, for mixing strong with stale table beer,
10_l._ and costs.
Hannah Spencer, brewer, for mixing strong with stale table beer, verdict
150_l._
Joseph Smith and others, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer.
Philip George, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 200_l._
Joshua Row, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, verdict 400_l._
John Drew, jun. and another, for mixing strong beer with table, 50_l._
and costs.
John Cape, brewer, for mixing strong and table beer, 250_l._ and costs.
John Williams and another, brewers, for mixing strong and table beer,
verdict 200_l._
OLD, OR ENTIRE; AND NEW, OR MILD BEER.
It is necessary to state, that every publican has two sorts of beer sent
to him from the brewer; the one is called _mild_, which is beer sent out
fresh as it is brewed; the other is called _old_; that is, such as is
brewed on purpose for keeping, and which has been kept in store a
twelve-month or eighteen months. The origin of the beer called
_entire_, is thus related by the editor of the Picture of London:
"Before the year 1730, the malt liquors in general used in London were
ale, beer, and two-penny; and it was customary to call for a pint, or
tankard, of half-and-half, _i.e._ half of ale and half of beer, half of
ale and half of two-penny. In course of time it also became the practice
to call for a pint or tankard of _three-threads_, meaning a third of
ale, beer, and two-penny; and thus the publican had the trouble to go to
three casks, and turn three cocks, for a pint of liquor. To avoid this
inconvenience and waste, a brewer of the name of Harwood conceived the
idea of making a liquor, which should partake of the same united
flavours of ale, beer, and two-penny; he did so, and succeeded, calling
it _entire_, or entire butt, meaning that it was drawn entirely from one
cask or butt; and as it was a very hearty and nourishing liquor, and
supposed to be very suitable for porters and other working people, it
obtained the name of _porter_." The system is now altered, and porter is
very generally compounded of two kinds, or rather the same liquor in two
different states, the due admixture of which is palatable, though
neither is good alone. One is _mild_ porter, and the other _stale_
porter; the former is that which has a slightly bitter flavour; the
latter has been kept longer. This mixture the publican adapts to the
palates of his several customers, and effects the mixture very readily,
by means of a machine, containing small pumps worked by handles. In
these are four pumps, but only three spouts, because two of the pumps
throw out at the same spout: one of these two pumps draws the mild, and
the other the stale porter, from the casks down in the cellar; and the
publican, by dexterously changing his hold works either pump, and draws
both kinds of beer at the same spout. An indifferent observer supposes,
that since it all comes from one spout, it is entire butt beer, as the
publican professes over his door, and which has been decided by vulgar
prejudice to be only good porter, though the difference is not easily
distinguished. I have been informed by several eminent brewers, that of
late, a far greater quantity is consumed of mild than of stale beer.
The entire beer of the modern brewer, according to the statement of C.
Barclay,[67] Esq. "consists of some beer brewed expressly for the
purpose of keeping: it likewise contains a portion of returns from
publicans; a portion of beer from the bottoms of vats; the beer that is
drawn off from the pipes, which convey the beer from one vat to another,
and from one part of the premises to another. This beer is collected and
put into vats. Mr. Barclay also states that it contains a certain
portion of brown stout, which is twenty shillings a barrel dearer than
common beer; and some bottling beer, which is ten shillings a barrel
dearer;[68] and that all these beers, united, are put into vats, and
that it depends upon various circumstances, how long they may remain in
those vats before they become perfectly bright. When bright, this beer
is sent out to the publicans, for their _entire_ beer, and there is
sometimes a small quantity of mild beer mixed with it."
The present entire beer, therefore, is a very heterogeneous mixture,
composed of all the waste and spoiled beer of the publicans--the bottoms
of butts--the leavings of the pots--the drippings of the machines for
drawing the beer--the remnants of beer that lay in the leaden pipes of
the brewery, with a portion of brown stout, bottling beer, and mild
beer.
The old or _entire_ beer we have examined, as obtained from Messrs.
Barclay's, and other eminent London brewers, is unquestionably a good
compound; but it does no longer appear to be necessary, among fraudulent
brewers, to brew beer on purpose for keeping, or to keep it twelve or
eighteen months. A more easy, expeditious, and economical method has
been discovered to convert any sort of beer into entire beer, merely by
the admixture of a portion of sulphuric acid. An imitation of the age of
eighteen months is thus produced in an instant. This process is
technically called to bring beer _forward_, or to make it _hard_.
The practice is a bad one. The genuine, old, or entire beer, of the
honest brewer, is quite a different compound; it has a rich, generous,
full-bodied taste, without being acid, and a vinous odour: but it may,
perhaps, not be generally known that this kind of beer always affords a
less proportion of alcohol than is produced from mild beer. The practice
of bringing beer _forward_, it is to be understood, is resorted to only
by fraudulent brewers.[69]
If, on the contrary, the brewer has too large a stock of old beer on his
hands, recourse is had to an opposite practice of converting stale,
half-spoiled, or sour beer, into mild beer, by the simple admixture of
an alkali, or an alkaline earth. Oyster-shell powder and subcarbonate of
potash, or soda, are usually employed for that purpose. These substances
neutralise the excess of acid, and render sour beer somewhat palatable.
By this process the beer becomes very liable to spoil.
It is the worst expedient that the brewer can practise: the beer thus
rendered _mild_, soon loses its vinous taste; it becomes vapid; and
speedily assumes a muddy grey colour, and an exceedingly disagreeable
taste.
These sophistications may be considered, at first, as minor crimes
practised by fraudulent brewers, when compared with the methods employed
by them for rendering beer noxious to health by substances absolutely
injurious.
To increase the intoxicating quality of beer, the deleterious vegetable
substance, called _cocculus indicus_, and the extract of this poisonous
berry, technically called _black extract_, or, by some, _hard multum_,
are employed. Opium, tobacco, nux vomica, and extract of poppies, have
also been used.
This fraud constitutes by far the most censurable offence committed by
unprincipled brewers; and it is a lamentable reflection to behold so
great a number of brewers prosecuted and convicted of this crime; nor is
it less deplorable to find the names of druggists, eminent in trade,
implicated in the fraud, by selling the unlawful ingredients to brewers
for fraudulent purposes.
_List of Brewers prosecuted and convicted from 1813 to 1819, for
receiving and using illegal Ingredients in their Brewings._[70]
Richard Gardner, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, 100_l._,
judgment by default.
Stephen Webb and another, brewers, for using adulterating ingredients,
and mixing strong and table beer, verdict 500_l._
Henry Wyatt, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, verdict 400_l._
John Harbart, retailer, for receiving adulterating ingredients, verdict
150_l._
Philip Blake and others, brewers, for using adulterating ingredients,
and mixing strong and table beer, verdict 250_l._
James Sneed, for receiving adulterating ingredients, 25_l._ and costs.
John Rewell and another, brewers, ditto, verdict 100_l._
John Swain and another, ditto, for using adulterating ingredients,
verdict 200_l._
John Ing, brewer, ditto, stayed on defendant's death.
John Hall, ditto, for receiving adulterating ingredients, 5_l._ and
costs.
John Webb, retailer, for using adulterating ingredients.
Ralph Fogg and another, brewers, for receiving and using adulterating
ingredients.
John Gray, brewer, for using adulterating ingredients, 300_l._ and
costs.
Richard Bowman, for using liquid in bladder, supposed to be extract of
cocculus, 100_l._
Richard Bowman, brewer, for ditto, 100_l._ and costs.
Septimus Stephens, brewer, for ditto, verdict 50_l._
James Rogers and another, brewer, for ditto, 220_l._ and costs.
George Moore, brewer, for using colouring, 300_l._ and costs.
John Morris, for using adulterating ingredients.
Webb and Ball, for using ginger, Guinea pepper, and brown powder, (name
unknown), 1st 100_l._ 2nd 500_l._
Henry Clarke, for using molasses, 150_l._
Kewell and Burrows, for using cocculus india, multum, &c. 100_l._
Allatson and Abraham, for using cocculus india, multum, and porter
flavour, 630_l._
Swain and Sewell, for using cocculus india, Guinea-opium, &c. 200_l._
John Ing, for using cocculus india, hard colouring, and honey, _dead_.
William Dean, for using molasses, 50_l._
John Cowell, for using Spanish-liquorice, and mixing table beer with
strong beer, 50_l._
John Mitchell, for using cocculus india, vitriol, and Guinea pepper,
_left the country_.
Lloyd and Man, for using extract of cocculus, 25_l._
John Gray, for using ginger, hartshorn shavings, and molasses, 300_l._
Jon Hoffman, for using molasses, Spanish juice, and mixing table with
strong beer, 130_l._
Rogers and Boon, for using extract of cocculus, multum, porter flavour,
&c. 220_l._
---- Betteley, for using wormwood, coriander seed, and Spanish juice,
200_l._
William Lane, brewer, for using wormwood instead of hops, 5_l._ and
costs.
* * * * *
That a minute portion of an unwholesome ingredient, daily taken in beer,
cannot fail to be productive of mischief, admits of no doubt; and there
is reasons to believe that a small quantity of a narcotic substance (and
cocculus indicus is a powerful narcotic[71]), daily taken into the
stomach, together with an intoxicating liquor, is highly more
efficacious than it would be without the liquor. The effect may be
gradual; and a strong constitution, especially if it be assisted with
constant and hard labour, may counteract the destructive consequences
perhaps for many years; but it never fails to shew its baneful effects
at last. Independent of this, it is a well-established fact, that porter
drinkers are very liable to apoplexy and palsy, without taking this
narcotic poison.
If we judge from the preceding lists of prosecutions and convictions
furnished by the Solicitor of the Excise[72], it will be evident that
many wholesale brewers, as well as retail dealers, stand very
conspicuous among those offenders. But the reader will likewise notice,
that there are no convictions, in any instance, against any of the
eleven great London porter brewers[73] for any illegal practice. The
great London brewers, it appears, believe that the publicans alone
adulterate the beer. That many of the latter have been convicted of this
fraud, the Report of the Board of Excise amply shews.--See p. 129.
The following statement relating to this subject, we transcribe from a
Parliamentary document:[74]
Mr. Perkins being asked, whether he believed that any of the inferior
brewers adulterated beer, answered, "I am satisfied there are some
instances of that."
_Question._--"Do you believe publicans do?" _Answer._--"I believe they
do." _Q._--"To a great extent?" _A._--"Yes." _Q._--"Do you believe they
adulterate the beer you sell them?" _A._--"I am satisfied there are
some instances of that."--Mr. J. Martineau[75] being asked the following
_Question._[76]--"In your judgment is any of the beer of the metropolis,
as retailed to the publican, mixed with any deleterious ingredients?"
_Answer._--"In retailing beer, in some instances, it has been."
_Question._--"By whom, in your opinion, has that been done?"
_Answer._--"In that case by the publicans who vend it."
On this point, it is but fair, to the minor brewers, to record also the
answers of some officers of the revenue, when they were asked whether
they considered it more difficult to detect nefarious practices in large
breweries than in small ones.
Mr. J. Rogers being thus questioned in the Committee of the House of
Commons,[77] "Supposing the large brewers to use deleterious or any
illegal ingredients to such an amount as could be of any importance to
their concern, do you think it would, or would not, be more easy to
detect it in those large breweries, than in small ones?" his answer was,
"more difficult to detect it in the large ones:" and witness being asked
to state the reason why, answered, "Their premises are so much larger,
and there is so much more strength, that a cart load or two is got rid
of in a minute or two." Witness "had known, in five minutes, twenty
barrels of molasses got rid of as soon as the door was shut."
Another witness, W. Wells, an excise officer,[78] in describing the
contrivances used to prevent detection, stated, that at a brewer's, at
Westham, the adulterating substances "were not kept on the premises, but
in the brewer's house; not the principal, but the working brewers; it
not being considered, when there, as liable to seizure: the brewer had a
very large jacket made expressly for that purpose, with very large
pockets; and, on brewing mornings, he would take his pockets full of the
different ingredients. Witness supposed that such a man's jacket,
similar to what he had described, would convey quite sufficient for any
brewery in England, as to _cocculus indicus_."
That it may be more difficult for the officers of the excise to detect
fraudulent practices in large breweries than in small ones, may be true
to a certain extent: but what eminent London porter brewer would stake
his reputation on the chance of so paltry a gain, in which he would
inevitably be at the mercy of his own man? The eleven great porter
brewers of this metropolis are persons of so high respectability, that
there is no ground for the slightest suspicion that they would attempt
any illegal practices, which they were aware could not possibly escape
detection in their extensive establishments. And let it be remembered,
that none of them have been detected for any unlawful practices,[79]
with regard to the processes of their manufacture, or the adulteration
of their beer.
METHOD OF DETECTING THE ADULTERATION OF BEER.
The detection of the adulteration of beer with deleterious vegetable
substances is beyond the reach of chemical analysis. The presence of
sulphate of iron (p. 134) may be detected by evaporating the beer to
perfect dryness, and burning away the vegetable matter obtained, by the
action of chlorate of pot-ash in a red-hot crucible. The sulphate of
iron will be left behind among the residue in the crucible, which when
dissolved in water, may be assayed, for the constituent parts of the
salt, namely, iron and sulphuric acid: for the former, by tincture of
galls, ammonia, and prussiate of potash; and for the latter, by muriate
of barytes.[80]
Beer, which has been rendered fraudulently _hard_ (see p. 148) by the
admixture of sulphuric acid, affords a white precipitate (sulphate of
barytes), by dropping into it a solution of acetate or muriate of
barytes; and this precipitate, when collected by filtering the mass, and
after having been dried, and heated red-hot for a few minutes in a
platina crucible, does not disappear by the addition of nitric, or
muriatic acid. Genuine old beer may produce a precipitate; but the
precipitate which it affords, after having been made red-hot in a
platina crucible, instantly becomes re-dissolved with effervescence by
pouring on it some pure nitric or muriatic acid; in that case the
precipitate is malate (not sulphate) of barytes, and is owing to a
portion of malic acid having been formed in the beer.
But with regard to the vegetable materials deleterious to health, it is
extremely difficult, in any instance, to detect them by chemical
agencies; and in most cases it is quite impossible, as in that of
cocculus indicus in beer.
METHOD OF ASCERTAINING THE QUANTITY OF SPIRIT CONTAINED IN PORTER, ALE,
OR OTHER KINDS OF MALT LIQUORS.
Take any quantity of the beer, put it into a glass retort, furnished
with a receiver, and distil, with a gentle heat, as long as any spirit
passes over into the receiver; which may be known by heating from time
to time a small quantity of the obtained fluid in a tea-spoon over a
candle, and bringing into contact with the vapour of it the flame of a
piece of paper. If the vapour of the distilled fluid catches fire, the
distillation must be continued until the vapour ceases to be set on
fire by the contact of a flaming body. To the distilled liquid thus
obtained, which is the spirit of the beer, combined with water, add, in
small quantities at a time, pure subcarbonate of potash (previously
freed from water by having been exposed to a red heat,) till the last
portion of this salt added, remains undissolved in the fluid. The spirit
will thus become separated from the water, because the subcarbonate of
potash abstracts from it the whole of the water which it contained; and
this combination sinks to the bottom, and the spirit alone floats on the
top. If this experiment be made in a glass tube, about half or
three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and graduated into 50 or 100
equal parts, the relative per centage of spirit in a given quantity of
beer may be seen by mere inspection.
_Quantity of Alcohol contained in Porter, Ale, and other kinds of Malt
Liquors._[81]
One hundred parts, by Measure, Parts of Alcohol,
contained. by Measure.
Ale, home-brewed 8,30
Ale, Burton, three Samples 6,25
Ale, Burton[82] 8,88
Ale, Edinburgh[82] 6,20
Ale, Dorchester[82] 5,50
Ale, common London-brewed, }
six samples } 5,82
Ale, Scotch, three samples 5,75
Porter, London, eight samples 4,00
Ditto, Ditto[83] 4,20
Ditto, Ditto[83] 4,45
Ditto, Ditto, bottled. 4,75
Brown Stout, four samples 5
Ditto, Ditto[83] 6,80
Small Beer, six samples 0,75
Ditto, Ditto[84] 1,28
FOOTNOTES:
[48] See pages 119, &c.
[49] Child, on Brewing Porter, p. 7.
[50] Child, on Brewing Porter, p. 16.
[51] Ibid. p. 16.
[52] "Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons, to whom the
petition of several inhabitants of London and its vicinity, complaining
of the high price and inferior quality of beer, was referred, to examine
the matter thereof, and to report the same, with their observations
thereupon, to the House. Printed by order of the House of Commons,
April, 1819."
[53] 56 Geo. III. c. 2.
[54] Copied from the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons,
appointed for examining the price and quality of Beer.--See pages 18,
29, 30, 31, 36, 43.
[55] The average specific gravity of different samples of brown stout,
obtained direct from the breweries of Messrs. Barclay, Perkins, and Co.
Messrs. Truman, Hanbury, and Co. Messrs. Henry Meux and Co. and from
several other eminent London brewers, amounted to 1,022; and the average
specific gravity of porter, from the same breweries, 1,018.
[56] 2 Geo. III. c. 14, § 2.
[57] 59 Geo. III. c. 53, § 25.
[58] Copied from the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons,
appointed for examining the price and quality of beer, p. 19, 29, 36,
37, 43.
[59] See Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons for reporting
on the Price and Quality of Beer, 1819, p. 29.
[60] 7 Geo. II. c. 19, § 2.
[61] See List of Publicans prosecuted and convicted for mixing table
beer with strong beer, &c. p. 129.
"Alum gives likewise a smack of age to beer, and is penetrating to the
palate."--_S. Child on Brewing._
[62] Copied from the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons,
appointed for examining the price and quality of beer, p. 38.
[63] See Mr. Carr's evidence in the Minutes of the House of Commons, p.
32.
[64] 42 George III, c. 38, § 12.
[65] See Minutes of the House of Commons, p. 32.
[66] Copied from the minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons,
appointed for examining the price and quality of Beer, 1819, p. 29, 36,
43.
[67] See the Parliamentary Minutes, p. 94.
[68] Mr. Barclay has not specified the relative proportions of brown
stout and of bottling beer which are introduced at such an augmentation
of expense.
[69] Mr. Child, in his Treatise on Brewing, p. 23 directs, _to make new
beer older, use oil of vitriol_.
[70] Copied from the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons
appointed for examining the price and quality of beer, p. 29, 36.
[71] The deleterious effect of Cocculus Indicus (the fruit of the
memispermum cocculus) is owing to a peculiar bitter principle contained
in it; which, when swallowed in minute quantities, intoxicates and acts
as poison. It may be obtained from cocculus indicus berries in a
detached state:--chemists call it picrotoxin, from +pichros+, bitter;
and +toxichon+ poison.
[72] See Minutes of the House of Commons, p. 28, 36.
[73] Messrs. Barclay, Perkins, and Co.--Truman, Hanbury and Co.--Reid
and Co.--Whitbread and Co.--Combe, Delafield, and Co.--Henry Meux, and
Co.--Calvert and Co.--Goodwin and Co.--Elliot and Co.--Taylor and
Co.--Cox, and Camble and Co.
See the Minutes, before quoted, p. 32.
[74] _Ibid._ p. 58.
[75] A partner in the brewery of Messrs. Whitbread and Co.
[76] Minutes of the House of Commons, p. 104.
[77] Minutes, before quoted, p. 22.
[78] Minutes of the House of Commons, p. 40.
[79] Minutes of the House of Commons, p. 32
[80] See a Treatise on the Use and Application of Chemical Tests, 3d
edition; Tests for Sulphuric Acid, &c.
[81] Repository of Arts, No. 2, p. 74.--1816.
[82] Copied from Professor Brande's Paper in the Philosophical
Transactions, 1811, p. 345.
[83] Result of our own Experiments, see p. 127.
[84] Professor Brande's Experiments.
_Counterfeit Tea-Leaves._
The late detections that have been made respecting the illicit
establishments for the manufacture of imitation tea leaves, arrested,
not long ago, the attention of the public; and the parties by whom these
manufactories were conducted, together with the numerous venders of the
factitious tea, did not escape the hand of justice. In proof of this
statement, it is only necessary to consult the London newspapers (the
Times and the Courier) from March to July 1818; which show to what
extent this nefarious traffic has been carried on; and they report also
the prosecutions and convictions of numerous individuals who have been
guilty of the fraud. The following are some of those prosecutions and
convictions.