swuklink: History of Brewing

For many generations now, most of us in Britain have taken the supply of clean and safe drinking water, most usually to taps within our homes, as a matter of fact. This has not always been the case and it was only towards the latter end of the 19^th century that such supplies first became available.

Prior to this, the only available supply of water would have been the local spring, stream, river, well, or, in larger towns and villages, a pump. Frequently the water was heavily polluted with all manner impurities as watercourses were used as sewers as well as sources of water and drinking water from most natural sources would have resulted, if not in death, then certainly in serious illness.

We have, for several generations, seen the drinking of alcoholic beverages such as beer and cider as a recreational activity but, before the advent of safe drinking water, brewing was a necessity, the alcohol in the beer, wine or ale killing the harmful bacteria, and every yeoman's wife would have been adept in the art of brewing ale. Many inns and public houses brewed their own ale (as some still do) and even small towns had many breweries.

This adoption of two quite different technologies to deal with the problem has led to a genetic divergance between European and Oriental races of mankind. In European races, the ability to deal with the toxic effects of alcohol has been enhanced because of its constant consumption over many generations. In Oriental races, the ability to deal with the effects of alcohol in the body have, by comparisson, been much reduced - most people of Oriental origin will feel quite drunk after a single drink and, because they metabolise alcohol more slowly, they suffer the effects of drinking it for longer.

It is interesting to note that two quite different technologies for dealing with the problem of dirty water developed between the western world and the Orient.

Brewing, the use of the alcohol formed in fermentation to sterilise the beverage, predominated in the west. In the orient, however, the expedient of boiling water to kill the bacteria came to previal - the water frequently being used to form an infusion such as tea.

When the centurion offered Jesus a sponge soaked in 'vinegar' during the crucification, he was, in all probability, inviting the condmened to take a sip from his own daily ration - an act of kindness, rather than cruelty as is more often inferred.

The Romans were well aware of the dangers of drinking water and issued their soldiers with wine. To prevent them from getting drunk, the wine was mixed with vinegar to make it unpalateable. Needless to say, the soldiers were none too appreciative of this and refered to their daily vine ration as 'vinegar'. .

At the turn of the 19th century, the rising number of Londoners consumed four times as much beer as was consumed in the whole of the United Kingdom at the turn of the 21st century.

The west Country is still famed for its cider production and apples and cider feature very much in local customs and traditions. From the 16^th or 17^th century, before the mechanisation of farming, until about 1950, it was customary for the farmer to provide his labourer with a firkin of cider in the morning to carry him through the day's work. The size of the firkin varied with the age of the labourer - from a pint for the youngest to a whole gallon for adult men.

In medieval England, long before the advent of safe drinking water, tea or coffee, brewing was widespread on a small scale. Not only did every inn or alehouse brew its own beer, but also monasteries, colleges, farms and large households. Every yeoman's wife would have been familiar in the arts of brewing for the houselhold as much as any of her other duties.

The first commercial brewers, brewers who sold their product, emerged at baout the time of the reign of Henry VIII. During Henry's reign, towns started to grow rapidly and the monasteries were dissolved and their estates brocken up. with the monasteries dissappeared their tradition of hospitality and it is likely that the new innkeepers had neither the time nor the space to brew themselves. It is at about the same time that tied houses appeared.

Gradually the breweries grew in size; large breweries grew in large towns, smaller establishments in the smaller towns whilst in rural areas most houses conducted their own brewing operations. This situation contnued until the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

By 1831, only about 45 per cent of beer was being brewed locally in the public house - the majority was already brewed by commercial brewers.

As with all indsutries, the arrival of steam power allowed brewers to conduct their operations on a larger scale and, in urban areas, the large breweries tended to swallow up their smaller neighbours. The size of a brewery was still limited by the area it could serve using horse-drawn drays.

The cellars of St Pancras railway station in London was designed to accomodate 36 gallon barrels of beer.

Horse-Drwan Dray in Devizes, Wilts.

The railway boom stimulated expansion by the large brewers who were no longer restricted by the range of the horse-drawn dray. The main Burton-on-Trent brewers such as Bass and Worthington established a network of depots and agents throughout the country to distribute their products and regional companies were quick to imitate them.

The brewers continued to merge and absorb their smaller comeptitors until, by the end of the twentieth century, only 0.01 per cent of beer consumed in public houses was brewed on the premises.

In 1833, Lord Althrop aroused considerable opposition by refusing to withdraw the malt tax and the house and window tax.

Cheap energy at the time, with an oil price of only $2 a barrel, allowed the huge brewing factories of the giants to readily transport their products throughout the country along the new network of motorways.

In the early 1960's, the brewers recieved a fright when Charles Clore made an unsuccessful bid for Watneys, one of the leading British brewing companies at the time. Fearful of City predators, the brewers merged and, by 1974, only six companies brewed about eighty per cent of the beer in the country. The doors of dozens of breweries which had been taken over closed and with them disappeared the unique taste of the ales which they had produced.

The trend to ever more centralisation of the brewing industry has began to reverse with a considerable number of small brewers opening to serve public houses which operate as free houses having been sold off as umprofitable by the big brewers.

Boozah is a fermented beverage still made by the Fellaheen of Egypt from specially prepared barley loaves. When required the loaves are brocken up in warm water. The yeast from the dough ferments the liquid into the `boozah'.

The barley is allowed to germinate in large pots (see: malting) and then crushed with some dough containing yeast. Loaves are shaped from this mixture and baked in such a way as to leave the interior unbaked and, thus, the yeast active. Early English soldiers brought back the word "booze" which is derived from the name of the loaves.

See also: SHAMSIN (leavened bread)