BREWING IN THE PRES­ENT DAY. — AN­EC­DOT­AL AND BIO­GRAPH­I­CAL AC­COUNT OF SOME REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVE LON­DON, DUB­LIN, BUR­TON, AND COUN­TRY BREW­ING FIRMS. — EDIN­BURGH ALES.

PASSING on to modern times and bidding adieu to the old brewers, brewsters, ale-wives, and tapsters, it behoves us to devote ourselves to giving some account of the brewing of the present day, thereby bringing our history up to date. With this intent, we cannot do better than commence with a few figures, startling enough, no doubt, to others than the cognoscenti, as to the magnitude of what are commonly called the Liquor Trades.

From a report drawn up by Professor Leoni Levi in 1878, at the request of the late Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., and from recent Parliamentary returns, it appears that the total amount of capital invested in the liquor trades of the United Kingdom amounts to about one hundred and seventeen million pounds sterling. This sum is equal to more than half the total value of our exports, and is more than double the annual receipts of all the railways. About one-third of the whole National Revenue is drawn from this source.

Making due allowance for families, the persons employed directly in {332} the various trades connected with the production and distribution of alcoholic drinks are not fewer in number than one and a half million.

From these startling facts, it follows that teetotallers, before they can accomplish the total abolition of spirituous liquors, must arrange for either emigrating or giving employment to over a million persons, and must be prepared to pay one-third more taxes than they do at present.

It may be well, before proceeding further, to give a short and very simple account of brewing as it is now carried on in nearly every brewhouse in the country, for without a few general ideas on the subject many of our readers would no doubt be a little puzzled by the references to mashing tuns, vats, union rooms and such like, which occur in this chapter.

In brewing there are three principal operations: 1.—Mixing the malt with hot water; 2.—Adding hops to the infusion obtained and boiling them together; and 3.—Fermenting the liquid by putting yeast in it.

The malt when brought to the brewery is first screened to remove dirt, dust and foreign particles; nails and other odds and ends of metal being caught on a bar magnet over which the malt passes. It is then crushed between rollers and, by an ingenious mechanical contrivance, is carried to large bins or hoppers situated above the mash tuns, the huge tubs in which the malt and hot (not boiling) water are mixed. This process is called mashing, and was formerly done by merely stirring water and malt together with a long oar or pole, a practice of course still followed by home brewers.

Mashing is now carried on in various ways, machinery entirely taking the place of manual labour. Sometimes the water—always spoken of as “liquor” in a brewery—rises in the tun, and the malt comes in from {333} above, but in many breweries the malt and water run in together, a machine mixing them before they enter. When the malt-tea has stood long enough—huge revolving rakes mixing the mash meanwhile—the amber infusion (technically “wort”) is drawn off and more water added, until all the goodness has been extracted from the malt, the empty husks or “grains” only being left. With grains pigs and cows are often fed, and not brewers’ horses, as is popularly imagined.

“Mashing” over, the next process is to give the malt-tea its bitter flavour, and this is done by boiling it in a huge copper with a quantity of hops. When sufficiently boiled, the hops and wort are run off from the copper into huge square vessels (technically “hop-backs”) with perforated bottoms, which act as strainers or colanders, the liquid passing through the holes, leaving the hops behind, which are subsequently pressed to get all the liquid out of them. The brewer has now a quantity of unfermented hot beer, which he must first cool by passing it among pipes containing icy cold water. Refrigerators and ice-making machines are, it need hardly be said, of the greatest assistance to the modern brewer, who without them could only brew in the cold months. Some firms have spent as much as £8,000 on their ice-making machines. The beer, which at present is a teetotal drink devoid of alcohol, having been cooled, is turned into large tubs or square boxes, and yeast is added to it. Fermentation now sets in, and by various ingenious contrivances the froth as it rises to the top is skimmed off or carried away. During this process the beer is kept at a low temperature by means of cold water-pipes which are taken through the fermenting tuns. When the fermentation has almost ceased, the beer is put into smaller vessels,64 where a little fermentation still goes on, and the froth either works over the side or is skimmed off or, as in the “union” system at Burton, works up through pipes. Fermentation being now practically at an end, the beer goes into huge vats, from which it is drawn into casks as required. This last operation is termed “racking.” Even then the bung-holes are left open for a day or two to allow a little froth to work out.

The foregoing process seems, and is, of a simple character, but to {334} obtain the very best results great skill is necessary. The colour of the malt, the temperature of the water in the mash tun, the temperature during fermentation, the proper proportion of the materials, and many other matters are of the greatest importance. Some brewers, and notably Messrs. Guinness & Sons, keep their beer in vats for a considerable length of time before racking it into the casks, but the practice is gradually dying out, and huge vats such as that built some years ago by Messrs. Meux & Co. are now but little used.

The racking room of a large brewery is a wonderful sight. All round the sides are huge vats—twenty or thirty, perhaps—in each of which fifteen to twenty people could dine comfortably. These giant tubs tower above thousands of barrels which line the floor, and which look like pigmies by comparison.

One of the most interesting portions of a modern brewery is the cooperage. Coopers are highly-skilled workmen, and it is more or less of a marvel to see how without any measurement they plane down planks into staves for casks, and fit them together so closely that the {335} cask is perfectly sound and incapable of leaking. The length of the staves is measured, for the rest the Cooper trusts to his eye. Coopering is a most ancient trade, and appears from the illustration by Jost Ammon, in Schopper’s rare book, Πανοπλια, to be carried on in much the same way now as it was in Germany in the year 1568.

Before giving any account of the firm known as Allsopp & Sons,65 it is only fitting to devote a few lines to the Pale Ale Metropolis.

The history of Burton has been so exhaustively treated by Mr. Molyneux that it is not an easy matter to add anything fresh on the subject. In the monastic establishments which were inaugurated at a very early date in the neighbourhood of the town, enormous quantities of ale were brewed. There is no record, however, of any public breweries at that date (1295), though there is little doubt that the trade of malting was largely carried on. By the sixteenth century a small local trade in brewing had been established. In a series of letters written by Walsingham, in 1584, to Sir Ralph Sadler, governor of Tutbury Castle, to the inquiry, “What place neere Tutbury beere may be provided for her Majestie’s use?” is the answer that “beere” may be had “at Burton three myles off.” Information of the progress of the Babbington conspiracy is said to have been conveyed to Mary Queen of Scots, while in Tutbury Castle, by a Burton brewer; and a load of beer on its way from Burton to Fotheringay was intercepted, and among the casks were found correspondence throwing fatal light on the plot.

In 1630 the fame of the Burton ale had spread to London, and that excellent liquor was sold at “The Peacock” in Gray’s Inn Lane. In the Spectator of May 20th, 1712, is recorded how the writer and Sir Roger de Coverley visit Vauxhall, where, after inspecting the garden, they concluded their walk “with a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef.”

The history of Burton as a great brewing centre cannot be traced back much beyond 1708, at least so far as export is concerned. When, as the result of an Act passed in 1698, water communication was opened up between Burton and the Baltic ports, the brewers were not slow to take advantage of their opportunities, and in 1748 a considerable export trade had been established, the Russians being by far the best customers. {336} Both Peter the Great and the Empress Catherine were extremely fond of Burton ale. The Empress, indeed, is said to have loved it not wisely but too well. In 1791 there were nine brewers in the town, their names being Bass, Clay, Evans, Leeson, Musgrave, Sherratt, Wilson (two) and Worthington. Previous to the year 1822 Burton ale was better known on the Continent than in England, but about that time the brewers turned their attention to increasing their home trade, and met with marked success. In 1851 the breweries had increased to sixteen, giving employment to 867 men and 61 boys.

The special recommendation of the spring water at Burton consists in the fact that whatever saccharine may be put into it, appears to remain there for any length of time without being chemically injured by those mineral combinations which are generally present in spring water.

Burton of the present day is a city of breweries. Tall chimneys tower on all sides, the smell of new beer pervades the air, great red brick buildings block the way in every direction; engines glide noiselessly about dragging trucks loaded with casks; burly brewers’ men meet you at every corner; it is, in fact, the very home of John Barleycorn. The Breweries of Burton in this present year of grace are thirty in number, and give employment to about eight thousand men and boys.

In a view of Burton-on-Trent, engraved in 1720, is a small brewery, which was then the property of one Benjamin Wilson, the founder of the great firm of S. Allsopp and Sons. Though not the creator of the Burton Beer trade, he was the first to carry on an extensive business as a common brewer, and was, it is believed, the originator of the extensive export trade which Burton carried on during the eighteenth century. Letters of his are still extant, from which it may be gathered that he had established a flourishing trade in Burton ales so early as 1748. His account books show that in 1770 the business done with Russia was an extensive one, and partly carried on by barter.

In 1774, in a letter to Mr. Charles Best, Mr. Wilson writes: “We have already two large Brewhouses Employ’d, and are about to use a third, the whole of which will take all the money I can raise with convenience to myself, beyond which I do not choose to go.” In a letter dated Oct. 23, 1775, from Messrs. B. Wilson & Co. to Messrs. J. D. Newman & Co., St. Petersburg, occur the following interesting passages:—“To people who have the Credit of their own Manufacture and y inseparable Interest of their Friends at Heart, we cannot but feel an accumulated Satisfaction at every additional instance of our Ale proving fine and distinguishing itself, wch, in Justice to its Character, we have y^e {337} happiness to say our Friends have universally confirmed. To y^e several Queries of y^r Letter, we beg leave to acquaint you that tho’ many Merchants from St. Petersburg are supplied with Burton Ale from our House, yet there are many we are not intimately connected with, their orders being transmitted through y^e Houses of Hull and London . . . . . The Price of Ale last year at Burton from y^e extravagant Price of Grain sold for 17^d per Gallon.”

In the order book for 1770 are many entries which appear curious enough to modern readers. Some of the customers order their casks to be cased, i.e., enclosed in a larger cask—a process necessary to prevent the “Gainsboro’ Captains,” as the bargees were called, from “sucking the monkey.” One customer writes: “Send me 24-gallon casks strong ale and let y^e casks be iron-hooped at the head.” Another wants “two 14-gallon casks of strong ale by sea” to London, and another “a hogshead by land” also to London, the carriage of which must have been very extensive.

There may possibly be persons still living who recollect an old fellow named Dyche, who was full of information regarding the early history of the Burton Ale trade. He remembered John Wilson well, and described him as a kind, hearty, portly, well-favoured old gentleman, somewhat peppery withal, but never angry without a cause. Dyche’s father worked for Mr. Wilson during forty years as a sawyer, his business being to cut up into staves for the coopers, the timber brought from the Baltic in exchange for ale. At fourteen years of age the younger Dyche was apprenticed to the cooper at the brewery. The commonest ale was then, according to Dyche, as strong as the strongest ale now brewed.

Dyche used to tell how old Benjamin Wilson had two sons, and a daughter renowned far and wide for her beauty. This Miss Wilson became the wife of Mr. James Allsopp, and her son Samuel was father of the Mr. Henry Allsopp, now Lord Hindlip of Hindlip, who for many years was head of the firm.

Benjamin Wilson the younger, having no children, took his nephew Samuel into the business, much against the wish of Mr. James Allsopp, who had intended his son for the church. John Walker Wilson, another son of old Benjamin, also joined the firm, but soon left it and started a brewery (now Worthington’s) on his own account. On the death of Benjamin Wilson the younger, who never married, the business came altogether into the hands of his nephew, Mr. Samuel Allsopp, and was carried on under the style of “Wilson & Allsopp” until 1822, when the name was changed to “Samuel Allsopp & Son.” {338}

The Allsopps come of an ancient family. One Hugh de Allsopp (or Elleshope) went with Richard I. to the Holy Land, and was knighted for good service during the siege of Acre. He married a niece of Sir Ralph de Farington, who presented Sir Hugh with certain lands in Derbyshire, which, for seventeen generations, the Allsopps-of-the-Dale enjoyed as their patrimony. Anthony Allsopp, who married a daughter of Sir John Gell of Hopton, sold the family seat in 1691 to Sir Philip Gell, his brother-in-law. Mr. James Allsopp, whom we have mentioned as being the first of the name who joined the firm, was a grandson of Anthony. He married a member of the old Staffordshire family of Fowlers.

Several ancient deeds, some of the early part of the thirteenth century, in the possession of Lord Hindlip, contain conveyances of land to and from various members of the Alsop family, the chief names mentioned being Henry de Alsop, Ranulf de Alsop, and Thomas de Alsop.

In Pepys’ Diary mention is made of a Mr. Alsop, brewer to Charles II. Whether any connection existed between him and the Allsopp family is not known.

Returning now to the history of the firm—in 1822 high import duties were imposed by the Russian Government upon English ales, and this fact led for a time to the almost total suspension of the trade which Messrs. Allsopp & Son had for so long carried on with Russia. The results were not, however, altogether disastrous, for the Burton firm now saw the necessity of pushing their home trade, and the ales which had hitherto been better known in St. Petersburg than in London came into considerable demand in the southern portions of this country.

An eye-witness of a banquet given by Peter the Great has left the following description:—“As soon as you sit down you are expected to drink a cup of brandy, after which they ply you with great glasses of adulterated Tokay and other vitiated wines, and between whiles with a bumper of the strongest English beer.” Burton ales then were of a very different character to the excellent bitter of to-day; Dyche spoke as to their strength, and they were so rich and luscious that if a little was spilled on a table the glass would stick to it.

At this time a brewer named Hodgson had the whole of the Indian export trade, but Messrs. Allsopp & Son, at the suggestion of a Mr. Majoribanks, brewed and exported ale similar to Hodgson’s. Their venture met with marked success, and for many years the firm held the {339} chief place among the exporters of Indian Pale Ale. The first Burton specimen of that beverage, many thousand hogsheads of which are now brewed annually, was compounded by Job Goodhead, Mr. Allsopp’s veteran maltster, in a tea-pot.

Space forbids a long account of Mr. S. Allsopp’s life. To his endeavours was chiefly due the bringing of the Derby and Birmingham railway system close to Burton. In both public and private life Mr. Allsopp was charitable to a fault, and greatly beloved. He died in 1838, and was succeeded by his two sons, Charles James and Henry. The latter, so long the head of the firm, is too well known to need mention here. He it was who took a leading part in refuting certain mischievous charges, which were to the effect that the Burton brewers used noxious materials in the manufacture of their bitter beer. He represented Worcestershire from 1874 to 1880, and in 1880 was created a Baronet. In the early part of 1886 he had the honour of being raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Hindlip of Hindlip and Alsop-en-le-Dale, having retired from the firm for some years in favour of his three sons, the Hon. Charles, George and Percy Allsopp.

A word now as to the breweries, which rank among the best and most perfect of their kind. They are three in number, and are connected together, and with the makings, cooperages, &c., by about ten miles of railway.

The New Brewery is an immense structure, no single building being in existence which has a greater brewing capacity. The union room is of very fine proportions, being 375 feet in length and 105 in breadth. It contains 1,424 unions, which can cleanse 230,688 gallons at one time. The union rooms, taken altogether, contain about 4,500 unions, each with a capacity of 695 gallons.

Next to the New Brewery comes the Old Brewery, and lastly the Model Brewery, which seems a mere toy compared with the others. It is used chiefly for experiments, and for occasional brews of stout and porter. The firm also possesses extensive maltings, and, it is almost needless to say, large cooperages, stables, &c.

A feature in the conduct of Messrs. Allsopp & Sons’ business is the consideration shown to the employés, who, without counting clerks and the office staff, number 1,600. For their benefit the firm maintains a cricket ground, bowling green, a sick and funeral club, and a library managed by a scripture reader, who also visits the men and their families. Here and there about the breweries and maltings may be seen tottering old men, who seem out of place among so much life and {340} bustle. These are the pensioners, who work as much or as little as they like. We believe that Messrs. Allsopp and Sons rank third among the brewing firms of the United Kingdom, and the extent of their business may be inferred from the simple fact that they have an annual expenditure of £1,400 to £1,500 in postage stamps alone. In the busy periods of the year upwards of 20,000 casks pass weekly through their racking rooms. It would be presumption to attempt to criticise the malt liquor produced by this firm or, indeed, that of any of our leading brewers.

Early in the eighteenth century, as early indeed as the year 1710, if the Commercial List is correct, a building called the Anchor Brewery existed on the Surrey side of the Thames, in Southwark, owned by a Mr. Halsey, whose beer is mentioned in State papers of Queen Anne’s reign as being exported to Flanders for the use of the army. This gentleman having amassed a large fortune, and married his daughter to Lord Cobham, severed his connection with trade, and sold the business to Mr. Thrale, the member for the Borough of Southwark, and Sheriff for the County of Surrey. Mr. Thrale died in 1781, and was succeeded by his son, whose wife Hester was the intimate friend of the great Dr. Johnson.

Even at that time a great business was done by the firm, about 30,000 barrels of beer being produced annually. According to the Annual Register for 1759, Thrale’s was the fourth largest London brewery, Calvert’s, Whitbread’s and Truman’s coming before it. It is said that Thrale lost £130,000 by unfortunate speculations, but so profitable was the brewery that at the end of nine years he had saved a sum which enabled him to pay all the debts contracted by reason of his losses.

Dr. Johnson’s friendship with the Thrales commenced in 1765, and continued until the brewer’s death. The Doctor lived sometimes in a house near the brewery, and sometimes in the villa at Streatham. Up to 1832, when the brewery was destroyed by fire, a room near the entrance gate used to be shown, which was said to have been the Doctor’s study. In Boswell’s Life of Johnson are numerous letters and reports of conversations relating more or less to the Brewery. One of the last letters written by the Doctor was to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and contained proposals for the establishment of a convivial club, as The Club was getting overweighted with Bishops. The Doctor scoffed at the idea that persons, however learned, could meet habitually merely for the purpose of discussing philosophy or the sciences without material refreshment, and he gravely warned Mrs. Thrale that if she forbade {341} card-tables in her drawing room, she must at least give her guests plenty of sweatmeats, else nobody would come to see her. But the Doctor, and not the bonbons or card-tables, must have been the loadstone which filled Mrs. Thrale’s reception rooms. At Thrale’s death Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, and three gentlemen, named Cator, Smith and Crutchley, found themselves appointed Executors, and determined to carry on the business; but Dr. Johnson, who by nature could not help taking the lead in whatever he was concerned, was not born to be a brewer, and the undertaking was not a success. Mrs. Thrale, in Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, has left a very lively account of these amateur brewers’ proceedings. In June, 1781, when the Executors had made the resolve to sell the business, she wrote: “Dear Dr. Johnson was somewhat unwilling—but not much at last—to give up a trade by which in some years £15,000 or £16,000 had undoubtedly been got, but by which in some years its possessor had suffered agonies of terror and tottered twice upon the verge of bankruptcy . . . adieu to brewing and borough wintering; adieu to trade and tradesmen’s frigid approbation. May virtue and wisdom sanctify our contract, and make buyer and seller happy in the bargain!”

When the brewery was offered for sale, Dr. Johnson appeared bustling about with his ink-horn and pen in his buttonhole, like any excise man. On being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property, he spoke the celebrated words: “We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dream of avarice.” The brewery was finally sold by private contract for £135,000 to Messrs. Robert Barclay and John Perkins, who were associated in the transaction with Mr. David Barclay, junr., and Mr. Sylvanus Bevan, of the banking firm of Barclay, Bevan & Co. Mr. Robert Barclay was succeeded by his son Charles, who represented Southwark in Parliament, and his sons and grandsons. In 1827, the last year of the old Beer-tax, Barclays’ headed the list of London firms, having brewed 341,331 barrels of beer.

The present brewery and its belongings adjoin Bankside, extend from the land arches of Southwark Bridge nearly half the distance to London Bridge, and cover about twelve acres. Within the brewery is said to be the site of the old Globe Theatre. In an account of the neighbourhood, dated 1795, it is stated that “the passage which led to the Globe Tavern, of which the playhouse formed a part, was till within these few years known by the name of Globe Alley, and upon its site now stands a large storehouse for porter.” {342}

In the Globe Theatre, which was built by Henslowe and his son-in-law Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College, Shakspere produced and acted in several of his plays. It is curious that with Barclay and Perkins’ brewery should be associated the names of our greatest poet and perhaps our most brilliant conversationalist—Dr. Johnson—who did so much to revive the popularity of his predecessor.

A rather amusing anecdote used to be told of Madame Malibran, who, like many singers, knew the beneficial effects of stout on the voice, and whose favourite evening’s repast after the Opera consisted of oysters and bottled stout. Once hearing the name of the Honourable Craven Berkeley announced in company, she tripped up to him, and, with great animation, said, “Ah, Mr. Barclay and Perkins, I do owe you so much!” This reminds us of another anecdote, told of Madame Pasta. When in England she was asked by a literary lady of high distinction whether she drank as much stout as usual. “No, mia cara,” was the reply “prendo half and half adessa.”

Messrs. Barclay, Perkins and Co.’s brewery ranks among the sights of London, and is visited by thousands of foreigners during the year. The present brewhouse is nearly as large as Westminster Hall, and each of the three malt bins could, if required, contain an ordinary three-storied house. The vats number a hundred and fifty, with capacities varying from one hundred to three thousand five hundred barrels; the largest of these weigh when full no less than 500 tons. The full capacity of the mash tuns is 690 quarters. The water used in brewing is drawn from an artesian well 623 feet deep, and the firm give employment to over six hundred men.

Among the collection of Hearne’s Letters, in the Bodleian Library, is one from Saml. Catherall, dated “Luscom, near Bath, Nov. 2, 1729.” It contains a few semi-humorous verses on the death of two mutual friends, named Whiteside and Craster, and ends thus:—

Though there are records extant of persons bearing the name of Bass who did various notable things, such as undertaking a pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1506 (not forgetting a certain Mrs. Laura Bassi, who was promoted to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Bologna, in Italy “having first passed a strict examination and answered all points with surprising capacity and learning), this is nevertheless the first mention of Basse’s ale. Who was this Basse”? Frankly, we cannot say, but from the date of the letter it is certain that he was not the founder of the present firm.

The year 1877 was the centenary of that great commercial enterprise now known as Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Limited. It was when George the Third was King, and Pitt, the youngest Prime Minister this country has ever known, was in power, that Mr. William Bass, the proprietor of a considerable carrying business, commenced to brew ale at Burton. His brewhouse was situated in the High Street, and the building on that site, still in the hands of the firm, is always spoken of as the “Old Brewery.” The land occupied was about equal in extent to a moderately large garden, and the power in the brewery was probably altogether manual, for Watt had not at that time fully developed the greatest invention the world has ever known. Bass and Co.’s Brewery and its belongings now cover forty-five acres of freehold and over a hundred of leasehold land, on which are thirty-two steam engines of altogether 610 horse power!

Mr. William Bass, finding that his new undertaking was proving a success, sold his carrying business to the well-known house of Pickford & Co. The brewery did not, however, begin to take any important place in the trade until the beginning of the present century, some few years after Mr. Michael Thomas Bass, grandson of the founder, had been taken into the business, which then soon began to increase with marvellous rapidity, owing, there can be no doubt, to the fact that Mr. Michael Bass’s principal aim was to brew the very best beer that could possibly be brewed. In 1834 Mr. Ratcliff was taken into partnership, and a few years later Mr. Gretton joined the firm. In 1853 was built the middle brewery, between Guild Street and Station Street. In 1864 a third brewhouse was opened in Station Street, only thirty-six weeks after the foundations were commenced. Both the Middle Brewery and the New Brewery have been greatly enlarged within the last few years, and the Old Brewery has been entirely rebuilt. In 1884 Mr. M. T. Bass died, and was probably more deeply lamented than any other inhabitant of Burton since that place became a town. In 1880 the {344} business was turned into a private Limited Company, of which the eldest son of Mr. M. T. Bass is the chairman.66

Before attempting to give any idea of the enormous business transacted by Messrs. Bass & Co., a few words respecting the man by whose strict integrity, business qualifications, and persistent and successful efforts to produce the best possible article, and none other, the name of Bass has been rendered a familiar word throughout the whole civilised world. He was born in 1799, and entered the business immediately after leaving school. The trade then done was so limited that he had for a time to act as a traveller; but year by year the demand for Bass’s Ale became greater and greater, and for a considerable period before his death Mr. Bass was at the head of the greatest pale ale brewery in the world. He was a genial, kindly man, and had a genuine pride in the success of his great undertaking. Those who had the pleasure of being his guests will no doubt remember his translation of two lines from Martial, Book vi. Epigram 69:—

“I am not the least surprised, O Catullus, that your nymph Bassa drinks water; what I am surprised at is that Bass’s daughter drinks water.” The epigram has also been rendered into English verse:—

Mr. M. T. Bass represented Derby in Parliament for thirty-five years, being eight times elected in succession, only resigning in 1883, having lived to be the oldest member in the House. He gave Derby a Free Library, a Museum, an Art Gallery, a Public Bath, and a Recreation Ground, at a cost of £50,000. Railway Companies’ servants have reason to be grateful to him, for through his endeavours their hours of labour, though still in some case left far too long, have on many lines been considerably shortened. For some years many of them worked sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty hours out of the twenty-four. He also strenuously exerted himself to obtain the abolition of imprisonment for debt. His benefactions to Burton are too numerous to mention. The chief of them were the gifts of St. Paul’s and St. Margaret’s {345} Churches, with a Parsonage House, Schools, and an endowment of £500 a year, and a Workman’s Club and Institute at a total cost of over £100,000. Mr. Bass was repeatedly offered a Peerage, and as often refused it. We cannot better conclude this short and very inadequate description than by quoting the words used by Sir William Harcourt when opening St. Paul’s Institute at Burton-on-Trent: “We are met here to-day to commemorate the munificent benefaction of Mr. Bass. He is a man advanced in years, in honour, and in wealth, which is the fruit of a life of intelligent industry. He was a Liberal in his youth; he is a Liberal in his age. Years and wealth have not brought to him selfish timidity. In his grey hairs he cherishes the generous sentiments which inspired his earlier days. He has received freely, and freely has he bestowed.”

The liberality of the firm was not confined to Mr. Michael Bass. The Messrs. Gretton have erected and endowed a Church in the suburbs of Burton at a cost of nearly £20,000, and Public Baths and Wash-houses, costing nearly £10,000, have been presented to the town by Messrs. Ratcliff.

The firm of Bass & Co. alone contribute to the National Revenue upwards of £780 per day, and its breweries at Burton-upon-Trent are the largest of their kind in the world, the business premises extending, as we have said, over 145 acres of land. Locomotives have to a large extent superseded brewers’ drays at Burton, and this firm has connection with the outer railway systems by twelve miles of rails on the premises, and use as many as 60,000 railway trucks in the course of six months. The casks required to carry on the business number 600,000, of which 46,901 are butts, and 159,608 are hogsheads. Some ingenious calculations have been made with regard to these casks. Piled one above another they would make 3,300 pillars, each reaching to the top of St. Paul’s. The great Egyptian Pyramid is 763 ft. square at the base; the butts, standing on end and placed bulge to bulge, would furnish bases for five such pyramids, and the other casks would be more than sufficient for the superstructure 460 ft. high.

Though labour-saving machinery is used as much as possible, Bass & Co. employ at Burton alone 2,250 men and boys. In 1821 only 867 men and 61 boys were engaged in all the Burton breweries. In the course of a season the firm now sends out over 800,000 barrels, and manufacture raw material weighing 85,000 tons. In the year ending June 30th, 1883, 250,000 quarters of malt were used and 31,000 cwt. of hops. The amount of business now done by the firm in one year cannot be less than £2,400,000, figures which will give some idea of the capital employed. {346}

A detailed description of the three brewhouses would fill the whole of the space devoted to this chapter; suffice it, therefore, to say that the racking rooms on the ground floor of the new brewery cover more than one and a half acre, the tunning rooms of the same area contain 2,548 tunning casks of 160 gallons each; and the copper house contains three water coppers that will boil 12,000 gallons each; and eleven wort coppers that will each boil 2,200 gallons of wort.

On the cooperage great demands are made, for about 40,000 casks, which are made in part by machinery, are annually exported. The firm has thirty-two maltings at Burton, and others elsewhere, which, during the malting season, make 7,600 qrs. per week.

The annual issue of Bass and Co.’s labels amounts to over one hundred millions. Some idea of this quantity may be gathered from the fact that if they were put end to end in one long line they would reach to New York and back again, a distance of five thousand miles.

Both the late Mr. Bass’s sons are members of the firm. The eldest, Lord Burton of Rangemore, late member for the Burton division of Staffordshire, represented Stafford from 1865 to 1868, and East Staffordshire from 1868 to 1886. Mr. Hamar Bass, the second son, represented Tamworth for some years, and in the general elections of 1885–6 was returned for West Staffordshire.

Between the firms of Bass and Allsopp there is a friendly rivalry as to which shall brew the best ale. A few years since Sir M. Arthur Bass and Mr. Charles Allsopp while fishing on Loch Quvich, in Inverness-shire, were nearly drowned. Sir Arthur had hooked a large fish, and Mr. Allsopp, eager to see it, stepped on one side of the boat, which at once capsized. The anglers and their attendants clung to the bottom of the boat, and were ultimately thrown on an island in an exhausted condition! The following paragraph shortly afterwards appeared in the World:—“The exciting accident which nearly proved the death of the rival brewers of Burton-on-Trent, at once so touching in its record of disinterested friendship, and so highly satisfactory in its sequel to the world at large, has suddenly inundated me with facetious rhyme and caustic epigram. This is how one of my correspondents treats the subject:—

One of the most ancient and important brewing centres in the kingdom is the city of Dublin. With one exception, all its breweries are exclusively devoted to the manufacture of stout, that sturdy beverage the fame of which has gone forth into all lands; and just as Burton has acquired the right to be termed the Pale Ale Metropolis, so does Ireland’s chief town contend with London for the honour of being called the Capital of Black Beer.

It is remarkable that so early as the commencement of the seventeenth century, Dublin was already a notable brewing centre, producing a description of brown ale. Barnaby Ryche, writing about that time, gives a quaint account of the manners and customs of the people, and calls attention to the great number of alehouses in Dublin during the reign of James I.

“I am now,” he says, “to speake of a certaine kind of commodity, that outstretcheth all that I have hitherto spoken of, and that is the selling of ale in Dublin, a quotidian commodity that hath vent in every house in the towne, every day in the weeke, at every houre in the day, and in every minute in the houre: There is no merchandise so vendible, it is the very marrow of the commonwealth in Dublin: the whole profit of the towne stands upon ale-houses, and selling of ale, but yet the cittizens, a little to dignifie the title, as they use to call every pedlar a merchant, so they use to call every ale-house a taverne, whereof there are such plentie, that there are streates of tavernes.

“. . . . This free mart of ale selling in Dublyne is prohibited to none, but that it is lawfull for every woman (be she better or be she worse) either to brewe or else to sell ale.”

About the time of the Restoration there were ninety-one public brewhouses in Dublin, and in the early part of the eighteenth century the trade, though on the decrease, was evidently thriving, the brewhouses being seventy in number. It seems, however, that, as the century wore on, the trade died away, for in 1773 there were only thirty-five Breweries surviving. The decay of so important an industry was chiefly due to three causes: In the first place, the Irish brewers were saddled with a heavy tax, and, secondly, English Porter was taking the place of old Irish brown ale in the popular fancy. An old song on the Tavern of the Cross Keys, in Dublin, composed about the middle of the century, opens with the lines—

It does not seem that the Dublin brewers, who were frequently petitioning Parliament for assistance, faced the difficulty by brewing Porter themselves until the year 1778. The third adverse influence was the taste for ardent spirits, especially rum and brandy, which had sprung up; and the Irish records of the day are full of allusions to the injury which this was working, not only to the trade of the Brewers, but to the morals and health of the people.

A remarkable letter is still preserved, written by Henry Grattan on this subject at the close of the century. It appears to be addressed to the Brewers of Dublin, probably in answer to one of their numerous petitions for protection. It is as follows:—

“Gentlemen,

“The Health of Ireland and the prosperity of her breweries I consider as intimately connected. I have looked to your trade as to a source of life and a necessary means of subsistence. I have considered it as the natural nurse of the people and entitled to every encouragement, favour, and exemption. It is at your source the Parliament will find in its own country the means of Health with all her flourishing consequences, and the cure of intoxication with all her misery.

“My wishes are with you always. My exertions, such as they are, you may ever command.

“I have the honour to be your sincere and your humble servant,

“HENRY GRATTAN.”

At present (1886) there are only seven firms of any note in Dublin; and of those existing a hundred years ago but two survive—Messrs. Sweetman’s and the well-known house of Messrs. Guinness, which has long been at the head of the trade in Ireland. To some English readers it may come as a revelation that at the present time this Irish firm is the greatest producer of malt liquors in the whole world.

Some account of the rise and progress of so vast a business cannot but be of interest to the student of industrial enterprise, but in the compass of the present work it will of course only be possible to give the merest outline of its growth.

Arthur Guinness, the great-grandfather of Sir Edward Guinness, the present owner, purchased the original premises from a Mr. Ransford in the year 1759. The business appears to have been of very modest dimensions, for the plant, as acquired by Arthur Guinness, included only one mash tun and one seventy-barrel copper. The brewery had, even at that time, been worked for a considerable period, certainly from the earliest years of the eighteenth century, and probably before that. {349}

The property, about one acre in extent, thus acquired in 1759, forms the nucleus of the present gigantic establishment. The principal brewhouse stands to-day precisely on the site once occupied by Ransford’s mash tun and copper; but since the commencement of the nineteenth century many additional properties have from time to time been acquired, until at present the total area occupied by the brewhouses and their belongings amounts to between forty and fifty statute acres.

For many years the dimensions of the business were but moderate. Wakefield, writing in 1809, states that Guinness was then only the second brewer in Ireland, Beamish and Crawford of Cork, who brewed upwards of 100,000 barrels a year, standing first.

Without attempting to account for or to describe the advance, since Wakefield’s day, of the great Dublin firm (made a limited liability company in October, 1886), we may briefly notice one or two points of special interest connected with the manufacture.

The materials used are absolutely confined to malt, pale and roasted, and hops. Of the latter a preference has always been shown for those of Kent, no other English varieties being used. But of late years American Hops have been largely consumed as well. The water for brewing is drawn from the City Watercourses, and not from the Liffey, as some people unacquainted with Dublin have supposed.

It would be impossible here to describe in detail the process or the plant of the St. James’ Gate Brewery, and owing to the position held by the firm it seems almost unnecessary to say that every modern improvement of the Engineer and the Scientist, whether for facilitating the operations of Brewing or for ensuring the safety and welfare of those employed, has been carefully investigated and judiciously applied. The minute attention which is paid to every detail of the process, from the manufacture and selection of the malt, to the treatment and storage of the beer in every stage, is matched by the liberal provision made for the men engaged in the work and their families.

To the visitor nothing is more astonishing than the size and number of the vats. Some of these huge erections of Oak and Iron contain no less than 90,000 gallons apiece; and to a lengthened storage in these is due in great measure the peculiar character of the Stout devoted to the foreign export trade. The tendency in most modern breweries has been to dispense with lengthened storage in vat. Not so here, and the erection of vats of great capacity has kept pace with the extension of the export trade.

Another remarkable feature is the large provision of ice machines, {350} or rather of engines for the cooling, by the evaporation of ether and ammonia, of fluid brine, which circulates by a complicated system of copper pipes through every part of the vast storehouses, and ensures a winter temperature on the hottest summer day. It is the extent to which this system is applied that is so striking in this establishment, where all is on so vast a scale that the ordinary units of measurement seem inadequate to convey a notion of the truth. The same may be said of the multitude of mains by which the finished beer is conveyed from the storage vats, a distance of half a mile beneath one of the principal streets of the city, to the lower portion of the works where the beer is “racked” into cask.

It is related that the Empress of Brazil, who a few years since visited the Brewery, went away under the impression—a not unnatural one—what beer was laid on like gas and water to all the houses in Dublin.

A small railway of 22-inch gauge, and which is altogether about two miles in length, penetrates every part of the Brewery. The rolling stock includes six locomotives and upwards of one hundred and sixty trucks and bogies.

The descent from the Brewery to the lower level of the river side has been engineered with remarkable skill. In order to avoid crossing the street which bisects the works a spiral tunnel has been constructed, by means of which the line descends thirty feet in three circuits, the diameter of which is only forty yards, while the gradient is 1 in 39. Much of the internal traffic of the Brewery is thus carried on with ease and rapidity by means of this unique underground railway.

So far as is possible in a Brewery which has been added to from time to time, advantage has been taken of the physical features of the locality in the general arrangement of the plant. Thus the finished beer runs by gravitation from the Brewery to the Racking Stores, which are situated upon the Quays. Full advantage has been taken of this excellent position, and the firm possesses a fleet of steamers and barges which convey the filled casks to the docks, a distance of a mile and a half. The Export trade is entirely carried on by river, while a branch line from the Great Southern and Western Railway terminus bears away many a train-load of porter every day, to be distributed over the whole length and breadth of Ireland.

We have already borne witness to the increasing popularity of porte in Ireland, and feel sure that no better thing could happen to the “distressful country” than that the drinking of whisky and the bad substitutes that are sold under that name should be brought within {351} reasonable limits, and that malt liquor should become the daily drink of every Irish farmer, who from that source will find, to again quote Grattan’s words, “the means of Health with all her flourishing consequences, and the cure of intoxication with all her misery.”

Romford, in Essex, is known to the few as the birthplace of Sir Anthony Cooke and Francis Quarles, the poet; but to the many it is the source whence come certain excellent and deservedly popular ales. Through the town wanders a little stream now called the Rom, but described in old country Maps as the Bourne Brooke, and which in the fifteenth century was called the Mercke-dyche.67 Towards the close of the eighteenth century there stood by the bridge which carries the High Street over this rivulet, a small Inn called the Star. The innkeeper, according to the fashion of the times, brewed his own beer, and at the rear of his hostel was a small brewhouse. His mash tub was no doubt of modest dimensions, and his “liquor” was possibly drawn from the Mercke-dyche, for in that day pure water could be got from most streams and rivers. Now, sad to say, an unpolluted stream is almost unknown, and nine wells supply the water which, with a due admixture of malt and hops, forms that admirable compound known as Romford Ale.