MALT LIQ′UORS. The qualities of ale, beer, and porter, as beverages, the detection of their adulteration, and the methods of preparing them, are described under their respective names and in the article upon ‘BREWING’; the present article will, therefore, be confined to a short notice of the cellar management, and the diseases of malt liquors generally.
Age. The appearance and flavour to which this term is applied can, of course, be only given to the liquor by properly storing it for a sufficient time. Fraudulent brewers and publicans, however, frequently add a little oil of vitriol (diluted with water) to new beer, by which it assumes the character of an inferior liquor of the class 1 or 2 years old. Copperas, alum, sliced onions, Seville oranges, and cucumbers, are also frequently employed by brewers for the same purpose.
Bottling. Clean, sweet, and dry bottles, and sound and good corks, should be had in readiness. The liquor to be bottled should be perfectly clear; and if it be not so, it must be submitted to the operation of ‘fining.’ When quite fine, and in good condition, the bung of the cask should be left out all night, and the next day the liquor should be put into bottles, which, after remaining 12 or 24 hours, covered with sheets of paper to keep out the flies and dust, must be securely corked down. Porter is generally wired over. The wire for this purpose should be ‘annealed,’ and not resilient. If the liquor is intended for exportation to a hot climate, the bottles should remain filled for 2 or 3 days, or more, before corking them. The stock of bottled liquor should be stored in a cool situation; and a small quantity, to meet present demands only, should be set on their sides in a warmer place to ripen. October beer should not be bottled before Midsummer, nor March beer till Christmas.
Cloudiness. Add a handful of hops boiled in a gallon of the beer, and in a fortnight fine it down.
Fining. See Clarification and Brewing.
Flatness. When the liquor is new, or has still much undecomposed sugar left in it, a sufficient remedy is to remove it into a warmer situation for a few days. When this is not the case, 2 or 3 pounds of moist sugar (foots) may be ‘rummaged’ into each hogshead. In this way a second fermentation is set up, and in a few days the liquor becomes brisk, and
carries a head. This is the plan commonly adopted by publicans. On the small scale the addition of a few grains of carbonate of soda, or of prepared chalk, to each glass, is commonly made for the same purpose; but in this case the liquor must be drunk within a few minutes, else it becomes again flat and insipid. This may be adopted for home-brewed beer which has become sour and vapid.
Foxing or Bucking. The spontaneous souring of worts or beer during their fermentation or ripening, to which this name is applied, may generally be remedied by adding to the liquor some fresh hops (scalded), along with some black mustard seed (bruised). Some persons use a little made mustard, or a solution of alum or of catechu, and in a week or 10 days afterwards further add some treacle, or moist sugar.
Frosted beer is recovered by change of situation; by the addition of some hops boiled in a little sweet wort; or by adding a little moist sugar or treacle to induce a fresh fermentation.
Heading. This is added to thin and vapid beer to make it bear a frothy head. The most innocent, pleasant, and effective addition of this sort is a mixture of pure ammonio-citrate of iron and salt of tartar, about equal parts in the proportion of only a few grains to a quart.