The last few lines may give the reader the impression that the writer served his time in Burton-on-Trent; but this is not the case. I {51} have conveyed the bulk of my technical knowledge of brewing from standard works on the subject.
It will be gathered from some previous remarks that all is not beer that’s bitter; and although it would seem impossible to find a cleaner, healthier, or more strengthening drink than the “pure beer” of commerce, brewed from good English or Scotch barley, Kentish hops, and fair spring-water, how about the wash sold in some licensed houses which is “fetched up” with foot-sugar, bittered with quassia, and mixed with salt and any nasty flavourer which is handy?
The old stories about the carcass of a horse placed in the London stout, to give it “body,” and the mysterious disappearance of an Italian organ-grinder, together with his monkey and infernal machine, just outside a high-class brewery, are probably apocryphal. And although the ancients undoubtedly put a red cock—the older the better—into ale, on occasion, the nineteenth century Briton, for the most part, if the rooster be too tough to serve as a boiled bonne bouche with parsley-and-butter, usually makes Cock-a-Leekie of him. And thereby hangs a tale.
When my firm was running a small chicken-ranche we once reared an unfortunate fowl, who had curvature of the spine, almost from the fracture of his shell. He was a weakling, and his brethren and sistren, after the manner of birds, beasts, and fishes, who “go for” the anæmic and infirm, persecuted him exceedingly, and peeked most of his feathers off. Being a {52} merciful, and withal a thrifty, poultry-farmer, I looked out an old parrot’s cage from the tool-shed, and in this cage installed the weakly cockerel. He was forthwith christened “Poor Richard,” and given little Benjamin’s share of the corn and wine, and cayenne pepper and—other things. And although his head was still slewed round to starboard, he thrived under his liberal nourishment and freedom from the assaults of his relatives.
Time flew on. I had been the “Northern Circuit,” in the pursuit of my then profession of reporter of the sport of kings. I returned home late on a Saturday night, and next day we had friends to dinner. So much North Country language, and so much travelling about had quite put our feathered and afflicted pensioner out of my head; and even the fact of our having the favourite broth of His Majesty King James the First for dinner did not suggest anything to my busy brain. But afterwards, when we were alone—she ought not to have done it—my life-partner confided to me that I had helped to eat “Poor Richard”! And I felt like a very cannibal; and mourned the bird as a brother.
But to return. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign it was, I used to believe, a capital offence to put hops into beer. But these are the directions for
Brewing of Strong Ale,
issued by one Gervase Markham, an authority on the subject, and a contemporary of Shakespeare; and in these directions “hops” are distinctly mentioned as one of the component parts of the brew. {53}
Now for the brewing of strong Ale, because it is drinke of no such long lasting as Beere is, therefore you shall brew lesse quantity at a time thereof, as two bushels of Northerne measure (which is foure bushels or halfe a quarter in the South) at a brewing, and not above, which will make foureteene gallons of the best Ale. Now for the mashing and ordering of it in the mash-fat, it will not differ any thing from that of Beere; as for hops, although some use not to put in any, yet the best Brewers thereof will allow to foureteene gallons of Ale a good espen full of hops, and no more, yet before you put in your hops, as soone as you take it from the graines, you shall put it into a vessell, and change it, or blinke it in this manner: Put into the Wort a handfull of Oke-bowes and a pewter dish, and let them lye therein till the Wort looke a little paler than it did at the first, and then presently take out the dish and the leafe, and then boile it a full houre with the hops, as aforesayd, and then clense it, and set it in vessels to cook; when it is milk-warme, having set your Barme to rise with some sweete Wort; then put all into the guilfat, and as soone as it riseth, with a dishe or bowle beate it in, and so keepe it with continuall beating a day and a night, and after run it. From this Ale you may also draw halfe so much very good middle Ale, and a third part very good small Ale.
Another way