Three quarts of ale, sweetened with sifted sugar, and served up in a bowl with six roasted apples floating in it.
CHAPTER VI ALL ALE
Waste not, want not — The right hand for the froth — Arthur Roberts and Phyllis Broughton — A landlord’s perquisites — Marc Antony and hot coppers — Introduction of ale into Britain — Burton-on-Trent — Formerly a cotton-spinning centre — A few statistics — Michael Thomas Bass — A grand old man — Malting barleys — Porter and stout — Lager beer — Origin of bottled ale — An ancient recipe — Lead-poisoning — The poor man’s beer.
In a speech made some years ago Sir Michael Hicks-Beach observed that nearly one million sterling’s worth of tobacco was wasted annually by throwing away cigarette-ends and the stumps of cigars. But what would you, Sir Michael? Are the lieges to cremate their lips and singe their moustaches by smoking on to the (literally) bitter end? Whether or no, it is tolerably certain that there is an enormous daily waste in the matter of intoxicating drinks—without counting the wanton, although conscientious, destruction made by teetotal magnates. According to statistics—I shall not madden my readers with many of these—more than £138,000,000 {62} are spent annually in Great Britain on spirituous liquors. Half of this sum, it may be fairly stated, is spent in the provinces. It may also be taken as read that 5 per cent of beer and stout is wasted, in the way of froth, spillings, and leavings, and 3 per cent of spirits. This brings us face to face with the calculation that the value of our daily waste in drinks is nearly £6500. Carbonic acid gas is undoubtedly answerable for a lot of this waste. In The Old Guard, a musical piece produced at the Avenue Theatre some years ago, Mr. Arthur Roberts in his instructions to Miss Phyllis Broughton—who made a very comely stage barmaid—particularly enjoined her, when drawing ale, to use her left hand to bring the handle down.
“The right hand,” he observed—of course it was all “gag”—“is for the froth.” And then he shewed her how to make half a pint of liquor fill a pint measure. Of course there be some professional imbibers who would object strongly and refuse to accept the froth programme; but on the other hand it pays the retailer, in the long-run. I am not going to re-tell the old story of the Quaker; but will only mention that in the early seventies the landlord of a favourite tavern in the Strand—a house of call for histrions, which has since then been transmogrified and adorned with much bevelled glass and carved walnut—once confided to me that he made every bit of £300 per annum out of his froth. His barmaids were all of angelic appearance, with most beautiful heads of hair (the girls wore plenty of it in those days) and a wealth of pretty prattle. And the {63} customers being susceptible, and liberal-minded, the rest was easy.
Egyptian manuscripts written at least 3000 years before the Christian era shew conclusively that even at that primitive period the manufacture of an intoxicating liquor from barley or other grain was extensively carried out in Egypt. Probably the wretched Israelites got far more birch and bastinado than beer given them whilst engaged in brickmaking; but it is quite on the cards that Cleopatra, when fatigued with practising the spot stroke on her billiard-table, often commanded one of her slaves to draw her a pint of bitter with a head on it; and who knows but that her beloved Antony cooled his coppers with small ale?
Pliny—who would be a useful sort of man to have in a daily newspaper office nowadays—records that in his time a fermented drink made from “corn and water” was in regular use in all the districts of Europe with which he was acquainted. But in Britain little was known about beer before the Roman conquest, as the favourite beverages of our ancestors were mead and cider. But the Romans, although they never quite succeeded in subduing the stubborn dispositions of the “barbarians,” managed to teach them a bit of husbandry, and to shew them something about brewing. There were no means of making wine in those days, and—save in Wales—there were no grapes to make it with; but the Latins were not long in teaching the Britons—who were never slow to learn anything which might lead to revelry—that a very good {64} substitute for wine might be expressed from grain and water. Hops were undoubtedly known in England before the conquest, but do not appear to have been regularly used in brewing before the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is probable, therefore, that they were employed as medicine—and there is no better tonic than your hop. The Germans would seem to have brewed with the “wicked weed” before the Englanders did, according to the omniscient Pliny.
The horny-handed son of toil, who can put away his four or five gallons daily during harvest-time, without falling off the waggon, may not know it, but it is only the female hop which is used by the brewer of to-day. The characteristics of the he-hop are not known to the writer, or whether he plays any part in aiding to relieve the thirst of the lieges; but the female is said to exercise “a purifying, a preservative, and an aromatic influence over the wort.”
It used to be a popular fallacy that the beer made at Burton-on-Trent was brewed from Trent water, instead of, as was and is the case, from spring-water, which is eminently suited to the purpose. The chief industry at Burton was, originally, cotton-spinning, but fifty years ago this industry was discontinued owing to the triumphal march of John Barleycorn. Why spin cotton when the manufacture of beer is not only a much healthier occupation but is far more lucrative? So Burton stuck to its beer-making, a trade which was originally established {65} there—in a very small way—in the sixteenth century. There appears to have been a demand for Burton ale in London, during the reign of Charles I.; although details are missing as to whether the demand extended to the royal palaces. It is certain, however, that more than one hundred years ago Burton-on-Trent did a considerable export trade with the Baltic. In 1791 there were nine breweries here, and in 1851 sixteen. But at the beginning of the present century, until the last-named year, when the great Exhibition attracted all the world and his wife to England, the breweries at Burton were not all in a flourishing condition; and I have more than once heard my grandfather—who spoke from personal knowledge—tell the story of how the late Mr. Michael Thomas Bass most magnanimously offered to “prop up” another large firm, with the remark, “There’s room enough for us both here!”
At present there are thirty breweries in Burton-on-Trent, and employed in these are some 8000 men and boys. After the opening of the Midland Railway in 1839 the brewing trade here began to improve, but it was mainly due to the energy and practical knowledge of Mr.