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:—
Let friends who go fishing for salmon or wrasse, Take a hint from the story of Allsop and Bass; When you hook a fine fish, of your brother keep clear, Or your salmon, when caught, may embitter your beer (bier).
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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.”