To leave Theology for the Stable, it is worth recording that it is alleged that during the King’s progress through the country, in Norman times, such was the extravagance and waste of the royal household that the servants even washed the horses’ feet in ale. Grooms at the present day often mix ale with lampblack and oil for rubbing on the hoofs of horses. Possibly this was all that was done by the royal grooms. Ancient chroniclers are notoriously inaccurate.
None appreciate good ale more than anglers, and this is clearly evidenced in the following receipt, written by Christopher North, for staining gut or hair lines a pale watery green:—“To a pint of strong ale add (as soon as possible, as it is so apt to evaporate when good) half-a-pound of soot, a small quantity of walnut leaves, and a little powdered alum (then drink the remaining pint of ale, if you happen to have drawn a quart); boil these materials for half or three-quarters of an hour, and when the mixture is cold, steep the gut or hair in it for ten or twelve hours.” Yes, good ale is apt to evaporate very quickly; the moral is obvious.
Dame Juliana Berners, in The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, gives two receipts “to coloure your lynes of here,” in which ale is used. One consists of ale and alum, the other of ale and soot.
When every county had its monasteries, and every monastery its fish stew well stocked with fine carp for Fridays’ dinners, the fattening of fish was a matter of no little importance. In an old angling book it is stated that “Raspins and Chippins of Bread, or almost any scraps from the Table, placed under a cask of strong Beer or Ale, in such a manner that the Droppings of the Liquor may fall among them, is excellent Food for Carp. Two quarts of this is sufficient for thirty, and if they are fed Morning and Evening it will be better than once a Day only.” Stilton {403} cheeses, by the way, treated in a similar manner to that directed for the “Raspins,” are immensely improved in flavour and general excellence. Brewers’ grains are greedily eaten by most kinds of freshwater fish, and are used by anglers as groundbait for bream, roach, and carp in the Eastern counties.
In a work entitled Practical Economy, published in 1821, persons desirous of fattening their fowls quickly are recommended to feed them on ground-rice, milk and sugar, made into a paste, and to let them drink beer.
The ladies who preside over the culinary department of our households do not, so far as we know, make any use of ale other than as a drink, excepting the occasional use of beer in the preparation of Welsh rare-bits. From old cookery books, however, we gather that this has not always been the case. Beer mixed with brown sugar was a favourite sauce for pancakes; red herrings were steeped in small beer before being broiled; and catsup for sea stores was made principally of beer and vinegar, a few mushrooms being added for conscience’ sake. Then, from the same source, we find that beer has other domestic uses. An admirable method of cleaning crape is to steep it in beer, wring it gently, and hang it out to dry; stale beer formed, and still forms, the liquid part of the best blacking; ale or beer plus elbow grease makes capital furniture polish; and, leaving the interior of the house, beer grounds have been used for washing the outside of walls and houses covered with cement to harden the latter, a change which they are said likewise to effect on bricks and mortar.
Beer mixed with brown sugar or honey is usually rubbed over the interiors of hives in which swarms of bees are intended to be taken. A bunch of mint and other sweet herbs forms the brush to spread the mixture. Not only is the sweet dressing agreeable to the taste and smell, but the beer has doubtless a lulling and soporific effect on the bees, and renders them less anxious to leave their new abode.
In the medicine books of the Saxon Leeches are references to the use of ale in the composition of various lotions. Ale and beer are, indeed, often prescribed by medical practitioners of the present day, as will be seen by a perusal of Chapter XV. The valuable properties of bitter beer as an incentive to appetite and a promoter of digestion, and the nourishing qualities of the brown beers, are too well known to need comment.
In many breweries large quantities of vinegar are manufactured from malt liquor. This is an ancient practice, for in the City of London {404} Records of the time of Good Queen Bess it is stated that officials were appointed to search the premises of the brewers for “vyneagre, bear-eagre and ale-eagre,” and to report to the Common Council touching the same. The words “beare-eagre” and “ale-eagre” have now gone out of use, and the acid liquid made from malt liquor is improperly called Vinegar though in no way connected with the Vine.
A use of ale, which is additional rather than alternative to the common one, is commemorated by the old proverb, “Fair chieve good ale, it makes folk speak what they think.” Another such supplementary use, but of a character less commendable, is expressed in the ancient couplet:—