Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal lane, did cure me With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall, Cost me but twopence.
We have before us an old pamphlet bearing the title “Warme Beere, or a Treatise wherein is declared by many reasons, that Beere so qualified is farre more wholesome than that which is drunk cold. With a confutation of such objections that are made against it; published for the preservation of Health. Cambridge. Printed by R. D. for Henry Overton, and are to be sold at his shop entering into Pope’s-Head Alley out of Lumbard Street in London, 1641.” {411}
The following verses form an apt commencement to this whimsical old treatise:—
IN COMMENDATION OF WARME BEERE.
We care not what stern grandsires now can say, Since reason doth and ought to bear the sway. Vain grandames saysaws ne’er shall make me think, That rotten teeth come most by warmed drink. No, grandsire, no; if you had us’d to warm Your mornings draughts, as I do, farre less harme Your raggie lungs had felt; not half so soon, For want of teeth to chew, you’d us’d the spoon. Grandame, be silent now, if you be wise, Lest I betray your skinking niggardize: I wot well you no physick ken, nor yet The name and nature of the vitall heat. ’Twas more to save your fire, and fear that I Your pewter cups should melt or smokifie, Then skill or care of me, which made you swear, God wot, and stamp to see me warm my beer. Though grandsire growl, though grandame swear, I hold That man unwise that drinks his liquor cold.
After giving instances of the value of warm beer as opposed to cold, the author gives the following sage account of the reasons he hath for the faith that is in him:—“When a man is thirstie, there are two master-qualities which do predominate in the stomach, namely heat and drinesse, over their contraries, cold and moisture. When a man drinketh cold beer to quench his thirst, he setteth all four qualities together by the ears in the stomach, which do with all violence oppose one another and cause a great combustion in the stomach, breeding many distempers therein. For if heat get the mastery, it causeth inflamation through the whole body, and bringeth a man into fluxes and other diseases. But hot beer prevents all these dangers, and maketh friendship between all these enemies, viz., hot and cold, wet and drie, in the stomach; because when the coldnesse of the beer is taken away by actuall heat, and made as hot as the stomach, then heat hath no opposite, his enemie cold being taken away, and there only remains these two enemies, dry and wet in the stomach: which heat laboureth to make friends. When one is exceeding thirstie, the beer being made hot and then drunk into the dry stomach, it immediately quencheth {412} the thirst, moistening and refreshing nature abundantly. Cold beer is very pleasant when extreme thirst is in the stomach; but what more dangerous to the health. Many by drinking a cup of cold beer in extreme thirst, have taken a surfet and killed themselves. Therefore we must not drink cold beer, because it is pleasant, but hot beer, because it is profitable, especially in the Citie for such as have cold stomachs, and inclining to a consumption. I have known some that have been so farre gone in a consumption, that none would think in reason they could live a week to an end: their breath was short, their stomach was gone, and their strength failed, so that they were not able to walk about the room without resting, panting and blowing: they drank many hot drinks and wines to heat their cold stomachs, and cure their diseases, especially sweet wines, but all in vain: for the more wine they drank to warm their stomachs, the more they inflamed their livers, by which means they grew worse and worse increasing their disease: But when they did leave drinking all wine and betook themselves onely to the drinking of hot beer so hot as blood, within a moneth, their breath, stomach and strength was so increased, that they could walk about their garden with ease, and within two moneths could walk four miles, and within three moneths were perfectly made well as ever they were in their lives.”
Another curious old pamphlet of about the same period, entitled Panala Alacatholica (1623) follows the text “That ale is a wholesome drinke contrary to many men’s conceits,” and after a description of the way in which ale is spoilt in the brewing and rendered injurious we are told: “But let a neat huswife, or canny Alewright have the handling of good Ingredients (sweet Maulte and wholesome water) and you shall see and will say, there is Art in brewing, (as in most actions) and that many more, even of those that ayme at brewing the Best Ale, doe yet for all their supposed dexteritie, misse the marke, than hit upon the mysterie. For you shall then have a neat cup of Nappie Ale (right Darbie, not Dagger Ale, though effectually animating) well boyled, desecated and cleared, that it shall equall the best Brewed Beere in transparence, please the most curious Pallate with milde quicknesse of relish, quench the thirst, humect the inward parts, helpe concoction and distribution of meate, and by its moderate penetration, much further the attractive power of the parts (especially being rectified with that Additament and Vehiculum which the best Alistra boyles with it; to wit, such a proportion of Hop as gives not any the least tact of bitternesse to the Pallate after it growes Drinkable) and being free from all those former foule {413} imputations, doth by its succulencie much nourish and corroborate the Corporall, and comfort the Animall powers.”
A long description here follows of the manner in which Panala, a medicated ale, is to be manufactured. Of its virtues our quaint author gives the following account:—“This Ale neither offends the Eye with the loathed object of a muddie substance, nor the smell with any ill vapour or favour, nor the tast nor stomacke with disgust or ingrate relish, but ’tis a pure, cleere, delicate, and singular Extract impregnated with the sincere spirits and vertuosities of excellent Ingredients, of a moderate temperature, indifferently accommodated to every Age, Sex, and Constitution, and so familiar and pleasing to Nature.”
Medicated ales of this nature were held in high estimation by our ancestors. Such was the celebrated Dr. Butler’s ale, which held its sway for many generations; the following receipt for this ale is given in the Book of Notable Things: “Take Senna and Polypedium each four ounces, Sarseperilla two ounces, Agrimony and Maidenhair of each a small handful, scurvy grass a quarter of a peck, bruise them grossly in a stone mortar, put them into a thin canvass bag, and hang the bag in nine or ten gallons of ale; when it is well worked and when it is three or four days old, it is ripe enough to be drawn off and bottled, or as you see fit.” This ale was sold at houses that had Butler’s head for a sign, and we meet with further mention of it in a news-sheet of 1664:—“At Tobias’ Coffee House, in Pye Corner, is sold the right drink, called Dr. Butler’s Ale, it being the same that was sold by Mr. Lansdale in Newgate Market. It is an excellent stomach drink, it helps digestion, and dissolves congealed phlegm upon the lungs, and is therefore good gainst colds, coughs, ptisical and consumptive distempers; and being drunk in the evening, it moderately fortifies nature, causeth good rest and hugely corroborates the brain and memory.”
A few years earlier than this Thomas Cogan was advocating in The Haven of Health (1584), beer for persons inclined to “rewmes and gout.” Such persons must avoid “idleness, surfet, much wine and strong, especially fasting, and not condemn Beere as hurtful in this respect which was so profitably invented by that worthy Prince Gambrinius, anno 1786 years before the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Lanquette writeth in his chronicle.”