CHAPTER VI.
Come all that love good company, And hearken to my ditty, ’Tis of a lovely Hoastess fine, That lives in London City, Which sells good ale, nappy and stale, And always thus sings she, “My ale was tunn’d when I was young, And a little above my knee.”
“. . doughty sons of Hops and Malt.”
BREWING AND MALTING IN EARLY TIMES. — THE ALE-WIVES. — THE BREWERS OF OLD LONDON AND THE BREWERS’ COMPANY. — ANECDOTES. — QUAINT EPITAPHS.
T seemeth well that before we record the doings of departed brewers, brewsters, and ale-wives, a page or so should be devoted to the two principal ingredients—malt and water—used by those ancient worthies in compounding their “merrie-goe-downe.”
Old Fuller thus moralizes on the art of malting:—“Though commonness causeth contempt, excellent the Art of first inventing thereof. I confesse it facile to make Barley Water, an invention which found out itself, with little more than the joyning of the ingredients together. But to make mault for Drink, was a masterpiece indeed. How much of Philosophy concurred to the first Kill of Mault, and before it was turned on the floor, how often was it toss’d in the brain of the first inventor thereof. First, to give it a new growth more than the earth had bestowed thereon. Swelling it in water to make it last the longer by breaking it, and taste the sweeter by corrupting it. Secondly, by making it to passe the fire, the grain (by Art fermented) {121} acquiring a lusciousnesse (which by nature it had not) whereby it doth both strengthen and sweeten the water wherein it is boyled.”
Those practically engaged in the production of our English national drink, whether maltsters or brewers, will no doubt be interested to compare the art of malting as it was carried on three hundred years ago in this country, with the more familiar processes of to-day. A description of malting in the sixteenth century is given by Harrison. “Our drinke,” he says, “whose force and continuance is partlie touched alreadie, is made of barleie, water and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the industrie of our bruers, in a certain exact proportion. But before our barleie doo come unto their hands, it susteineth great alteration, and is converted into malt, the making whereof I will here set downe in such order as my skill therein may extend unto. . . Our malt is made all the yeare long in some great townes, but in gentlemen’s and yeomen’s houses, who commenlie make sufficient for their owne expenses onelie, the winter half is thought most meet for that commoditie, howbeit the malt which is made when the willow doth bud, is commonlie worst of all, nevertheless each one indeuereth to make it of the best barleie, which is steeped in a cesterne, in greater or less quantitie, by the space of three daies and three nights, untill it be thoroughly soaked. This being doone, the water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite gone. Afterward they take it out and laieng it upon the cleane floore on a round heape, it resteth so until it be readie to shoote at the roote end, which maltsters call ‘comming.’ When it beginneth, therefor, to shoote in this maner, they saie it is ‘come,’ and then foorthwith they spread it abroad, first thick and afterward thinner and thinner upon the said floore (as it commeth) and there it lieth (with turning every day foure or five times) by the space of one and twenty daies at the least, the workemen not suffering it in any wise to take any heat, whereby the bud end should spire, that bringeth foorth the blade, and by which oversight or hurt of the stuffe it selfe the malt would be spoiled, and turne small commoditie to the bruer. When it has gone or been turned so long upon the floore, they carie it to a kill covered with haire cloth, where they give it gentle heats (after they have spread it there verie thin abroad) till it be dry, in the meane while they turne it often that it may be uniformelie dried. For the more it be dried (yet must it be doone with soft fire) the sweeter and better the malt is, and the longer it will continue, whereas if it be not dried downe (as they call it) but slackelie handled, it will breed a kind of worme, called a wivell, which {122} groweth in the floure of the corne, and in processe of time will so eat out it selfe, that nothing shall remaine of the graine but even the verie rind or huske. The best malt is tried by hardnesse and colour for if it looke fresh with a yellow hew and thereto will write like a peece of chalke, after you have bitten a kirnell in sunder in the middest, then you may assure yourselfe that it is dried downe. In some places it is dried at leisure with wood alone, or strawe alone, in other with wood and straw together, but of all the straw dried is the most excellent. For the wood dried malt when it is brued, beside that the drinke is higher of colour, it dooth hurt and annoie the head of him that is not used thereto, bicause of the smoake. Such also as use both indifferentlie doo barke, cleave, and drie their wood in an oven, thereby to remove all moisture that should procure the fume, and this malt is in the second place, and with the same likewise, that which is made with dried firze, broome, &c.: whereas if they also be occupied greene, they are in a maner so prejudicial to the corne as is the moist wood. And thus much of our malts, in bruing whereof some grind the same somewhat groselie, and in seething well the liquor that shall be put unto it, they adde to everie nine quarters of mault one of headcorne, which consisteth of sundrie graine as wheate and otes groond . . .”
Though the reasons which caused one kind of water to be more suitable than another for brewing, were not so well understood in olden days as they are at present, our ancestors had learned in the school of experience that the quality of the water had much to do with the quality of the ale and beer brewed from it. Speaking of brewing, Harrison says: “In this trade also our Bruers observe verie diligentlie the nature of the water, which they dailie occupy, and soile through which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodnesse, sith the fattest standing water is alwaies the best; for although the waters that run by chalke and cledgie soiles be good, and next unto the Thames water which is the most excellent, yet the water that standeth in either of these is the best for us that dwell in the countrie, as whereon the sunne lyeth longest, and fattest fish are bred. But of all other the fennie and morish is the worst, and the clerist spring water next unto it.”