Old strong beer is sometimes known by the name of Stingo, and this appellation seems, for a couple of hundred years at least, to have been specially applied to Yorkshire Ale. The estimation in which this liquor was held at the end of the eighteenth century, and the wonders it was deemed capable of bringing about, may be learned from a perusal of The Praise of Yorkshire Ale, an old poem, extracts from which may be found in the chapter devoted to Ballads. We have been given to understand that the brewers of Yorkshire Stingo have not forgotten their ancient skill.
Our old friend Taylor mentions a goodly number of places where especially good ale was brewed in his day. “I should be voluminous,” he says, “if I should insist upon all pertinent and impertinent passages {162} in the Behalfe of Ale, as also of the retentive fame that Yorke, Chester, Hull, Nottingham, Darby, Gravesende, with a Toaste, and other Countries still enjoy, by making this untainted liquor in the primitive way, and how Windsor doth more glory in that composition than all the rest of her speculative pleasures. . . . . Also there is a Towne neere Margate in Kent (in the Isle of Thanet) called Northdowne, which Towne hath ingrost much Fame, Wealth, and Reputation from the prevalent potencie of their attractive Ale.”
Derby had as early as the sixteenth century a great reputation for its ales. Sir Lionel Rash, in Green’s Tu Quoque, an Elizabethan comedy, says: “I have sent my daughter this morning as far as Pimlico to fetch a draught of Derby Ale, that it may fetch a colour into her cheeks.” Fuller, in his Worthies of England, with an evident conservative taste for ale, that “authenticall drinke of old England,” mentions the repute of Derby ale with some circumlocution, but with no stinted praise. “Ceres being our English Bacchus,” he remarks, “this was our ancestors’ common drink, many imputing the strength of their Infantry (in drawing so stiff a bow) to their constant (but moderate) drinking thereof. Yea, now the English begin to turn to Ale (may they in due time regain their former vigorousnesse) and whereas in our remembrance, Ale went out when swallows came in, seldom appearing after Easter; it now hopeth (having climbed up May Hill) to continue its course all the year. Yet have we lost the Preservative, what ever it was, which (before Hops were found out) made it last so long in our land some two hundred years since, for half a year at least after the brewing thereof; otherwise of necessity they must brew every day, yea pour it out of the Kive into the Cup, if the prodigious English Hospitality in former ages be considered, with the multitude of menial servants and strangers entertained. Now never was the wine of Sarepta better known to the Syrians, that of Chios to the Grecians, of Phalernum to the Latines, than the Canary of Derby is to the English thereabout.”
Manchester at about the same period seems to have had a great assortment of Ales and Beers, if we are to believe Taylor, who, in his Pennyless Pilgrimage, tells
How men of Manchester did use me well,
We went into the house of one John Pinners (A man that lives among a crew of sinners) And there eight severall sorts of Ale we had, All able to make one starke drunke or mad. {163} But I with courage bravely flinched not, And gave the Towne leave to discharge the shot, We had at one time set upon the table, Good Ale of Hisope, ’twas not Esope fable: Then had we Ale of Sage, and Ale of Malt, And Ale of Woorme-wood, that could make one halt, With Ale of Rosemary, and Bettony, And two Ales more, or else I needs must lye. But to conclude this drinking Alye tale, We had a sort of Ale called scurvy Ale.
The southern district of Devon, which is locally known as South Hams, has long been famed for a curious liquor known as “white ale.” The beverage is of great antiquity, and has been subject to tithe from time immemorial. Kingsbridge is supposed to have been the place where white ale was first brewed. It used to be made of malt, a small quantity of hops, flour, spices, and a mysterious compound known as “grout,” or “ripening,” the manufacture of which was, and may be still, preserved as a great secret in a few families. In another receipt for making this ale it is stated that a number of eggs should be added to the liquor before it is allowed to ferment, and this seems to have been an essential of the original brew, or at any rate was so considered in 1741. A writer at that date says:—“The Ale-wives, whose province of making this Ale it commonly falls under to manage from the beginning to the end, are most of them as curious in their brewing it, as the Dairy women in making their butter, for as it is a White Ale it soon sullies by dirt . . . . ; the wort is brewed by the hostess, but the fermentation is brought on by the purchase of what they call ‘ripening,’ or a composition, as some say, of flower of malt and white of eggs . .”
This luscious liquid has been described as “not the sparkling beverage brewed from malt and hops, but a milky-looking compound, of which, judging from the flavour, milk, spice and gin seemed to be among the ingredients. It does not improve by keeping, and is brewed only in small quantities for immediate consumption. It is kept in large bottles, and you will scarcely pass a public-house from Darmouth to Plymouth without seeing evidence of its consumption by the empty bottles piled away outside the premises.”
At the present time a considerable quantity of white ale is made in and about Tavistock. It is now, however, brewed in a simpler manner than of yore, and consists simply of common ale with eggs and flour {164} added. The labourers of that part of the country much affect it, and as it is highly nutritious it is regarded by many of them as “meat, drink and cloth” combined. A bloated habit of body is said to arise from a too faithful adherence to this luscious fluid. A former great connoisseur of this West-country ale, one Bone Phillips, lies buried just outside the church door at Kingsbridge; the following lines were inscribed over his grave at his request:—