’Twas Stingo like this made Alcides so bold, It brac’d up his nerves, and enliven’d his powers; And his mystical club, that did wonders of old, Was nothing, my lads, but such liquor as ours. The horrible crew That Hercules slew, Were Poverty—Calumny—Trouble—and Fear; Such a club would you borrow, To drive away sorrow, Apply for a jorum of Newcastle Beer.
Warrington Ale, a song of last century, describes in glowing terms the good ale of that Lancashire town, and the poet, if he is to be believed, is evidently a man of some experience in various drinks:—
D’ye mind me, I once was a Sailor, And in different countries I’ve been; If I lie, may I go for a tailor, But a thousand fine sights I have seen. I’ve been crammed with good things like a wallet, And I’ve guzzled more drink than a whale; But the very best stuff to my palate Is a glass of your Warrington Ale.
De Foe in his Tour through Great Britain eulogises the Lancashire ale of the period. In travelling through the northern parts of the county, “though it was but about the middle of August, and in some places the harvest hardly got in, we saw the mountains covered with {169} snow, and felt the cold very acute and piercing, but we found, as in all these northern countries, the people had a happy way of mixing the warm and the cold together; for the store of good ale which flows plentifully in the most mountainous parts of this country, seems abundantly to make up for all the inclemencies of the season, or difficulties of travelling.”
A certain very strong ale called Morocco is, or was, made at Levens Hall, in the County of Cumberland. Beef, or other meat, is an ingredient of this mighty brew, but the exact receipt is kept a secret. There is a tradition that the method of brewing Morocco was brought by a Crusader named Howard from certain unknown regions beyond the seas, and it is said that the receipt was buried during the Parliamentary wars, and was only unearthed many years afterwards. It is always brought in an immense and curiously wrought glass to everyone who dines at Levens for the first time, and the visitor is expected on no account to refuse the glass, but to take it and say, “To the health of the Lady of Levens.”
To go a little further north, the ales of Edinburgh are justly celebrated, old Scotch ale being as favourite a beverage as old Burton. Scotch brewers are great believers in malt and hops, and at the present day brew excellent light ales, as well as the mightier brew which has given them their world-wide reputation.
A curious ale is mentioned in the Buik of Chroniclis of Scotland (fifteenth century). Owing to a very severe winter in the reign of William the Lion, liquids of many kinds were frozen solid, and ale was sold by weight:—
So furious ouir all part wes that frost Of bestiall that thair wes mony lost; The starkest aill of malt that mycht be browin, Thocht it war keipit neuir so clois and lowin, It wald congeill and freis into hard yis. The thing of all men thocht wes then most nys That this be weycht, and nocht mesour, wes sauld That tyme for drink as that my author told.
The wanderings of the Penniless Pilgrim took him to Scotland, and he wonders much at the powers of ale-suction shown by the natives. “The Scots,” he says, “doe allow almost as large measure of their miles as they doe of their drinke, for an English gallon either of ale or wine is but their quart.” After rising from a repast, he tells how “the {170} servants of the house have enforced me into the seller or Buttery, where (in the way of kindnesse) they will make a man’s belly like a sowse-tub, and inforce mee to drinke as if they had a commission under the devil’s great seale, to murder men with drinking, with such a deal of complimentary oratory as, ‘off with your lap,’ ‘wind up your bottome,’ ‘up with your toplash,’ and many other eloquent phrases, which Tully and Demosthenes never heard of; that in conclusion I am persuaded three days fasting would have been more healthfull to mee, then two hours feeding and swilling in that manner.”
Christopher North, in his Noctes Ambrosianæ, mentions some of the famous Scotch ales of his day. After alluding to the ales of Berwick and of Giles, he says:—