Category: 1700s

The Times Are Really Too Serious For The Thursday Beery News

I am not sure what exactly struck me about the two images I have placed side by side above this week as Jeff took a moment to be silent as I fret and bathe my hands in sanitizing stuff. To the left is a photo from the Facebook page for Belgium’s Oud Beersel and to the right we have a moment shared somewhere of Dan of the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert. Lovely. There are certainly common aspects of the colours and massing within the images. But what each of which really spoke to me was about such excellent things not being as we expect them to be. Lambic from a cardboard box. Goodness from a jug.*

First off, what a whalloping take on beer festivals was offered up by Ben this week:

…there might be no character more reprehensible in this industry than the craft beer festival organizer. Even we lowly beer bloggers, with our distended bellies full of free barrel-aged stout and our shoulders slouched from years at an overheating laptop that’s rendered our genital useless, will look upon the shady beer festival organizer and, with hate in our hearts and complimentary cheese in ours mouth, rightfully share our open disdain for this unique breed of leech.

It has always surprised me that while Ben exists on the planet it is I who have been labeled as “good beer’s community curmudgeon” or “the planet’s #1 naysayer.” Don’t believe it. This post of his goes boom when it hits the floor with facts flying in all directions. I, as dear mother always said, am nothing in comparison.

Somewhat more subtly but still in the realm of pulling the band aid off with one sharp tug of the child’s quivering arm, Jordan wrote about Mascot, a Toronto brewery this week:

From my left, Trevor asks at one point, what makes one of the guest taps an Old Ale. Old Ale does not come up much, and never had much cache in my experience. There’s not really a satisfactory answer from behind the bar on that point, and Trevor speculates for a minute about what it might be. It’s at this point that I realize that I’m not having any luck looking up information on any of the beers on offer. The website offers lunch, brunch, and dinner menus, but no tap list. You can download a product list from the website, but it is dated April 2, which puts it at at least 49 weeks old.

Yeowch. And when a principal of the brewery shared on FB that “in the process of changing the beer program and educating the staff more” Jordan replied “I am actually surprised no one got back to me when I gave them 24 hours notice.”

Jordan also had an excellent interview with the national broadcaster on the effects of Ontario government policy.* Which leads to a question or two. Especially when combined with Ben’s post above. Why is no one else noticing this stuff? Are writers in your area also taking the dumb parts of beer culture apart? Or is this just a new blip here in a place to stand, a place to grow? One possible reason raised in a side conversation is that the state of craft beer has gotten to the point that the beer itself is now not that big a part of the calculation. The taproom, the beer label, the music, the pairing… it’s all about not-the-beer. Who speaks for the beer anymore? Not sure. I left a comment at Stan’s that is not unrelated that I am plunking here to remind me to unpack it a bit more:

I think I’ve decided upon a theory that works. Craft is not longer the era many brewers are in now. The glass of handmade was abandoned long ago. We are now post-historical in the sense that Nietzsche wrote about. Sheer capability to do anything is what is being explored. We don’t like that feeling, the abandonment of the system. We all know that milkshake IPA is not an IPA but we desperately hand the three letters as a suffix. We need connection even when the whole point is breaking connection. So too how beer writers comment on White Claw as it it’s something other than another alcopop. Historians and commentators exist to explain context. Context is now irrelevant.

Moving on, as Covid-19 fills the news, there are somethings to note. First, as Carla Jean points out, breweries should not be branding any beer about a killing strain of infection as a baseline principle. Of course, morons immediately slagged her for the suggestion. [Because craft is special, right? And filled with good people.]

Next, in the general area of what I call the Balkans, Prof. Todor Kantardzhiev, director of the Bulgarian National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases explained something that I had not known:

When contacted with the virus by the third day, the person may not be ill but spread it. It is not yet known how to spread how close the contact should be. The coronavirus is highly susceptible to disinfectants. Dies very quickly from alcohol. “Regular hard drinkers are much more protected! ” he added.

Interestingly, a few Balks to the west, Serbian government leaders were saying not so much the opposite as pretty much the same thing backwards… maybe:

President Aleksandar Vucic seized on questions about the efficacy of alcohol applied externally to kill the virus to make a joke. “Once again, I joke on my own account,” he said. “After they told me — and now I see that Americans insist it’s true — that coronavirus doesn’t grow wherever you put alcohol, I’ve now found myself an additional reason to drink one glass a day, so…. But it has nothing to do with that alcohol [liquor], I just made that up for you to know.”

So, who to believe? Dunno. But, yes, #tuttoandràbene.

Somewhat related, this image to the right was attached to a tiny tweet about the politics of quarantines in 1721 London:

In late 1721 the common council of #London complained to #Parliament about the Quarantine Act, which they claimed “affected ‘not only the rights, privileges and immunities’ but also the ‘trade, safety, and prosperity of the city of London’.”

Click on the image and have a look at the drinking scene in the lower left corner. Looks like a tiny beer fest, everyone properly staggering. Except those are getting cancelled, too.

Elsewhere and without thoughts of contamination, NHS Martin directed us to a new writer this week, Blackpool Jane. While the focus is on the fitba, there is beer afterwards such as when:

We managed to secure an outdoor table and sat back and relaxed with some great beer, watching the world go by and simply enjoying Blackpool and each other’s company.  We had planned to take in the Queen tribute band at the Marton Institute Beer & Music Festival, but we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to leave this idyll.  I enjoyed three pints of the delightfully-quaffable Potbelly Beijing Black before tucking into a Chicken Panang Curry, with a couple of amarettos for dessert. 

Short takes:

When your turn for the mandatory isolation order comes along, don’t forget there is more beer news every week with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. Check them out.

*Update, Dec 2021: just for posterity, the weird but no doubt Covid panic induced butt hurt in the comments was over earlier wording “Flavour from a jug of juice” which I really never should have edited out.
**For the double!!

Your Thursday Beer News Notes For The Week That The Bills Come

It was supposed to be fun. All fun. But now there is the reckoning. Not just in the sense of #Dryuary but #Skint-uary. #I-spent-all-I-had-uary. No wonder folk feel a pinch and stop splurging. Remember, though… pubs can be for cheap sustenance, too.  And if you are really stuck, here is a guide to getting the booze out even if you want to go out. And even if you get the booze out, just thank your lucky stars you aren’t deep into big US milk.  It’ll be #Dairy-uary next year if this keeps up. Fighting all this as a voice raging in the wilderness, the Pub Curmudgeon posted his warnings about state control of such matters – and included this very attractive poster that should really be placed by every child’s bed.

That being said, first off all hail June Hallworth of the Davenport Arms in Stockport, England, Still working at her family’s pub at 81. Her secret is a surprise:

Despite a life spent around alcohol, Hallworth doesn’t actually drink. “My husband used to ask: ‘Is there nothing you like the look of?’” Yet she has witnessed changing drinking habits: before, you’d struggle to get people out of the pub after last orders. “You’d have to shout at them to drink up. Now, people drink earlier. You can lock up more easily.”

Clearly, June is on team #Dryuary. Wonder if she also minds a mobile phone or a little foul language, too? And here’s something interesting and not unrelated – a map of England indicating where alcohol and drugs are laying people flat, kicking or otherwise. Entitled “Deaths from alcohol and drugs by Local Authority in England” – does it make sense? By which I mean, are there cultural, logical, socio-economic aspect to the information? Why is the lower left tippy-toe bit so much worse off than that other bit up there off the North Sea? Hmm… also not unrelated… a poem… on drinking… circa 1700:

His trembling hand scarce heaves his liquor in,
His nerves all crackle under parchment skin;
His guts from nature’s drudgery are freed,
And in his bowels salamanders breed…

So, at least it is not all new. Speaking of getting at the new, I am not entirely sure that I agree with Matt but I do support his right to argue for the place of what he calls beer media:*

Establishing strong lines of communication with both the beer media and the drinker is essential, but as pointed out in the first part of this series, engaging with these two sets of people are actually very different things. Yes, a press release is an essential tool for getting out snippets of information and keeping people informed about what your business is doing. However, there are more effective—and importantly, more meaningful—ways of engaging with the press.

One would hope that sort of thing does not lead to this sort of thing… Because that is really not that far off other sorts of things. Like how baijiu got where it is today. Baijiu you say?

Produced at a state-owned distillery in Moutai Town, in the scenic southwestern province of Guizhou, Kweichow Moutai is rich in symbolism. “Moutai was the favourite drink of Premier Zhou Enlai, Mao’s longtime number two… He made Moutai the baijiu served at all official state dinners.” Legend has it that Red Army soldiers used it to cleanse their feet on the Long March, while in 1972 Zhou Enlai and President Nixon were famously pictured toasting each other with it. “So it became the baijiu of China’s elite…”

To avoid these various pressures of lobbyists and state control, we need information and, honestly, if believes that one really all should buy the new edition of The World Atlas of Wine:

Robinson bears the main responsibility for this new edition, and her limpid, authoritative style is part of what makes the book so engaging. “At least half of the words on 45% of the pages about wine regions are completely new”, Robinson points out. As with earlier editions, there are excellent introductory sections on how grapes are grown and wines are made, plus wholly new sections on the roles of temperature, sunlight, water, money and climate change on winemaking. There are twenty-two new maps, with some countries (including Brazil, Cyprus and Uruguay) receiving their own pages for the first time.

One thing I have not considered adding to my lifestyle** is home delivery of booze. But now craft is in so it must be good. Yet… the rules for these sorts of things at least in in Toronto are a bit involved:

“When we heard foodora was an option for delivering our beer, we immediately got on board,” said Joey Seaman, head of business development at Bellwoods Brewery said in a release. “This is definitely the most convenient way of getting our beer into the fridges of our local Toronto customers that can’t easily make it to our Bellwoods Brewery bottle shops. Only Smart Serve-certified foodora riders will be delivering alcohol. If the order recipient doesn’t produce valid ID, appears intoxicated, or attempts to purchase for a minor or impaired individual, foodora says that the delivery will be cancelled, and a $20 restocking fee will be applied.

I love that a delivery dude is now empowered to assess the appearance of intoxication and charge a penalty. Like that’s going to happen.

Finally, a bit of the old science after a h/t to Stan:

Here’s a sentence that I never imagined writing in a paper “More generally, the two fly species preferred different #beer styles”. Yup, dear tax payers, we are using your money to investigate which fruit fly species prefers which beers! (And Trust me, this actually is useful!)

At least they gave the flies a selection of fine Belgian beers as part of the program. Oude Kriek was one of the offerings!

Oh, and here is @katzenbrau revealed!

Now that it is a new year, there is still no reason to forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s on Saturdays, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast.

*The other term used – “beer writers” – is too wide a label for this purpose, something that the guilds seem to be forgetting.
**Do I really need to say it?

Sing Along With “Dorchester Beer” Circa 1784

The note in the fourth issue of The Vocal Magazine to the Compleat British Songster at Song 455 says it was written by the editor “and occasioned by his drinking some extraordinary fine Ale with his Friend J. Morris, Esq. brewed by  Mr. Bower of Dorchester” which is fabulous as we now have the name and time of brewing of an eighteenth brewer of Dorchester beer. Attentive readers will recall how Dorchester’s ale was regarded by Joseph Coppinger in 1815:

This quality of ale is by many esteemed the best in England, when the materials are good, and the management judicious.

And, in another thirty years, we read in a document called The Ladies Companion And Literary Exposi 1844 in an article entitled “Summer Excursions from London” we read the the following exchange.

A lady, who had been my fellow passenger, turned to me as we drove up the avenue, and said, “ I suppose, of course, you mean to try the Dorchester ale, which is so celebrated.” “ Is it very fine ?” I asked.

“Dear me, have you never tasted Dorchester ale?” “No, madam, nor have I ever been in this town before.” She looked at me in some surprize, as my speech was not Irish nor Scotch. When I told her I came from the United States, she gazed upon me with the greatest curiosity…

So, now we know that good things were said of Dorchester’s brewing for around seven decades before and after the turn of the eighteenth century. It’s mentioned in the sometimes very suspect The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History as being pale and as good or better than our old pals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ales of Hull, Derby and Burton. Coppinger claims it had ginger and cinnamon in it. Is he to be trusted?  Don’t know but it is clearly worth singing about. And here is what they sang:

In these troublesome times, when each mortal complains,
Some praise to the man is most certainly due.
Who, while he finds out a relief for their pains.
Supplies all his patients with good liquor too:
Then attend to my song, and I’ll make it appear,

A specifick for all is in Dorchester-beer.
Would our ministry drink it, instead of French wine.
The blessed effects we should quickly perceive
It would sharpen their senses, their spirits refine.
And make those— who now laugh at ‘their  folly— to grieve.
No Frenchman would dare at our councils to sneer,
If the statesmen drank nothing but Dorchester-beer.

But should they (for statesmen are obstinate things)
Neglect to comply with the wish of my muse,
Nor regard a true Briton who honestly sings,
Our soldiers and sailors will never refuse:
And, believe me, from France we have little to fear.
Let these but have plenty of Dorchcester-beer.

E’en our brethren across the Atlantick, could  they
But drink of this liquor, would soon be content:
And quicker by half, I will venture to say,
Our parliament might have fulfilled their  intent.
If, instead of commissioners, tedious and dear.
They had sent out a cargo of Dorchester-beer.

Then let each worthy Briton, who wishes for peace
With America’s sons, fill his glass to the  brim,
And drink — May our civil commotions soon cease.
And war with French perfidy instant begin!
May our friends never want, nor our foes e’er come near,
The pride of Old England, good Dorchester-beer.

There you go. Apparently, the entire American Revolution could have been solved had the right people had had the right beer at the right time. Britons licking their wounds? Or maybe the implications had not set in yet. The song might even pre-date publication by a few years. Things were still fairly fluid geopolitically so… beer and ales might as well be as fluid as well.

Sadly, unlike the song Nottingham Ale as published six years later, no tune is given. You will have to make up your own.

Another Georgian Ruling On The English Law Of Hops

That’s a 1760 etching up there, titled “The Hop Pickers” which sits in the British Museum’s collection. Over three years ago, I wrote a post I was rather pleased with on three court rulings related to the English hops trade in the 1700s. In one ruling from 1769, the scale of the trade described was simply astounding, the purchases of one agent just in the Canterbury area totaling around £30,000 in then contemporary money. So, I was happy coming across another ruling from the era based on this rather creative scam allegedly engaged in by one Mr Waddington of Kent which was perpetrated in the spring of 1800 upon the hop trade of Worcestershire:

…on the 29th of March 1800, at Worcester, &c. wickedly intending to enhance the price of hops, did spread divers rumours and reports with respect to hops, by then and there openly and wickedly, in the presence and hearing of divers hop-planters and dealers in hops, and others then being at Worcester, &c. declaring and publishing that the then present stock of hops was nearly exhausted, and that from that time there soon would be a scarcity of hops, and that before the hops then growing could be brought to market, the then present stock of hops would be exhausted; with intent and design by such rumours and reports to induce divers persons unknown then present, being dealers in hops, and accustomed to sell hops, and having large quantities of hops for sale, not to carry or send to any market or fair any hops for sale, and to abstain from selling such hops for a long time, and thereby greatly to enhance the price of hops…

I love old legal report twinnings: “rumours and reports”… “openly and wickedly”… “in the presence and hearing of”! I found the case looking for references to the statutory 9 Ann. c. 12. s. 24. from 1711 which prohibited common brewers from using any other bitter than hops in brewing their beer. Not sure where that particular line of research came from or where it was headed but, again, the scale of hops involved is itself astounding.

While the Waddington ruling is arcane and complex and involves nine separate charges, basically the allegations were that Waddington wanted to trick his competition either into moving away from the market or into selling to him all based on a false rumour that there were shortages of hops which would cause a price rise. Their retreat from the market itself would likely cause a price rise and Waddington would sell into the market and make a bundle. Bad bad man, Mr. Waddington.  The scale of the operation was quite ambitious as he cornered the market and controlled 500 tons of hops – or 10,000 cwt sacks of hops.* By doing so, is was argued, he sought to turn the £11 pound sack of hop into a £20 one.

The interesting thing is how the court struggles to figure out if the actions were actually actionable – as the rumours were required to be false for them to be criminal. But the rumour, in fact, had the intended effect and the prices did rise. So it was not false. The prosecutors did not buy that shell game and argued that there was a difference in buying in bulk and cornering the market:

It is clear from the opinion of Lord Coke in 3 Inst. 195. and from all other general writers, that forestalling, engrossing, and regrating, were crimes at common law…

[So, just to be clear, none of that forestalling, engrossing, and regrating anymore, thanks very much.] The case goes on to describe the hop market in a fair bit of detail in order to establish whether Waddington had wickedly perverted it or just had cleverly played within it.  Cut to the chase:

Lord Kenyon, C. J. reported the evidence given at the trial, which in his judgment was sufficient to go to the jury upon all the counts; and that they found a general verdict against the defendant. The principal part of the evidence related to the forehand bargains made by the defendant with different planters for their growing crop of hops; a practice however which appeared to have prevailed for a considerable period of time in Kent, and without which some of the witnesses stated that in their judgment the cultivation of this plant, the expense of which was exceedingly heavy, could not be generally carried on. There was also evidence of the defendant’s having bought up very large quantities of the commodity to an unusual amount, and by making unusual advances of money; and that he had held out language of inducement to other persons dealing in the same article to withhold their stock from the market with a view to a rise in the price. 

So, it seems to boil down to Waddington, an established merchant, introducing the Kentish practice of paying farmers in spring to buy hop futures into another part of England where the practice was unknown. Or at least this was what the defendant’s lawyers argued. The sentencing judge was not moved. Despite that practice, it was held that creating an “artificial scarcity” was still an offence.

During the Georgian period when protection of market supply of necessaries was giving way to the more rapacious Dickensian cult of market opportunity, interesting that in 1800 this was still earning criminal conviction. Waddington was fined 500 pounds and got one month in jail. Interesting that the fine represented less than 1% of the value of the hops he ended up controlling. His 500 tons even at the original market price of £11 a cwt sack was worth a total of £110,000 in contemporary money.*  A sum many times that in our money.

Wow. So, there you go. Another step forward in the law of hops.

*Math corrected subsequent to Martyn’s stern and warranted correction.

 

 

A Pennyworth Of Beer For Each Pallbearer From The Departed, Mother Wells

Mother Wells. Her death was important enough to be noted in the New York Gazette of 28 May 1767.  The story of her mot famous conviction and branding was recorded in 1873’s A History of Enfield in the County of Middlesex…* in this way:

Above a century ago a very mysterious affair happened in that part of Enfield known as the Wash, which caused great excitement in the country. The circumstances are here briefly stated: Elizabeth Canning, a servant girl, had been on a visit to her uncle, and on  her return in the evening was attacked, in Moorfields, by two men, who robbed her, and gave her a blow which made her insensible; they aftenwards dragged her along the high road until they came to the house of one Mother Wells, at Enfield-wash, where, she said, one Mary Squires, an ugly old gypsy, confined her in a room after being shut up there twenty-eight days, and fed upon nothing but bread and water, she at length effected her escape. On arriving in London she told her tale to two gentlemen, with whom she had lived as servant ; she made a deposition before a magistrate…

Enfield is now a borough in northern end of Greater London within which there is a sections called Enfield Highway or Enfield Wash.  Wikipedia tells us “Mother Well’s house was opposite the Sun and Woolpack public house, formerly the Sun and Punchbowl.” The Sun and Woolpack is still there. Canning’s walk home after escaping would have been ten miles long. The allegations became a popular scandal but apparently her evidence was not given consistently, charges flew back and forth and the “story which divided the country into two parties, called the Egyptians** and the Canningites.” Mobs gathered, outrages occurred and even the Lord Mayor had his windows broken. All of which is very interesting but I am actually more interested in the idea of Mother Wells and her house of infamy for both “highway gentlemen and highway ladies” – what or rather who were highway ladies?

Canning, initially the supposed victim, was herself tried for perjury due to the confusion of here evidence and the record of the case at the Old Bailey from 24th April 1754 gives a number of tidbits about the house of Susannah “Mother” Wells. According to testimony, it had:

– a main room or parlour on the street level
– a kitchen
– several smaller rooms upstairs with rough furniture and windows
– a hay-loft, work shop or long room with hay also on the upper level
– a shed or “penthouse” attached with a sloping roof

And the Hereford stage went past the rough house as she viewed it through gaps in the planks covering the window. The route to Herefordshire through Enfield is now the A1010.*** There are a few more details of the building in the records of the 21st February 1753 trial of Wells who, along with Mary Squires, were held jointly responsible for the detention and robbery. One of the witnesses is a lodger. The kitchen is described as to the right of the main door and it was below the room in which she was held. Canning herself stated: “there was another room in which I heard a noise at nights…” The door to the room she was detained in had a quarter inch crack you could look through. There were only four or five steps upstairs and the second story window was only eight to ten feet off the ground. So, it is a tumbledown low sitting public or common rooming house.

For their efforts, Squires was sentenced to death while Mother Wells was branded and imprisoned Newgate for six months. The tale, however, turns and Canning is herself charged for making up much of the story. Her evidence of the layout of the highway-person’s and itinerant lodger den of infamy never seems to be quite accepted even though it is described by a number of folk in the evidence before court. It appears to be a sort of informal boarding house if you were of the sort of public that likely would not get much welcome at the Sun and Punchbowl across the road.

The magistrate taking the evidence in the first instance and gets it wrong? Novelist Henry Fielding. The Mayor who takes up the case of unattractive falsely accused highway-folk? Noted “humanitarian and freeman of the Brewers’ Company named Sir Crisp Gascoyne (1700-61).” [I knew this would get back to beer sooner or later.] Gascoyne held a lengthy inquiry into what would normally be an unnoticed matter, one which included 119 witnesses and gained attention of the relatively young press. An airtight alibi was established for Squires and the now branded Wells – and the final outcome proved to be a milestone on the path towards consideration of the merit of the case over the status of the parties.

So, was this the mid-1700s version of a speakeasy? A den of thieves? Or just a poor person’s boarding house. I don’t know. It’s clear that the owner’s notoriety continued for sometime as not only was her death and the parade of pallbearers to every pub in Enfield reported in 1767 but the story was repeated in newspapers in the 1820s and again in the 1850s. A tale of justice being served for the lowly. Those beers at every pub along the route for the pallbearers? One last “up yours” from the little-loved, falsely branded hard case in the casket? Probably.

*A history of Enfield in the County of Middlesex; including its royal and ancient manors, the chase, and the Duchy of Lancaster, with notices of its worthies, and its natural history, etc.; also an account of the church and charities, and a history of the New River; the church history by George H. Hodson, and the general history by Edward Ford…
**I wrote a paper of the English law as it related to the Romani while I was in law school. “Gypsy” is short for Egyptian. Apparently the Romani people arrived in England in Tudor ties ad were assumed to be from Egypt. They were subject to many specific discriminatory restrictions until the reform laws of the mid-1800s.
***The same route was the setting for the comic poem from 1782 by William Cowper,  “The Diverting History of John Gilpin Shewing how he went Farther than he intended, and came safe Home again” meaning Canning was held in a dwelling along a main route.

 

A Few More Thoughts On The Early American Hops Trade

Thoughts. Hmm. That is code for “Alan has not researched this enough” but let’s see what we can find out on a pleasant Saturday afternoon. This post is a follow up to one I posted on 10 June which asked the question of when the first hops were exported from the United States.  In this post, I am looking a bit more at where the hops were coming from, especially before the middle third of the 1800s by which time central New York had become the main source of hops. Up there is a snippet from an 1802 article in The Bee, a newspaper from Hudson New York in 1802 which may indicate why the domestic and international trade were not necessarily without connection. More about that later.

A good first step is at the beginning and that could be the diary of Thomas Minor, a gent living in Stonington at the eastern end of Connecticut who recorded the cycle of his farming life from 1653 to 1684. Stonington actually predates the establishment of Connecticut in 1662 so Minor must have been one of the first European settlers there. He was born in Somerset, England in 1608 and came to the the Massachusetts colony in 1630, moving about before settling in Stonington to farm and also serve as a local government official.

His diary is spare, recording a month in a brief paragraph like this passage from September 1661:

…the 8th we had made an end of hay making monday I gathered hops & the 14 day I Commed flax my sons was all about the Cart & wheels sabath day the 15th good-man Cheesbrough spake to me about moving mr Brigden from fathers deaken parke washeare & sabath day the .22. monday 23. we Caught the wild horse the 20th of this month mr picket & we parted the sheep…

As you would expect, Minor kept a diversified subsistence farm with cattle and horses as well as oats, wheat, turnips, peas, apples, chestnuts and Indian corn all being mentioned.  He was not picking wild hops in the woods. He weeded the hops in the third week of June 1663 and again on 22 April 1670. On 17 April 1673, he “diged up the hops” which indicates that he is propagating them in some manner. He also records gathering hops on 8 September 1661, 7 September 1668, 31 August 1669, 15 September 1670, 1 September 1671 and 2 September 1680 when he is 72 years old.

He also makes barrels of cider during many years, pressing from late in the summer and on into autumn. He doesn’t mention barley or beer making. He trades for goods with others. On 19 January 1679 he delivered 30 barrels of oats to be paid in “a barle of good malases and other barbades goods” so it is entirely reasonable that he traded away his hops and traded for ale.¹  Interesting to note that he is trading at that early date for good from the sibling English colony of Barbados. I noticed that the word “bread” is only recorded once so the brewing of ale might have been such a commonplace that it was no worth mentioning.

Inter-colonial trade was an important thing. In a rather condensed paragraph in “A Bitter Past: Hop Farming in Nineteenth-Century Vermont” by Adam Krakowski, the extent of the New England hops trade in the first half of the 1700s is described:

While seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century accounts of hops in the colonies are rare, a law passed in the English Parliament in 1732 under the reign of King George II, titled “An Act for importing from His Majesty’s Plantations in America, directly into Ireland, Goods not enumerated in any Act of Parliament, so far as the said Act relates to the Importation of Foreign Hops into Ireland,” suggests just how widespread and successful the hops crops were in America at that time. Outlawing the importation of hops from America through Ireland and into England implied that the hops were abundant enough to fulfill domestic demand as well as supplying an export trade. The Massachusetts Bay Colony had already established itself as an important hops supplier, shipping hops to New York and Newfoundland as early as 1718. 

If that suggestion, entirely reasonable, about the 1732 British statute is correct, such a date for the first export from the colonies to Ireland would push back the use of American hops in UK brewing about 80 years from the earliest date Martyn has identified. It may actually go further back than that. In an 1847 letter from Earl Fitzwilliam to Rev. Sargeaunt discussing aspects of the Irish Question, the following is stated:

…the hop growers were to have their share in the monopoly, and, by the 9th Anne, c. 12, the import of foreign hops into Ireland was to be adjudged a common nuisance. Early in the reign of George 2nd, some doubts arose, whether, by an act then recently passed, the prohibition upon the import of foreign hops had not been incidentally—unintentionally—repealed. A return of the common nuisance was dreaded, the hop growers were on the alert, and the legislature of the ruling power immediately passed the 5th Geo. 2, c. 9, in which it is declared that the 9th Anne, c. 12, shall remain and continue in full force—consequently, that the import of foreign hops into Ireland was as great a nuisance in 1732 as in 1710.

The statute known as 9 Anne, c.12 from 1710 appears to have been a fairly comprehensive statute related to the imperial brewing industry. Section 24 prohibited the use of hop alternatives like broom and wormwood and also was the first imposition of a duty on hops. All of which makes sense as the primary subject of 9 Anne, c. 12 was taxation. If you are going to tax something you need to exclude similar things not being taxed. So no importation of hops and no use of hop replacements.*

Back to the newspapers. In the decades immediately before, and even during the Revolution, hops were coming into from siblings amongst the soon to be united colonies. To the right is an excellent notice which Craig has discussed from New York’s Morning Post of 6 March 1749 in which Obadiah Wells offered a wide range of good, most “too tedious to mention,” including bales of “Boston Hops.” in 1766, according to the 19 May edition of the New York Mercury, a ship on the Boston-NY  route gave notice that it was sailing in ten days but that it still had hops for anyone who came down to the wharf.**

Perhaps counter-intuitively, hops from across the ocean were also traded in New York City not long after the end of the war. To the right is an notice from the New York Morning Post of 17 March 1787, less than four years after Evacuation Day when the city which had remained loyal was turned over to the new United States. Notice how the garden seeds being English are highlighted.  Notice also the 1500 lbs of “new hops” for sale. Are they also English? It is not claimed.  Compare the volume as well as description to this notice from New York’s Independent Journal on 10 March 1784 in which a few bales of best English hops are on offer. The old country still has some draw.

Soon, however, things shift. On 22 March 1790, the Albany Gazette advocated for the production of beer, cider and hops as there were no duties to be paid upon them compared to the trade in spirits, rum and wines. Decisions related to the development of agriculture were being framed by geopolitical tensions and resulting tariffs.

In 1802, as noted above and seen to the right, The Bee from Hudson, New York published an article on increasing American domestic manufacturing as opposed to relying on foreign trade for necessities. It seems to echo British concerns from one hundred years before. This essay is attributed to Ben Franklin – even though he had been dead for about twelve years. Whoever wrote it, the essayist reflected the new Jeffersonian era in the new century which took American self-sufficiency and exceptionalism to a new level. And hops were part of that, highlighted as a key commodity well suited to increased production for domestic consumption. Makes sense. European tariffs impeded the hops trade otherwise.

Tariffs were imposed on imports in to the United States in return and for reasons which were argued positive political policy. On 26 January 1810, an article in the Albany Register, right, argued for raising the duty on foreign distilled spirits beyond 50% “…to encourage our own breweries, distilleries, molasses importers and growers of hops, grain, fruit and sugar cane…” In the context of an expanding national economy as well as jingoism, the domestic hop industry was worth protecting and expanding. So slap on a tariff.

This home grown hop strategy might well have been key to the development of the market. The Republican Watch Tower, also of New York, ran an ad on 9 December 1801 offering 35 sacks of “fresh hops” for sale. Hard to be fresh by that date if shipped across the ocean – but not impossible. To the right is an ad from Utica NY’s Columbian Gazette from 18 November 1809 showing 4,000 lbs of domestic “Boston hops” for sale. In Horatio Spafford’s Gazetteer of 1813, it states that Utica had a population of 1700 and Oneida County as a whole had four breweries.  According to the hopping rates in the NY State Senate report of 1835, that one supply of hops is enough for well over 1,000 barrels of ale. “Boston hops” were on still offer in the New York City market in 1818 according to this ad in the Gazette from 9 November and this one from the Evening Post from 20 November.   The Commercial Advertiser of New York praised the 1823 Massachusetts hop crop in an October 6th article.  The same newspaper on 30 December 1826 carried a notice for the sale of Vermont hops which had been brought down into the city, twelve hundred pounds worth.

What have we learned? American farmers have produced hops from the earliest days of settlement. As we saw with early Quebec, this aspect of self-sufficiency is as one might expect from the colonial expansion of a beer drinking culture. The trade in those hops as been subject to tariffs and other forms of regulation where local markets perceive that they are in need of protection from the trade in foreign goods competing with local products.*** But in a rapidly expanding marketplace such tariffs may serve to foster a stable complete internal economy. As a result, as Americans turned away from dependency on its eastern coast during the first decades of the 1800s to the opportunities inland, hops would go with them.

* I have not laid my hand on a full copy of the original statute, just this later version 9 Anne c.12 with revoked sections. This summary from 1804 indicates to me that it was a comprehensive regulation of the hops market.
** The Krakowski article notes another similar “Shipping records for the schooner Bernard out of Boston destined for New York include 3,000 pounds of hops in February 1763.”
*** Sound familiar?
¹ Update: the buying and selling of ale and brewing ingredients in a small 1808 New York community is recorded in this 2014 post on the first Vassar book.

Who Was Ben Kenton And How Good Was His Porter?

Hunting for references to the 1700s hops trade, I came upon this notice in the Independent Journal of New York from 1 March 1784. What was remarkable was how, within a year of the end of the American Revolution, trade was being undertaken with the former motherland.  What was also remarkable “Ben Kenton’s Porter” – who was he? Two and a half years ago, I mentioned Hibbert’s London Porter being sold in New York in 1798 but have yet to see this Kenton follow mentioned. Now off on a new hunt, I found the following in a book from 1787 entitled Adventures of Jonathan Corncob, Loyal American Refugee:

A few minutes after a gentleman came up to me, and asked me if my name was not Corncob; I answered in the affirmative, but said I had not the honour of-recollecting him. “I wonder at that,” said he, “for we were fellow prisoners at Boston, and made our escape together from gaol.” We immediately began to congratulate and compliment each other…  On taking leave he invited me to dine with him the following day, at his plantation, where I was regaled in a most luxurious manner; the turtle was superior to any ever served on a lord mayor’s table; the’oranges and pine-apples were of the highest flavour; Ben Kenton’s porter sparkled like champaign, and excellent claret and Madeira crowned the feast. At the end of the dinner I caught myself unbuttoning my waistcoat, and crying out, ’tis d–d hard that there should be hurricanes in this country.

Then, my curiosity piqued by mention of the quality, I found this passage in the diary Of Joseph Farington, R.A. from September 1803:

September 4. Dance called. He spoke of the great changes which happen in some men’s fortunes. He dined the other day with Claude Scott, the corn merchant at His House near Bromley where He lives splendidly. The late Ben Kenton ; Porter Seller & Wine merchant told Dance that when he kept the Magpye ale house in Whitechapel, Claude Scott, abt. 30 years ago, applied to him offering to keep his books, being then seeking for employment. Kenton died possessed of a great fortune, & Scott is supposed to be worth 300,000. His Son married the only daughter of a Mr. Armstrong who is said to be worth half a million.

Greedy Georgians. It’s all money, money, money with them. Kenton was described in one account as “a typical East End lad made good; his mother was said to have sold cabbages on a stall in Whitechapel Field Gate.” Kenton himself apparently started out as a waiter in a tavern. In The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1800, Kenton’s passing was recorded in this entry for 25 May:

In Gower-street, in his eighty-third year, Benjamin Kenton, esq. From an obscure origin, and an education in a charity-school, he obtained, by frugality, industry, and integrity, with an irreproachable character, a more than princely fortune. For some years, he kept the Crown and Magpye tavern, in Whitechapel; and afterwards, becoming wine-merchant in the Minories,* He went very largely into the trade of exporting porter. His property, in the different public funds, exceeds 300,000l. and at the present market prices, is worth 272,000l. his landed estates 680l. a year. And he has bestowed it in a manner that reflects honour to his memory.

Kenton’s portrait hangs in Vintners’ Hall in London. He was “one of the most of distinguished members” of the Vintners’ Company was one of the beneficiaries under his will. His obituary goes on to list all the charities to which he left considerable sums – “the hospitals of Christ, St. Bartholomew, and Bethlehem, 5000l each; to the charity for the blind, 20,000l” as well as one Mr. Smith, his grandson, and only immediate descendant, “who was, unfortunately, not much in his favour 800l a year.” Don’t shed a tear as that is the equivalent of 87,000 pounds a year now. The vast residue of the estate is left to his daughter’s man friend, survivor of a bit of a tragic tale. **Anyway, so it appears Kenton was a self made man with buckets of money. Made from selling wine and Porter.

Before he was a disgruntled schismist, Anglophile George Washington bought Kenton’s porter as part of a large general shipment of fine British goods in 1760.*** Here is a 1766 invoice for a shipment sent by Kenton to the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers.

 

 

 

 

To the left is an advertisement from the Maryland Gazette of 28 July 1763 offering “Ben Kenton’s Porter in bottles.” From the same publication, in the middle there is a notice from 19 May 1774 which includes among the offerings “a few dozen of Ben Kenton’s porter.” To the right is word of a sale in the 12 March 1784 Morning Post of New York with 40 barrels and hogsheads of porter which was not from Ben Kenton but direct from the brewer Phelix Calworth “who had the preference of supplying the great Ben Kenton.” Which points out that Kenton made his zillions not from making the porter but from distributing it. Kenton’s middleman role is similar to the one played by the merchants Hugh & Alexander Wallace in 1772 intra-provincially as shippers of Lispenard’s beer to William Johnson, the man who could have stopped Washington had he lived.

Detail on his rise to wealth and how it occurred is set out in an 1893 guide to London street signs:

In the year 1719 a boy was born of humble parentage in Whitechapel, who, as Benjamin Kenton, vintner and philanthropist, achieved a considerable reputation. He was educated at the charity school of the parish, and in his fifteenth year apprenticed to the landlord of the Angel and Crown in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Having served his time, he became waiter and drawer at the Crown and Magpie in Aldgate High Street, not long since pulled down. The sign was a Crown of stone and a Magpie carved in pear-tree wood, and the house was frequented by sea captains. Kenton’s master is said to have been among the first who possessed the art of bottling beer for warm climates. He, without reason, changed the sign to the Crown; his custom fell off; he died, and the concern came into the hands of Kenton, who restored the Magpie to its former position, and so increased the bottled-beer business, that in 1765 he gave up the tavern and removed to more commodious quarters which he built in the Minories.

Hmm: “…among the first who possessed the art of bottling beer for warm climates.”  It is noted in the guide Cylindrical English Wine and Beer Bottles 1735-1850 that Kenton took care to select the design of his glassware, preferring champagne style glass. Kenton shipped bottled porter to India, too.

The bottles were good enough to steal, in fact. In the records from the Old Bailey, there is a prosecution of William Sinkey for the 1780 theft of three baskets of empty bottles owned by Kenton. The finding of “not guilty” was based on Sinkey’s argument that the thief had been hired by someone to carry the basket he was found with. Seems a bit light to be let off if you ask me. By contrast, in 1771 William Grimsby – a cooper by trade – was found rolling away a hogshead owned by Kenton just 40 yards down the road from where it was left. He was not so lucky in his pleas to the court, was convicted and transported. The thief was likely sent to America, the main repository before the Revolution and before convicts were sent to Australia.

More than just biography makes this all of interest. It reminds me of the 1700s hop rulings I wrote about a few years ago that indicates how much value was in that element of the brewing industry. Scale. The economic power that brewing generates never fails to impress. I am also very intrigued by the reference to the “art of bottling beer for warm climates.”****We see again and again how common trans-oceanic shipments of porter, ales and beer were. That the skill was perfected by a wine and porter merchant perhaps should have been obvious in hindsight. Have to keep seeing what I can find out about what that skill was…

*His business address in 1760 was No. 152, the Minories, Aldgate according to a note to this record of Washington’s purchase. This blog post has an image of the street from not long after Kenton’s passing.
**Who, in turn, appears to be uncle to the painter Constable.
***He bought from Kenton regularly in the 1760s. His taste for porter extended past the Revolution.
****Note => “He… became possessed of a secret which made his fortune, that of bottling ale so that it could pass through the changes of climate on the voyage to India round the Cape, without the cork flying out of the bottle.”

When Did The United States First Export Hops?

Above is a table published in The Republican Watch Tower of New York on 4 July 1804.  I went looking for this sort of thing after reading Martyn’s excellent post of this week “How Long Have UK Brewers Been Using American Hops? 200 Years, You Say…” Initially, I was interested in the Hesperus, the ship that brought the hops in question to New York to Belfast in 1818. I found notices in the New York newspapers for the same ship bringing Irish linens to the American market on its return voyage. I love ships.

But then I wondered when the first exports of hops from the young United States occurred.  And I say “United States” as there is no reason to believe there might not have been colonial exports here and there but I would suggest that is another story. That being said, if the table above is to be believed, hop exports would have begun at least in 1797. But where did they go? One often reprinted 1802 article under the title “To The People of the United States” authored under the  name Franklin originally in The Aurora on early US export prospects – the one to the right quoted from The Bee of Hudson, NY –  specifically addressed the hop trade and gave a sense of the realities and goes on to conclude:

The profits of raising hops are such that the great brewing countries of Europe impose heavy duties on their importation from America or elsewhere.

So, soon into the new century US hops were needed at home and subject to European protectionist tariffs. The hop trade to Europe was subject to a prohibition. Which means it had been happening and then was stopped. Which makes one wonder where all those pounds of hops were going, the ones shown in the 1804 table from The Republican Watch Tower. Hmm.

It is clear that there is a market for hops at the time. The internal inter-state beer trade was certainly robust between New York and New England. Here is a notice that includes 35 sacks of hops on sale in NYC in 1795. In this notice to the right in the New York Gazette of 27 August 1805, 20 bags of hops are on offer. If they are 50 pound bags, that is the same volume of hops listed as the entire export from the nation in 1797.  In this edition of Ming’s Price Guide* from New York in August 1810, there are prices for both American and English hops. Still, the international market for commodities like hops has to be understood in the context of tariffs and even international relations during the Napoleonic Wars and at this time we have to be reasonably aware of the Jay Treaty of 1795 opening up trade from the US to Britain and the Embargo Act of 1807 shutting it down again. So if we are looking for an export of hops to Britain from the United States we should keep those dates in mind.

The other thing to remember is that hops are not only native to New York but also grew prodigiously. To the right is a notice for the sale of certain lands in central New York. It was placed in the New York Gazette on 3 May 1805 and notes that “the soil is rich and fertile to produce any species of grain, hemp, etc. – the climate moderate (testified by the abundant growth of vine and hops); the water is good, the salmon and other fisheries great…” So while Craig may be correct in relation to the dates of commercial growing and selling of New York hops, their pre-existing natural abundance was an obvious characteristic of the state. It is also worth noting that when he and I were putting together Upper Hudson Valley Beer, I came across a record from the first decade of the 1700s of Mohawks selling hops to Albany brewer, Evert Wendell.

And hops were not just picked wild at the time. In
The New and Complete American Encyclopedia, 1808 edition, there is an extensive section on the propagation and selling of hops including information taken, it is cited from a document published by the Agricultural Society of New York… no, the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, instituted in the State of New York.** The cultivation in New York is especially encouraged:

The cultivators of land in this state have every inducement which policy or inducement can afford, to enter, in spirit, into the cultivation of hops. We shall therefore be enabled to supply our own demand, and export this article; instead of sending abroad for all we use; and no crop that can possibly be put on land will yield an equal profit…

Were the hops loaded on the Herperus in 1818 destined for a Belfast brewery the first hops sold into the British market? It’s quite unlikely given the abundance of native hops, the records of an export trade, public marketplace pricing and the general regular European trade in many commodities going back a couple of centuries. Was there a Caribbean market for hops along with the wheat and biscuit shipments we see bound to supply an aspect of the slave trade? Could be but southern brewing of beer was a very dodgy thing.

It’s also likely that it was a little remarked upon activity, like the export of casks of beer from Albany and New York City. Likely modest supplies of infilled cargo rounding out a vessel’s hold. As usual, we are at the whim of the vendor from the time – was there enough demand to spend the money to place the notice in the newspaper? Without someone making that decision then it is difficult to know now what they were particularly up to. But such is life, the record of the activity never being proof of the fact of the activity.

Still, there is likely more to be found out there – especially in relation to activities such as Strictland’s study in the years after the end of the Revolution when interest in trade between the newly independent nation and the home of its often Loyalist heart in the old country seemed to tick up before the laws came down. So let’s consider this an introduction to the idea.

*aka Dickinson’s (Formerly) Ming’s New-York Price-Current, Ming and Young’s New-York Price-Current, Ming’s New-York Price-Current, Oram’s New-York Price-Current, Oram’s New-York Price-Current, and Marine Register, The New-York Prices Current.
**The NY Agricultural Society as it exists today only comes into being in 1832… which seems a bit late given the county ag fairs start up years earlier.

 

The Fabulous Estate Brewery Of Edward Antill (1701-1770)

What a fabulous notice in The New-York Gazette of December 11, 1752. Edward Antill was a man of means, merchant, eccentric and gentleman agriculturalist as well as a member of the Loyalist leadership in colonial New Jersey who passed away in 1770. He was better known for his experiments in planting wine grapes* and being raised (as the return of a favour) by a pirate who Antill’s father, a lawyer, had saved from the gallows. He gave £1,800 to my dear old college, now the University of Kingston College in Halifax, Nova Scotia and not that bold usurper, Columbia University. The estate, Ross Hall, at a long lost community known as Raritan Landing was not sold until 1768 and his house survived until the 1950s.**

The 2,280 square foot brewery*** sounds like a bit of a marvel, “the whole contrived for carrying the Liquor from Place to Place with great ease, by turning of a Cock, or taking out of a Plug.” The property appears to have benefited from both a river shoreline and a creek running though it which would have allowed for both plenty of brewing water as well as a means to transport his ale to market. Ross Hall was built in 1740 of brick, 56 by 42 feet, with four rooms on each floor level, and 12-foot ceilings.****  Around 1910, it served as the club house for a golf course later associated with Rutgers University. Perhaps the brewery is out there under a fairway. Or is it under the Rutgers Ecological Preserve… hmmm…

Not much else to add so this is a bit of a stub post but we’ve seen that sort of thing out of me before, haven’t we. I expect I will spend the next seven months looking for more references to the design of the brewery. Such is life.

*In fact, he was the author of a “grossly untrustworthy essay” on grape growing for the wine trade.
**And English table manners continued there until the early 1800: “…because the “round of beef” served at Ross Hall where a friend lived made her “secretly smile and remember that I was eating at an Englishman’s table.”
***Which is 2.5 times the size of the brewery Lord Selkirk found at Geneva, NY in 1803.
****Shown at “K” on this map and is the namesake of a blvd.

Some Beery News Links For The Sudden Coming Of Spring

It is obviously a tough time here in Ontario and in Canada. The mass murder on Yonge Street in Toronto on Monday has struck hard and will affect many for years to come. It has come so soon after the  Humboldt tragedy. And for our house, a neighbour – dearly liked, always been good to the kids – passed suddenly. It’s a rotten end to a hard winter. Ten days we were in a two day ice storm and now suddenly it’s warm. It’s a hard segue, like any sudden transition. Yet when I read Jon Abernathy’s thoughtful warm memorial to his own father who also passed away recently again with little warning, we are certainly reminded there are bigger things in life than beer yet – as Jon put it – it’s hard but we are doing OK. I hope.

So, this weeks links are offered to give some lighter thoughts. One delightful small thing I saw this last week is this tiny 12 inch by 12 inch true to scale diorama of the old Bar Volo on that same Yonge Street in Toronto. It was created by Stephen Gardiner of the most honestly named blog Musings on my Model Railroading Addition.  I wrote about Volo in 2006 and again in 2009. It lives on in Birreria Volo but the original was one of the bastions, a crucible for the good beer movement in North America. The post is largely a photo essay of wonderful images like the one I have place just above. Click on that for more detail and then go to the post for more loveliness.

In Britain, after last week’s AGM of CAMRA there has been much written about the near miss vote which upheld the organization’s priority focus on traditional cask ale. Compounding the unhappiness is the fact that 72% voted for change – but the change needed 75% support from the membership. Roger Protz took comfort in how high the vote in favour of change actually was. Pete Brown took the news hard, tweeting “cask ale volume is in freefall.” He detailed his thoughts in an extended post.  And B+B survey the response and look to the upsides that slowly paced shifts offer. The Tandly thoughts were telling, too. While it is not my organization, I continued to be impressed by the democratic nature of CAMRA, the focus on the view of consumers rather than brewers as well as the respect for tradition. I am sure it will survive as much as I am sure that change will continue, even if perhaps at an increasing pace and likely in directions we cannot anticipate. Q1: why must there be only the one point of view “all good beer all together” in these things? Q2: in whose interest is it that there is only that one point of view?

While I appreciate I should not expect to link to something wonderfully cheering from Lars every week, I cannot help myself with his fabulously titled post, “Roaring the Beer.”  In it he undertakes a simple experiment with a pot and rediscovers a celebratory approach to sharing beer that is hundreds of years old. Try it out for yourself.

Strange news from Central Europe: “In 2017, the Czech on average drank 138 litres over the course of the year, the lowest consumption in 50 years.” No doubt the trade commentators will argue self-comfortingly “less but better!” while others will see “less but… no, just less.” Because of course there’s already no better when we’re talking about Czech lager, right?*

As a pew sitting Presbyterian and follower of the Greenock Morton, I found this post at Beer Compurgation very interesting, comparing the use of Christian images in beer branding (usually untheologically) to the current treatment of other cultural themes:

To try and best create an equivalence I have previously compared being a Christian in modern England to being a Scottish football fan in modern England… On learning your love for Scottish football people in general conversation would automatically make two assumptions: 

a) You believe domestic Scottish football to be as good as domestic English football; 

b) You believe Rangers and Celtic (The Old Firm) are capable of competing for the English Premier League title…

The accusations and derision came from assumptions of your beliefs and the discussions would continue this way even after explaining that their conjectures were false. Talking about Christianity here is similar. By existing I am allowed to be challenged directly about my thoughts on sexuality, creationism, mosaic period text, etc.. and people often assume they understand my attitudes beforehand.

Personally, I think the Jesus branding is tedious bu,t thankfully, all transgressors all go to hell to burn forever in the eternal fires… so it’s all working out!

Homage at Fuggled to the seven buck king.

Question: what am I talking about in this tweet?
Hmm. Oh yes! The news that Brewdog is claiming they have brought back Allsopp India Pale Ale. First, it appears that someone else has already brought it back. Weird. Second, as was noted by the good Dr. David Turner last year, this can only serve as a marketing swerve for the hipsters. AKA phony baloney. Apparently, the lads have been quietly cornering the market in some remarkable intellectual property including, fabulously, spontaneity! My point is this. You can’t recreate a 1700s ale until there is 1700s malt barley and a 1700s strain of hops. [Related.] Currently, I would say we can turn the clock back to about 1820 if we are lucky given the return of Chevallier and Farnham White Bine. There is no Battledore crop and I couldn’t tell you what the hops might be even though there was clearly a large scale commercial hop industry in the 1700s, not to mention in the 1600s the demands of Derby ale and the Sunday roads “full of troops of workmen with their scythes and sickles,”. The past is a foreign land, unexplored. Perhaps Brewdog have found a wormhole in time that has now overcome that. Doubt it but good luck to them.

Well, that’s likely enough for this week. Remember to check in with Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Monday for their favourite stories and news of the week that was.

*Note: see also the work of CAMRA and the protection of cask ale.