Dorchester Ale: Esteemed When The Management Is Judicious

 

coppingerFabulous. I think my new best friend is Joseph Coppinger. Sure he published his book The American Practical Brewer and Tanner 200 years ago… but so few people come by these days I don’t care to notice such things. Like Velky Al did a couple of years ago, I came across an online copy of the book as I was looking for something entirely different. [No. No, not that.] And when I did I immediately – well, right after checking out the tanning section – noticed there were a number of recipes for beers. Styles of beers even. A listing of styles. In a two hundred year old book about beer. Odd. I thought that was invented in the 1970s by that Jack Michaelson chap. But, more importantly, he included this:

Dorchester Ale

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

54 Bushels of the best Pale Malt.
50 lb. of the best Hops.
1 lb. of Ginger.
¼ of a lb. of Cinnamon, pounded.

Cleansed 14 Barrels, reserving enough for filling….This mode of brewing appears to be peculiarly adapted for shipping to warm climates; the fermentation being slowly and coolly conducted: it is also well calculated for bottling.

Yes, there is more. I just used those three dots to keep you focused. He goes on and on in fact. Over thirty sorts of beer and a few diagrams like the one above. A few things. First, it’s a description of how to make Dorchester Ale. The careful – or perhaps the caring – amongst you will recall that two years ago while waiting for Craig in Albany to go for a beer, I wandered into the New York State Library HQ and found a large number of mid-1700s newspaper notices for British ale coming into the new world. And a few of those ads referenced Dorchester ale. So there you have it. Dorchester was a top quality ale with a bit of ginger added. Sounds like quite nice stuff. Second, yes, the book was published in 1815. And it was published in that year by the firm of Van Winkle and Wiley located at No.3 on Wall Street. It is a guide aimed at the trade. Aimed at the trade that wants to know about shipping to the warmer climes. Which means exporting ale from New York state. Two hundred years ago. Third, he goes on. And on. The book has a lot of data. I need to get into it to find out what.

I believe this illustrates a point: the problem with records. Believing you know what things were once like based on the available records is a dodgy game. Things like (i) Gansevoort’s adin 1794 asking for barley for ale as the old state in the young nation was coming out out famine leading one to leap to (ii) a prosperous local brewery to the south in 1808 connecting you to (iii) this guide in 1815’s NYC on how to brew for export (iv) all might lead you to understanding that there was in fact a vibrant but little understood brewing trade waaay before the US Civil War and waaay before the advent of lager’s supremacy. But you have to watch that sort of thing. Because records are dodgy things. But at least we may well know what Dorcester ale was. Maybe. Sadly, no reference to Taunton. Maybe. Probably out of style by then in the New York market. That might be it. Maybe.

More References To That Shadowy Taunton Ale

tauntonmapAttentive readers will recall that I have a slow side project in figuring out what I can about Taunton ale. It was a bit of a by-catch to the whole Albany ale thing with references to it showing up in central New York around the time of the American Revolution. When I got to the New York State Library in Albany in 2012, I found a mass of references to it being sold in New York in the 1750s and 1760s. And then it pretty much fell off the table. I couldn’t find anything more online. But three more years means three more years of people throwing everything they can find onto the Information Super Highway. So what is there to add to the story now?

First, it was being exported to other parts of the British empire than just pre-Revolutionary New York. In 1774, Taunton ale is described as being one of Bristol’s exports to Jamaica along with products like West country cyder, cheese, leather, slate, grindstones, lead, lime for temper and Bristol water. Another record shows a ship for Jamaica in 1776 being loaded with Taunton ale, household goods as well as “volumes of entertaining history.” Taunton also is mentioned a number of time in The Bright-Meyler Papers: A Bristol-West India Connection, 1732-1837. In the entirely uncomfortably titled “Letters on the Cultivation of the Otaheite Cane: The Manufacture of Sugar and Rum; the Saving of Molasses; the Care and Preservation of Stock; with the Attention and Anxiety which is Due to Negroes and a Speech on the Slave Trade …”, what appears to be an 1801 guide to running a slave sugar plantation again in Jamaica, a warning is given on being too generous with one’s manager:

A very injudicious mode of remuneration, established by folly, and imitated by thoughtlessness, is that of fixed and stated presents. Such are, on many West Indian estates, invariably ordered for a manager, whether he is deserving of them or not; whether he makes fifty hogsheads, or five hundred; whether his Negroes increase or diminish; without regard to the situation of the stock, or to the improvement or neglect of any article entrusted to his care. These annual compliments consist sometimes of provision; as beef, butter, hams, and other articles of domestic consumption. But they are not judicious, even if they are merited. For their cost would invariably be turned to greater advantage, by an industrious economical manager, than the presents which are bestowed on him. Some of these acknowledgments, too, are pernicious in their nature: operate, though not intended, as an incentive to vice, and a seduction of the manager from his business. Such is the cask of Madeira before alluded to; and such are casks of porter and Taunton ale, with cases of claret. All these idle substitutes for judicious remuneration should be abolished, and proprietors should constantly reward their managers, in proportion to the services which they render, and the prosperity which they bestow, on whatever is entrusted to their care.

In 1808, a gazetteer states that large quantities of malt liquor called Taunton ale was also being sent to Bristol for exportation. Around the early 1820s, Taunton ale was selling in Bristol for 9s 6d a dozen quarts compared to 10s for Burton and 7s for porter.

Next, there is clearly a lifestyle aspect to Taunton ale in the beginning of the 1800s. It’s a beer for the destination traveling poet. Volume 30 of The Scots Magazine from 1777 included The Poem “In Praise of Tobacco” which included the lines “Say, Muse, how I regale, / How chearfully the minutes pass, / When with my bottle, friend, and glass, / Clean pipes and Taunton ale.” Yikes. In a 1797 letter, the clearly better poets Coleridge, Lamb and Southey are described as drinking Taunton along with a meal of bread and cheese. In the 1804 annual of Sporting Magazine, Taunton is described as most famous for that best of human beverage, good ale; though the author have I have before quoted thus mentions the attachment of the natives to it with some regret: “Hail Taunton! thou with cheerful plenty bless’d, / Of numerous lands and thriving trade possess’d, / Whose poor might live from biting want secure, / Did not their resistless ALE their hearts allure.” More bad poetry. Not sure how that reflects on the quality of Taunton ale.

What was it? The 1824 booklet “The Spirit, Wine Dealer’s and Publican’s Directory” gives some sense of the beer in its treatise on “the art of making vinegar, cider, perry and brewing malt liquors – and particularly Taunton strong beer and ale.” We are told the strong ale takes eight or nine bushels of the best pale malt to the hogshead as well as six pounds of Farnham hops – but use east Kent hops if the beer is meant to be kept for two or more years. Strike at 160F, cover the lot with dry malt or sweet bran and let it sit for three and a half hours. Strain off and boil the wort with the hops of an hour. A half hogshead of strong ale results from the first running with ale and table ale the second and third. Its an odd sort of set of instructions for something written 191 years ago. It all reads a lot like a 1960s Amateur Winemaker home brewing article. The short guide recommends spirit dealers lower the proof of their rum by adding a mix of two-thirds water and one third Taunton strong for softness. It is a soft water zone so they may have had a point.

Also, Taunton seems to become the drink of a certain sort of well placed gent, especially when from one particular brewer. In Benjamin Disraeli’s letters from the mid-1830s, he tells a correspondent that Eales White would send a barrel of Taunton ale which he describes as “something marvelous.” The 1851 annual of Sporting Review describes the morning of a hunt and the reception in one great house:

The merry young sportsmen returned to the house, not however till they had been gratified by the safe arrival of the jumper, who, led by Thomas, was placed in a stall perfectly fresh and fit to go; by which time things were looking more cheerful. A bright fire blazed on the dining-room hearth; breakfast was prepared, the sideboard groaning with good substantial cheer; and even the somewhat flamingo-faced butler had contrived—knowing the squire’s peculiarity, or, I should rather say, punctuality on hunting mornings—to rouse himself from a most agreeable nap, and honour the lower dominions with his portly presence. In fact, as far as I can recollect, he was decidedly the most substantial, if not the most important, person of the Hall or neighbourhood – et pourquoi non? Excuse a French term, for he was certainly most useful in his special department; added to which, he brewed without exception the best ale I ever tasted: and if-so-be it precisely suited his own palate—what then? all the country round pronounced it undeniable. Stogumber beer was, or rather is, mere wish-wash in comparison, though vastly agreeable; and White’s Taunton ale alone could bear it any comparison.

Martyn cleared up the Stogumber question in 2011, but it is White which is clearly the name which appears associated with the best Taunton ale in mid-1800s English society. The report of Crimean Army Fund Committee of 1855 also mentions Eales White, Esq. of the Taunton Ale Brewery as a contributor to the cause among those who gave presents of wine, spirits or beer. Probate of the will of Eales White, Brewer of Taunton, Somerset was before the court in 1855. He has a rather splendid headstone.

And that is it. A beer for the bastardly late 1700s Jamaica slave plantation manager, for the great and crap poets of the turn of the century as well as for the gentry of the mid-1800s. Three dislocated bits of society, no? Well, they do sorta all have the well placed slacker theme going for them. Is that what the beer represented? The lazy entitled bastards’ reward?

1750-60s New Yorkers Drank Lots Of Taunton Ale

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Three years ago, I asked what the heck Taunton ale was. I found a few more things that I noted in the comments but, still, was pretty much left with the idea it was a bit of a fringe thing, a bit of a one off. After all, India Pale Ale gets all the attention because it deserves its adoration and the long haul beer of the Georgian era, right? But there I was in the New York State Library’s reference section this morning. Looking for ads for brewers by last name when I started to play around with other odd words and – whammo – 17 ads for Taunton Ale being shipped into New York harbour in the 1750s and 1760s. It was a commonly traded good. One note. Up at the top is the metadata on the image. These are screen shots.

A few preliminary thoughts of mine for your consideration, correction and elaboration. First, I had understood it was a bottled beer as part of the trade in Bristol glass. See, someone had figured out that shipping a full bottle was shipping two products – the bottle as well as its content. Second, it appears to be a product of quality. See the 1764 advert from Thomas Fogg? He’s importing something he doesn’t name but it is as good as Taunton. Sure it was. Sure it was. Third, what the heck is Dorchester beer? Fourth, Craig and I are working on the idea of what 18th century New York state… err… province beer was like and we are working on the idea of a few overlapping things or production techniques: weaker tavern brew, stronger northern Dutch-style wheat ale, NYC-made English/British-style barley ale and with this information there appears to be a fourth class. Wide – spread premium imports.

Four ideas is enough for now. Lots of data. What else do you see?

Two Years After Taunton Ale We Have Bowood Strong

 

 

bowphoto

I should have known this I suppose, an apparently famous quote from the Governor of Nova Scotia appointed at the close of the American Revolution celebrating what he finds waiting for him at his new post. It is set out in a letter written by Governor John Parr on October 23, 1782 – eighteen days after his arrival – to his friend Colonel Grey:

Plenty of Provisions of all sorts except Flower, with a very good French cook to dress them, A Cellar well stock’d with Port, Claret, Madeira, Rum, Brandy, Bowood Strong Beer &c, a neat Income (including a Regimt of Provincials of which I am Colonel) of 2200 [pounds sterling] Sterg p Annum, an Income far beyond my expectations, plenty of Coals & Wood against the severity of the Winter, A house well furnish’d, and warm Cloths, that upon the whole my Dear Grey, your friend Parr is as Happy and comfortably seated, as you could wish an old friend to be…

Bowood Strong Beer! What was that in 1782? You will recall that we figured out that strong beer from Taunton England was shipped to the other side of the Atlantic making it to the very Mohawk Valley frontier in the 1760s. It was shipped through Bristol, a port which exported beer since at least the 1730s. Taunton is about 48 miles from Bristol. Bowood is closer – if we mean Bowood the estate, 38 miles to the east of Bristol. Bowood still exists and has been the home of the Marquesses of Lansdowne and one of whom, aka the Earl of Shelburne was Prime Minister in 1782 – the very man who appointed Parr to be Governor. We read here that the Marquess / PM is actually Parr’s patron, as he was to Grey. Parr is his minor supporter. They are both Irish.

So, there are at least two possibilities. Either Bowood was like Taunton – a brewing centre that shipped to North America likely also through Bristol or, on the other hand, the strong beer is from Bowood Estate, a gift from the Prime Minister to his new Governor. Interestingly, Joseph Priestly, the man who discovered oxygen, was librarian at Bowood. He had earlier studied gases at a brewery. Priestly had a laboratory at Bowood House with the Earl acting, once again, as patron. The Earl and Priestley fell out in 1779. The poet Coleridge shows up at Bowood House a few decades later and moves, in fact, to the nearby town of Calne – where the folk who own the big house… also own a brewery. It could also still exist – as illustrated above in the era of really big tall hats – though as a hotel run by Arkells. It is a listed propertyand, maybe, where the beer that welcomed Governor Parr was brewed.

First There Was Albany Ale… Now Taunton Ale

I have a great pal with whom I have a recreational and professional interest in events in the Mohawk Valley of New York from around 1750 to 1785 and particularly William Johnson or rather Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet of New York. Johnson was the landowner whose tenants become rather successful Loyalist soldiers under Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet, who kept upstate New York largely in British hands during the American Revolution. But for that little thing called the Treaty of Paris, they would have had no reason to become the founders of my town Kingston and thereby the founders of Ontario and thereby in significant part the founders of modern Canada by being the first British colonizing settlers on the Great Lakes.

What am I going on about? You will recall that Albany Ale discovery indicating that there was a sea trade of strong ale out of New York’s capital city from roughly 1800 into the middle of the nineteenth century. Well, my pal had the ability to do a quick word search through the papers of William Johnson looking for the word “beer” and, in addition to a reference to “Hyson tea” which is also along side Albany ale in the Newfoundland newspapers of almost a century later, came up with the following classes referenced in his correspondence:

  • 1755: two barrels beer of Hend’k Fry,
  • 1768: Taunton ale,
  • 1772: six barrels of Lispenards beer.

That last reference is neither to the shipper or the wholesaler as this note from the merchants Hugh & Alexander Wallace from Oct. 2, 1772 shows:

…There is no Red port to be got here [at] this time, if any comes shall secure some for you – The Syder (sic) is not yet made, nor fitt to be bought for [at least] a Month. & Mr. Leispinard Says [he] will have the Beer ready to go along with the Syder (sic), at present he says he has none brewed that he would recommend to you. We hope all the things will please you, we have taken all possible care in the Choice of them, & bought them on the lowest terms.

It looks like Lispenard or Lispinard was the actual brewer. And one month later on Nov. 3, 1772, the following is invoiced by Hugh Wallace to William Johnson:

We have put on board Capt. Marsails in Mr. Adams’s care for your use:
6/-/- for 3 Barrl Strong Beer at 40/
4/10/- for 3 Barrl. Ale @ 30/
1/7/- for 6 Barrels at 4/6
7/-/- for 10 Barrels Newark Syder at 14/
0/3/- for Carting ale to the Sloop

Interesting to see three grades of beer being bought but the more interesting reference for me is to “Taunton ale” as it also is referenced in a 1789 meal put on by George Washington as well as in a shipment to Newfoundland in 1810. It is clearly not a reference to something in passing or personal to some particular step in the supply. But what was it?