Beer garden

“ The famous Hypocras, for instance, was flavoured with an infusion of brandy, pepper, ginger, cloves, grains of paradise, ambergris, and musk. A Duchess of St. Albans has left us a receipt for making “The Ale of health and strength,” which, it sufficeth to say, was a {385} decoction of nearly all the herbs in the garden (agreeable and otherwise) boiled up in small beer. Old worthies, when induced to give up their receipts for the public good, described these drinks under the head of “Kitchen physic.” ”

“ Cleanliness being as essential in the brewery as in the dairy, it is of the greatest importance, never to lose sight of it in every part of the operations, and particularly in selecting the ground and soil to place a brewery on. The situation to be preferred should be an elevated one, and the soil either sand or gravel, as it is of great importance in the preservation of beer that the cellars be dry and sufficiently ventilated by windows properly disposed. ”

“ The burly butcher, seated outside the inn with no fear of the Sheriff in his heart, quaffs his pewter mug of foaming ale, and casts now and again an eye on the artist who is repainting the signboard. The sturdy smith, the drayman, the porter and the fishwife—all are well clad and prosperous. Houses are being built, others are being repaired, and health and wealth are visible on every side.
Beer! happy produce of our isle, Can sinewy strength impart, And wearied with fatigue and toil, Can cheer each manly heart. ”

“ For it must ever be borne in mind that wine is no mere fluid, but is informed with sensitiveness and has a most incomparable soul. There should not be so much as a keyhole for the random gust of sewer gas; no squalid waft of cabbage water should ever whiff it to these secret shrines. In well-regulated houses, even the beer cellar is kept distinct from the palace of the grape ”

“ Now the wood-house is used as much for coal as wood. Of course the great stacks of wood—the piles of faggots and logs—were kept outside, generally in the same enclosure as the ricks, only a sufficient number for immediate use being kept under cover. The brewhouse was an important feature when all farmers brewed their own beer and baked their own bread. At present the great majority purchase their beer from the brewers, although some still brew large quantities for the labourers' drinking in harvest time. ”

“ In England the festival is known by the expressive title of the Harvest Home. An ancient ballad expresses The Farmer’s Delight in the Merry Harvest:―
Come all my Lads and Lasses Let us together go, To the pleasant Corn-field, Our courage for to show, With sickle and with knapsack, So well we clean our Land, The Farmer crys work on Boys Here’s Beer at your command. In a good old Leather Bottle, Of ale that is so brown, We’ll cut and strip together, Until the Sun goes down; Every morning Sun, The small Birds they do sing ”

“ Not only has the practice of domestic brewing much declined, but from the same causes there has been of late years an extraordinary and lamentable decrease in the numbers of small country brewers.
Although the name of home-brew carries with it many old associations and sentiments which we abandon with regret—memories of bright March beer and mellow old October, of snug ingle-nooks and raftered ceilings, and of kind, if homely, welcome—we cannot but admit, as on a hot day we drain our tankard of Burton bitter, or of world-famed London stout, that life has still its compensations. ”

“ Whilst Noble Native Ale and Beere’s hard fate Are like old Almanacks, quite out of date.
Thus men consume their credits and their wealths, And swallow Sicknesses in drinking healths, Untill the Fury of the spritefull Grape Mountes to the braine, and makes a man an Ape.
Another poet wrote in much the same strain:―
Thy wanton grapes we do detest: Here’s richer juice from Barley press’d. Oh let them come and taste this beer And water henceforth they’ll forswear. ”

“ And, Innocence, with plenty hither bring Hilarity; while Friendship brims the cup With home-brewed Ale, and every welcom’d guest Forgets the storm . . . Booker’s Sequel Poem to the Hop Garden.
I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year, With your pockets full of money, and your cellar full of beer. Old Carol.
HOME-BREWED ALES. — OLD RECEIPTS. — HISTORICAL FACTS. — DEAN SWIFT ON HOME-BREW. — CHRISTOPHER NORTH’S BREW-HOUSE.
OGARTH’S Farmer’s Return re­pre­sents the worthy man just come in from his mor­ning round or from dis­tant mar­ket town. ”

“ One of these grows upon the coast, creeping along the ground, and seldom exceeds two feet in height. It was of this sort we made our essence for beer, and found it excellent for the purpose. The other grows on the mountains, to a greater height, and bears a small nut, or apple. We were told by the old Toion at Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that Beering, during the time he lay in that harbour, first taught them the use of the decoction of these pines, and that it proved a most excellent remedy for the scurvy ”

“ More striking still is the white precipice of Beer Head, the most southerly outcrop of chalk in England, worn above into picturesque and ivy-mantled crags, and hollowed at its base into many caves. From its summit, 426 feet above the sea, is a far-reaching view of the coast, covering the 50 miles from Portland on the east to the Start on the west. Half-way between the mouth of the Axe and Beer Head is the quaint and old-world village of Beer, famous for its labyrinthine quarries tunnelled deep into the hill, for its fisheries and lace-making, and, formerly, as a special haunt of smugglers. ”

“ It would be a blessed thing for all the outdoor and indoor laborers in this country, if the broad chasm between the strong beer of Old England and the small beer of New England could be bridged, and they be carried across to the shore of a better habit. The farm hands here need a good deal of gentle leading and suggestion in this matter. If some humane and ingenious man would get up a new, cheap, cold drink, which should be nutritious, palatable and exhilarating, without any inebriating property, it would be a boon of immeasurable value. ”

“ Among modern writers Christopher North has left perhaps the best description of what a modern private brewhouse should be. “We dare say,” he says, “that many personages who never in the whole course of their polished existences dreamed or thought of dreaming of brewing anything (except mischief) , will shrug their shoulders at the idea of being introduced like his Majesty George the Third, at Whitbread’s, into an odorous brewhouse, redolent of wash, wort, grains, hops, yeast, and carbonic acid gas; peeping into pumps—tumbling into vats. ”

“ Brewers’ grains are greedily eaten by most kinds of freshwater fish, and are used by anglers as groundbait for bream, roach, and carp in the Eastern counties.
In a work entitled Practical Economy, published in 1821, persons desirous of fattening their fowls quickly are recommended to feed them on ground-rice, milk and sugar, made into a paste, and to let them drink beer.
The ladies who preside over the culinary department of our households do not, so far as we know, make any use of ale other than as a drink, excepting the occasional use of beer in the preparation of Welsh rare-bits. ”

“ If, in the gathering, leaves of the vine or bits of the branches are mixed with the hops, these not only help to make up the weight, but they give a bad taste to the beer; and indeed, if they abound much, they spoil the beer. ”

“ My wife and I, feel always dry,
At market on Saturday night,
Then a noggin of beer, I never need fear,
For my wife always says it is right.
In harvest field, there’s nothing can yield,
The labouring man such good cheer,
To reap and sow, and make barley grow,
And to give them a skinfull of beer.
The farmer’s board will plenty afford,
Let it come from far, or from near,
And at harvest home, the jug will foam,
If he gives his men plenty of beer.
Long may Queen Victoria reign,
And be to her subjects dear,
And we’ll wallop her foes, wherever we goes,
Only give us a skinfull of beer. ”

“ Of true British growth is the Nectar we boast, The homely companion of plain boiled and roast, most truly wrote an Oxford poet, whose name has not been handed down to posterity.
Almost every inhabitant of this country has tasted beer of some kind or another, but on the subject of brewing the great majority have ideas both vague and curious. About one person out of ten imagines that pale ale consists solely of hops and water; indeed, more credit is given by most persons to the hop than to the malt. ”

“ To begin with, there is the Brewery. You cannot escape from a big brewery if it belong to you. You cannot hide it away. Messenger, Marsden & Company's Stout, their XXX, their Old and Mild, their Bitter, their Family Ales (that particularly at eight-and-six the nine-gallon cask, if paid for on delivery) , their drays, their huge horses, their strong men, whose very appearance advertises the beer, and makes the weak-kneed and the narrow-chested rush to Whitechapel—my dear, these things stare one in the face wherever you go. ”

“ He breasted the summit, and rode on. Almost immediately, he came in sight of the ale-house alluded to, and read “Dog and Duck” on its flaked and blistered sign-board that hung posted in the roadway opposite the tavern.
The latter was a forlorn and barren-enough-looking little temple of conviviality—a mere whitened sepulchre for the entombment of dead-drunks. It stood in a sterile patch of garden that was so flogged by bitter winds that the very cabbages lost heart, and the stunted potatoes cowered in their trenches like the rawest of Nature’s recruits. ”

“ Evelyn says that ale and beer, “brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink.”
Maize, beet-root, potatoes, parsnips, and other vegetables have each and all been used in the making of beer, but it seems very doubtful whether any combination of ingredients will ever equal the time-honoured partnership of malt and hops.
A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1758 says: “In many parts of the Kingdom, a beer is made of treacle—thus: to eight quarts of boiling water put a pound of treacle, a quarter of an ounce of ginger, and two bay leaves. ”

“ His enjoyments, like his labours, are of a strong and solid description. The workmen trundle kegle balls in long, wooden-built alleys; and down in deep beer cellars, snug and warm, do they cluster, fondling their pipes like favoured children; taking long gulps of well-made punch, or deeper draughts of Bairisches beer. ”

“ The innkeeper, according to the fashion of the times, brewed his own beer, and at the rear of his hostel was a small brewhouse. His mash tub was no doubt of modest dimensions, and his “liquor” was possibly drawn from the Mercke-dyche, for in that day pure water could be got from most streams and rivers. Now, sad to say, an unpolluted stream is almost unknown, and nine wells supply the water which, with a due admixture of malt and hops, forms that admirable compound known as Romford Ale. ”

“ In this parish, at any rate, good water was, until quite lately, a scarce commodity, and nobody cared to drink the stagnant stuff out of the tanks or water-butts which supplied most of the cottages. In short, prudence itself has seemed to recommend beer as the one drink for tired men. In their view it is the safest, and the most easily obtained, and, when obtained, it affords the most refreshment. ”

“ Ivory shavings have been recommended for rapidly maturing beer, and it is related that a woman, who lived at Leighton Buzzard, in Bedfordshire, and had the best ale in the town, once told a gentleman she had drink just done working in the barrel, and that she would wager it was fine enough to drink out of a glass even before it was bunged. ”

“ In winter he wants beer against the cold and the frosty rime and the heavy raw mist that hangs about the hollows; in spring and autumn against the rain, and in summer to support him under the pressure of additional work and prolonged hours. Those who really wish well to the labourer cannot do better than see that he really has beer to drink—real beer, genuine brew of malt and hops, a moderate quantity of which will supply force to his thews and sinews, and will not intoxicate or injure. ”

“ A good cellar, besides its general convenience, in regard to a variety of household purposes, is indispensable to every one who wishes to have good beer. However skilful and successful the brewer, no beer, nor, indeed, any fermented liquors (with few exceptions) , can be kept good, any length of time, especially in the summer months, unless they be secured from being turned sour by heat, and by sudden variations of the atmosphere. No cellar can be considered perfect which is not below the surface of the ground. ”

“ While it lasts the hoppers sleep in barns, they work in the open, they breathe fresh air, they get good pay, they enjoy every evening a singsong and a free-and-easy. The beer flows like a rivulet; everybody is thirsty, everybody is cheerful, everybody is friendly. ”

“ There is no production of the brewery more important to society than good table beer, whether it be considered as a diluent to animal food, or a diet drink in fever cases, even of the most malignant kind, where, to my knowledge, it has been preferred to all others, and that with the greatest success, sanctioned by the advice of some of the most eminent physicians. This justifies my recommending it, and giving several processes for making this useful liquor. ”

“ They do not possess hops, or any other substance that will preserve the beer, and in consequence they are obliged to consume the whole brewing within a day or two. When, therefore, a chief has a great brew of beer, the people assemble, and by day and night they continue drinking, drumming, dancing, and feasting, until the whole of the beer is gone. ”

“ In the autumn when the apples and pears are falling, the peasants will make cider and perry, and get outrageously drunk when these beverages grow hard; but outside of Normandy such drink seldom appeals to castle folk. There are also in common use many substitute 121wines, really infusions of wormwood, hyssop, and rosemary, and taken mostly to clear the system; although "nectar" made of spices, Asiatic aromatics, and honey is really in request.
The great competitor of wine is beer. In northern France we are in the dividing zone between the land of the winepress and the land of the brewhouse. ”