Brewery

“ Brewing Operations.—The general scheme of operations in an English brewery will be readily understood if reference be made to fig. 1, which represents an 8-quarter brewery on the gravitation system, the principle of which is that all materials to be employed are pumped or hoisted to the highest point required, to start with, and that subsequently no further pumping or hoisting is required, the materials (in the shape of water, malt, wort or hops, &c.) being conveyed from one point to another by the force of gravity. ”

“ Brewer. "Brewer" means and includes any person who occupies, carries on, works or conducts any Brewery either by himself or his agent ;
Malt. "Malt" means and includes all preparations of grain or leguminous seeds that have been steeped in water, allowed to germinate and the germination checked by drying, or which is to be used for the production of Beer, or that may be malted for the purpose of distillation ”

“ Having had occasion, in the course of a connection of more than forty years with the brewery, to work in premises very differently constructed, we have invariably found, that in each some cause existed which prevented uniformity in the process of fermentation ”

“ James’ Gate Brewery, and owing to the position held by the firm it seems almost unnecessary to say that every modern improvement of the Engineer and the Scientist, whether for facilitating the operations of Brewing or for ensuring the safety and welfare of those employed, has been carefully investigated and judiciously applied. ”

“ It was in consequence of living for some time in the neighbourhood of a public brewery, that I was induced to make experiments on fixed air, of which there is always a large body, ready formed, upon the surface of the fermenting liquor, generally about nine inches, or a foot in depth, within which any kind of substance may be very conveniently placed; ”

“ Having considered the produce of the brewery as it is connected with health, we may, with equal propriety, say it is not less so with morals; and its encouragement and extension, as an object of great national importance, cannot be too strongly recommended, as the most natural and effectual remedy to the too great use of ardent spirits, the baneful effects of which are too generally known, and too extensively felt, to need any particular description here. The farmer and the merchant will alike find their account in encouraging and improving the produce of the brewery. ”

“ One may get a good glass of wine now without impoverishing himself. As men drink wine, and as the wine is pure, they fall away from stronger drink. I have always considered, with Jefferson, the brewery in America an excellent temperance society. That which works otherwise is the dive which too often the brewery fathers. ”

“ Beer is seldom at the public-house what it was at the brewery. A late partner in one of the metropolitan breweries says:—‘It is quite notorious if you drink beer at the brewery, and at a public-house a little way off, you find it a very different commodity’ (4538) .
4. The drinks are adulterated, as well as diluted. Mr. Ridley, who has under his management certain offices for the analysation of alcoholic liquors, states that there are several recipes, such as [Pg 362] ‘To a barrel of porter [add] 12 gallons of liquor, 4 lbs. ”

“ Similarly, in various parts of Europe, it is still believed that if a woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will turn sour; if she touches beer, wine, vinegar, or milk, it will go bad; if she makes jam, it will not keep; if she mounts a mare, it will miscarry; if she touches buds, they will wither; if she climbs a cherry tree, it will die. ”

“ A laudable feature in connection with the brewery is a Friendly Society, to which all the employés belong, and which ensures their receiving, among other benefits, a substantial allowance during sickness. ”

“ I believe I may say I am the oldest acting outdoor Clerk at present in the brewery. I served in the trade when Tom Tryon (a student in physick) whom I new very well, occasioned no small bustle among us by advising the not boiling of our worts for fear that our ales should taste raw. ”

“ We now come to the actual process of brewing, or the art of making the materials we have described into beer. While brewing cannot bo considered a difficult or a mys terious art, good materials, a good method, and strict attention being the secrets of success there is no process in which rules are of less avail. To obtain complete success, it is necessary that the brewer shall have formed an opinion of his materials from personal observation, and that he should be thoroughly acquainted with the brewery in which they are to be used. ”

“ In accusing modern poets of neglecting to sing the praises of our {4} national drink, we must not forget that in one place is kept up the good old custom of brewing strong beer and glorifying it in verse. At Brasenose College, Oxford, beer of the strongest, made of the best malt and hops, is brewed once a year, distributed ad. lib., and verses are written in its praise. Mr. Prior, the college butler, to whom is due the honour of having kept alive the custom for very many years, writes us1 that it is proposed to pull down the old college brewery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And first, I shall observe that the great Brewer has some advantages in Brewing more than the small one, and yet the latter has some Conveniences which the former can't enjoy; for 'tis certain that the great Brewer can make more Drink, and draw a greater Length in proportion to his Malt, than a Person can from a lesser Quantity, because the greater the Body, the more is its united Power in receiving and discharging, and he can Brew with less charge and trouble by means of his more convenient Utensils. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Thus the industrious Farmer By the Sweat of his Brow He labours and endeavours To make his Barley Mow. Sir John produces Liquor, ’Tis very often said, Good Beer makes Good Blood Good Blood makes pretty maid. {254} When Harvest it is over And the Corn secure from Harm And for to go to Market, We must thrash in the Barn. The Flail which we do handle So stoutly we do swing, And after Harvest Supper, So merry we will sing: With good Success to the Farmer, Or else we are to blame, I wish them Health and Happiness, Till Harvest comes again.
Beer has always been the drink in the harvest field. ”

“ Waters differ in their quality, that is to say, in extracting the goodness from the Malt; it is, therefore, very necessary for every one who professes the brewing of Beer, to be well acquainted with the nature and quality of the Water he brews with; for as the quality of the water is, so depends the brewing of beer. I am fully persuaded that waters so differ in quality, they will very much add or diminish the quantity and quality of the beer. ”

“ Any fermented liquor, that, in distillation, yields an inflammable spirit miscible with water, may be called wine, whatever vegetable matter it is produced from.—As beer and ales contain a spirit exactly answerable to this definition, brewing may justly be called the art of making wines from corn. Those, indeed, which are the produce of the grape, have a particular claim to the name, either because they are the most ancient and the most universal, or that a great part of their previous preparation is owing to the care of nature itself. ”

“ Breweries are multiplied throughout its streets, lager beer saloons abound, beer gardens, with their flowers and music and cleanly arbor-shaded tables, attract the tired and thirsty in various quarters. ”

“ Arthur. I thought brewers made beer?
Mr. Mansfield. You were right. Brewers buy malt. They grind it, and then pour hot water upon it, to get out its strength and goodness. The [51] liquor thus obtained, which is sweet-wort, becomes the most valuable part of the commodity; for the malt has lost its virtue, and is called grains, and is only used to feed pigs and cattle. The wort is afterwards boiled with hops, which give it a bitterish taste instead of a sickly sweet, and keep it wholesome and good. ”

“ Thou wilt give me throbbing temples,
Thou art bringing pain and sorrow.
All our beer is in the barley,
All the malt is in the kernel,
All our grain is still ungarnered,
And our dinner has been eaten ”

“ Brewing, like several other Arts is prostituted to the opinionated Ignorance of many conceited Pretenders, who if they have but seen or been concern'd in but one Brewing, and that only one Bushel of Malt, assume the Name of a Brewer and dare venture on several afterwards, as believing it no other Task, than more Labour, to Brew a great deal as well as a little ”

“ But, ignorant of the causes of most, if not all the defects they undertake to remedy, and unacquainted with the constituent parts of beers, it is not to be expected that their success should be constant and uniform. The brewer, earnest to do his duty, and to excel, ought to keep a particular account of every brewing; by this means he best can tell how he formed335 the drink, and ought consequently, in any disorder, to be prepared to direct the properest remedy. ”

“ And when ’tis night, and we have done, our master is more free, And stores us well with good strong beer, and pipes and tobaccee So we do sit and drink, we smoke, and sing and roar, Till we become more merry far than e’er we were before, When all our work is done, and all our sheep are shorn, Then home to our Captain, to drink the Ale that’s strong. ”

“ Nay, I have known some of the little Victualling Brewers so stupendiously ignorant, that they have thought they acted the good Husband, when they have squeezed the Hops after they have been boiled to the last in small Beer, to get out all their goodness as they vainly imagin'd, which is so reverse to good management, that in my Opinion they had much better put some sort of Earth into the Drink, and it would prove more pleasant and wholsome. ”

“ They allow either wheat, barley, or oats. Wheat, they say, makes the most nourishing beer, but heating and astringent. Barley alone makes the beer cold and dry. A mixture of barley and oats renders it less nourishing, but also lighter on the stomach, and less confining and distending. The Germans nowadays brew beer of every conceivable grain and no-grain, even potatoes. But according to the material so is the product. Lastly, say the doctors, beer, like wine, should be old, or you will feel the effects in your stomach.
We cannot at the present period dissociate from beer the idea of hops. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has already been stated that a brewer, on going from one brewhouse to another, often finds it impossible to produce beer which is equally good in his new situation. This has been found to be the case even when all the materials have been furnished from the same stock. ”