lecture #6, Thursday May 21st

lecture #6, Thursday May 21st

PRE-INDUSTRIAL BEER AND BREWING: COUNTRY HOUSE BREWING I

Pre-industrial brewing

early/ancient brewing before ~1500, unhopped ale, domestic task, small scale, long history

pre-industrial brewing widespread before ~1800, hopped beer, shifting from domestic to professional context, larger scale, import from the continent

industrial brewing from ~1750, hopped beer, shift from professional to industrial context, mass production

scientific brewing from ~1850, hopped beer, continued increase in scale, brewing technology informed by scientific research, improvement a result of scientific and technological advances

Brewing in England:


Country House breweries offer a good opportunity to see how pre-industrial beer was brewed and consumed

-proliferation of country houses during the time of pre- industrial brewing practices and drinking customs

-but not subject to the same social and economic forces that led to changes in brewing and drinking outside the country house (or they were resistant to them)

-country houses are sheltered pockets of the past, missing links

-lots of these breweries were still making beer in the early 20th century as if it were the 17th century, and at

least one was still brewing in the 1980s

-because pre-industrial brewing and drinking went on so late in these breweries, many of the artifacts and brewing knowledge are still available to the historian and offer a good window onto the practice of pre-industrial brewers


What are these “country houses”? Gosford Park

-very large houses on very large properties

-usually at least 1000 acres, often more

-very large, many rooms, upwards of 10,000 square feet

Shugborough, 1600s, Earls of Lichfield

-mansion-castle-abbey-palace-court-manor

these names betray the history of the country house


Charlecote, 1550s

Where did they come from?

-a vestige of feudalism, before ~1400

-lords maintained fiefs that were loaned to vassals

-vassals and their serfs (laborers) worked the land and paid rent, taxes, and served in the lord’s army while the lord provided protection and processed the vassal’s productions

into, e.g., beer and bread

-the lord could then provide beer and bread to the vassals

-serfs were lowest class, tied to the lord, were not free

-lords lived in castles or something akin to the latter country houses


-landed gentry, into the 1600s

-wealthy, untitled families who may have farmed the land for profit, and lived on the large estate at least part of the year

-status symbol, 1700s to today wealthy families buy or build (and royalty inherit) the country houses either for political influence in the area or simply to have a nice house in the country, a “gentleman’s playground”: hunting, riding, brewing



Country houses had purpose built breweries because they had to provide beer to the large number of people that worked on the estate, 150 people to feed and provide drink for...remember, everybody drank beer!

-farm laborers

-laundry maids

-kitchen staff

-butlers, servants etc.

-before ~1600s, the citizenry

Plus the families and large numbers of guests that were often at the house

Also had to have massive kitchens, bakeries, laundry etc.

Pre-industrial brewing- the brewhouse

1700s

These were about the size of a medium-large common breweryof the 1600s


Layout of the country house brewery reflects domestic heritage of brewing

-next to bakery-next to washhouse

consolidate furnaces and water use

-share furnace, save fuel-collect water in one place


1805

1735

brewing still thought of as a domestic chore by some, but only in a domestic context

whereas women accounted for most ale sold in the 1300s, certainly by the 1700s very few if any women were selling beer, they were just brewing it in homes


the kettle

-typically made of copper, shift from iron in the 12th and 13th

century

-improved metalworking techniques led to larger and better kettles

-typically around 100 gallons, but up to 400 (3.3bbls and 12bbl)

incorporation of the kettle into a kettle works, a “hanging copper”, fixed copper

-underworks, furnace, closed chimney, platforms etc.

in 1735 building a large country house brewery (12bbl copper) cost 226 pounds

-the average laborer made around 20 pence per day -that’s 7 ½ years wages

-assuming a laborer makes around $20,000 today, a new brewery would have cost $150,000 in today’s money


raised, hanging coppers made brewing easier for several reasons:

-could use gravity to move liquid from the copper, the copper had “command” of the brewhouse, water and wort was pumped or ladled or bucketed into the kettle

-allowed for easier furnace management

-reduced smoke in the brewhouse and in the beer

-increased fuel efficiency

-oftentimes incorporated a platform that allowed brewers easier access the kettle


the mash tun and underbuck

-mash liquor run off by gravity into the mash tun and “rowed”

-wort then run off into underbuck/underback/receiver

some breweries had two coppers so that making small beer was easier


Pumped back into kettle for boil then by gravity into coolers/cooling trays

-often lead lined

-chutes, lead pipes, leather pipe from kettle to other vessels

place for underbuck


fermenting vessel/working tun

-moved from coolers by gravity

-fermenters are open


from fermenter to casks to cellar

-many houses had more than one cellar

-casks placed on stillions

-fermentation continues here

-yeast comes out of casks and collects in the gutter

-once fermentation is done the casks are moved to the individual stands


things to note about these pre-industrial breweries:

-most vessels were coopered

-open fermentation

-hierarchical design

-kettle has command of mash tun and coolers

-mash tun has command of underbuck

-coolers have command of fermenters

-pumping was by hand so move as much by gravity as possible

-they were still being used in country houses in the 1900s

Pre-industrial brewing- beer

ale and beer and October beer

-even though hopped beer was ubiquitous by the 17th century, the word ‘ale’ still meant something different from the word ‘beer’

-ale was the stronger, lightly hopped first runnings

-beer was the weaker, heavily hopped second runnings or just a highly hopped, weaker beverage

Sambrook believes hops were first used in the weaker brews to improve their keeping qualities whereas hops weren’t needed as

much in the strong brews because their strength gave them their keeping qualities

-but beer also referred to the stronger, dark brew made in London!


And even more confusing, October beer was typically the strongest brew

-made in the best brewing season, October

-freshest, high quality malt

-cool fermentation temperatures

-the several cool months of winter ahead would allow for the best aging potential

most private brewers made three kinds of beer:

October BeerAleSmall Beer



Strong October Ale/Beer

-8 bushels (one quarter) to the barrel, 9-10% abv

1 bushel = ~8 gallons, so 64 gallons of malt to 31 gallons of beer

-aged usually one year, the very strongest could be aged for more than a decade

-kept for special celebrations within the family

-the brewer at Hickleton, a country house brewery that operated well into the 1900s, wrote this about a special strong ale he brewed for the 21st birthday of the eldest son of house in 1965

after the party “there were bodies laid all over the place, of the unwise who thought they could drink beer”

-barley wine: JW Lees Harvest Ale, Thomas Hardy


Ale

-fairly strong, 4-6 bushels per barrel, ~1 bbl of malt to 1 bbl of beer 5-7% abv

-private brewed ale was stronger than ‘common’ ale

a common brewer was a professional brewer

-some common brewers added sugar and psychotropic herbs to save money

-sugar increased the strength of the beer without the expense of malt

-adding herbs was cheaper than making a stronger beer

-private brewing was a way to know what went into your beer and to make the highest quality, most wholesome and “balsamic” beer you could

-Adnams Broadside Ale, Fullers 1845, Young’s Special London Ale, Olde Suffolk English Ale


Small beer

-could be made from second or third runnings or entire -about a bushel of malt to a barrel of beer, 1.5-3% abv -bitter, Coniston Bluebird bitter

Table beer

-weaker than small beer?-less than a bushel per barrel, but sometimes three bushels-probably about the same strength-these names are inconsistent

Porter and Stout

-private brewers didn’t make it often-they drank a good bit of it, but bought it from London breweries-probably a cosmopolitan luxury in the country for these wealthy families

Pre-industrial brewing- ingredients

Fixing bad beer

-add four or five pounds of mutton cut into pieces, four ounces of egg shells, salt of tartar

-to age beer fast add sulphuric or hydrochloric acid

-to ensure beer traveled well, put whole, new-laid eggs into the beer


Private brewers could afford to brew unhopped ales when commonbrewers had switched to hops

-1594- hops had only “weak and feeble virtues”, use wormwood -long pepper-ground ivy-sage-rosemary-”good hay”-oranges-cherries -elderberries-scurvy grass- added to children’s beer in the morning to “purify the blood and thus guard against scurvy”-spruce


Other medicinal beers

-posset ale- hot milk poured into ale and spiced

-for the “frenzy”- squirt beet juice up your nose then drink violet leaf and lettuce infused posset

-to increase a woman’s milk- boil cabbage in posset

-for the itch- boil ale with wormwood, sage, rosemary, hissop, add butter, let stand overnight, skim butter off top, drink, rub the skimmed butter on head every night

-to purge a horse- boil 9 onions in a quart of ale down to a pint and add a walnut sized portion of butter

lecture #6, Thursday May 21st

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Transcript of lecture #6, Thursday May 21st