Burton water (part two)

We're back with Barnard. And his description of Burton water. More specifically, the water of Worthington. Not just words, either. He includes a couple of chemical analyses of wells drawing water from different depths. I found it interesting. I hope you do., too.

"A few words as to the true source of the brewing water may not be out of place here.

The town of Burton is situated on the eastern side of the valley of the Trent, which, at this point, is about 1.5 miles wide, and has a direction approximately north and south. This valley is mainly excavated in what are known as the Upper Keuper Marls. These marls form the uppermost division of the New Red Sandstone series of rocks, and consist of bright red clays, somewhat sandy in parts, and containing thin seams of gypsum or sulphate of lime.the mineral from which plaster of Paris is made. The marls are only to a limited extent water-bearing, and are, as a rule, very impervious. They are overlaid m the river valley by 25 feet to 30 feet of coarse, sandy gravel, and in this travel held up by the impervious marl floor, lies the water, which was at one time the only source of supply for brewery purposes. The usual method of obtaining this water is to sink large wells through the gravel to the underlying marl floor; but in some eases the so-called Abyssinian tube-wells have been driven down, but with only partial success, since the fine sand which is mixed with the gravel often gives trouble by stopping up the small holes at the lower part of the tube. Of late years attempts have been made to obtain water from more deeply seated sources by driving deep bore holes into the marl beds. The water so obtained, although as a rule, not very copious in quantity, is of exceptional purity. Thus, we see there are two sources of the brewing water of Burton; one the gravel beds overlying the marl, and the other the red marl itself, the water from the latter source being obtained by deep borings. In both cases the water is very hard, and is highly charged with gypsum, which gives it the peculiar properties and makes it so highly prized for brewing.

The deep-seated waters are, however, much more highly charged with this mineral than those derived from the shallower wells. So much so is this the case, that it is sometimes found expedient to mix the more highly mineralized water with the ordinary well waters.

The following analyses give a fair idea of the composition of the two waters:—

No. I. is from an artesian boring in the red marl.
No. II. is from a well in the valley gravel.

	I.	II.
	Grains per gallon.	Grains per gallon.
Sulphate of Lime	70.994	25.48
Carbonate of Lime	9.046	18.06
Carbonate of Magnesia	5.88	9.10
Sulphate of Magnesia	12.60	-
Sulphate of Soda	13.30	7.63
Chloride of Sodium	9.170	10.01
Chloride of Potassium	0.966	2.275
Carbonate of Iron	1.218	0.90
Silica	1.12	0.84
Total solid residue	124.294	74.293

Messrs. Worthington and Co. derive their brewing water from two large wells, each of which is 24 feet in diameter and about 28 feet deep, and, besides these, they have a series of large Abyssinian tube-wells, which also yield a constant supply. In addition to these sources of water, they have two other wells of equal size which supply water for cooling and refrigerating, and several smaller wells. One of the large wells, situated in the Hay meadow, has, connected with it, a series of radiating subways, which enormously increase the drainage area of the well, and afford a practically inexhaustible supply. When we consider that, taking all the processes into consideration, at least ten to twelve barrels of water are required for every barrel of finished beer turned out, we may form some notion of the vast amounts of water that are used in an establishment such as we are describing. We were informed that Messrs. Worthington use in a single week as much as 50,000 barrels or 1,800,000 gallons of water. It should, however, be understood, that the quantity of water used for brewing, bears a very small proportion to the total quantity used in a brewery, where cleanliness is so much considered as it is at the one under notice. A large proportion of the water has to be heated to boiling point, therefore many large boilers and tanks have been provided for that purpose. At this brewery, there are as many as seven large boilers in use for providing steam for the different engines, and for boiling water; also several iron and slate tanks of an aggregate capacity of nearly 2,000 barrels, or 72,000 gallons. To pump this water, five sets of powerful three-throw pumps are constantly in use, and during our progress through the works, we observed five other sets of equal power for pumping the beer during its different processes."
"Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1" by Alfred Barnard, 1889 pages 416 - 418.

I was struck by the difference between the water from the two wells.  Complicated isn't it? Two wells for brewing water, two wells for cooling and other wells for cleaning water. The ground around Burton must have been like Swiss cheese from all the brewery's wells.

It's the first mention I've seen of the need to blend the mineral-rich water to tone it down. Hard? Well you wouldn't want to meet it down an alleyway after throwing out time.