Glasgow to have barmaids

It's amazing what you can discover with an old brewing magazine and nothing to do.Yes, you guessed it. I'm still ploughing through "The brewers' Journal 1940".

I know that they had different licensing laws in Scotland. But I never realised that barmaids had been banned in Glasgow.

"Glasgow is to have barmaids again after an interval of fully thirty years.

The magistrates have, by nine votes to six, granted an application by the Licensed Trade for permission to employ barmaids, but have stipulated that women employed should be at least25 years of age.

They refused another application to be allowed to employ youths of of between 16 and 18 years of age as barmen.

Both applications were based on the plea that 50 per cent. of the barmen in the city wre serving with the Forces or were liable to be called up for service.

Temperance organisations opposed the applications on the ground that employment in public-houses was not suitable for women and was not in the interests of public morality.

It was also argued that the presence of women behind the bars might tempt young men into licensed premises and encourage them to drink.

Since the ban, however, the employment of barmaids in hotel, restaurant, and lounge bars has been permitted."
"The Brewers' Journal 1940" page 729.

I'd thought that the temperance lobby had been buggered by WW I. Evidently not. The bastards.

One reason for the public-house

Another wartime piece from the Brewers' Journal today. I know. I'm a lazy git. This one is a quite philosophical exposition of the function of a pub.

"Early in the war mass observation revealed that when outstanding war events protruded the number of patrons in licensed houses increased. This wa determined by viviting a cross-section of licensed premises and recording the number of people present at identical times on specified days of the week. The reason assigned by mass observation was that at such times people had more to talk about. The organising secretary of the Alliance News - the principal organ of teetotal thought - has been finding out the same thing, although we suspect that his purpose in setting out his findings was to disparage the public-house. He records:-

"Two passengers in a train entered into conversation concerning the public-house where it was their custom to meet; and presently the younger of the two said that he really did not go for the beer, but for the company. At this I entered into the discussion, and suggested that the same thing was not quite true of a teashop. People only went into a teashop when they wanted a cup of tea."

Not so the public-house, where they not only go to slake their thirst, but to play games and, above all, to talk, as in a true democracy people should. Yes the teashop is no match for the public-house. One doesn't go into the teashop "for the company"; but we are gald at this point - the human atmosphere of the inn - which we have stressed so often, is now emphasised from a quite unexpected source."
"Brewers' Journal 1940" page 806.

I'll go along with that. If I want a beer and to watch telly, I'll sit at home. A chat and the odd glass with friends works much better in a pub.

Lactic acid and acetic acid bacteria infections

Now here's something unusual. This isn't at all what I'd been looking for. I was hunting through a wartime Brewers' Journal, looking for good WW II stories - rationing, bomb damage, that sort of thing - and tripped over a piece on bacterial infections instead.

I would normally transcribe the text, but, you know what? I don't really feel like doing it. I'll soon be adjourning to the settee with DVDs of American Dad for the rest of the day. So here are scans instead.





Fascinating, isn't it, how the change in the nature of British beer changed the type of infection it was most vulnerable to. The source is the "Brewers' Jornal 1940" page 893.