American Chilled and carbonated draught beer (part two)

We're back in 1890's USA, looking at the tricky problem of how to get highly carbonated beer into a barrel without it frothing all over the place.

What we're talking about is basically keg beer. The Americans were miles ahead of British brewers in brewing this type of beer. While chilled and carbonated bottled beer was adopted relatively quickly in Britain, it wasn't until after WW II that keg beer was produced on any scale. We all know about Watneys introducing keg beer in the 1930's, but there had been an earlier attempt.

In his delightful book "Seventy Rolling Years", Sydney Nevile mentions an attempt by Worthington to introduce American-style draught beer around 1911. It failed because drinkers didn't like the taste. I can understand why the situation was different in the USA. There drinkers had been exposed to draught Lager, which was more similar to this type of keg beer than British cask Ale.

We'll start with the technical stuff:

"The ale leaves the filter at a temperature of 35° to 36C F., in an absolutely brilliant state, and highly charged with carbonic acid, and it has now to be racked into casks whilst still under pressure, and in such a manner as to allow of these being completely filled and bunged down, without any "fobbing," or loss of ale or gas.

These are by no means easy conditions to fulfil, and a great deal of mechanical ingenuity has been exercised in devising suitable racking machinery.

Some of the machines are of a very complicated nature, but there is one which, for simplicity and effectiveness combined, leaves nothing to be desired; this is the racking machine of the Golden Gates Manufacturing Company of New York.

The cold and carbonated ale from the fillers, without being released from its initial pressure, is, in the first instance, conducted into a large copper main, fixed horizontally on wall brackets at a suitable height in the cellar. This main is furnished with any desired number of cocks, to which flexible pipes are attached, and these flexible pipes are furnished at their free ends with metal faucets of a peculiar construction, which admit of being easily and tightly connected with a special metal valve fixed into the tap-hole of each cask. This valve in its normal position, is closed, but on giving the faucet a quarter turn the valve opens, and, on opening the cock above, the ale flows into the cask.
Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing, Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, pages 472 - 473.

I find this interesting: they're filling the barrels through the tap hole. How strange. That's now got me wondering if these were German-style or British-style barrels. The difference being that a British barrel has the tap hole at the bottom of one of the barrel heads, whereas a German barrel has it as the bottom of one of the barrel sides.

This next bit is really clever. I suspect this is exactly how highly-carbonated beer is filled into kegs today.

"It is evident that if the bung-holes of the cask were left open when the main cocks were turned on, the rush of ale into the cask, under the high pressure existing in the main, would result in an enormous amount of "fobbing," which would prevent the cask from being properly filled, and would result in a waste of ale and loss of gas. This is prevented by the following simple device.

There is another copper main running parallel with the racking main, and in connection with a reservoir of compressed air or carbonic acid gas which is always maintained at a pressure just below that of the ale to be racked. There is a series of taps in this second main, also furnished with flexible tubes terminating in faucets, which can be connected with metal valves fitted into the bung-hole of each cask. Before filling the ale into the casks these connections are made, and a back pressure is produced in the empty cask, just a little less than that of the ale in the racking main, so that when the racking taps are turned on, the ale quietly fills the cask and forces back the compressed air into the air reservoir. By means of a small glass sight-feeder it is known when the cask is fall; the racking tap is then closed and both faucets are removed, the valves at the same time closing automatically. In this way every cask can be quite filled with the bright carbonated ale without the slightest frothing, and without loss of any gas or ale.

The metal valves, which are permanently fixed in the tap-hole and bung-bole of the cask, can only be opened by inserting the faucet, or a key of a certain construction, and when the cask has to be tapped such a faucet in attached to the coupling of the beer-engine through which the ale is to be drawn, and the valve is unlocked by a quarter-turn of the faucet. In order to keep the ale fully charged with gas during its consumption, it is usual in the saloons to have a small hydraulic motor air-pump, which is connected, also by a faucet, with the second valve in the bung-hole, the ale being thus drawn under air pressure. The ale can be iced, either by packing ice round the cask itself or by drawing it through a coil of pipes surrounded by ice in ice-cold water. From what I have already said about the previous treatment of the ale, it will be evident that although ice-cold it will be perfectly brilliant, and highly charged with carbonic acid.

As a rule, beer of this class, if well brewed, will retain its brilliancy for at least three weeks on comparatively slow draught, and it can be treated in the cellars of the consumer in exactly the same manner as lager."
Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing, Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, pages 473 - 474.

With all the description of very fizzy keg beer, it's odd to suddenly read the word "beer-engine". It sounds as if they were still pulling this beer through a handpump. Interesting, eh? Though it was assisted with air pressure. It sounds like a mxture of the English system of serving beer and the Czech one (before 1990 with sir rather than CO2 pressure).

You can see the attraction to the publican of a beer that you could keep on for three weeks. Much more convenient than fiddly cask beer. Now here's a thought: when was the last cask-conditioned beer produced in the USA? It sounds like the large brewers, at least, had already abandonned it by the 1890's.

This next section was the one that most caught my attention because it discusses the flavour of the beer. Up until now, we've only been looking at purely technical considerations.

"There is, however, one point which, I have no doubt, will strike you all, as practical brewers. Such an ale will not possess any of those fine, well-matured qualities which we associate with an after-fermentation in the cask. The cold-storage process, when carried out exactly as I have described it, necessarily stereotypes the qualities which the beer possesses at racking, since all secondary fermentation after leaving the racking vessel is precluded, owing to the temperature of storage being lower than that at which the top fermentation yeast can retain its activity. This is a fault which the American brewers appear scarcely to have recognised at present, but it is one which will no doubt be remedied before long, especially as it admits of such easy alteration. All that is required is to store the ale, for a week or two after leaving the brewery, in vats at an ordinary temperature of 55° F., or thereabouts, with the addition of some dry hops, until it is somewhat matured by a natural process of after-fermentation. It can then have its temperature reduced and pass on to the cold-storage vats, and from there be passed through the usual process of carbonation and filtration.

There are already one or two brewers in the United States who are so far modifying the cold-storage system as to mature the ale previously, in the manner I have just indicated, and the result has proved eminently satisfactory. It is on these lines that I would recommend any one in this country to go who may be desirous of giving the system a trial, for without a certain amount of previous maturation by ordinary storage it is not possible to obtain all those qualities which are desired by a critical public. The combination of the two systems, limited maturation, and cold storage with its attendant filtration and carbonation, give a beer which, if consumed within a reasonable time, is as near perfection as anything can be."
Journal of the Federated Institutes of Brewing, Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 1897, page 474.

What a lovely turn of phrase this is: "The cold-storage process . . . necessarily stereotypes the qualities which the beer possesses at racking". That's a nice way of saying that you're lumbered with how the beer tastes at racking time as it won't mature.

I like Horace Brown's naive belief that American brewers would realise their beer didn't taste that great and would go to the expense of warm-conditioning for a couple of weeks. My guess is that, as American drinkers didn't seem to mind the taste of the cold-conditioned Ale, brewers didn't see the point of the extra trouble and expense of warm-conditioning.

It's an interesting claim at the end. If matured for a bit before chilling, this keg beer was about as good as beer could get. Not sure I agree with that. I've yet to find any beer that can beat well-handled cask.

Draught beer in the 1930's

Good old Sydney Nevile. He also wrote about draught beer in the 1930's. You may find some of what he has to say quite surprising.

The biggest shock is that brewers were already trying to move away from cask conditioning.

"So far as draught beer is concerned, filtration has been adopted to a considerable extent, but is not practised so widely as in the case of bottled beer. Many brewers chill and filter their draught beers and send them out ready for consumption in the licensed house, but probably the greater proportion of brewers find that by paying great attention to the whole of the brewing and the fining and treatment of the beer in the publican's cellar, an article is produced which satisfies the public equally well or better than the filtered article."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 522.

At least Nevile does admit that, if well handled, cask beer could be superior to filtered beer. What's described doesn't sound like it goes as far as being full keg beer, but more like bright beer. I drank a fair bit of bright beer served by electric dispense in the 1970's and it was a good second best to cask. And definitely way superior to keg.

Wooden casks weren't hugely popular with brewers. They were heavy, expensive to maintain and, if improperly cleaned, could taint beer. But in the 1930's there wasn't an obvious replacement to hand. The ultimate solution was to replace wooden casks with metal ones, but that process didn't start until after WW II. In the early 1970's, when I started drinking, there were still plenty of wooden barrels knocking around. Even national brewers sometimes still used them.

"Whilst much progress has been made in many directions, there are still serious problems connected with the distribution of beer through licensed houses to the public which await solution. Nothing has yet been found to take the place of the wooden cask. Deficiencies have been to some extent ameliorated by various methods of lining and by improved methods of cask washing; but there are few brewers who would not gladly adopt another package if a satisfactory one could be found.

The reduction in the bulk output of beer has naturally led to a reduction in the size of the casks employed. The old puncheons (2 barrels) and butts (3 barrels) have disappeared and even hogsheads are far fewer than in pre-war days. The average size of the casks employed throughout the country is probably well under 36 gallons, and the custom has grown up of delivering the beer far more frequently than was the case in old days."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 522.

How much time I've spent researching the tricky question of lining casks. Before WW I it seems to have been very rare to line casks, in contrast to continental Europe where it was standard practice to line casks with pitch. British brewers were reluctant to follow suit because of the taint the pitch gave to the beer inside it. After WW I, some brewers did line their casks, but preferred materials other than pitch, such as paraffin.

If you have ever seen what a beast a wooden hogshead is, you'll be as amazed as me that larger casks were delivered to pubs before WW I. How much must a wooden butt have weighed? How on earth did draymen manoeuvre something so large and heavy into a pub cellar? But I was a little surprised that the average cask size in the 1930's was smaller than a barrel. I would have expected that to be the standard size before WW II. Of course now the majority of cask beer is delivered in 9-gallon firkins. A few breweries - Holt's, for example - continued to use hogsheads throughout the 20th century. They may even still use them.

There was a way of doing away with casks altogether, by using cellar tanks.

"In order to avoid the difficulties inherent in the wooden cask, a substantial number of brewers have adopted for a portion of their trade the principle of delivering filtered beer in tank wagons into tanks in the licensed house. This has met with a considerable amount of success, but for one reason or another does not appear at the present time to be making further progress."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 522

I'm not so sure that a "substantial number of brewers" used cellar tanks in the 1930's. I can think of only one that I know: the Hull Brewery. They used ceramic cellar tanks up until at least the 1970's. There was a big debate in CAMRA as to whether this beer counted as cask or not. Initially (and incorrectly, in my opinion) CAMRA did classify it as cask, but later changed their mind.

"Apart from the filtered beer delivered to licensed houses, the practice of fining the beer in the cellar of the retailer has diminished and though in London the practice still is maintained to a considerable extent, by far the greater part of the beer supplied is fined in the brewery before delivery to the customer. The character of the finings themselves has also been greatly improved, the old form of finings made with acid beer having given way to those prepared under strictly hygienic conditions."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 522.

Brewers switched to fining beer before dispatch around the time of WW I. They found that it was cheaper and more reliable than delivering finings with the beer and leaving it to the publican. Using sour beer to dissolve the isinglass forms a pretty obvious risk for infecting the cask being fined. As with filtered tank beer, this seems to have been a way of making beer more idiot-proof for publicans.

This is a fascinating paragraph on the subject of beer dispense:

"Beer Pumps versus Pressors
During the last 50 years the methods of raising beer from the cellar to the bar have received a great deal of attention. Raising beer by air or carbonic acid gas pressure has been freely advocated, and much attention has been applied to different methods and appliances for adopting the system; but so far for some reason or other over a greater part of England the beer pump is still preferred both by the retailer and his customers. There are certain parts of the country, notably in Scotland, where air pressure may be said to be almost general, but when attempts are made to apply it in other districts, sooner or later the retailer puts in a request to return to the old-fashioned pump, which as a matter of fact during recent years has been vastly improved from the point of view of accessibility for cleaning."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 522.

The first attempt at CO2 pressure dispense in Britain that I know of was Worthington, in the first decade of the 20th century. It was a failure because the punters didn't like how the beer tasted. It seems that in the 1930's drinkers were equally resistant to this new method of serving beer. Why were they more receptive in the 1950's and 1960's? Was it more fashionable to be modern after WW II? Of course, there was resistance in the 1960's, too, and that led to the formation of CAMRA in 1971.

I've evidence for some CO2 dispense in the 1930's and 1940's, but that was for Lager. Barclay Perkins price lists from the period include CO2 cylinders for serving their draught Lager.

Oddly, handpumps almost totally disappeared from Scotland, replaced by "tall font" air pressure pumps. These started to fall out of favour for serving cask beer in the 1980's because they were difficult to tell apart from top-pressure pumps.

The Shore Brewery, Alloa

It's been far too long since I last mentioned Alloa. Time to put that right with a description of one of the town's less fashionable breweries.

George Younger was the best known, the Alloa Brewery oddly obscure, Maclay's the last survivor. Calder's was the strangest. I think you'll understand why in a minute.

Here's a potted history, mostly nicked from  the excellent book "Alloa Ale", by Charles McMaster, published in 1985.

John McNellan built the brewery in 1816. Unusually for brewers in the town - and as the name suggests - it was on the shore of the Forth. Which must have been pretty handy. As we've already learned Scottish brewers were dependent on imported grain and hops. Those in Alloa, who sold most of their beer outside the immediate area, also needed a way to transport their beer to markets.

Like their neighbours George Younger, McNellan, Sons & Co. were quick to spot the potential of Pale Ale, which they started brewing in the 1850's. They were shipping their beer all over England and Scotland but must have got something badly wrong as they went bust in 1862. The brewery had to be sold. It was James Calder who bought it. McMaster says Calder "had timber importing interests in the neighbourhood". That rings a bell.

There are highly-detailed, and beautiful, old ordnance survey maps of Scotland available on the web. There are lovely maps of Alloa from 1861. I searched out all the breweries on it (which is how I put this map together). There's something I remember. There were two timber yards right next to the Shore Brewery. See:

One of these probably belonged to James Calder.

Before I go any further, here's a quote from the "Oxford Companion to Beer":

" . . little, rural Alloa in the Central Lowlands was regarded as second only to Burton-on-Trent as a British brewing center, due to its bountiful local supply of grain and coal . . . . "

There's a reason I've mentioned this. I probably would have written something similar, had I not looked at the map of 1861. Yes, Alloa isn't a huge town. But rural? The town was stuffed with industry. In addition to all the breweries there were two Woollen Manufactories, a woollen mill, a flour mill, a large distillery, several coal mines, a brass foundry, a pottery, a gas works, a large brick works and an extensive glass works. Hardly what I would call rural. It's easy to forget just how industrialised Britain once was. Most of the sites are now car parks.

Like many British breweries, it Calder's was late transforming itself into a limited company. Even such large concerns as Bass and Guinness remained partnerships until the last couple of decades of the 19th century. Calder's became a private limited liability company in 1905. Which is handy, because the prospectus has some nice details:

"The Brewery has been fitted up within the last seven years with complete modern plant, and has a capacity of 800 barrels a week... The beers made by the firm are well and favourably known, and have commanded a good and increasing sale. The Brewery has an excellent supply of water, the brewing water being derived from an artesian bore 1000ft. deep which yields an inexhaustible supply of hard water of first class quality for brewing purposes, and in addition there are four wells which yield an ample quantity of water for cooling purposes. The present maltings, which were only completed last year, are of the most modern description and have at present a capacity of 140 qrs per week ... A railway siding from the North British Railway has recently been put into the Brewery, and will be a source of great economy ... "

800 barrels a week is 40,000 barrels a year. Remember that's the capacity, rather than the real output. How large was that for the period? I just happen to have a table handy:

Number of UK breweries by output (barrels per year)
	<1,000	publican brewers	1,000 - 10,000	10,000 - 20,000	20,000 - 100,000	100,000 - 500,000	>500,000	Total
1870	26,506	-	1,809	210	128	23	3	28,679
1875	22,138	-	1,864	260	194	25	4	24,485
1879	17,542	-	1,863	301	217	27	3	19,953
1880	16,770	-	1,768	272	203	23	4	19,040
1881	14,948	14,479	1,677	275	183	24	3	17,110
1885	12,608	-	1,537	270	187	27	4	14,633
1890	9,986	-	1,447	274	255	34	4	12,000
1895	7,213	-	1,162	267	256	34	5	8,937
1900	4,759	-	910	262	308	42	9	6,290
1905	3,787	-	832	232	280	40	9	5,180
1912	2,868	2,663	673	205	266	43	7	4,062
1913	2,700	2,502	615	210	271	42	8	3,846
1914	2,536	2,357	580	197	280	46	8	3,647
Source:
1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 118.

In 1905, there were 280 breweries in the 20,000 to 100,000 barrels a year band. And 49 breweries producing more than 500,000 barrels. Calder couldn't have been in the largest 100 brewers in the country. They were probably somewhere around number 150. Not particularly large, then.

I still haven't been able to track down an analysis of Alloa water. Given the town's early entry into Pale Ale brewing, you'd expect hard well water to be available. It would be useful to know the exact composition. What was the gypsum content? Having grown up in the Trent valley, I associate it with gypsum and gravel. I don't know if the two always go together. But in the map above you can see a gravel pit (called a put) only a few paces away from the Shore Brewery.

According to McMaster, 1905 was also the year that the firm built a new bottling plant in Glasgow to supply chilled and carbonated beers. This is exactly the period when the more adventurous breweries were abandonning bottle-conditioning and introducing non-deposit, artificially carbonated bottled beers. It took a while for everyone to follow the trend, but over the course of the next 50 years naturally-conditioned bottled beer, with a few notable exceptions, virtually disappeared.

This is where things start getting weird. When Allsopp when bust in 1913, the receiver parachuted in the manager of the Shore Brewery, John J. Calder (son of James Calder who had bought the brewery from McNellan), to run the business. He seems an odd choice for the job, coming from a relatively small Scottish concern*. His appointment had one significant result: the introduction of Lager brewing to Alloa. But that's a story for another time.

John Calder was elected chairman of another Alloa brewery, actually the Alloa Brewery, in 1920**. A year later and brewing had been abandonned at the aging Shore Brewery, all Calder's beer being supplied under contract by the Alloa Brewery. Calder seems to have got a very good deal, buying beer at little more than cost price. The Shore Brewery was downgraded to just a bottling plant and store.

The arrangement continued until 1951, when Ind Coope and Allsopp, now owners of the Alloa Brewery, converted it to a Lager-only plant. John Jeffrey & Co. Ltd. of the Heriot Brewery, Edinburgh (remember them?) took over the contract to brew Calder's Ales and Stout, while their Lager continued to be brewed at the Alloa Brewery.

In 1960, Calder was gobbled up by Northern Breweries of Great Britain Ltd and soon their brands were just a memory.

I'm surprised at how long - almost 40 years - Calder survived with no brewery of its own. Recent history has shown how fragile brewing companies without their own brewery are and how easily their identity can be lost. I'm thinking of firms like Burtonwood, Eldridge Pope, Gibbs Mew. You have to wonder how long Youngs will hang around.

John J. Calder is one of British brewing's most remarkable figures. He ran Calder from 1890 until the Northern Breweries takeover in 1960. That's even longer than Sydney Nevile was at Whitbread.

There's more to come on Calder. Barnard's description from 1890 and details of their beers. And anything else I can find.





* Allsopp was a much bigger concern. In 1884, they brewed 850,000 barrels (source: Document ACC/2305/8/246 part of the Courage archive held at the London Metropolitan Archive). The 40,000 barrel capacity of the Shore Brewery is tiny in comparison.

** According to the Scottish Brewing Archive website, he was elected chairman of Archibald Arrol & Sons Ltd (otherwise known as the Alloa Brewery) in 1918.

Temperance logic

The lack of analytical powers amongst those with an ideological opposition to alcohol is nothing new. In fact, an ability to ignore any evidence that doesn't fit their pre-formed views is a defining feature of temperance thinking across the centuries.

The text below recounts an encounter between Sydney Nevile* and some temperance thinkers during WW I.
 .

"I remember Lord Astor once introducing a deputation representing various temperance organizations, including many clergy of different cloth. In view of Monmouthshire's geographical position and industrial relationship with Wales, it had been decided to extend the Welsh law of Sunday closing to cover this adjacent English county. Naturally the temperance movement welcomed this decision, and the suggestion they now wished to make to the Central Control Board was that the Sunday closing regulation should be extended to the whole of the country. They urged d'Abernon and the Control Board to consider this on the ground that if industrial efficiency had increased in Monmouth, nation-wide Sunday closing would result in a similar increase in efficiency everywhere. D'Abernon promised to give the matter his full consideration, and expressed sympathy with their object. He then asked me if I had anything to say. So far as I am aware, none of the deputation, except Astor, knew who I was; they only regarded me with some respect as a member of the Board. I asked a question they had not expected. If, I said, the Board made investigations and found that other districts where public houses were open on Sundays had given evidence of greater increase in efficiency than Monmouth, would they regard that as a good reason for re-opening public houses on Sundays in Monmouth and, indeed, for extending Sunday opening to Wales? This mild inquiry was given a shocked and almost venomous reception, so Astor hastily intervened to say it was a difficult question and would require careful consideration. At this point the deputation withdrew."
"Seventy Rolling Years", by Sydney Nevile, 1958, page 107.

Depressingly, this could have happened yesterday. 



* Sydney Nevile was a fascinationg character who worked in the brewing industry for more than 70 years, starting in 1886. During WW I he worked for a brewer at Brandon's, a small London brewery, but was also a member of the Central Control Board, a body which controlled many aspects of the brewing trade.

Wouldn't that label make a great sign for the Gunmakers?

Women in pubs

I can't stay away from WW I for long. Weird, isn't it? Today's post is more social than beer history, but none the less fascinating for that.

The war brought about changes in social behaviour that had an impact on the brewing industry. Women, often doing men’s jobs and earning higher wages than before, wanted to drink beer, too. It came as a great shock to some.

"I remember, too, that we had a visit from some Chief Constables from towns in the North of England, including Newcastle and Durham, who had come to tell the Control Board of a serious increase in drinking among women in their towns, which was, they emphasised, a growing evil, one non-existent before the war. D'Abvernon sent for figures of convictions for drunkenness in the town concerned, and remarked that from the figures it did not appear that there had been any marked increase in drunkenness among women in these areas - on the contrary, there was an improvement. The Chief Constables replied that there was little actual drunkenness among women, but that their present purpose was to draw their attention to the large increase in the number of women who now drank. In the old days few decent women would go into a public house at all, and now they were walking in 'bold as brass', putting down their money and calling for beer. The Chief Constables assured Lord D'Abernon that this state of affairs had been practically unheard-of in peace time; they feared that it might continue after the war. I had, of course, known that women in ordinary times used public houses much less up north than in the London district, but I was not aware until then how wide was the difference. It seemed to me strange that leading police officials should be so troubled at what in the south was quite a normal custom.

I have always regretted that it should have been regarded as proper for a man to enter a public house but unsuitable for a woman; however, that view was strongly held, particularly in the north - perhaps one reason was the low standard of public houses in the northern industrial districts - or perhaps one result!"
"Seventy Rolling Years" by Sydney Nevile, page 108.

It's a bit odd that socially acceptable behaviour differed so much between the north and south. Was it really just because northern pubs were crap?

Influencing enemies and making people

Being described as "having anger management issues" genuinely shocked me. But disconnection from reality is nothing new. I'm still surprised by the fat, old bastard I see waddling out of the shower every morning.

A twisted, crazy man spouting green bile from a subterranean lair? No. No. That's not me. Is it? You'd let me know if that's what I'd become. Wouldn't you? Probably not. I wouldn't, if one of my mates went mental.

You'll never guess what I've been doing today. You really won't. I couldn't have guessed it in the days when I had no children and the night was my ox cart.

I've mentioned "War! 1.2". The original, holy as St Peter, manuscript was regularly punctuated by "!!!!!! LOOK IN SEVENTY ROLLING YEARS !!!!". That told me my research was far from done.

"Seventy Rolling Years" is a remarkable book. The author worked in the brewing industry from 1888 to 1958. The last half at Whitbread.

(See Andrew. I can write one complete, sensible paragraph.)

Reading "Seventy Rolling Years". That's what I was doing that you never would have guessed if I didn't say. In case I was being too subtle. The Carlisle State Scheme, in particular. Nevile was part of that.

Beer on the rates. Every workingman's dream.

I work.




"War! 1.2" will be delayed for a while. Especially if I go to London in June. BP WW I. That's all I have to say. I won't have to squint at my crappy old photos no more.