Which makes searching for brewing records a sometimes frustrating task. What has this particular archive called them? Brewing books? Brewing journals? Something else entirely? It necessitates a good bit of rumbling around in the catalogue, making sure you've covered all the possibilities.
Then there's the example of the Whitbread brewing records. Where the catalogue has the wrong years for several of the brewing books. I think I'm the only person who has a correct catalogue of them. I suppose I should really have told the archivists.
A third problem is when records are attributed to the wrong company. For years I believed that the earliest IPA brewing log I had was 1837 from Reid. Until I saw some records from the 1820s which were in a completely different format. Which was identical to the format of Reid's 1840s logs. Clearly the 1837 records were from a different brewery. Which, I don't really know. I'm guessing Combe, as the material originated from Watney, Combe, Reid.
Today I came across another example of incorrect attribution. Though I'm scratching my head as to how it could have occurred. It's a brewing book which supposedly comes from Beard's of Lewes. Yet it has this in the inside cover:
Not only does it say "Harvey & Son" at the top of the page, it also says "Bridge Wharf Brewery", which is the name of the Harvey's brewery.
Has anyone ever looked at this record properly before? You have to wonder.
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