Summary of UK brewing legislation (part two)

Today it's the rest o my cut-out-and-keep guide to 19th-ccentury UK brewing legislation. Which isn't quite so sugar-heavy this time.

1880, with the Free Mash Tun Act, was a huge dividing line in brewing legislation. Many of the old rules - designed to stop brewers dodging tax by using any fermentable material other than malt - ell by the wayside.

31st July 1865 - 30th April 1874
Brewers prohibited from using a mixture of glucose and treacle.

30th April 1874
The definition of sugar extended to mean any description of sugar, including any saccharine substance or syrup manufactured from any material from which sugar can be manufactured. The use of sugar to make beer colouring also allowed.

14th August 1855 - 30th September 1880
Storage of unmalted grain in a brewery prohibited except for: grain in a malt house; oats or beans for horse food kept in a specific place. Malt only to be crushed by metal rollers with smooth surfaces which were not fluted.

11th October 1862 - 30th September 1880
Brewers of spruce or black beer exempted from new rates of license duty on brewers provided that they used no hops or yeast in making them.

16th September 1862
Duties on hops repealed. Prohibition on hop substitutes removed, also the restrictions on importing extracts, essences and other preparations of hops. This was only extended to Ireland on 25th July 1864.

1st October 1880
"Free mash tun " Act. Duty imposed at 6s 3d per standard barrel of 1057º. All restriction on ingredients removed except those on drugs and harmful substances.

16th May 1888
The use of "saccharin" (a product of coal tar) prohibited.

16th April 1889
A standard barrel changed to 1055º.

17th April 1894
Duty per standard barrel raised to 6s 9d.

1st October 1896
Rice, flaked maize and other similar products, which had been classified as malt or corn with regard to their wort-producing powers reclassified as "sugar".
Source: "Report and minutes of evidence Departmental Committee on Beer Materials, 1899, page 382. 

Notice how strict the rules were on unmalted grains. And the weird rules about mill rollers. I've absolutely no idea why fluted rollers weren't allowed. Maybe that's what you'd use for unmalted grains.

Summary of UK brewing legislation (part one)

Something a bit different today. Really a reference guide, rather than anything else. For any budding beer historian who doesn't feel like digging through all the parliamentary statutes.

You'll notice that quite a lot o it relates to sugar in brewing. Which was a tricky subject for the government. Big fluctuations in the duty on sugar used in brewing must discouraged brewers from using it.

Whitbread, for example, briefly flirted with sugar when it was first allowed in 1847. But soon dropped it again and didn't readopt it until 1865. Barclay Perkins, other than in the occasional cheap beer, didn't use sugar before the 1880 Free Mash Tun Act.

1st May 1802 - 20th June 1811
No materials other than malt, hops and water allowed.

26th June 1811 - 5th July 1817
Porter brewers were allowed to use a solution of burnt brown sugar to colour Porter only.

6th July 1817
The burnt colouring solution was forbidden and only malt, hops and water were allowed. Brewers, retailers and dealers of beer were not allowed to possess sugar nor certain specified drugs and adulterants.

11th October 1827
The rules from 6th July 1817 also applied to Ireland.

16th July 1830
Beer duties abolished. Brewers prohibited from having raw or unmalted grain on their premises.

18th June 1842
The use of roasted or black malt in brewing first recognised in law.  Strict rules on the manufacture, sale and storage of black malt were introduced. There was further legislation on this topic in 1856 and 1857. All these were repealed in 1880. 

23rd February 1847
The use of sugar (but not molasses or other types of sugar on which the full duties had not been paid) allowed in the brewing of beer and in the preparation of colouring material for beer.

6th July 1851
A duty of 1s 4d per cwt. introduced on sugar used in brewing.

10th July 1854
Duty on sugar used in brewing raised to 6s 6d per cwt.

1855
Duty on sugar used in brewing reduced to 3s 9d per cwt.

5th July 1856 - 15th April 1864
Collection of duty on sugar used in brewing held in abeyance.

16th April 1864
A duty of 3s 4d per cwt. imposed on sugar used in brewing.

30th April 1867
Duty on sugar used in brewing raised to 3s 6d per cwt.

12th April 1870
Duty on sugar used in brewing raised to 7s 6d per cwt.

8th May 1873
Duty on sugar used in brewing raised to 9s 6d per cwt.

30th April 1874
Duty on sugar used in brewing raised to 11s 6d per cwt.

30th September 1880
Duty on sugar used in brewing repealed.
Source: "Report and minutes of evidence Departmental Committee on Beer Materials, 1899, page 382.

In 1830, when the taxation on beer was purely on malt and hops, restrictions came in on having unmalted grains in a brewery. As their use would be dodging tax.

Whitbread Stout OG 1816 - 1880

Someone did request this. A long-term chart of Whitbread Stout gravity. So it's not my fault, OK. Though I had already constructed the chart before they asked. 

Let's crack on with the pretty chart, then.

The gravity kicks off pretty low. That's a result of the Napoleonic Wars and the high taxation required to pay for them. The gravity then rises in reaction to a reduction in the malt tax. Then falls again when the malt tax was increased in 1819.

In 1830 there's another rise. I assume prompted by the abolition of excise duty on beer.

The fall in 1854 is when  the malt tax was increased to pay for the Crimean War. I had wondered about why there was a fall in gravity in the early 1860s, as there was no increase in the malt tax then. But there was the introduction of a much higher charge for brewing licences, which was a shilling per quarter (336 lbs) of malt.

1880, of course, is when the malt tax was abolished, and the system of taxation based on OG was introduced.

Not quite sure what happened in 1846 and 1875. But, in general, all the troughs correspond to tax increases and the peaks to tax reductions.

War with the French

Porter wasn’t a static thing, it continued to develop during the 1700s. Moving away from its origins as a 100% brown malt beer.

Towards the end of the 18th century, almost constant war with the French left the British government in need of cash. And they turned to their favourite source of revenue: alcohol. At the time, beer was taxed in three ways: on the malt, on the hops and on the finished beer itself.

A combination of increased taxation on malt to pay for the wars with France and the introduction of new technology, in the form of the hydrometer, transformed Porter grists. Brewers realised that, though cheaper, the poorer yield from brown malt actually made it more expensive to use than pale malt. The base malt changed from brown to pale, with brown retained just for flavour and colour.

It’s likely that this is when brown malt stopped being diastatic. With a majority of the malt pale, there was no need for the brown malt to retain any diastatic power. At a time when it was also required to provide more colour and flavour than previously.

At this point London brewers still used ingredients from the immediate area: malt from Hertfordshire or Sussex and hops from Kent. This would change radically in just a couple of decades as the UK’s population and thirst for beer outstripped the productive capacity of agriculture.

The increased taxation had a couple of effects on Porter. The first was the move away from a 100% brown malt beer to one brewed from a base of pale malt. But it retained a high percentage of brown malt.

The second change was a reduction in OG. Dropping from 1075º in the 1770s to around 1055º by the first years of the 19th century. This was as a direct result of increased taxation, which encouraged brewers to lower strength to cut costs.

Taxes on beer 1779 - 1815
Year	Tax/bush.malt	tax/lb. Hops	tax/brl strong	tax/brl small	tax/brl table	Price quart porter
1779	9.25d	1d + 5%	8s	1s 4d	2s	3.5d
1780	1s 4.25d	1d + 10%	8s	1s 4d	2s	3.5d
1783	1s 4.25d	1d + 15%	8s	1s 4d	3s	3.5d
1786	1s 4.25d	1.6d	8s	1s 4d	3s	3.5d
1791	1s 7.25d	1.6d	8s	1s 4d	3s	3.5d
1801	1s 4.25d	2.5d	8s	1s 4d	3s	4.5d
1802	2s. 5d	2.5d	10s		2s	4d
1804	4s 5.75d	2.5d	10s		2s	6d
1815	2s. 5d	2d	10s		2s
Sources:
The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830 Peter Mathias, p.369
A History of English Ale and Beer, H.A. Monckton, p.204

Porter before black malt
Year	Brewer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	pale malt	brown malt	amber malt
1804	Barclay Perkins	1055.4	1015.5	5.28	72.02%	6.83	2.00	42.59%	47.43%	9.98%
1807	Whitbread	1052.6	1015.5	4.91	70.53%	13.06	3.60	66.32%	16.84%	16.84%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/002.
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan archives, document number ACC/2305/1/525.

You'll find more information that you'll ever need to know about Porter in my excellent book on the subject:

Bass in 1871

I got all excited when I saw the title of this article. Was it another early reference to Bass’s Barley Wine? Not really, unfortunately. It’s just using Barley Wine as a general – and rather poetic – term for beer.

Though Bass already were already using the term for a specific beer – No. 1 Burton Ale – at the time the article was written. A search of the newspaper archive reveals that “Barley Wine” reveals that it really was a poetic term for beer, as it mostly appears in poems or songs.

Here’s an example:

“OCTOBER.
(From a New Volume of Poems, by J. C. Prince.)
October, a blithe and benevolent fellow,
Is here with his tresses enwreathed with the vine;
His broad visage glowing with purple and yellow,
As if he had quaffed of his own barley-wine.”
Kendal Mercury - Saturday 23 October 1847, page 4.

But I digress. On with the article, which has loads of handy Bass-related numbers. First some general guff and a bit about Burton water.

“BARLEY WINE.
The North of England Farmer gives a long and very interesting account of the Burton Brewery of Messrs. Bass. It appears the Burton ales are not made from the water of the river Trent, as is commonly supposed, but from springs of the Trent valley, in and around Burton. This “liquor” is obtained by means of wells, which have been sunk deeper and deeper as brewery after brewery has sprung up. It became celebrated about 1710, when one Benjamin Printon established a small brewery at Burton. From the quality of the ale produced by this pioneer in the national wine of this country, the water of the Burton Valley became known as the most celebrated “liquor” in Great Britain for the production of fine and light ales. Whatever saccharine may be put into this water appears to remain there for any length of time without being chemically injured by the mineral combinations which are generally found in spring and river waters. The name of Bass first appeared in connection with brewing at Burton about 90 years ago, when the grandfather of the present head of the firm started a small brewery. The gradual expansion of the trade of Mr. Wm. Bass, the founder of the firm, we need not relate. Nor need we dwell on the rapidity with which the business grew under the youthful activity, geniality, and liberality of Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P. But we may say that this gentleman was greatly assisted by the development of the railway system between 1835 and 1850.”
"Brewers' Guardian, vol. 1, 1869", June 1871, page 192.

It then start getting down to specifics, first about the malt Bass made and used:

“The writer goes on to describe the three large breweries belonging to the firm, and adds, “Malt and hops are, of course, the starting points in the production of “barley wine.” The former is largely made at Burton, by Messrs. Bass and Co., there being as many as 32 malt-houses of the largest possible size and most approved construction for working with economy. At Retford and Lincoln they also have malt-houses. The quantity of malt they make and consume per annum is nearly 190,000 quarters, which, at the accredited average of 49 quarters per acre, would require 42,222 acres of land to grow the barley. The barley harvests of the years 1869 and 1870 were not favourable, but during the year ending April 1, 1871, the quantity of malt brewed by Messrs. Bass and Co. was 183,375 quarters, the duty on which at 21s. 8d. per quarter would be £198,656 5s.”
"Brewers' Guardian, vol. 1, 1869", June 1871, page 192.

Using the rough standard of four barrels per quarter of malt, that puts Bass’s total output at around 750,000 barrels. Though that might be a sight overestimate as Bass’s beer was quite strong, on average.

We can use the four barrels per quarter rule to also work out the tax per barrel that they were paying. Remember that at this point the malt tax was the tax on beer, effectively.  It works out a little over 5 shillings per barrel, which seems pretty cheap. The final Excise duty of strong beer before it was abolished in 1830 was 10 shillings per barrel*.

Though in the 1870’s brewers also had to pay 1 shilling per quarter of malt used for their brewing licence, adding another 6d per barrel to the tax bill. Allowing for that, the total tax was no more than 6 shillings a barrel, still considerably less than in 1830. Because of the amount Bass brewed, they still had a large tax bill. Adding on the £9,000 or so they paid for their licence, the total is around £207,000. A huge amount in the 1870’s.

Next time we'll be looking at Bass's hop usage.



* The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830 Peter Mathias p. 546.

Alcohol-related taxes in 1870

Tax. It’s been one of the driving forces behind the evolution of beer styles. Often in connection with war, which is obviously an expensive business.

In the days before income tax, the money raised from alcohol formed the backbone of the UK’s finances. As we’ll see in the numbers. Taxes were levied in a variety of ways, not just directly on the products themselves. In fact in 1870 there was no direct tax on beer at all. Instead there was a tax on malt, which, when adjuncts were illegal, effectively does tax beer. What else can you do with malted barley other than make beer or whisky?

Everyone concerned with the production and sale of alcohol required a licence. From the maltster to the publican. These licences brought in a tidy sum for the treasury - £1.64 million in 1870. That was for almost 360,000 licences in total, meaning an average of £4.50, which was a decent sum back then. Though, obviously, not all licence cost the same. A beer house wouldn’t be paying anything like as much for its licence as a brewer or a distiller.

Why would a maltster need a licence? Because the malt tax was collected from them. And although there were more than 5,000 of them, this was still far fewer than the 32,000-odd brewers. Which is one of the reasons the tax was levied on malt rather than beer. In the 1830’s there were far too many breweries for the Excise to check up on them all.

The change in 1880 to a tax on beer proportionate to its gravity was only practical due to a massive decrease in the number of breweries in the second half of the 19th century. In 1838 there were 49,200 in the UK but by 1880 this had more than halved to 21,131 and by 1882 it was just 15,569*. The fall was mostly due to publican brewers abandoning brewing. Many of these brewed tiny amounts – fewer than 50 barrels a year.

Obviously 15,000 was still a lot of breweries for the Excise to check up on, but only 2,000 or so of them brewed more than 1,000 barrels a year. They were responsible for the vast majority of beer produced and were presumably the ones the authorities kept an eye on.

The total amount raised from alcohol-related sources in 1870 was £22,938,015, while the total tax revenue was around £70.6 million. Meaning just shy of a third of all tax was from alcohol.

I was surprised at the small number of distillers. Even combining them with rectifiers there are only 312. My guess is that today with all the trendy new gins the number is far in excess of that figure. It must have been good news for the Excise as spirits were resposible for half of the alcohol-related taxes. A nice small group to check up on.

Also shockingly few in number are the malt roasters, a mere 21. This was a very highly controlled group and they were all sorts of weird rules about how far away from maltings they had to be. The fear of the Excise was that they would roast unmalted barley as a tax dodge.

I’m not totally sure what all the different groups were. Beer retailers refers to fully licensed pubs and beer houses. But what was a beer dealer? And what the hell were refreshment houses?

I never seem to run out of unanswered questions.

Alcohol related licences in 1870
	number
Brewers' licenses issued	32,682
,, using sugar	1,124
,, (retail) under Act 5, Geo. IV. c. 54	34
Maltsters	5,417
Beer dealers	10,836
Beer retailers	137,937
Spirit dealers	9,522
Spirit retailers	97,077
Distillers of spirits	142
Rectifiers of spirits	170
Wine dealers	57,566
Roasters of malt	21
Refreshment houses	6,626
Passage vessels	393
Dealers in roasted malt	12
Yielding a total gross sum to the Imperial Revenue from licenses alone of	£1,641,485 18 8
The same official document shows the following returns of Customs’ Duties, viz. :—
Spirits and articles containing spirits—gross total sum produced	£4,195,026 0 0
Wine do.	1,478,862 0 0
And for Excise as follows :
Malt duty	6,874,468 11 11.25
Spirits duty	11,427,614 11 7
Source:
"Brewers' Guardian, vol. 1, 1869", July 1871, page 29.

* "Journal of the Institute of Brewing, vol 7", 1901, page 64
** “A Practical Treatise on Malting and Brewing” by William Ford, 1862, page 277.

Environment

I once scribbled 30 pages of notes on the way beers styles evolve. A lot of it bollocks. I've had access to brewing records since. But one assertion I still in a steely grip around the throat: beer and beer styles evolve in reaction to their environment. Just like living creatures.

Tax is the apex preadator of the brewing environment. It's mostly responsible for the difference in strength between modern American and British versions of the same style. The US flat-rate tax makes high-ABV beers much more economical than in most European countries, where the tax is higher on stronger beers.

With a similar tax system, I'm sure the modern US marscape would look very different. That's why lower-strength beers are such bad value in the US. The difference in the cost of ingredients in brewing a 4% compared to a 7% one are minimal, compared to other costs.

A flat rate tax per barrel was a British thing in the 18th century. Up until 1830. When the tax was shifted to malt and hops alone. An important date for the divergence of the British styles brewed in the US from the originals.

It wasn't just in tax alone that the brewing traditions grew apart. But money screams.

Tracking the transformation of British styles transplanted elsewhere would be my thesis. If I had the arsing in me. But I'm all belly and no backside. Peter Symon's Bronzed Brews does the job for Australia. I can't recommend it enough. Properly researched from brewing records.

Did the US stick with the colonial system of taxing beer after independence?  I don't know. Sounds plausible, but I prefer facts. It's probably more complicated.

My belly outbulging my buttocks, can someone save me arseache?

Unexpected consequences

The government, through taxation, licensing, restriction of pub opening hours, has done much to shape the British brewing industry. But its actions haven't always panned out as anticipated.

When travelling to London last week I was reading "Government Interference in the Brewing Industry" by John Spicer, Chris Thurman, John Walters and Simon Ward*. I've not finished it yet, but a clear point it makes is that of unexpected consequences. That the government intervenes with an aim in mind, but the result is something completely different.

It's about the 1986-89 Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry which led to the Beer Orders of the 1990's. The idea was to open up the brewing industry to more competition, which the tied house system was seen to be preventing. The monopolistic tied estates of the Big Six were to swept away and all brewers given equal access to retail outlets. Of course, it didn't quite work out like that. Yes, the big brewers lost their enormous tied estates, but they were merely passed on to another set of monopolists, the big pub companies.

The phenomenon of unexpected consequences was nothing new. Something similar had happened at the end of the 19th century. Something which, indirectly, had led to the formation of those huge tied estates in the first place.

"The repeal of the Malt Act in 1880 by Mr. Gladstone, and the transference of the duty from malt to the wort prior to fermentation, was a momentous epoch in British brewing. I understand this change was sought by the barley growers, who thought it would benefit agriculture, but how, I cannot say. There is no doubt, however, that the tax on barley encouraged the buying of the best quality, as tho tax was irrespective of quality, but the result of the change caused by charging duty on wort produced instead of on barley was certainly no advantage to the farmer.

The revenue obtained from this method of taxing wort instead of malt resulted in a great gain to the State, and imposed a heavier charge on both brewer and consumer. The brewer was supposed to have been compensated by the fact that his materials were no longer being limited to malt, hops and sugar; he received the benefit of what was called the "Free Mash Tun," but this was of no real benefit to many brewers, for under the new taxation a brewer was often charged upon a quantity of beer he never obtained from his materials, because he had not the technical knowledge and plant necessary to do so. Further, the smaller brewer had not the requisite scientific and technical knowledge to obtain the standard quantities of extract from his declared quantities of materials used which the Excise authorities said he ought to have obtained. Nevertheless, he was charged duty on these standard quantities, although some extra allowance was given for "waste" against the deficiencies. This payment of tax on a quantity of wort which was not obtained was responsible, in my opinion, for the rapid decrease of home-brewing and the purchase of beer from the larger brewer. The publican-brewer found he was handicapped by a method of taxation which bore more heavily upon him than upon the larger brewer, whose greater technical knowledge of brewing and modern plant placed him in a far better position to pay the new duty."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 481 - 482.

I'd best explain how brewers paid tax on beer they hadn't produced. The 1880 legislation assumed that brewers obtained a certain amount of wort per bushel of malt. This is the relevant clause in the Act:

"13. (1.) Every brewer shall be deemed to have brewed thirty six gallons of worts of the gravity of one thousand and fifty-seven
degrees for every two bushels of malt entered or used by him in brewing."

No matter what the actual yield, the brewer had to pay the tax for at least one standard barrel (36 gallons at a gravity of 1057º) for every two bushels used. That amounts to four standard barrels per quarter of malt. Though the act did allow for 6% wastage during the brewing process.

How easy was it to get the yield the Excise expected? I thought I'd take a look at a big, modern brewery and see how many standard barrels they got per quarter. here are the results:

Whitbread yield per quarter of malt in 1881
Beer	Style	standard barrels	qtr. Malt	standard barrels per quarter	plus 6%
KKK	Stock Ale	450.5	127	3.55	3.76
X	Mild	767.7	197	3.90	4.13
FA	Pale Ale	158.3	44	3.60	3.81
X and XL	Mild	588.8	153	3.85	4.08
X	Mild	774.1	200	3.87	4.10
KK	Stock Ale	475.0	127	3.74	3.96
X and XL	Mild	605.4	150	4.04	4.28
PA	Pale Ale	322.2	89	3.62	3.84
Source:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/047

Even allowing for the six per cent wastage, Whitbread only managed to hit the target on four out of eight brews. The yield in a small pub brewery must have been much worse. It increased the advantage large brewers had over their smaller rivals. Because of their greater efficiency, the big boys in London had already been able to brew stronger beer than the smaller ones and sell it at the same price. Now small brewers were paying tax on beer that didn't exist. It must have been tough.

I've figures of the numbers of breweries off various sizes for the right period:

UK Breweries by size 1870 - 1914
	<1,000	publican brewers	1,000 - 10,000	10,000 - 20,000	20,000 - 100,000	100,000 - 500,000
1870	26,506	-	1,809	210	128	23
1875	22,138	-	1,864	260	194	25
1879	17,542	-	1,863	301	217	27
1880	16,770	-	1,768	272	203	23
1881	14,948	14,479	1,677	275	183	24
1885	12,608	-	1,537	270	187	27
1890	9,986	-	1,447	274	255	34
1895	7,213	-	1,162	267	256	34
1900	4,759	-	910	262	308	42
1905	3,787	-	832	232	280	40
1912	2,868	2,663	673	205	266	43
1913	2,700	2,502	615	210	271	42
1914	2,536	2,357	580	197	280	46
Source:
1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 118.

You can see that the number of brewers in the smallest category, mostly pub breweries, fell dramatically between 1870 and 1900, falling from over 26,000 to under 5,000. It's easier to see the trends by looking at the percentage decrease by decade:

Change in number of breweries by size 1870 - 1900
decade	<1,000	1,000 - 10,000	10,000 - 20,000	20,000 - 100,000	100,000 - 500,000
1870-1880	36.73%	2.27%	-29.52%	-58.59%	0.00%
1880-1890	40.45%	18.16%	-0.74%	-25.62%	-47.83%
1890-1900	52.34%	37.11%	4.38%	-20.78%	-23.53%
Source:
Derived from figures in 1928 Brewers' Almanack, page 118.

The rate of closure of small breweries did indeed accelerate after 1880. While the number of breweries in the two largest categories increased. There was a clear swing to a smaller number of larger breweries.

What happened to the pubs whose breweries closed? They bought in beer from larger breweries:

"When the small brewer ceased to brew and purchased his beers instead, there arose keen competition among the bigger brewers to secure permanent outlets for their beer and in consequence excessive prices were paid for "free" houses. When these were made "tied" houses and became so numerous, competition increased to such a degree that the tenants found it hard to get a living, and tho owners had great difficulty in obtaimng remunerative rents. Further, now regulations reducing the hours of trading, with additional limitations on Sundays, and the activities of opponents of licensed houses, together with stricter magisterial administration of the licensing laws, brought about a dearth of persons of sufficient capital who desired to become tenants of properties in which the owners had invested large sums of money. As a consequence, what is known as the "managerial system" of conducting the retail trade was evolved, under which the licensed trader receives a wage and carries on the business on behalf of the owner, whereas under the "tenancy system" the licensee pays a rent, agreeing to obtain his supplies from the brewer-owner of the house and, of course, retains the profits of his trading."
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 6, November-December 1936, page 485.

Ultimately, those pub breweries were sucked into the tied estates of larger breweries.

So changing the taxation from malt to wort caused the closure of thousands of small breweries and helped build the tied estates of larger breweries. Not at all what the change in law had intended.



* Disclosure time: I was sent a free copy of this book.

Illicit malting in early 19th-century Ireland

I tripped over this while running down the corridors of the past. Grazed my knee quite painfully.

See if you can guess why it caught my attention:

"Minutes Of Evidence taken before the Commissioners Of Excise Inquiry at Dublin.

Sir HENRY PARNELL, Bart., in the Chair.

Appendix No. 79.

2d December, 1833.
George Pape, Esq., Collector of Excise, Dublin, called in and examined.

What is the state of the case as to the duties on malt; are they well collected ?—Certainly not; illicit malting has been carried on, the last year particularly, in consequence, I dare say, of the extraordinary crop of grain, and the other causes I have referred to, as operating in Ireland to relax the laws to an enormous extent.

Are there dealers in malt for sale ?—No, there are not: it is a trade hardly known in Ireland. The malt goes from the maker to the consumer. There are such persons, in towns like Dublin, as factors, who have malt consigned to them by the makers; but it does not go into little petty shops, such as it is found in England. The person who consumes the malt is the distiller or brewer; it goes from the man who makes a trade of making malt to those persons.

Every brewer is not a maltster, or every distiller ?—They malt to a certain extent, but generally nothing like their own consumption; for their principal demand they rely on purchasing in the market, at least I find it so in Dublin.

What class of traders bring it to market ?—The maltsters; the men who are maltsters, without being either distillers or brewers; and I understand those maltsters are situate in the country—where illicit malting prevails—in Carlow, for instance, and Ardree, both great barley districts, who used to purchase barley of farmers last year, purchased the malt and mixed it with their own, and brought it to market as malt of their own making.

The farmers have turned maltsters ?—Yes; most of them have a kiln attached to their farms for drying their corn in a wet season, and that kiln they use also for drying their malt.

When did this first shew itself ?—It shewed itself to the greatest extent last year; but it has been creeping on ever since the old law was broken down, which subjected malt to seizure in removal, unless accompanied by a permit: the thing has never been in as healthy a state since that law was put an end to; but the lawless state of the country has, in many instances, no doubt, aggravated or led to the evil.

The smuggling is carried on not by the licensed maltster so much as by the persons not entered ?—More generally by persons who are not entered maltsters: there is no check upon the entered maltsters' dry malt now; there was a check by the officers stocking, formerly, under the permit system.

Is the fact that the farmer is making malt himself, known to his servants and family ?— Yes; but in this country they may trust with great confidence to their servants: it rarely happens that they give information.

It may be known in the neighbourhood that the farmer is violating the law, without the danger of his-being informed against?—Yes; I was told by'a very respectable maltster at Drogheda, who made malt for the Dublin market last year, that he must give up the market. I asked why? he said, I have been met by very decent malt, though not so good as I have, at a guinea a barrel; I cannot afford to sell at less than 27s.: I give 15s. for the barley, the duty is 10s. 4.d., and I must have a little profit for myself. He accounted for it in that way. There were two or three maltsters gave up the business also in Dublin collection last year, giving that as the reason, and I believe it was the sole cause.

Is the practice of illicit malting in any way general throughout Ireland ?—It is carried on to the greatest extent in those districts which produce barley.

Have any particular exertions been made by the Board to put it down ?—Yes; there have been seizures made, and there are prosecutions depending; but I may say, as to prosecutions in this country, they do not produce the effect which I have seen result from them, both in Scotland and England: they produce an effect only on the offender himself; they do not operate to deter the man who lives next door, who is going on with his frauds at the very time; if he is not discovered himself, that is all he looks to, and he feels that he has little else to fear.

That is pretty much the character of all other prosecutions in this country, is it not ?—Yes.

The character of the country, in point of fact, with regard to violating the law, and prosecution and punishment, is that which is common to all the laws ?—Yes, so I conceive; and the feeling is that the prosecution only operates upon those who are its immediate object, but does not prevent others, who are at the same time violating the law, from continuing their illicit practices.

The proper remedy against the violation of the Excise laws would be some change being effected in the country that should produce more generally a disposition to submit to the law ?—Yes; and as it regards the malt, I certainly must say that I do not think we shall ever do with any thing short of a document to accompany it, subjecting the farmer, for instance, when bringing his malt to market, or to the maltster who has bought it, to seizure. Formerly, if he was met by the officer, he was asked for the permit; if he had none, his malt was seized, and his cart and horse too; he would never take that risk, I am satisfied: he has nothing to fear now; the officer, though he knows the man is suspected of being an illicit malt-maker, cannot seize it.

You would suggest that there should be a separate state of law for Ireland from that for the other countries?—I think nothing short of that would do. If I had been in Ireland when the law was repealed, and had known as much as I do now, I should have felt it my duty to have made every objection to the repeal; and I believe that is the opinion of all the regular fair maltsters."
"Fifteenth Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Excise Establishment. Malt", 1835, pages 184 - 185.

Ah, those unruly Irish and their disregard for the law. How was a government ever to collect its taxes properly?

It seems that the practice of farmers malting illegally was rampant in 1830's Ireland. Not being registered maltsters, they didn't pay the malt tax. Which, at the time, (along with a tax on hops) was the only tax on beer. Which meant that they could undercut the price of legal maltsters. Do you see where I'm going with this?

It specifically mentions this illicit malt getting into the Dublin market. Where there was a brewery run by a man called Guinness.

Yes, it's that hoary old tale of Guinness cleverly using roast barley to avoid the malt tax. That's where I'm going. Why would Guinness bother with roast barley? If they got caught with it on their premises, they'd be on the receiving end of a big fine. And it could only make up 5 or 10% of the grist. Much safer to buy some of the illicit malt that was flooding the market. That was perfectly legal to have in the brewery. And could be used for the bulk of the grist.

But that isn't going to stop the story doing the rounds of the interwebs. It'll be there until the end of time. At least I've pointed out what bollocks it is.

Scottish beer exports1785 to 1820 - the graph

Numbers. Lovely things. Sometimes pictures work better. What's the picture form of numbers: a graph.

Thanks to Andrew Elliot for creating this graph. It reminded me how statistics can be much clearer in this form.

Remember this racy little table? Here it is in a more understandable form:

Hang on a minute. 1810 to 1813. A time of high malt prices and high taxation. Porter was 3.5d a quart in 1791, 5.5d in 1812 and 6d in 1813. (The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830 Peter Mathias p.546) Mapping the tax, retail price and malt price might be revealing.

Remind me to do that.

What does a brewer do when tax increases? (part one)

It's a tricky question. How do you cope with an increase in beer tax?

Here's one of the more annoying claims I see thrown around: the reason British beer is so weak today is the tax system. That because more tax is paid on stronger beer, over time it has inevitably made brewers reduce strength. This theory ignores the fact pretty well every European country charges more tax on a beer of 8% ABV than one of 5% ABV. Why hasn't the same reduction in strength happened elsewhere?

Looking at British beer gravities over the period 1800 to 1970, it's clear that it's not the method of taxation but tax increases that have prompted falls in strength. Gravities didn't drop in 1880 when the Free Mash Tun Act was introduced. They fell after beer tax was increased to help finance the Boer War.

I was delighted to find an explanation of why brewers cut strength rather than in increasing prices. It's a bit long so I've split it over multiple post. I understand just how short attention spans are in the modern world.

"Broadly speaking, there are three possible—I do not say practicable —methods by which a brewer tan relieve his shoulders of the burden of an increase in the Beer Duty :—

1. By directly charging his customer with the amount of the increase.

2. By providing that the barrel of beer, in the cost of which is included the increased duty, shall not cost him (the brewer) more than it did when it only included the lesser duty.

3. By giving a less quantity of beer for the same money—a consideration in places where the  custom of giving a large amount of over-measure has obtained.

The greater portion of the beer brewed in the United Kingdom is sold by the brewers to persons licensed to sell by retail who distribute it to the public; and it is sufficiently easy for a brewer with a tied trade to charge his tenant with the amount of the extra duty, which by law may be added to existent contract prices : and which duty, by the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ought not to be taken from brewers' profits. But if the brewer charges the retailer 1s. a barrel more for his beer, the retailer in turn must in some way obtain from the public the extra 1s. so charged: otherwise the burden of the tax is merely shifted from the shoulders of the brewer to those of the retailer. When, therefore, the Beer Duty was increased in March last, the question—" How is the retailer to regain from the public the extra Is. ?" became a very pertinent one to many brewers. They felt that in view of the recent preceding " boom" in the values of licensed houses, with all its attendant consequences of increased capital invested therein, of the spirit duty and of the Income Tax, it would be unwise to still further saddle the often struggling retailer with the additional Beer Duty; to, as it were, lay a further burden on an already heavily-burdened property. We are all here on earth to make a living : and if a retail business connected with a brewery does not provide a decent living for the competent retailer, that business is of very little value to the brewer. Considerations such as those above outlined, led many brewers to insist on an answer to the question- -"How can the retailer recoup himself?"  before they would decide to charge the retailer with the extra duty. And many of us are still waiting for an answer. To instance a typical difficulty. The standard retail price of a quart pot of X is 4d. Even if the modern working man would, upon an increase of duty of 1s, a barrel, agree to pay for X more than the customary price, which is doubtful,* it would be impossible to add to the 4d. charged the proportional part of the duty appertaining to a quart. There is no coin of the realm representing the twelfth part of 1d. And when we descend to half-pints the difficulty becomes aggravated. But whatever the difficulties may or may not be in the way of charging the retailer with the extra tax, one thing, in the event of the tax remaining with the retailer, is tolerably clear : that unless brewers unanimously agree to charge retailers with the extra duty, the practical competition which exists amongst retailers in London and other centres of activity will, caeteris paribus, unfailingly result in those retailers who are not the establishments of those retailers who have to pay the extra duty. The licensed trade is frequently spoken of as a monopoly. In some quiet country districts something like monopoly in the licensed trade may obtain, as it frequently does in other trades ; but in London and other large populous districts competition is as keen and as powerful amongst the licensed trade as in almost any other business which could be named.

No doubt in times gone by the prices of beer have been raised in consequence of the cost price of the beer per barrel to the brewer having been seriously raised either by a large increase in the duty or by a heavy rise in the prices of either malt or hops or of both.*

For instance, you will remember the passage in Goldsmith's comedy, The Good-natured Man completed at the beginning of 1767, in which the Bailiff's Follower attributes the increase in the price of beer to 3.5d. a pot, to the "Parley vous."

And Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, in advancing the theory that beer, like tea, is to be classed in Political Economy as a luxury and not as a necessity, writes:—" The rise in the price of porter, occasioned by an additional tax of three shillings upon the barrel of strong beer, has not raised the wages of common labour in London. These were about eighteen pence or twenty pence a day before the tax and they are not more now."

The additional tax of 3s. a barrel on strong beer mentioned by Adam Smith was kept on, and the price of porter—a beer which seems to have held the place of the fourpenny ale of to-day—remained at 30s. a barrel wholesale and 3.5d. a quart retail until 1799, when, as a result of malt jumping up in price to something like 90s. a quarter and hops to £17 a cwt., the price of porter was raised to 36s. a barrel wholesale, and 4d. a quart retail.* In the days of our great struggle with Napoleon I. and the French, the days of heavy war taxation and of impeded importation, and of corn laws and protective duties, it was not an uncommon thing for the cost price of a barrel of beer to show a comparatively sudden increase of over 5s. a barrel, and sometimes one of even 8s. and 10s. a barrel. Of necessity in such case was the brewer compelled to raise his prices to his customer, and of necessity had the retailer in turn to charge his customer more. So sensitive, indeed, became the beer market, that, in London, the standard price of beer was altered at frequent intervals of a few yearsf only, doubtlessly to the unsettlement and to the damage of the Trade. But the matter was evidently one of necessity ; no brewer can afford to disregard a sudden rise in the cost price of his beer of from 5s. to 10s. a barrel. Subsequently the prices of beer fell again to a more ordinary level, and by the time of the Crimea we find porter selling in London for 33s. a barrel. In 1847 barley jumped up some 12s. a quarter, and an attempt was made to increase the price of beer, but the attempt was a failure. In 1854, until 1856, the Malt Duty was raised from 2s. 7d. + 5 per cent., to 4s. a bushel; or, taking 4 barrels to the quarter, from say 5s. 6d. a barrel to 8s. a barrel, an increase of 2s. 6d. a barrel. As a consequence of this, efforts were made by brewers to increase the prices of their beers, I believe in most districts without much lasting success. The disagreement or the defection of one or two competing brewers in a district with regard to the raising of the price, quickly reduced prices to their former level; and I am told that in many cases even where the amount of the increase in the taxation was charged separately as a war tax and insisted upon, the customers agreed to owe it, and still owe it to this day.

Nevertheless, a sudden increase in duty equivalent to 2s. 6d. a barrel is one which to many minds would warrant an increase in the price of beer. Some of the London brewers appear to have raised the price in May, 1854, and to have maintained the increase until July, 1856—practically the term of the increase in the Malt Duty ; and no doubt here and there other brewers charged their customers with and obtained an extra 2s. or 3s. a barrel. But, on the whole, judging from the experiences of 1847 and of 1854, it would seem that even then to generally and effectively raise the price of beer to the public was no easy matter; and with the present "Free Mash Tun," the comparative cheapness and facility of carriage, and the increased keenness of competition, it will be found exceedingly difficult to raise the price of beer to the general public unless it be a case of absolute and acknowledged necessity, or unless a firm be exceptionally situated; and in any event such a course must, according to rule, diminish the consumption of the article as a direct result of the increase in price.

* It is reported that the publicans of Thorne having intimated that they intended to increase the price of their beer from 2.5d. to 3d. a pint, the consumers engaged the local bell.man to cry round the town the following notice:—" We, the beer-drinkers of Thorne, object to the proposed increase in the price of beer, and hereby give notice that we shall not pay more than the present price, which is 2.5d. a pint."   Brewers' Journal, April, 1900."
"The Journal of the Institute of Brewing, vol.7", 1901, pages 53 - 57

Simple really, isn't it? Retailers couldn't pass on the increase to customers, because of limitations in the currency itself. How do you pass on an increase of 1/24th of a penny per pint when the smallest coin is a farthing (a quarter of a penny)?

Truman's Ales (part 3): 1860 - 1861

This is fun, isn't it? Going through Truman's Ales decade by decade. Who needs TV, when you've got entertainment like this?


What's fun about these numbers? Well,you can see that the gravities have dropped. X Ale was 1078 in 1850, but just 1067 in 1860. 40/- Ale fell from 1084 to 1077, XXX from 1106 to 1087. That's quite a sharp decrease. Exactly why and when, I don't know.

What are the usual culprits for gravity drops? War and taxation. Or rising costs.

For once, tax seems to have played no part. The malt tax (there was no tax on beer per se between 1830 and 1880) was steady at 2s 7d a bushel. To give you some idea what that meant, brewing a 36 gallon barrel of Porter of 1056º required two bushels of malt. So about five bob tax per barrel. Whereas before 1830 the excise duty on a barrel of Porter was ten shillings.

The price of malt could be the key. You know me. I have numbers coming out of my ears. Not for the price of bloody malt, though. I need to get myself an older Brewers' Almanack. I only have these figures:

1820 58s per quarter (approx. 336 pounds)
1857 42s
1860 36s

Doesn't look like malt was getting more expensive.

War? There was the Crimean in the 1850's. But no tax increase.

I'm a bit stumped. There's only one last thing I can think of. That the price breweries charged for a barrel of beer fell. Haven't got time to check up on that now. I've already missed my tea and the Simpson's has just started.

More on malt 1815-1850

I really am beginning to get swamped by material on the early 19th century. Just found some more fascinating stuff about malt.

The British state depended heavily on the tax on malt. It was responsible for around 10% of all tax income. No wonder it was so closely regulated.


Malt
Malting was a highly regulated activity. The reason was simple: a duty on malt was the principal method of taxing beer. Even more so when the excise duty on beer was abolished in 1830. Government legislation dictated how maltsters had to operate. The penalties for failing to adhere to the regulations were severe: fines of £100, £200 or even £600 and confiscation of the malt. Most of the offences were concerned with artificially reducing the volume of grain at the points when it was measured by excise officers, duty being set per quarter, a measurement of volume. (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, page 10-14.)

The malt tax was not collected as efficiently in all parts of the UK. Less than 50% of the duty was collected in Wales and Ireland. (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, page 40.) In Ireland, great quantities of unmalted grain: "many Irish Brewers are at present using raw barley, mixed with Malt, and this, not in a small way, but to the extent of one-half; some even more: and from their mode of preparing barley, they obtain an extract within 7s. per quarter of that manufactured from entire Malt." (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, page 40.)

A significant proportion of total tax income, around 10%, was derived from the tax on malt.


The roasting of malt was regulated by its own Act of Parliament. Roasting had to take place at least a mile from the malt-house. This led to the trade of Malt Roaster nad to a concentration of the trade in the hands of a few specialists, mostly located in London. (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, page 69.) Properly malted barley gave more colour than unmalted barley, but not as much as partially malted barley. That, along with the duty saved by steeping for as short a period as possible (the volume of the malt was measured for excise purposes at the end of steeping) meant barley for making black malt was rarely properly malted. (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, page 69.)

"The word malt is greatly libelled in these Roasting house; it being little better than roasted barley. The corn is only steeped for forty hours, being the shortest time the law allows, consequently pays at least 2s. 6d. per quarter less than the produce of malt, and is usually thrown upon the kiln from three to four days after being emptied from the cistern." (Source: "An Historical Account of the Malt Trade and Laws" by William Ford, London, 1849, pages 68-69.)