Father's Day

Cottage brewing

I've come across a couple of bits of information recently about domestic and pub brewing. Funny how that happens.

I've already posted about the uneven distribution of pub breweries in the 19th century. How it had all but disappeared in the Southeast, but was still strong in parts of the Midlands and the North. The peiece below is about cottage brewing. Or the working classes brewing for themselves at home. What immediately struck me was how the area singled out as a hotbed of cottage brewing was also a stronghold of pub brewing. Fascinating, eh?

This is taken from a debate in the House of Commons in 1874 about the abolition of the malt tax. It was a big deal because the malt tax was the source of around a third of the government's tax income. Of course, the tax was abolished six years by the Free Mash Tun Act. Not that beer then became untaxed, just that the tax was moved onto the product itself rather than the raw materials required to make it.

"He should doubtless be met by the remark that the only effect of reducing the malt tax would be to increase the quantity of beer drunk in the country, and that at the present time more beer was drunk than was good for the people. His answer to that statement was that it was not the amount of pure beer drunk that injured the people, but the quantity of adulterated poison sold under the name of beer, which was the cause of the misery and wretchedness they all so much deplored. He was anxious to restore the practice of cottage brewing, which, in consequence of the high price of malt, had fallen into disuse in most agricultural districts, although it still existed to a great extent in the suburbs of manufacturing towns like Halifax, Leeds, Huddersfield and Todmorden. In 1865 he sent a reliable person round to collect information as to the extent of cottage brewing in that part of the country, and the information he obtained was most interesting. He had it put: into a concise form and would read the result:—

TOWNSHIP.	PARISH.	Total Families.	Brew at Home.	Would brew, but can't afford.	Buy Beer.	Do not drink Beer.
Elland	Halifax	1419	1237	51	73	58
Hipper-holme-cum-Brighouse	Ditto	1737	1301	141	157	138
Quarmby-Cum-Linley	Huddersfield	987	784	84	71	48
Idle	Calverly	2231	1643	220	106	262
Lansfield	Halifax	876	610	46	48	172
Middle Third of Stansfield	Ditto	798	591	54	49	104
Todmorden and Walsden	Rochdale	1774	1293	139	93	249
		9822	7459	735	597	1031

§ Given in another form it might be stated as follows:—76 per cent of the inhabitants of these townships brewed at home; 8 per cent would brew, but could not afford to do so; 6 per cent bought beer; 10 per cent did not drink beer. The habit of cottage brewing prevailed at one time to a vast extent all over England, and it was ill consequence of the increased price of malt, owing to the malt tax, that it had fallen into disuse. Cobbett told them in the Political Register, vol. 87, p. 720, that—

"Mr. Ellman stated to a Committee of the House of Commons in 1821, that 15 years before that, when he became a farmer, every labourer in his parish of Glynde where he lived, brewed his own beer, and drank it by his own fireside, forty-five years back from 1821 takes us to 1776. At that time there was no tax on malt if made by persons for their own consumption. In the year 1783 this permission ceased."

In the districts where the practice of cottage brewing was in force, the husband and sons of the woman who brewed the beer were among the most sober and respectable of the population, remaining at home in the evening with their families instead of going to the public-house. Where cottage brewing had disappeared, men were forced into public-houses, and were there led into temptations which attendance at such places gave rise to. Beer was increased in price about 100 per cent by this tax, and this increase in the price was a great inducement to adulterate it. China clay was first used in the cotton manufactures because of the high price of the raw material, owing to the American War, and so adulteration in beer was encouraged by the high price of malt. The high price of beer undoubtedly encouraged the drinking of spirits—a fearful source of evil. The man who got his glass of beer at home was not the man who would get drunk on spirits—or what were called spirits—sold at public-houses. Therefore it was in the interests of temperance and of the public health that he sought for the reduction of this tax, which would enable cottagers to brew a pure and unadulterated drink. He had been looked upon almost as a visionary for supposing that the country would ever go back to cottage brewing.

The Times had done him the honour of ridiculing him in a leading article for some remarks that had fallen from him relative to cottage brewing when he introduced a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day in reference to this question. That article was doubtless written by a man who had lived in London all his life, and who knew nothing about the habits of labouring people in the country. The correspondent of that journal, who was engaged in collecting facts in connection with the lock-out of agricultural labourers, alluded in more than one of his letters to the fact that malt was given out in harvest time to the farm labourers, which they brewed themselves. Therefore the statement in The Times article was contradicted by The Times correspondent. Evidence was given before the Malt Tax Committee in 1868 to show that the farm labourers preferred beer to tea, and that they could work better on the former than on the latter beverage. A labourer from Playford, of the name of Elias Amos, gave the following evidence—

"(Q. 4768.) "You think the people would prefer beer to tea?—I do."
"(Q. 4769.) "Could they work better upon the beer?—Yes."
"(Q. 4770.) "Is there no other reason why you think they would drink beer instead of tea? Would it not cost more to have a fire, night and morning, to make your tea?—Beer does you more good than tea."
"(Q. 4799.) "I make good beer when I brew it for the harvest. I brew 2 bushels instead of 1½ bushels, and make the same quantity of beer in harvest. I want better beer when I work hard."

If our labourers did not drink beer, what were they to drink? He should be told tea. Our physicians were arriving at a very different opinion with respect to the wholesomeness of tea from what was entertained a few years ago and they found that it was impossible for a man to undergo laborious exercise as well upon tea as upon beer. Thus Dr. Smith, the physician appointed by the Privy Council to inquire into the dietary of the poor, had reported that the continuous use of either tea or coffee was calculated to have an injurious action upon the brain. These were his words—

"The action of both tea and coffee, but particularly the former, upon the brain is well known. The importance of this action is not So well appreciated as it ought to be; but I am fully persuaded that it has a most injurious influence upon health and even upon sanity. Tea is hurtful in the absence of food after a long fast (as at breakfast), to the poor and ill-fed. It is not adapted to sustain exertion."
—practical Dietaries, by Edward Smith, M.D., one of the Physicians employed by the Privy Council to inquire into the Dietary of the Poor; and dedicated, by permission, to Mrs. Gladstone.""

MALT TAX.—RESOLUTION, HC Deb 23 April 1874 vol 218 cc1021-41,
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1874/apr/23/malt-tax-resolution

That's an impressive percentage of the locals who brewed their own beer in those bits of West Yorkshire - about three quarters. What town could match that today?

The tea or beer debate raged for quite a while in the 19th century. There were many who maintained it was a poor, non-nutritious drink unsuitable for those performing hard pohysical labour. it's funny, given the place tea later acquired in British culture, to see the vehemence of the opposition to its spread.

Drink keg

Go on. You know we want you to.

Just last week, at a secret blogger coven, we worked out our ten year plan for keg domination.

Go on. Join the Red Revolution. While you still have the choice.

The 1930's pub

Yes, we're back in Bolton again. This time looking at the physical nature of the pub.

I'll be honest. I've never analysed pub architecture this way. Perhaps that's because the distinction between a fully-licensed pub and a beerhouse had become pretty irrelevant by the time I frequented pubs. As we saw the other day, by the 1970's there were only a couple of hundred beerhouses left. I can only remember drinking in one: The Roscoe in Leeds. I may well have drunk in others, but, only drinking beer at the time, I probably wouldn't have noticed.

The two types of pub gradually converged during the 20th century, as beerhouses were either closed or improved and given full licenses. WHich probably explains why the authors failed to find universal distinctions in the physical nature of the two types.

"A pub is a house. Certain exterior characteristics differentiate it from other houses. All pubs have displayed outside, painted on the wall or on a wooden sign, the name of the brewers to whom they belong. Most, but not all, also have the name of the pub itself similarly displayed. Many have on the windows either painted or engraved the name of the room within or the brewer's name. And many have fixed on either side of the main entrance rectangular tablets with the brewer's name on them. There is no specific pub architectural style. Though false pilasters, porticoes and other stucco neo-classical trimmings are common, many pubs do not have these, and are simply ordinary houses.

The following table is the result of an analysis of the frontages of 12 pubs, 6 of them beerhouses (A) and 3 each of large (B) and small (C) full licences:

Characteristic	A	B	C	Total
Sign with pub name	5	3	3	11
"       "     brewer's name	6	3	3	12
"       "     both	5	3	3	11
Tablets on door	2	1	2	5
Name of room on windows	6	1	1	8
Name of brewer on windows	-	-	1	1

Pub signs have never been universal in Worktown; tendency to general decline was recently counteracted by a special exhibition in London, signs by R.A.'s and speech by the Chairman of Whitbread's Ltd., who said:

"Expression in art must be within reach of the ordinary fellow. If this is so it will meet with an enthusiastic and ready response. Art for art's sake is a noble ideal but it must not be allowed to develop into a selfish thing which does not touch the hearts and emotions of the ordinary fellow"—(News Chronicle 7.4.38).

In Worktown the pub facade offers no art-appeal. The only feature common to all is the brewer's name. Tablets on the door generally denote a higher class of pub, and name of rooms on windows a beerhouse. More than half the Worktown pubs are beerhouses ; there are 19 beerhouses licensed to sell wines; and the rest are fully licensed. This may seem to correspond to the Inn-Tavern-Beerhouse trinity. In fact it does not. Though 35 of the pubs are called Inns, and 63 hotels, only 6 are listed in the directory as providing accommodation. A tour of 19 pubs, of all kinds, asking for accommodation, proved fruitless. The ancient function of the Inn as a place for people to stay at has died away. The ordinary Worktown pub, whatever its title, is not an Inn or Hotel.

All large pubs (i.e. with 5 or more rooms and/or seating accommodation of 150 or more) are full licences; but all full licences are not large pubs, and as far as size, architecture, and general appearance, some small full licences are indistinguishable from beerhouses. The beerhouse licensed to sell wines has a separate legal status, but this status is not reflected in any differentiation in the pub itself (beyond, of course, the fact that you can buy a glass of wine in it)."
"The Pub and the People" by Mass Observation, 1943 (reprinted 1987), pages 86 - 87.

The names of rooms on the windows signifies a beerhouse? That's an interesting claim. It was pretty common in the pubs I drank in during the 1970's. Common in all types of pubs, backstreet locals and gin palaces. Maybe Bolton was different.

Now there's a funny thing. All 12 pubs had the name of the brewer on a sign. But only 11 had the name of the pub. Shows where the priority lay: in identifying the brewer, not the name of the pub. I can remember coming across the opposite in Salford in the 1980's. I cam across a pub with no brewery name on the outside and no pump clips. I had to lean over the bar and peer at the bottles beer to work out that it was a Holt's pub.

One last quote before I finish:

"The licensing laws of 1869, already referred to, besides restricting the number of pubs, presumably resulted in their gradual improvement, since the consumption of drink went on increasing, which meant that a smaller number of landlords were doing better business.

From this date onwards all types of pubs were "institutionalized". Our knowledge of what the inside of pubs were like at this time must be gathered from contemporary fiction. Dickens' descriptions in Barnaby Rudge and other works give us a picture that is not very different in essentials from most present-day pubs. The greatest change must have been brought about by the introduction of the beer engine (on which historical data is obscure), which, besides tending to lower the quality of the beer, made it possible for the landlord to keep his barrels all in the cellar, away from the bar, and so serve a larger number of drinkers from a smaller space and with a smaller staff. "The Pub and the People" by Mass Observation, 1943 (reprinted 1987), pages 85 - 86."

I'm trying to work out why beer engines would have caused beer quality to get worse. Surely keeping the beer in a cool cellar rather than behind the bar would have had the opposite effect?

I've more, yes it's true, more about 1930's Bolton pubs to come.

Publican brewers

In a recent post about Scottish Twopenny, I mentioned that publican brewers had disappeared much earlier in Scotland than in England. I knew there must be figures somewhere. Today I found them.

Brewers, Vuctuallers, etc 10th October 1848 to 10th October 1849 totals collected
	number of persons				Number of persons who brew their own beer
			licensed to sell beer			licensed to sell beer
Collections	Brewers	Victuallers	To be drunk on the premises	Not to be drunk on the premises	Victuallers	To be drunk on the premises	Not to be drunk on the premises	Bushels of malt consumed by the whole
England	2,257	59,335	34,800	3,270	25,985	12,201	972	27,676,714
Scotland	154	15,081			181			871,586
Ireland	96	14,080						1,204,875
total	2,507	88,496	34,800	3,270	26,166	12,201	972	29,753,175
Source:
"Statistics of British commerce" by Braithwaite Poole, 1852, page 5.

Column 6 gives publican brewers. 25,985 in England and Wales, 181 in Scotland, none in Ireland. Pretty conclusive evidence. But it gets even better than that. Because the figures are broken down even further. The picture they paint is even more captivating.

Brewers, Vuctuallers, etc 10th October 1848 to 10th October 1849, England
	number of persons				Number of persons who brew their own beer
			licensed to sell beer			licensed to sell beer
Collections	Brewers	Victuallers	To be drunk on the premises	Not to be drunk on the premises	Victuallers	To be drunk on the premises	Not to be drunk on the premises	Bushels of malt consumed by the whole
Barnstaple	9	595	236	24	547	182	8	158,281
Bath	43	722	451	139	415	151	29	679,127
Bedford	54	1101	778	78	153	54	10	399,513
Bristol	25	666	872	77	453	207	10	461,372
Cambridge	86	1264	978	132	151	105	33	624,064
Canterbury	53	882	345	55	11	22	5	310,169
Chester	43	1037	358	14	592	187	1	221,332
Cornwall	11	747	277	21	505	128	3	154,368
Coventry	23	1497	519	65	1334	398	31	542,648
Cumberland	24	1352	235	29	128	27	25	195,148
Derby	20	1166	516	31	1139	454	12	564,541
Dorset	53	511	477	125	213	76	35	259,871
Durham	91	2068	304	38	404	34		247,514
Essex	50	738	459	147	158	108	63	286,576
Exeter	25	737	203	23	529	63	3	240,101
Gloucester	28	774	701	82	555	420	34	345,719
Grantham	55	1104	656	57	603	186	16	385,106
Halifax	57	1334	1258	42	914	872	37	488,975
Hants	63	725	700	126	98	168	41	433,576
Hereford	4	756	294	11	701	265	6	113,781
Hartford	47	1020	840	53	40	32	16	554,992
Hull	74	1114	227	36	154	10	1	208,463
Isle of Wight	61	769	637	96	103	157	37	463,658
Lancaster	29	1109	865	21	760	286	1	507,852
Leeds	25	1015	848	52	900	570	39	615,724
Lichfield	11	1030	1008	35	1001	849	16	305,345
Lincoln	49	915	367	60	604	110	13	306,665
Liverpool	77	1551	1205	22	19	14	1	763,123
London	79	4223	2054	65	1	50	8	6,289,908
Lynn	70	1156	866	80	102	70	15	640,092
Manchester	96	1706	3102	157	971	1074	54	979,907
Newcastle	84	1949	280	29	145	5	3	404,183
Northampton	24	1038	381	122	761	175	37	325,441
Northwich	30	1197	706	16	668	149	1	392,040
Norwich	49	1441	329	76	87	33	22	372,053
Oxford	29	891	393	99	421	121	33	337,695
Plymouth	40	948	476	56	431	42	6	345,250
Reading	41	888	760	115	51	54	21	496,466
Rochester	77	1191	849	74	14	20	6	443,088
Salisbury	28	577	264	101	351	117	44	297,956
Salop	3	600	376	15	569	331	4	266,350
Sheffield	32	1428	584	84	726	152	10	492,019
Stafford	30	772	782	6	733	592	1	638,268
Stourbridge	7	1383	1460	62	1328	1385	34	799,499
Suffolk	52	728	409	111	259	170	66	328,776
Surrey	83	1108	977	91	7	48	21	846,841
Sussex	71	829	693	90	66	80	29	465,762
Wales, East	40	1781	1523	19	1537	882	1	375,006
Wales, Middle	1	724	104	1	657	94		91,150
Wales, North	30	1139	162	7	627	23		151,606
Wales, South	8	1293	45	4	1296	26		112,835
Worcester	5	531	366	53	501	309	23	205,813
York	58	1515	245	46	492	64	7	241,106
total	2,257	59,335	34,800	3,270	25,985	12,201	972	27,176,714
total (given in source)	2,257	59,335	34,800	3,270	25,985	12,201	972	27,676,714
Source:
"Statistics of British commerce" by Braithwaite Poole, 1852, page 4.

Look at the column for brewing victuallers. The areas with large numbers - over 900 - are all in the Midlands, the North and Wales: Coventry, Derby, Halifax, Lichfield, Manchester, Stourbridge, Leeds, Wales East, Wales South. The Areaes with the fewest - fewer than 100 - are all, except for Liverpool, in the Southeast: Canterbury, Hants, Hartford, Liverpool, Norwich, Reading, Surrey, London, Rochester, Sussex.

Most significant is the area with by far the fewest publican brewers: London with just 1. Brewing was already completely in the hands of commercial brewers and pub brewing as good as extinct.

The pattern is much more complex, with enormous regional variations, than I would have imagined. But I can state this with some confidence: in some regions of Britain pub breweries disappeared in the first half of the 19th century.