Harry Roberts

“Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.”

“It illuminateth the face, warmeth the blood, and maketh it course from the inwards to the parts extreme.”

“A quart of ale is a dish for a king.”

“Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; ’tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen years old the fifth day of next March, old style.”

ONE of the finest pamphlets ever issued in this country is William Cobbett’s “Cottage Economy.” Even now it affords good stimulating reading, and might still serve as a wise protest against the pietistic and other cant of the times. The object of the little book was first to emphasize the sound doctrines that no nation ever was or ever will be permanently great if it consists to any large extent of wretched and miserable families; that a family to be happy must usually be well supplied with food and raiment; and that it is to blaspheme God to suppose that He created men to be miserable, to hunger, to thirst, and to perish with cold in the midst of that abundance which is the fruit of their own labour. The second object of the book was to convey to the families of the labouring classes in particular such information as to the preparation of food, the selection of clothes and furniture, and the general management of homes as his wisdom and sound judgment dictated. All through the book runs a steady stream of common sense far removed from the slushy cant so prevalent in works of the kind. “A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. They are great softeners of the temper and promoters of domestic harmony.” “Oak tables, bedsteads, and stools, chairs of oak or of yew-tree, and never a bit of miserable deal board. Things of this sort ought to last several lifetimes. A labourer ought to inherit from his great-grandfather something besides his toil.” “Nowadays the labourers, and especially the female part of them, have fallen into the taste of niceness in food and finery in dress; a quarter of a bellyful and rags are the consequence. The food of their choice is high-priced, and the dress of their choice is showy and flimsy, so that to-day they are ladies, and to-morrow ragged as sheep with the scab.” A healthy attitude towards the plain and the wholesome and the genuine marks the whole book. Among other things ardently desired by Cobbett was the extension of the practice of the home brewing of honest beer, and he denounced the growing habit of tea-drinking with a vigour that time and results have shown was not misplaced. He looked upon tea-drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and a maker of misery for old age. And he could scarce find adequate vent for his impatience of what he rightly considered the everlasting dawdling about with the slops of the tea-tackle, or for his pity for the labourer who, instead of cheerfully and vigorously doing a morning’s work on the strength of a breakfast of bread, bacon, and beer, has to force his tea-sodden limbs along under the sweat of feebleness, and at night to return to the wretched tea-kettle once more. How different, says Cobbett, is the fate of that man who has made his wife brew beer instead of making tea!

It has been said and often quoted that there is good beer, and better beer, but no bad beer. The present writer’s experience is that there is beer so bad that few drinks can rival it for disagreeableness in taste and effects; stuff which should never be called by the same name as that transparent, brown or amber, vinous fluid, “bright as a sunbeam,” free from acidity, flatness and insipidity, which alone is worthy the name of beer.

To make good beer requires good materials, care, cleanliness, and method. Given those, failure should be impossible. The water should be good, soft water being usually to be preferred; the malt fresh and full of flour; the hops bright, yellowish-green in colour, with a pleasant brisk fragrance, and free from leaves and bits of stem; and the various tubs, boilers, and other appliances scrupulously clean. The several temperatures should be taken with a proper thermometer, and not guessed, as that way many disasters lie.

Spring and autumn are the seasons most suited for brewing, as at other times it is difficult to keep the temperature within the proper limits. Four bushels of ground or bruised malt are placed in a wooden “mash tun,” and twenty-two gallons of water at a temperature of 170° F. are added thereto. This is well stirred for half an hour, and then another eighteen gallons of water at 170° F. are added, and the stirring is continued for half an hour longer. Cover the mash tun for a couple of hours, and then draw off the infusion or wort through a hole in the bottom, protected by a strainer, so that the malt itself remains behind in the mash tun. Next add to the malt thirty gallons of water at 185° F. Stir for half an hour, let it stand for an hour, and then draw off as before. Next add eighteen gallons of water at 200° F. to the malt, stir for ten minutes, and draw off half an hour later. The three washings may be all mixed together if a good ale of average strength is desired, or the third washing may be separately treated so as to make a light table ale, or they may be all three separately treated so as to form three ales varying from very strong to very light, the former having considerable keeping quality. In any case, it is imperative that the minimum of time be lost in transferring the wort to the copper. It should be boiled for an hour and a half, and the hops (varying from one pound in the case of a mild table ale to six or seven pounds in the case of very bitter ales, three pounds being a good average amount) added, the boiling being continued for half an hour longer. The wort is then passed through a strainer into large, shallow tubs to cool, the depth of liquid not exceeding four inches. It is next poured into fermenting tuns (casks with one head removed do nicely), which must not be more than half-filled. The yeast (at the rate of a pint to the barrel of thirty-six gallons of wort) is to be mixed with a little of the wort which has been heated to 85° F. As soon as this portion shows signs of general permeation by the process of fermentation it is to be added to the main body of wort, which is to be at a temperature of 60° F. Stir it well, and then allow it to stand. As soon as a yeasty appearance is noticed in the head which rises to the surface, skim it off every two days until no more yeast appears—usually a week or more from the start. Then draw off the clear ale into casks, filling them completely, bung them securely, and place them in a cool cellar. It may then be kept for from one to twelve months, or longer, according to its quality and strength. Ale or beer should be tapped a week before it is required to draw any from the cask in order that it may have time to settle.

Finally, the ale-wife may be referred to the appeal of Dr. King—