Pub History: 'A Bottle of Porter on Draught'...?

In April of 1902 a curious case was heard at the Limerick Petty Sessions where a publican named Patrick Fennessy came before Mr. Hickson, a local magistrate. The publican had been summoned by a Sergeant Kennedy, who was an Inspector of Weights and Measures, for selling 'two bottles of draught porter.' The magistrate Mr. Hickson appeared a little confused as to what the legal issue was, and what was meant by 'bottles of draught porter' - his thinking presumably being that you could have bottled or draught porter but it could not be both..

A Head Constable called McAree was also in attendance and he went on to explain that publicans had previously used a draught beer measure called a 'Medium'  - which was smaller than a pint and cheaper more importantly - and as these were illegal, as they were not a verified and accepted volume, the publicans had been fined for using and selling them. But now the publicans were just using the same glasses 'and they called the porter supplied in them "bottles of porter on draught."'

Mr. Hickson was still understandably confused by this (as are we at this point) so he asked if he was to get a bottle of porter and pour it into a measure and said bottle contained more than a pint but less than a quart what would be the legality, to which the Sergeant replied that this would be a legal sale, but that in the case before the magistrate the porter was drawn from a cask into a 'medium' glass but this was just called 'a bottle of porter on draught' - presumably by the customer to differentiate it from any other porter pour or 'real' bottle. The defendant Mr. Fennessy claimed he was just giving the customer the volume he would have had from a bottle (this may indeed have been less than a pint - see my article in bottle sizes referenced below) but the magistrate naturally ruled against him - ignorance of the law being no excuse - and told him to forfeit the illegal measures and pay the costs in the case.

I have covered some of this before in articles such as the one on the Meejum (Medium) measure - and there are grey areas as far as the legalities are concerned for those selling beer, or so some claimed at least. It appears that the publican was referencing the reputed pint or another size bottle that was less than a pint (I have written on here previously about bottle sizes) so he may have genuinely thought he was doing no wrong with his medium measure of porter, and it meant he could sell that size for a certain cost to keep some of his poorer customers lubricated - little like Dublin's 'Loop-Liner' too perhaps - but as with much of this reported history we might take this whole piece with a grain of salt, as at times reports like these are not entirely accurate.

Either way it appears on paper at least that in the early 20th century Limerick drinkers were asking for 'A Bottle of Porter on Draught' in order to receive a medium measure!

We really did have odd drinking terminology in this country ...

Liam K

The Weekly Irish Times - Saturday 5th of April 1902

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