100 Years of Irish Brewing in 50 Objects: #19 - Arnott’s Prize Medal Porter Ghost Sign c.1890

“This stout is of full Alcoholic Strength, and possesses great body, as shown by the proportions of Malt Extract present. It is quite free from any impurities, such as Foreign Bitters, and is in very good condition. I am of opinion that it is of excellent Quality and highly Nutritive, and one of the best Stouts on the Market.”

Mr B A Burrell, F.I.C., F.C.S., late Public Analyst for Cork – Cork Daily Herald, May 1893

As you walk along Farren’s Quay in Cork, heading west towards North Mall it is usually necessary to stop at the busy junction where Shandon Street flows on to North Gate Bridge as it crosses the river Lee. While you wait patiently at the crossing for that little green person to appear, it’s difficult to miss the ghost of a sign - or in fact a ghost-upon-a-ghost of a sign - on a handsome brick building across the road. The words ‘Arnott’s Prize Medal Porter’ are still clearly legible in faded white paint on the first floor of number 64, framed in a plain cartouche and sitting nicely between two windows. This large object – and it can still be called an object, regardless of its size, make up and position – is the wraith like remains of an advertisement for a long-gone Irish beer and a pointer to what once was a brewery-tied public house, something that Cork – unique for Ireland – was famous for. Breweries and pubs in other cities did have similar arrangements, both official and unofficial, but not quite so many or with so obvious a tie. Being a tied-house meant that the public house was obliged to purchase beer from their tied-to breweries due to various factors such as the brewery owning the property, the license, or for services rendered or payments made, and it was of course a much more common practice in England.

-o-

Sir John Arnott, an M.P. and then Mayor of Cork purchased an old, existing brewery near St Fin Barre’s cathedral in Cork at the end of 1861 and by the following year was brewing both porters and ales. Arnott’s – or St. Fin Barre’s – brewery was in direct competition for the porter, and to some extent the ale, trade with Beamish & Crawford, Murphy’s and Lanes brewery who were all based in the city. As well as supplying their beer locally they were exporting to England, Scotland and Wales plus more exotic climes such as the Mediterranean and Barbados.. By the early 1880s Arnott’s were also operating a separate ale brewery in Riverstown just outside Cork city, and in 1882 at the Exhibition of Irish Arts and Manufactures held in Dublin the company was awarded medals for both its Porter and its ales. They entered their beers in The Cork Exhibition the following year and won medals for its pale ale but seemingly not for their mild ale, nor its porter - so it is probable that the prize that they were advertising in this painted sign was the one awarded in 1882 although it could relate to an even later award. (Incidentally, one judge criticised their pale ale at the Cork exhibition for being made with water that was over ‘Burtonised’ with mineral additions!) The company was wound up in 1901, just a few years after its founder died, and was purchased by one of its two main rivals, Murphy’s brewery, who bought both the porter and the ale brewery as well as the tied-houses. Murphy's promptly closed down the brewing side of the enterprise, and presumably started selling their own beers in the numerous Arnott tied houses that dotted the city. Curiously and perhaps sadly, when most people hear of Arnotts these days they would think of the department stores bearing that name, which were also part of sir John’s business empire, but for a not too short period at the end of the 19th century it was a relatively large concern, it was even visited and written about briefly by Alfred Barnard, who included and described it in one of his volumes on The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, although not in the most exciting terms.

Below we can see a plan of the brewery as it was in 1897, roughly around the same time that the sign was painted on the wall of the public house and when Barnard visited. It shows its three porter stores and the general layout of the brewery in good detail, including a sugar tank which probably shows that they were using some sugar at least - which many Irish breweries did apart from some very notable exceptions - at this time in their brewing.

The sign on the then public house appears to have been painted sometime between 1882 and 1901, given the award date and the closing of the brewery, with the original fainter wording underneath possibly dating from closer to the earlier year and second closer to the latter date. During much of this period the public house at 64 Shandon Street was being licenced by a succession of women. Catherine Healy appears to have taken it over, possibly from a Thomas Healy, in 1889. A Norah O’Connell was running the business in 1896 when she changed the licence into her married name – Buckley. Julia O’Connell was named as the licensee in 1898 and then later than our period in 1908 it was being ran by an Ellen O’Connell. During the time up to 1901 it was tied to and therefore was supposed to sell only the beers supplied by Arnott’s brewery, but even after the breweries were closed by Murphy’s in 1901 the ghostly sign remained, getting slowly fainter over the decades but a nice reminder of Ireland’s brewing history for all to see.

-o-

But here’s an interestingly footnote. Arnott’s Prize Winning Porter returned briefly in 1997, as according to a snippet in a newspaper column from that year it was rebrewed in some form at least by Murphy’s for the release of the Ó Drisceoil’s book - The Murphy’s Story, which was published in that year. It appears to have been keg only and there were branded glasses issued bearing the name of the porter as well as that of the original brewery. Some of these glasses, and the occasional pump clip, are still to be spotted in pubs around the city of Cork if you know where to look …

Liam K

(The image of the brewery layout above is from the Goad fire insurance map from 1897, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The photograph is the authors own and the image cannot be used elsewhere without the author's permission. Newspaper research was thanks to The British Newspaper Archive. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

100 Years of Irish Brewing in 50 Objects: #9 - At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (1939)

When things go wrong and will not come right,

Though you do the best you can,

When life looks black as the hour of night –

A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

Excerpt, ‘The Workman’s Friend’ from At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan)

There seems to be a tenuous - or at times blatant - connection between certain generations of Ireland's most well-known writers and our beer and general drinking history. Be it Joyce, Behan, Beckett or in this case Flann O’Brien, there is always something mentioned or alluded to in the text that directly or indirectly links back to a past of public houses, or lost beer brands, or a long-forgotten part of our drinking culture. At Swim-Two-Birds is certainly an interesting book, and although it might not be classed as overly challenging compared to other novels such as Joyce’s Ulysses, it is by no means an easy or simple text for most readers to get their heads and hearts around given the writing style, storyline and movements of the characters. But that tradition - for want of a better word - of drink being an almost integral part of Irish literature is there from the start in O'Brien's book, as there is a mention in the opening pages to a mirror bearing the names of ‘Messrs. Watkins, Jameson and Pim’ and their ‘proprietary brand of beer’ (presumably O’Connell’s Ale) which the book’s narrator uses as a shaving mirror in his bedroom.

But of course, this book is best known for its reference to that ‘Pint of Plain’ from the opening quotation.

-o-

Brian O’Nolan, or Flann O’Brien or Myles na gCopaleen or George Knowall to give him just a few of his semi-official names, was born in Strabane in 1911, one of twelve children. He lived most of his life in Dublin working at various jobs while writing books, newspaper columns and other works. He certainly had a quite difficult live but his biography is not the focus of this piece, but rather it is his first novel At Swim-Two-Birds and in particular a piece of poetry - or 'pome' - written by a fictional poet* called Jem Casey and titled ‘The Workman’s Friend.’ The verses are recited in a public house by Paul Shanahan, one of the main characters in the book and is an ode to the comfort and healing qualities of a ‘Pint of Plain.’ The book itself, although well received by his peers, wasn’t a bestseller on publication, and indeed it wasn’t really until it was republished in the 1960s that it would be seen as a classic piece of Irish literature by a wider audience.

The verses of this ode to ‘a pint of plain’ have been much spoken of, printed, sung, and repeated since they were first published and the term is still used right up to this day in print and on social media, but what exactly was ‘a pint of plain?’ As it appears that many use it without thinking on the actual meaning of the word ‘plain.’

'Plain' in this case is short for ‘plain porter,’ a term whose use goes back to the 1700s, and it was the weaker sibling to ‘stout porter.’ And stout in this case means a stronger porter (the word stout was used for other styles of beer too in the past), and although we won’t go into the much-repeated and often wrong history of porter to any great extent here, we can generally say that most breweries in Ireland had two strengths of this dark beer for non-export consumption, or at least two styles that were more most popular with drinkers on this island.

So, in very general terms, many Irish breweries in the late 18th and on into the very early 20th century had a weaker porter called variously X Porter, X Stout, Single Stout and other names, and also a stronger version generally called Double Stout, Extra Stout, XX Porter or XX Stout. (This is somewhat of an over-simplification, as even these various porters which are casually grouped together here could be wildly different in strength and ingredients depending on the era and the brewery - but you get the point.) There were other porters being brewed, including ones for export, with some breweries producing various other strengths in between, but this is a fair summation of the two types most commonly available. The lighter in strength of these beers came to be known by drinkers as just ‘plain’ - hence the ‘Pint of Plain’ - and the stronger was more often than not known just as ‘stout.’

Most stout was bottled by independent bottlers or by the publican or grocer and getting a pint of draught stout from a cask appears to have been relatively rare, especially outside of the main urban centres on the island. The bottle of stout ruled the countertops and tables in the pubs in most of Ireland, with its weaker sibling, plain porter, available mostly in the big cities like Dublin and Belfast. Some porter was indeed bottled but much of it was served from casks and was essentially a live 'conditioned' product containing active yeast to produce carbonation. It would remain being sold that way until the early 1970s, when the production of Guinness’s porter - the last of its type – ceased and was totally usurped by Guinness Draught.

And so should have died ‘The Pint of Plain’ …

-o-

Except it didn’t, or at least the term itself remained, but instead it was transferred to a pint of draught stout and usually the Guinness version (rather than Murphy’s or Beamish) which is marketed as a such rather than a 'porter' regardless of its strength and taste. It is certainly possible to make an argument that draught Guinness is the modern equivalent of that lost porter in alcohol content, and thanks to the marketing gimmick and the aesthetic need of the two-part pour, which was supposed to imitate the high and low carbonated mix of how Guinness’s porter was served in some public houses - mostly in Northern Ireland.^# There is also the fact that stout is a type of porter (as it is also a beer regardless of what people seem to think) when taken in the modern sense and usage of the words.

But if we revisit the text we need to take the words verbatim. So that given the time it was written and what was available in the public houses that the author was familiar with then the drink referred to was a cask conditioned single porter, and some would therefore say that this lost porter is the only drink that the moniker ‘Plain’ can be used for - even though some characters appear to drink just stout elsewhere in the book.

Does that mean we can’t ever use the term ‘a Pint of Plain’ ever again? Well one could again argue that the only truly legitimate pint of plain can be something that is called ‘porter’ by the brewery, is served on cask, and said brewery would also need to brew a stronger version they call their stout so that they have both it and a ‘plain.’ There might be a little leeway on the cask stipulation but the assertion certainly needs to obey the other rules for the term to be used, and then and only then, some might argue, can you say that you are drinking a ‘Pint of Plain’….

But of course in reality you can call your pint anything you like.

-o-

Finally, the poem’s title of a ‘The Workman’s Friend,’ or versions of it, seems to have been a common enough term even before the publication of At Swim-Two-Birds, as The Irish Independent on the 2nd of January 1917 carried in a piece about price increases in Dublin the following comment:

‘The pint of “plain” or workingman’s drink, goes up to 5d.’

This shows that the connection between plain and workingmen – unsurprisingly – is older than the book, and probably quite a bit older, plus given the wording it seemed in common parlance, and of course beer itself was often seen as a worker’s drink anyway.

Quite rightly ...

(Here's the link to object #10)

Liam K

*Possibly based on a poet called James Casey

^# It is worth highlighting that there is very little evidence of the practice being widespread, and much of the country was drinking stout from bottles anyway. Incidentally, the jug pour was probably more common, where a high carbonated porter was poured into a jug to left settle before being used to top up glasses. There is a video of this exact practice which some claim show the high-low pour but it shows no such thing. I have written more about this topic here.

Further Reading:

A Biography on Flann O'Brien here.

More on the Pint of Plain by Gary Gillman here.

Martyn Cornell has some porter history here.

And the complete poem or 'pome' is everywhere ...

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The attached image is the author's own and cannot be used elsewhere without the author's permission. Newspaper research was thanks to The British Newspaper Archive.

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

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper images © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this image on this site.

Pub History: A 'Summut' - Plain, Stick & Hinion ...

One aspect of pub snacking that I have a minor issue with is the pairing of a pint of stout with a packet of cheese and onion crisps, with the implication that one makes the other better. The cheese is perfectly acceptable of course but onion with a nice stout - or any good beer - clearly ruins the flavour profile of the beverage, changing it completely as your palate is assailed and altered by the harsh onion compounds. Admittedly this is less of an issue with one of the blander of the macrobrewed stouts, and it does not mean I have never partaken of such a combination, but it is certainly not a mix that any 'Craft Beer & Food Pairing Guru' would be happy with I assume - or at least not if they are being entirely honest about how such a strong flavour is workable with any fine and flavoursome stout or porter.

But it appears this combination of onions and stout is not new, so let me transcribe here a report that appeared in a couple of newspapers in May of 1837:

DUBLIN POLICE - Henry-street Office.

Pleasant Salute. — Thomas Mulvey preferred a charge of assault against Thomas Pleasant and Ellen Beverly. He stated, after having performed his daily business, and received his daily hire, he stepped into a public house to get pint of summut.

Mr. Blacker — What do you call a pint of summut?

Mulvey — Lord, your worship! not know what that is! My eyes! Every one knows that — a pint of porter with a stick in it, and a raw hinion.

Mr. Blacker — Mercy on me! — you beast! What you want the onion for, and what do you call a stick in it? 

Mulvey — Blessed are the ignorant, for they know nothing! A stick means a crapper of strong water, and the hinion to give it flavour.

Mr. Blacker — Very well, Sir; go on with your charge. 

Mulvey — Well, after taking a drop of natheral refreshment, I was coming out, when this here man and this here woman came up, and without any more ado, set on me and beat me in the manner you see; the female little devil got stones in her hand, and beat my head with them.

Ellen Beverly — No, your worship, it was only a key. 

Mr. Blacker — I will fine you and your husband 10s. 

Pleasant — She is not wife — she is better off; she is under my protection. 

Mr. Blacker—How dare you, Sir! It makes your crime worse. Get out of my sight.

There is quite a bit to take on board here. Both a 'stick' and a 'crapper' are terms for a measure of spirits - usually whiskey but a 'summut' is a new term for me, and I am assuming the word is an alternative version of 'something' as common in certain northern English dialects. How it appeared in Dublin I do not know and perhaps it has a separate meaning.

Leaving all of that aside the big thing here is an onion being served in a pint of porter and whiskey - or at least that is implied by the comments of Mr. Mulvey. This seems odd to the extreme and I can find no other reference to either a 'summut' or the practice of serving onion in a beer anywhere else - as of yet.

We have all probably had IPAs that certainly had a garlicky flavour from the hops, so maybe this is not as bizarre as it sounds - providing it is true of course, and Mr. Mulvey our witness was not making up the drink for comical reasons, although it would be a strange place and situation in which to do so. 

There are also onions that are quite mild and can be eaten a little like apples, and perhaps they were less 'oniony' in the early 19th century anyway. Certainly pickled onions are still acceptable in certain places as a pub snack but the act of pickling does tend the mute the onion flavour, and they are usually a special variety too.

I think we need to take the whole reference with a pinch of salt - to introduce another savoury element - and it is certainly not a recipe I plan to recreate, but it is certainly a thought-provoking , or perhaps stomach-churning, combination.

Perhaps I have discovered the origin of the need for some of you to have that packet of cheese and onion flavour crisps with your pint of stout!?

Liam K.

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper image © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this image on this site.

Porter Cake: A Short & Incomplete Look Into Its Origins ...

Porter cake - a quintessential Irish product that has been baked in Ireland for as long as we have had porter here, Correct? So surely it was being baked in every big house and small home in Ireland for almost 300 years give or take a few decades?

Or has it?

I ended up down a small rabbit hole of porter cake research while looking for information on porter barm bread, a different product where the barm - or yeast - from a porter brew was used to make a flour mixture rise prior to baking. Porter cake is a different thing - rich, fruity and dark more of a ‘proper’ cake than a bread, even if the words and meaning did - and do - overlap.

The curious thing is that I can find no mention of something called porter cake until very late in the 19th century. This is not to say that there was not a cake that had porter poured into the mix, or that there was not something called 'Porter Cake' before this date it just means that I have not found such a reference. In truth I would be fairly sure that the habit existed in some scale somewhere not long after porter’s creation.

But that first recipe I can find is in from a London publication called The Queen: The Lady's Newspaper published in 1897 where a reader called 'Heather' had written into the publication inquiring about a recipe for porter cake. The editor was unaware of such a recipe but some other readers seem to have sent her a recipe which she printed:

Rub 4oz. of butter into 1lb. of flour, then mix in ½lb. well washed and dried currants, the same of sultanas or stoned raisins, two teaspoons of mixed spice, the finely grated rind of one lemon, a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda on to which has been poured quarter pint of heated porter, and four eggs broken, not beaten, into the mixture. Beat together for twenty minutes then bake for three hours in a slow oven, to be kept three days before use, in an airtight tin.

Other variations were adding a little candied peel instead of lemon zest, or adding 2 oz. of almonds to the mix.

Notice anything missing...?

Sugar.

I am not sure if it was not a part of the recipe, which I would find a little unlikely, or if it was just omitted from the printed recipe? I suspect the latter. Also breaking 4 eggs into heated porter sound a bit suspect, although we should probably just read it as warm instead of hot.

The next I can find is in The Northern Weekly Gazette published in the north of England in 1907, which carries another recipe that is quite different from the one above but at least contains sugar this time:

½ lb. of butter, ½ lb. lard, 1 nutmeg, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 1lb. of currants, 1 gill of porter, ½ lb. lemon peel, 1lb. sugar, 5 eggs, 1 egg powder; cream [the] butter and lard together, mix eggs and porter; beat well, then add the other ingredients and bake in a slow oven for 3½ or 4 hours.

That recipe was from a Mrs. Henry Carwell in Coudon near Bishop Auckland close to where the newspaper was published. Just nutmeg in that one for a spice addition.

But what is missing from this one…?

Yes, flour!

I am really at a loss at these omissions unless I am missing something in each recipe, as I am not a baker – although they have been transcribed and checked correctly.

The very same paper in 1913 carries a different recipe:

One pound of flour, ½lb of raisins, ½ lb. of currants, ½ a lb. of mixed peel, ¾ lb. of brown sugar, ½ lb of butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of spice, 4 eggs, 1 teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda, 1 pint bottle of porter. Rub the butter into the flour, mix all the dry ingredients, beat up the eggs in a basin, make the porter lukewarm, and pour on to the eggs and beat well; add all to the mixture, beat all together for twenty minutes, pour into greased tins, and bake in a moderate oven for 1½ hours.

That recipe is very like the first one from 1897, with a few small changes and added sugar this time - and it contains flour! It was sent in by a Miss M. E. Jackson in Kirky Stephen, Westmoreland again northern England.

In 1929 an advertisement (image above) for Robex brand self-raising flour in The Bedfordshire Times gives the following recipe:

½ lb. Robex Self-Raising Flour, 6ozs. brown sugar, 4 ozs. marg, 4 ozs. currants, 2 ozs. sultanas, 3 ozs. large raisins, 2 ozs. mixed peel, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 2 eggs, grated rind ½ l2mon, 1 gill porter. Cream marg and sugar, warm porter, pour over cream mixture along with flour and beaten eggs. Beat thoroughly, stir in ingredients. Bake in greased and floured tin for 1½ hours.

Next we can now finally skip over the Irish Sea to the north of Ireland and The Belfast News-Letter of November 1930, which carries the following:

Here is a recipe for fruit cake suitable for Christmas which will keep for 6 weeks. It is called porter cake, and you will require 10ozs. butter, 1lb. flour, 4 eggs, ¾ lb. moist brown sugar, ½ lb. of raisins, ½ lb currants, ¼ lb. candied peel, ¼ pound cherries, grated rind of 1 lemon, 2ozs. almonds, 2 teaspoonfuls mixed spice, 1 teaspoonful baking soda, and 1 small bottle porter. Sift the flour and spice together. Cut and rub in the butter until like breadcrumbs. then add sugar, prepared currants, raisins, chopped peel, cherries, and 3/f of the blanched and chopped almonds. Beat eggs until frothy. Heat the porter until tepid; then stir it into the baking soda. Stir this into the eggs, pour all into the dry ingredients. Mix and beat for at least 10 minutes. Then pour into a prepared tin and bake in a moderate oven for 3 to 3½ hours. When the cake has been in the oven for 15 or 20 minutes sprinkle the rest of the almonds over the top. Keep at least a week before cutting this cake.

The tone of the opening sentences makes it sound like this is a new and unknown recipe - or at least uncommon. [Edit: I found a similar recipe in the same newspaper one year earlier in 1929.]

There are a few other recipes after that, mostly in the north of Ireland and it then appears to spread around the country during the following decades, no doubt aided by a recipe in Maura Laverty's Cookbook/Kind Cooking first published in 1946.

(Incidentally, a 'Stout Cake' puts in an appearance in 1932 in the London edition of The People newspaper with a similar if simpler recipe to those above, and there are a few escaped recipes showing up in publications in New Zealand and Australia too.)

I am certainly not stating as fact that there is not an older history of porter cake in Ireland, I am just saying that I cannot find it right now. However, there is some evidence however circumstantial that the recipe was first used in England before travelling across the sea to the north of Ireland and then spreading to the entire Island - and beyond – but no real proof.

Unrelated of course, but we have precedence for this in the word 'Crack', which travelled the same path before becoming the faux-Irish 'Craic'!

I would love to track the recipe back farther; I have just used the online sources that I can access, as well as some of the old cookery books in my collection, so please do get in touch if you can find an earlier recipe - which I have no doubt exists somewhere, perhaps under a different name.

Liam K.

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper image © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this image on this site.

Irish Brewing History: Black Water - Cork's 'Great' Porter Flood

On Thursday the 5th of December 1850, just as the workers in the Beamish & Crawford brewery in Cork city were taking their morning break and they heard what sounded like an explosion followed by a roar and a crash that shook the whole building. It brought everyone to their feet and heading in the direction of the sound, where they soon found the source. A huge vat containing porter had burst, its steel bands having given way and sending a torrent of porter through the vat room that carried everything in its path, including knocking down a substantial wall on one side of the structure. As if this calamity was not enough, the force of the deluge of porter had also damaged a jigger, a machine for pumping out the vast vats, which meant that porter was also now pouring from those in turn, which added to the wastage and damage.

Luckily the porter flowed out of the brewery towards the river Lee and not out towards the street or the rest of the brewery, which certainly helped to reduce the damage. Indeed, the workers themselves were extremely lucky to have been on their break or it is almost certain that there would have been serious casualties, or worse.

According to the more detailed reports the vat held 750 tierces* or 26,500 gallons (120,471 litres) of porter plus whatever was lost from the other vats, so possibly in excess of a quarter of a million pints of porter poured into the river, which would certainly have dyed a portion of it brown if not black. The value at the time was said to be £1,500 for the porter and £350 for the vat itself, so including the extra wastage it was probably £2,000 - a not inconsiderable sum at the time - and this did not take into account the clean up and the rebuilding of the fallen wall.

No doubt it would have made more news but for the lack of lives lost, although the story was carried by many newspapers on these islands as a small mention amongst the other calamities of the time.

To put the volume into perspective the great London porter flood at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery in 1814 released 128,000 gallons from the initial vat that burst, although more was released from other vats in the ensuing damage according to newspaper reports of the time. So Cork's version was perhaps one fifth of the volume of that main vat. Not a huge amount but still quite a considerable volume if it had flowed in the wrong direction, and unlike the London flood there was no loss of life.

The vat that burst in Beamish & Crawford was probably in the location I have shown here on the Goad fire insurance map of 1897, the vat room with a similar configuration is shown in the same location in a map from 1839 in Beamish & Crawford – The History of an Irish Brewery book. There was a quay right beside the river at that time so it is possible (but not definite) that it was the wall closest to the river which gave way, given that the porter seemed to escape damaging the rest of the brewery.

A quarter of a million pints flowing out into the Lee? It brings a whole new meaning to the term Running Porter …

Liam K.

(Here is the newspaper report from The Southern Reporter and Cork Commercial Courier on the 7th December 1850.)

*Tierce = 35 Imperial Gallons (42 Wine Gallons)

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Newspaper images © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display this images on this site. Goad Map via Wikimedia Commons

That Porter Pour: Another 'High-Low' Film

Every now an again I tweet something and immediately think that I should probably have recorded it in a more easy-to-find and more permanent place like here. That was certainly the case a while back when I found what I believe to be only the second film of the high-low porter pour in action. By now most people with an interest in the subject are aware of the old method of pouring a pint of porter from two naturally carbonated casks which usually sat on the bar. The first pour was from the fresher, more highly carbonated cask, which was then blended in the glass with porter from a lower carbonated older cask. This was supposedly the origin of the gimmicky modern stout pour, cleverly developed by Guinness to mimic the effect in appearance - if nothing else.

The most famous film is this one from the BBC’s lament to the porter’s death in 1973. People have put up other videos supposedly showing the high/low too, but they do not look quite right. Some showing a pour from a modern-ish keg and others showing porter being poured from a jug into a glass - this appears to be just a way of calming down a fresh keg at a very busy Irish music festival.

But in the Northern Ireland Digital Film Archive I found a short clip called the ‘Drinks Flowing in Dirty Dicks’ from 1965 that appears to show the proper high-low pour, with a pint glass being filled with a foaming fresh porter from one tap and then being topped up with a less active cask, as you can see from the how the dark liquid starts to fill up the bottom of the glass. The pint probably needed another top-up and scrape - and we must remember this was being done for a camera, which might also explain why it was not left to rest. (I am aware that the video might not show in all locations, but try reloading the page if you get an error.)

It is worth mentioning again that this sort of pour was probably not something that was done throughout Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. I also wonder if it just arrived with the advent of those tapped countertop casks? Was it used for stout as well as porter? Again I doubt it was or I certainly believe it was not common if it did exist. In a country where The Bottle of Stout was king it is fair to say the vast majority of stout consumed in Ireland was bottled by the plethora of commercial bottlers and by the pubs who bottled their own. I also do not believe that porter in any form but especially on cask was extremely common(?) outside of the major cities from early in the 20th century onward ...

Lots of questions there I admit, but I worry at times that we are trying to rewrite our brewing history to suit our modern perceptions of what we assume was done instead of sticking to the actual facts of what we know, and can see or read about. As I have said before, we all make errors - including myself - but we certainly do not use the words ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘possibly’ enough - not to mention the wonderful ‘I don’t know…’

Liam K.

(All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and can not be reproduced elsewhere without full credit to its source and a link back to this post.)

Beer History: Who Brewed Ireland's First 'Stout'?

Having previously looked at who brewed the first porter and other beer styles in Ireland - or at least flagging the first mentions of them in newspapers - I thought I should delve into that most quintessential of Irish beers. No not red ale, that is a whole other multipart story, I am talking about stout of course.

I better clarify that I am not talking about the most modern iteration of stout that dates from around the mid twentieth century or later, I am talking about a dark beer that had the word ‘stout’ in its name that was being produced by an Irish brewery.

And yes, I am being a little pedantic about the name itself, as stronger dark beers were possible being produced but not being sold as a ‘stout’ version. We are just looking at the actual word when used in conjunction with something darkly brewed, as it could of course also be use for a paler ale.

As far as I can see the first use of the term was in January of 1779 when the following advertisement for Alderman Warren’s brewery at No. 6 Mill Street in Dublin appears in Saunder’s Newsletter:

They were clearly brewing porter and I think this qualifies as the first dark ‘Stout’, regardless of whether it would be recognisable - or drinkable - by today’s stout aficionados. A John Magee may have been the actual brewer according to later advertisements, and those just mention the production of ‘Irish Porter’. Whether this means it was discontinued or just not being specifically flagged is impossible to say.

A few months later in August 1779 another advertisement appears in Saunder’s Newsletter by a Robert Pettitt who was based off Dame Street in Dublin:

Robert Pettitt had previously sold London Porter and here we can see he was selling a product called ‘Irish Brown Stout Porter’, and it is certainly nice to see that full title in print. No brewery is mentioned but given that I cannot find any other breweries producing a similarly name product, is it safe to assume that this is also from Warren’s brewery? Probably not, but in January of the following year the advertisement was changed to include the following:

'This being the first House opened for Sale of Irish Brown Stout Porter in this City, claims the Protection of the Public, to whom the Proprietor returns his most grateful Thanks, for their Encouragement, which far exceeds his most sanguine Expectations.'

Wonderful wording and it seems to be that this is the first retailer - I am taking 'house' to mean shop or warehouse not public house, which it appears not to have been - to sell and clearly advertise an Irish 'Stout Porter’ for sale.

There are very few mentions of Irish brewed stouts for a good few decades after but a few others stood out...

In April 1808 Messrs. Madder & Co. of Hope Porter Brewery on Watling Street in Dublin ran an advertisement in Saunder’s Newsletter that stated:

'… that the demand for their Brown Stout having exceeded their expectation, their stock of it for immediate use is entirely exhausted…'

(Nice to see a namesake for a modern Irish brewery there, and it appears from other notices that there is a complicated story about the Madders, their fallings out, and the setting up of a rival brewery at Black Pitts by a son - Samuel jr. - but that would need to be a whole different post…)

In 1812 The Belfast Commercial Chronicle carries an advertisement for ‘100 Tierces [of] Brown Stout Porter’ which were received from Cork but sadly no brewery was mentioned, we could possibly guess which brewery but that would hardly be factual...?

In May 1816 and also in The Belfast Commercial Chronicle an advertisement of a dissolution of a partnership between Clotworthy Dobbin and John W. Wright, which states that the business will be carried on by Mr Dobbin and that he is ‘well supplied with Double Brown Stout Porter’ in his brewery in that city Belfast.

It is October 1828 before I finally spot a Guinness product being described by those words in an Irish newspaper, but this might just be the words of the seller - Francie Magee - as he lumps it in with Barclay & Co.’s listed offering, possibly to save space. I doubt this is the first time that Guinness used the word ‘Stout’ but it’s the earliest mention I came across ...

So there we go, a pointless exercise in one way but it is nice, as ever, to pull this information out of the virtual pages of newspapers and drag them into a somewhat more accessible and searchable format.

Liam

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source, and a link back to this post. References to quoted newspapers are available via email or DM to me.

Newspaper images are © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display these images on this site.

Beer History: Who Brewed Ireland's First Porter?

"Porter was first brewed in Ireland in 1776 ..." says a well-known online encyclopaedia …

"Porter made its way to Ireland in 1776 ..." says an American Brewery's website …

"It [porter] was first brewed in Ireland in 1776 ..." says yet another online source …

We have been in a similar situation before of course, and these are just three of the quotes you will comes across when you attempt to investigate the history of porter brewing in this country, and I think we are seeing a pattern here with perhaps an unhealthy dose of plagiarism. So with this gnawing into my brain, I decided to do my own bit of research into any factual accounts of Ireland's first porter, having previously investigated who brewed Ireland's first IPA and first lager.

I am not going to dare to enter the argumentative world of porter's general history and beginnings but to add some context timewise we can say that the general consensus is that the name 'porter' has its origins in London in or around 1720 or perhaps earlier and was a name for a brown beer. After that I suggest you dig through the findings and writings of those you have been doing this longer and better than me. Here I just want to focus on its earliest recorded appearance in this country by that name, and to see can we pinpoint and confirm - or reconfirm - a date for when it was first brewed here and who produced it. 

That first mention I can find for porter in this country is in The Gentleman's and London Magazine, where in 1746 the Dublin Society (who we came across in a previous post) were giving a premium or reward for:

'... the best Ale at 3d per Quart (not less than 20 Barrels) brewed by any common Brewer before April 1747 [and] for the best 2d Ale or Porter (not less than 30 Barrels) ...'

This may mean that porter must have been relatively well known by this stage in Ireland and was - perhaps - already being brewed here. [Edit: It was in at least 1740 - see Martyn Cornell's post here.] We also might infer that porter was being classed, by the Dublin Society at least, as a weaker beer compared to the 'best' ale, but as to how weak or strong these beers were I do not know for sure. It is worth noting that the Dublin Society may have offered this premium in previous years too, but I have not come across the reference yet so this is the earliest reference I can find. So, nothing definitive as such in this mention but it is certainly interesting, and it is nice to see in print - but in truth we can surely believe that porter was being imported into this country well before this point?

The earliest newspaper advertisement I have come across for 'London Porter' is from Pue's Occurrences on the 25th of April 1749 when it was for sale in Dublin, as we can see here:

Even though - again - we can assume that porter was a relatively well-known commodity in Ireland, and certainly Dublin and other sea-trading cities on the island, by this time, it is good to see a mention like this in print. The big issue to keep in mind is of course that this is clearly not its first appearance but, these are just the first mentions I can find - for now. I personally believe that given the amount of trade between Ireland and England it would have made its way to this country not long after its 'invention', just as its precursors probably also did - but I have no proof yet.

But what is certainly more interesting is this advertisement from the Dublin Courier from early August 1762:

This is not terribly clear text so here it is transcribed:

'We have the pleasure to inform the public, that Thwaits's [sic] Irish Porter (now brought to perfection) is upon draft at several houses, particularly at Malones, on the Upper Combe, a few doors above Meath-Street.'

The 'now brought to perfection' would lead us to believe that this was not there first attempt at brewing a porter. So, although I have seen a few books and articles suggesting 1763 as the first brewing of porter in this country we can see here that it was certainly 1762 - if not in all probability a little earlier. [Edit: Again see Martyn's post linked above.] I suspect most of the sources that quote 1763 are referencing Lynch & Viazey's Guinness's Brewery in the Irish Economy, where they report that Thwaites told The Irish house of Commons in that year that they had finally perfected the brewing of porter as the pushed for the introduction of restrictions on the imports of English porter. As to how many years it took them to perfect it, we might never know precisely. Equally as important to many pub historians is that this advertisement also flags one of the places where draught Irish porter was supped for the first time - in an establishment called Malone's on The Coome near Meath Street, not far from Thwaites' brewery at Cork Bridge, at or near the junction of Cork Street and Ardee Street. (It is also nice to point out in the above advertisement the spelling of draught beer as 'draft', proving that this is another word that is not an Americanism but rather a forgotten Englishism, or perhaps Irishism.)

So, we can definitely push the first brewing of an Irish porter back a year from the few earliest mentions I have found, and reconfirmed the name to the brewer. As for all those sources online? Well, we have taken those back thirty years for porter's first appearance here and thirteen for when it was first brewed.

I have no doubt that we could push both of those dates back a little more if we knew where to look ...

[Edit: And now we do, although Thwaites does appear to be the first named brewery we come across...]

Liam

All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source, and a link back to this post. References to quoted newspapers are available via email or DM to me.

Newspaper images are © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from whom I have received permission to display these images on this site.

Beer History: Notes from The Cork Industrial Exhibition 1883 - Thin & Rough, Pungent ... and Over Burtonized Beer

In 1883 Cork city held its second industrial exhibition, having held its first in 1852 just one year after the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in London. Amongst the usual arts, machinery and  other assorted produce was a selection of ales and porters from some of the breweries operating in Cork - and one in Waterford.

Here we have:

Beamish and Crawford showing their East India Pale Ale, Pale Bitter Ale, Extra Stout, Double Stout and Single Stout.

Lane & Co. had their Draught Porter in cask and West India Stout in cask and bottles.

Allman, Dowden & Co. with an ale and a stout.

Arnott & Co had an Extra Stout, a Stout and a Pale Ale in cask and bottle and a Mild Ale in cask.

Keily & Sons from Waterford - the only non-Cork brewers - had an India Pale Ale brewed with malt from Perry's in Rathdowney and an XXX Ale and XXX Stout made with their own malt.

All of this is interesting enough and once again shows that Irish breweries were attempting styles other than just porters, as I highlighted in my last post, but hardly too exciting...

But I've also come across both the awards handed out and also some interesting, if somewhat vague in some cases, tasting notes from a separate report published three years after the exhibition....

As can be seen, Arnott's, Beamish & Crawford's and Lane's breweries all won medals.

Beamish & Crawford's single stout has the 'characteristic thin rough flavour required of a quick consumption stout.' An interesting choice of words, as both thin and rough would often be used as negatives nowadays - not a profile of an award winning stout! Their bottled double stout was also described as clean but missing the 'pungency' required for a such a beer, again a word that is usually seen as negative

Lane & Co. won just a commendation but no medal for their export stout (presumably the West India Stout mentioned above), which seems to have been highly hopped and has 'kept well', but with some preservatives added ... perhaps? Their Stout, which wasn't listed above, is low hopped and the comments seem to give the impression that it could have been better ... that it 'should have been presented' fresher. The porter gets the best review, being a 'Good pleasant porter, full, sweet and clean.'

Although John Arnott's brewery also won two medals for its pale ale, there appears to have been some disagreement in the judges camp, as one of the jurors pointed out that both ales were so over 'Burtonized' to put them 'outside the category of genuine ales.' This was pointed out by William Sullivan, president of Queen's College in Cork, although Mr. C. O'Sullivan was a consulting chemist for Bass, in Burton-on-Trent. I'm not sure if names were mixed up or the analysis came to Cork's Mr. Sullivan via the Burton one, either way it seems that one Cork brewery may have been trying too hard to emulate Bass & Co.!

Anyhow, these are some of the earliest comments I have come across on the taste of Irish beers in any sort of judging setting, and they make interesting reading ... as does the rest of the report with comments on whiskey, cooperage, cider and other related issues that might lead some down a similar rabbithole to my own...

Liam

Cork Industrial Exhibition 1883 Catalogue(1883) via Cork Past & Present

Cork Industrial Exhibition 1883 Report (1886) via Google Books

Beer History : Lane & Co.'s Brewery, Cork - More Than Plain Porter...

So ... I'm not really sure what my fascination is with old Cork breweries, although I think the two excellent books on its most famous ones by Donol Ó Drisceoil and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil have a lot to do with it, but it's also because I really like the city, its buildings, history and people. My biggest issue is that I don't get down there often enough...

I've previously tweeted these adverts from Lane & Co.'s brewery but felt they deserved a more permanent home on my blog to go along with my related posts about Lady's Well Brewery (Murphy's).

Lane's (along with Arnott's) was a competitor to Murphy's and Beamish & Crawford's breweries in Cork in the 1800s before it was sold to B & C in 1901, with Murphy's buying Arnotts the same year.

Both were closed...

---

This first advertisement is from The Cork Examiner in 1843 and states that their extra stout was popular in London at this time and which is echoed at a later date by Barnard in his comments in 'The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland'. They also brewed a Porter, East India Pale XX and an Amber Ale - more evidence perhaps of early, elusive red ales in the country perhaps!

The next advert is from the same paper in 1894 and is promoting its Mild and Bitter, plus an early version of a tapped growler!

One of the points of this post is to show again that there was a greater variety of beers brewed in the country than many would expect, and certainly more than I suspected when I started down this brewing history road. It's worth mentioning that the Ó Drisceoil's also mention West India Stout, Double Stout, Bottling Stout, Mixing Stout, Single Stout, X and an XB being brewed in Lane's.

Obviously porter or its variants were by far the most popular style consumed up until relatively recently, but there were plent of other beer styles brewed...

Liam

(With thanks to my local library and Donol Ó Drisceoil and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil's 'Beamish & Crawford: The History of an Irish Brewery'.)

Beer History: London Calling - Thrale's Exports to Dublin in 1771

(So it's been a couple of months since my last post, this was due to a number of reasons but mostly a mixture of apathy towards blogging and perhaps a little lethargy due to 'real life' work, family and other personal issues. I've always wrote for myself and not for others, so it didn't bother me greatly that I hadn't posted something new here in a while, as I knew I'd return to it ... and when I spotted my page views go over the 100k count (Meagre compared to others, I know!) it prompted me to dust off my account and put something new up. I'm not sure how often I'll post in the future but let's take it one at a time.)

Here's an interesting advertisement from March 1771 that deserved more than a tweeted reference so I decided to put it here, as it will hopefully have a little more longevity and permanence. It shows the prices and styles of John Grant's imports from Thrale's Brewery into his store on Jervais Street, Dublin ... London Porter, London Brown Stout and London Pale Stout are all listed.

There's nothing new here in the wording if taken as separate pieces of information, from the beers to the sizes listed - even to the mention of a Winchester Gallon, which preempted the imperial gallon I believe - but taken all together it's still, perhaps, an interesting snapshot into what beers were being imported and their relative costs and volumes.

Freeman's Journal 1771

Some of the wording is interesting too, I read 'NEAT as imported' to mean not diluted, which sounds like it was a common practice back then. 'Allowance for casks returned sweet' meant you couldn't return a dirty or infected cask, a 'clean as you go' ethos perhaps in action in the late eighteenth century! The Pale Stout is described as having 'a bright Amber Colour', which is my first time reading a colour description for such a beer, as vague as it is. (Don't forget stout just meant strong at this point in time...) He specifies his casks are all made in London, is this a dig at Irish coopering abilities? Probably not, more to do with sizes/volume I'd imagine...

What we are missing of course is what they tasted like exactly, if only we had a time machine we could order some from William Halligan? Although if we did possess a time machine then getting beer samples would probably be low on our list of things to do...

Anyhow, it's nice to be back!

Liam

(With thanks as ever to my local library...)

Beer History: Genuine London Porter in Kilkenny - 1767

Here's a nice early-ish mention from 1767 of London porter being available in Kilkenny - hardly a shock but nice to see it in print. The Bartholomew Rivers mentioned here was a wealthy merchant who is perhaps best known for helping to transform Tramore just outside Waterford city into a seaside resort. In this advert from Finn's Leinster Journal (printed in Kilkenny) he says that he has 'fitted up a warehouse in the city [Kilkenny] to hold porter' and just porter by the sounds of it, which shows its popularity in the city. It ties in with a couple of my previous porter related posts here and here too.

What is also of some interest is the specific mention of hops in the advert in relation to his Waterford warehouse, a hardly surprising sign of how important hops were to the brewing trade, as they are mentioned here before tea and sugar. Perhaps Mr. Rivers was one of the bigger importers of them...

Liam

(With thanks as ever to the local studies room in my local library.)

History: In Praise of 'A Pot of Irish Porter'...

I came across the following piece in an old newspaper last week, and thought it seemed worth transcribing and putting up on the blog. I'm unsure of the background to it and could not find the original article it appears to allude to, but here it is anyway...

To  the COMMITTEE  for  conducting  the  FREE-PRESS

      Gentlemen,

I make bold to congratulate you upon the success of your late endeavours in the service of your country, by so strenuously recommending the use of Irish porter.

    Your patriotic sentiments are, at length, almost every where adopted, and there are not now in the whole city, over half a dozen houses of any note, that continue to sell English porter, and they too (being only frequented, either by Englishmen, or those connected with the interest of the porter merchant) must very soon fall in with the rest, or else, by obstinately persisting to oppose the laudable wish and intentions of the publick, become neglected and despised.

    Curiosity, and a desire to contribute my little moiety to the general good, induces me often to mingle with my countrymen in their hour of relaxation, at these meetings, and it is with secret pleasure I remark the chearful[sic] satisfied countenance each consumer of this wholesome beverage displays, when he calls for A POT OF IRISH PORTER : the inward gratification he feels, whilst drinking the produce of his native soil, and contemning that of ungenerous Britain, is happily expressed in his face, and nothing but mirth, harmony and friendship are every where found to be the attendant effects of it.

    To you Gentlemen, the lovers of Ireland are particularly indebted, as the principal promoters of this happy change. Which, whilst it keeps at home many thousands heretofore lavished on ungrateful neighbours, has also rendered a material saving to the laborious class of people, by being so much cheaper and from its healthful and enlivening qualities inspiring a universal love and fellowship that is evident on every occasion.

    On this point then, there remains nothing now to wish, but that the Brewers of Irish Porter, continue to do that justice they have so well began with: and let it not be said that this great and necessary undertaking (like many others for publick utility) shall in its infancy fall to the ground because ------- very much encouraged.

      I am, Gentlemen,

            Your most humble servant,

                       A NATIVE

    Sep. 1 1779

~ Freeman's Journal September 1779 - Via Carlow Library Local Studies Room

Stirring words indeed! There seems to be more to this letter of course than just Irish porter and it could be classed as incitement to hatred perhaps, against porter from 'ungenerous Britain' at the very least!

Regardless of the deeper sentiment our writer is getting at, there are a few valid point we can still take from this...

The drinking of local beer, if it suits your palate and purse, and the gratification it elicits; that 'cheerful, satisfied countenance' that enjoying a pint in good company can evoke; and the need to always question what we drink, or eat for that matter, and ask, 'Is there a better alternative?', and that 'better' can mean something different to everyone of course...

Anyhow, I'm off to look for a pot of Irish porter ... wish me luck!

Cheers,

Liam