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...

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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...)

Drink History: Size Matters ... Gauging a Gallon

'The more I see, the less I know...'

These words by the Red Hot Chili Peppers - at the risk of using an incongruous reference in a post about drink history - have sprung to mind on more than one occasion as I plough through the wealth of historical information on brewing online, and occasionally wander Alice-like down all of those other drink related rabbit holes freely available to all.

But this can be disheartening at times, as I realise that I have so much to learn ... and this thought means that I am often left deflated as I read something that's new to me which I feel was well known to others and is indicative of the wealth of my ignorance on a subject matter in which I have a lot of interest.

This also means that in many of my posts I tend to just regurgitate snippets of found information rather than trying to solve problems or add my own thoughts and opinions. (Although in part this is also driven by the fear of sticking my fat, bearded head above the parapet in case it is cracked open by a truth-laden salvo delivered from those knowledgeable drink historians that stalk the interweb seeking falsehoods and long-repeated myths to - rightly - take aim at with an arching lob from their Trebuchet of Truth™...)

Don't get me wrong I enjoy all the historical commentary and get immense satisfaction from all my research, and I've even questioned a few dodgy comments on other peoples websites, blog posts and tweets, but there always this nagging voice in the back of my sieve-like brain asking ... 'Are you REALLY sure about that ... ?'

So with all that in mind you won't find it odd that I never knew a gallon could mean so many different sizes to different people in the past. Sure, I knew that US gallons were different to 'our' gallons ... but not that Irish gallons, British gallons and even wine gallons were all different - and let's not forget mash tun gallons. I should have suspected this to be the case, as I was aware of British miles and Irish miles being different measurements in the past, but it was only when I came across a book on gauging - the measuring of dutiable goods - from 1823 that I had it all laid out in front of me in black and sepia (Okay, so I added the sepia...), complete with measurements in cubic inches...

The Theory and Practice of Gauging - Peter Jonas - 1823

So I'm putting this up here to enlighten others that didn't know - and who may care - and to allow those who did know to roll their eyes and shout out, 'Well, duh Liam!' at the top of their voices.

And it raises questions...

Firstly, is it true? Next did it cause headaches for exports and imports of beer between Ireland and Britain? Were all casks physically the same size, so that it was just the declared volume was different? When did this end? As presumably at some point English and Irish gallons became the same.

I don't profess to know the answers but leave it with me, as some answers may be in the above book which I have yet to completely absorb. It looks like I have a lot more reading to do in order to avoid a missile from those in the know...

(On that note, while reading through the book and coming across shapes such as prolate spheroids and parabolic spindles - coupled with the extremely difficult looking maths required - it makes me think gaugers would have made excellent rocket scientists...)

Liam

Beer History: Exhibitions All Round...

On the day that the Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fair (There's a post from last year's event here.) starts in The Convention Centre in Dublin it seemed appropriate to do this post about another exhibition from 1892, this was held in another iconic - and circle-focussed - building, the Round Room of the Rotunda.

As you can see it had a cosmopolitan air with a focus on Spain, and Californian brandy and wine as you can see here...

Macardle, Moore and Co. from Dundalk were also there, showcasing their stout and a cask cleaner to remove the flaw of casky beer! This is my first time seeing this as a negative term...

Lager was also on show from 'Frankfort' Brewery, along with some beer pumps...

(This piece just led into a different section on glass, you're not missing anything on lager or pumps!)

Last but not least was a display from Corcoran's from my home town of Carlow, once a big employer at a site near the castle...

So there we go, drink fairs of a sort have been around for a few years in Dublin, and imported beverages are not a new thing. Remember that when you're opening your next bottle of California Merlot or German lager!

Liam

(Thanks as usual to my local library...)

Recipe: Mangel Wurzel Ale, Whisky ... and Paper!

I've been quite busy and distracted over the last few weeks so blog posts have been scarce to say the least, but with a bit of luck I'll be back to more regular writing soon.

In the meantime here's a quick recipe from the Belfast Newsletter of 1833 for Mangle Wurzel Ale that someone might like to try? Often called fodder beet it's an interesting root that appears to have culinary, imbibing and practical uses that should be explored more!

Let me know if you make some ... and I'll do the same.

So you can make some ale or whisky and the brown paper bag to wrap it up in!

(Thanks as always to my local library...)

Liam

Beer & Travel History: A Grand Day Out in Kilkenny - October Ales & Orchards

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about William Cobbett's visit to Kilkenny and his thoughts on the city, people and the beers of Ireland in general ... and while down my rabbithole of beer history research I came across an article about a visit by a group of Waterfordians to Kilkenny that I thought would be a nice follow up for balance ... with a more positive slant for Kilkenny and for the local beer.

It was published in The Waterford News and Star in September 1873 and I've included the article in its entirety below ... but a couple of intriguing parts stood out to me with relation to the  Smithwicks brewery, which they visited...

'... the Black Abbey Brewery, otherwise St. Francis's, owned and worked by [...] E. Smithwick...'

The Black Abbey is a completely different site to St. Francis's Abbey and it's a little strange that a visitor should confuse the two ... furthermore at this time Sullivan's would have then been the closest brewery to The Black Abbey. Perhaps the writer of the article had one too many on the trip and confused the two, or did someone not want the visitors to know there were two breweries in close proximity to one another in the city, and choose to amalgamate both in our visitor's mind? The writer had visited the city on a number of occasions so either way it seems a strange comment. (I can't of course rule out that it was also known as the Black Abbey Brewery but I can't find any reference to this name, and it would seem highly unlikely...)

We'll never know but it's a lesson to all researchers to be wary about what you read in old newspapers...

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'We were taken into what may be termed the "Refreshment Room" on these annual visits, into a large cellar filled with October ales, eleven months old, clear as amber when filled out, ardent as malt when imbibed. [...] with a measure of strong ale in hand and it had to be drunk... '

I wonder if that 'Refreshment Room' is still in use? I confess I've never done the tour so I don't know...

The comments on the storage time, colour and strength - both in flavour and, presumably, alcohol are interesting to read, and sound a far cry from the Smithwick's of now apart perhaps from the colour - but there was a red-ish ale in Kilkenny even back then it would seem ... if not what we think of as an 'Irish Red Ale'!

Not that we should think that Smithwick's have always just brewed one beer - and they don't anymore anyhow, and nor do they brew in Kilkenny of course - as beer history books list the varied output from the brewery in its early days...

But again it's nice see some of this information in print and I came across an advert from The Munster Express in 1866 with regard to Smithwick's opening a store in Waterford to help satisfy demand in the city, although it was possibly a logistical help with exports too.

It also shows that there was a good connection between Waterford and the Smithwick brewery, which would make sense given their relatively close proximity on the new-ish railway, and explains why our visitors would make a point of visiting the brewery on their trip to Kilkenny. (Beresford Street was what is now Parnell Street in Waterford.)

{Edit} Here's another advert showing more detail of what they were brewing in 1897 ... Stouts, Mild, Bitter plus an IPA and Dinner Ale ... and a good amount for export too it appears.

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'... we were taken my Mr. McGrath through the extensive orchards, under the experienced Mr Hayes, and I must say I never saw anything to near equal the great profusion of luxuriant crops of apples and pears I there witnessed. The crop proves Mr. Hayes to be one of the top of his luscious profession.'

I never thought of there being an urban orchard at the back of the brewery but the Ordnance Survey maps of around this time do indeed show a great deal of space down towards the river. Top quality apples and pears in the Smithwick's orchard it appears - non for cider or perry?!

... and wouldn't we all like a 'luscious profession'?

So, it looks like Kilkenny has been a tourist destination for quite a while, and although Smithwick's site is no longer a working commercial brewery, the new, reborn Sullivan's Brewing Company do a few specials in the small kit in their tap room and Costellos Brewery have a full production brewery just out from the city centre, which is great for a city with such a brewing history. (I've written previously about beery places in the city too...)

I wonder will either make an eleven month old, amber, strong October ale that I can quaff in a cellar?

I can dream I suppose...

Liam

Thanks as ever to my local library...