Beer History: Pale Stouts ... from Cork and London

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

Hardly exciting or new but two nice mentions of Beamish & Crawford's Bavarian Pale and Brown Stouts from The Lancet in 1844, the only possible mystery is the Bavarian twist ... also of note is the mention of professor Liebig, previously mentioned here:

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I Tweeted that here back in January 2018 and since then I've come across a couple more mentions of this Bavarian Pale Stout from 1843. Keeping in mind that the word 'Stout' just meant heavy or robust when attached to a beer then and had not become attached solely to a type of strong porter...

I also came across an advertisement for Thrale's Brewery from 1771 - which I posted about here - that mentioned a 'London Pale Stout of a bright Amber Colour, superior to any Pale Beer or Ale imported...'

Note: Other, wiser minds than mine have talked about Pale Stouts in more detail, let Google be your friend...

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

(With thanks to my Local Library's Local Studies room and Google Books)

Beer History: Mountjoy Brewery, Brown Ale and Nourishing Stout

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

"Mountjoy Brewery brewed a 'Dublin Brown Ale' in 1953 it seems ... this is from the Irish Press of that year. I wonder if all their recipes are in someone's safe hands...?"

(This drew a question as to when they actually closed, some websites say 1949 but then I then found something online...)

"... Interesting ... the online version of the Findlater book has an addendum that says it closed in 'August 1956'..."

(I then added this...)

"... Further to the Mountjoy Brown Ale tweet above, here's a dubiously worded advert and a writeup from The Irish Press in 1955. It looks like that brown ale died a death - or isn't mentioned at least - and sadly the brewery was soon to head in the same direction..."

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project - Original Tweet is here)

(With thanks to Carlow Library Local Studies room and Findlater's online book.)

Beer History: Cairnes' Irish Stingo Ale Adverts

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

"Huh ... I never knew there was an Irish Stingo ale. I'd always associated it with England, but Cairnes brewed one in the 30s..."

(Here's another from the same publication, including a suggestion to mix Cairnes and Stingo!)

Images via:

Drogheda Museum's Blog

An Caman on the Limerick City Library Website

Update: Here's another Irish Stingo advert from the Saturday Herald 1932...

(Part of my Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project - Original Tweet is here...)

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