A Deep Dive into the Wreck of the Mindora and that Bottle of Guinness

It began with a shipwreck.

Late on Sunday night, another fearful collision took place in the Channel a few miles to the westward of the South Foreland, which, it is feared, has proved fatal to both ships. The ill-fated vessels are reported to have been the Khersonese, a very large ship, bound to Calcutta from London, and the Mindora, barque, Captain Hall, also from London, bound to Victoria (Vancouver's Island), with passengers and a valuable general cargo. The telegrams which have been received announcing the catastrophe are rather brief in the particulars. It appears that the collision took place off Folkestone, or rather near the Varne, the ships coming together with fearful violence. The Mindora is stated to have been abandoned in a sinking state seven or eight miles south-west by west of the South Foreland, having then six feet of water in her hold, and that the crew and passengers had landed at Kingsdown, near Walmer. […] Both ships and cargoes are insured for a very heavy amount.

The Liverpool Mercury – Wednesday, 30th November 1864

Such was the sad fate of the Mindora (AKA Mindoro), a brand new barque – a versatile type of sailing ship – that was launched in Sunderland in August of that year, 1864. It was built in the Pallion shipyard of Mr. William Adamson, and was a 436 ton ship measuring 136 feet by 27 feet 8 inches and registered and owned by the Adamson family. By the end of that month, it was being readied to be loaded at London Docks, where prospective passengers or shippers were invited to apply to various agents in the city regarding passage to Victoria on Vancouver Island, Canada of people or product. It set sail on the 20th of November with Captain Hall in charge and a crew of 13, plus 3 male and 3 female passengers¹, plus a fully loaded hold.

The ship was heading towards the English Channel on its westward turn when the collision reported above occurred on the night of 27th of November 1864 in poor weather, and although the Khersonese eventually limped back to London the Mindora was not so lucky. Eventually sinking with all its cargo but at least with no loss of life.

And what became of that cargo? Well a newspaper report in July of the following years² tells us more:

DOVER, July 4. - The Mindoro (barq.), of London, Hall, from London to Victoria, V.I., which was abandoned in a sinking state 28th Nov., after collision with the Khersonese, from London to Calcutta, has been found sunk four miles off this place. The divers engaged report that she is nearly upright, and that the lower masts are standing, but dangerous to shipping, as there are only three fathoms upon her mast heads.

They position where it sunk must have been roughly noted or recorded at the time, and it seems to be in relatively shallow water, with just five and a half meters of ocean over her mast heads. We can also see that efforts were being made to dive on the boat, and yet another report³ in a newspaper's Maritime Extracts gives us the following news from Dover on the 28th of July:

The undermentioned goods were landed here to-day by the divers, being the first portion of the cargo of the Mindoro barque, which lies sunk about four miles off this port:—14 casks of Bass's pale ale; 4 dozen marked “M D O”, from Cameron and Saunders; 8 cases cognac (Jas. Hennessey's), marked “G N”, “E H”, “Twis”; 1 bale linen shirts; 1 basket female wearing apparel; 2 large cases marked “J W” in a diamond “V” outside; also, 2 water casks, and some breakers painted green.

So just a few months after its sinking, divers were already pulling up both drink and clothing from the wreck. The lettering mentioned are intriguing and are perhaps the initials of the end receiver of the goods in Victoria? (The MDO might be an abbreviation for the ship but the other letters would not make sense then?) Also of interest is the Cameron and Saunders mentioned with regard to casks recovered, and more on those names later.

Then in September of 1865, still less than a year after the ship sank, we get the first mention of the focus of this article – stout!⁴

At DOVER—For the benefit of all to whom it may concern.

Important Salvage Sale.

At the STORES in HAWKESBURY-STREET, DOVER,

On TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1865, at Eleven precisely,

By Mr. T. G. BROWNING,

A CHOICE COLLECTION OF CLOTHING,

Consisting of cloth coats, moleskin trowsers, felt and straw hats; also, a quantity of Hoyles superior prints, bareges, muslin curtains, Lenos mohairs, silk parasols; a puncheon of rum, sundry cases brandy, ale, and stout; case of eau de cologne, and sundry other articles;—salved from the wreck of the ship Mindora, sunk off Dover on a voyage from London to Victoria, Vancouver's Island. Particulars will be given in catalogues to be obtained of the Auctioneer, High-street, Whitstable; or of Mr. W. J. IRON, Receiver of Wrecks, 1, Cross Wall, Dover. Samples of goods may be viewed on the day prior to the sale, from Ten to Four o'clock.

Yet another newspaper's Maritime Extract from Dover on September the 29th states that, ‘A quantity of goods [has been] recovered from the sunken ship Mindora, consisting of brandy, &c. The ship lies in deep water’. This report, though scant on the actual salvaged cargo, gives us the names of the ‘diving cutters’ that recovered the goods, Fear Not, Nancy and Mandamus. (One wonders if this is 3 ships or 2?!)⁵

A report in a different newspaper⁶ on the same date gives us an idea of what those good are, minus the brandy:

A Large quantity of WOOLLEN, COTTON, and other GOODS, consisting of about 4,000 pairs stockings and socks, 10,000 yards prints, 500 yards flannel, 4,000 yards unbleached cotton, 50 Macintosh coats, 500 merino shirts, 40 pieces barage, 400 pairs of merino and other drawers, 70 doz. cambric handkerchiefs, 500 yards cloth, 200 woollen shawls, and sundry articles of clothing, woollens, &c.

And there’s even more the following month, when, ‘A Large assortment of Ladies' superior LINEN and COTTON UNDERCLOTHING of the best manufacture, 100 doz. Men's Cotton Socks, 40 pieces sup. Alpaca, about 50 pairs Men's Shoes, and sundry articles’ are offered for sale from the wreck.⁷

And incredibly, the recovery of goods continues, with the following advertisement⁸ appearing in December 1865:

For the Benefit of All to Whom it may Concern. TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION, BY MR. T. G. BROWNING, ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER, 5TH, 1865, At Eleven o'clock precisely, AT the STORES in HAWKESBURY STREET, about 60 Cases of Brandy, Three Cases Wine, One Cask Brandy, 1 Puncheon Rum, and sundry other articles, salved from the wreck of the ship 'Mindora,' sunk off Dover on a voyage from London to Victoria, Van Couvers[sic] Island. Catalogues with particulars can be obtained of the Auctioneer, High-street, Whitstable; or of Mr. W. J. Iron, Shipping and Insurance Agent, 1, Cross-wall, Dover.

That appears to be quite a large quantity of bottles, 60 cases of brandy alone would amount to large consignment to be ‘rescued’ from the bottom of the sea and combined with the other goods recovered and those perhaps not reported it seems to have been a very worthwhile salvage venture.

We are not finished yet as in June the following year – 1866 – someone was yet again diving and landing goods in Dover, with 2 cases of cotton prints and 2 cases of ginger being brought up and reports that the now intended to ‘blow the decks out of the Mindora’ to get at even more cargo.⁹

And last but not least, the following month we get a report¹⁰ that on the 30th of June 1866 that more goods were hauled up:

The following goods were landed by the divers this afternoon:—2 casks bottled stout, 30 muslin curtains, 2 pieces damask, 10 pieces prints, 2 pieces alpaca, 6 stools, and a case of ginger, from the wreck of the Mindora.

Finally we have some more stout being raised and a better indication of how they were stored. So packed into casks not crates.

(There is another mention of stout being offered for sale from the ship but the stock is combined with that from another wreck so it can’t be verified to come from the Mindora.)

What is incredible is the sheer amount of salvage being lifted from the wreck, and that it survived the salt water. Whatever about the bottles and clothing, the ginger must have been well pickled!

It is worth noting to that shipwrecks were incredibly common in this era, as was the loss of goods to the sea, much of it unreclaimed unlike the cargo of the Mindora. There are, or were, probably tens of thousands of bottles of beer sitting on the floor of the oceans of the world, a fair few whose contents would have originated in Ireland, and especially from the Guinness brewery.

-o-

Now we can finally jump forward 161 years from the ships sinking and a story of a diver finding a Guinness bottle (which morphed into 20 in some reports) in the wreck of the Mindora in 2025, which has just recently been reported in dozens of online articles. According to the embossed base, the bottle contains Guinness Extra Stout from Cameron and Saunders, who we might remember were mentioned above in a newspaper report of salvaged stock, and this branding is repeated on the top of the capsule that covers the caged and corked top. As we can see from the older newspaper reports above, a huge amount of the cargo was salvaged from the wreck in the years after the ships sinking including some bottles of stout that we might assume were from Cameron and Saunders given the recent find and the name-check above with regard to casks recovered.

We now know that this is not the first bottle of stout to be salvaged from the wreck so it is possible that no more remain, despite the mention of others being suspected to be there by the diver Stefan Panis. Although it is certainly more than possible that one cask, or crate, was missed during the original salvage and more are somewhere within or without the wreck, waiting for the sands to shift to reveal themselves, or that they were buried deep in the hold and still sit there biding their time for discovery.

Depending on maritime law it is possible that others may not dive on the site in order to dig for what they see as buried treasure, as the site appears to be relatively well known in diving circles.

-o-

The label on this recently found bottle has long since disappeared but this playing card image¹¹ produced by Cameron & Saunders shows a label for such a beer. This might be later than those shipped on the Mindora but it is possible that they are the same design or similar that would have been affixed to the bottles. Images of the bottles from current news reports and social media are typical of the heavy shoulder bottles used at this time, especially for export, although the embossing is a nice touch as is the capsule that covers the top of the bottle and matches somewhat the logo in the centre of the label facsimile shown here. The recently found bottle appears to be pint but is possibly a quart size, so 2 Imperial Pints? Although the pictures are unclear and Guinness's stouts was shipped in both sizes to Victoria according to advertisements from this time. What we can say is that Cameron & Saunders were shipping 'Burton Ale' in Quart bottles packed 4 dozen to a case to Victoria in 1862. This gives us a fair idea of how many bottles of stout were recovered initially, if the 4 dozen cases recovered contained this number of bottles! And, if that consignment from Cameron & Saunders was Guinness Extra Stout and not another beer such as Bass.

Cameron & Saunders operated from 7 Hart Street, Mark Lane in London at this time and were primarily Bass bottlers and exporters. The site, which is now a high-rise modern building, would have been conveniently located close to both Fenchurch Street train station and the Thames for easy shipping of goods by sea or rail. They appear to have commenced trading around 1859 or a little before and were bought out some time in the first decade of the 20th century by a rival company, although as a brand they seem to have lasted until the 1920s.¹¹  They were one of many Guinness bottlers during this period when it was a common practice for companies such as these to purchase beers from Guinness, and other breweries on these islands, in bulk and bottle the stout with their own branding once the design and wording had been signed-off by Guinness in Dublin, and as long as it said it was Guinness's porter in the bottle. (This generally meant that theirs was the only porter they were allowed to bottle.) Of those bottling companies, Burkes was probably one of the more well known, along with Blood Wolfe, Hall, Read, and Moline amongst others depending on the era. Indeed Guinness were shipping huge amounts of their stout porters to England specifically for this purpose, as they themselves wouldn’t enter the world of bottling their own beers for a considerable few years more.

To give an idea of how valuable this export trade was to Guinness, in 1863 the London trade alone for Guinness was worth £64,000 of a total English trade of £213,000, that being over twice the trade of Dublin at £100,000 with the total Irish trade being ‘just’ £341,000.¹² That’s just how important exporting their stouts was to Guinness in this era, and beyond of course.

This stout would have been brewed in Dublin before being matured for 2 years in huge vats and it would have then been transferred to wooden casks and shipped to London where it would have been left to settle for weeks before being bottled, corked, caged and encapsulated. Then it was labelled and packed most likely into barrels/casks, or perhaps crates, with dry straw before being loaded onto a vessel. So that recently salvaged stout is unlikely to date from 1864, and more likely to be from 1862 or before – it's even older than has been reported!¹¹

-o-

As to the beer itself, a lot has been made in the recent news regarding the plans to harvest the yeast from the bottle in order to rebrew the beer. This would be impossible to do from just regenerating or even matching the yeast for a number of reasons, not least being that it probably contained not one yeast strain but several, including less conventional brewing yeasts such as Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus which may have entered the beer either in the Guinness brewery or the bottling warehouse of Cameron and Saunders. These may have given the beers a drier, funkier and more acidic – but still palatable – taste.  They are still used in certain beers today for the same reasons, although it was likely their effect on the beer was less seen as a positive back in the day?!

In order to explain why the yeast is just a small, if important, factor in the beer's recipe we need to look at what exactly constituted Guinness Extra Stout in the 1860s, and luckily, we have a good and reliable second-hand source for that, given that access to the brewing archives of Guinness is strictly off limits to mere mortals. David Hughes in his book on bottled Guinness¹¹ gives us more than an inkling of what the beer was like at this time, give or take a few years.

In 1860 and 1867 Guinness Extra Stout was brewed to 1.079 gravity, a measure of the sugar it contained that would be turned into alcohol by the fermentation process. It probably finished fermentation at around 1.018 or so (or perhaps lower by the time the bottler got it into actual bottles and it conditioned even more in there?) giving an alcohol by volume of around 8% or so, the same as Guinness's current offering of Special Export served on the continent, and not to be confused with the slightly lighter modern Foreign Extra. This level of alcohol would certainly help its stability on its journey around the world as would other factors too. The Foreign Extra Stout brewed in the same years was a little lighter curiously, at 1.076 but appears to have finished lower so may have been as strong or a little more perhaps? Cameron & Saunders also bottled this beer, and labels for it also survive.

The ingredients, although generally the same in certain ways, were quite different to today’s draught nitro Guinness. The barley variety would be different as would the malting process and types of finished grain. Roast unmalted barley is used in the modern Guinness portfolio but this would not have been used in brews at this time. A list from 1883 shows that the malts used were pale (which would have been darker than modern pale malt), amber, and roast. It was more likely higher hopped than today’s versions too, giving more hop bitterness, although perhaps a less roast barley bitter bite due to the use of roast malt versus roast barley, as books on the brewing of Irish porter from around this time state that the 'black' malt was more akin to chocolate malt, so not quite as well roasted.

The brewing process would be similar in one way but radically different in others, with longer mash times and boil times and changes in almost every step compared to modern processes. The equipment used is more modern too, which would effect the brewing. Even the fermentation process differs from today and the use of wooded fermentation, storage, and shipping vessels means the inclusion of ‘bugs’ other than the original brewer’s yeast as mentioned earlier.

All of this means that a beer from the 1830s would be impossible to brew again accurately and the idea that anything could be gleaned from just analysing the yeast is ludicrous. It could be done to a certain degree in collaboration with the Guinness archive who would have the actual record of the brew but it would still probably be a watered-down version, literally. Those who attempt to brew historical brews will always say that they will keep as close as possible to the recipe but with so many variables it would be impossible to say that they were brewing the same beer, in fact it would be accurate to say they definitely are not. And hobbyists can get a little closer than most professional brewing companies where time and materials equate to serious money, so the research, work and recreating of ingredients required would be unfeasible for most if not all.

Any brewery who says they are brewing a dead-on balls-accurate historical brew is more often than not fibbing to you.

This found bottle of beer is certainly hugely important as a historical brewing relic and as part of an intertwined story and the history outlined very briefly above, along with the tangible heritage of the Guinness brewery. But the respreading of this story is more down to the interest and marketing of modern Guinness than anything to do with that history. It’s clickbait for the Guinness obsessed and beer-curious, bandwagon jumping to sell advertising buy the reporters. Although it was of actual interest to those interested in the history of beer in fairness.

And perhaps that is reason enough to write this post. Not a rebuttal, not a rebottle either hopefully, just a recording and reiteration of an important part of Irish brewing history.

-o-

We will leave on a quote from David Hughes’ excellent bible of bottled Guinness.

‘The Guinness of today, be it Extra Stout or Foreign, is younger, lower in alcohol, less bitter, much less acidic, the gas content of the beer and head size is higher, there is no sediment in the bottle, it is brighter when held up to a lamp and crucially it is more consistent in its quality and in real terms cheaper to buy.’

Personally though? I’d love to try a bottle of Cameron & Saunders Extra Stout from a corked and caged bottle.

I might even share some …

Liam K

¹ The Dover Chronicle, 3rd December 1864

² The Caledonian Mercury, 8th July 1865

³ The Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 31st July 1865

⁴ The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 4th September 1865

⁵ The Liverpool Shipping Telegraph and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 3rd October 1865

⁶ The South Eastern Gazette, 3rd October 1865

⁷ The South Eastern Gazette, 31st November 1865

⁸ The Dover Chronicle, 2nd December 1865

⁹ The Dover Chronicle, 27th June 1866

¹⁰ The Dover Chronicle, 4th July 1866

¹¹ "A Bottle of Guinness Please" by David Hughes

¹² Guinness's Brewery in the Irish Economy by Patrick Lynch & John Vaizey

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. Newspaper research and image is thanks to The British Newspaper Archive, who have kindly let me share the above images. Other sources are as stated. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

Martyn Cornell’s Porter & Stout a Complete History –The Session #150

Where to start?

When Boak & Bailey, along with Alan McLeod, suggested that we focus on a part of Martyn Cornell’s magnificent tome Porter & Stout–A Complete History for The Session #150 one would have thought it would be an easy ask for me. After all, I’d written on the subject of porter previously and I was a relatively good researcher of facts, if not a great retainer of them. What could be easier? Pick a topic related to the book and write about it …

Simple, huh?

If only.

-o-

Let’s back track a little to when I first started writing about beer history. In the beginning I would consult Martyn’s website or books, as well as those of others, to see if a certain broad topic had been covered, and I quickly came to the realisation that Martyn had covered almost all of what I was hoping to write about on any given subject. I kept thinking back to that old South Park episode where everything that the denizens of that world thought up had already been done by The Simpsons.

‘The Simpsons did it!’ rang through my head but with Martyn’s name instead.

But eventually I stopped checking, as it became a little deflationary, and I began writing just from my own research and by taking a path generally less travelled by other writers. There would be the inevitable crossovers but I just hoped that I wasn’t making any huge mistakes that would engage his, or others, wrath. Anyhow, I've come to realise that coming at a subject from a different angle, or even the same one by a different writer throws up new content and opinions.

I certainly did made mistakes but I found that I was indeed covering some new ground, especially on the Irish side of things and on topics beyond the ubiquitousness of Irish porter history, and carved a little tiny niche in beer history where I still happily sit, albeit beside the giant hall that Martyn excavated out for himself. (Admittedly my efforts to create a bigger more comfortable space for myself have slackened of late, mostly due to blunt, rusty tools—although what is it they say about bad workmen?)

Anyhow, my much better half ordered and purchased Martyn’s book for me, after quite a bit of cancellations and reordering, and when it eventually arrived, I sat down and read the Irish section over a few evenings. And that’s when the issues and self-doubt began again, as he had covered almost every aspect of Irish porter history! As a fan of beer history, I was ecstatic, but as a writer of it I felt, selfishly, dejected and deflated.

Isn’t that odd?

I put the book under a pile of others and left it there, crushed under the beer histories of Cork breweries, pub lore and other vaguely beer-related publications. I wasn’t annoyed with the book by the way, or at Martyn for writing it, I was more annoyed at myself for feeling how I did and spiralling onto a ridiculous ever decreasing circle of self-doubt and self-pity, which is not a good look for a late middle-aged beer writer! Although it is perhaps more common than I think?

Anyhow, there the book remained until Boak & Bailey first mentioned it as a topic for The Session.

-o-

I never met Martyn and didn’t know him really in any way beyond Twitter and then Bluesky, or apart from the odd amicable email exchange. We certainly had some heated 'discussions' over the years but not too many, the worst being on the subject of one of my bugbears, which is the use of the dreaded and incendiary phrase ‘The British Isles’, which is like a red rag to bull to me. I had heard all the geography-based arguments before and I explained my case but we couldn’t see eye-to-eye on the subject, and that was fine in truth.

Generally, I liked the version of Martyn I knew from social media. He could be quite prickly of course but he was supportive of lots of my writing and commented on my posts, often gently admonishing me regarding things he didn’t agree with. He was passionate, prolific, and persistent, and I must say I really miss his input into beer history topics.

But back to his book and Boak & Bailey’s call to arms.

I dug out the book again, rescuing it from beneath an ever-growing stack, and I flipped through the pages with a new found need to give myself a much-needed kick in the backside and find a topic to write about. But even with some new-found energy and enthusiasm it wasn’t quite so simple, as firstly the subject of Irish porter—my general topic of interest in the book—is a vast one and multiple ideas sprang to mind only to flitter away and dissolve as I came to the realisation that he’d already covered it all, or had covered enough of to make me require a deeper dive which I wasn’t quite up too right now.

Then I reread a little nugget that reminded me of an interaction with Martyn, one where he admitted to 'borrowing' my research for his book. An interesting tiny snippet of information that had fascinated me enough to tweet about a while back, and for Martyn to comment on.

Now I had my piece; my connection.

The content of the referenced piece is on pages 81 & 82 of his book and is regarding signage advertising Irish Porter (versus English) for sale in public houses. It was an advertisement I found in a newspaper from 1779 where a sign maker was touting for business. It reads thus:

Transparent Labels for Shops, &c.

ISAAC COLLES, at his PRINT-SHOP

No. 13, Capel-street

CONTINUES to execute the elegant and much admired TRANSPARENT LABELS for SHOPS. The Utility of the above Transparencies are obvious, shewing[sic] the Name and Profession conspicuously at Night, when Shew-Boards cannot be seen. He likewise paints Lables on TIN or Copper for the Day, in plain or gilt Letters.

Said COLLES particularly recommends it to the Publicans, who have resolved to sell Irish Porter, to have these useful Transparencies fixed to the windows, as they can be seen at Night, the Time usually allotted for Porter-drinking.

I put this up on my feed at that time and I got a reply from Martyn.

‘Thank you; stolen!’

So you see I definitely contributed to this book! Admittedly, in a very minor way. (Although I have a sneaking suspicion that he also gathered other snippets and dates from my posts and pieces!?)

The advertisement, which Martyn, rightly, didn’t focus too much on, but might be the first ‘lit’ beer advertising sign in Ireland.

The idea of transparent, backlit signs could be assumed to be a relatively modern invention, but here we have a signmaker purporting to be making some in the 18th century. I decide to do some more digging and seemingly the most common way to create a transparent material in order to write lettering on was to coat thin paper or fabric with a varnish-like substance. You can see how this would indeed create an opaque surface, and certainly ‘transparent’ enough for it to be seen from outside a window in a well-lit public house. Oil could also be used, but that might make the painting of the material more difficult. Or perhaps oil could be mixed with pigment to do the lettering and the words themselves would then be highlighted? (Glass was another option but given the wording used I don’t believe that was used in this case.)

Transparent paper could be purchased readily in England at this time too, and tellingly from a varnish maker, so it was a known practice as advertised in The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette in April 1788

Sadly, I can find no surviving examples of this type of signage but there are a few images of paintings done in such a way on the internet, seemingly there was a small craze for them around the time of that advertisement.

-o-

So that’s my own personal connection to the book. Martyn didn’t credit me, but in fairness he did thank me and admitted he was stealing it!

I also think he may have been baiting me by his use of that term ‘The British Isles’ in the book.

Trust him to have the last word.

Liam K

Who Did it Better? UK Brewed Guinness Foreign Extra vs. Irish Brewed Guinness Foreign Extra

A while ago Guinness moved the brewing of its Foreign Extra (FE) stout from St. James's Gate in Dublin to an anonymous big brewer in the UK. This was due (allegedly) to capacity issues in Dublin at the time but it certainly seems a little strange to have moved that provenance to across the pond, even if this beer is made in other countries too.

Anyhow, I wondered if the beers were in any way comparable, and I finally found a lonesome bottle of the Irish brewed version sitting amongst the Foreign Foreign Extras (F²E?) in an off licence so I could finally do a comparison. The Irish version is best before July 2026 and the UK one is November, so close enough in age for this experiment.

The Irish version when poured had a nice tight fluffy head, while the UK one has a looser head with bigger bubbles and was a little darker in colour. That head on that UK brewed one starts to disappear quite quickly too.

The UK one was up first for a taste and I got bitterness and a touch of sourness, with a coaldust-like aftertaste. Sure, there were the generic back notes of a stout but there was something else there too? It was certainly a little acrid, and I perceived a dryness that I normally get in my historic homebrews that have sugars added maybe?

Next was the Irish brewed one, and it is completely different by comparison. Sweeter, smoother, softer, more like cola mixed with rich coffee. It was a much more pleasant experience, and although there are similarities to both beers they differences are quite pronounced.

Both are drinkable of course, and they are both so-so beers in fairness, but the Irish FE was the best freely bought stout that Guinness had to offer and it's a shame they have degraded it in such a way. As it's pretty much a different beer.

If I didn't know better, and I don't of course, I would say that the UK one was made by brewing a strong ale or lager with sugar, and then adding Guinness Syrup (Not what it's actually called!) to it?  It also seems to be more hopped regarding bitterness which should be something that's easy enough to get right? Of note is that the UK version has less calories via the recipe—62kcal per 100ml vs 64kcal. 

Another very minor quibble is that they are also using a slightly stumpier, non-embossed bottle, but that hardly matters.

With their new brewery up and running in Kildare hopefully they will pull the production back to Dublin.

They can clearly brew a much better version of FE there.

Liam K

Historic Home Brewing – A Very Rough Guide

It’s a quite ludicrous idea really.

The concept of attempting to brew a historic brewery beer of any kind in these modern times could be seen as a pointless endeavour because on the face of it such a beer will never be exactly as it was. That statement is of course 100% true, but if you only believe in such absolutes and regard anything less as pointless then historical brewing isn’t for you, as it’s a hobby that’s certainly embraces The Ish.

What we are actually aiming for is a historic-ish brew with as close-ish as possible ingredients while using old-ish methods. If you aren’t leaning into The Ish then you won’t be happy with the compromises that need to be made, and conversely if you don’t try to negate and minimise The Ish then you might as well brew a modern beer. It will certainly be easier and there are plenty of tried and tested recipes available. So if you don’t enjoy the search for original recipes, the hunt for the right ingredients, and sticking as close as possible to the process then you haven’t really done the best you can by the recipe and the original brewers of that beer. Neither will you get as close as you possibly can to what the beer tasted like so, to me, it seems a little pointless not to at least try your best, but for sure the whole process is based on a certain amount of compromise.

It all comes down to replicating and controlling what you can and adapting the things you cannot, and it requires more than a little passion in the subject, plus a ridiculous and pointless need to replicate a long dead beer.

Before we start it’s important to flag the work of two people who were of great help to me at the onset with my research and early attempts at recreating what were, and still are, mostly old Irish beers from old Irish recipes. Those people are Ron Pattinson and Edd Mather, and both would be familiar to those with an interest in historical brews, and I would encourage those who are new to this to visit their websites and to buy Ron’s books. Ron is probably more well known and publishes recipes that are easily adapted by homebrewers for their own use, while Edd's are much more detailed but still usable for hobbyists. 

And while Ron and Edd produce the recipes, they don’t do any homebrewed versions as far as I am aware(?), although Ron has certainly done commercial ones! I differ in my approach because I like taking the whole process from the finding of the recipe all the way to drinking the finished product, and I rarely publish recipes. I leave that to both of them, and they are quite prolific at it!

I eventually stopped bugging both of them about recipes and started to develop my own versions, adapted to a homebrew BIAB (Brew in a Bag) method at first before upgrading to a Grainfather with software and Bluetooth, and if you think that the irony of brewing old beers on such a modern system is lost on me, I can assure you it most certainly is not! But that software is hugely beneficial when it comes to easing the development and adaption of recipes. 

-o-

The Source

The first hurdle to clamber across if you want to brew a historic beer is finding an actual recipe. (Ron and Edd, and others, have plenty for you to copy if you want to skip this bit, and the whole post and go straight to brewing!) This is by far the trickiest issue in Ireland where old brewing records are extremely scarce. Some are held in the Guinness Archive, others by Cork University, and one batch in Portlaoise Library, and those cover just a tiny handful of Irish breweries, only five I believe. Apart from that we are indebted to scribbled notes by those who visited the breweries and made notes regarding some of the brewing process, and books on the subject, but even those are very scarce.

In England, and perhaps Scotland and Wales, there seems to be no end to the brewing records available. Either held by the breweries themselves, of which there were many more than on this island, or in local study archives. We certainly should have more records here but they are either in private hands or worse still, have been destroyed.

So those in the UK can find these sources relatively easily but those here need to make a trip to the three sources and take notes and photos of said records. This I must stress is only if you want to replicate a certain beer from our brewing history, but I’d argue that if you don’t do this then you won’t have enough personal knowledge to even pay homage to a particular old beer style. The act of looking at the scribbled notes of a long dead brewer from our past tends to inspire that passion and need for authent-ish-ity required.

These records will have the usual information such as to the date of the brew, its number (often written as gyle number), and plenty of information on the brew itself. I won’t pretend to know what all of this information means but the most important for a historic-ish brew are the following in my opinion:

The malt – types and amounts, usually in barrels and stones 

The hops – sources and weight, usually pounds

Any other additions such as sugars and other adjuncts 

The mash length and temperature

The boil length

The OG (Original Gravity) before fermentation. (This may be in pound of sugar per gallon so you will need to find a conversion chart to get that figure into the modern system we currently use. I have found one in the archives but I'm sure they are available online in old publications.)

There will be other information in the records too such as sparge temperature, plus yeast and fermentation notes, etc, but if you have the information listed above, with or without the sparge temperature, you have much of what you need to attempt to replicate the beer on a simple homebrew scale.

A word of warning, much of this information was written down just for the brewer's own records so there are abbreviations and scribbles that only he might understand. I am reminded of one lot of 19th century brewing records in the Cork University Library that appear to have been brought over to Ireland from the UK and feature some interesting beers, but the recipes seem illegible and gobbledegook to a homebrewer of my level, for now.

The Recipe

The next step is to break down the ingredients into ratios, which probably isn’t an entirely accurate way of doing things but logically will give us the right proportion of bitterness to biscuitness for our purposes. Convert all volumes and measurements to the one unit (I use kilograms) and calculate the ratio of how much hops and sugars, etc. to the malts, as this will eventually give you the figures you need for the actual brew. One tricky thing here is that old records used barrels per brew for their malt amounts, so volume-based measurements versus the weight-based system we use now. There is an added issue too in that Irish barrels and English barrels were different volumes. This will not be an issue for those in the UK but here we used both sizes, with Irish Barrels being 32 gallons and English being 36 gallons, the size used is sometimes noted on the brewing records but more often is not, so an educated guess may be needed to be made. And you thought this would be easy? As far as the conversion of volume to weight, there are figures available online but the simplest thing to do is to weigh a litre (or a pint if you work that way) of malt and convert the barrels using that figure. This won’t be entirely accurate as moisture levels and other factors mean that we are back to The Ish of historic brewing, but it is certainly within acceptable parameters.

Hops are by weight so that’s easy to add as a ratio, but with hops in the past being a little older and stored in poorer conditions they may have lost some bitterness, so it has been argued that you should use them at 75 or 80% of the historical rate. I haven't researched whether that is the case, although I can see how they might lose aroma, I'm not so sure about bitterness?

By now you should have all of the figures you need – use a spreadsheet if that helps.

This is where the brewing software comes in, I use my Grainfather app but I’m sure others work the same way, or you could conceivably build a complete spreadsheet to achieve the same result.

Set the mash time and temperature as per the recipe and do the same for the boil time. Remember the OG we recorded and possible converted? Set your volume in the app and then add the fermentables, changing them up or down until they reach the OG you want but keeping them in the ratios you worked out.

Next add the hops to the recipe in the right ratio to match the fermentables, this should ensure that you hit the right bitterness to 'sweetness'. Then we hit our first unknown – when to do the hop additions? This is an issue in almost every recipe I’ve viewed, as the timing is never listed, so I tend to defer to either the start of boil or with an hour of boil time to go. The fact that the time is never mentioned makes me believe they are added from the start, and although many people would not recommend this process given the long boil times that we will discuss later, it would seem to be the case that this is what was done, as otherwise it would be mentioned surely?

We will now park our recipe temporarily as we discuss what goes into the actual beer

The Ingredients

The malt is probably the single most important factor in the beer and it is imperative to try and replicate it as much as we can, and there are things we can control and things we can’t here. These days with a little research you can work out which variety of barley was used in a recipe by looking at the brew date and doing a little research. The recipe often shows the grower or origin of the main malt although rarely the variety but once we know the introduction dates of the main heritage barley varieties still available, we can at least use one that is age appropriate. For example, Plumage Archer was introduced first at the very start of the 20th century so it should not be used in a 19th century beer, in those cases Chevallier (early 19th century) would be a better choice from what’s freely available these days. Maris Otter and Hunter would suit beers from the 1960s, and so on. Sadly we have lost a fair few heritage strains so we can only use what we have available. A word of caution, the supply has dried up in Ireland for most, if not all, of these heritage malts so importation may be required. Just like in the past I might add!

The malting process might have changed from then to now but that is outside of the control of the homebrewer, although floor malted varieties are available. If you are up for some experimentation you can also attempt to adapt base malts by adding small amounts of speciality ones to the brew. I have added a little Special W malt to Chevallier in 19th century stouts where the malt was described in a book of the time as having a reddish hue. Hardly accurate, but possibly a way of getting closer to the taste, complexity and colour of that old way of malting. I have also added a little Hanna to one brew as I was trying to replicate a portion of Californian malt that was in one beer and it was commented by someone that the malt from there might be a little higher in proteins – this may not be the case but you can see what I am trying to do with what we have available. Generally though, I try just to use the malts without additions, especially on 20th century beers.

Old brewing and malting books are an important resource too, as the above-mentioned book which was on the brewing of 18th century Irish porters mentions that Irish black malts weren’t in fact as black as English ones but more chocolate in colour, so we know to use chocolate malt and not patent at this time for Irish beers at least. (I have used this book to make a complete recipe because it was so detailed, which I will show below.)

Hops can be an issue too, and again introduction dates can help. Most brewing records mention the English grower by name and foreign hops by country or area. (It’s probably important to note here that most of my comments here are based on my looking at Irish records, others may differ.) You might see ‘Bavarian’ or ‘Sonoma’ or ‘Calif.’ on a brew sheet, so source heritage varieties if possible. Finding Cluster hops, for example, is an issue at the moment so you might need to substitute for the oldest variety you can find. With English hops again pick older varieties, Fuggle is probably okay for late 19th century beers but EKG appears to have an older lineage. Bramling X is 20th century, etc. I think you get the idea. I use whole hops wherever possible, as they would be more authentic, plus they suit by Grainfather better than pellets. Get as close as you can to what the original brewer used. There are enough things that are unknown or unavailable so control what you can, even if a bittering hop is a bittering hop to a point. A touch of pedantry is certainly a boon to this hobby.

Other grains, or adjuncts derived from them, were used too. Flaked grains, propriety malt extracts (some just frustratingly recorded by their initials) and sugars were common. In some cases they are listed in detail, but at other times very poorly. Don’t be surprised to see ‘sugar’ or similar on a brew sheet but no record of what time of sugar was used – see also the word ‘Flaked’. A tip here is to look at notes on the recipes and lists of volumes purchased and used at either the end of the month or in the back of the brew book, that sometimes gives you more details. If using invert sugar I use the recipe in one of Ron's books to create it myself, although if very small amounts are required I have used Golden Syrup, or even just basic Dextrose if the actual sugar isn’t listed.

Water is one area I haven’t tackled in my own brews, yet. In theory, and with a big budget, you could RO your existing water and add whatever was in the water where the beer was brewed, but that historical information is scarce and there is a degree of chemistry knowledge needed that I haven’t attempted to approach, especially given that when available the chemical make-up of the water is approached in a different fashion with different terminology. A simple thing to do might be just to check the general quality of the water now where the beer was brewed regarding PH, and salts and adjust your own water accordingly.

Yeast is a bit of an issue too, as the ones used by these breweries, which they rolled on from brew to brew, was probably a house yeast so it isn’t really possible to replicate them, but these days I tend to lean towards those one of the English ale yeasts that are available which impart a little character. I have used more modern yeasts for certain beers in the past but prefer not to, as again the older styles that preserve a little character of the yeast seem, at least, more correct.

The Process

Using a Grainfather – or similar brewing system and software – the process of actually brewing the beer follows the same lines as what is done for any other beer providing everything is set right in the app. So after a final check that the gravity is correct as well as the ratios of ingredients, just treat the process like a normal brew day. To be honest, I find that the easiest part of the whole musty-brewing-record-page-to-beer-glass process.

If you are in any way worried or concerned about the recipe then now might be a good time to change the batch size, I have done some 10 litre brews in these cases, especially with ones that contain malt extract and sugars that I feel might dry out the beer or affect the flavour.

The mash time may seem excessive but my argument is that it was there for a reason, possibly to do with the wort extraction of the older barley varieties, but I’m not sure – that’s something outside of my knowledge at this point. Those longer mashes certainly don’t seem to do any harm and I would feel that at least, again, we are doing the things we can do right in following the recipe. Remember, we are mitigating The Ish!

The same is true of the boil time, which can be quite long at up to, and over, 2 hours. This I feel is certainly more important as there is a certain colour change, both due to evaporation (that change could be achieved in a shorter boil with some changes to the recipe of course) but also due to a degree of Maillard Reaction, and can be confirmed by the C of ‘burnt’ wort that can be witnessed on the bottom plate of the Grainfather when the brew is finished! There can be no doubt that this has an effect on the beer, but regardless it is another thing we can control in our historic brew. This reaction probably increases when using sugars, and although most recipes don’t list when to add those, and I suspect they were added during the process of transferring the boiled wort to the cooler? I usually add them near the end of the boil in order for them to mixed and dissolved – the 15 min mark seems about right.

Once the beer is chilled, the yeast added and it’s in the fermentor the process again becomes a little more historic-ish, as I am fermenting in a stainless-steel container, which would have been wrong for the older historic brews but is something beyond our control. Dry hopping can be done as per any notes you find, as it might give the weight per barrel if you are lucky. Packaging can be another uncontrollable point, although by bottle-conditioning the beer at least you are using a traditional method. Although I have brewed 1960s beers that were certainly force carbonated but as I had no way to do that, I bottle-conditioned those beers too.

I think that broadly covers the way I brew when trying to get as close as possible to what the actual beer tasted like. Of course in most cases I will never know how close.

Are those beers 100% correct versions of the historical originals? No.

Have I done the best I can to reproduce them given the limitations? Yes.

But I can guarantee I have made mistakes ...

-o-

There is a lot not covered here so I will revisit this topic again and give more details on all the different aspects of my way of brewing the beers depending on what I remember to have left out, or any questions that appear over time.

Anyhow, good luck to all who attempt to brew some historical beers and remember to keep The Ish in historic-ish as small as you can.

I haven't been disappointed with any beer I have brewed in this way, but I would be a bit biased of course. Just about all have turned out very drinkable and enjoyable so don't be afraid to give it a try if you are so inclined.

Here are a couple of my simplified recipes if you fancy giving them a go for starters, and don't forget Ron and Edd:

1870s Irish Porter - OG 1.053  IBU 50.8  EBC 69

Batch Size: 23 L

Mash Time: 120 mins

Mash Temp: 64°C

Boil Time: 120 mins

Efficiency 80%

 

Fermentables:

Chevallier 4.6kg

Special W 500g

Chocolate Malt 460g

Hops:

EKG 18g - 120 min

Hallertauer Mittelfruh 18g - 120 min

Cluster 7g - 60 min

EKG 18g - 60 min

Hallertauer Mittelfruh 18g - 60 min

Whirlfloc - 15mins

Water: Mash - 18.51 L  Sparge - 16.94 L

Sparge Temp 81°C(!)

Yeast: Windsor

Final Gravity was 1.010 and 5.64% abv

As you can see, I've added Special W (as mentioned above) to try and replicate the malting of the base malt, and fudged the hop additions to be on the cautious side. Sparge temp is correct, and the beer turned out excellent, especially after a month or so in the bottle,

Mid-20th Century Irish XX Mild - OG 1.046  IBU 36.5  EBC 20.5

Batch Size: 23 L

Mash Time: 95 mins 

Mash Temp: 62°C

Boil Time: 135 mins

Efficiency 80%

Fermentables:

Plumage Archer 4.5kg

Black Malt 80g

Hops:

Fuggle 64g - 90 min

Whirlfloc - 15mins

Water: Mash - 15.87 L  Sparge - 19.55 L

Sparge Temp 71°C

Yeast: Fermoale AY3

Final Gravity was 1.012 and 4.73% abv

The black malt here seems to have been purely used to add a little colour, it is added to the mash here for convenience but may have been added to the boil.

-o-

Enjoy the process and the brewing, and watch that Ish where possible!

(And don't blame me if you burn out the element in your Grainfather, although I haven't. Yet).

Liam

Other sources for historic beer brewing information for you to delve into:

Lars Marius Garshol

Merryn Dineley

Beer Nouveau

Braciatrix

Martyn Cornell

Daft Eejit Brewing

(I know I'm forgetting someone else?)

PS: I have attempted in the past to brew old Irish recipes with commercial breweries but they either weren’t interested, had issues previously with such brews, or they didn’t ‘get’ the concept of getting as close to the original beer as we could, the instead favoured inappropriate ingredients and processes that jarred with me. ‘Surely any bittering hop will do?’ and ‘We don’t need that length of mash or boil, we can just measure', made me think they lacked the commitment to authenticity, even with The Ish! I can appreciate there is cost and time involved for them in making a beer, so I don't really judge them too harshly, I just don't think it's a viable plan as I don't want to compromise on the recipe and they need to make money, and I can't guarantee that. Especially given the tastes of most beer drinkers!

But if a commercial brewer reads this and wants to take a risk, drop me a line!

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.

Sign of the Times: Arthur Guinness's First Signature?

There is good argument to say that research of any kind is a form of therapy, as it distracts the mind, gives a sense of purpose, and can be hugely rewarding when you find that little nugget of information that you were searching for, and often one you weren't! This is especially true of history research, and when it ties in with the specifics of your interested field the whole process can feel like something beyond basic escapism. It brings you to pleasantly solitary place where you feel that only you and this treasure of information exist—regardless of how many others have been there before and will be there afterwards. At that given time it is just you and that line of words or image, all alone but content and happy.

There is more than a little irony that much of the historical research we now do is online and virtual, as historians gaze at their screens at pixelated renderings of said images and words, which are zoomable, copyable, and gratefully accessible. Every second of every day more information is digitised and released on to the internet in the form of books, pamphlets and newspapers. It is normally to the latter that I am drawn as they are such an incredible, and huge, source of information for my interest. Indeed, a search of the word 'brewery' in a site such as The British Newspaper Archive, which also has old (and some new) Irish newspapers on it, gives a number of occurrences at near 7 million, although just a paltry half million of those are for Irish newspapers. An easy trawl through ...

But, as with all printed material, there is something a little sterile in actual newspapers themselves, given as they are mass printed publications which are one step removed from words actually written by those from our past. Or perhaps more fairly just a mechanised form of those words, but you get the gist of the argument I'm sure.

There is something more special about finding actual quill-or-pen-made writing and signatures, even if viewed from that screen on a desk in the dark and pleasant comfort of your own home. And even better if you find something 'new.'

-o-

Beyond the newspaper archives and online book depositories there are other sources for the history researcher, and a hugely important one for Irish historians came online in 2022.

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI) is an all Ireland and international research partnership working to reconstruct and publish the items that were in the Public Record Office of Ireland which were destroyed in 1922 at the outset of the Civil War during the deeply contentious bombing of The Four Courts in Dublin.

This is from their website:

VRTI restores and reimagines a lost archival treasure through historical research, archival conservation, and technical innovation. It enriches the public understanding of Ireland’s past and reconnects a global audience to our documentary heritage. VRTI does not merely platform digital resources shared by partners. Rather, it creates something entirely new — a veritable Treasury of historical sources, newly translated, enhanced and contextualised — from the collections to which partner organisations provide access. VRTI is, in this sense, entirely unique in the world.

Since its launch it has added more and more information online in a relatively easily searchable format, albeit with the limits of OCR for deciphering printed (and, obviously, written) text.

Back in 2022 at its launch, I immediately started searching for brewing related information and came across quite a lot, although much of it was not entirely useful given it may just mention a named brewer. This is helpful to those who are trying to complete a picture of said brewer but generally it can be a little bit of a pointless search. But I did come across The Minute Book of Corporation of Brewers and Maltsters of the City of Dublin which contains 100 years of information on its members from 1702, a copy of which was held in the Guinness Archives so could be scanned for the VRTI. (I posted on social media at the time about the following but for some reason never committed to the semi-permanency of this site or noted its significance.)

On page 149 of the book, dated Tuesday the 24th of April 1759 and in the handwriting of the Dublin brewer Ephraim Thwaite the following is written:

At a meeting of the Master Wardens of the Brethren of the Corporation of Brewers & Maltsters of Dublin Pursuant to due Notice given, the Petition of Arthur Guinness being Lead[?] praying to be admitted into the franchisees & Liberties of their Corporation, he was accordingly admitted on paying a fine of two Guineas & this Hall adjourned till further notice.

It is signed by the following brewers James Taylor (Cork Bridge), Ephraim Thwaite (Cork Bridge), Thomas Greene (James's Gate), Hugh Trevor (Crooked Staff) and John Forster (Later Thomas Court - possibly with Francis Forster then on James's Street). Of note is that all of these are quite close together, as this area from The Liberties west of south central Dublin towards Dr. Steevens' Hospital—close to the current site of Heuston Station—was packed with breweries and distilleries at this time and for quite a few years to come.

On Tuesday the 26th of June 1759 Arthur was officially sworn in and on Saturday the 25th of August of that same year his now famous signature appears in the record book for the first time.

Now, given that the famous brewery lease wasn't signed until December of that year—that is the document, or a facsimile of which, that you can see embedded under glass on the floor of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin—then is this the first known signature of Arthur Guinness?

Possibly not, but it's probably the earliest one you can see with ease and it predates his lease by 4 months. (Of course, I'm taking liberties with the post's title, as it can't have been his very first signature!)

-o-

Just as a footnote of sorts, the current signature on Guinness products that closely resembles this one, if sadly a little less flamboyant, only started to be used on bottle labels from 1965. Prior to that it was slightly different and included the words 'Son & Co.' It's nice that they have kept the original Long S he used for the second last letter, but I do think they could have made it a bit more curlified!

Liam 

Virtual Treasury Record Info:

Creative Commons License CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial): Guinness GDB/BR12/0002, 'Minute Book of Corporation of Brewers and Maltsters of the City of Dublin'. Accessed on Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland <https://virtualtreasury.ie/item/Guinness-GDB-BR12-0002> PID: <https://arks.org/ark:/75929/i145700> (13 May 2026). Repository: Guinness Archive (Dublin).

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. Research link is shown above.  Labels and labels image are the authors. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

Smithwick's 0.0?* – When Guinness Brewed a Non-Alcoholic Bitter

Alcohol free beer is hardly a new phenomenon, although every time it regains its popularity for a new generation there seems to be a collective loss of memory that it has existed in various forms for 150 years or more. From the long-gone days of alcohol free(ish) Hop Bitters, Hop Porter and Hop Stout of the late 19th century – driven by the temperance movement – it stuttered along through the early 20th century before finally re-emerging in the 1980s in numbers, primarily aimed at a new health conscious breed of people plus those who had found their moral compass, aided by new legislation, and  didn’t want to drink and drive.

By the late 1980s there were 25 brands of low or no alcohol in the UK market, 12 of which were made there and the rest imported¹, and onto this sober-driven bandwagon was to jump an Irish brewed contender with an equally unlikely name.

-o-

Smithwick’s Alcohol Free Bitter, or AFB as it was marketed, was developed in James’s Gate in Dublin by Guinness, the owners of the St. Francis Abbey brewery in Kilkenny at the time and therefore the holder of the brand rights to the Smithwick name for brewing. Guinness had launched their alcohol-free lager Kaliber in 1983 in Ireland, followed by the US, before it appeared in the UK in late 1985, and by 1988 it was selling very well there. Over September and October of that year they launched Smithwick AFB into that market as an ale alternative for those who, perhaps, preferred something less Teutonic tasting on their palates, as many of the non and low alcohol beers available at that time were lagers. An alcohol free version of and English style beer would have seemed to be a good call as a stablemate for Kaliber.

Using the Smithwick’s brand might seem a strange choice but it would have made sense on a number of fronts. Firstly, the brand would possibly have been known to a small extent beer-wise, but regardless of that, the name itself is essentially an English surname and even follows English pronunciation traditions. Secondly, they could play on the marketed heritage of the brewery to apply an instant veneer of respectability and history to the product. Lastly, ‘normal’ Smithwicks was developed in the mid-1960s as a reaction to keg bitters such as Watney’s Red Barrel and other UK interlopers which were taking market share from the Irish breweries and their ale brands, with some such as Red Barrel even being brewed here. It was pretty much a keg bitter itself – this was before it was reclassified as that new-fangled style called an ‘Irish Red Ale’ – so the leap from it to a non-alcoholic bitter-style ale probably required little in recipe changes. So, in the same way that it was rumoured that Kaliber was just non-alcoholic Harp – it was brewed in the same brewery in Dundalk – then AFB would seem to be just Smithwicks without its alcohol content.

No common sources seem to say exactly where the beer was brewed but given the labels and other marketing material, we can hesitantly assume that it was in the Kilkenny brewery, but it was bottled, along with Kaliber, in the other Guinness owned Dundalk Brewery, Macardle Moore. Curiously, there is a reference to that brewery being ‘at the heart of [..] non-alcoholic Smithwicks' and which is confirmed to be ‘exactly the same as Smithwicks, only with the alcohol taken out.’² Indeed, Smithwicks ale for the north of Ireland was being brewed there so it is possible that some or all of the beer was being brewed in the Macardle Moore brewery given the enigmatic quotation above? It was also reported elsewhere to have been based on the higher gravity Export version of Smithwicks, which would possible give it more depth and compensate for the lack of alcohol, or perhaps it was chosen to be even more close to and English Bitter by taste after the alcohol was removed.³ There is no mention in any sources as to how it was dealcoholised but it was probably done at the end of fermentation by a distillation method to evaporate out the alcohol, as was Kaliber, and certainly a stronger flavoured base-beer would help mask any unpleasantness from that process.

The launch was accompanied by newspaper competitions plus promotions, and a strange and repeated focus on how the beer, at 0.5% abv, contained less alcohol than orange juice! Reviews of the product at the time varied a little but it seems to have been generally well received for what it was, with reviewers commenting on how it (ironically) ‘packed a real bite and had good flavour’ and how they could drink it in a pub all night,  although it was also said to be ‘quite gassy and sweet.’⁴ Others said it was ‘pretty good. Smells right and tastes of hops. Quite rich and smooth to drink.’⁵ It was sold in half-pint and in 4-packs of 330ml bottles, and perhaps in other formats too. The name Guinness featured quite prominently on the labels, beer mats and newspaper advertisements, presumably to add another layer of confidence and security to the brand for those who had never heard of Smithwicks and needed reassurance as to its provenance. Unlike Kaliber, it doesn't seem to have ever been available south of the border in Ireland. Hardly a surprise given its restyled name and branding, and the confusion it might cause to consumers here.

The late 1980s seems to have been the highpoint for that generation of non-and-low alcoholic beer and by January 1991 the love and demand for these ‘near beers’ was in decline. Complaints at the time of these beers being too expensive and that some didn’t taste great – tarnishing the reputation of all – sound somewhat familiar to modern ears regarding our current generation of 0.0s.

Smithwicks AFB was one of the first of many of these brands to quietly disappear due to disappointing sales, even given the good reviews. Most of the others followed; who in the UK remembers Bass brewed Barbican or Whitbread's White Label now?

-o-

All of this gives pause for thought as to the current 0.0% bubble that seems to be increasing month by month. History would seem to tell us that it won’t last, that sometime in the next few years there will be a big pop, or possibly just a slow deflate.

Perhaps not though, as the trend is different this time round. There are many more draught versions available and the quality and taste seems generally much better. Also the marketing angle is different and more focussed, and perhaps the reason for drinking these beers has also changed. But we still come back to history repeating itself so it may not be overly prudent as a long-term investment ...

Although, conversely, maybe we are not far away from Guinness launching a non-alcoholic nitro ale on us – less of the Smithwick's 0.00 and more of a Kilkenny 0.0?!

Liam

* It was 0.5% abv of course!

¹ The Daily Express 18th January 1988
² The Drogheda Argus and Leinster Journal 2nd September 1988
³ The Staffordshire Newsletter 18th November 1988
⁴ The Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph 12th December 1990
⁵ The Bristol Evening Post 24th March 1990

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. Newspaper research was thanks to The British Newspaper Archive. Label and label image are the authors. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!