Friday 31 December 2021

Food History: Breaking Bread - A Lost Custom in Ireland?

Food history is not a topic I write about much but it is certainly something that interests me, and occasionally I come across a story or reference that is intriguing enough to want me to share it to a wider audience.

A little while back I came across an article from January 1852 with wonderful images in the Illustrated London News regarding an old baking custom in Ireland that for the most part seems to have disappeared, apart from the odd mention in lists of traditions from around the festive period or the occasional reference to something vaguely similar that people still do spotted on social media or elsewhere.

Instead of waffling on about it too much here I will just transcribe the article for you to make of what you will from it, or use as a reference point if you ever spot it being mentioned or hear about it in other circumstances.


The Baking and Breaking of the New Year’s Eve Cake - A Christmas Custom in Ireland

(From a Correspondent)

This fine old festival, whose origin is lost amidst the Pagan darkness that surrounds so many of the customs of this country, and yet rendered dear to its inhabitants by the joyous association of childhood, like the many other, is now passing away not only from the practice, but also from the recollection, of the people; yet they delight to talk of those times when the worthy good man, either in ‘the big house’ or ‘comfortable homestead’ made known to his cherished friends and humble dependents that the ‘lady of the house’ or ‘the good woman’ was to have her New Year's Eve cake; And the sly invitation was sure to gather all who cherished genuine wit and humour to witness the making of the cake - that important portion of the meal - to enjoy the drollery of him and her installed as high priest and to stage the requisite incantations to secure the success of the charmed cake. This, having been once fairly placed on the griddle (in those days our forefathers knew little of the oven for such uses), became an object of interest more than one, and many were the sly coleens who, when the lad of her choice placed in the fire a sprig of the still verdant holly or Ivy that decorated the kitchen, would adroitly steal in another little sprig to the blazing pile, to see if her fortune burned and kept pace with his; if it did so, (like the burnt nuts of All-Hallows eve) a smooth current of happiness for the coming year was indicated.

Those were, indeed, days of simplicity, when the Baron and the peasant met alike under the same roof; when even the humble itinerant fiddler who played his way through the country was expected to witness the next aspirant to manhood lay hold of the well-made and substantial cake, and, with his mimic strength, dash against the door, when it was shivered to pieces, while the assembled witnesses of the scene offered up in spirit an humbled but fervent prayer that cold, want, or hunger might not enter that door for the ensuing year. The fragments of the cake were then scrambled for, and certain was he or she who succeeded in securing the first fragment that touched the ground, that they, too, would have a home and a New Year's Cake ere the next year was out.

To this succeeded a scene of romping, eating and drinking, dancing and singing, such as can only be witnessed in Ireland; And the mirth continues up to the hour that marks our passage from one year into another, when a fervent prayer is offered up to Him who has brought us thus to a new year, and enabled us to see the light of another.

We recollect, when a schoolboy, thinking with delight over our promised enjoyment of a New Year's Cake, and of all our school fellows having the same promise of enjoyment held out to them; whereas we believe that the practice is now only carried out in the more comfortable and wealthy homes of the South and Midland counties of poor old Ireland.

It is a tradition that was certainly lost to me until recently - and there are another couple in there too regarding the burning of holly and nuts. The wording is a bit difficult in places to our modern ears given the language, grammar, and syntax of the middle of the 19th century but I am sure you get the gist of the tradition; the baking of bread/cake in a griddle pan, and it then being smashed against the door by a son in the household for luck, with an extra dose of fortune for the person who got the first piece to hit the ground.

Anyone up for it?

Liam

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

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

Wednesday 15 December 2021

Mixing your Festive Drinks? Part II - More Christmas Cups ...

In yesterday's post I focussed on beer-related wintery drink mixes or 'cups', but in this one I'll mix in some other non-beer recipes. Some of these will be familiar to some of you although the ingredients and process does vary with time and author so they may not match your own versions or other you have read. All are listed in Oswald Atherton 'Mac' Fleming's 'Gourmet's Book of Food and Drink' published in 1933.

As mentioned in the last piece, some of the ingredients might be hard - or even impossible - to get so some substitution may be required. I have left the recipes in Imperial measures so some conversion may also be required. please note I have paraphrased some of the recipes to make them slightly clearer but left most of the ingredients as stated. Some quantities are for sharing and may need to be decreased as you will see, please act responsibly!

Auld Man’s Milk
Heat a pint of Scotch Ale with a ¼ ounce of cinnamon stick, ¼ ounce of ginger and a ¼ ounce of nutmeg; beat the yolks of two eggs with a little brown sugar and pour the ale mix on top and stir, then add a measure of whisky.

Rumfustian
Heat up a ½ bottle of sherry in a saucepan and add ¼ ounce of bruised cinnamon, ¼ grated nutmeg, 3 bruised cardamom seeds, 2 ounces of sugar and the thin rind of a lemon; whisk up the yolks of 3 eggs with a pint of ale and a pint of gin and pour the strained sherry into the mix while stirring.

Egg Flip
Heat a quart of good ale; beat the yolks of six eggs with ½ a nutmeg and ½ a pound of sugar with a wineglass of whisky or gin; skim the froth from the ale into this mixture and just before it boils pour all the ale into the mix slowly and while stirring.

Lamb’s Wool
Roast eight apples, mash them and add to a quart of old ale, press and strain; add ginger and nutmeg and sweeten to taste.

Hot Spiced Ale
Heat a quart of good ale and add ½ a grated nutmeg; beat two eggs with a little cold ale and add the hot ale while stirring; add a piece of butter and serve with dry toast.

‘Tween Deck Cup
Put ½ dozen cloves in a pint of rum with a little ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg and strain after one hour; add an equal quantity of lime juice and 2 quarts of bottled ale.

Bishop a la Cutler
Beat the yolks of two eggs and add a ½ pint of boiling milk followed by a pint of whisky, stirring constantly; sweeten to taste and add a little nutmeg and cloves

Beadle
Pound a ¼ ounce of cinnamon, four cloves and a ½ ounce of ginger together and add to ¼ pound of sugar and a pint of boiling water, then strain; add the mix to the yolks of two eggs, whisking constantly then add a glass of raisin wine and six glasses of ginger wine; serve immediately.

Sleeper
Boil six cloves, ¼ ounce of cinnamon stick, eight coriander seeds and 1 ½ ounces of sugar in a ½ pint of water; strain the mixture and add the juice of ½ a lemon and a ¼ pint of old rum; add the mixture gradually to two egg yolk, whisking as you do; serve immediately.

Baltimore Egg-Nogg
Beat the yolks of three eggs with a ¼ of a grated nutmeg and two ounces of sugar, then add ½ a gill of brandy or rum and a glass of marsala or brown sherry; mix in the whisked whites of the eggs followed by a gill of cream and a pint of milk.

Excellent Negus
Warm a bottle of sherry or port in a saucepan and add 2 ½ pints of water, the juice of one lemon and a little of the peel rubbed in sugar, grated nutmeg, and sugar to taste - followed by one drop of essence of ambergris[!] and ten drops of vanilla essence.

Apple Toddy
Put a baked apple in a heat-proof glass and add one ounce of fine sugar, one gill of brandy, ½ a pint of boiling cider; grate some ginger on top of the mix and add a piece of lemon peel.

So, there's another collect for you to experiment with, just watch those alcohol quantities, and drink cleverly. As with those in my last post I haven't actually tried any of these yet so I have no idea if they actually work or taste any good!

Liam

Gourmet’s Book of Food and Drink by Oswald Atherton Fleming with illustrations by William M. Hendy was published in 1933 by John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd. in London and printed by Western Printing Services Ltd, Bristol, England. It is dedicated to his wife, ‘Who can make an omelette’ 

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 original source, and a link back to this post.


Tuesday 14 December 2021

Mixing your Festive Drinks? Here are Some Christmas Cups ...

Over the last few years I seem to have accidentally - or perhaps incidentally - amassed an odd collection of drink and cookery-related books, and of these one of my favourites is 'Gourmet's Book of Food and Drink' published anonymously by an enigmatic Scottish journalist called Oswald Atherton 'Mac' Fleming in 1933 with illustrations by William M. Hendy. It’s a very readable volume and contains recipes, memoirs and much idle banter including excerpts from columns he wrote in the London Evening News and also the Sunday Chronicle. Unsurprisingly there is very little Irish content in its pages but it is still an interesting and curious book - and there is a very vague Irish connection in so far as Fleming was married to Dorothy L. Sayers who worked on the Guinness marketing campaign with John Gilroy, and according to some sources even came up with the now famous toucan idea.

In the book Fleming includes a few chapters solely on drinks and what may be of interest at this time of the year are the various recipes for mixed drinks - ‘cups’ - that he has gathered together in two chapters, and given the season I thought it might be a good time to transcribe them here so that perhaps some of you might experiment over the next few festive weeks.

There are over two hundred ‘cup’ recipes in the book covering all manner of alcohol and perhaps half that amount again in punch recipes, but given my interests I will just focus on some of the beer-related ones here.

Before get started I must quote Mr. Fleming and state that ‘ale and beer cups should be made with good sound ale, and drunk from a tankard; being more palatable and presentable in this way than in glasses’, and I wholeheartedly agree.

I will just include the more wintery sounding ones for now, with any ice being very optional. Some of the beers and ingredients might be hard - or even impossible - to get so some substitution may be required. I have left the recipes in Imperial measures so some conversion may also be required. please note I have paraphrased some of the recipes to make them slightly clearer but left most of the ingredients as stated. Some quantities are for sharing and may need to be decreased as you will see, please act responsibly!

Cambridge Ale Cup
Boil 3 pints of water with an ounce each of cloves, cinnamon, mace (all bruised together) for an hour and strain; add 3 ounces of fine sugar with the juice and thin peel of a lemon with 3 pints of good ‘college’ ale and ½ pint of sherry; heat before serving with a thin slice of toast sprinkled with nutmeg.

Jehu’s Nectar
Grate a little ginger into a small glass of gin-and-bitters and pour into a pint of heated good ale, this should be drunk while frothing.

Councillor’s Cup
Rub the rind of two oranges with sugar and steep in a half pint of brandy, then add the juice of one lemon and a ½ pint of orange juice. (Here the recipes states to add a pint of water but I’d suggest a pint of red ale and serve hot, sweetened to taste.)

Porter Cup
Mix ½ a grated nutmeg with a wineglass of sherry and strain after 15 minutes; add to a half a bottle of Claret and a bottle of porter and serve in a jug with a slice of cucumber and a large lump of ice.

Hot Cup
Warm a pint of good ale and add an ounce of sugar, and an ounce of mixed spice plus a glass of sherry; when nearly boiling pour it on a round of buttered toast.

Copus Cup
Roast a lemon full of cloves before a fire until it is dark brown; mix up a quarter pint of brandy, the same of noyeau [French liqueur noyau?] then add a half a stick of cinnamon; put a slice of toast in a bowl and add the lemon on top of it a gently squeeze it; add 4 ounces of fine sugar and two quarts of hot old ale and the spirit mix, leave for 15 minutes and serve.

Ale Cup
Mix a half ounce each of nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon with 3 ounces of brown sugar and beat with the yolk of three eggs; warm a half a gallon of good ale and a half pint of gin and pour into the mix whisking it all together; drink immediately while it is still frothing.

Freemason’s Cup
Mix a pint of Scotch ale, a pint of mild beer, ½ a pint of brandy and a pint of sherry with a ½ pound of sugar-candy and a little grated nutmeg to taste. can be served hot or cold.

Purl or Early Birds
Heat a quart of ale with a tablespoon of ginger and nutmeg; whisk in a gill of cold ale and 2 ounces of sugar with three fresh eggs; when frothy add the warm ale slowly, with a glass of spirits and drink immediately.

Aleberry
Mix 3 spoonful [No size given] of fine oatmeal with a quart of old ale then boil the mix and sweeten; add the juice of one lemon, ½ a grated nutmeg, a little ginger powder, and a half a pint of wine; float a slice of toast on top before serving.

Ale Posset
Add a round of buttered toast to a quart of old ale; add grated nutmeg to the toast and a little sugar, then one pint(!) of sherry and serve hot.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s Ale Posset
Mix a ½ pint of dry white sherry with a ½ pint of good ale; add a quart of boiled cream that has been flavoured with spices and strain through a fine cloth - seemingly a favourite remedy for colds…!

So, there are 12 for starters, I’ll put up some more in the next post. I must admit I haven’t tried any of these yet and as mentioned the volumes stated will need adjusting for solo drinkers.

Er, enjoy…?

Liam

Gourmet’s Book of Food and Drink by Oswald Atherton Fleming with illustrations by William M. Hendy was published in 1933 by John Lane, The Bodley Head Ltd. in London and printed by Western Printing Services Ltd, Bristol, England. It is dedicated to his wife, ‘Who can make an omelette’

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 original source, and a link back to this post.


Friday 19 November 2021

Pub Fiction: Rituals

A freezing easterly wind blew through the village as the old man limped to the doorway of the public house. He turned the cold handle and opened the door with a sharp creak, closing it quickly behind him and resting his palm for a moment on the brass push-plate, staring at the fading condensation marks from his fingers when he pulled his hand away. He turned and glanced at the others in the establishment as he rolled up his worn cap and shoved it into the deep pockets of his overcoat. Four men were lined out along the counter, their elbows on the dark mahogany countertop and their hands held in front of their mouths as if in prayer. They stared straight ahead, even when they took a sip from the small glasses sitting in front of each of them. Two well-dressed men were sitting at a table on low stools, one talking in whispered tones as the other nodded along, tipping the ash from his cigarette onto the floor at his feet.

He made his way to the bar where the man behind the counter looked up at him from his newspaper and without a word took a small bottle of stout from the shelf behind him and opened it before pouring it with care into a glass and placing it in front of the old man. He took some pennies from a small pouch in his pocket and put them on the counter, then he picked up the glass and walked to a table at the back of the small room, conscious of his ungainly gait and the eyes of the men at the counter, and the man behind it, on his back. As he sat down, he heard the scrape of his coins being removed from the counter and the sound of them being thrown into a drawer that held precious few other coins on a night like this.

The two men who had been talking got up, put on their caps and left with a small nod to the man behind the bar, letting in a blast of cold air that even managed to reach the corner where the man sat. There was silence in pub now, just broken by the wind that whistled outside and the rhythmic tic-toc of the clock that hung over the back of the counter, its pendulum swinging back and forth the only movement to be seen in the dim light from the lamps on the wall.

He lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink, being careful not to spill any of it as he did so, but he placed the glass back down on the table a little too clumsily when he was wiping the froth from his lip with the sleeve of his overcoat. The thud of the glass on the wooden tabletop broke the silence, causing one of the men at the bar to look over his shoulder towards the noise before finishing his whiskey and nodding to the man behind the bar for another, which he let it sit in front of him as he returned to the same pose as his fellow silent drinkers at the counter.

The old man thought about these nights and whether they really improved his mood, but the need for some interaction, even if it was almost hostile in nature was better than staying home and staring at the flames dancing in the peat of the hearth in his hollow house. He had hurt his leg that day repairing the wood and wire fence that marked the boundary of his little farm, and the two mile walk to the village had been difficult and painful, but it was Thursday night and this was the short journey he undertook four nights a week every week to this public house in the village, where he drank two small bottles of stout before making his way back to his own house over the hill. He could not call his house a home, as a home was something comforting, a place you felt a part of, or an attachment to at least. It had ceased to be such a thing when his wife had died three years previously, and as they had not been able to have any children he was alone now in the house and in the world, or so it seemed to him. Since her funeral his life at become a series of tasks to be mentally ticked off every week or month, an existence to be lived through more than an actual life.

And this was one such undertaking, something that had to be done, like the sparse shopping he did once a month in the big town, or mass on a Sunday morning followed by a visit to the graveyard that fell away from the site of the church into what seemed to him to be the coldest part of world at times. But it was these habits that kept him functioning in this world and gave his life at least some sense of vague purpose, if only for his own sanity. He felt he was destined to perform these rituals until his body finally gave in to age and he would once again see his darling wife. He could picture her now when he closed his eyes, see her as she was in her youth. She had been a striking woman with jet black hair, skin like porcelain and green eyes that flashed and twinkled when she smiled. Even as she aged, and even as that foul disease had ravaged her body her eyes remained pure and youthful right to the end. He opened his own eyes and stared at his drink, blinking the wetness from them, as no man in this parish could be seen to be crying. He picked up his glass again and finished the remaining liquid in one go before standing up carefully and with some trouble from his lame leg going to the bar.

A bottle opened, poured, placed, and paid.

He returned to his table and stared at the clock, listening to the tic-toc and watching the pendulum, wishing he could make it go faster and that he could force time to jump forward in huge leaps to get to where he wanted to be, but knowing it was a futile task. Things happened at their own pace and the progression of the hours, weeks, months and years could not be affected by the hopes and wants of a tired old man. His leg ached even more now and as he looked at one of the men at the bar raising his glass to his lips it occurred to him that perhaps a something stronger than stout might help with the pain. He held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to the man behind the bar, who looked down at him curiously before pouring out a small glass and bringing it to him. He placed it beside the glass of stout, taking the worn pennies that the old man had left out for it.

He drank back the whiskey in one go and followed it with a gulp of stout to wash the taste away, but it still burned his throat and caused him to cough. He grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his mouth as he sat there, all the while the four men at the bar stared at him via the reflection of the long mirror that hung behind the bar. He felt embarrassed at not being able to take to whiskey but in truth he was not a big drinker, and rarely had anything stronger than his small bottles. The men leaning on the bar returned to their drinks and thoughts, and the man behind it stood looking at the door and then his pocket watch, before glancing back at the old man briefly.

He thought he felt the pain easing in his leg so with that belief in his head, and wanting to show the other men he could hold his drink, he cleared his throat and signalled for another whiskey. The barman hesitated at first but eventually stretched for the bottle and went through the same routine again, removing the empty glass and replacing it with a full one. More pennies scarped along the rough wooded table.

This time he sipped it, taking care not to breathe in as he did so and having a smaller gulp of his remaining stout after each drink. He immediately began to feel better, as the pain was almost gone from his leg and he felt a numbing cloud form around the thoughts in his head. Perhaps this could be a new part to his weekly routine he thought, on Thursdays he would add a couple of small ones to his stouts, especially on cold nights like this. Yes, that is what he would do. And look, time was moving quicker now too, the clock had jumped forward and the four men had left one by one, disappearing quietly and separately into the night so that now it was just him and the man behind the bar left in the place in the near silence.

The clock chimed on the hour and the man behind the bar got up and started tidying away glasses, draping a towel over them before counting the money and recording it in a small notebook which he dropped into the drawer and locked with the turn of a key. The old man nodded to him and slowly if a little unsteadily got to his feet, raising a hand towards him to say he was fine. The man from behind the bar followed him to the door and waited until he buttoned up his overcoat, retrieved the cap from the pocket and venture out into the cold night, before locking the door behind him and turning off the lights.

The old man was now standing in the middle of the rutted road, the pain in his leg just a dull ache as he started a little unsteadily toward home. He felt warm inside for the first time in months if not years. The full moon was in his back, as was the cold wind. He watched his dim shadow dance on the uneven road as he made his way up the hill, the few lights still shining in the houses in the village quickly falling behind him as he walked onwards.

He passed the abandoned farms and the houses that stood like roofless bunkers in the moonlight, inhabited only by the long-lost memories of the people who lived there in his youth. He crested the top of the hill and looked down on his own bleak house, roofed but with the same lost ghosts of his past waiting inside the door. He stood for a moment staring at that building of cold stone and ancient timber before feeling a sense of loss creep up along the road and settle into his bones, replacing the warmth that was there just minutes before. He wanted to turn back, back to the pub for maybe one more drink if the man from behind the bar would let him back in, so he started to return to the village before stopping suddenly. Foolish, he thought to himself, and he turned again back towards home, but his bad leg suddenly gave way and he stumbled sideways, falling towards the ditch. He put out his hands to save himself but his foot slipped on a shallow muddy puddle and he was falling backwards now instead, with the whole world tilting away from him. He heard a loud crack and an intense pain in the back of his head, then he was staring at the sky.

Even with the moon at its fullest, the stars were bright and twinkling. He no longer felt cold or pain and the stars were dancing now and changing, coalescing into a pair of green eyes that sparkled and shone in a pale face surrounded by black hair …

Friday 5 November 2021

Irish Brewing History: Beer Strengths in the Early 20th Century

One of the questions that comes to mind when I look at old newspaper brewery advertisements or at a newly-found vintage beer labels is just how strong were the beers of our brewing past. Nowadays the strength of any beer is displayed on the can or bottle, or perhaps scrawled in chalk on the blackboard over the counter in our favourite bar, and if all else fails a quick search online gives you the information you require.

But this was not always the case, as in the not-so-distant past there were few if any regulations regarding the displaying to the consumer of the strength of any given beer. I am not sure that the retailer cared, nor did the customer to any great degree other than knowing that XX was stronger than X and stout was stronger than porter - although that was really only true if you were comparing the brews from just a single brewery.

But that alcohol strength is one vital piece of information that is of importance to the strangely obsessive folks that inhabit the niche world of beer history, and in the absence of a brewing record showing the gravities of the beer before and after fermentation - and those records are quite rare in Ireland - there tends to be a lot of use of the word 'probably' instead of 'definitely' - something that seems to be the case with much of our general history too.

On a Recent visit to the archive department that is housed in the basement of the the library building on the wonderful campus at University College Cork, I unearthed an interesting notebook that belonged to an Edward Cruise of Ardee Street Brewery in Dublin. My reason for being there was to look for historic brewing recipes for Cork's own Lady's Well Brewery - or Murphy's Brewery as it is more commonly known - and I found those and much more besides, but this is a small example of the other treasures held within those well-minded records.

Ardee Street Brewery had quite a few owners, and I have written very briefly about the brewery with regard to an older beer label here, but in the time period we will be focussing on it was trading as Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co. and Edward Cruise appears to have been the head brewer there during this period. He is listed here as a member of the London Section of The Institute of Brewing since 1913 with an address at Ardee Street. He would also become head brewer in Lady's Well Brewery in 1948 and later became a board member there1. This would explain how this notebook ended up in these archives before it fell into my grateful hands - at least for one damp morning in October.

The notebook contains some quite interesting information but what stood out for me was a list of the gravities of different beers from 1906 until 1912. These were arrived at by a somewhat complicated process of distillation and gravity measuring that may or may not be entirely accurate but seems to give a relatively accurate figure for the original gravity of any given beer based on its 'present' gravity and spirit value. Mr. Cruise, or perhaps his laboratory team, had done all the hard work to give a list of final gravities (as well as other information) and this just left me with the task of calculating the Alcohol by Volume with a simple formula, and to transcribe to the best of my ability the handwritten list. You will see below where I have made some assumptions, but what it gives us is a fascinating list of the gravities of quite a number of beers that have been 'lost' up to this point.

Beer Gravities and Strengths - Calculated by the Distillation Method

YearProductPresent GravityOriginal GravityAlcohol by Vol.
1906Ardee Street Brewery(?) Vaults X No. 311.01411.05285.08%
1906Mountjoy X [Porter?]1.01441.05875.81%
1906D'Arcy & Son Porter1.01981.05875.11%
1907Mountjoy Porter1.01371.05675.64%
1907D'Arcy & Son Stout1.01841.06175.68%
1907Guinness Extra [Stout]1.02321.07326.56%
1907D'Arcy & Son Porter1.01831.05464.76%
1907Watkins X D[raught?] 1.01621.05485.07%
1907O'Connell Strong Ale1.01051.05225.47%
1907Foreign AG & Co(?) Invalid sold in Limerick - Guinness?1.02131.07607.18%
1907Watkins 14 S.S. [Special Stout]1.01261.05435.47%
1908Guinness XX Draught1.02161.07406.88%
1908Guinness same as sent to Texas(?)1.01161.07037.70%
1908O'Connell Strong Ale1.01461.05335.08%
1908Younger & Co Canteen Stout1.02371.05083.56%
1908Watkins No. 1 Skr(?) 45 XX1.01791.07557.56%
1909"Strangways" [Strangman's!] Waterford Porter1.01981.05614.76%
1909Ind Coope Luncheon Stout1.01311.05425.39%
1909Allsopp Oatmeal Stout1.01431.05545.39%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) Pale Ale supplied to canteen1.00611.05175.99%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) Mild Ale1.00611.05115.91%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) Pale Ale Ex Vaults1.00601.05115.92%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) D.S. [Double Stout] Canteen1.01341.06406.64%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) XXX Ex Vaults1.02051.08218.09%
1909Ardee Street Brewery(?) Canteen Pale Ale1.01171.05405.55%
1912Guinness X1.01451.05625.47%
1912Guinness X1.01521.05635.39%
1912Guinness X1.01541.05695.45%
1912Guinness X1.01541.05695.45%
1912Guinness XX - Sold at 3d per pintN/AN/AN/A
       1912       Ardee Street Brewery(?) No. 44 Vaults Special Stout    N/AN/AN/A
Transcribed by Liam - www.beerfoodtravel.blogspot.com - via item BL/BM/BC/445(1-7) in Cork University Library Archives
Do not reproduce without receiving permission to do so and crediting sources

This is certainly a wonderful range with some interesting notes...
  • O'Connell Strong Ale was not as strong as I would have assumed given the name
  • He acquired a sample of Guinness that was the 'same as sent to Texas' if I have transcribed it correctly, and Guinness were certainly exporting to Texas at this time according to David Hughes's 'A Bottle of Guinness Please'
  • I have assumed that where no name is given for the brewery or 'Vaults' are mentioned that these beers are from Ardee Street's Brewery's own stock - but I have no actual proof of this. It certainly gives a lovely list of the beers being brewed if we include those written as 'Watkins' - Special Stout, Draught X, Pale Ale, Mild Ale and XXX
  • 'Canteen' beers were those normally supplied to army canteens but I am not sure if this is what the term means here, although I suspect it does
  • Note how Strangman's in Waterford is written as 'Strangway's' - almost Strangeways!
  • The 'Watkins No. 1 Skr(?) 45 XX' is quite a strong beer but I cannot quite make out some of the writing. I am assuming that the numbers shown beside various recipes refer to the gyle - again I have no proof of that
  • We see a Younger's weak looking canteen stout listed as well as an Ind Coope Luncheon Stout and an Allsopp Oatmeal Stout - both at the same abv
There are some notes to the side of the list that give the actual OGs of some of Ardee Street Brewery's own beers (as well as figures from a Lipton Analysis?) and although they do not match exactly the calculated FG figure, they are generally close enough to right to give me confidence that the gravities of the beers are relatively accurate for the purposes of showing the strengths of the various brews.

Here are the original pages from the notebook to show the extra information and other notes ...

©Murphys Archive item BL/BM/BC/445(1-7), Special Collections & Archives, UCC Library, University College Cork, Ireland

© Murphys Archive item BL/BM/BC/445(1-7), Special Collections & Archives, UCC Library, University College Cork, Ireland

I hope you find this information as interesting as I did, I must admit I was quite excited to see it jump from the pages of a century old book ...

(With thanks to all the extremely helpful and professional people in the archive department in UCC.)

Liam

1 ‘The Murphy Story’ – Donal Ó Drisceoil & Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil

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Original images are © Murphys Archive item BL/BM/BC/445(1-7), Special Collections & Archives, UCC Library, University College Cork, Ireland from whom I have received permission to display these images on this site.

Friday 15 October 2021

More Lost Beer Labels - Watkins of Dublin's Extra Stout in 1886

As you may know, I have a fondness for old Irish beer labels and when I cannot find the originals then it is nice to come across facsimiles of labels in books and print. Thanks to the Chesney Brothers and Joseph Watkins & Co. from Ardee Street in Dublin taking out the below advertisement in The Ballymena Observer in 1886 we get to see what the label from that brewery looked like at this time. 

These types of advertisements were common enough given the shenanigans of certain publicans and bottlers who, in order to make some extra profit, would pass off an often inferior product for a 'premium priced' beer, and were often pulled up on the practice - most notably by Guinness and Bass.

Here is the full advertisement:


Watkins' brewery, and its long and mixed history, deserves a much longer post but for now I would suggest watching this video from The Beer Nut's blog ...

Liam

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

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

Wednesday 29 September 2021

Brewing History: Irish Red Ale Part III - Immigrant or Emigrant?

Well here we are at last, and in this the final part of my trilogy on Irish Red Ales, you can once again expect more questions that definitive answers, and more vagueness than actual facts, but I will certainly do my best to steer this difficult topic onwards towards a conclusion that is less of a grinding halt and more of a squeaky trundle towards a slippery patch of black ice ...

In part one of this series I dealt with the ancient records of red ale in Ireland, and part two concentrated on the complicated case for the availability of ‘red’ (amber) ales in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century which brought us rushing past the 1950s and now lands us squarely in the 1960s, where Irish brewing was going through a revolution with regard to drinking habits, accompanied by an onslaught of new brands all vying for the attention of the modern, trendy beer drinker. Bright lights, bright bars and bright-ish beers were what a large percentage of younger people craved and wanted.

Of course the 60s were a decade of change in Ireland on many fronts but relevant to our story are those changing tastes of the young (and not so young), fickle Irish beer consumer. Lagers and imported ale brands pushed by modern marketing techniques and clever wording began to influence what was being drunk in both pubs and at home. Our brewing heritage was also being 'consolidated' as a certain brewery flexed its stout muscles and wrapped its arms around most of the smaller Irish brands and breweries that were unable to compete with the bigger domestic breweries or deal with the influx of foreign brands and brewing companies that arrived on our shores in this period.

And so, with practically all of the major domestic ale brands now in Guinness’s warm and all-encompassing embrace, that behemoth of Irish brewing decided to bring the fight for the small-but-growing ale market in Ireland to the frontline of the pub countertop and to repel the assault of the English kegged ale brands that were making relatively large noise in the marketplace. (They were to have a second battle on the lager front but that is a story for a different post.)

And it is from this point that our story continues with a tight focus on a certain so-called Irish Red Ale …

If you ask anyone within these shores to name an Irish red ale almost all will say ‘Oh, Smithwick’s of course!’, but the curious thing is that Smithwick’s Draught seems to have never branded or advertised itself as a red ale - in print at least - until sometime after it launched its Pale and Blonde ales, so within the last decade or so. The reason for this was of course because ‘Irish Red Ales’ as a term did not really exist in the vocabulary of Irish beer drinkers until the early to mid-1990s at a push, as far as I am aware, and even then it was not a well-known term outside certain circles. That is not to say that reddish coloured ales did not exist in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, as they clearly did, but they were just called ales or - at a real push - Irish ales or 'Traditional' ales from what I can see from advertisement, labels, and beer mats.

But let us go back to the turmoil of the 1960s that I mentioned above, and to a time just after Guinness had finally taken over Smithwick’s completely in the mid-sixties and it had launched Smithwick’s Draught as a new brand in 1966/67 along with a bottled version called Smithwick’s ‘D’. This just after the period when most of the Smithwick’s beers had been rebranded as Time ales. Smithwick’s No. 1 ale seems to have survived that rebranding, and indeed after the bold experiment that was Time was brought to an end it was being promoted quite heavily in bottle only in newspapers during this period of the mid-sixties, with advertisements promoting its ‘rich golden colour’ by the way! Considering that ‘No. 1’ was an award-winning ale that had survived from at least the early 20th century it is perhaps a little surprising that this ale was not used as a launching pad for Smithwick’s Draught and that instead Guinness appear to have gone for a completely new beer, not least in colour. So why invent this new amber-ish coloured ale instead of a rich golden one? I do not know the actual reason of course but I believe there is more than just one reason for this decision...

The first issue is that Guinness & Co., of course, already had in its stable a successfully marketed, bestselling, and attractive ‘bright’ pale ale in Phoenix, which had been launched the previous decade and was doing very well domestically at this time in keg and bottle. Phoenix had already taken sales from Smithwick’s No. 1 in the past so it would make little sense to pitch one pale ale against the other, as it would have meant stagnant revenues and a pointless war amongst themselves. What may also be relevant if that Beamish & Crawford launched Celebration Ale - another ‘bright’ beer - in early 1966 and that was enough competition for Phoenix. (Perry’s ale still existed too, as did Macardles of course, bot controlled by Guinness but perhaps neither brand merited a rebrand at this time - Perry’s at this point was just an occasionally available draught ale.)

Secondly, they saw the real enemy as the English brands and breweries that were looking long and hard at the Irish market - but in particular Watney’s Red Barrel which was making serious inroads1 into kegged ale sales in Ireland and was being heavily advertised from 1964, and especially so when it began being brewed in Lady’s Well Brewery in Cork - then owned by Watney Mann - in mid-1966. Red Barrel was not 'red' of course, although what appears to be a publicity shot of a tankard of the ale in ‘The Murphy Story’ certainly shows it as ‘red’ as modern Smithwicks.1 There may also have been a subliminal perception that it was somewhat darker than it actually was given its name. Having said that, Boak & Bailey’s post on Red Barrel show a dark golden(?) beer when it was rebrewed, and the brewing records shown in their post states it was 27 EBC (Or maybe 24 EBC in Ron Pattinson’s linked-to version within their post), so approaching amber in colour perhaps. (Michael Jackson's Beer Companion says that Smithwick's was 29 EBC by the way.) More proof of its darkish colour is in the replies to that post, where Gary Gillman from Beer et seq. flags a video that clearly show Red Barrell being poured in the 60s and it is indeed quite an amber colour very like Smithwick's Draught's shade in this advertisement. It was also moderately hopped at 30-32 IBU and was 3.8% ABV according to that post, so certainly not a dissimilar beer to what we believe Smithwick was when launched, if perhaps a little more bitter and (perhaps) a little less 'red'. It is worth noting too that other advertisements from this period such as the one flagged above appear to show Smithwick's Draught slightly paler than today’s version, and I am assuming it might have gone through one or more changes or tweaks in the interim - although I have no proof of that and images, and especially those from publicity material, can be notoriously unreliable but I am not sure if there was a huge difference between Red Barrel and Smithwick's colour-wise at launch

I have very little doubt that Red Barrel was Guinness's target, and a darker coloured Irish keg ale with a good provenance suited their portfolio too, plus it distanced Smithwick's Draught from Phoenix. Also, it might be no coincidence that just like Time ale before them they used a barrel or keg as their pump font, as perhaps a dig at the little red barrel that Watney’s used for their ale font, albeit Smithwick’s version was white and more stylised. (Intriguingly there was an alcohol free version of Smithwick's made in the 80s or 90s I believe - I have undated labels - that was sold as Smithwick's AFB - alcohol free bitter!)

A report on Smithwick’s ‘275th’ anniversary in The Kilkenny People in 1985, admittedly 20 years after the launch of its kegged ale states that ‘public taste […] for ale had begun to change and a demand for a darker, sweeter ale became apparent late in 1965. Smithwick’s draught keg was developed therefore to meet demand.’ So this also seems to rule out the possibility that Smithwick's Draught was a rebrew of an older XX ale or similar from Smithwick's wonderful repertoire of ales from the 19th and early 20th century, more is the pity, and seems to show that they were indeed mimicking in a way, another kegged ale that was selling well at the time - Red Barrel. (Incidentally, these few sentences in an editorial advertisement no doubt approved by the company, blows a large and gaping hole in the Smithwick’s brand’s current - and ridiculous - assertion that their beer has been going since 1710!)

What is certain is that Guinness desperately needed a ‘new’ keg ale to compete with newcomers and that the direction they chose to go was a success, as they soon made progress in the Irish ale market to the point that in a couple of yearsthey were ahead of all competitors - including Phoenix by the way - although they would be soon challenged and pushed by Beamish & Crawford brewed Bass on its introduction in 1968 /69.2

But how or when did Smithwick's become known as an Irish red ale in Ireland? As I mentioned earlier, I think it was only since the last rebrand that included the blonde and the pale, so that is just in the last few year - although I am not quite sure I believe that myself even though I can find no evidence in advertisement and bottle labels to the contrary. It may have been marketed as a red ale on foreign shores before that time but apart from it being lumped in with other ‘red’ ales in newspaper reports in the late nineties and editorials I cannot see it branded as such.

But its nitrogenated distant cousin Kilkenny Ale, certainly was…

Kilkenny was launched by Guinness first in Germany in 1987 and was later released on the Irish public in 1995, as Guinness no doubt felt that Caffrey’s ale was trying to sneak into the market with its nitro ale. The export version of Kilkenny was 5% abv and the Irish version was a little weaker at 4.3%, but it is important to point out that the kegged version was not just a nitrogenated version of Smithwick’s according to any sources I can see in newspaper reports, it was a new formulation to piggyback on the success of the international success of Killian’s Red Ale in my opinion. (Killian’s Red was the subject of a great deep dive by Martyn Cornell, which I have posted a link to at the end of my post.) The bottle export version was also 5% and presumably not nitrogenated in any way and Kilkenny was certainly marketed and mentioned as a red ale in most, if not all, markets. (It is currently sold in Ireland as an Irish Cream Ale - certainly a term that did not exist here until very recently either - and is 4.3% abv, which suggests a recipe change since its original German launch.)

One curious mention I found was for the launch in Ireland in 1993 of a 5% red coloured ale called ‘1710 Export’ in bottle. A mention in the Evening Herald’s ‘The Diary’ - a social gossip column - in November mentions the beer and states that Guinness’s Smithwick’s marketing manager said that it ‘was not just Smithwick's with a fancy new image “It’s based on and American red beer recipe” “it’s a totally new product.”’ A smoking gun you say...?

Am I the only person who thinks that this may have been a bottled version of Kilkenny ale, which was being brewed in Kilkenny for export at this time? Why would Guinness develop another 5% export red beer when they already had one being brewed in the same brewery? I can find very little more information on this product but if it is not export Kilkenny then and if the quote is to be believed, it shows that Guinness via the Smithwick’s marketing wing was looking into replicating and improving on certain American red beers at this time, or at least one being sold there as an Irish Red Ale. If '1710 Export' was Kilkenny ale being trial launched on the public then the above quote certainly highlights its actual original provenance, and that if far from these shores. 

So, the final iteration of ‘Irish Red Ale’ did not really originate here at all but in America and other foreign markets, although a reddish ale did exist, in Smithwick’s Draught, it was never known as such here. I am not sure where the other traditional ‘red’ that is Macardles ale fits into this colour-wise or otherwise - it is possible it morphed into a darker ale sometime in the 60s or early 70s, like Phoenix may have done at a later date, but it was marketed as a 'Traditional Ale'. (Another ale, brewed for export in Dundalk by Guinness, called Twyford was marketed as an ‘Amber’ ale sometime in the 80s I think.)

The other big culprits in this whole red ale saga are homebrewers, and microbrewers who lifted the term as it applied to international ‘Irish Red Ales’ and made it into a believable style, that was then reimported back into Ireland under that name by the early batch of Irish microbreweries aided and abetted by other macrobrewed versions like Murphy’s Red Ale launched in Germany first in 1995 and Beamish Red which was launched in England the following year.

Suddenly we were swamped in red ales by name and style, apart from as I have mentioned, the one ale that most people think of as a red ale - Smithwick's - which makes me wonder why I have spent so long discussing it!

And yes, I am aware it is an Irish ale that is red...

So it looks to me like this age of red ales had no real, provable connection with the two previous eras of red/amber ales apart from the obvious one of the actual colour. There is most probably a connection between Kilkenny Ale and Killian's Red and therefore at a push that Enniscorthy Ruby Ale allegedly brewed up to 1956, and that may have some connection with the older amber ales of the previous centuries but again I can find no proof - and of course they would have been completely different formulas and recipes, unless some of them just coincidentally happened to taste very similar - but we will probably never know that …

That last point brings me towards the conclusion of what has turned out to be quite an interesting - in a niche way and relatively speaking - if convoluted journey in Irish red Ale, and towards an important question that I mentioned in the last post.

Does any of this really matter? Is any of this significant in any way?

Personally the answer is yes, as the importance for me lies in the research and the recording of the facts - with some amount of conjecture admittedly - that I have put into these posts. For too long we have let the marketing gurus of Irish breweries twist the facts to suit their flawed narrative, It is high time we set the record straight on as much of Irish brewing history as we can - and many have been doing this a lot longer than me I must add.

There are huge gaping holes in this incomplete history that I cannot currently fill that may bridge the gaps between centuries, styles, and recipes that I may discover in the future, and I am quite sure that this is a subject I will return to time and time again. If and when I come across new information then my hope is that these posts will evolve in time and perhaps my conclusions and opinions will change give new information.

But for now, I am happy to reiterate that there is no link between the three Irish Red Ale eras, although a red coloured ale of sorts probably existed in all of these times.

I am also happy to repeat what many knew already, which is that Irish Red Ales (in capital letters like that) as a moniker for a group of similar-ish beers is a very new term.

But I am most happy to report that the same group of beers brewed by some of the many microbreweries on the planet are one of my favourite styles, so let us not fixate too much on the subject of labels and just drink and brew more red ales, although I fear it is too late to stem the arguments - and also that I might just have made things worse...

Cheers!

(There is an epilogue of sorts to these posts here ...)

Liam

(Martyn Cornell's Killian's Red Ale article I mentioned above is here.)

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

1 Chapter 9 of The Murphy Story by Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil & Donal Ã“ Drisceoil

Beamish & Crawford - the History of an Irish Brewery by Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil & Donal Ó Drisceoil

Please let me know of any errors you see in this piece and I will do my best to rectify them - or argue my case ...

Tuesday 21 September 2021

Brewing History: Irish Red Ale Part II - All in the Malt?

In part one of this trilogy on red ales in Ireland I focussed on the ancient and often repeated mentions of its name that seem to be the lead-in to almost every chapter of every book written about Irish brewing history. It would be wrong to say I proved or disproved that such a beverage existed but I certainly did enough to make us question parts of the tales that were told and retold before being recorded, and I queried the actual words and language used. I concluded that Irish-made red ales probably did exist as part of a group of many other alcoholic drinks but that it certainly was not the only beverages produced here in ancient times.

In this part I will be back on somewhat firmer territory, as I explore reddish coloured Irish ales from the slightly better recorded past of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century, where at least we can look at written records and mentions of that time and interpret them in a much more meaningful way than we are able to do from old manuscripts.

In many ways this is of course a pointless exercise given that ‘Irish Red Ale’ in upper-case letters is such a relatively new term and these newer recipes cannot be exactly the same as any historical versions, but given that an invented version of our older ale brewing history has been sucked into the vacuum created by the lack of knowledge and reporting of what was actually brewed by Irish brewers back beyond the 1960s, I think it justifies probing into that lost world of Irish beer history.

Similarly, the knee-jerk reaction that we never had any red ales prior to that time needs to also be addressed, as even by accident we surely brewed a few red ales during the last few centuries? This of course is a bit of an assumption too, so let us explore what we know about red ales in socially recorded history and other sources from the above-mentioned period in Ireland ... but let us look at it as a search for a uniquely Irish and malt-focussed red coloured ale, instead of making assumptions that no such product existed.

A quick online search for the mention of the words ‘Red Ale’ in relation to Ireland only throws up those ancient mentions that were discussed in the last post, or later references that will relate to the next one. (Apart from a 16th century mention where it is used as an attribute along with other negative words such as ‘ropye’ and ‘longe’, and this may explain its lack of use as a descriptor, as that word obviously had some unwholesome connotations for a time.) Instead we need to look at words which could be interpreted as red coloured beers and the best word for this is probably ‘Amber’ - and I know exactly what you are thinking, that I am trying to shoe-horn mentions I have found for the colour of beer into my warped narrative to justify my reasoning, and to a certain degree I am, but please bear with me for a little longer as I explain - and back up - my thinking.

Firstly, unlike the older period of language that I discussed in the previous post, here we are dealing with a period when there was an explosion of words to describe colour, probably helped by the increased appreciation of poetry and song, and the sheer increase in volume and availability of books and other publications. So why would we not start using russet, amber and other words to describe tints and shades of a reddish nature?

Secondly, if the term red ale was being classed as a negative attribute, then surely it would be ludicrous to attach it to your beer when advertised or described? That term may have drifted on in brewing circles beyond the 16th century mention above.

Thirdly it could be down to marketing, as words like amber sounds much more appealing than plain old 'red' ale anyway - it is not a descriptor that any advertiser would have selected for a beer. Selling a beer in a packed marketplace of other breweries was a difficult job, so every advantage was needed including using the best sales pitch, and if the term 'Amber Ale' became the norm than all brewers would use it surely?

They next issue of course is the that to many people amber is not quite red, but colour is subjective as we know and even the modern ‘Irish Red Ale’ is not actually red - its shade varies and it could certainly be compared to some darker shaded variations of what we call amber. (The colour purple is the best example I know where people rarely get the shade - or often the basic colour - right. If asked to pick out a purple object many people will pick out every shade from mauve to blue to even burgundy and tell you it is purple, and many other colours are similar - certainly amber is one of those.) The real problem with that ‘Red’ moniker for ale is that none of us would really use that word to describe the shade of those modern beers would we? They are much closer to deep amber, russet perhaps, or dark ginger than they are to a red so why do we think that colour name would have been used in the past? Another important point is that amber and red still seem quite interchangeable in beers nowadays as colour descriptors, so our perceptions are still quite fluid.

But I love facts and science so I found this reference in a scientific book from 1757 by John Rutty called ‘A Methodical Synopsis of Mineral Waters’1 where he discusses the effect of minerals on colour and mentions his choice of descriptors for those colours. This is what he says about amber and ale…

‘In the description of certain colours arising on some mixtures, the words amber and brown amber may be thought to be less definite than those of high-coloured beer, which, viz, a reddish brown, was generally intended by the term amber or brown amber.’

So he used the term ‘high-coloured beer’ as a descriptor for a reddish brown colour, and by my interpretation the term amber was used to describe that beer colour. Reddish brown? That certainly seems to be the shade we are looking for here. Just to be clear, this book was not an Irish book, it was printed in London but is still a fair example of the interpretation of beer colour. (It is also worth pointing out that other countries had 'red' or amber ales too of course, but we are just dealing with Ireland here for obvious reasons.)

In the 19th century in particular there are quite a few references to the amber ales and many seem to be using this term, perhaps to differentiate themselves from porters, and probably also from Irish pale ales. If we look at an example from Lane’s brewery in Cork from a previous post we see that in 1843 they were brewing ‘Extra Stout and Bottled Porter, East India Pale, XX and Amber Ales’ so we can see a clear differentiation between their Pale and XX, and their Amber ale.

There is also a very nice mention of an amber coloured beer from 1856 in another previous post that showed how Lady’s Well Brewery (Murphy’s), also in Cork, started its life not wholly as a porter brewery but as a producer of a wide variety of beer in the hope of becoming an Irish competitor and exporter akin to Bass, Allsopp, etc., and their beers included a ‘Lady’s Well Ale’ that was described as having ‘a clear, amber colour’.

Somewhat ironically, Smithwick’s in Kilkenny also had an amber ale, as a visitor to the brewery in 1876 sampled ‘October ales, eleven months old and clear as amber’. So it is with a little fanfare we can say that this famous Kilkenny brewery did indeed have a reddish ale back then along with their other beers, although it appears to have been a far cry from the present iteration - more on this in the final part of this trilogy.

Again, I know that these mentions would hardly be surprising if we were looking at brewing in a general all-world context but with the focus of many of the world’s beer and travel writers firmly set on Ireland’s porter history, it is good to repeat and reinforce our much-more-than-that brewing aptitude that tends to get lost in the noise of brewing fakelore. (The alternative reason for much of my writing is not only to attempt to pull fact from fiction red ale wise, but also to show off any styles I come across that are currently not associated with that blinkered brewing history, be it Milds, Pale Ales, Imperial Ales or in this case Amber Ales.)

And those mentions above are not outliers, as newspaper mentions over the centuries mention many more ‘Amber Ales’, for example:

Saunder’s Newsletter in October 1784 printed an editorial of general complaints about issues in Dublin city and one sentence reads, ‘That fine and elegant amber ale, for which this city, forty years ago, was so remarkable, is no longer to be had; but in its stead, a wretched, ill brewed compound possessing every ill quality a malt liquor can have.’

Michael Lowry on Meath Street in Dublin was brewing ‘an Amber Beer of superior quality’ in 1795, again according to an advertisement in Saunder’s Newsletter in February of that year.

In October of 1805 again from Saunder’s Newsletter, the proprietor of the brewery at 48 Mecklenburgh Street in Dublin was brewing ‘Amber Ale, Pale Ale, superior strong Porter, and excellent Table Beer.’

In 1907 according to an advertisement in the Dundalk Examiner the Great Northern Brewery - in Dundalk - were brewing ‘single porter; XX bottling stout; amber ale; and strong ale.’ Indeed that same brewery advertised its Amber Ale quite strongly early in the 20th century, with one newspaper advertisement showing photograph-like images of a glass of that Amber Ale for 1938 that shows it to be quite dark - certainly not a ‘golden’ type of amber. (We should also note that this brings us a generation away from the third age of Irish Red Ales in the 1960s, and although I possess a label for this beer, I am unsure when exactly it ceased to be, but Smithwick’s bought the brewery in the 1950s and Smithwick’s was brewed here later on in the brand’s life under Guinness's tenure.)

(Interestingly or not - I can find no mention in print of a famous cousin of amber ale and that is the 'Ruby Ale' brewed by Lett’s Mill Park brewery in Enniscorthy - the only thing I can see is that much repeated label. I do not doubt that it existed but it must have been sold by word of mouth as very few advertisements for Lett’s ales in general seem to exist.)

What any of these beers would be categorised taste-wise is not something I can say for definite, but from the scant descriptions they seem to have had a little bitterness on the hop front, so perhaps like a dark coloured pale ale? Although in reality I would suspect that these beers I referenced were quite different from one another.

But all of this is very ambiguous still - although I am convinced enough that there were look-a-like if not taste-a-like red ales in this period - and the complete absence of the actual word ‘red’ in some way up to this point probably has you thinking that I am yet again clutching at ale-soaked straws to justify my stance, but let me share something else that might just make you into a believer that some of these ales were indeed ‘red’ in colour, at least by modern style standards, and see if we can add a certain maltiness to our ale ...

By chance I recently came across a very interesting book that was published 1872 with instructions on brewing Irish porter and stout - and I need to do a separate full post on this book itself, as it gives detailed recipes for Irish dark beers and how to brew them as well as the workings of Irish porter breweries at this time. The book also lists the usual ingredients such as hops and water, but it was a chapter on malts that caught my eye. In it the anonymous writer - who appears to be an eminent journeyman brewer - talks about a specific ‘pale’ malt that was used by Irish brewers as a base malt for their porters. The author of the piece describes the malt thus:

‘The usual kind of malt employed in brewing Irish porter is of a darker colour than what is generally used by English Brewers’… ‘which in flavour and colour resemble a malt nearly approaching dark amber, but not quite’ 

The writer states that this is still called a 'pale' malt as it is pale relative to the other much darker malt used for the making of porter, and he goes on to state that the malt has…

‘A very sweet and pleasant flavour and the farina of the malt has rather a brownish tinge. This gradual slight charring develops also a peculiar and agreeable bitter taste, which is communicate to the porter or beer and thereby renders it more agreeable to the palate…’

He goes on to tell London brewers that the can somewhat replicate this malt by mixing ‘English made Amber’ with some standard pale malt but that by having this other ‘pale’ malt as used in Dublin, which had superior flavour he states that you can… 

‘… produce a wort if mashed alone of a deep red appearance…’

Well my thoughts on this are pretty clear, if this unique malt was being used by porter brewers then was it possibly being used by ale brewers too? Perhaps mixed with a little ‘real’ pale malt but either way it would have produced an Irish ale that was amber red, and unique to Ireland - an ‘Irish Red Ale’ even, although different from what the new definition and usually stated recipe of course. But this surely helps with my case that there were malt-focused red ales in this epoch too, but they were different to what went before and what came after? (It is also worth mentioning that our brewer/author persuaded a London maltster to replicate this uniquely Irish(?) malt and market it under the name 'Hibernia' ...)

We need more evidence that this of course and with a dearth of information on Irish malting we will fall back on Alfred Barnard and his volumes on ‘The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland’2. Barnard did not tell us much about the actual details of the beers produced by the Irish breweries that he visited but his recording of a visit to Plunkett Brothers, the famous Dublin maltsters, around 1890 is one of the only records regarding what was being malted in Ireland around this time that I am aware of.

Barnard does indeed list some of the ‘numerous’ malts being produced by the Plunketts and those include ‘black, candied, amber and high dried malts, all of which are shown in tall glass vases bearing labels related to the history of the product, etc.’ He was particularly taken with a ‘golden brown malt’ that was used for ‘both ales and stouts, where flavour and richness of quality are desiderata.’ Elsewhere in his report he mentions the candied malt again and states it is ‘sweet-tasting’ and also states that ‘this make is peculiar to Plunkett Bros., and is used in conjunction with pale malts, for public house mild ales’ and that ‘it imparts a delicious aromatic smack to ales'.

These are all quite interesting as malts go but I do not think they can be our elusive amber-ish malt that our brewer speaks of, as these seem to be used in addition to other malts. So although they also seem to be unique to Dublin, and Barnard with all of his travelling and visits had never heard of them, they are probably not exactly what we were looking for even if they do deserve more research, especially that candied malt, and they may be relevant, which I will get too later.

But further on during his visit Barnard visits a separate maltings on Cork Street and discusses the ‘preparation of amber brown malt made by a very old-fashioned process’ using oak chips to fire the furnaces to achieve this colour, and no doubt a unique flavour. Could this be our elusive malt? Indeed it might be - or perhaps a variation of it - and if nothing else it shows that if Barnard was commenting on them as he was, then Dublin maltsters seemed to be malting to different specification than their English counterparts, even if they did export their malts over to there.

So if Irish ale brewers were using this amber brown malt - even if it is not the one in the brewing book - and perhaps adding that candied malt to it, which from how it is listed in order after black and before the amber must mean that it was quite dark and therefore would produce something that to my admittedly limited thinking would be an ale that to the modern eye would be classed as a red ale, even if it was used as only part of the grist.

So are these malts the proof of 'red' ales existing in Ireland in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century at the very least? Well sadly we do not know for sure, but with all of those mentions of amber ales above, plus the amber brown and candied malts that Barnard seemed so taken with, I find it hard to believe that either by themselves or as a mix they were not used in brewing ales at some point - perhaps for those lovely sounding ‘public house mild ales’ he mentions!

Another very important detail is the importance of those malts and their impact on the beers being brewed and given the tone of both the brew instruction book and Barnard’s praise of the quality and aroma of the malt I find it difficult to believe that malts would not be show-cased by the breweries supplied with these malts for the production of their 'everyday' ales. The malt would surely be the most important ingredient flavour wise, with the hops taking the backstage roll.

Given all of this can we finally say that there were malt-forward, reddish ales being brewed in Ireland in this period? I am quite convinced that these beers existed, but possibly focussed on the east coast and - ironically - within 'The Pale' around Dublin, although perhaps in other major cities too as per the Cork references above.

By the way, this idea that Dublin and its environs were fonder of darker ales is reinforced by a small note in a brewing record for Perry’s brewery in Rathdowney in Co. Laois that stated that certain ales were to be darkened for the Dublin market - with caramel colouring in that case I believe. Indeed, Perry’s used caramel, invert sugars and malt extract in some of their beers in at least the early part of the 20th century. Some of which, from my own attempts to replicate these beers, changed them into something almost reddish brown in colour.

I am aware that this is mostly based on pure conjecture, but just to reiterate, I do believe that given the evidence above that there were unique - malt-wise at the very least - Irish red ales. These were similar in colour and possibly taste to the modern versions of red ales although probably stronger flavour wise, certainly more so than the known macrobrewed versions. The malt, and recipes in general, would probably have been different from what I know of those beers produced today too.

These Historic Irish Amber Ales - I think I prefer that term - would have just been another part of our rich and varied range of beers, alongside pale ales, milds and IPAs. They have no connection with the ales of ancient history I discussed in the previous post, or at least I cannot see a link back to those versions that can be in anyway provable, and I still feel that they have no link to those of our very recent brewing history, even given what I have said in the last few paragraphs.

But we did have ‘red’ ales, which I think we all knew already anyway, right…?

Liam

Part III is here.

(Please let me know of any errors you see in this piece and I will do my best to rectify them - or argue my case.)

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