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!

'Where do you get your Cooper?' Ireland's first beer brand...?

From the end of October 1862 until early 1863 the following piece appeared as a short editorial-like column in a number of Irish and English newspapers:

Bottled Cooper

“What stuff is that?” growled out a passenger seated alongside the driver of omnibus the other day when he heard him smack his lips after swallowing a pint of new decoction and exclaiming “That’s first-rate.” The old roadster, looking sneeringly round, exclaimed “Don’t you know? Why, to be sure, its half porter and half stout.” The inquisitor was still dissatisfied asking, “Why call it Cooper?” This was enough to rile even a ’bus driver, at the same time feeling a thorough contempt, for such glaring ignorance that he weighed over to himself whether or no he should then satisfy his importunate companion ; but taking pity upon one evidently “from the country,” he ejaculated, “Oh, do you want to know that too ? Well, that’s easily answered. You must know that some time ago Jack Cooper, who used to drive one of the Brompton’s when be pulled up at the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, always had glass of this stuff; and the potboy seeing his ’bus pulled up, would always sing out – ‘Another glass of Cooper.’ The barmaid knew what was meant; but nobody else. Well, you see, this name got abroad, and now everyone does his Cooper. Take my advice, ‘Governor,’ when you feel dry take a drop.” Reader be very much obliged for this solution. Few people indeed know the origin of the word “Cooper.” Now, however, we have just had an improvement introduced in the shape of “Bottled Cooper.” Messrs. Beamish and Crawford, brewers, of Cork, who have had the supplying of the refreshment department the International Bazaar, and whose beers, by-the by, have been patronized for the quality and price, finding it necessary to have agent, appointed Mr. Henry Johnson, of the Circular Vaults, St. Paul’s; and him the public have to thank for the introduction of this popular drink. The idea suggested itself to him that what was palatable as draught drink would be doubly so when bottled.

Now I am certainly a fan of the odd piece of beer-related fan fiction but let us not put too much faith behind the story of the origin of the name 'Cooper' which is usually described as a half-and-half mix of stout and porter, and allegedly named after actual barrel coopers, but it does highlight a little known story about Beamish and Crawford's arrangement with Henry Johnson to sell their stouts in London. This is well covered in Beamish & Crawford - The History of an Irish Brewery, where a small chapter in the book explains, according to the authors, how Henry Johnson makes contact with Richard Pigott Beamish and how it was agreed that Johnson would sell a mix of their year-old Extra Treble Stout and Single Stout from his warehouse in London. It would be bottled there and sold with a nice bright label bearing the Beamish & Crawford name with a trademarked image of a castle flanked by two soldiers over the word 'Cooper', (I will not reproduce it here as I am unsure of copyright issues with posing even fragments of the above mentioned book.) and caged with branded corks, at a price 2s and 6d for a dozen pint bottles - cheaper than similar products and at what were said to be draught beer prices. (Although as you can see from the advert at the top of the page, some of Johnson's agents sold it for more.) There was even a recited advertising 'jingle' called, 'Where do you get your Cooper?' to accompany the launch.

It all ended in tears, as Johnson had both supply and quality issues (He apologised for both in the advertisement below.¹) and was accused of using other brewer's beers instead of Beamish & Crawford's (Where did you get your Cooper indeed Mr. Johnson!?), so the brewery cut its ties with him at the end of April in 1863 and he was declared bankrupt not long afterwards. (A J. Hazard was selling 'The celebrated bottled Irish Cooper' in June of 1863 from the same address as Johnson's.²) You can read more about it in the book but it raises a few interesting points and I have other thoughts on it too...

The most important point perhaps is that I think that Cooper may have been the first Irish - or at least Irish brewed - beer to be marketed with a brand, jingle (I know I am taking liberties here...) and editorial advert? I am not aware of any others that existed this early anywhere else on these islands in fact, although I have not overly researched it to be fair. I would guess that it was certainly the first trademarked Irish-brewed beer ...

And there are a few more points to make too...

In August 1862 there were a couple of advertisements³ for Beamish and Crawford's Extra Treble Stout bottled with the above mentioned castle label and corks but not the Cooper name, this to my mind means that perhaps the whole range mentioned including the single and double stout had similar branding and perhaps the castle trademark covered all of the range, not just the later Cooper? The 'Cooper' appears to have been launched in September of that year, as it was not mentioned in those previous month's advertisements. Here is a copy of the first advertisement I can find for a beer with the Beamish & Crawford "Cooper" name and stating the blend - old vatted treble and single stouts - from the London Morning Post of the 1st of September.

It is worth noting that according to an advertisement for his Irish Cooper from March 1863 Johnson was then selling the unblended Extra Treble Stout. (Called 'The Burgundy of Ireland' according to some advertisements. Edit: This name was misattributed.) plus interestingly a 'Drogheda Strong Ale' as well as East India Pale Ale, but there was no sign of the single stout he supposedly blended with the triple.⁴ (By the way, directly above this March advert is one for bottled 'London Cooper' from Laidler and Fitch - some more local competition it seems!)

So was this the first bottled Cooper on the market? I can find some from Whitbread and others after this date but not before. And where did the bottled version actually originate if not Johnson, and Beamish and Crawford? In 1871 'The Cooper Company' claim to have originated the product in 1862 and were still selling it at the same price of 2s and 6d per dozen,⁵ so I'm quite confident that the bottled form of cooper - at the very least - originating from that original Cork-London partnership.

Next, in 1872 the following wonderful advertisement appears in the Islington Times:

This label is almost identical to that used by Beamish & Crawford and Johnson for their product apart from replacing their names with the name of the new company, and it still carries the trademarked logo. So does this mean that the Cork brewery were still supplying The Cooper Company or has all the branding and trademarks passed to that company when they bought out Johnson's bankrupt one? I suspect the latter and that Beamish & Crawford no longer had anything to do with it, certainly in the Beamish book I referenced above there is no mention of any continuation to supply after they withdrew from the arrangement.

Along with that advert there is an interesting report on a visit to The Cooper Company under the Hop Exchange on Southwark Street in London by a Percy Russel as part of a series of writeups under the title 'Metropolitan Industries'. In it he addresses the hygiene issues raised by a previous contributor to the newspaper with regard to brewing and bottling in general and he goes into some detail on the cleaning process for each bottle in the company's vault. More importantly for our story he also states that it is 'comforting to see by the branded barrels that the Irish stout does enter into the 'Cooper' and that the label is as true as a bank of England note.' He goes on to mention 'the happy blending of different brews' but annoyingly doesn't mention any of the actual brewers involved. He also mentions that The Cooper Company also export their beer to 'Shanghai, touched Tientsin, and even reached the Mikado of Japan himself.' (Indeed, according to an advertisement in The Times of India it was being sold in that country in 1877 too.)

In 1875 The Cooper Company were selling their Cooper at the same price as previously - and they were also selling Treble Dublin Stout by this time, as well as 'family' ale and India pale ale - and here is what they say about the Cooper product itself in an advertisement from this date:

The Cooper's Company Cooper is not plain porter, under the assumed name of Cooper, but is what the Cooper Company originally professed it to be - viz., Dublin Vatted Stout and London Porter. [My emphasis]⁶

So, that is somewhat of a change from what it started out as, and I think  that perhaps this company was indeed formed on the ashes of Johnson's old company or was relaunched in this way by a former agent of his perhaps? (Johnson's stock of ports, sherry and 30 dozen bottles of Cooper were auctioned in November 1863.⁷) It would appear that the statement of what Cooper was in 1875 - although probably true at the time it was published - had been twisted to something more marketable, as Dublin Stout and London Porter were likely to be a more saleable commodity at this point, and readily available too. The irony is that given the shenanigans of Johnston that this later blend is quite possibly what he was actually selling to unsuspecting punters back in 1863!

At the end of the above mentioned advertisement the company also say they bottle Guinness Dublin Stout and Mander's Invalid Stout as well as an enigmatic 'Red Cross Treble Dublin Stout'. Mander's Invalid Stout was an XXX stout so I believe it was both the 'Red Cross' and the Dublin stout used to make the company's Cooper at this time, as it would make logical sense.

(Curiously, in 1886 Cundell and Camozzi in Tavistock were selling a bottled Cooper that was a mix of 'Stout and Bitter' for 2s per dozen.⁸ Make what you will of that blend, as it was just in an advertisement...)

Anyhow, as ever I have probably raised more questions than I have actually answered, but it is good to get this part of Ireland's - and London's - brewing history online and findable for others.

Perhaps some Cork brewery might revive the 'Celebrated Irish Cooper', or maybe a Dublin and a London brewery could do a collaboration?

Just don't forget the marketing, the trademark - and to write that jingle!

Liam

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

Advert  - Holborn Journal - Saturday 21 February 1863

¹London Evening Standard - Monday 09 March 1863

² Illustrated Weekly News - Saturday 27 June 1863

³ London Evening Standard - Thursday 28 August 1862

⁴ London Evening Standard - Tuesday 17 March 1863

⁵ Stroud News and Gloucestershire Advertiser - Friday 18 August 1871

⁶ Kilburn Times - Saturday 10 July 1875

⁷ London City Press - Saturday 31 October 1863

⁸ Tavistock Gazette - Friday 05 November 1886

All via The British Newspaper Archive and Beamish & Crawford - The History of an Irish Brewery (2015) by Donal Ó Drisceoil and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil

Newspaper images © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). 

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

(Tweet-to-Blog-Conversion-Project)

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

_____

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freeman's Journal 1771

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

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

Anyhow, it's nice to be back!

Liam

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

History: Brilliant Beverages from The Saracen's Head?

To Brewers, Retailers of Beer, Ale, Cider, &c.

A BRILLIANT ARTICLE IN A FEW HOURS.

THE ADVERTISER has invented FININGS that will cause the article of Beer, Ale, Cider, &c., to become immediately transparent, without violating the law or injury to the article.

The RECIPE is for sale or contract for a supply. A Sample Bottle will be sent to any address, made from this Recipe, on the receipt of 2s 6d, or, in powder, at 8s per cannister, with proper directions for use.

Address - ANDREW WOOD, 5, Snow Hill, London.

(The Carlow Sentinel -  November 1847)

As Isinglass had been around for a long time, was this is a new product? Or at least a new process? With the recipe available too, it must have been made from a raw material that was relatively freely available ... gelatin based perhaps?

There's also an interesting footnote in the fact that the given address was The Saracen's Head Inn, a quite famous establishment in Snow Hill, London that was demolished in 1868 and is now the site of a police station. One assumes that Mr. Wood had lodgings there? Or perhaps it was used as we use PO boxes today...

So not hugely interesting or exciting but ... lots of questions and very few answers!

Liam

[With thanks once again to the local history room in Carlow library]