The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke

      The Farmers Return.

      The late Mr. Wm. Cobbett, writing in 1821 on the subject of brewing, says, “To show Englishmen, forty years ago, that it was good for them to brew beer in their houses, would have been as impertinent as gravely to insist that they ought to endeavour not to lose their breath; for in those times, to have a house and not to brew was a rare thing indeed. Mr. Ellman, an old man and a large farmer in Sussex, has recently given, in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, this fact: that forty years ago there was not a labourer in his parish that did not brew his own beer; and that now there is not one that does it, except by chance the malt be given him.”

      The decadence of the art of domestic brewing is, for some reasons, a matter for regret. The causes are not far to seek. The improved machinery of the modern brewer, which enables him to make an uniformly excellent beer, and to sell it at a low price; and the railways which now traverse every part of the country, carrying his single, double, or treble X, as the case may be, to places where half a century back no one dreamt of purchasing ale for home consumption—to these great changes is undoubtedly due the partial downfall of home-brew that has taken {47} place. Not only has the practice of domestic brewing much declined, but from the same causes there has been of late years an extraordinary and lamentable decrease in the numbers of small country brewers.

      Although the name of home-brew carries with it many old associations and sentiments which we abandon with regret—memories of bright March beer and mellow old October, of snug ingle-nooks and raftered ceilings, and of kind, if homely, welcome—we cannot but admit, as on a hot day we drain our tankard of Burton bitter, or of world-famed London stout, that life has still its compensations.

      “To make barley-water was an invention which found out itself with little more than the joyning the ingredients together,” said old Fuller, in his Worthies of England; “but to make mault for drinke, was a master-piece indeed.” This old writer would seem to give the maltster more credit than the brewer. In his day, however, the distinction between the two was slight, for nearly every country gentleman or farmer was both his own brewer and his own maltster.

      In 1610, the justices of Rutland, in settling the rate of domestic servants’ wages, adjudged that a chief woman, who could bake and brew and make malt, should have the sum of 24s. 8d. by the year; while a second best, who could brew but not malt, was to have 23s. 4d.

      The earliest connected account of domestic malting and brewing which we have been able to find, occurs in a poetical work of the thirteenth century, called the Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth. The treatise deals with most matters of domestic concern and every-day life, and the passage in which the malting of barley and the brewing of ale are described, is so curious that it is given below in full length from the text to be found in National Antiquities, vol. i. (priv. pub. Th. Wright, Ed.).

“Seyoms ore entour cerveyse, Pur fere gens ben à eyse. Alumet, amy, cele lefrenole,17 {48} E kaunt averas manges de brakole, En une cuwe18 large e leez, Cel orge là enfoundrez; E kaunt sera enfoundré, E le ewe seyt escouloé, Mountez cel haut soler, Si le festes nette baler,19 E là cochet votre blée, Taunke seyt ben germée, De cele houre appelleras, Brès, ke blée avant nomas. Le brès de vostre mayn muez En mounceus ou en rengeés;20 Pus le portez en un corbel, Pur ensechier au toral.21 Le corbel e le corbiloun Vous serviront au fusoyn. Kaunt vostre brez est molu, E de ewe chaude ben enbeu, Des bertiz22 ver cervoyse Par art contrové teise. Ky fet miracles e merveyles, De une chaundelie deus chandelis, De homme lay fet bon clerc, A homme desconu doune merk, Homme fort fet chatoner, {49} E homme à roye haut juper,23 Taunt de vertu de la grees De servoyse fet de brès, Ke la coyfe24 de un bricoun Teyndre seet sanz vermilloun. Ceste matyre cy repose, Parlom ore de autre chose.”

17 Some old Englishman has written in the MS. over difficult words his interpretation of them; an interpretation frequently of great assistance, but occasionally in itself not a little puzzling. This word lefrenole, however, he much elucidates by annotating it “kex;” in Gloucestershire and in other parts of the country the word is still used to signify the hemlock, and may be found in many old writers. Lygones, in A King and No King, refers to his legs as “withered kexes.” The word was probably occasionally used to denote a candle, and this is the meaning assigned to it here. Langland, in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, says that glowing embers do not serve the workman’s purpose so well,

      “As dooth a kex or a candle That caught hath fire and blazeth.”

      Allusion is also made to the use of stalks of hemlock as candles in Turn. of Tottenham, 201.

18 Our annotator says “a mikel fat.” The word “kive” is found in later English for the same utensil.

19 Suepet klene.

20 “On hepe other on rowe” is the quaint gloss.

21 Toral is noted “kulne.”

22 Bertiz is probably a form of bertzissa, which seems to be a barbarous rendering of wort.

23 Juper is annotated houten, i.e., to hoot or shout.

24 The word coyfe here seems to signify not cap, but head or face; another such use of the word is to be found in the Chron. de Nangis (1377), and is mentioned in Sainte-Palaye’s Hist. Dict. of the French Language.

      It is believed that no translation of this curious old poem has been published, and a rendering is accordingly added in which literal accuracy rather than poetical elegance has been aimed at.

Ale shall now engage my pen, To set at rest the hearts of men. First, my friend, your candle light,25 Next of spiced cake take a bite; Then steep your barley in a vat, Large and broad, take care of that; When you shall have steeped your grain, And the water let out-drain, Take it to an upper floor, If you’ve swept it clean before, There couch,26 and let your barley dwell, Till it germinates full well. Malt now you shall call the grain, Corn it ne’er shall be again. Stir the malt then with your hand, In heaps or rows now let it stand; On a tray then you shall take it, To a kiln to dry and bake it. The tray and eke a basket light Will serve to spread the malt aright. {50} When your malt is ground in mill, And of hot water has drank its fill,