As an Londoner, I congratulate Sadiq Khan (in a non-partisan way) on his recent re-election as Mayor. Despite being a teetotaller, Sadiq has always been ready to visit and champion pubs.
You might think that his predecessor was a more natural advocate for beer, pubs and brewing. Well, I thought so until I read the article from Paul Routledge in the “Mirror” on 8 April this year. Mr Routledge exposes the fact that, despite regularly being shown with a pint in his hand, Boris actually doesn’t drink beer - he prefers Pimms. This news has for some reason been overshadowed by some stuff about wallpaper and COVID, but I guess some news stories are “slow burn”.
The relationship between brewing and the civic authorities of London is now in a pretty good state. It is symbolised with the ritual appointment by the Corporation of London of ale-conners. These dignitaries, wearing their special leather trousers of office, will from time to time sit in a pint of ale that has been poured onto a wooden bench. After a minute they stand up. If the beer does not make them stick to the bench (i.e. excess sugar), they state: “I declare this ale to be of good quality. God Save the Queen!”
(This practice is supposedly grounded in centuries of history. However, like many legends about beer, it has been ruthlessly exposed by the estimable Mr Martyn Cornell. It is in fact based on a story created by Frederick Hackwood’s “Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England”, written in 1911. And the story isn't true, basically.)
It was not always so harmonious. In telling the story that follows, I am indebted to John Krenzke of Loyola University Chicago, who published a 300 page dissertation in 2014 about the development of brewing in London between 1400 and 1750. Over the centuries brewing developed from a household food preparation task into an industrial process (see previous blog “The Beer Witch Project” for the gender politics involved in all this https://www.londonbiermeister.co.uk/blog/the-beer-witch-project-march-2021), with all of the social consequences of any industrial process- fire risk, smells, pollution, etc.
Then you overlay concerns around immigration. As previously explained here (see “A Very Hoppy Christmas” https://www.londonbiermeister.co.uk/blog/a-very-hoppy-christmas-december-2020), “beer” made with hops slowly supplanted “ale” made with gruet over the centuries. London was home to many people from the Netherlands, Flanders and Germany (we called them all “Dutch” based on a mishearing of the word “Deutsch”). These people, with their funny voices and smelly food, also produced this alien product called beer. Which couldn’t possibly be good for you. It got to the point when King Henry VI had to issue a proclamation in 1436 telling everyone to chill a little bit. He ordered local authorities to put a stop to
“the malevolent attempts that were being made to prevent natives of Holand and Seland and others who occupied themselves in brewing the drink called "Biere" from continuing their trade”
The justification for this, he noted, was that
“such drink was poisonous and not fit to drink, and caused drunkenness” [surely not!]
But, continued His Majesty
“whereas it was a wholesome drink, especially in summer time”
Henry VI was a nice man, and well disposed towards our European friends and neighbours (he married one of them). Unfortunately he also suffered a serious attack of mental illness that left him catatonic, thus triggering the Wars of the Roses. But back to beer...
Krenzke has uncovered tensions that continued into the 16th century as brewing was transformed by the availability of coal. Much more efficient, but also much more odiferous than burning wood. In 1578, the Worshipful Company of Brewers “voluntarily” submitted a petition undertaking not to burn coal near the Palace of Westminster. The clue to their motivation lies in the wording of their petition, which noted that Queen Elizabeth “founde hearselfe greately greved and anoyed with the taste and smoke of the sea cooles”. And I’m guessing she didn’t keep her grievance and annoyance to herself. She didn’t tend to do that.
Leaping forward to 1814, the civic concerns about the industrial process of brewing in London are shown to have some justification with the so-called London Beer Flood. In a fore-runner of the skyscraper envy that now afflicts the City of London, brewers had started building larger and larger vats of fermenting porter. On the morning of 17 October 1814, the vat burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery (owned by the Meux family) at the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. It is estimated that between 128,000 and 323,000 gallons of porter were released into the surrounding area. Ironically, the surrounding area was St Giles, home to poor Irish workers and immortalised by William Hogarth as the nightmarish “Gin Lane”. Hogarth had also produced the contrasting “Beer Street”, showing happy, decent prosperous law-abiding people drinking porter. I am sure the unfortunate inhabitants reflected on this as a wave of porter flooded them out of their basement rooms. Eight people died and many others lost their possessions. The brewery did not have to pay compensation, despite the fact that a worker had observed a ring coming off the vat earlier that day, but no action was taken. It was an Act of God. Apparently.
I will end as I began with a reflection on someone who held the office of Mayor of London, this time in the 15th century. (Yes, I do know he was the Lord Mayor of the City of London so he was not Sadiq Khan’s predecessor, but indulge me here). He came into office in 1419 and immediately began a vendetta against the brewers. From reading Krenzke’s account, there is no other way of describing it. The reasons are not completely clear. His angle of attack seems to have been the sale of beer at excessive prices, and also the practices of largely female “hucksters” who bought and sold beer and possibly adulterated it along the way. His name was Richard Whittington. Yes, the guy with the cat. He existed. This bit of his story seems to have been written out of most of the pantomimes. And I am sure he would have appreciated, given his propensity for picking on women, that he now tends to be portrayed on stage by a girl.
Anyway, brewing in London survived and thrived, and there is much to enjoy. I always start with my local brewer Fuller Smith and Turner. There are many others. The Five Points Brewery in Hackney is a personal favourite at the moment. And I am still planning a visit to the infamous Bermondsey Beer Mile one Saturday as soon as COVID allows.