Science and Practice in the Brewing Industry 1837-1914
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The Sword and the Armour: science and practice in the brewing industry 1837-1914 Ray Anderson At the German Brewing Congress of June (ii) The long established Truman, 1884, the redoubtable Max Delbrück, Hanbury & Buxton at the Black Eagle Director of the Experimental and Brewery, Brick Lane, Spitalfields; the first Teaching Institute for Brewing in Berlin brewery to appoint a professional announced ‘With the sword of science chemist to its staff in 1831, when the and the armour of practice German beer number of such men in Britain could be will encircle the world.’1 It was no idle counted in tens.6 (iii) Reid's, at the Griffin boast. In 1887 beer output in the German Brewery, in picturesquely named Liquor- states exceeded that in the UK for the pond Street (now Clerkenwell Road); the first time and Germany became the first brewery to appoint a science grad- largest producer of beer in the world.2 uate to its staff in the late 1830s.7 (iv) Fifty years earlier, when the 18 year old Barclay Perkins, at the Anchor Brewery, Victoria came to the thrown, it was Dead Man's Place, Park Street, unthinkable that Germany would hold Southwark. Barclay Perkins had the such a position. Britain was the premier greatest output of any London brewery brewing nation, with London's massive by 1809 and remained in the lead until porter breweries of ‘a magnificence the 1850s, passing the 300,000 barrel unspeakable’ in the van.3 mark in 1815 and 400,000 barrels in 1839.5 & 8 Porter Brewing Despite Charles Barclay's remark, which invited comparisons between the brewing The ‘power loom brewers’ as Charles industry and the textile industry, brewing Barclay called them in 1830 operated differed from the latter in that it achieved on a scale unknown anywhere else.4 large scale production without the benefit The four biggest in 1837 were:5 (i) of water or steam power. Large output Whitbread, at the White Hart Brewery in was achieved using horse power to drive Chiswell Street; the first brewery to top the malt mills for example and manpower the 200,000 barrel a year mark in 1796. to do the mashing by hand with ores. Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 55 Whitbread brewed 122,000 barrels of had been installed in all but one of porter in 1782, two years before they London's major breweries and horses ordered a steam engine to grind malt and and men were reduced in number.11 pump water.9 & 10 A particularly impressive figure when one remembers that at that Quantitative measurement crept into time the brewing season was restricted to brewing from the mid 18th century with the the colder months, October to March, as application of the thermometer by Michael summer brewing often gave unacceptable Combrune, and then the hydrometer, in losses in spoilt beer. Once the steam the form of the saccharometer, by John engine became available, London brewers Richardson.12 & 13 Figure 1 is a represen- where understandably keen to adopt it. By tation of these instruments taken from a the turn of the century the improved brewing treatise published in 1802.12 engines of Boulton and Watt and others Shown as Fig 1 is a brass saccharometer Figure 1. Saccharometer, assay jar and thermometers, from Alexander Morrice's A Treatise on Brewing, first published in 1802. 56 The Journal of the Brewery History Society with its hollow ball and square stem grad- turnover. The brewers adopted this new uated on four sides, which together with technique with alacrity. Porter drinkers detachable weights allowed the determi- can hardly have failed to notice the differ- nation of wort strength up to 40 pounds ence in appearance and taste of their per barrel i.e. a specific gravity of up to favourite brew, but far from reacting 1.111. Shown as Fig 3 is the copper against the new form of porter they seem assay jar with two communicating com- to have welcomed it.15 & 16 partments to hold the saccharometer and the thermometer. Fig 4 is a 'common The great symbol of the porter brewing brewer's thermometer' and Fig 5 the technology was of course the giant stor- intriguing 'blind thermometer', where the age vats, necessary to mellow the flavour 'pocket scale' is detachable. With the of the crude beer by long maturation. blind thermometer the more secretive Porter was made from cheap ingredients brewer could set the moveable 'index' or and was easy to produce (which made it rider to the required temperature against popular with the brewers) it kept well and the scale, then remove the scale and leave the instrument in the hands of a brewery worker to take the required action when the mercury rose to the point at which the index had been set. A blind thermometer was more expensive than the common model but remained popular well into the 19th century amongst a brewing fraternity jealous of the details of its process. Linking use of the thermome- ter with the saccharometer gave the brewer real advantage in process control. The measurement of wort strength and temperature allowed the brewer to deter- mine the best 'mashing heat' to get the best yield from his malt and allowed com- parison of different malts in this respect. One consequence of this new found knowledge was the discovery that it was cheaper to use pale malt with colouring and/or black malt rather than brown malt in the production of porter. The greater Figure 2. A a sixty barrel domed porter extract more than compensated for the copper, from James Steel's Selection of extra cost of the pale malt and the beers Practical Points of Malting & Brewing, matured more quickly allowing faster published in 1878. Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 57 didn't spoil easily because of the high tragedy occurred. Some of the metal level of hops in it (which made it popular hoops around the vessel snapped, the with the publican) and it was flavoursome vessel gave way and 3,555 barrels of and undercut the price of competing Porter flooded out. 'The flood swept away beers by 25% (which made it popular walls in the brewery, inundated the crowd- with the drinker).17 The size of their ed basements in the vicinity and caused porter vats was something of a matter of several tenements to collapse, with the pride amongst brewers. One such was death of eight people "by drowning, injury, Henry Meux, of the Horseshoe brewery in poisoning by the porter fumes or drunken- Bainbridge Street, St Giles, at the south ness"'.18 The total amount of beer lost end of Tottenham Court Road, where the was put at 7,664 barrels, for which the Dominion Theatre now stands. This brewery petitioned Parliament for a refund brewery contained some immense vats of the duty and duly received a rebate - constructed with little knowledge of the nobody else received any compensation! forces they would have to withstand, and The incident did however cause the race on the night of 17th October 1814 a for bigger vats to abate thereafter. Figure 3. A Steel's Masher at Hook Norton brewery. Photograph courtesy of Roger Putman 2004. 58 The Journal of the Brewery History Society Evolving Technology Domed coppers were introduced in the first decades of the 19th century but were The early decades of the19th century saw slow to spread, an example from a brew- a number of technological innovations in ing manual published in 1878 is shown in brewing.19 Attemperators with cold water Figure 2. This particular example is fitted circulated through copper pipes to main- with a rouser to prevent the hops settling tain a steady temperature in fermentation to the base of the vessel and getting vessels became widely adopted. The burnt.20 But covered as opposed to open pipes could be fixed to the wall or base of coppers were not accepted everywhere, the vessel, and such an arrangement the giant Burton brewers persisted with may still be found in breweries today, or open coppers into the 20th century. be portable such that they were dangled Indeed some brewers have yet to be con- into the vessel from above as needed. vinced. Wadworth's of Devizes still have Mashing machines, driven originally by an open copper in use and also a domed horses and then by steam power, were copper. The latter seems to have been on used to rake the mash and came into trial for much of the last century. Steam general use replacing mashing ores. heating as opposed to direct firing of the Figure 4. An open cooler at John Smith's brewery, Tadcaster, from Alfred Bernard's Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 3, published in 1890. Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 59 copper was similarly slow in being More readily accepted was the use of accepted but is now the norm, although rollers to crush the malt which began to some direct fired coppers may be found replace grinding stones as used in flour around the world. mills from mid century. External mashing Figure 5. Advertisement for Robert Morton refrigerators 1880s. 60 The Journal of the Brewery History Society Victorian breweries. The odd example may still be found today. Open coolers came to be complemented by refrigera- tors in which circulating cold water cooled the wort en-route to the fermenters [Fig. 5]. Initially these were horizontal, but took up much room and were to an extent replaced by vertical refrigerators, in which wort flowed down over the cooled sur- face.