Brewing / by A. Chaston Chapman.

  • Chapman, A. Chaston (Alfred Chaston), 1869-
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Brewing / by A. Chaston Chapman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Middle Ages the geiiend drink of all chisscK, 'J'he ale most commonly consumed hy the jx)orer classes was doubtless low in strength atid ix>or in rjuality, and in this connection the following lines from Piers Ploirman are of interest. In speaki!)g of the independence of the labouring classes consequent upon the scarcity of labour after the great plague in the fourteenth century, Piers says :— ‘ Ne non half-penny Ale In none wyse drynke. Bote of the Beste and the Brouneste that Brewsters sallen.’ It is clear that at this time ales of several kinds or strengths were brewed, and in old documents of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the words prirna, secimda, and tertia, as applied to beer occur on several occasions. Later, in the reign of Henry VIII, the brewers were restrained from making more than two kinds of beer, the strong and the double, and the prices at which these were to be sold were fixed by Statute. This restriction seems to have been withdrawn, for later we again find that several varieties of beer were produced and sold. The ease with which the operations involved in the production of beer from malted grain could be carried out resulted in the installation of bre^ving plant in the houses of vast numbers of the Mealthier classes, and almost evei’y housewife of importance may be said to have been her own brewei'. During the eighteenth century this practice fell largely into