The Sword and the Armour: science and practice in the brewing industry 1837-1914

29 Pages·2006·1.67 MB·English

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 & 10Aparticularly impressive
figure when one remembers that at that Quantitative measurement crept into
time the brewing season was restricted to brewing from the mid 18thcentury 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 & 13Figure 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 1is a brass saccharometer
Figure 1. Saccharometer, assay jar and thermometers, from Alexander Morrice's ATreatise 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. Ablind
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. Aa 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. ASteel'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 19thcentury but were
The early decades of the19thcentury saw slow to spread, an example from a brew-
a number of technological innovations in ing manual published in 1878 is shown in
brewing.19Attemperators 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.20But 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. In larger breweries there would be
banks of these refrigerators to facilitate
relatively rapid processing
Fermentation Techniques
Figure 6. Parachute at Daniel Batham's
brewery, Dudley. Photograph courtesy of
Roger Putman 2005. Fermentation vessels were generally
quite small (10s rather than 100s of bar-
machines also came into use at this time, rels), could be either round or rectangu-
the most popular version of which was lar, and be operated on various regimes
associated with James Steel of Glasgow depending upon the method used to
The Steel's masher was patented in 1853 remove the accumulated yeast from the
and may still be found in almost fermented beer.22 The skimming system
unchanged form in a number of brew- was popular in which yeast was drawn off
eries [Fig. 3]. These devices comple- in an inverted cone placed just beneath
mented the internal rakes by acting as a the yeast surface. The yeast was passed
mixer whereby incoming grist is intimate- via a pipe from this parachute as it was
ly mixed with hot liquor on its entrance to known to a vessel on the floor below. In
the tun by means of an Archimedean rectangular fermenters the parachute
screw. Sparging, which seems to have was placed at one end of the vessel and
originated in Scotland,21 in which the the yeast swept towards it using a board
extracted grist in the mash tun is sprin- which was dragged over the surface.
kled with water rather than being re- Examples of parachutes are still to be
extracted by immersion, spread form found [Fig. 6]. The skimming system
around 1800 and was accepted practice developed into the dropping system in
for most brewers by the 1860s. Ashallow which fermentation starts in a round fer-
open cooler (coolship), for cooling hot menter and then perhaps 24 to 36 hours
wort from the copper, situated in a well after pitching is dropped to rectangular
ventilated room usually at the top of the shallower vessel on the floor below for
brewery [Fig. 4], was a feature of skimming. This system had the advan-
Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 61
Figure 7. The dropping system of fermentation in operation at Jacob's Street brewery, Bristol,
from Alfred Bernard's Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 2, published in 1889.
tage of rousing the fermentation making it tion starts off in relatively small rectangu-
more vigorous and in leaving unwanted lar vessels and half to three quarters of
debris behind in the round prior to pass- the way through the fermentation the
ing to the skimming vessel below [Fig. 7]. fermenting wort is passed to the union
Another kind of yeast removal, or cleans- casks for cleansing. In the union sets,
ing system, involves the transfer of linked casks are surmounted by a trough
actively fermenting wort to casks in which ('barm back') into which the fermenting
fermentation is completed. This devel- wort rises via 'swan's necks'. From the
oped into the best known such system, gently slopping trough the yeast and beer
the Burton union system, which neither flow into the 'feeder back', the yeast
originated in Burton nor was peculiar to it, being thus removed with the progressive-
but became particularly associated with ly brightening beer flowing back into the
the town in the production of the high casks. So it goes on gently gurgling away
quality pale ales which were the great until the fermentation reaches completion
success story of Victorian brewing in and the yeast count is reduced to the
Britain [Fig. 8]. In this system, fermenta- required level for racking. The Burton
62 The Journal of the Brewery History Society
rather than four barrels in capacity) and
were set up on their heads.23 The yeast
flowed over a sort of lip at the top, and
dropped into a trough [Fig. 9]. Pontos
were probably extinct by the 1st World
War. Then there are Yorkshire squares.
These vessels with capacities of 30 to 50
barrels were made of stone or slate slabs
and had two compartments connected by
Figure 8. ABurton union fermentation set at an orifice, or manhole as it is called, with
Samuel Allsopp & Sons brewery, from a raised collar through which the ferment-
Sheridan Muspratt's Chemistry as Applied to
ing wort gushes, leaving the yeast on the
the Arts and Munufactures, published in 1854.
top 'deck' of the vessel to be collected as
the beer flows back into the main body of
union system is of course still in use at the vessel. Such vessels, now made of
Marstons in Burton. Another cleansing stainless steel, but operated much as
system with similarities to the Burton they would have been in Victorian times
unions which was popular in London may be found at Tetley's brewery in
involved the use of pontos. These ves- Leeds [Fig. 10] and elsewhere.
sels were larger than union casks (six
Figure 9.The Ponto system of fermentation in operation in an unnamed brewery, from Julian L.
Baker's The Brewing Industry, published in 1905.
Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 63
Figure 10. The Yorkshire square system of fermentation in operation at Joshua Tetley & Sons
brewery, Leeds in the 1970s. Photograph from the author's collection.
The Tower Brewery pure tower brewery.26 The material flow
is consistently downwards from the malt
Here it is convenient to consider the hopper, to mill (rolls), to grist case, to
arrangement of plant in a Victorian ale mash tun, to underback which received
brewery. From the mid 19th century the the sweet wort (not actually shown here),
classic tower brewery took shape.24 In a to copper were the wort is boiled with the
tower brewery gravity was utilised to do hops, to the hop back were the spent
the work once the water had been hops are separated from the boiled wort,
pumped and the malt lifted to the top of to the large open cooler then over the
the brewery, with the processed wort and refrigerators, on to the fermenting ves-
beer allowed to flow downwards in the sels were the yeast is added, and then
various stages. Although in fact in most down to the cleansing casks. This system
tower breweries it was not quite as although superficially attractive was very
simple as that. Pure gravity systems, inflexible, particularly if the brewery was
were gravity does all the work, were real- to be extended at any time, and in fact
ly confined to small breweries.25 Figure most breweries of any size used the
11 shows a plan and elevation for a 5 pumped tower system [Fig. 12]. Here
quarter (c. 5000 barrels a year capacity) again the goods and liquor go to the top
64 The Journal of the Brewery History Society